Bush White House Balked at Plan That Could Protect U.S. Against Hurricanes

BY MARC MCDONALD

We all knew it was coming. Officials have been sounding the alarm for years about how vulnerable Louisiana is to the threat of a hurricane.

Not only did we know it was coming, but we've known for a long time exactly what is needed to protect New Orleans from a hurricane. In a word: wetlands.

Wetlands have long served as a natural shield to protect New Orleans from the wrath of hurricanes. Wetlands are vital to protect a city that has 80 percent of its area located below sea level. And America's wetlands, under the Bush administration, have been deteriorating at an alarming rate.

The loss of wetlands in Louisiana in recent years has been staggering: the state has lost around 25 square miles of wetlands each year (or around one acre every 30 minutes).

In recent years, alarmed officials put together a plan to protect Louisiana's wetlands, called the Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) project. But, predictably, the Bush White House balked at the projected price tag of $14 billion over the next 30 years.

Indeed, that sum appears to be a lot of money. That is, until you consider that the Bush White House has already squandered a staggering $200 billion in embroiling our nation in the current bloody quagmire in Iraq.

But fiddling while our nation's wetlands disappear is only one way in which the Bush team let America down before Katrina hit.

A growing number of scientists are pointing the finger at global warming as a main culprit behind the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina. After all, warm oceans are a key component in the formation of hurricanes.

In early August, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Kerry Emanuel published a study that showed that hurricanes have vastly increased in intensity over the past 30 years---a trend, he said, that appears to be directly linked to rising ocean surface temperatures.

And, of course, on global warming, the Bush White House has let America down. Refusing to even accept the science behind global warming, Bush declined to sign the Kyoto Protocol (thus telling the other 180 nations who signed to go screw themselves).

Bush has long argued that the costs of complying with international climate protection goals would harm the U.S. economy. But it's clear that the costs of dealing with disasters like Katrina will dwarf what the U.S. would have needed to spend to get on-board with Kyoto.

What is certain is that America's reckless use of fossil fuels is unsustainable. Americans make up only 4 percent of the world's population and yet we're responsible for one quarter of the planet's emissions.

I find it rich how neocons buy Bush's argument that Kyoto would "harm" America's economy. Since when has Bush ever understood anything about economics or finances?

The U.S. is already facing unprecedented and soaring fiscal deficits and is on the verge of bankruptcy. The dollar is posed for meltdown. And New Orleans has turned into an uninhabitable toxic cesspool that's going to cost us all billions of dollars---all because of a disaster that could have been avoided.

Is "Conservatism" a New Kind Of Mental Illness?

By Manifesto Joe

When I heard the title of Michael Savage's latest 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.
  

But Savage isn't the only "conservative" who's been waxing psychopathic lately. The vilification of anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan has shown a zany viciousness once heard only from the most demented elements of the right. The typically milder-mannered Fred Barnes called her a "crackpot." Rush Limbaugh said Sheehan's story is "nothing more than forged documents." (Two days later Limbaugh denied saying anything like this, whatever it was that he meant.) One-time Trotskyite turned right-wing straitjacket candidate David Horowitz described Sheehan's protest as "hateful" and said she is dishonoring the memory of her fallen son. A political consultant and blogger named Erick Erickson said Sheehan is "a whore in the form of a grieving mother."

Savage is right about one thing: There is a strain of mental illness spreading in America. Problem is, he's pointing in the wrong direction, as usual. Many of those who call themselves "conservatives" are not merely dangerous radicals. They could use a dose of anti-psychotic drugs.

I've been wondering about the sanity of "conservatives" since the days of Lee Atwater, when it became apparent that these self-styled paragons of virtue would say and do just about anything to win an election. Atwater later died, reportedly of a brain tumor; but I'm convinced that the tumor was benign. It's the brain that was malignant.

It's gotten worse since then. Consider a political landscape in which:

• 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.)
  

Barry Goldwater, after leaving politics, lamented that the Republican Party had been taken over by "a bunch of kooks." This was ironic when one recalls LBJ supporters in 1964 saying about rival candidate Goldwater, "In your guts you know he's nuts." If Goldwater scared people back then, what does that say about some of the loonies who hold high office now?

I suggest something further: That pretty much describes the whole contemporary "conservative" movement. It's not just some of the top politicos, pundits and preachers who are spouting rubber-room rhetoric. It's become like a bizarre cult of millions. The only positive aspect about how many of these fanatical weirdos there are is that they could never have all fit into the compound at Mount Carmel.

The Texas Republican Party, in its delusional 2004 platform, for example, urges that the IRS be eliminated, along with "income tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, capital gains, corporate income tax, payroll tax and property tax." The state GOP would also kill "the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms, the position of Surgeon General, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Education, Commerce and Labor." (I guess when you believe that The Rapture is coming soon, who needs a government?)

The comparably deranged 2000 platform calls for America to return to the gold standard and supports "individual teachers' right to teach creation science in Texas public schools." It also calls for the United States to quit the United Nations and re-establish control of the Panama Canal. (It stops short of unleashing Chiang Kai-shek's skeletal remains on mainland China.)

Consider that this is the political party that is governing Texas, virtually unchallenged.

Then there are the assorted lunatics who blog, argue in chat rooms, etc. A "Christian conservative" who identified himself (herself?) as "frogribs" posted a reply to an earlier article of mine on this blog in which he wrote:

"Yes, it is better `to have the London subway system be a battleground than to have al Qaeda blowing up folks over here.' The duty of the president is to place the lives and well being of Americans above all others." (I'm glad Bush was thinking that when he misled the country into a needless war in Iraq. And I'm certain the British will be thrilled to know we're willing to use them, and other allied civilians, as human shields.)

"Iraqi civilian casualties have occurred, but at a rate lower than anyone expected." (Was this person here, on this planet, in March 2003? We were hearing that this would be a cakewalk, and that Iraqis would be tossing rose petals at our soldiers' feet. Since then, dozens of suicide bombings later, the cake's been decorated with entrails, and the petals look curiously like toenails.)

"The U.S. still faces an insurgency, but they must remain to complete the mission in order to avoid the disastrous result learned in Vietnam. Napoleon said it best, 'If you decide to take Paris, take Paris.' Finish the job. ..." (This person evidently never heard about Waterloo. Or Nixon's hapless "Vietnamization" policy. What should we call this now -- "Iraqification"?)

"Does anyone remember how we got this country? We got it by force. We decimated the Indians ... We invaded the Spanish and the Mexicans and we took the spoils. We exploited slaves until the error was purged with the blood of 500,000 of our countrymen ... Manifest Destiny still runs in my veins and the veins of the free and the brave ..."

(Gosh, so America really was largely built on genocide, slavery and military aggression? Since it worked so well in the past, why don't we do all that stuff again? And when they bring back the slave auctions, I wonder -- how much would Jesus bid?)

If this person is a sincere, believing, born-again Christian, then someone must have slipped a couple of books by Nietzsche and Machiavelli into his Bible. I can envision The Prince, and Beyond Good and Evil, bound in there somewhere between Galatians and Revelation, no doubt by Godless nihilistic conspirators.

But seriously, crazy people don't perceive even such basic ideological contradictions. I've seen this firsthand in paranoid schizophrenics. They feel quite free to just make it up as they go along.

I think we've identified a unique personality disorder. It isn't hard to diagnose, because most of the patients call themselves "conservatives."

Charge nurse, call the orderlies, and break out the Thorazine. This is no problem that a little heavy sedation won't fix.

MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS.

Bush's Failures Vindicate Policies, According to Bizarre Logic of "Wall Street Journal"

By MARC MCDONALD

The Aug. 22 edition of The Wall Street Journal features an article that is so breathtakingly stupid and devoid of logic that it's likely even causing this right-wing rag's own readers to scratch their heads in puzzlement.

In the article, "How Oil Dependence Fuels U.S. Policies," author Gerald Seib starts off with a fairly reasonable, sober assessment of America's voracious appetite for foreign oil.

So far, so good.

However, midway through the piece, Seib lets loose with a stunning lapse of logic that has to be one of the stupidest comments made in the right-wing media this year (and that's going up against some formidable competition).

After apparently checking his brain at the door, Seib makes the following observation:

"Cynics, of course, thought President Bush decided to invade Iraq to acquire its oil cheaply, but it turns out they were exactly wrong. Whatever the president's motivations in Iraq, one can hardly claim now that inexpensive oil was one of them."

You don't have to be a Bush-hating "cynic" to realize that this has got to be one of the stupidest justifications for Bush's Iraq policy to come down the pike in years.

To be fair to Seib, though, it's important to note that variations of this argument have been floating around the right-wing blogosphere and media for several months now. And it only shows how desperate the neocons are in their efforts to defend their leader as Bush's approval ratings hit new lows every month and as an increasingly skeptical America takes a cold, hard look at the Iraq fiasco.

Why, exactly, is oil not gushing from Iraq these days? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that it's hard to pump oil from a country that is in the midst of chaos and looming civil war. (In fact, oil production in Iraq is lower than it was before the U.S. invasion).

Which brings us to the question: why is Iraq in chaos in the first place? Could it have something to do with the fact that the Bush team rushed into war in Iraq without doing the slightest bit of homework in planning for America's post-invasion occupation of the country? The fact is, the current mess in Iraq is totally the result of the Bush team's ineptness and lack of foresight.

The Bush team waved off all warnings from America's intelligence and military experts who warned of the looming catastrophe in post-invasion Iraq. But it shouldn't really be surprising: this is the same administration that promised America that the Iraq war would be a "cakewalk" that would result in zero casualties.

So, to recap: the Bush team rushes into the Iraq war on false pretenses and then proceeds to thoroughly screw up the post-invasion administration of the country. Oil production in Iraq then tumbles as the country descends into chaos.

And then the likes of The Wall Street Journal come along and make the bizarre argument that Iraq's falling oil production amidst anarchy must somehow mean that Bush's rationale for rushing into war couldn't have had anything to do with oil.

Over the past five years, the Bush team and its lackeys in the right-wing media have resorted to all sorts of tricks to defend the White House's policies. From paying money to right-wing columnists to fabricating "news" stories to bringing in non-journalists to lob softball questions at press conferences, there is no depth to which the right-wing goons haven't sunk.

Gerald Seib's The Wall Street Journal piece shows a right-wing media that is increasingly out of touch with reality in its desperate scramble to defend Bush at any cost.

Remembering a Real American Hero: Smedley D. Butler

BY MANIFESTO JOE

In an age of faux heroism, illustrated by the swagger and tough talk of our "president," we should perhaps take time to remember a real American hero.

July 30 was the birthday of Smedley D. Butler, born in 1881. Few Americans have heard of this two-time Medal of Honor winner, who rose to the rank of major general in the Marine Corps. But history teachers ought to note that Butler probably thwarted the first serious conspiracy toward a coup in the United States.

In 1933, soon after he retired from active duty, Butler alleged that he was approached by a representative of a group of super-rich business interests, led by the Du Pont and J.P. Morgan industrial empires, with a proposition. The representative, a top Wall Street bond salesman named Gerald MacGuire, was said to have tried to recruit Butler to lead a move to strip recently inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt of his political power.

Butler testified before a congressional committee that he was promised a militia of 500,000 men for a coup, after which Butler would assume near-absolute power as "secretary of general affairs," with Roosevelt retained as a figurehead. The men behind MacGuire feared a major redistribution of wealth by an FDR administration, and they were prepared to bankroll the force needed to prevent it.

The outcome of Butler's testimony was predictable. The press, at the time mostly owned by business-friendly conservatives, generally played the story way down. The tiny "reports" that did run ridiculed Butler and said he lacked evidence. Those whom he accused of the conspiracy, including former Democratic presidential nominees Al Smith and John W. Davis, professed innocence and did not come under public scrutiny. MacGuire -- known through his correspondence to have been an admirer of Mussolini's fascist rule in Italy -- was the panel's only open-session witness besides Butler. Of course, he told the lawmakers he never made such a proposition. The allegations are now a footnote in history.

But in 1967, journalist John Spivak vindicated Butler (who died in 1940) when he uncovered the House committee's internal, secret report. It clearly confirmed the story. The panel's public report was a whitewash and even omitted the names of the powerful men whom Butler accused.

This was not the only time Butler tangled with the early U.S. military-industrial complex. He had seen its operations firsthand many times, and blew the whistle on it. In a speech delivered in 1933, the same year he went public about the conspiracy, Butler told his audience:

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the few at the expense of the masses. ...

"I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

"There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its 'finger men' to point out enemies, its 'muscle men' to destroy enemies, its 'brain men' to plan war preparations, and a 'Big Boss' Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

"It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

"I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

"I helped make Mexico ... safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. ... I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. ... I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Today we have other names -- Iraq, Halliburton, Diebold, Rove. We've had two Bush administrations; the first was at best legally questionable, the second possibly elected through voting irregularities in the deciding state and high-tech rigging in others. The stench of war for profit, and of crypto-fascism, is in the air.

Those who discuss this odor are being either ridiculed or ignored by the mainstream media. Perhaps they will be vindicated one day, as Butler was.

Meanwhile, let's honor a real hero, a man who blew the whistle on nascent American fascism.


HISTORICAL SOURCES: Wikipedia; excerpts from an online transcript of a 1933 speech by Smedley D. Butler


MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS.

Why Doesn't the Media Take a Look at Whether Bush Arranged an Abortion For His Girlfriend in 1971?

By MARC MCDONALD

These days, George W. Bush gets lots of brownie points from fundamentalist Christians over his "Pro-Life" stance. Indeed, Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, John Roberts, almost certainly sounds the death knell for Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that effectively overturned all state laws outlawing abortion.

Given the current political climate, this might be a good time for the media to pull its thumb out of its ass and finally get around to examining a murky story from Bush's past that's remained in the shadows for three decades.

According to the story, in 1971, Bush got his then-girlfriend, a woman named Robin Lowman (now Robin Garner) pregnant and then arranged for her to have an abortion. (Note that in 1971, abortions were illegal in Texas).

In 2000, publisher Larry Flynt tried to encourage the media to examine this bombshell story. But, predictably, he got nowhere. The same mainstream media that gave 18 months of saturation, around-the-clock coverage to the Monica Lewinsky story, refused to touch the Bush/abortion story.

This is the same media that never tires of giving acres of coverage to smutty, sleazy topics like the ridiculous Janet Jackson/Super Bowl "controversy." Who's the real smut peddler these days: Flynt (who once took a bullet for the First Amendment) or the corporate controlled, cowardly U.S. media?

It's downright eerie and Orwellian, the way the Bush/abortion story has been consistently ignored and even covered up by our nation's media. Few Americans have even heard of this story.

One interesting episode on CNN a few years back neatly sums the media's approach to this story. On November 7, 2000, Flynt briefly spoke about the Bush/abortion case during an appearance on CNN's "Crossfire." Bizarrely, CNN later deleted Flynt's comments from the show's official transcripts, in an unprecedented move that indicates that the media in this country have received orders from their corporate owners to not touch this story.

Flynt was later interviewed on the Bernie Ward radio talk show on KGO radio in San Francisco, where he mentioned the CNN transcript issue and then lambasted the media:

"The mainstream media is scared to death of this story. They won't even check out the facts that I already have, much less ask Bush the question."

The mainstream media snoozed through this story during the 2000 election. And I suppose there's little reason that the media will look into it now.

But one thing Americans need to be aware of with Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, is that if he is appointed to the high court, Roe v. Wade is history. To get an idea of where Roberts stands on Roe v. Wade, it's important to note that he was listed as a coauthor on a brief before the high court in the Rust v. Sullivan case in 1991, which stated the following:

"We continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."

It seems that Bush has come a long ways in his position on abortion since the 1970s. Talk about being a flip-flopper.

Black Box Voting's Bev Harris "Not At All Confident" U.S. Voting System Will Be Fixed in Time For 2006 Elections

By MARC McDONALD

In the following interview with BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, Bev Harris, executive director of Black Box Voting talked about what her "consumer protection group for elections" has been up to lately.

Harris, who popularized the term "Black Box Voting," (which refers to voting on electronic machines that do not print paper ballots) said she is "not at all confident" that America's voting system woes will be fixed in time for the 2006 elections. Harris said election officials haven't taken the necessary steps to fix security issues and "to protect our votes properly."

Harris said the fixes that have been made to date have been "token efforts, Band-Aids, cosmetics, putting makeup on a broken system."

Currently, Black Box Voting is doing work on several fronts, including producing audit material to show that voting machines did not perform reliably in November 2004, Harris said. The organization is also working on specific investigations to prove fraudulent certification of the voting machines.

First of all, for the people out there who've not heard of your Web site and work, can you briefly explain what Black Box Voting is all about and what its purpose is?

Harris: Black Box Voting is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer protection group for elections. We investigate problems with election integrity, focusing especially on new technologies and on local situations which illustrate generic problems affecting elections nationwide. The most active section of our site is the "Forums" section, which provides interactive information on investigations and latest news. We post a new, original-research consumer report on elections problems about once a week, sometimes more often.

How did you first get involved in this field?

Harris: Investigative writing, which led to breaking many stories on election integrity problems in the U.S. After a number of breakthrough investigations, I founded a nonprofit group, funded by public donations, which allow two full time investigators to do field work. You cannot just study this issue on the Internet. Going out into the field to review documents, interview citizens and candidates, and visit elections officials is of critical importance, and what you learn often doesn't quite match what you read on the Internet. Our nonprofit organization has been active for a little over a year, and we are working on several important new consumer reports right now.

What is the main task that you are working on these days?

Harris: We are very interesting in the money trail driving procurement. We are also working on specific investigations to prove fraudulent certification of the voting machines, and we are producing audit material showing that the machines did not perform reliably in November 2004.

For a while after the 2004 election, we saw the media pay some attention to election controversies and irregularities. But there hasn't been much follow through and the issue seems to have faded away. Do you feel confident that the American people will ever learn the truth about the 2004 election problems?

Harris: Interest will always ebb and flow, but we are pleased that this story now has "legs" -- weak ones, but as the evidence is growing, so is media interest, even in off-years for elections.

The biggest problem with the media is that they fail to do the homework needed (takes too much time, budgets generally do not provide for that) -- and therefore, fail to ask effective follow up questions. Instead of learning the truth, therefore, what we see is spin. The progress we have made is that there is now some spin on both sides, but most media coverage is still largely spin.
Another problem is that no single major publication has done an effective series on voting machines and procurement. This is a multifaceted, agenda-ridden issue that will become bigger than Watergate, when a publication finally embarks on a
quest for the truth.

Do you feel confident that our nation's voting system will be in any better shape for the 2006 elections?

Harris: I hope so, but I am not at all confident about this. There is not a will to engage in real reform by elected officials (small wonder; they owe their power because of the current flawed system). There is not a will to engage in real investigative journalism among any of the mainstream outlets (although Adam Cohen, of The New York Times, did an outstanding job in the summer of 2004).
There is not a will among election officials to learn about the security problems with their systems, and certainly not a will to take the correct steps to protect our votes properly. There is a will among ordinary citizens to correct electoral problems, but many have been led to easy, politically correct "solutions" that don't really address core problems.

What is needed, first and foremost, is willingness to fight. Too often, we are told to "be polite" and "work within the system." That only works if the system is responsive to real reform efforts. What we are seeing is token efforts,
Band-Aids, cosmetics, putting makeup on a broken system.

No doubt, there are many frustrated citizens out there who are concerned about the future of fair and honest elections in America. What can they do to help your cause?

Harris: Get involved. You can hook up with others in your area who are interested in reform by going to the forums at Black Box Voting, where each state has a section. The forums also have the latest suggestions for actions to take, and ways to help "be the media."

One of the most important things to do is to start showing up at meetings, with a video camera. This will put local officials on notice that you are watching them, and will help you meet others in your town who share your interests. When
you go, focus on getting public officials to commit to answers (or non-answers, fibs, or evasions) -- that's why you need the video camera.

We have a primer on the voting machines, quite readable and very thorough, online. Go to Black Box Voting and look for the Black Box Voting book, available chapter-by-chapter in free downloads. You will find the chapters on the right hand column of the home page.

Now, let's go take back our republic.

An Open Letter To Bush: Are We Fighting The "Trrrr-ists" In London So We Do Not Have To Face Them At Home?

BY MANIFESTO JOE

It was bad enough for one of the journalism charlatans at Fox News to talk about the London bombing in terms of how one could profit from it. (The swinelike Brit Hume suggested this would be a good time to buy futures.) But for loutish insensitivity, he was topped by our own "president," who told his Saturday morning radio audience that we are "fighting the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them at home."

Mr. Bush, did you imply that it's better to have the London subway system be a battleground than to have al Qaeda blowing up folks over here?

This mantra of your was insulting enough in the context of the Iraq war. Never mind that it was your foolhardiness that turned that country into a terrorist magnet, and the best training ground al Qaeda ever had. What you expressed is sort of a not-in-my-back-yard school of anti-terrorism -- essentially, let's keep them on the run so they can only hit foreign targets!

Mr. Bush, I never quite understood how shallow you really are until you invoked this mantra of yours in this particular address. Despite all the gushing rhetoric, this shows a ludicrous lack of respect and empathy for the civilians who are being killed daily in this conflict, whether Britons or Iraqis. You have denigrated the value of their lives; indeed, those of everyone, except "Murkans."

It is bad enough that neither you nor Mr. Blair seem to understand that your totally unrelated invasion of Iraq actually played into the hands of terrorists the world over. Thanks to this needless quagmire:

• The U.S. is militarily overextended, unable to deal effectively with those actually responsible for 9-11, the London bombing, and the other atrocities.
  
  
• Terrorist recruitment has probably spiked greatly because of outrage in the Muslim world over your poorly veiled oil grab.
  
  
• Terrorist activity, in any case, has definitely increased. MSNBC reported that a RAND Corp. database shows that the number of deaths from terrorism worldwide has sharply risen since the Iraq invasion.
  
  
• Again, Iraq is a perfect training ground for the recruits.
  
  
• World opinion of the United States has probably never been worse.
  
  
• And, all in all, the world is much more dangerous -- and, your mantra aside, it is likely only a matter of time before our own infrastructure, and people, come under attack again. Our Coast Guard and border patrol aren't good enough to keep our real enemies at bay much longer.
  

What would you say if they bombed the port of Los Angeles, or took out the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour? That we're fighting the "trrrr-ists" in California so we do not have to face them in Washington? Or Crawford? Your mantra was disrespectful enough to the nearly 1,800 soldiers who have died so far in your and Mr. Blair's extracurricular misadventure. But in this radio address -- well, I thought I had already heard as much bovine excrement as you could muster for one speech. I was wrong. Mr. Bush, you owe the British people an apology. And your fellow "Murkans" your resignation. Then we'll see if Cheney can be impeached. MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS.

Will the Media Fully Examine the Rove Case? Don't Hold Your Breath

By MARC MCDONALD

From time to time, in the news media business, there will emerge a story that journalists will say "has legs."

A story with "legs" tends to completely dominate our nation's public discourse for months at a time. More often than not, by the time the story has run its course, virtually every American will be sick and tired of the topic. (Recall the O.J. Simpson case).

A good example of a story with legs was the Monica Lewinsky story. This is a story that got "above the fold," saturation, round-the-clock coverage for 18 seemingly never-ending months. The media obviously believed it was a major story with legs (although the American public obviously disagreed---Clinton enjoyed strong approval ratings in the high 60s, even at the height of the "crisis").

By the time this story wound down, virtually everyone in America was long since tired of the topic. (It's interesting, because the media has long claimed that it serves up news stories that "the public wants." And yet, who, outside of a few right-wing partisan hacks really wanted to read about the Monica Lewinsky story day after monotonous day for a year and a half?)

Progressives these days are no doubt wondering if the Karl Rove/Valerie Plame story will have legs. Will the mainstream media continue to pursue this story, day in and day out, and give it the coverage that it deserves?

I think this story, as important as it is, will fizzle out soon, as the mainstream media looks elsewhere for its "flavor of the month" news cycle fix. No doubt, the next time an attractive white woman winds up in peril somewhere, the media will latch onto that story and drop the Rove story.

The fact is, the media has given the Bush White House a free pass on everything for the past five years and I don't expect the Rove case to be any different.

The media's agenda these days is pretty much dictated by the right-wing's powerful noise machine, which pretty much obliterates any real dialogue on the issues that impact the lives of ordinary working Americans.

The corporate media would have us believe on most days that the most important issue in our society right now is the plight of yet another attractive young white woman in distress somewhere. (Never mind that a similar story involving say, a frumpy middle-aged black woman, would never be similarly regarded as national news).

And meanwhile, hugely critical stories impacting the lives of every American receive virtually zero coverage in our nation's media. To name but three examples:

1. The U.S. has gigantic and growing, unprecedented trade and fiscal deficits that a growing number of economic commentators say imperil our nation and threaten to implode the value of the dollar: a massively urgent story that critically impacts the lives of every single American.

2. The U.S. is currently experiencing a rapidly growing divide between rich and poor that is unprecedented in world history. This astonishing polarization of the classes (which began around 1980 and is rapidly picking up steam today) has been completely ignored by the media.

3. The U.S. public schools system is in what can only be described as a major crisis. The U.S. school system as a whole is in fact the worst in the industrialized world. It's hard to imagine a story that has a greater impact on America's future.

The above are merely three major stories that the media neglects; there are many others.

I'm willing to admit, in the overall scale of things, the Rove story might not be that important compared to say, America's titanic fiscal deficits, or America's worst-in-the-industrialized-world school system. But it'd be nice to see the media (for once) not give the Bush White House yet another free pass.

I mean, this is the same media that never gave Clinton a pass on anything (even if it was a non-story that was pitched to the media by Clinton's enemies).

Thus, we got massive, saturation coverage on "stories" like the time Clinton supposedly held up air traffic so that he could get a haircut. That story got weeks of heavy coverage (and it was only later that it emerged that the incident, in fact, never happened at all, as the FAA later confirmed).

Virtually every critical story that ever appeared on Clinton, in fact, turned out to have no basis in reality. And yet, to this day, many Republicans are convinced that the most bizarre, outlandish tales about Clinton are true: that he had people murdered in Arkansas; that he had a hand in the death of Vince Foster; that he had a chance to capture Bin Laden and instead let him "get away."

Therefore it's quite frustrating for progressives these days to watch as Bush escapes responsibility for anything he's ever done, simply because the media refuses to hold him accountable for anything. Bush can lie through his teeth all day and he confidently and arrogantly knows he'll get away with it, because the media will never have the balls to challenge him.

So if you waiting for the media to fully examine the Rove/Plame case, and to tell the American people the truth about this story, don't hold your breath.

George W. Bush is No Conservative

By MANIFESTO JOE

The day before Iran held the first round of its presidential election, George W. Bush issued a statement basically calling the Iranian process a sham: this from a man whom the Supreme Court appointed to the presidency on rather zany legal grounds, and whose "re-election" was suspect, given the shenanigans in Ohio and other states.

Ostensibly, Bush was motivated by a desire to one day see U.S.-style democracy in Iran. One would have to read his mind to be sure.

The result: Iran's hard-liners exhorted Islamic fundamentalists to get to the polls; evidently, they went, and the reformers lost. Regime officials snidely thanked Bush repeatedly the day after the vote. It would appear that he helped ensure the life span of their theocracy.

This was one small example of this administration's moronic hubris -- but it was quintessential Bush. In campaign politics, he leads a charmed life. But in policy-making, he and his team have, time after time, shown virtually no circumspection.

Bush's lack of genuine compassion has long been documented, going back to when he was governor of Texas. He mocked a woman whom he refused to pardon from Death Row ("Please don't kill me," he said to an interviewer in a falsetto voice).

Now it is easy to conclude that he is not only a phony as a "compassionate conservative," but as any kind of conservative.

This is not to say that I am a fan of conservatives. I confess that, long ago, I was once one of them. Experience taught me their true intentions -- to rationalize and defend privilege, most of it unearned; and to dupe as many of the underprivileged as possible into thinking it's in their best interests to side with the winners.

Also, they tend to cite the longevity of human institutions as proof of their purity and soundness; tell that to the victims of pedophile Roman Catholic priests. The typical "thinking" conservative's professed dark view of human nature seems to turn into naive optimism when they encounter power and privilege. Their pessimism seems to apply only to the weak and destitute.

Conservatism is largely an ideology of opportunism. Historically, they have not been unwilling to use illegal force, ranging from CIA-engineered coups to union busting by company goons, to get their way. Their platitudes about the rule of law have a hollow ring.

But even if one really tries to regard conservatives as they would like to be seen, as those who strive to preserve what was best about our past -- it is clear that Bush is a right-wing radical, not a conservative. He has more in common with the hard-line Iranian mullahs whom he reviles than he will ever realize.

Would Winston Churchill have gone on supporting tax bonanzas for the rich in the middle of an expensive war? Would Senator Robert Taft have wanted to drag us into invading a country that had not attacked us, based on intelligence that sounded flimsy even before it was proved bogus? Would Barry Goldwater have approved of the most sweeping rollback of legal rights and protections in decades? Would Ronald Reagan have mined the harbors of Nicaragua? (Oh, yeah, he did do that! -- but then, one could argue that Reagan wasn't a true conservative, either.)

Russell Kirk, regarded as an intellectual founding father of the modern conservative movement in America, wrote an essay, The Essence of Conservatism, in 1957, in which he identified 10 chief principles of American conservative thought.

Among the principles, presented as quotes:

"Power is full of danger; therefore, the good state is one in which power is checked and balanced, restricted by sound constitutions and customs."

Packing the courts with extremist ideologues, defying a Congress controlled by his own party, bullying the media, running the executive branch with Nixonian secrecy -- the Bush-Cheney-Rove gang has ignored that admonition so many times, it is pointless to go on. Suffice it to say that, very early, one pundit dubbed them "The Mayberry Machiavellians."

"The past is a great storehouse of wisdom."

Did Vietnam, or the disastrous British occupation of Iraq after World War I, enter Bush's mind during the run-up to the war? He is reported to have majored in history at Yale, yet he has again and again displayed profound ignorance of it. As the poet George Santayana, a bona fide conservative, warned, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

"In the affairs of nations, the American conservative feels that his country ought to set an example to the world, but ought not to try to remake the world in its image."

Do the words "regime change" sound familiar? Has Gitmo set a good example for democracy wannabes?

"Change and reform, conservatives are convinced, are not identical; moral and political innovation can be destructive as well as beneficial."

The Bushies should have been told this when they set out to debase Social Security, America's most successful and venerable anti-poverty program, so as to furnish more lucre for Wall Street.

On several counts, Bush and his cohorts fail at what Kirk called essential principles of conservatism. They lack the respect for diversity -- the hallmark of a high civilization, as Kirk described it -- and the foresight, the wise caution, the mature judgment, that has characterized the best classic Burkean conservatives. Bush's consistent failure to learn from mistakes, or even admit them when they are obvious, is not prudent conservative governance.

His idea of conserving the environment is to punch holes in a fragile wildlife refuge; to invade and disastrously occupy a Third World country for its oil, so America can keep driving those gas-guzzling SUVs; and to reject an important treaty that other major world powers have signed on to. A true conservative would want his or her children to inherit a planet worth living on. But when it comes to the environment, this administration ignores sound science and apparently lets oil companies determine policy. Exactly what is being conserved? It's obvious -- profits.

Fortunately, as the screw-ups mount and the body count grows, the court of public opinion seems to be slowly turning against Bush. Real conservatives, or what's left of them, should be worried; Bush's simple-minded, Messianic right-wing radicalism could very well bring down their entire movement.

I pray, literally, that it does, and before this smug fool's second term ends.

If he were to leave office tomorrow, it would take America's so-called liberals decades to pay off some debts, salvage our infrastructure, curtail the putrification of our air and water, and somewhat restore our standing in the world community.

Since our "liberals" and "progressives" have long been, by the standards of Europe and elsewhere, establishment centrists, it shouldn't be much of a stretch for them to, ironically, serve as our country's de facto post-Bush conservatives. I hope they can save the best elements of our recent past.


Manifesto Joe is an underground writer living in Texas.

"Nixon's Enemies List" Alumnus Conyers Not Afraid of a Fight

By MARC MCDONALD

A funny thing happened on the way to the GOP completely consolidating its stranglehold on power in Washington: the Democrats finally re-discovered their backbone.

And if you want a Democrat who's not afraid of being intimidated by the powers that be, John Conyers is your man.

After all, Conyers has been standing up for truth, justice and the American way since he entered the House in 1964.

Like all crusaders for the truth, Conyers has long rankled the powerful and corrupt in America. For example, in 1971, Conyers was one of the 20 original names included on the Nixon's Enemies List, an infamous compilation of Nixon foes, put together by presidential chief counsel Charles Colson.

Ironically, the Washington Post was also included in the full version of the "Nixon's Enemies List." How times have changed.

These days, the Post has been cowed into silence in its refusal to cover the Watergate of our era: the Downing Street memo bombshell.

And, worse, the Post has the gall to belittle Conyers as he wages a lonely fight against long odds to investigate the Downing Street memo and bring the truth to the American people. So we get the likes of political correspondent Dana Milbank serving up a insult-filled, sarcastic critique of the recent Conyers-chaired hearing by Democrats into whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

I don't think we can expect the likes of the Washington Post to ever take the Downing Street memo seriously. After all, to do so would mean that the Post has been on the wrong side of history dating back to the early part of 2003, when the likes of the Post and the New York Times simply acted as cheerleaders for the war, instead of examining Bush's case for invading Iraq.

No doubt, the Post would rather see Conyers just fade away and once again become a below-the-radar, obscure member of Congress.

But something tells me that isn't going to happen. Whether other not the U.S. mainstream media gets on board, the Downing Street memo train has clearly left the station and is snowballing into the major news event of our era. The American people want to know the truth and if they can't get it from the mainstream media, they won't hesitate to get it from independent sites and bloggers on the Web.

Conyers and other brave voices in Congress are going to continue to pursue the truth on the Downing Street memo. And this effort has widespread public support: 560,000 Americans have thus far signed Conyer's petition that requests an official inquiry into questions that the memo raises.

To Learn What's Going On in America, Read the British Press

By MARC MCDONALD

Would you like to know what's happening in American politics and government these days? Then look to the British media.

Once upon a time, we Americans could count on depending on our nation's press to keep us informed about what was happening in our country. But those days are over. In fact, since George W. Bush first took office, if you'd limited yourself to reading the U.S. press, then you would have missed many of the biggest stories of our time.

Take the story of the 2000 presidential election and how it was stolen by the GOP. This major story got virtually zero coverage in the U.S. media. Working in the British media, American journalist Greg Palast did some wonderful, hard-hitting, investigative reporting on the election theft. But there was only one problem.

As Palast pointed out in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, his 2003 book:

"In the USA, it ran on page zero--the story was simply not covered in American newspapers. The theft of the presidential race in Florida also grabbed big television coverage. But again, it was the wrong continent: on BBC Television, broadcasting from London worldwide---everywhere, that is, but the USA."

In retrospect, it shouldn't really be surprising that the U.S. media has ignored the Downing Street Memo story. Or that we Americans are having to look to the British press (the London Times in this instance) to find out what's going on in our own country.

The fact is, that the U.S. media has snoozed through all the important stories of the Bush administration. If important stories weren't picked up by the bloggers (like the Jeff Gannon bombshell) or the European press, then, they simply have not been covered at all.

And what "news" the U.S. media has reported has in many cases turned out to be flawed, or flat-out wrong. Take the Jessica Lynch fairy tale, for example. The U.S. media swallowed the Pentagon's version of this story whole and it wasn't until the BBC took a look that Americans learned the truth.

Far more seriously, the U.S. media, far from serving in a watchdog role, has actively worked to provide crucial support to the Bush Administration.

Recall how, in the buildup to the Iraqi war, the U.S. media did little more than stand on the sidelines, acting as a cheerleader, instead of investigating Bush's claims about the WMD issue.

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.

Why is it that we Americans can't be reliably informed by our nation's own media?

Palast himself has an interesting observation to make about this problem. He notes that Britain's Guardian and Observer newspapers are the world's only major newspapers owned by a not-for-profit corporation. He notes:

"If the Rupert Murdochs of the globe are shepherds of the New World Order, they owe their success to breeding a flock of docile sheep---snoozy editors and reporters content to munch on, digest, then reprint a diet of press releases and canned stories provided by government and corporate public-relations operations."

U.S. Media Unable to Bury Downing Street Memo Story

By MARC MCDONALD

Despite determined efforts, the U.S. mainstream media has failed in its bid to bury the snowballing Downing Street Memo story.

The U.S. mainstream media has long been careful to treat the Bush Administration with kid gloves. Any stories that could be potentially harmful to Bush have been carefully quashed, from the Bush/cocaine story, all the way up to the Jeff Gannon bombshell.

This pro-GOP bias is, of course, nothing new in the corporate media. I mean, how many people recall that it was not the U.S. media that broke the story of 1985 Iran-Contra affair, but rather a Lebanese magazine, Ash-Shiraa?

Similarly, it was overseas media that broke the Downing Street Memo story. The story, which created a firestorm of controversy in Europe, has been pretty much ignored by the U.S. press.

But there's a silver lining to this story. A funny thing happened on the way to the U.S. media giving this story the kiss of death and carefully burying it deep inside the paper.

As it turns out, the Downing Street Memo story has legs. And, even with the mainstream media doing its utmost to kill the story, Downing Street continues to pick up steam. The mainstream press continues to try to convince us all that the "real news" is what happened today in the Michael Jackson trial---and is finding out that nobody cares.

The thousands of independent voices on the Web and an army of progressive bloggers is working to make sure Downing Street gets the light of day that it deserves.

As recently as 10 years ago, the U.S. press could have successfully buried a story like this. But today's news is no longer determined by what an editorial meeting at The New York Times deems worthy enough of including on Page One.

Increasingly, the mainstream U.S. press is facing the prospect of becoming irrelevant. After all, Big Media no longer gets to decide what today's most important stories are. Today, stories can become huge and get widespread exposure----and yet be completely ignored by the mainstream press.

The maintream media, in fact, is in perhaps the biggest crisis in its history. Its credibility is in tatters (as evidenced by a recent poll that shows that Americans, by a 3-to-1 majority) do not trust the press.

In the pre-Internet age, if Americans were fed up with what the media was serving them, alternatives were non-existent. Today, though, there are a gigantic number of alternative voices out there in cyberspace. If The New York Times or the Washington Post can no longer be relied upon to cover an important story, then the likes of the London Times or the Manchester Guardian are simply a click away on the Web.

The era of Big Media is clearly over in the U.S. For a start, the mainstream media's business is in a fiscal crisis these days. Circulation figures are plummeting for the nation's top newspapers. And ratings for the likes of CNN and Fox are in freefall.

It's clear that Big Media brought its current crisis upon itself. The corporate mainstream press has been cutting budgets for news gathering operations for years. Increasingly, Big Media has relied on cheap-and-easy-to-cover sleaze and sensationalism to fill its pages. But the American public is no longer buying it.