By MARC McDONALD
If you want to know what the proposed United Arab Emirates port deal is really all about, you'd do well to pay heed to the advice once doled out to reporters investigating Watergate: Follow the money.
Because at its heart, dirty old grubby money is what this controversial deal is really all about.
The fact is, the U.S. economy has become so hollowed out and dependent on foreign capital, that overseas nations can get whatever favors they want from our money-corrupted political leaders these days.
This isn't the first time the Bush White House has shown just how deeply in debt it is to the interests of oil-rich Arab states.
Take Saudi Arabia for example. Despite the fact that all but two of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia (and that the Saudis admitted that they funded Al Qaeda), Bush has always been reluctant to press the Saudis on any issue in the "war on terror." After 9/11, the Saudis refused to cooperate with U.S. investigators. They refused to let investigators take a look at the Al Qaeda money trail (which, of course, led straight back to Saudi Arabia). They also refused to let U.S. investigators talk to relatives of the 9/11 hijackers. No wonder Bin Laden still runs free.
Why do you suppose Bush gave the Saudis such kid-glove treatment? The same reason he's now going to bat for a UAE state-owned company to take over the operation of U.S. ports: money.
Astute foreign observers and power players have long realized that our nation's corrupt political leadership won't hesitate to sell out the interests of the American people if the price is right.
Even before Bush came to power, a popular saying was known to have circulated around East Asia: "Influence in Washington is just like Indonesia these days---it's for sale."
Countries like Japan and China have long been aware that if you dangle enough money in front of an American politician, you can get him to jump through hoops on cue. Tokyo saw this as far back as the Reagan administration. It's important to remember that Reagan routinely cooperated with Tokyo on trade matters (much to the detriment of U.S. industry). And in the end, Reagan was rewarded by Tokyo: when he left office, he was able to pocket several million dollars for merely giving a couple of speeches in Tokyo.
In light of all this, it really shouldn't be surprising to learn that, back in the early 1990s, a sheik from the UAE gave $1 million to the Bush Library Foundation, which established the George Bush Presidential Library in Texas.
One might debate whether America's security is compromised by having our nation's ports run by a state-owned United Arab Emirates company. But the bottom line is, in this deal, money (as always) is trumping America's security interests. U.S. politicians like Bush are always happy to sell out the American people for cash from foreign interests.
To the likes of Bush and our other corrupt politicians, it's just business as usual.
The fact is, America is not only addicted to overseas oil these days. We're also heavily addicted to overseas capital. If it weren't for the hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into our borders from the likes of Japan and China, our Ponzi scheme economy would have collapsed like a house of cards long ago.
Between our enormous debt to Asian central banks and the corruption of our politicians with foreign money, there's little chance America will ever be able to take the urgent steps it needs to extinguish the out-of-control crises that are our soaring fiscal and trade deficits. Nor is it likely that America will be able to take the urgent action needed to prevent the impending collapse of the U.S. dollar and the U.S. economy.
Decades from now, I would suspect that the main thing historians will recall about the Bush White House is not 9/11, or even the "war on terror," but rather how a corrupt Bush fiddled like Nero while America's financial house burned down.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
Global Corporatism: The Human Being As A Statistic
By MANIFESTO JOE
In 1962, American journalist Eugene Lyons, author of the 1937 nonfiction classic Assignment in Utopia, gave a lecture about what turned him from a pro-Leninist radical in 1928, when he took a news job in the Soviet Union, into the conservative, fiercely anti-communist Reader's Digest editor he became years later.
"It was ... the appalling contempt for human life which I found to be the hallmark of communism in practice. For I found myself in a world where such age-old concepts as justice, conscience, human dignity, the values that set man apart from the beasts, were despised as a species of treason. ...
"Do men and women have an intrinsic worth, or are they merely the raw stuff for building some dehumanized state structure? Is the human being the final measure of all things, or merely a statistic?"
Two generations have passed since Lyons gave that talk, and the Soviet empire has been, as conservatives say, "on the ashheap of history," for going on two decades.
A great irony is how true this sounds for 2006 if one substitutes "global capitalism" for "communism" and "corporate structure" for "state structure." Communism is all but dead; yet, in our new world economy, dehumanization seems very much alive and on the march. The biggest difference is that the perpetrators' flag isn't red.
Lyons died in 1985, so he didn't even see glasnost, let alone the self-destruction of Marxism-Leninism. It would be interesting if he could ask the former employees of Enron how they have enjoyed becoming destitute statistics, or former call-center staffers how much human dignity they were afforded when their jobs were offshored.
True, we don't have gulags. There are no party purges, at least none in which anybody dies very soon. People don't vanish in the middle of the night (although their jobs often disappear in the middle of the day). But there are slow, subtle ways of killing people. Michael Moore has vividly illustrated, in his examinations of the effects of General Motors' style of capitalism on his hometown of Flint, Michigan, that when a corporation discards much of its workforce for the sake of profits: "Crime goes up, suicide goes up, drug abuse, alcoholism, spousal abuse, divorce, everything bad spirals up."
Stalinism and Maoism kill the body. Global corporatism is destroying our spirits -- and our bodies often follow.
This isn't just happening in the West. China is still nominally pseudo-communist, having retained their police state while instituting "free-market reforms" and turning a blind eye to sweatshops.
And there, an interesting thing is happening to migrant laborers who work at construction sites. Quite often, they're not paid. At all. Zilch. Nada. After weeks, even months, on a job, being furnished a bare subsistence of rice and bunks, the contractor says he didn't get paid, so he can't pay them. If the workers threaten to go to the authorities, the contractor laughs and says he's not afraid. The practice is reported to have become rampant.
You see, where global capitalism goes, plutocracy and official corruption tend to follow. When maximizing profits becomes the paramount motive, it's not hard to buy off the powers that be, even if they happen to be Party members.
According to statistics, a certain number of these cheated, broke, discarded workers are being systematically killed, as surely as if they had been shipped to a Siberian gulag to toil their way to the miserable death of slave laborers.
We ought to know from the experience of the 20th century that, with sufficient regulation, trust-busting, rights of collective bargaining, and (gasp!) social welfare programs, an economic system can be primarily capitalist and yet relatively humane and, even with a few semi-socialist restraints, prosperous. To wit: the Scandinavian nations.
But this seems to depend on a vigilant progressive movement. Pure, unbridled capitalism has a sad tendency to revert to its 19th-century Dickensian outrages. Now, with 21st-century technology at its disposal, that is far a more dangerous tendency. A strong progressive movement is needed to remind capitalists that they should be morally accountable to all human beings, not just to the board and a faceless mass of stockholders.
Of course, capitalists will never be sincere about that -- but when they are faced with enough populist political will, that isn't necessary. They can move, and they have moved, many jobs to Mexico, etc. But when they find out what schools and roads are like in such a low-tax economy, their tune can change quickly, at least for some of their employees. The going is tough right now, but there are ways to fight back. And, in the long run, we must.
In 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the battle lines seemed clearly drawn to people like Eugene Lyons, who never understood that "capitalism versus socialism" doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. As it has turned out, right-wing renegades like Lyons, who moved from one extreme to the other, helped usher in the unchallenged corporate monolith that now confronts us.
A new battle is under way -- and humanity can't afford to lose it.
MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS.
In 1962, American journalist Eugene Lyons, author of the 1937 nonfiction classic Assignment in Utopia, gave a lecture about what turned him from a pro-Leninist radical in 1928, when he took a news job in the Soviet Union, into the conservative, fiercely anti-communist Reader's Digest editor he became years later.
"It was ... the appalling contempt for human life which I found to be the hallmark of communism in practice. For I found myself in a world where such age-old concepts as justice, conscience, human dignity, the values that set man apart from the beasts, were despised as a species of treason. ...
"Do men and women have an intrinsic worth, or are they merely the raw stuff for building some dehumanized state structure? Is the human being the final measure of all things, or merely a statistic?"
Two generations have passed since Lyons gave that talk, and the Soviet empire has been, as conservatives say, "on the ashheap of history," for going on two decades.
A great irony is how true this sounds for 2006 if one substitutes "global capitalism" for "communism" and "corporate structure" for "state structure." Communism is all but dead; yet, in our new world economy, dehumanization seems very much alive and on the march. The biggest difference is that the perpetrators' flag isn't red.
Lyons died in 1985, so he didn't even see glasnost, let alone the self-destruction of Marxism-Leninism. It would be interesting if he could ask the former employees of Enron how they have enjoyed becoming destitute statistics, or former call-center staffers how much human dignity they were afforded when their jobs were offshored.
True, we don't have gulags. There are no party purges, at least none in which anybody dies very soon. People don't vanish in the middle of the night (although their jobs often disappear in the middle of the day). But there are slow, subtle ways of killing people. Michael Moore has vividly illustrated, in his examinations of the effects of General Motors' style of capitalism on his hometown of Flint, Michigan, that when a corporation discards much of its workforce for the sake of profits: "Crime goes up, suicide goes up, drug abuse, alcoholism, spousal abuse, divorce, everything bad spirals up."
Stalinism and Maoism kill the body. Global corporatism is destroying our spirits -- and our bodies often follow.
This isn't just happening in the West. China is still nominally pseudo-communist, having retained their police state while instituting "free-market reforms" and turning a blind eye to sweatshops.
And there, an interesting thing is happening to migrant laborers who work at construction sites. Quite often, they're not paid. At all. Zilch. Nada. After weeks, even months, on a job, being furnished a bare subsistence of rice and bunks, the contractor says he didn't get paid, so he can't pay them. If the workers threaten to go to the authorities, the contractor laughs and says he's not afraid. The practice is reported to have become rampant.
You see, where global capitalism goes, plutocracy and official corruption tend to follow. When maximizing profits becomes the paramount motive, it's not hard to buy off the powers that be, even if they happen to be Party members.
According to statistics, a certain number of these cheated, broke, discarded workers are being systematically killed, as surely as if they had been shipped to a Siberian gulag to toil their way to the miserable death of slave laborers.
We ought to know from the experience of the 20th century that, with sufficient regulation, trust-busting, rights of collective bargaining, and (gasp!) social welfare programs, an economic system can be primarily capitalist and yet relatively humane and, even with a few semi-socialist restraints, prosperous. To wit: the Scandinavian nations.
But this seems to depend on a vigilant progressive movement. Pure, unbridled capitalism has a sad tendency to revert to its 19th-century Dickensian outrages. Now, with 21st-century technology at its disposal, that is far a more dangerous tendency. A strong progressive movement is needed to remind capitalists that they should be morally accountable to all human beings, not just to the board and a faceless mass of stockholders.
Of course, capitalists will never be sincere about that -- but when they are faced with enough populist political will, that isn't necessary. They can move, and they have moved, many jobs to Mexico, etc. But when they find out what schools and roads are like in such a low-tax economy, their tune can change quickly, at least for some of their employees. The going is tough right now, but there are ways to fight back. And, in the long run, we must.
In 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the battle lines seemed clearly drawn to people like Eugene Lyons, who never understood that "capitalism versus socialism" doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. As it has turned out, right-wing renegades like Lyons, who moved from one extreme to the other, helped usher in the unchallenged corporate monolith that now confronts us.
A new battle is under way -- and humanity can't afford to lose it.
MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Taxpayers Forced To Pay Most Of The Costs Of Gunshot Injuries In U.S.
By MARC McDONALD
Since the story of Dick Cheney shooting and wounding a man is dominating the current news cycle, I thought it'd be helpful to take a look at how all American taxpayers are forced to cough up the staggering costs of gunshot injuries in the U.S.
The fact is, U.S. taxpayers are forced to pay at least 80 percent of the annual $14 billion costs of gunshot injuries, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Needless to say, in the vast majority of gunshot injury cases, the victims aren't covered by insurance.
Gun injuries are the second leading cause of injury death in the U.S. and have killed more than 30,000 Americans every year since 1972, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
An insurance analysis published in the publication Accident Analysis and Prevention estimates that the mean medical cost per non-fatal gunshot injury is about $17,000.
Gun rights supporters invariably portray themselves as good, law-abiding citizens who want nothing more than the right to keep their precious guns. "We're not hurting anybody, so leave us and our guns alone," is their message.
But of course, it's not that simple. The fact is, we all pay heavily in countless ways for gun violence in this country.
The Brady Campaign estimates that that the total direct and indirect costs of gun violence in America amounts to a staggering $100 billion per year.
If you'd like to learn how to stop the insanity of gun violence in America, check out these Web sites:
Since the story of Dick Cheney shooting and wounding a man is dominating the current news cycle, I thought it'd be helpful to take a look at how all American taxpayers are forced to cough up the staggering costs of gunshot injuries in the U.S.
The fact is, U.S. taxpayers are forced to pay at least 80 percent of the annual $14 billion costs of gunshot injuries, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Needless to say, in the vast majority of gunshot injury cases, the victims aren't covered by insurance.
Gun injuries are the second leading cause of injury death in the U.S. and have killed more than 30,000 Americans every year since 1972, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
An insurance analysis published in the publication Accident Analysis and Prevention estimates that the mean medical cost per non-fatal gunshot injury is about $17,000.
Gun rights supporters invariably portray themselves as good, law-abiding citizens who want nothing more than the right to keep their precious guns. "We're not hurting anybody, so leave us and our guns alone," is their message.
But of course, it's not that simple. The fact is, we all pay heavily in countless ways for gun violence in this country.
The Brady Campaign estimates that that the total direct and indirect costs of gun violence in America amounts to a staggering $100 billion per year.
If you'd like to learn how to stop the insanity of gun violence in America, check out these Web sites:
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Is "Conservatism" A New Kind Of Mental Illness?
By MANIFESTO JOE
When I heard the title of Michael Savage's screed -- Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions -- the irony wasn't lost on me. This is from a man who:
When I heard the title of Michael Savage's screed -- Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions -- the irony wasn't lost on me. This is from a man who:
- Was fired from MSNBC for telling a caller to "get AIDS and die" among other things.
- Has referred to Iraqi prisoners as "subhumans" and called for them to be summarily executed by the thousands.
- Said the tsunami that struck East Asian countries was not a tragedy but rather a message from God.
- Says women should be denied the vote because they are too emotional -- their hormones rage.
- A Republican congressman, Tom Tancredo of Colorado, suggests that if terrorists attack the United States with a nuke, we could "take out their holy sites." (Presumably he would hold all Muslims responsible.)
- The Rev. Pat Robertson, one of our best-known "Christian" broadcasters, suggests that we assassinate a legally elected foreign head of state because we don't like his policies or the company he keeps. (But hey, keep that oil coming.)
- Bestselling commentator Ann Coulter says, quite seriously, about Islamic nations that we should "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." (Millions buy this shrill woman's books. I suppose these are the readers who cut class the day the professor lectured on The Crusades.)
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Bush's Foiled Terrorist Plot Claim Strains Credibility
By MARC McDONALD
The current news cycle has the right-wing noise machine all abuzz about how America was supposedly saved from a terrorist attack in 2002 by our Glorious Leader.
However, we progressives are leery of Bush's claim that a major Al-Qaeda attack was foiled in Los Angeles in 2002.
Actually, we're leery of anything that Bush says, period. But frankly, this claim smacks of desperation, coming when Bush's approval ratings are in the toilet and the public is increasingly fed up with the disastrous Iraq war.
Bush's claim simply doesn't make much sense.
The fact is, if the U.S. did indeed thwart another 9/11 attack in 2002, don't you think we might have heard about it during the bitterly-fought 2004 election campaign? After all, the Bush team desperately fought tooth and claw to assure the voters that, despite 9/11, Bush could protect America from terrorists better than decorated military hero John Kerry.
It seems to me that if another 9/11 attack had indeed been thwarted in 2002, the Bush team, and the right-wing noise machine, would have gone into overdrive boasting about this from the highest rooftops during the 2004 election campaign.
I'm sure there are those Bush partisans who believe that a 2002 attack really was foiled and, for whatever reason, it all had to be kept secret from the American people until now.
To which I respond: exactly what has changed that Bush feels free to trumpet this "foiled attack" now? And note that Bush previously has never let national security get in the way of revealing secret information. Witness how the White House outed CIA agent Valerie Plame--an act of treason during wartime, no less.
The fact is, Bush is in deep trouble and he knows it. The American people simply don't trust him any more. And no matter how many Tom Clancy-like foiled terror plot tales he spins, Bush's legacy will be one of tragedy and failure. In the end, all the American people are likely to remember about his presidency is the fraud that was the Iraq war and the tens of thousands who died unnecessarily there.
I doubt that any sane, clear-thinking person believes Bush's assessment that Al-Qaida has been "weakened and fractured."
Don't believe me?
Just ask the U.S. State Department, which in April released a report that showed that terrorist attacks worldwide in 2004 tripled over the previous year (which in turn was the worst year for terrorist attacks in two decades). Or ask the former Sept. 11 Commission, which in a report in December, charged the Bush White House with failing to protect the country against another terrorist attack.
In any case, for Bush to trot out this tale of a foiled terror plot now, when his political fortunes are at their lowest ebb, is only the latest despicable attempt by the White House to cynically use the 9/11 tragedy to boost its political fortunes.
The current news cycle has the right-wing noise machine all abuzz about how America was supposedly saved from a terrorist attack in 2002 by our Glorious Leader.
However, we progressives are leery of Bush's claim that a major Al-Qaeda attack was foiled in Los Angeles in 2002.
Actually, we're leery of anything that Bush says, period. But frankly, this claim smacks of desperation, coming when Bush's approval ratings are in the toilet and the public is increasingly fed up with the disastrous Iraq war.
Bush's claim simply doesn't make much sense.
The fact is, if the U.S. did indeed thwart another 9/11 attack in 2002, don't you think we might have heard about it during the bitterly-fought 2004 election campaign? After all, the Bush team desperately fought tooth and claw to assure the voters that, despite 9/11, Bush could protect America from terrorists better than decorated military hero John Kerry.
It seems to me that if another 9/11 attack had indeed been thwarted in 2002, the Bush team, and the right-wing noise machine, would have gone into overdrive boasting about this from the highest rooftops during the 2004 election campaign.
I'm sure there are those Bush partisans who believe that a 2002 attack really was foiled and, for whatever reason, it all had to be kept secret from the American people until now.
To which I respond: exactly what has changed that Bush feels free to trumpet this "foiled attack" now? And note that Bush previously has never let national security get in the way of revealing secret information. Witness how the White House outed CIA agent Valerie Plame--an act of treason during wartime, no less.
The fact is, Bush is in deep trouble and he knows it. The American people simply don't trust him any more. And no matter how many Tom Clancy-like foiled terror plot tales he spins, Bush's legacy will be one of tragedy and failure. In the end, all the American people are likely to remember about his presidency is the fraud that was the Iraq war and the tens of thousands who died unnecessarily there.
I doubt that any sane, clear-thinking person believes Bush's assessment that Al-Qaida has been "weakened and fractured."
Don't believe me?
Just ask the U.S. State Department, which in April released a report that showed that terrorist attacks worldwide in 2004 tripled over the previous year (which in turn was the worst year for terrorist attacks in two decades). Or ask the former Sept. 11 Commission, which in a report in December, charged the Bush White House with failing to protect the country against another terrorist attack.
In any case, for Bush to trot out this tale of a foiled terror plot now, when his political fortunes are at their lowest ebb, is only the latest despicable attempt by the White House to cynically use the 9/11 tragedy to boost its political fortunes.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Standing Ovation Speaks Volumes About How Black Community Views Bush
By MARC McDONALD
Much has been written already about the Rev. Joseph Lowery's controversial comments blasting the policies of the Bush White House at Coretta Scott King's funeral.
But the coverage I've seen thus far tends to miss a central point. The fact is, that by responding with a rousing standing ovation to Lowery's remarks, the crowd emphatically demonstrated its revulsion for the Bush regime.
Indeed, one has to wonder: why did Bush attend this event in the first place?
Who is Bush trying to fool? Are we really to believe that he gives a rat's ass about civil rights or black people in general? Or that he really cares about anyone who isn't white, male, rich and powerful? At the event, Bush mumbled some plastic, forgettable comments praising Mrs. King's legacy, with all the sincerity of a used-car salesman.
I found it highly appropriate that Bush then had to sit and fume helplessly as Lowery brought the crowd to a standing ovation with his remarks that blasted the evils of the Bush administration and the fraud that is the Iraq War.
"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance, poverty abounds. For war billions more, but no more for the poor."
Lowery's remarks carried added weight, coming as they did a day after Bush unveiled his obscene 2007 budget, which calls for eye-popping $439.3 billion for military spending, while slashing domestic social programs.
One wonders how Bush and the NeoCons will react to this humiliation in the coming days. I'd suspect that Fox News and the right-wing noise machine is already gearing up to do whatever they can to slime Lowery.
Much has been written already about the Rev. Joseph Lowery's controversial comments blasting the policies of the Bush White House at Coretta Scott King's funeral.
But the coverage I've seen thus far tends to miss a central point. The fact is, that by responding with a rousing standing ovation to Lowery's remarks, the crowd emphatically demonstrated its revulsion for the Bush regime.
Indeed, one has to wonder: why did Bush attend this event in the first place?
Who is Bush trying to fool? Are we really to believe that he gives a rat's ass about civil rights or black people in general? Or that he really cares about anyone who isn't white, male, rich and powerful? At the event, Bush mumbled some plastic, forgettable comments praising Mrs. King's legacy, with all the sincerity of a used-car salesman.
I found it highly appropriate that Bush then had to sit and fume helplessly as Lowery brought the crowd to a standing ovation with his remarks that blasted the evils of the Bush administration and the fraud that is the Iraq War.
"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance, poverty abounds. For war billions more, but no more for the poor."
Lowery's remarks carried added weight, coming as they did a day after Bush unveiled his obscene 2007 budget, which calls for eye-popping $439.3 billion for military spending, while slashing domestic social programs.
One wonders how Bush and the NeoCons will react to this humiliation in the coming days. I'd suspect that Fox News and the right-wing noise machine is already gearing up to do whatever they can to slime Lowery.
Monday, February 06, 2006
What If Pentagon Budget's $439.3 Billion Was Used For Peace Instead Of War?
By MARC McDONALD
The Bush White House has requested $439.3 billion for military spending in 2007. That eye-popping amount doesn't include war costs that will amount to $125 billion this year and at least $50 billion next year.
$439.3 billion is a lot of money. Here's what that amount could buy if our nation spent it for peaceful purposes, instead of for death and destruction (and to pad the pockets of Halliburton in closed, no-bid contracts):
1. $5 billion. Could build a new $60 million hospital in each of the 16 biggest cities in the U.S., a $40 million hospital for each of 50 smaller cities and a $4 million clinic for 500 small towns.
2. $20 billion. Could be used for cancer research.
3. $40 billion. Could be used to plant a billion trees along highways, in cities, towns and in the countryside.
4. $40 billion. Could build 1,000 new colleges at $40 million apiece.
5. $10 billion. Could build 10,000 youth centers at $1 million each.
6. $50 billion. Could supply 25 million farm families in Third World countries with gasoline-driven tractors.
Leaving:
$274 billion for defense and other expenses.
Source (adjusted for inflation): The People's Almanac by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace.
The Bush White House has requested $439.3 billion for military spending in 2007. That eye-popping amount doesn't include war costs that will amount to $125 billion this year and at least $50 billion next year.
$439.3 billion is a lot of money. Here's what that amount could buy if our nation spent it for peaceful purposes, instead of for death and destruction (and to pad the pockets of Halliburton in closed, no-bid contracts):
1. $5 billion. Could build a new $60 million hospital in each of the 16 biggest cities in the U.S., a $40 million hospital for each of 50 smaller cities and a $4 million clinic for 500 small towns.
2. $20 billion. Could be used for cancer research.
3. $40 billion. Could be used to plant a billion trees along highways, in cities, towns and in the countryside.
4. $40 billion. Could build 1,000 new colleges at $40 million apiece.
5. $10 billion. Could build 10,000 youth centers at $1 million each.
6. $50 billion. Could supply 25 million farm families in Third World countries with gasoline-driven tractors.
Leaving:
$274 billion for defense and other expenses.
Source (adjusted for inflation): The People's Almanac by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Limbaugh Remarks Demonstrate Right Wing's Creepy Views About Rape
By MARC McDONALD
Right-wing nutcase Rush Limbaugh has an odd definition of rape. For example:
1. If Iraqi prisoners are being sexually assaulted and tortured at Abu Ghraib prison, then, in Limbaugh's view, they are being subjected to mere fraternity pranks.
2. However, if the state of Maryland requires companies like Wal-Mart to spend modestly to provide some basic health care for their workers, then this is the "government-sanctioned rape of an American business."
Limbaugh isn't the only right-wing nutcase with odd views on rape these days. Take Michael Savage, for instance.
In September 2000, Savage was discussing a program in which students volunteer to distribute sandwiches to the homeless in San Francisco, when he let loose this tirade, (which is creepy on so many different levels, you could write a book about it):
"The girls from Branson can go in and maybe get raped ... because they seem to like the excitement of it. There's always the thrill and possibility they'll be raped in a Dumpster while giving out a turkey sandwich."
Once upon a time, comments like these could land right-wingers in hot water. I recall that in 1990, Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams cracked a "joke" about how rape is like the weather. "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it," he said, in a comment that quickly became the biggest issue of the campaign and wound up sinking his prospects for election.
These days, I doubt such a comment would even be remarked upon by our increasingly timid national media. We're so used to twisted comments by the likes of right-wingers like Ann ("Earth is yours. Rape it.") Coulter that our capacity for outrage has blown a fuse.
But I would like to send a memo to Mr. Limbaugh on the topic of rape. The fact is, if a state government requires the likes of Wal-Mart (a company with annual revenue of $288 billion) to spend a modest amount providing basic health care to its workers, this is not "rape." Indeed, it's merely an entirely reasonable request: asking the world's largest corporation to pick up the tab on an expense that taxpayers would otherwise be forced to cough up.
On the other hand, what took place at Abu Ghraib was most definitely rape.
As journalist Seymour Hersh has pointed out, the U.S. government has videos from Abu Ghraib that depict children being sodomized. The White House has fought to prevent the public release of these videos.
As Hersh noted:
"...the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking."
A message to all you right-wing nutcases: if you're going to talk about rape, please consult a dictionary first so that you have a clue as to what the word means.
Right-wing nutcase Rush Limbaugh has an odd definition of rape. For example:
1. If Iraqi prisoners are being sexually assaulted and tortured at Abu Ghraib prison, then, in Limbaugh's view, they are being subjected to mere fraternity pranks.
2. However, if the state of Maryland requires companies like Wal-Mart to spend modestly to provide some basic health care for their workers, then this is the "government-sanctioned rape of an American business."
Limbaugh isn't the only right-wing nutcase with odd views on rape these days. Take Michael Savage, for instance.
In September 2000, Savage was discussing a program in which students volunteer to distribute sandwiches to the homeless in San Francisco, when he let loose this tirade, (which is creepy on so many different levels, you could write a book about it):
"The girls from Branson can go in and maybe get raped ... because they seem to like the excitement of it. There's always the thrill and possibility they'll be raped in a Dumpster while giving out a turkey sandwich."
Once upon a time, comments like these could land right-wingers in hot water. I recall that in 1990, Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams cracked a "joke" about how rape is like the weather. "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it," he said, in a comment that quickly became the biggest issue of the campaign and wound up sinking his prospects for election.
These days, I doubt such a comment would even be remarked upon by our increasingly timid national media. We're so used to twisted comments by the likes of right-wingers like Ann ("Earth is yours. Rape it.") Coulter that our capacity for outrage has blown a fuse.
But I would like to send a memo to Mr. Limbaugh on the topic of rape. The fact is, if a state government requires the likes of Wal-Mart (a company with annual revenue of $288 billion) to spend a modest amount providing basic health care to its workers, this is not "rape." Indeed, it's merely an entirely reasonable request: asking the world's largest corporation to pick up the tab on an expense that taxpayers would otherwise be forced to cough up.
On the other hand, what took place at Abu Ghraib was most definitely rape.
As journalist Seymour Hersh has pointed out, the U.S. government has videos from Abu Ghraib that depict children being sodomized. The White House has fought to prevent the public release of these videos.
As Hersh noted:
"...the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking."
A message to all you right-wing nutcases: if you're going to talk about rape, please consult a dictionary first so that you have a clue as to what the word means.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
The Right Wing's Sliming Of Michael Moore Is Nothing New
By MARC McDONALD
Chris Matthews has compared Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden, creating a firestorm of controversy among liberal bloggers. To which I say: so what's new? Moore has been the target of vicious slander for years now.
Bear in mind, I'm not just referring to the nut-case, right-wing media. I'm referring to the mainstream media, as well. In fact, even some progressives these days have been careful to distance themselves from Moore.
I think Moore has gotten a bad rap. In reality, his films and books are far more accurate (and balanced) than he gets credit for. In fact, the accusations I've seen against Moore are themselves highly distorted and inaccurate.
The current wave of Moore-bashing seems to date back to his "infamous" March 2003 Oscar-night speech. The press reports I read about the event focused solely on the fact that his comments drew boos from some audience members.
Few people, though, seem to remember exactly what Moore said that night, three days after the U.S. launched its war on Iraq.
"We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons," Moore said, thus throwing a wrench into the carefully choreographed TV event beamed around the world.
In hindsight, of course, this comment has turned out to be amazingly prescient. The Bush team's stated rationale for the war has been shown to be, indeed, fiction.
As it turns out, Moore's comments about the impending war were more accurate and truthful than anything the mainstream media was churning out at the time.
Recall how, in the buildup to the war, the media did little more than stand on the sidelines, acting as a cheerleader.
On May 26, 2004, in a stunning and unprecedented half-page correction, The New York Times basically admitted that ALL of its pre-war coverage was seriously flawed.
And yet, somehow, at the end of the day, Moore's Oscar night speech seems to be regarded by many as some sort of black mark on his record. I find it bizarre that he's the target of criticism, as opposed to the mainstream media, which completely failed in its role to tell the America people the truth.
I think this episode pretty much sums up Moore's career. He raises vital issues that no one in the mainstream media has the courage to address. And, instead of taking a look at the urgent issues Moore raises, media pundits invariably attack Moore himself.
Have you ever seen Moore interviewed by a mainstream media pundit? It's an interesting experience. It's the only time I've ever seen one of these milksops actually grow a backbone and challenge someone with hard-ball questions and relentless grilling.
It's all very admirable. But I tend to wonder why Moore is the only person who gets this sort of treatment.
Take for example, the media's kid-glove handling of George W. Bush. You almost never see Bush get a hard-ball question in a U.S. press conference. Bush can lie through his teeth all day and never face a challenge from the press. Remember, this is a man who to this day has never been called to task by the mainstream media for the lies he told way back in the 2000 election campaign.
"By far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to those at the bottom end of the spectrum," Bush said at the time. I'm still waiting for the media to challenge that 6-year-old whopper.
And while Bush gets kid-glove treatment, Moore gets an unfair bad rap these days, from everyone from Fox News to the supposedly "liberal" mainstream press.
Here's an example. One major issue that Moore got grief on for his film, Fahrenheit 9/11, was that he supposedly depicted Saddam's Iraq as a peaceful, happy place. Countless commentators remarked on this. The idea was even spoofed in the 2004 Team America movie.
There's only one problem. Moore never said any such thing, or anything remotely like it.
Apparently, Moore's critics are referring to a brief segment in which he shows a few random street scenes from Baghdad, without commentary, just before the U.S. bombs fell.
It's clear that what Moore was aiming to achieve with this scene was to try to put a human face on Iraq. He wanted to let Americans see the faces of the ordinary human beings who we'd soon be dropping bombs on.
Was this unreasonable? I don't think so. In fact, I think it was a perfect antidote to the relentless lies that were being spewed out by America's mainstream press.
Day after day in the buildup to the war, Americans were pumped up full of fear and hatred of Iraq by an irresponsible media that was simply parroting Bush's lies. The distortion of reality was so great that, to this day, large numbers of Americans still believe that Saddam had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.
Moore also got a lot of grief over accusations that he never pointed out what an evil person Saddam was in F911.
When I read this criticism by media pundits, I had to wonder what film they watched. In reality, a very large chunk of F911 features relentless denunciations of Saddam by the Bush team. We see endless video footage of everyone from Bush to Cheney to Powell to Rice to Rumsfield ranting and raving about how evil Saddam is and why America has no choice but to attack Iraq immediately.
Indeed, it's these over-the-top, wildly inaccurate statements from the Bush team that served to enhance Moore's thesis: that Bush's case for war in Iraq was a pack of lies.
An entire industry has arisen these days, devoted to bashing Michael Moore. Web sites proliferate across the Net solely dedicated to sliming the film maker. Numerous books and films have been released, aimed at tarnishing Moore's reputation.
This brings us to an interesting question. Why is Moore subject to so many attacks? Is it really because he doesn't tell the truth?
Or, perhaps, is it because he shines light on difficult, troubling issues that America's rich and powerful would rather keep the public in the dark about?
I firmly believe it's the latter. And there's powerful evidence that this is indeed the case.
Take, for example, Moore's endless problems with securing funding and distribution for his projects.
This flies in the face of all conventional business wisdom. After all, virtually everything Moore has touched has turned into commercial gold, starting with his 1989 film, Roger & Me. The latter, shot on a shoestring $160,000 budget, went on to earn millions worldwide.
Which brings us to Moore's 2004 film, Fahrenheit 9/11. Profit-obsessed Hollywood should have been chomping at the bit to release this film.
After all, Moore had proven himself a solid commercial property. Moore's books, Dude, Where's My Country? (2003) and Stupid White Men (2002) were enormous bestsellers. And his 2002 film, Bowling for Columbine, produced for a mere $4 million, went on to earn more than 12 times that amount worldwide. Clearly, Moore had a huge, loyal audience that numbered in the tens of millions.
By any sane business logic, Disney should have been very eager to release F911. They refused, leaving Moore in a awkward 11th-hour scramble to secure a distributor. In the end, Moore had to go to Canada to find a distributor who'd handle his film in the U.S.
Was Disney's decision strictly a "business" decision, as the right-wing (and indeed, the mainstream media) claimed? Or was it outright censorship, done solely for political reasons?
It's clear the latter was the case. If Disney really believed F911 wasn't going to be a box office winner, given Moore's stellar commercial track record, then it's no wonder that Disney needs hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare to make ends meet these days.
Some people might scoff at the idea that censorship can occur in the private sector, pointing out that only the government is capable of censoring anything. That might have been true 50 years ago in America, when there were still thousands of independent newspapers and other media outlets.
However, today, with a handful of giant conglomerates controlling the media, private-sector censorship is much more plausible. (And of course, we'd be naive to assume that the White House did NOT have a hand in pressuring Disney to block the release of F911.)
In any case, Disney's stupidity in refusing to distribute F911 was its loss. The film went on to enjoy spectacular commercial success. Shot on a mere $6 million budget, F911 has reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in box office around the world.
In the end, there's a silver lining to this story. The fact is, the more America's right wing continues to bash and slime Moore, the larger his audience grows.
As a progressive who's watched this country veer sharply to the right over the past quarter century, I find that Moore serves as an inspiration during these bleak times. I'd suspect that millions of working people across the land would agree.
To me, Moore offers the hope that, despite the stranglehold that giant media conglomerates have over the nation's public debate, it's still possible today for the American people to be exposed to topics that the rich and powerful would rather us not hear about.
America's ruling elite has long been adept at using mock outrage over various aspects of our pop culture. They love to stir up "controversies" over everything from rapper Eminem to the Janet Jackson/Super Bowl incident to shock jock Howard Stern.
All this serves a useful purpose. For one thing, this fake outrage tends to convey the impression that our nation's democracy and free speech are more much vibrant than they really are. I'd bet money, though, that what really sends shivers down the spine of America's ruling class is a commentator like Moore.
How does Moore draw such a large audience for his work? Well, for one thing, his films and books are actually entertaining---a rarity during an era when Hollywood is increasingly creatively bankrupt. Moore's films are also funny (and humor is, of course, the toughest and riskiest genre to pull off successfully).
Moore is also a master of presenting delightful slices of Americana. The people who populate his films are, in many cases, ordinary working-class men and women. His audiences likely respond well to his work, because, when they look up at the silver screen, they see a reflection of themselves--a refreshing change of pace in today's plastic, celebrity-worshiping pop culture.
Moore, of course, isn't the only commentator who's taken on decidedly drab, unsexy topics like union struggles, layoffs, corporate crime, the health care crisis, the growing gulf between rich and poor, and other issues that've been ignored by the mainstream media.
But Moore IS the only U.S. commentator today who has the gift of taking these urgent issues and presenting them in a manner that consistently draws an enormous audience.
For that alone, we progressives ought to be thankful.
Chris Matthews has compared Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden, creating a firestorm of controversy among liberal bloggers. To which I say: so what's new? Moore has been the target of vicious slander for years now.
Bear in mind, I'm not just referring to the nut-case, right-wing media. I'm referring to the mainstream media, as well. In fact, even some progressives these days have been careful to distance themselves from Moore.
I think Moore has gotten a bad rap. In reality, his films and books are far more accurate (and balanced) than he gets credit for. In fact, the accusations I've seen against Moore are themselves highly distorted and inaccurate.
The current wave of Moore-bashing seems to date back to his "infamous" March 2003 Oscar-night speech. The press reports I read about the event focused solely on the fact that his comments drew boos from some audience members.
Few people, though, seem to remember exactly what Moore said that night, three days after the U.S. launched its war on Iraq.
"We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons," Moore said, thus throwing a wrench into the carefully choreographed TV event beamed around the world.
In hindsight, of course, this comment has turned out to be amazingly prescient. The Bush team's stated rationale for the war has been shown to be, indeed, fiction.
As it turns out, Moore's comments about the impending war were more accurate and truthful than anything the mainstream media was churning out at the time.
Recall how, in the buildup to the war, the media did little more than stand on the sidelines, acting as a cheerleader.
On May 26, 2004, in a stunning and unprecedented half-page correction, The New York Times basically admitted that ALL of its pre-war coverage was seriously flawed.
And yet, somehow, at the end of the day, Moore's Oscar night speech seems to be regarded by many as some sort of black mark on his record. I find it bizarre that he's the target of criticism, as opposed to the mainstream media, which completely failed in its role to tell the America people the truth.
I think this episode pretty much sums up Moore's career. He raises vital issues that no one in the mainstream media has the courage to address. And, instead of taking a look at the urgent issues Moore raises, media pundits invariably attack Moore himself.
Have you ever seen Moore interviewed by a mainstream media pundit? It's an interesting experience. It's the only time I've ever seen one of these milksops actually grow a backbone and challenge someone with hard-ball questions and relentless grilling.
It's all very admirable. But I tend to wonder why Moore is the only person who gets this sort of treatment.
Take for example, the media's kid-glove handling of George W. Bush. You almost never see Bush get a hard-ball question in a U.S. press conference. Bush can lie through his teeth all day and never face a challenge from the press. Remember, this is a man who to this day has never been called to task by the mainstream media for the lies he told way back in the 2000 election campaign.
"By far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to those at the bottom end of the spectrum," Bush said at the time. I'm still waiting for the media to challenge that 6-year-old whopper.
And while Bush gets kid-glove treatment, Moore gets an unfair bad rap these days, from everyone from Fox News to the supposedly "liberal" mainstream press.
Here's an example. One major issue that Moore got grief on for his film, Fahrenheit 9/11, was that he supposedly depicted Saddam's Iraq as a peaceful, happy place. Countless commentators remarked on this. The idea was even spoofed in the 2004 Team America movie.
There's only one problem. Moore never said any such thing, or anything remotely like it.
Apparently, Moore's critics are referring to a brief segment in which he shows a few random street scenes from Baghdad, without commentary, just before the U.S. bombs fell.
It's clear that what Moore was aiming to achieve with this scene was to try to put a human face on Iraq. He wanted to let Americans see the faces of the ordinary human beings who we'd soon be dropping bombs on.
Was this unreasonable? I don't think so. In fact, I think it was a perfect antidote to the relentless lies that were being spewed out by America's mainstream press.
Day after day in the buildup to the war, Americans were pumped up full of fear and hatred of Iraq by an irresponsible media that was simply parroting Bush's lies. The distortion of reality was so great that, to this day, large numbers of Americans still believe that Saddam had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.
Moore also got a lot of grief over accusations that he never pointed out what an evil person Saddam was in F911.
When I read this criticism by media pundits, I had to wonder what film they watched. In reality, a very large chunk of F911 features relentless denunciations of Saddam by the Bush team. We see endless video footage of everyone from Bush to Cheney to Powell to Rice to Rumsfield ranting and raving about how evil Saddam is and why America has no choice but to attack Iraq immediately.
Indeed, it's these over-the-top, wildly inaccurate statements from the Bush team that served to enhance Moore's thesis: that Bush's case for war in Iraq was a pack of lies.
An entire industry has arisen these days, devoted to bashing Michael Moore. Web sites proliferate across the Net solely dedicated to sliming the film maker. Numerous books and films have been released, aimed at tarnishing Moore's reputation.
This brings us to an interesting question. Why is Moore subject to so many attacks? Is it really because he doesn't tell the truth?
Or, perhaps, is it because he shines light on difficult, troubling issues that America's rich and powerful would rather keep the public in the dark about?
I firmly believe it's the latter. And there's powerful evidence that this is indeed the case.
Take, for example, Moore's endless problems with securing funding and distribution for his projects.
This flies in the face of all conventional business wisdom. After all, virtually everything Moore has touched has turned into commercial gold, starting with his 1989 film, Roger & Me. The latter, shot on a shoestring $160,000 budget, went on to earn millions worldwide.
Which brings us to Moore's 2004 film, Fahrenheit 9/11. Profit-obsessed Hollywood should have been chomping at the bit to release this film.
After all, Moore had proven himself a solid commercial property. Moore's books, Dude, Where's My Country? (2003) and Stupid White Men (2002) were enormous bestsellers. And his 2002 film, Bowling for Columbine, produced for a mere $4 million, went on to earn more than 12 times that amount worldwide. Clearly, Moore had a huge, loyal audience that numbered in the tens of millions.
By any sane business logic, Disney should have been very eager to release F911. They refused, leaving Moore in a awkward 11th-hour scramble to secure a distributor. In the end, Moore had to go to Canada to find a distributor who'd handle his film in the U.S.
Was Disney's decision strictly a "business" decision, as the right-wing (and indeed, the mainstream media) claimed? Or was it outright censorship, done solely for political reasons?
It's clear the latter was the case. If Disney really believed F911 wasn't going to be a box office winner, given Moore's stellar commercial track record, then it's no wonder that Disney needs hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare to make ends meet these days.
Some people might scoff at the idea that censorship can occur in the private sector, pointing out that only the government is capable of censoring anything. That might have been true 50 years ago in America, when there were still thousands of independent newspapers and other media outlets.
However, today, with a handful of giant conglomerates controlling the media, private-sector censorship is much more plausible. (And of course, we'd be naive to assume that the White House did NOT have a hand in pressuring Disney to block the release of F911.)
In any case, Disney's stupidity in refusing to distribute F911 was its loss. The film went on to enjoy spectacular commercial success. Shot on a mere $6 million budget, F911 has reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in box office around the world.
In the end, there's a silver lining to this story. The fact is, the more America's right wing continues to bash and slime Moore, the larger his audience grows.
As a progressive who's watched this country veer sharply to the right over the past quarter century, I find that Moore serves as an inspiration during these bleak times. I'd suspect that millions of working people across the land would agree.
To me, Moore offers the hope that, despite the stranglehold that giant media conglomerates have over the nation's public debate, it's still possible today for the American people to be exposed to topics that the rich and powerful would rather us not hear about.
America's ruling elite has long been adept at using mock outrage over various aspects of our pop culture. They love to stir up "controversies" over everything from rapper Eminem to the Janet Jackson/Super Bowl incident to shock jock Howard Stern.
All this serves a useful purpose. For one thing, this fake outrage tends to convey the impression that our nation's democracy and free speech are more much vibrant than they really are. I'd bet money, though, that what really sends shivers down the spine of America's ruling class is a commentator like Moore.
How does Moore draw such a large audience for his work? Well, for one thing, his films and books are actually entertaining---a rarity during an era when Hollywood is increasingly creatively bankrupt. Moore's films are also funny (and humor is, of course, the toughest and riskiest genre to pull off successfully).
Moore is also a master of presenting delightful slices of Americana. The people who populate his films are, in many cases, ordinary working-class men and women. His audiences likely respond well to his work, because, when they look up at the silver screen, they see a reflection of themselves--a refreshing change of pace in today's plastic, celebrity-worshiping pop culture.
Moore, of course, isn't the only commentator who's taken on decidedly drab, unsexy topics like union struggles, layoffs, corporate crime, the health care crisis, the growing gulf between rich and poor, and other issues that've been ignored by the mainstream media.
But Moore IS the only U.S. commentator today who has the gift of taking these urgent issues and presenting them in a manner that consistently draws an enormous audience.
For that alone, we progressives ought to be thankful.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Q&A with ImpeachPAC's David Swanson: "We have a duty to demand impeachment"
By MARC McDONALD
Any clear-thinking, sane American these days knows that George W. Bush needs to be impeached before he causes more serious damage to our nation. Fortunately, there are good, patriotic citizens in Washington who're working hard to try to make this a reality. Case in point: ImpeachPAC--a political action committee that was launched in November by Washington activists David Swanson and Bob Fertik.
In the following interview with BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, Swanson talks about ImpeachPAC and what his organization is up to these days:
What is ImpeachPAC.org?
ImpeachPAC is a political action committee that Bob Fertik and I set up in November in order to raise contributions for pro-impeachment candidates. Our criteria for endorsement include, for incumbents, introducing or signing onto articles of impeachment for Bush and Cheney, and for challengers, committing to make that their first act in office in 2007.
We've heard from lots of challengers but not any incumbents--though that may change. And we've endorsed one challenger already, Tony Trupiano, who's running in Michigan's 11th District. He's an outstanding candidate. We've given him $2,100, the maximum allowed for a new PAC, and bundled together for him another $7,000 in contributions. People seem to love the strong stance he's taken, but the media sure doesn't--though, again, that may change. Pundits came out swinging against him as soon as he said the "I" word, but that was before the NSA spying story made the "I" word printable by the corporate media.
Also, the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, an alliance of over 100 grassroots organizations, has launched a new campaign called CensureBush.org in order to support new legislation introduced by congressman John Conyers that would censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney and create a select committee to investigate the administration's possible crimes and make recommendations regarding grounds for impeachment.
The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has just released an extensive report titled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War." It is available here.
When did this site launch? What initially gave you the idea to start this effort?
ImpeachPAC was launched the first week in November. We saw a president and vice president who need to be impeached, a public that agrees with that, and a Congress that lives in another world--and we wanted to change something to fix that discord. We decided it'd be easier to build a new Congress than to convince ourselves and the public that impeachment was not justified. (For public opinion polls see this site).
CensureBush.org was created this past Tuesday to support new bills introduced by Congressman Conyers.
In a nutshell, why should George W. Bush be impeached?
That's got to require at least a coconut shell. The list of crimes is quite long. See this list.
The reason that has finally gotten a bit of interest from the corporate media is that Bush broke the law to authorize warrantless spying, and basically admits as much but claims to be above the law.
The reason that led us to start AfterDowningStreet.org back in May is that Bush lied to Congress about the reasons we had to go to war (he said Iraq's weapons were threatening the US and that he needed to go after nations that were behind the 9-11 attacks). He knew both of those to be lies. Lying to Congress is a felony. And there can be no more serious crime. If you don't impeach now, you never can again--or only for sex. But, of course, much of Congress went along with the warmongering charade, so it may be easier for some Congress members to get outraged about the spying (which is inexcusable and quite dangerous, but which as far as we know hasn't killed 100,000 people and made the whole world more dangerous).
A growing number of Americans support the idea of impeachment, but they are doubtful that this could ever happen while the GOP controls Congress. What would you say to those who are pessimistic about the prospects for impeachment?
Democracy ain't a spectator sport. A good citizen is not an amateur pundit on Fox News, but an activist for what is decent and good. We have a duty to demand impeachment. The fact that we may fail has no bearing and stems from a very disempowering habit of viewing politics as if it were a sport on a field while we're in the stands. It's time to rush the fence and tear down the goal posts.
Democrats have whispered--and this may be changing--that they won't say out loud that they're for impeachment until after they have a majority. I say they won't have a majority if they don't first say out loud that they stand with the 73 percent of Democrats who, according to Ipsos, believe that "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
"Eeek, but then we'd have President Cheney," (some people say). Oh, grow up. You can't investigate Bush without implicating Cheney. You can't investigate either of them on this without destroying the Republican party. Impeaching and removing from office are two different things, only one of which was done to Clinton, and the other of which has never been done in US history. And having criminal underlings cannot provide immunity.
If Bush has committed high crimes, he must be impeached. Same with Cheney. And the next administration that tries to start a war (based on lies, as all wars are) had better be scared of impeachment--and faster next time.
"OK, but don't censure them--they have to be impeached." They have to be both, and Congress members are too spineless to move to impeachment right away. Censure helps. And the bills that Conyers has introduced on censure are aimed at censuring Bush and Cheney, not for their obvious impeachable offenses, but for their refusal to turn over evidence that would make their impeachability even more obvious--if that's possible.
What can concerned citizens do to support your effort?
Give money--even the tiniest amount--to ImpeachPAC.org.
Sign up to attend a town hall forum. More info here:
Contact your member of Congress.
Any clear-thinking, sane American these days knows that George W. Bush needs to be impeached before he causes more serious damage to our nation. Fortunately, there are good, patriotic citizens in Washington who're working hard to try to make this a reality. Case in point: ImpeachPAC--a political action committee that was launched in November by Washington activists David Swanson and Bob Fertik.
In the following interview with BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, Swanson talks about ImpeachPAC and what his organization is up to these days:
What is ImpeachPAC.org?
ImpeachPAC is a political action committee that Bob Fertik and I set up in November in order to raise contributions for pro-impeachment candidates. Our criteria for endorsement include, for incumbents, introducing or signing onto articles of impeachment for Bush and Cheney, and for challengers, committing to make that their first act in office in 2007.
We've heard from lots of challengers but not any incumbents--though that may change. And we've endorsed one challenger already, Tony Trupiano, who's running in Michigan's 11th District. He's an outstanding candidate. We've given him $2,100, the maximum allowed for a new PAC, and bundled together for him another $7,000 in contributions. People seem to love the strong stance he's taken, but the media sure doesn't--though, again, that may change. Pundits came out swinging against him as soon as he said the "I" word, but that was before the NSA spying story made the "I" word printable by the corporate media.
Also, the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, an alliance of over 100 grassroots organizations, has launched a new campaign called CensureBush.org in order to support new legislation introduced by congressman John Conyers that would censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney and create a select committee to investigate the administration's possible crimes and make recommendations regarding grounds for impeachment.
The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has just released an extensive report titled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War." It is available here.
When did this site launch? What initially gave you the idea to start this effort?
ImpeachPAC was launched the first week in November. We saw a president and vice president who need to be impeached, a public that agrees with that, and a Congress that lives in another world--and we wanted to change something to fix that discord. We decided it'd be easier to build a new Congress than to convince ourselves and the public that impeachment was not justified. (For public opinion polls see this site).
CensureBush.org was created this past Tuesday to support new bills introduced by Congressman Conyers.
In a nutshell, why should George W. Bush be impeached?
That's got to require at least a coconut shell. The list of crimes is quite long. See this list.
The reason that has finally gotten a bit of interest from the corporate media is that Bush broke the law to authorize warrantless spying, and basically admits as much but claims to be above the law.
The reason that led us to start AfterDowningStreet.org back in May is that Bush lied to Congress about the reasons we had to go to war (he said Iraq's weapons were threatening the US and that he needed to go after nations that were behind the 9-11 attacks). He knew both of those to be lies. Lying to Congress is a felony. And there can be no more serious crime. If you don't impeach now, you never can again--or only for sex. But, of course, much of Congress went along with the warmongering charade, so it may be easier for some Congress members to get outraged about the spying (which is inexcusable and quite dangerous, but which as far as we know hasn't killed 100,000 people and made the whole world more dangerous).
A growing number of Americans support the idea of impeachment, but they are doubtful that this could ever happen while the GOP controls Congress. What would you say to those who are pessimistic about the prospects for impeachment?
Democracy ain't a spectator sport. A good citizen is not an amateur pundit on Fox News, but an activist for what is decent and good. We have a duty to demand impeachment. The fact that we may fail has no bearing and stems from a very disempowering habit of viewing politics as if it were a sport on a field while we're in the stands. It's time to rush the fence and tear down the goal posts.
Democrats have whispered--and this may be changing--that they won't say out loud that they're for impeachment until after they have a majority. I say they won't have a majority if they don't first say out loud that they stand with the 73 percent of Democrats who, according to Ipsos, believe that "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
"Eeek, but then we'd have President Cheney," (some people say). Oh, grow up. You can't investigate Bush without implicating Cheney. You can't investigate either of them on this without destroying the Republican party. Impeaching and removing from office are two different things, only one of which was done to Clinton, and the other of which has never been done in US history. And having criminal underlings cannot provide immunity.
If Bush has committed high crimes, he must be impeached. Same with Cheney. And the next administration that tries to start a war (based on lies, as all wars are) had better be scared of impeachment--and faster next time.
"OK, but don't censure them--they have to be impeached." They have to be both, and Congress members are too spineless to move to impeachment right away. Censure helps. And the bills that Conyers has introduced on censure are aimed at censuring Bush and Cheney, not for their obvious impeachable offenses, but for their refusal to turn over evidence that would make their impeachability even more obvious--if that's possible.
What can concerned citizens do to support your effort?
Give money--even the tiniest amount--to ImpeachPAC.org.
Sign up to attend a town hall forum. More info here:
Contact your member of Congress.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
If You Support This War, Republicans, Then Enlist Now...Otherwise, STFU
By MARC McDONALD
Have you ever been pestered by a flag-waving Republican who railed on about the need for all Americans to support Bush's illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq?
Here's a quick way to shut them up: ask them to enlist.
I've long been amazed at how Bush's sheep-like fanatical supporters tout their "patriotism" by shouting it from the highest rooftops. And yet when it comes to actually doing something to support their country, they can't be bothered.
If any Republicans are reading this, I've got news for you. The Army is coming up short in its recruiting drives. These days, not only does Uncle Sam Want You---he wants you really, really bad.
So if you support Bush's war in Iraq, what the hell are you doing here in the States? Pick up a rifle and go fight in the bloody quicksands of Iraq.
I've talked to a number of Republicans who loudly voice their support for this war. But when they hear the word "enlist," they quickly try to change the subject. In fact, they have no intention of ever signing up. Like Bush himself, if they were ever confronted with the prospect of having to serve in combat, they'd run like little girls.
The fact is, enlisting these days is much more than simply doing one's patriotic duty. In short, the Army is increasingly desperate for warm bodies these days, as military recruiting is at a 26-year low.
In fact, in 2005, the Army missed its recruitment goal by nearly 7,000 troops (the widest margin since 1979), according to MSNBC.
As a result, the Army has greatly loosened its requirements for enlistment and is accepting people well into their 40s. Which means that chickenhawks like 44-year-old Sean Hannity would be greeted with open arms by hard-pressed Army recruiters desperate to meet their quotas.
Despite the increasingly serious shortfall that Army recruiters are facing today, I doubt we'll see any surge of Republicans stepping forward to enlist. After all, it's much easier to claim that you're a "patriot" by simply sticking a yellow ribbon magnet on the fender of your car.
Bush supporters who don't enlist these days are not only cowards; they are hypocrites. But it's a lot easier for them to mindlessly follow their chickenhawk "commander in chief" Bush, as well as Dick ("Five Deferments") Cheney. And it's easy for them to take potshots at genuine American military heroes like John Murtha, John Kerry and Max Cleland.
Have you ever been pestered by a flag-waving Republican who railed on about the need for all Americans to support Bush's illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq?
Here's a quick way to shut them up: ask them to enlist.
I've long been amazed at how Bush's sheep-like fanatical supporters tout their "patriotism" by shouting it from the highest rooftops. And yet when it comes to actually doing something to support their country, they can't be bothered.
If any Republicans are reading this, I've got news for you. The Army is coming up short in its recruiting drives. These days, not only does Uncle Sam Want You---he wants you really, really bad.
So if you support Bush's war in Iraq, what the hell are you doing here in the States? Pick up a rifle and go fight in the bloody quicksands of Iraq.
I've talked to a number of Republicans who loudly voice their support for this war. But when they hear the word "enlist," they quickly try to change the subject. In fact, they have no intention of ever signing up. Like Bush himself, if they were ever confronted with the prospect of having to serve in combat, they'd run like little girls.
The fact is, enlisting these days is much more than simply doing one's patriotic duty. In short, the Army is increasingly desperate for warm bodies these days, as military recruiting is at a 26-year low.
In fact, in 2005, the Army missed its recruitment goal by nearly 7,000 troops (the widest margin since 1979), according to MSNBC.
As a result, the Army has greatly loosened its requirements for enlistment and is accepting people well into their 40s. Which means that chickenhawks like 44-year-old Sean Hannity would be greeted with open arms by hard-pressed Army recruiters desperate to meet their quotas.
Despite the increasingly serious shortfall that Army recruiters are facing today, I doubt we'll see any surge of Republicans stepping forward to enlist. After all, it's much easier to claim that you're a "patriot" by simply sticking a yellow ribbon magnet on the fender of your car.
Bush supporters who don't enlist these days are not only cowards; they are hypocrites. But it's a lot easier for them to mindlessly follow their chickenhawk "commander in chief" Bush, as well as Dick ("Five Deferments") Cheney. And it's easy for them to take potshots at genuine American military heroes like John Murtha, John Kerry and Max Cleland.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
2006: Is The Glass Half Full Or Half Empty For Progressives?
By MARC McDONALD
Half Full: The GOP is reeling from scandals and the Democrats' mid-term 2006 prospects are looking good.
Half Empty: Between blatant gerrymandering that has been perfected to a corrupt art form and a 98-percent incumbency re-election rate these days, it's going to be extremely tough for the Dems to re-take Congress.
Half Full: In the aftermath of Bush's illegal wiretaps, more and more people are daring to utter the "I" word.
Half Empty: Big media is still gun-shy about talking impeachment and it appears that (for the thousandth time) they're going to let Bush set the agenda on this story (i.e. turning the focus from the crimes themselves to the leakers).
Half Full: The Left is on the rise in Latin America, with genuinely popular progressive leaders emerging everywhere, from Venezuela to Bolivia.
Half Empty: The U.S. ruling class isn't going to sit by idly while populist movements take control in South America. I'd bet money that CIA-backed coups and assassinations are already in the works. And the U.S. ruling class will get away with it, thanks to America's amnesia about these sorts of things.
Half Full: Bush is on the ropes as the year 2005 was a disaster for his presidency.
Half Empty: We still have three long years to go.
Half Full: Bush has committed crimes (from lying the nation into war to shredding our Constitution) far greater than anything Nixon did, so impeachment should be a shoo-in. I mean, if Clinton could be impeached for lying about oral sex...
Half Empty: Impeachment ain't gonna happen with a lapdog media that refuses to tell the truth about the Bush White House. "Reporters" like Bob Woodward and Judith Miller aren't part of the solution; they're part of the problem. Our media doesn't investigate this president; they cover for him.
Half Full: The Dems could pick up some seats in the 2006 elections--maybe even retake the Congress.
Half Empty: The Republicans have successfully stolen two consecutive presidential elections. By contrast, stealing mere congressional elections should be a piece of cake.
Half Full: The right-wing bastards have a hammerlock grip on the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court, and the mainstream media---but at least we progressives still have a foothold in cyberspace.
Half Empty: At least for now, we do. But if the past five years of Bush have taught us anything, it's that nothing is too outrageous for the GOP these days. If anyone ever sat down and read the entire mind-numbingly complex Patriot Act, it wouldn't surprise me if, buried deep in there somewhere, there was a clause authorizing the White House to shut down liberal Web sites in the name of "national security" or some such nonsense.
Half Full: Bush pledged generous aid to poor African nations. Even Bono had some kind words for him at one point.
Half Empty: Uh, Mr. Bono: I hate to break the news to you, but Bush lied. He loves to pledge generous aid packages before the world's TV cameras, but in reality, he has no intention of living up to these promises.
Half Full: Bush totally bungled the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but at least the worst is now over for hard-hit storm victims.
Half Empty: 2006 looks to be another busy year for hurricanes, forecasters say.
Half Full: The GOP is reeling from scandals and the Democrats' mid-term 2006 prospects are looking good.
Half Empty: Between blatant gerrymandering that has been perfected to a corrupt art form and a 98-percent incumbency re-election rate these days, it's going to be extremely tough for the Dems to re-take Congress.
Half Full: In the aftermath of Bush's illegal wiretaps, more and more people are daring to utter the "I" word.
Half Empty: Big media is still gun-shy about talking impeachment and it appears that (for the thousandth time) they're going to let Bush set the agenda on this story (i.e. turning the focus from the crimes themselves to the leakers).
Half Full: The Left is on the rise in Latin America, with genuinely popular progressive leaders emerging everywhere, from Venezuela to Bolivia.
Half Empty: The U.S. ruling class isn't going to sit by idly while populist movements take control in South America. I'd bet money that CIA-backed coups and assassinations are already in the works. And the U.S. ruling class will get away with it, thanks to America's amnesia about these sorts of things.
Half Full: Bush is on the ropes as the year 2005 was a disaster for his presidency.
Half Empty: We still have three long years to go.
Half Full: Bush has committed crimes (from lying the nation into war to shredding our Constitution) far greater than anything Nixon did, so impeachment should be a shoo-in. I mean, if Clinton could be impeached for lying about oral sex...
Half Empty: Impeachment ain't gonna happen with a lapdog media that refuses to tell the truth about the Bush White House. "Reporters" like Bob Woodward and Judith Miller aren't part of the solution; they're part of the problem. Our media doesn't investigate this president; they cover for him.
Half Full: The Dems could pick up some seats in the 2006 elections--maybe even retake the Congress.
Half Empty: The Republicans have successfully stolen two consecutive presidential elections. By contrast, stealing mere congressional elections should be a piece of cake.
Half Full: The right-wing bastards have a hammerlock grip on the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court, and the mainstream media---but at least we progressives still have a foothold in cyberspace.
Half Empty: At least for now, we do. But if the past five years of Bush have taught us anything, it's that nothing is too outrageous for the GOP these days. If anyone ever sat down and read the entire mind-numbingly complex Patriot Act, it wouldn't surprise me if, buried deep in there somewhere, there was a clause authorizing the White House to shut down liberal Web sites in the name of "national security" or some such nonsense.
Half Full: Bush pledged generous aid to poor African nations. Even Bono had some kind words for him at one point.
Half Empty: Uh, Mr. Bono: I hate to break the news to you, but Bush lied. He loves to pledge generous aid packages before the world's TV cameras, but in reality, he has no intention of living up to these promises.
Half Full: Bush totally bungled the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but at least the worst is now over for hard-hit storm victims.
Half Empty: 2006 looks to be another busy year for hurricanes, forecasters say.
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