Wednesday, March 31, 2004
( 1:57 PM )
Oops
The Pentagon's Papers have been found at Starbucks. The Center for American Progress managed to get ahold of them:
Commissioner Richard Ben Veniste [quipped]
that "Condi Rice has appeared everywhere but at
my local Starbucks."
Well, others in the Bush administration did,
apparently, make an appearance at the local
Starbucks. And as the Washington Post reports
today, one of them - obviously readying himself
to prep Defense Secretary Rumsfeld - left his notes
on the table. Talking points, hand-written notes on
spin tactics that reveal the White House was
worried about former Bush adviser Richard Clarke's
charges, and a hand-drawn map to the Secretary's
house were found by a resident of DuPont Circle,
who made them available to the Center for American
Progress. The name of said resident is being withheld
at his request, as he fears that he may be accused
on national television of being "disgruntled."
The WaPo comments on the incident, noting that CAP appears to be having too much fun with this information. And why shouldn't they? And the guy who left the papers behind? Poor Eric, probably being outsourced as we speak.
(thanks to Maru for the heads up)
( 1:15 PM )
Head - Sand?
Not sure if you caught it, but on March 24 - last Wednesday, it was reported that the US had received credible threats that oil refineries, especially in Texas, may be targeted by terrorists. Did you happen to notice that yesterday the third largest oil refinery in this country exploded? But rest assured, they are certain there was no "outside influence" causing the blast:
BP (BP.L) said there was no sign of "any outside
influence" in the blast and fire, which came days after
the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Texas
oil refiners of possible terror attacks ahead of elections
in November.
The cause of the fire, which began with an explosion in
the gasoline-producing unit at the 447,000 barrel-per-day
(bpd) refinery in Texas City, Texas, was not known, but it
did not appear to have been started intentionally, BP said.
Actually, where you'll probably hear this news is not in conjunction with terrorist threats and the very scary state of actual security in this country around any number of very scary targets - where you'll probably hear it is in the financial section. Because OPEC today decided to cut production, and with our third-largest refinery off line, that means all those poor folks with their Hummers are gonna be really sad this summer. And of course, we all live to make Hummer owners happy. Wasn't that the American dream?
( 12:36 PM )
600
Five more soldiers were killed in Iraq, crowning this month as the second deadliest month there since Bush declared victory last May 1.
Today marks 600 American soldiers dead in Iraq, according to CNN. Four civilian contractors were killed and their bodies brutalized today as well:
Cheering residents in Fallujah pulled charred bodies
from burning vehicles and hung them from a
Euphrates River bridge.
Crowds gathered around the vehicles and dragged
at least one of the bodies through the streets,
witnesses said.
Residents pulled another body from one of the
cars and beat it with sticks.
Also in the Fallujah region, five American soldiers
died in a roadside bombing near Habbaniya, the
U.S. military said.
The fatalities bring the U.S. military death toll in
Iraq to 600, 408 of them in hostile action.
This is a horrible, terrible, awful day. Just like every day has been for the soldiers and workers in Iraq since Bush lied to us and to the UN and forced us into an invasion, war and occupation that should never have happened.
And yet the DOD secretly marches towards restarting the draft.
When will this country wake up?
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
( 3:32 PM )
Hold Breath. Plunge.
Well I did it. We did it. We made the decision that come hell or high water, I will go to grad school starting this June. I was initially accepted here for a Masters in Teaching program 2 years ago. Then I had a baby. Then my husband got laid off and I had to go back to work full time. They deferred me twice, but I didn't think my luck would hold out much longer (not to mention how drained I am from working in the soul-sucking cubicle atmosphere of corporate law firms the last 13 years of my life). So we summoned up all our courage to face a full year of no secure income, no secure health care, Mama up to her eyeballs studying and participating in group work and interning as a high school teacher and Daddy maybe no finding work and Baby turning 2 years old and ... well, you get the picture. But we figured probably if not now, never. So we're going into debt, I've applied for scholarships, we're scraping and saving and we're hoping that I will prove to be as good as I said I was in my application so that in a year or so I will begin a new incarnation as Mama The High School Teacher, imbuing high-risk students with the idea that the can actually make it in life, becoming a full fledged terrorist as part of a teacher's union, and getting really cool vacation hours. We shall see. First step taken.
( 1:35 PM )
Atrocities in Portland
Once again, in less than a year, a little north of my neighborhood, a Portland police officer has shot and killed an unarmed African American at a traffic stop.
Police said the motorist refused to produce a driver's
license or get out of the car once he was pulled over
for failing to signal a turn in North Portland.
North Precinct Officer Jason Sery, 29, shot James
Jahar Perez three times in the chest with a 9 mm
handgun, police said. Sery fired after his partner, North
Precinct Officer Sean Macomber, 30, had grabbed
Perez's arm and was trying to remove him from the
front seat of a four-door car, according to a preliminary
police investigation.
Once again, police used deadly force at a traffic stop. Okay, the guy didn't have his drivers license. Okay, maybe he was refusing to cooperate. They pulled him over for supposedly "failing to signal a turn." More likely, he was pulled over for DWB (driving while black). This shooting comes less than a year after a Portland cop shot and killed 21-year old, mother of 2, Kendra James at a traffic stop in the same neighborhood. She wasn't armed either.
A call has been made, by even Portland's mayor, Vera Katz, to have a public investigation into the matter, and not a secret grand jury hearing, as was done in Kendra James' shooting. As our Beloved B!x reports, of course the police union is totally against a public inquiry.
What is going ON?!?!?! Our neighbor called the cops the other night when, at midnight, cars were screeching down our back alley, crashing into each other. This was both disturbing the neighborhood peace and causing possible danger for residents. The cops didn't come. She called again. They finally came. Too late to do anything. Yet, here once again, they use deadly force at a traffic stop. I just don't get it. What are their priorities as cops? I was willing to listen to their side of the story when the inquiry into Kendra James' shooting took place. I have to admit that I am not so willing to listen or believe anything the cops say about this incident.
We have a new police chief, not in small part due to the handling of the Kendra James case last year. But having a new chief hasn't seemed to change the general behavior of the cops. The two involved in the shooting of Mr. Perez are under 30 years old, though the bureau says they are "5-year veterans." So that means they've been carrying guns and doing police stuff since they were 25. I'm sorry, that doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence in their ability to maturely handle tough situations.
We just had a huge investigation by a local weekly about our police's over-zealous use of tazers. Evidently, a tazer was used in this situation. The guy was pulled over for not signalling, for godsake! Even if he was resisting cooperating, even if he didn't have his driver's license on him - what in heaven's name could have provoked shooting him to death?
I am heartbroken for his family, for my neighborhood, and for my city. If the cops aren't getting trained in how to handle situations like traffic stops without deadly force, even when they may escalate into confrontations, then what good are they as peace officers? It's getting harder and harder for me to want to tell my kid that cops are there to help us.
( 1:10 PM )
Air America Comes to Portland
Jeff at Notes on the Atrocities gives us the rundown on who of our favorite bloggers we can expect to hear on our newly minted liberal radio station (here in Portland, still owned by Clear Channel - go figure). Here in Portland, it will start with Al Franken's new show at 9:00 a.m. on 620AM. I'll be at work, so if you hear it, let me know what it was like.
Check out the new schedule.
( 1:05 PM )
Condi, Condi, Condi
Condi's new hairdo. And a rendition of how the decision to let her testify must have taken place:
Clearly, because the president doesn't need polls or
focus groups to tell him how to make up his mind,
here's what must have unfolded during the past
week: The president and his top advisers spent hours
discussing various theories of the constitutional
separation of powers, examining the precedents,
and generally ruminating on the significance and
standards for claiming executive privilege, both for
the immediate as well as long term. They brought
constitutional scholars to Crawford as the president
vacationed, and in long, tedious sessions weighed
the merits of the various and competing theories
related to the separation of powers, never for a
moment averting their eyes from the broader goal
of preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution.
When they came out on the other side, this always-
humble, self-effacing Administration arrived at a reasoned,
measured, high-minded conclusion that, in order to
uphold the country's highest principles, their initial
resistance to allowing Rice to testify in public and under
oath was bad for the country and our Constitution,
and reversed their position accordingly.
As if.
( 12:49 PM )
One of Our Own
Daily Kos broke the news that a favorite guest blogger, Meteor Blades, nearly died last week from a pulmonary embollism. Here is Meteor Blades' diary about his experience. Despite everyone's desire to send him gifts, etc., he asked for none. But go over and wish him well. The internet is huge, but our blogosphere is small, and when one of our own is down, we need to let him know we miss him.
Friday, March 26, 2004
( 1:20 PM )
Poetry Friday: Haiku Letters
To George W. Bush:
On your work to prevent terror attacks pre-9/11:
Too bad you did not
Know we could be badly hurt
But wait, you did know
On your video shown of you goofing about looking for wmd:
You must be pleased that
Dead soldiers can't hear you laugh
About why they died
On your general demeanor as President:
You pretend that you
Are a sweet country boy but
You are a bully
To Condoleeza Rice:
You fling your words like
Drunken clowns dodging bulls but
Distracting no one
To Dick Cheney:
Do you not speak the
Truth, because you don't want to
Strain your heart too much?
To Justice Scalia:
Profound good shines through
When great men defend the truth;
You'd rather hunt ducks
To Richard Clarke:
Profound good shines through
When great men defend the truth;
Thank goodness for you
( 6:28 AM )
Fiction ...or Policy?
...For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.
...
Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by restricting the output of goods... The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the [people in the] world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
( 4:46 PM )
What Are They Thinking??!
NPR has taken Bob Edwards off of Morning Edition. He has been an NPR host for 30 years, and next year would have been his 25th anniversary as Morning Edition host. The website offers no explanation other than he is being replaced. However his letter gives a little more information:
I want to take this opportunity to assure you all that
I will be here at NPR for the long haul. And while this
transition will be difficult for me -- I am leaving a post
that I have loved and have given my heart to -- I look
forward to continuing to be a significant part of NPR
and the amazing program lineup.
MSNBC is more blunt. They explain that Bob has been "forced out" of his job.
Spokeswoman Laura Gross said NPR’s programming
and news management made the change because
they’re trying to refresh all of the network’s broadcasts.
“It’s part of a natural evolution,” she said. “A new
host will bring new ideas and perspectives to the
show. Bob’s voice will still be heard; he’ll still be a
tremendous influence on the show. We just felt it
was time for a change.”
Sure, it makes sense to cut off the most popular host of an NPR program in its history, beloved by all his listeners, and a major reason why most of us listen in the morning. It's very disturbing. And incredibly disappointing.
( 2:23 PM )
In OTHER News...
No one's paying attention (yet), but how about this little tidbit from our former Calpundit about the Republican Hammer:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has begun
quiet discussions with a handful of colleagues about the
possibility that he will have to step down from his
leadership post temporarily if he is indicted by a Texas
grand jury investigating alleged campaign
finance abuses.
...Republican Conference rules state that a member
of the elected leadership who has been indicted on
a felony carrying a penalty of at least two years in
prison must temporarily step down from the post.
But back to the Scandalously Horrible Bush Administration - On the 9/11 Hearings Front:
Billmon discusses the Fox News intervention into the Hearings yesterday. It wasn't the White House that leaked that memo, it was Fox News that leaked it back to the White House to help them out:
But even by Fox News standards -- i.e. what they
think they can get away with -- this is remarkable.
In extremis, the VRWC has pulled out all the stops,
dropping even the faintest pretense that Fox has
any journalistic agenda, or even commercial
agenda, that outranks its role as a semi-covert
wing of the Republican Party propaganda machine.
Voice of a Veteran puts it this way:
The stupidity of Fox's attempt to help their man
out in the White House - the Commander-in-Chief
of Flip-Flops - was compounded by the fact that
they forgot who their intended target was: Did
they really think they would catch a former Chief
of Counterterrorism off guard? It was a laughable
and disgusting display by FOX who should issue
an apology to the Commission and to the public.
I am not holding my breath.
Josh Marshall deconstruct's Condi's claims to immunity from testimony. Even though there is a long history of presidential aids, and even National Secuirty Advisors, testifying under oath, evidently, there is precedent for her claim that she can refuse. Four out of the five cases where presidential aides refused to testify were from the Nixon White House. Shocker.
Digby notes that the Bush counterstrikes are about to get personal on Clarke.
And Hesiod makes a HUGE catch out of the hearings yesterday - there were actual recordings of the meetings about terrorism!
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
( 3:46 PM )
Excited Again
As you may or may not have noticed, my excitement about activism specifically for a political candidate retreated markedly after Dean left the presidential race. I'm not interested much in working for Kerry. I'm still waiting to see what his new national organization is going to offer, and I'm still in regular touch with my Dean buddies here in Portland. But today I got excited about working for a candidate again. This time it's for Portland's mayoral race. Only my Portland readers will probably be interested in this, but it's a great underdog-who-can-really-change-things story.
I'm going to campaign for Tom Potter for Portland Mayor. There are a lot of things I still have to learn about Tom and his campaign, but there are a few very important things that made me decide early on that he is my candidate. Our mayoral primary is on May 18. Most likely it will be a run-off election. Tom's main opponent, Jim Fransesconi, while a democrat and veteran Portland politico, is in my opinion in the pocket of all the business interests of this city and has not made very many good choices in the last few months in his role as a Portland City Commissioner.
Tom Potter is a former police chief and is still beloved by both the rank and file members of the force and by the community in which he worked. He is known for his social and community awareness and his work with various causes in Portland. He is also known for taking courageous stands. Good examples of this courage are his outspoken stance in support of civil rights and equality in marriage, and also his campaign promise not to accept any donation over $25 from an individual donor. This last thing is huge. He is determined that if he will win, it will be because he represents the issues and the people - not because he can win 650,000 votes with $1 million.
But there is one key difference: Francesconi, a six-year
city commissioner, is well on his way to being the first
million-dollar candidate in the history of Portland city
government--an eye-popping distinction that is causing
a mixture of astonishment and revulsion even among
his fellow commissioners at City Hall. For many, he
has become the poster child for campaign-finance reform.
In Potter, meanwhile, we have what voters say they
want: a qualified candidate who can't be bought.
[...]
Potter, for his part, thinks this race is proof that
something is wrong: "Something has changed in
our society where money has become the driving
issue for candidates, instead of their qualifications
to hold office."
[...]
Others, however, think Francesconi has done favors
for contributors. His campaign reports are rife with
contributions from prominent members of the
influential Portland Business Alliance--such as
$10,000 from real-estate investor Melvin "Pete"
Mark. That's why the commissioner's opposition in
January 2003 to a resolution against the invasion
of Iraq raised so many eyebrows. In explaining
his position at a council meeting, Francesconi
repeated almost word for word the text of a letter
he'd received from the PBA opposing the resolution
--this just days after he'd joined in a march to
protest the invasion.
So this is just my notice that Tom Potter is my new candidate and I will be doing everything I can to get him elected. To my local readers, I encourage you to check him out. We need change in this town as much as this country needs it. It's time that our mayor was more interested in the communities, neighborhoods and people of Portland more than being interested in big business and developing us out of existence. Vote Tom Potter for Mayor!
( 11:12 AM )
It's No Wonder...
...Richard Clarke couldn't work in the Bush Administration. He's an adult:
Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting
you failed you. I failed you. We tried hard, but we failed you
...I ask for your understanding, and your forgiveness.
--Richard Clarke's opening statement to the 9/11 Commission.
Imagine. Acknowledging responsibility and apologizing. It's enough to make a Mama believe there's hope for this country yet... until I remember this is the guy that had to quit.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
( 4:48 PM )
Memory Revisions
The way the Bush people are backpedalling these days, it's a wonder they don't just moonwalk everywhere. It's hard to know where to start with a discussion on all the crap that is coming out of their mouths this week. But in total, it reminds me of the much used allegory of "1984." I am actually reading this book for the first time right now (I never did read it in school). It's hard not to draw the conclusions that everyone does about this administration and its eerily similarity to Big Brother's Government. With the Ministry of Truth being the main issue this week. In the book, the main character's job is to go back and alter historical records (newspapers, books, etc) to reflect the current Party line. The theory being, if it isn't written down, it didn't really happen. The Party believes if you repeat something enough as being not true, the actual memory gives way to the "altered" memory.
The tap dancing being done by Scott McClellan, Condoleeza Rice and even the President this week makes me think that they believe they can alter true memory and actually tell us something and we'll forget what actually happened. The press so far has done a good job of going along with this plan, but cracks are starting to show this week, since Richard Clarke's testimony is simply too big an elephant in the room to be ignored.
So of the several excuses that have been given in response to Clarke this week, I can't find one that doesn't make the administration look totally stupid.
1. Richard Clarke was "out of the loop." - Dick Cheney said this on his ridiculous emergency interview with Rush Limbaugh yesterday (the fact that Cheney went on Limbaugh and not regular television is another issue). So why did they keep him as Counterterrorism Coordinator and then put him out of the "loop?" That smacks of incompetence at the very least and stupidity at the most.
2. Richard Clarke is a disgruntled former employee who is politically motivated. - He worked for 30 years and for four different administrations, and he even stayed on 3 years with the BushII admin while things got frustratingly worse. He is known to be incredibly hawkish, even sharing opinions with the likes of Richard Perle. He has no role or offered role with the Kerry team, and he has never professed to be a democrat.
The administration seems to have a problem with hiring so many of these potentially disgruntled whistleblowers. Josh Marshall puts it best:
It's amazing how many partisan Democrats and
disgruntled former employees working under cover
as career civil servants, spies and military officers
have betrayed this president. It just seems to happen
again and again and again. I mean, just think of the
list: Rand Beers, well-known partisan Democrat and
hack, Richard Clarke, self-promoter, disgruntled former
employee, and "self-regarding buffoon", Karen
Kwiatkowski, conspiracy theorist and all-around freak,
Valerie Plame, hack and nepotist, Joe Wilson, partisan
hack, self-promoter and shameless green tea lover.
When will the abuse end?
Josh left out Paul O'Neill - another abusive former employee. This poor, poor administration, how they have been victimized!
3. Finally, yesterday, the administration thought they could level this argument against Clarke: his resignation letter mentions some appreciation for the president. Thus, he is a lying flip-flopper who doesn't stick to his story. Again Josh Marshall:
Spin and push-back is a delicate art. Used indiscriminately
it can show how weak your real case must be.
Case in point. This afternoon the White House released
Richard Clarke's resignation letter from January 2003,
arguing that boilerplate praise for the president
contained in the letter shows that Clarke has
flipflopped and is thus a hypocrite.
Here's the phrase that they're highlighting: "It has
been an enormous privilege to serve you these last
24 months ... I will always remember the courage,
determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated
on September 11th."
The best they can do.
Lame. That's what they are. No, worse than lame. Lying bastards and cheaters. Condoleeza Rice does not testify in public hearings because she does not want to risk being prosecuted at a later time for lying under oath. There is nothing they can do but tread water on this stuff. They came into office with a set agenda. It was all Iraq, all missle defense. Who of us doesn't remember this? We got our first taste of how inadequately they were addressing current world issues when in May 2001, one of our planes was shot down in China. They had no resources with which to deal with the issue - not even a China desk in intelligence to brief them immediately. They were woefully unprepared for dealing with the current international crisis issues, and they didn't care.
Let me just say one other thing about the hearings this morning. I heard part of Tenet's testimony, and once again he went down the path of "oh, woe is the CIA because we didn't have the resources because CONGRESS made us cut our budget and operations after the Church hearings." I'm sorry. If the reason 9/11 happened was because the CIA didn't conduct more operations, then it's not Congress' fault, it is squarely the fault of the CIA. They abused their power and resources in the 1960's and 1970's. If they hadn't done that, if they hadn't misused, abused, misled and even killed American citizens, then they wouldn't have had to face the Church Commission, and they wouldn't have had to deal with the consequences.
I find a similar pattern now starting to backwash onto Bush and his cold-war cronies. They were the ones who committed the wrongs and who committed the ommissions. Yes, there were significant problems with the FBI (SIGNIFICANT) not passing on domestic intelligence and coordinating with the CIA, but the administration must bear the brunt of its actions - the fact that they were wholly focused on Iraq and even AFTER 9/11, only used that event to further their original goals instead of totally shifting their policies to address the true issues, then we would be safer now. But we're not. And we won't be until the whole truth comes out and until these people leave Washington.
And now they're trying to tell us that they never did this, that they never did that - they are trying to revise our memories and pretend they didn't say things, that they didn't purposely lead Americans to believe things, that they didn't respond in horrendous ways to 9/11. But the difference between our current reality and 1984 is that we do have the proof that they lied, we do have the proof that they continue to lie, and we do have the ability to make that truth more powerful than whatever lies they use to try to adjust history. This administration has done NOTHING that has helped this country. I can't think of one thing. Hopefully the voting American public in November won't be able to either.
UPDATE: Pictures say 1000 words - nothing like a political cartoon to put it in concise perspective.
Monday, March 22, 2004
( 2:44 PM )
Hey, That Was MY Idea!
Kos (correctly pronounced "Kose" - as in the last syllable of Markos, as said SuperBlogger informed us all a short while ago) has posted today that he thinks Kerry should come up with a shadow cabinet. Hey, didn't I just say that?
Great minds fighting the same evil enemy tend to come up with similar brilliant ideas. ...Mama's Corollary No. 32 to the Laws of Fighting Evil.
( 12:09 PM )
Now for the REALLY Important News
The Save Angel Campaign got national coverage today. Quality television must be defended! Go Angel Savers!
( 11:08 AM )
MORE Damning Evidence
In case you're looking for independent confirmation outside of Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill (and the 30 other people that have said so) that the Bush administration totally screwed up, the Center for American Progress has compiled a list of government documents that prove the Bush people ignored, procrastinated and then manipulated the terrorism threat on this country.
But the real story is far different, as the following
internal Department of Justice (DoJ) documents
obtained by the Center for American Progress
demonstrate. The Bush Administration actually
reversed the Clinton Administration's strong
emphasis on counterterrorism and counterintelligence.
Attorney General John Ashcroft not only moved
aggressively to reduce DoJ's anti-terrorist budget
but also shift DoJ's mission in spirit to emphasize
its role as a domestic police force and anti-drug
force. These changes in mission were just as critical
as the budget changes, with Ashcroft, in effect,
guiding the day to day decisions made by field
officers and agents. And all of this while the
Administration was receiving repeated warnings
about potential terrorist attacks.
How much more of this can they just brush aside?
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal has decided, two years later, to actually pay attenion.
( 10:24 AM )
Talk of the Day
Everybody's buzzing about Richard Clarke's revelations last night on 60 Minutes. It was a damning report, made more so by the fact, in my opinion, that 60 Minutes went so far as to get independent confirmation of things that Clarke said.
The attack dogs are already out - and I expect Mr. Clarke knows he will receive the "dirty traitor" treatment forthwith. There is a lot of good commentary around the blogosphere today on this. But one of the best comments, which I think sums up the major part of this scandal is from Josh Marshall (he's continuing to update the subject, so have a look at his whole blog).
The first months of the Bush administration were
based on a fundamental strategic miscalcuation
about the source of the greatest threats to the
United States. They were, as Clark suggests, stuck
in a Cold War mindset, focused on Cold War problems,
though the terms of debate were superficially
reordered to make them appear to address a post-
Cold War world.
That screw up is a reality -- their inability to come
clean about it is, I suspect, is at the root of all the
covering up and stonewalling of the 9/11 commission.
And Democrats are both right and within their rights
to call the White House on it. But screw-ups happen;
mistakes happen. What is inexcusable is the inability,
indeed the refusal, to learn from them.
Rather than adjust to this different reality, on
September 12th, the Bush war cabinet set about
using 9/11 -- exploiting it, really -- to advance an
agenda which had, in fact, been largely discredited
by 9/11. They shoe-horned everything they'd
been trying to do before the attacks into the new boots
of 9/11. And the fit was so bad they had to deceive
the public and themselves to do it.
As the international relations expert John Ikenberry
noted aptly in a recent essay, the Bush hardliners "fancy
themselves tough-minded thinkers. But they didn't have
the courage of their convictions to level with the American
people on what this geopolitical adventure in Iraq was
really about and what it would cost."
To revert again to paraphrases of Talleyrandian wisdom,
this was worse than a crime. It was a mistake -- though
I suspect that when the full story is told, we'll see that
it was both.
This administration entered office with an agenda. Instead of adjusting to the changing times, it instead used the events of our day to prop up it's tired old agenda. And the cost has been lives of America soldiers, trust of America's allies, and the security of American citizens. No matter what fancy steps the Bush people and conservative pundits dance to try and make this go away, none of it can wipe out the truth. It is not going to get better for them. We can't let them sweep this under the rug. The evidence only mounts, from different sources, that this administration has done nothing but bugger us all. The ultimate accountability will be at the ballot box in November. It just sucks it has to wait that long. These people deserve not another day in office.
UPDATE: Billmon has an excellent piece on Clarke. Here's a taste:
Now maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I find this rather
remarkable. Clarke is a SES man -- Senior Executive
Service, the top tier of the career civil service -- and one
who has served seven presidents, five of them Republicans.
I can't recall any previous examples of a career
executive of Clarke's rank and caliber going so publicly
ballistic on a sitting president.
( 10:08 AM )
Portland Turns Out For Peace
The turn out on Saturday was fantastic. The streets were filled with thousands of demonstrators. I was very proud to be there with my family and to be amongst thousands of people who felt that it was important to have their say publicly that this government has harmed Americans and we are committed to getting it out of office. Hope you had a good peace rally in your neck of the woods.
Friday, March 19, 2004
( 2:54 PM )
Be a Witness
Just a reminder. Go out tomorrow to your local Peace Rally and be a witness for peace and sanity in your community. You owe it to yourself and to humanity. It's our job to take democracy back into our own hands, and it's our right not to do that quietly. Go. Demonstrate. Now.
( 2:38 PM )
Mama Faces the New Momism
TIME Magazine's new cover story is titled "The Case for Staying Home." Of course, I'm not a subscriber, so I can't get the article online right now. But I can pretty much guess the entire text of the story. It most likely goes right along with that Today Show report I saw the other day before I ran off to catch my bus for work. It's more of the Same Thing - Moms are checking out of high powered careers because staying home with the kids is just so much more fulfilling. Keeping with the trend of cornering Moms into a black or white definition, a side article proclaims that most working moms go to work not because they want to, but because they have to.
Oh, and the additional sidebar from a dad's perspective? All about how dads want to stay home too, how dads are fantastic caregivers and yet face continued discrimination when they are the ones who stay home with their kids, about dads who give up the career to be with the kids? Nope, it's about how dissappointed men are that technology hasn't made it easier for mothers to come home from work and take care of the kids and dinner. What happened to all those time-saving devices? AAAARRRGGHH!
The stupid article about how hard it is for dads who have to decide whether to check their email in the evening or not aside, and going back to that previous argument that most moms work because they have to.... I would venture to guess that most moms AND dads work because they have to. Our country has become a consumer nation that operates at the whim of the corporate giant - and there is hardly a place in the country where a working class, or even middle class family can live on one income. And forget about both parents being able to raise the kids together!
But again, this answer is too simple and fits into the pat stereotypes we can always assign to parents. I work because I have to at a job I don't much like. But if I had the job I wanted? (Drumroll....) I'd still work. I'd still have to work, but I'd also want to work. Does that mean I don't love my child enough? My husband, stay at home dad extraordinaire, would like to work in his chosen career. He can't now because his chosen career doesn't have any jobs. If it did, he might work there because he wants to (and a little because he might have to), but that doesn't mean he would be any less a "fulltime" parent than he is now.
Leaving aside the discrimination that stay at home dads face (well documented by Rebel Dad and experienced with humor daily by Laid Off Dad), I want to talk about this new "Momism." There is an incredible backlash going on for women who become mothers in this day and age. One thread of that backlash is the media-hyped "conflict" between stay at home moms and "working" moms. The battle heats up everytime a new study comes out that says kids are more stupid if they're not breastfed, or kids are more agressive if they go to daycare. Moms are expected to be the same perfect wife and mother they were back in the 50's, except now that is on top of being a self-actualized, assertive, career-minded, independent woman who is in charge of her own destiny and can not only make it in a man's world but can rule the man's world. And if we aren't all like that? Well, pit us against each other! If we can't have wet t-shirt contests, let's see the moms battle it out!! The patriarchal mysoginistic context of our society just grates on my nerves. But anyway...
I get so steamed that the popular culture and the media seem to think it's their business (and they always have) to tell us how to be "good" mothers and what we're always doing wrong. They emphasize the point with interviews in magazines with supermodels and actress moms saying "I just love it when the baby wakes me up in the middle of the night to eat, it's so fulfilling!" Of course, women who live in more conservative environments are hit over the head constantly with a neverending stream of declarations about being good, Christian mothers and staying in their places. (Trust me, I grew up in that world, and was preached at from the moment of puberty on what my role should be as a woman).
How do we fight back? How do we let go of this pressure that comes from all sides, shed the image of perfection and simply be not only ourselves, but the kind of moms we want to be, not the kind of moms everyone tells us we should be? I think the first step is to understand where all the crap is coming from that keeps hitting us from every direction. The second step is to see each other, to celebrate our differences and to support each other as fellow human-mamas, no matter what our mama-choices are.
Trying to accomplish the first step, today I started reading "The Mommy Myth," a new book out by Susan J. Douglas. It tackles the pressures put on us to be all-or-nothing women, and the counter-pressure that is trying to (not so subtely) reverse the positive affects of feminism over the last 30 years.
Now, if you were a "good" mom, you'd joyfully empty the
shopping bags and transform the process of putting the
groceries away into a fun game your kids love to play
(upbeat Raffi songs would provide a lilting soundtrack).
Then, while you steamed the broccoli and poached the
chicken breasts in Vouvray and Evian water, you and the
kids would also be doing jigsaw puzzles in the shape of
the United Arab Emirates so they learned some geography.
Your cheerful teenager would say, "Gee, Mom, you gave
me the best advice on that last homework assignment."
When your husband arrives, he is so overcome with
admiration for how well you do it all that he looks lovingly
into your eyes, kisses you, and presents you with a
diamond anniversary bracelet. He then announces that
he has gone on flex time for the next two years so that
he can split childcare duties with you fifty-fifty. The
children, chattering away happily, help set the table,
and then eat their broccoli. After dinner, you all go out
and stencil the driveway with autumn leaves.
Even when we know we wouldn't be like that anyway, there's always that tugging in the back of our minds that that is what we should at least be trying for. And why? Whatever said that was the image of a "good" mother? Why, people who aren't mothers, of course. The onslaught is neverending.
From the moment we get up until the moment we collapse
in bed at night, the media are out there, calling to us,
yelling, "Hey you! Yeah, you! Are you really raising your
kids right?" Whether it's the cover of Redbook or Parents
demanding "Are You a Sensitive Mother?" "Is Your Child
Eating Enough?" "Is Your Baby Normal?" (and exhorting
us to enter its pages and have great sex at 25, 35, or 85),
the nightly news warning us about missing children, a
movie trailer hyping a film about a cross-dressing dad
who's way more fun than his stinky, careerist wife (Mrs.
Doubtfire), or Dr. Laura telling some poor mother who
works four hours a week that she's neglectful, the siren
song blending seduction and accusation is there all
the time. Mothers are subjected to an onslaught of
beatific imagery, romantic fantasies, self-righteous
sermons, psychological warnings, terrifying movies about
losing their children, even more terrifying news stories
about abducted and abused children, and totally
unrealistic advice about how to be the most perfect and
revered mom in the neighborhood, maybe even in the
whole country. (Even Working Mother (which should
have known better) had a "Working Mother of the Year
Contest." When Jill Kirschenbaum became the editor in
2001, one of the first things she did was dump this feature,
noting that motherhood should not be a "competitive
sport.") We are urged to be fun-loving, spontaneous, and
relaxed, yet, at the same time, scared out of our minds
that our kids could be killed at any moment. No wonder
81 percent of women in a recent poll said it's harder to be
a mother now than it was twenty or thirty years ago, and
56 percent felt mothers were doing a worse job today
than mothers back then.
As I get into this book, I'm going to provide regular "book reports" and my thoughts on what I read and what I learn. I'm not even to my mid-30's yet, and yet I already feel the weight of motherhood and family often clashing with my own sense of identity and destiny - and no one really wants to help me find a way to balance them -- or even acknowledge that there IS no perfect balance and that whatever choice I make is a good choice because it's my choice - nope, all anyone really wants to do is tell me that if I think I can have it all, I'm sorely mistaken, and if I don't want it all, then I'm a loser.
There must be a mama-middle-ground. There must be a place where mamas who work in offices, mama's who teach at home, mama's who never gave birth, mama's who can no longer hug the ones they gave birth to, and mama's who aren't mamas at all, but are daddies, can go where the aura of acceptance is stronger than the distinct oppression of dissapproval that hovers about us every day. I aim to find that place.
( 12:44 PM )
From The "Doesn't Anybody Like Us Anymore?" Department
Reporters walked out on Colin Powell during his press conference in Iraq this morning (ha, betcha didn't see that on the mainstream media reports) in protest of the killings of two Iraqi journalists by US soldiers. The CNN report is interesting in that it even mentions the walk out. But more telling, for me anyway, is this paragraph further down:
Powell's visit was preceded by a week of what has
become almost routine violence in Iraq, capped by
reports that U.S. troops shot and killed two Arabic-TV
network journalists Thursday night.
One year after we illegally and immorally bombed and invaded a country, violence against human beings in that country has become "routine." And we accused Saddam of abusing his people...
In other Rats from a Sinking Ship News, South Korea is the latest to balk on sending its troops over to join the Coalition of the
South Korea promised to eventually dispatch the
3,600 troops earmarked for Iraq, but only after it
finds a safer location.
Isn't that sort of like saying "I'll visit L.A. once they take care of that smog problem." This announcement from South Korea comes a day after Poland's leader, while not saying he would remove Polish troops, did publicly complain that he now believes he was "misled" into joining the "Coalition."
Oh, and for an update on the Spain situation, it has now been revealed that after the Spanish ruling party (at the time) lied to its people and the world after the bombings that it must certainly be ETA that committed the attacks, and then our government, in a rush to back up one of its few actual allies, forced the UN to condemn ETA a day after the attacks, the UN isn't so happy with us OR Spain, and neither is Germany:
Its federal criminal bureau said the Spanish authorities
intentionally withheld information and misled German
officials over the explosives used in the Madrid bombings.
The Spanish conservative government had insisted the
Goma 2 Eco dynamite for the explosives had been
frequently used by Eta, the Basque separatist movement.
On Monday, it admitted that was not the case.
Yet, in embarrassing predictability, US government officials and pundits continue to call the Spanish voters "appeasers" and say that terrorists "won" because of that election. Exactly the opposite. The Spanish voters saw that their government was lying and cheating and didn't listen to them anyway, so they took care of business. The terrorists LOST because democracy won, and Spain will now be able to use its resources more wisely in their fight against terrorism. The US, on the other hand, continues to lose... its friends, its allies, its excuses and even its wits.
Well, at least Namibia is still on the team.
UPDATE: Krugman's Excellent Column (tm) today leaves no doubt that our ability to make friends and influence people isn't winning any awards:
"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." So
George Bush declared on Sept. 20, 2001. But what was he
saying? Surely he didn't mean that everyone was obliged to
support all of his policies, that if you opposed him on anything
you were aiding terrorists.
Now we know that he meant just that.
[...]
But the bigger point is this: in the Bush vision, it was
never legitimate to challenge any piece of the
administration's policy on Iraq. Before the war, it was
your patriotic duty to trust the president's assertions
about the case for war. Once we went in and those
assertions proved utterly false, it became your patriotic
duty to support the troops — a phrase that, to the
administration, always means supporting the president.
At no point has it been legitimate to hold Mr. Bush
accountable. And that's the way he wants it.
Well, not everyone always gets his way, do they?
( 10:27 AM )
It Would Be Funny
If it weren't so sad. I doubt Bremer even gets the irony in his statement yesterday:
"In a morning meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Bremer warned
the Iraqi leaders that they risked isolating themselves and
their country if they continued to snub the United Nations."
sigh.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
( 9:54 AM )
Edjamacate Now!
If you're looking for a good resource of information on NCLB, look no further than the blog An Old Soul. The wealth of info there is enough to stun you silly if you haven't been paying attention regarding the true nature of the machinations behind NCLB. Yes, its public purpose is to "reform" education - but behind the scenes? Would you be shocked to learn that the rightists are trying to basically get rid of federally funded public education? No, I didn't think you'd be. Here are only a few scary tidbits gleaned by Old Soul:
The backdoor to usurping our public education system is being funded by none other than the Walmart Family:
Critics say the Waltons could do the opposite: weaken
public schools by encouraging the flow of tax dollars to
less-regulated charter schools and to religious and other
private schools through vouchers. The prospect of the
Walton billions is "alarming," says Marc Egan, head of
anti-voucher efforts at the National School Boards
Association.
And who else is making money behind the scenes on NCLB? Not anyone connected with the Bush family, surely!
Neil Bush's company sells software to prepare students to
take comprehensive tests required under "No Child Left
Behind." Schools that fail the tests will face termination of
federal assistance. The contracts for these test programs
are very lucrative. Ignite is currently running a pilot program
at a Middle School in Orlando, Florida--where Neil's brother
Jeb is governor. The company hopes to sell the software
throughout Florida at $30 per pupil per year.
In mid-February, Houston school board members unanimously
agreed to accept $115,000 in charitable donations that
would be funneled to Ignite. The Houston Independent School
District trustees had initially delayed a vote on the matter
in December, saying they were concerned that Bush's Austin-
based company might be benefiting from his family name.
But in February, the nine board members approved the
funding without discussion.
If you need help navigating your way through the mire of nasty NCLB manipulations, Old Soul has a great dictionary of "education reform" terms to help you out. Here's a sample:
'choices' = vouchers or the ability to move to another school
if your school fails. However, this rarely works in practice because
there are no room at other schools to transfer. Can you imagine
having a whole school fail and then having to place every
student at another school? Doesn't work.
'fully funded'= not enough money
'well-educated public'= this is a new one. Beats me.
Keep an eye out. Our public education system is being destroyed before we even had a chance to rescue it.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
( 3:21 PM )
Shocked...Shocked That Bush Lied...
This is one of those too-much-to-blog-about days. There's just so much crap coming out of the White House that it's hard to stem the tide of revulsion that propels me once again to post today (that, and the fact that my boss is out so I have some extra time on my hands!).
The Guardian reports today that the administration is committing fraud on the American public with its new Medicare ads. Shocker, I know.
TV news reports in America that showed President
George Bush getting a standing ovation from potential
voters have been exposed as fake, it has emerged.
The US government admitted it paid actors to pose as
journalists in video news releases sent to TV stations
intending to convey support for new laws about
health benefits.
Investigators are examining the film segments, in
which actors pretending to be journalists praise the
benefits of the new law passed last year by President
Bush, to see if they could be construed as propaganda.
Propaganda from the Bush administration? No! It can't be! It has to be the nasty Brits who made this up for their no-good rag, right? Nope, even the NY Times is a little interested in the story, but adds another twist:
An Orwellian taint is emerging in the Bush administration's
big victory last year in wringing the Medicare prescription
drug subsidy from a balky Congress. The plan is being
sold to the public through propagandistic ads disguised
as TV news reports, and it turns out the government's
top Medicare actuary was muzzled by superiors during
the debate about the program's price tag.
Richard Foster, one of the government's foremost
Medicare experts, says he was ordered not to provide
requested information to Congress last fall when
doubts were being raised about the drug benefit's cost.
The administration denies this, but a ranking former
official has confirmed Mr. Foster's story.
While I think saying there is an "Orwellian taint" on this administration is somewhat like saying "oranges are orange" (come on, NY Times, you just figured out the Orwellian thing?), the Times is actually bringing to light another of the administration's lies and manipulations - so we can be grateful for the larger context of the story and forget that the NY Times is so far behind on honest reporting about this administration that Orwell himself may have actually reincarnated due to so much spinning in his grave the last 3 years.
Will people pay attention to yet another one of Bush's evil acts of cowardice in governing? One guesses not. But there's always hope. The Times, at least, seems to think the story has legs.
This sleight of hand only deepens doubts about White
House credibility on a complex issue. The public deserves
straightforward information about the changes in
Medicare, and federal agencies should not be engaging
in political spin. This is no way to run a democracy
nourished by information and taxpayers' money.
Here's my impression of the NY Times editorial board waking up after 3 years of Rip Van Winkel - like napping on the job:
"Hey! The President lied and cheated us into an unfair and costly medicare bill that won't even do what he said it would do! ... Wait a minute, he lied about the war too! ..... D'oh!" (slap on forehead).
Welcome to the real (frightening) world, guys.
( 2:53 PM )
But the President Did It...
Next Monday, Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia of the Florida National Guard will turn himself over to authorities after being declared a deserter. He went AWOL (one of over 600) after he returned home from Iraq on leave. He intends to seek conscientious-objector status because he says that the war is immoral and soldiers are being required to do immoral things. His attorney has equated his action with that of the president:
"We are asking the military to treat [Mejia] the same way
that the military treated President George Bush when he
was in the Texas National Guard. That is, his alleged AWOL
or desertion and failure to report to Alabama was treated
through administrative channels rather than acted upon
judicially," he said.
Only there is a vast difference between a rich son of a senator being given special dispensation when he decides he just won't show up to duty, and who never saw a day of battle in his entire military "career" and a young, working class soldier who joined up to defend this country despite not even being a citizen, and who went willingly to war in another country and saw horrible atrocities while he was there. So I'm sure he'll be treated with just as much respect as George W. was 30 years ago. Hah!
How Sgt. Mejia is punished is one matter. What he will bring up to his accusers is another. Mejia has recounted many experiences in Iraq that compounded to convince him not to return:
Mejia accuses commanders of using GIs as "bait" to lure
out Iraqi fighters so that U.S. soldiers could win combat
decorations. He also says operations were conducted in
ways that sometimes risked injuring civilians. He has
accused his battalion and company commanders of
incompetence and has reiterated other guardsmen's
complaints about being poorly equipped.
[...]
Perhaps the turning point for Mejia was the day in Iraq
when he was ordered to shoot at Iraqis protesting and
hurling grenades toward his position from about 75
yards away, which he considered too far of a distance
to be a real threat. Mejia and his men opened fire on
one, and he fell, his blood pooling around him.
"It was the first time I had fired at a human being,"
Mejia recalled. "I guess you could say it was my
initiation at killing a human being. . . . One thing I ask
myself a lot, `Did I hit him?'
"It was part of a general feeling that we had no right
to be there, and every killing, whether provoked or
not provoked, was unjustified because we had no
right to be there."
The article goes on to report that Mejia's commanders say he is a mama's boy (they literally call him that) because his mother would not help him renew his paperwork to keep his residency status (he's not even a citizen, but he went to fight and risk his life for this country). They say that he lost his nerve, that he's a scaredy-cat and so on. I don't know Sgt. Mejia so I don't pass judgment on him one way or another. His descriptions about what happened on the battlefield are terrible, and I cringe to think of what all those young people are witnessing and experiencing and how it will scar them for the rest of their lives. But what is interesting about this story is that conscientious objectors have been increasing and the government is now starting to grant more and more of that status to soldiers who refuse to return to the Iraq theatre.
It's a hard line to walk - on the one hand, it's technically an "all volunteer" force that's over there, and so the soldiers are expected to fall into line. But the reality is that most of the National Guard and Reserves are poorly equipped and barely trained for the services they are asked to perform, they are put out there for committments far longer than they ever "volunteered" for, and more often than not, soldiers are not in the military because they thought it would be a cool job - they joined up because they had no other good option for their future. This means that most of the soldiers are low-income and working class kids who just wanted a chance for a step up in life. Or they are family folks, dads and moms, who joined up to do part time military service to help support their families and get that little extra income that helps them survive. They are now serving in a desert where their bosses insist that they must put themselves out front in a fight against an invisible enemy for the ultimate goal of... they don't know what.
Things aren't black and white. Just as the spectre of Vietnam that rises in this election campaign isn't black and white, as demonstrated by candidate Kerry, who was both a dedicated soldier and a war protester. There is honor for Sgt. Mejia in that he served, no matter what others may say about his deciding not to go back. Many others face this dilemma this year, as they face the second and third deployment back to Iraq because we are so limited in numbers of soldiers.
We are going to need understanding, grace and the willingness to listen when we hear stories like this one about soldiers who just can't take it anymore. To not judge them as weak or failures, but to allow them their humanity, I think that is the greatest gift we can give them as their fellow citizens.
(thanks to Maru for the link)
( 1:16 PM )
Database of Lies
Rep. Harry Waxman, ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform, has now put out a database of misleading statements made by Bush administration leaders in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. This database is searchable and holds an incredible amount of information. It contains 237 specific misleading public statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. Powell and Rice.
My first search was a basic one: all speakers, on the subject of "urgent threat" for the time span Jan 1, 2002 through March 20, 2003. For each of the 11 hits I got, every quote is given and then an explanation as to why it's misleading. Example:
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Urgent Threat:
"Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger.
It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the
Middle East and to the international peace and stability.
It's a danger we cannot ignore."
Source: Donald Rumsfeld Addresses the Conference of
Army Reserve Operators, Defense Department (1/20/2003).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Explanation This statement was misleading because it
suggested that Iraq posed an urgent threat despite the
fact that the U.S. intelligence community had deep divisions
and divergent points of view regarding Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction. As Director of Central Intelligence George
Tenet noted in February 2004, "Let me be clear: analysts
differed on several important aspects of these programs
and those debates were spelled out in the Estimate. They
never said there was an 'imminent' threat."
It's an incredible resource, and one I hope democrats and those opposed to this administration's destruction of our standing in the world will use in this election process. I've preserved the link over on my side bar under the Iraq section AND in the election box under "Reasons Why" for your future reference and use.
( 12:20 PM )
The (Spanish) Domino Effect
Now that Spain is the new punching bag for rightist pundits and Bush apologists, can we go back to eating "french" fries again?
The current mantra echoed by those same pundits and apologists that the "terrorists won" in Spain on Sunday sounds as empty as it truly is. The "logic" that because Spain voted out the government that (against its citizens' wishes) joined Bush's war in Iraq and then lied to its people when they were attacked on their own soil, that means that Al Qaeda has "won" is lost on me. As I see it, Spain and most all other countries of the world gladly and willingly joined the US in the fight against terrorism after 9/11. It was the invasion of Iraq that they didn't necessarily want to go along with. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and it wasn't until after we occupied it that it became a player in the war on terror in terms of danger to our people and our allies.
Spain isn't the first country in the last couple of years to have an election determined because of opposition to Bush's policies. The German election in 2002 was won by the party that opposed Bush, the South Korean election last year was won by the candidate that spoke out against Bush policies on the Korean peninsula. Spain is just the latest country to follow that trend. And it's not a comforting trend.
Bush's "coalition of the willing" is no such thing. The countries that joined in the Iraq invasion and occupation were either coerced or bribed. But now with the people of Spain speaking out in reaction to the fact that their country's resources were used not to combat fundamentalist islamist terrorism, but to occupy a country that the Bush administration had a vendetta against, and as a result, they fell victim to the worst bombing attack in western europe in the last many years - other countries and observers are taking notice. The US is no longer the power it was - Bush's strategy has not only weakened our diplomatic ties with allies, but it has weakened our position as a power to be reckoned with. We no longer carry the mantle of leadership for the world. And even smaller countries can see that now.
"This is a consequence of what we knew a year ago
-- that Bush tried to force governments to choose
between their own voters and the White House," said
Tom Andrews, a former Democratic congressman from
Maine, now national director of Win Without War, a
grassroots anti-Iraq war group.
"The White House tried to sweeten the pot for those
countries that joined the coalition but this was never a
coalition of the willing, as Bush claimed. It was a coalition
of the coerced and the purchased -- and now those
leaders have to face their own voters," he said.
And so the dominoes begin to fall. Honduras has announced it will withdraw its troops, and Nicaragua won't send any back. Only El Salvador is left in the Spanish-led combined brigade in Iraq.
"Why did the train bombings have the effect that they did?
Because 90 percent of the Spanish people did not want this
war in the first place and were unwilling to pay any price for
what they saw as a mistaken policy," said University of
Chicago political scientist Robert Pape.
"What does this mean for the rest of our allies? The Italians?
The British? They, and some of us as well, may well conclude
that the war against Iraq has made us more vulnerable and
not less," he said.
The consequences that are occuring now are not because of an election held 3 days ago in Spain. These consequences are a result of a year of lying by Bush to us and to the world, followed by a year of continued erosion of security on all fronts for all countries, especially those involved in Bush's War. The invasion of Iraq, and indeed, the capture of Saddam Hussein, have not only NOT made us safer, but have made us and our allies (what there are left of them) extremely UNsafe. Not because Iraq is part of the war on terror, but because we allowed it to take precedence and now it is being used by the very people we claimed we were fighting in the first place as a foothold against us.
Whatever happens is not because of Spanish voters or their so-called "appeasement," as the Hannity crowd would like to claim. Nope, whatever happens is because Bush and his cronies lied, cheated and killed for no reason other than their own insidious greed for power. They are reaping what they've sown. Unfortunately, we and the citizens of the world will probably pay a heavier price than Bush ever will have to for what he has done.
UPDATE: Juan Cole says it better.
( 9:21 AM )
The World Still Says No to War
If you haven't heard, this coming Saturday, March 20, 2004, is going to be an international day of action against the unilateral US invasion of Iraq. On March 20, 2003, the United States began a massive bombing attack and invasion of the sovreign country of Iraq. The violence was excused by those in the government and many of its supporters because of what we now know to be lies told to us about Iraq being an imminent threat to us.
In the last 363 days, almost a year since that bombing and invasion began, thousands of Iraqis have died, 665 soldiers have died, estimates of up to 8,000 or more soldiers wounded, many gravely and irreparably, reports of the highest rates of suicides in a conflict arena ever, and a country is descending into political chaos (and I don't mean Iraq).
One year ago, the media was a willing participant in the march to war, repeating with glee the press releases of the administration, failing to question anything, and happily giving up all autonomy so that they could have the "honor" of having their soldiers embedded. Even now, the media's reporting of the war and its consequences barely rises to the level of journalism in its lack of true investigation, true calling to account, or even relaying of actual facts. This week, the spin that will go out will most likely once again merely mimic the governmental propaganda, ignore the lies the war was based on, forget the conniving the administration did to manipulate the UN, and turn a blind eye to the thousands of demonstrators that will hit the streets on Saturday. We can only defeat this corporate agenda by joining together so that we cannot be ignored.
One year ago, we were marching in the streets protesting the war, proclaiming that this was not the way we wanted our country to represent itself in the world, asking for peace. A year ago, this blog discussed frequently the importance of taking a stand, making public your belief that when the government has gone wrong it is not only our right to publicly keep it accountable, but it is our responsibility. We were mocked, we were called traitors and unpatriotic, we were reported as hooligans, anarchists, troublemakers, and even terrorists. But we were right.
This Saturday is not a victory march. It is not "mission accomplished." It is part protest, part witness for peace and part communal grief. Veterans will gather, mothers and fathers will gather, children will gather, families, young, old, every race, creed, and even newly married people will gather together. Sometimes there isn't a convenient time to speak out, but there is never a time to remain silent against injustice. Just because we are already in Iraq and now we must deal with those consequences does not mean we cannot and should not stand together and declare that we continue to protest our government's actions, that we will work together for peace, and that we will not remain silent in the presence of injustice.
Our Peace Rally here in Portland will be at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday at Pioneer Courthouse Square. It is sponsored by over 100 local organizations. Find out where your local Rally will be and go to it. If you live here in the Portland area, come to hear local community leaders and march with fellow neighbors and citizens to show that we will not be cowed by intimidation, we will not fall victim to labels and discrimination, and that our ultimate display of patriotism is indeed the best effort we can make to keep our country from doing wrong in this world. That is, until we get to vote in November.
UPDATE: While the world says no to war, Bush evidently wants more. Voice of a Veteran reports today that the move is on to really put legs under the new draft reactivation drive.
Monday, March 15, 2004
( 11:53 AM )
Preschool Crackdown
This morning, NPR had a short report on the Prince George's County School Superintendant's intention to get rid of nap time for preschoolers. The main reason? There is too much studying the kids need to be doing! We're not talking half-day preschool either. We're talking a full day packed chock-full of glorious "studying" for FOUR YEAR OLDS. I don't think I have to say that this is simply ludicrous. I mentioned several months ago about how the NCLB is putting pressure on preschool educators and head start teachers to teach 4 year olds to take standardized tests. It only follows that officials would feel that children don't need sleep either. Of course, it's already been several years now that many elementary schools have taken away recess and breaks from children as well. Because ACCOUNTABILITY is what matters - not accountability for the health and welfare of our children, but for whether they can pass the tests well enough to get funding for their schools.
This is so stupid, there are not words enough to express how stupid it is. Forgive me for being redundant. This is ridiculous. Four year old children need nap time or at least a quiet rest period as much as elementary school children need recess time. Children can only absorb so much intellectual information before they reach their limits. They need to blow off energy, they need to get fresh air, they need sleep.
There is still limited research into this area, but some studies already show that the need for kids to take a break exists, despite schools insisting that the day be nonstop education:
The most obvious characteristic of recess is that it constitutes a
break from the day's routine. For people of all ages and in all
fields, breaks are considered essential for satisfaction and
alertness. Experimental research on memory and attention
(e.g., Toppino, Kasserman, & Mracek, 1991) found that recall is
improved when learning is spaced rather than presented all at
once. Their findings are compatible with what is known about
brain functioning: that attention requires periodic novelty, that
the brain needs downtime to recycle chemicals crucial for
long-term memory formation, and that attention involves 90- to
110-minute cyclical patterns throughout the day (Jensen, 1998).
Not only do kids need a break for their brains to rest. But recess and break time is time to hang out. Kids don't socialize or learn to interact and play with other children when all they do is sit in a classroom all day long. Of course, it's been long determined that social skills and having fun are in no way as important as getting your head crammed full of useful ways to pass a standardized test.
It continues to amaze me how politicians and the so-called "adults" in our society continue to put the burden of successful schools on the backs of small children.
Along different, yet strangely similar lines in its undertone of social manipulation, there was a story on this morning's Today Show (which I see no link to on their home page) about women deciding to quit the workforce and stay home with their kids. This subject REALLY steams this mama. First, the example they used was a woman who was leaving after 17 years as a stock analyst. The sociologist who did the research talked to 50 stay at home moms and said that most of what they talked about was how their corporate careers were "all or nothing" so they decided to stay home.
Now, I am in absolute agreement that work places are geared towards men who are the breadwinners of the household, and that there is still very little acknowledgement or help with employees who both support the family and raise the children (which can be moms OR dads). However, the entire gist of this presentation was basically: Now that women have achieved high positions and management status, they find that their jobs don't give them any flexibility to be with their kids. So evidently, it's only women who are CEOs or in high management positions that have to deal with this. All of us working women who will never reach management positions have LOADS of flexibility!
Not once did they talk about ordinary working women, single mothers or women who DO manage to find ways to both be the mom they want to be AND pursue their career. These poor rich career women, being tortured by this conflict. So sad they have to make a choice. Not. What's sad is that so many of us don't HAVE a choice.
The people who get noticed more often than not by the media are people with money. So when women who have banked thousands and are in the top tax brackets decide to "give it all up" for their children, it is seen as the prime example of how women really can't "have it all." The whole thing is utterly ridiculous.
This is one working mama that sees many other sides to the story that our media is trying to sell us, and I'm not content to allow them to characterize the women who have the conflict of work and home as only women in high-powered careers. Working women who are merely trying to survive have the same struggle, only they don' t have a choice. Even women who could possibly improve their economic standing if given the chance, are sabotaged because our government thinks it's better to push them into the workforce and not give them childcare or any other help while they're trying to care for their families.
The whole perspective on raising children in this country is as screwed up as the non-right to a civil marriage. This is one mama that thinks I may just have to write the Today Show a scathing letter... oh, and I'm also thinking about instituting regular home nap times for the whole family as well. Join the Nap Revolution!
Thursday, March 11, 2004
( 4:48 PM )
Negativality
..as our esteemed leader might phrase it. Rove has launched the first of his negative ads. And as Kos shows us, it's not good.
Shorter George Bush: "Vote for me, I'll save you from all the evil arabs surrounding you everywhere!!"
( 3:12 PM )
Tragedy in Spain
Once again, a nation of the world suffers terrible tragedy and responds with humanity towards its citizens. After the terrible bomb blasts today that have killed close to 200 people, and injured thousands, the government of Spain has declared 3 days' mourning and the political campaigns leading up to Sunday's election have all called a halt to campaigning. I wrote only days ago about Iraq's response to its terrible tragedy last week with a three-day shutdown for mourning. I'm reminded again, that in the worst terrorist attack ever, on September 11, 2001, when thousands of citizens were murdered and thousands more injured and maimed, President Bush told us to act like nothing had happened and go shopping. It still steams me.
Anyway, today's bombings in Spain are still being investigated. But of course the first words out of the politicians' mouths were that the bombings had been caused by ETA. When I first heard the story this morning, my first thought was that it doesn't sound at all like an ETA operation. It still may be too premature to say what happened, but this is an attack like nothing ETA has ever done before. ETA, the armed resistance for the Basque Country, has carried out many attacks on Spanish leaders and police, often killing civilians as well. But three days ahead of an election where a new, bold step forward might be taken for the Basque region of Spain, targetting and killing hundreds of civilians? It doesn't sound like ETA.
I don't speak with a whole lot of authority on ETA, but during my years of work in the north of Ireland, I certainly met more than a few Basque Separatists (not necessarily the militant kind). The ETA has historically operated in a similar fashion to the Provisional IRA (the IRA most people think of). A contrast in operations became clear in Ireland when in 1998, after the IRA had called a ceasefire to honor the new political agreements in Ireland, an IRA breakaway group bombed the city centre of Omagh, killing tons of civilians and without the usual warnings given. The provos never conducted operations like that. So either this very well-calculated multiple bombing in and around Madrid was carried off by a new, more militant wing of ETA, or ETA has gotten suddenly much more brutal and off-message, or .... it was Al Qaeda clones. A leader of ETA said early this morning he did not think it could be ETA. If you are at all interested in the ongoing conflict in Spain, I suggest you start with reading The Basque History of the World. I've not yet finished it, but it is an incredible read on the richness of the world's oldest and continuing civilized culture in Europe.
CNN and the BBC is reporting that new discoveries near the bombings and a claim in an Arab newspaper now put islamist terrorists on the list of possible suspects.
It's all just so devastating what humanity can do to itself.
( 1:08 PM )
The Long and Winding Road (to the WH)
Many have been asking how is John Kerry going to make it through 8 long months of campaigning against a sitting president? The Dems seem to have the disadvantage facing this long presidential race (thoughTerry McAuliffe should have thought of this issue before he rigged all the primaries to decide a winner by February, as so the party elites should have thought about how John Kerry won't draw nearly the amount of independents and cross-over voters that Dean or Edwards would have) . The president can make the news just by doing his daily stuff (even when it's not as stupid as usual, he often will get at least a mention in the news). But Kerry will have to work extra hard to make news.
Some have suggested (though I thought I was the only one who thought of this) that Kerry form a "shadow cabinet" early on. This was even mentioned by the New York Times editorial board last week. Tom Burka did the subject justice yesterday:
The Democrats have created a "shadow White House"
-- mostly from Legos -- a shadow cabinet, a shadow
Capitol Building, and "what's the most fun," according
to Terry Griebling of Menachem's List, "is the shadow
Air Force One, which we're hoping we can get to fly."
The shadow Air Force One is presently a large model
of a plane that Democrats can put on their heads like
a hat and run around with while saying "whoosh!"
and "vrroom, vrooom!"
The hilarity of Tom's writing almost masks the truth behind it - but not quite. Up until this point, the Dems in government have completely abdicated their role as "opposition" to the Bush administration and DeLay Congress. But now there is a new leader on the horizon. The mantle of head honcho has been bestowed upon John Kerry, and so far he's leading the good fight in being the voice countering Bush (despite his own issues, which I still have difficulty and I do not count myself a full fledged supporters yet). This idea of a shadow cabinet really gets me thinking. It could be the very thing to launch Kerry into a new level of competition.
Over the next month or two, Kerry could pick his VP, then go ahead and pick all his "shadow" cabinet members. He only has a month to do it after the election, so why not start now. Even if not all of them end up being in the actual cabinet, this group of people could make a huge impact.
Just think about it: the American electorate would not just be voting for one man, but for a team. The Shadow Cabinet would reveal what kind of people Kerry chooses to advise him and lead the various agencies of the government. People were fooled in 2000 - they thought they were getting this "compassionate conservative", a "uniter, not a divider" and a man who was going to be a "CEO President." But instead, as soon as he was determined by the Supreme Court to have the job, he formed a cabinet that came straight out of NeoCon hell. People's heads were still spinning from Cheney nominating himself as VP.
Having the Shadow Cabinet would give Kerry the upper hand of transparency and, along with displaying a good sense of planning, would give the American people a chance to see what they truly were in for. Having a Shadow Cabinet would also provide other benefits: A Secretary to respond to each stupid thing out of their respective alter-departments (ie, the Shadow Secretary of Education could go on the stump about Rod Paige and his idea that teachers are terrorists; the Shadow Secretary of the Interior could rant constantly about the environment, etc.); tons of "Kerry Administration Members" to fill the airwaves of the talk radio and cable tv news shows with the Kerry Message; opportunities for debate between a Cabinet Secretary and his Shadow; and of course a well-developed, well-polished policy for each issue that can be put forward succinctly and in clear opposition to what we currently have.
We all know a president is only as good as the people who advise him in most cases. So let's see who Kerry will pick and then go on a one-to-one match up with Bush's guys. I think a Kerry Shadow Cabinet would be just the thing to continue the energy of dem voters, the media coverage and buzz, and throw the Bushies constantly off guard with immediate comebacks to every stupid idea that they come up with (which should have been happening already these past 3 years).
So who would you pick for the Shadow Cabinet?
The current cabinet consists of:
The Cabinet includes the Vice President and, by law, the
heads of 15 executive departments-the Secretaries of
Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health
and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and
Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation,
Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, and the Attorney General.
Under President George W. Bush, Cabinet-level rank also
has been accorded to the Administrator, Environmental
Protection Agency; Director, Office of Management and
Budget; the Director, National Drug Control Policy; and
the U.S. Trade Representative.
I've got a few ideas, though not all cabinet posts are filled in my Fantasy Shadow Cabinet yet:
VP: Bill Richardson
Defense: Anthony Zinni
Education: Jamie McKenzie
HHS: Carol Moseley Braun
Homeland Security: Al Gore (because he'd streamline it the way it should be)
Labor: Richard Trumka
State: Wes Clark
Veterans Affairs: Max Cleland
Attorney General: John Edwards
Still working on the rest of my list. Any suggestions?
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
( 1:49 PM )
It's Official
I'm a commie pinko. I took the Political Compass test today and it turns out I'm left of Ghandi, Mandela and the Dalai Lama, a little more left of Stalin, and massively left of everyone else. Where did I go right? (ha ha ha)
( 12:37 PM )
Now THAT'S What I Call Voter Turnout!
Um, evidently in Orange County, California last week, the electronic voting machines registered more votes than there actually are voters in Orange County.
Getting voters to the polls on a normal day isn't easy.
But with the advent of e-voting in Orange County,
California in elections last week, it looks like that's all
changed. With the new electronic terminals, turnout was
far higher than expected - more than 100 per cent in
some districts.
Compared to the local average of about 37 per cent,
it's an impressive figure - but it won't be bringing a smile
to the faces of the Orange County officials.
But it wasn't a computer error - no those beautiful Diebold's are workin' like clocks! It was human error that accounts for more there being more votes than people who actually exist.
It's unlikely that the votes will be recast or recounted
following the polling foul-up. Apparently the winners'
margins are wide enough to factor in the erroneous
voting and still come up with the same results.
Well, THAT'S a relief. For a minute there I was worried it would matter that vote counting was all screwed up. Thankfully, we have technology to depend on - we don't need to worry about wrong votes or even too many votes! It's all good!
(thanks to Maru for the link)
( 12:24 PM )
(Lincoln) Bedroom Talk
If you recall (I know, it's hard to think back this long ago) in the 2000 Presidential race, George W. Bush loudly criticized the Clinton administration allowing friends and donors to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House, thus smearing Al Gore with another of the propped-up "scandals" perpetrated by the right wing nuts who would go to no lengths to get rid of Clinton. Here's the exact comment he made in a debate with Al Gore:
BUSH: I think the thing that discouraged me about the
vice president was uttering those famous words, "no
controlling legal authority." I felt like that there needed
to be a better sense of responsibility of what was going
on in the White House.
I believe that -- I believe they've moved that sign, "The
buck stops here," from the Oval Office desk to "The buck
stops here" on the Lincoln Bedroom. And that's not good
for the country. It's not right.
--George W. Bush, debate October 3, 2000
BUT WHAT'S THIS?? The AP is reporting today that since Bush took residence in the White House, almost 300 friends and donors have stayed overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom and Camp David!
In all, Bush and first lady Laura Bush have invited
at least 270 people to stay at the White House and at
least the same number to overnight at the Camp David
retreat since moving to Washington in January 2001,
according to lists the White House provided The
Associated Press.
Some guests spent a night in the Lincoln Bedroom,
historic quarters that gained new fame in the Clinton
administration amid allegations that Democrats
rewarded major donors like Hollywood heavyweights
Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand with
accommodations there.
That scandal and Bush's criticism of it is one of the
reasons the White House identifies guests.
And who were these guests? Why, only George and Laura's bestest best friends!!
Los Angeles attorney Donald Etra stayed at the Bush
White House several times and at Camp David once. Etra,
a Yale classmate of President Bush, said he and his wife
were invited as friends, not because they each gave
Bush $1,000 in 2000.
"Friendship comes first, donations come second," Etra said.
[...]
At least nine of Bush's biggest fund-raisers appear on
the latest list of White House overnight guests, covering
June 2002 through December 2003, and-or on the Camp
David list, which covers last year. They include:
-Mercer Reynolds, an Ohio financier, former Bush partner in
the Texas Rangers baseball team and former ambassador
to Switzerland. Reynolds is leading Bush's campaign fund-
raising effort. He was a guest at the White House and the
Camp David retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.
-Brad Freeman, a venture capitalist who is leading Bush's
California fund-raising effort, has raised at least $200,000
for his re-election campaign and is also a major Republican
Party fund-raiser. Freeman stayed at the White House.
-Roland Betts, who raised at least $100,000 for Bush in 2000,
was a Bush fraternity brother at Yale and a Texas Rangers
partner. Betts stayed at the White House and Camp David.
(the list continues)
Of course, I doubt we'll hear much in the "liberal" media about this - why, when George Bush gives overnight stays to his favorite money-bags folks, it's totally different. These people are his actual friends! Not like Clinton, who just operated a revolving door of donations at the nightstand of the Lincoln Bedroom!
I'm being a bit facetious because this is a stupid issue. The president lives in the White House, he should be able to invite over anyone he wants to. It was stupid when the republicans made it a big deal about Clinton. But since they did, then they now have to deal with the repercussions of their own guy doing the same thing.
The Bush Campaign is trying to aim its sights at John Kerry by claiming Kerry "flip flops" (while he does, this is not the point, says Mama firmly!!), but they have egg on their own faces when it comes to flip flopping. More accountability, which Bush claimed he would bring to the White House has not been seen at all in this administration, what with leaks endangering the lives of intelligence officers, no one ever getting fired for massive screw ups, and now this sleepover thing.
Hypocrisy is getting to be one of those words that doesn't mean anything anymore when it comes to the Bush administration.
(thanks to Kos for the heads up) For more on this story, see Blah3, Billmon, and Maru.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
( 8:49 AM )
Happy Bloggy Birthday To Me!!
This week marks ONE YEAR that Bohemian Mama has existed in the blogosphere. I can actually start saying stuff like, "as I mentioned this time last year..." and "last year I brought up..." I've learned a lot, but not enough. I've written a lot, but not enough. I've ranted a lot - probably more than enough. I'm proud of my 14,600 visitors and my growing list of linked pals. I love the blogosphere and the idea that I can write my thoughts, others will read them, comment back to me or maybe just take home a tidbit of idea that they might not have thought of before. And likewise, I can do the same when I visit their blogs. It's the new social club!
Looking back on my archives, my original posts seem sort of funny and very rantish - but I was just learning. This time last year, I introduced myself to the blogosphere:
I'm a new mama - The Kid is 9 months old this week.
I still don't feel like I fit the part - but I'm not trying very
hard, I admit. I work to keep the family fed and in health
care, and The Kid frolics at home with his Dad, my
renaissance man of a husband, P. P is a cabinetmaker,
carpenter and computer tech - all careers for which there
are no jobs right now. So he is happily working away on
our new house, first bought this month, and bringing up
The Kid in the proper ways to fight evil, resist
authoritarianism, and ultimately to grow to be the Leader
of the Resistance.
One year later, and The Kid is 3 months from 2 years old, becoming proficient at counting to 5, knows his letters, can dance all the Wiggles dances, and sports a daily mixture of peanut butter, jelly and sometimes fish cracker crumbs in his hair (which he finally has). Well on his way to being Leader of the Resistance.
This coming year will provide even more fodder for the blogging activist as the election campaigns get underway and we strive even harder to get people to notice the things that really matter for the citizens of this country. Maybe only a few people hear us, but that's better than nothing. Having a voice is important, using it for change is even better. I am proud to be in the community of those who do just that. [/drivel]
Monday, March 08, 2004
( 10:43 AM )
Celebrating Women Who Stand
Today is International Women's Day. Being a woman, I am very pleased to celebrate it. There are some great reads around the Internet today about the state of women's rights and the conditions women must endure (still) around the world. MADRE is running many of them:
Women's Rights in "Liberated" Iraq:
Iraqi women cite a breakdown in security and public
order as the number one problem in Iraq since the
invasion. A sharp rise in abduction, rape and sexual
slavery has made women afraid to leave their homes.
Girls are being kept out of school and many women
are now forbidden by their families to be in public
without a male escort.
Women attribute the rise in violence to social
disintegration triggered by the overthrow of the Ba'ath
regime; the rise of Islamic fundamentalism; and ongoing
fighting between US and Iraqi forces.
It is estimated that more than 400 Iraqi women were
abducted and raped within the first four months of US
occupation. The rapes have triggered an increase in
"honor killings," in which male relatives murder rape
survivors because the attack has "shamed" the family.
Women trying to survive in Haiti - this situation continues to evolve, but it has always been tenous there as well.
In Afghanistan, self-immolation among women is on the rise. One year after thousands of Afghani women celebrated International Women's Day, they are now finding themselves back in the same old fearful conditions. RAWA is still keeping us informed on the women of Afghanistan:
Afghan officials say poverty, forced marriages, and lack
of access to education are the main reasons for suicide
among women in Herat. Domestic violence is also
widespread.
"A lot of women are saying that their husbands don't
allow them to go and visit their families. There are severe
restrictions on their movement, and also there is violence
towards them -- both physical and psychological -- and
intimidation and isolation," Virdee said.
During the five-year rule of the Taliban militia, women
were not allowed to work or study. They could not leave
their homes without a male escort and were forced to
wear the all-encompassing burqa.
Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, women have
once again been given the right to study and work. But
activists say women in many parts of Afghanistan --
including Herat, which is ruled with an iron fist by provincial
governor and warlord Ismail Khan -- still face repression
and harassment.
Virdee says the continued crackdown on women's rights
is contributing to the rise in self-immolation cases.
"The institutional repression of the women's movement is
also a big factor because women are not allowed to go on
their own in taxi cars, they are sort of socially policed if
they are talking to other men, they have to be in the burqa,
they have restriction on freedom to work. Just recently in
Herat a women's shop which was employing a lot of women
was closed. The driving school for women was also closed,"
Virdee said.
Ahmad Bassir is a Herat-based correspondent for Radio Free
Afghanistan. He says women see no difference between their
lives now and under the Taliban, and that desperation drives
them to attempt suicide.
Women in many parts of Africa and the rest of the world are suffering the most brutal treatment, many as a result of senseless wars and conflicts. Human Rights Watch has a report on the condition of women around the world and it's not pretty. It's horrific to know that our fellow human beings can treat each other so cruelly. (This doesn't even mention how the children are treated).
Combatants and their sympathizers in conflicts, such as
those in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Afghanistan, and Rwanda, have raped women as a
weapon of war with near complete impunity. Men in Pakistan,
South Africa, Peru, Russia, and Uzbekistan beat women in
the home at astounding rates, while these governments
alternatively refuse to intervene to protect women and punish
their batterers or do so haphazardly and in ways that make
women feel culpable for the violence. As a direct result of
inequalities found in their countries of origin, women from
Ukraine, Moldova, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Burma,
and Thailand are bought and sold, trafficked to work in forced
prostitution, with insufficient government attention to protect
their rights and punish the traffickers. In Guatemala, South
Africa, and Mexico, women's ability to enter and remain in the
work force is obstructed by private employers who use women's
reproductive status to exclude them from work and by
discriminatory employment laws or discriminatory enforcement of
the law. In the U.S., students discriminate against and attack
girls in school who are lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgendered, or
do not conform to male standards of female behavior. Women
in Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia face government-
sponsored discrimination that renders them unequal before the
law - including discriminatory family codes that take away
women's legal authority and place it in the hands of male family
members - and restricts women's participation in public life.
[...]
We live in a world in which women do not have basic
control over what happens to their bodies. Millions of
women and girls are forced to marry and have sex with
men they do not desire. Women are unable to depend
on the government to protect them from physical violence
in the home, with sometimes fatal consequences, including
increased risk of HIV/AIDS infection. Women in state
custody face sexual assault by their jailers. Women are
punished for having sex outside of marriage or with a person
of their choosing (rather than of their family's choosing).
Husbands and other male family members obstruct or
dictate women's access to reproductive health care. Doctors
and government officials disproportionately target women
from disadvantaged or marginalized communities for coercive
family planning policies.
But women continue to fight. In honor of this day, I would like to celebrate the lives of two women I hold in high esteem, two women who are my heros and always will be, two women who died because they believed in freedom for all mankind. They both died at the same time of year, and only days after International Women's Day.
The first is Rachel Corrie. I did not know her, but she came from my part of the world (Olympia, WA). She was only 23 last March 16 when she tried to nonviolently prevent the destruction of a Palestinian family's home in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Forces drove a tank over her, even though she could be clearly seen and they had even signaled to her. There has still been no justice for her murder, and the family and friends of Rachel Corrie are calling for a National Day of Remembrance for her this coming week, along with help in getting the Rachel Corrie Resolution passed in Congress.
H.Con.Res. 111 calls upon the "United States government
to undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation
into the death of Rachel Corrie." This investigation is
necessary because of contradictions between the results
of an IDF investigation and eyewitness accounts of her death.
Rachel Corrie was an American citizen killed by a foreign
army and a U.S. investigation is necessary to determine
the circumstances of her death and ensure that this type
of incident does not happen again.
Rachel Corrie believed that all people should be free of oppression, discrimination and occupation. At such a young age, she turned that belief into action and ended up giving her life to protect a family's home from destruction. Rachel embodies what so many more of us wish to achieve: the will to put ourselves where it really counts. I appreciate and honor her for doing that.
My second hero is Rosemary Nelson. Rosemary was a civil rights solicitor in Northern Ireland, and my honor was to have not only known her but to have worked for her and with her. She was assasinated by protestant loyalist elements assisted by the Northern Ireland Police (then known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary - RUC). She had for many years defended those who the occupied state of the six northern counties of Ireland would not recognize: Irish Republicans. But she also defended and represented unionists and loyalists and she did not discriminate in the amount of effort she expended on her clients. She received ongoing death threats and despite her high-profile work with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (at the time) and being internationally known for her civil rights work (she had just recently testified before the US House International Relations Committee), the British government chose not to investigate the threats or provide any protection. Ten years early, another civil rights attorney, Pat Finucane had been assasinated with help from British intelligence agents.
On March 15, 1999 Rosemary got in her car to drive to her law office in the small town of Lurgan. Her car exploded, having been armed with a mercury-switch bomb - a sophisticated instrument that could only have been provided by security forces in the area. The bomb exploded within earshot of her young daughter who was in school at the time. Rosemary did not die immediately, but suffered tremendously until she finally passed hours later. The security forces never did launch a genuine investigation into her assasination and even the FBI, called in as consultants, declined to help, citing the corruption in the security forces in Northern Ireland.
Rosemary Nelson's legacy was that she worked tirelessly for the rights of her clients and her countrymen and women. She is beloved for standing up to a state system that denied equal rights to a huge segment of the society, and who condoned and often participated in the abuse of those citizens. I loved her and considered her my hero when I worked for her, and even more so now. She taught me so many important things (including watch what you say on the telephone), but one always stands out to me: She told me as I accompanied her to her Congressional Testimony in September 1998 that sometimes it takes a woman to make change happen because we aren't afraid of bitching too loudly about what matters.
These two women, though different ages, different lives, different countries, have much in common, not the least of which is that their brutal murders were aided and abetted by two of our closest allied nations, and there has been no justice in either case. These women would have been even more effective in their work had they been allowed to live. But they weren't.
In their memory today and next week on the anniversaries of their deaths, I will honor not only what they stood (and died) for, but for the inspiration they will always be to me.
Friday, March 05, 2004
( 12:56 PM )
Bush is a Steady
Bush's
Voice of a Veteran calls the "Bush is Steady" campaign a whole lotta BS:
"Steady." Is that as good as $200 million can do?
That means about the same as "Consistent" and
with that we would agree, as in consistently
outrageous, consistently noncomapassionate, and
consistently arrogant - sending our kids off to die
and be wounded, for what? Your mission to save
the world? To save your corporate donors? To
keep the family honor? It's all misguided - every bit
of it, and your money is going to have a tough time
counteracting your B.S.
But Bush supporters, and even the general public don't see the BS yet. The exit polls and other national polls have shown that those who support Bush do so because they think he is a strong leader and because of how he is prosecuting the "war on terrorism." But now we learn that indeed, he isn't prosecuting it much at all. In fact, his administration has been hindering it in order to advance its goal of invading and occupying Iraq.
NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski ("Mik-el-chow-ski) reported this week that the Number One Enemy and the person that tied Saddam's Iraq to Al Qaeda, Abu Musab Zarqawi, could have been targeted and possibly taken out by us several times, but the Bush administration chose not to do so. As a little background, Colin Powell, in his February 2003 address to the UN, invoked Zarqawi's name as proof that Saddam was connected to Al Qaeda, a main reason why attacking, invading and occupying Iraq was the number one goal in the "war on terrorism." Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is known to have ties to Al Qaeda and we knew exactly where he was...and did nothing.
...long before the war the Bush administration had
several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation
and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself - but never pulled
the trigger.
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had
revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had
set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq,
producing deadly ricin and cyanide.
(Mama's note: this was in the Kurdish area, fully controlled
by the US and unreachable by Saddam - Saddam could not
have been connected with activities going on there)
The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the
camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it
to the White House, where, according to U.S.
government sources, the plan was debated to death
in the National Security Council.
"Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a
country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties
after 9/11 and we still didn't do it," said Michael O'Hanlon,
military analyst with the Brookings Institution.
Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was
planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.
The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the
White House again killed it. By then the administration
had set its course for war with Iraq.
"People were more obsessed with developing the
coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the
president's policy of preemption against terrorists,"
according to terrorism expert and former National
Security Council member Roger Cressey.
In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London
arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab
connected to the camp in Iraq.
The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and
for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi's
operation was airtight, but the administration feared
destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its
case for war against Saddam.
Yes, you read that right. The Bush administration had three very clear and viable opportunities to take out this mastermind terrorist, a guy some people think is responsible for many of the ongoing attacks in Iraq (including the terrible ones committed this week on holy days), and they refused to do it because they didn't want to take away an excuse for their war on Iraq.
THIS is strong leadership? This is a steady hand in times of crisis? This is criminal is what it is. Once again we have to sit back in disbelief, knowing that hundreds of dead and thousands of injured soldiers, not to mention the hundreds and thousands of Iraqis, went over there for no better reason than to complete a task that was the empire-building goal of men who had returned to government from another era and were (and still are) intent on creating an oasis of American might in the middle east.
If reporters had done their jobs instead of regurgitating white house press releases, then these things might have come to light a lot sooner and perhaps have prevented the deaths and injuries that families have been enduring over the last year. If the reporters will start doing their jobs NOW, following this example by Miklaszewski, we may have a chance to counteract a lame duck president that has done nothing but drag this country into the dirt.
For more on this story, check out Dkos and Talking Points Memo.
UPDATE: Tom Burka reveals another thing that has distracted the administration and Republican leadership from its "war on terrorism."
( 11:41 AM )
A Picture
... says a thousand words.
Thursday, March 04, 2004
( 2:15 PM )
Home!
Have received word that my brother has arrived home safely from the Gulf (again). Rejoicing all around is in order!
( 11:03 AM )
They Done Kilt Fred!
For those of you who watch Angel, did you see it last night? What the heck is going on? Are they getting rid of Fred? Will we have to learn to love this new creature that has taken over her body? And worst of all, will we have to stare at those creepy gigantic blue contact lenses from now on? Say it ain't so, Wesley!
Worse News: Angel is being cancelled. This is it. Bad enough they did it to Buffy, but just now when Angel has gotten back its old zing? What's the otherworld coming to?
( 10:10 AM )
Civility
Yesterday was the day that the acting governing body of Iraq was supposed to sign in their new, temporary Constitution. This was a very big deal. After all, getting a Constitution down on paper is a first step to political stability and the success of a state. But the day before the Constitution signing, gigantic bomb blasts killed over 180 people during a very holy day for the Shia Muslims. (More violence is expected).
In light of the tragedy, the governing council suspended the signing and enacted 3 days of mourning for the country.
I have been thinking about this a lot. Only 180 people were killed on Tuesday, a horrible amount, but nowhere near the 3,000 killed here on 9/11. The Iraqi government, despite a hugely important even taking place the next day, cancelled it and everything else and put the country to rest so that Iraqis could mourn and grieve their losses and contemplate the tragedy. After our own massive tragedy two years ago, not only did our government not declare any days of mourning, allow us to grieve or contemplate, it actually imposed on us a standard that seems to me still to be inhuman. We were told to "act like everything is normal!" and "go shopping!" We were encouraged to keep working at our jobs, to go visit Disneyland, and don't worry, the air around Ground Zero is fine, so go about your business! ... and for godsake, don't let them see you cry!
Is it weak to mourn, to grieve? Is there some sort of deficit in a leader if he chooses to allow a few moments, maybe a day, maybe a couple of days for the people of his country who have been forever and tragically altered, to just be still and mourn? There is always time for revenge, there is always time for war. But in this country, it seems there is never a good or appropriate time to simply mourn. We seem to carry this burden of "never let them see you cry" far beyond what is humanly necessary or even wise.
I was only one of millions of people who spent that day in horrific disbelief as I wondered how my friends who worked near the Trade Center were, not knowing if they were dead or alive (thank God, alive, but injured and walked home to Brooklyn covered in ash), and the momentary scare I had knowing my parents were supposed to be on an airplane that morning (their flight had been delayed, thank goodness). But I felt so betrayed when I was told for all intents and purposes that my grief was unacceptable and my desire to just stay home and cuddle up and cry was absolutely unAmerican. I was to get my butt to work and keep productivity high - that will show them!
People unable to express their grieving emotions translated the incredible emotional energy into what, to me, amounted to a facade of patriotism. But what else could they do? Waving American flags was the only accepted expression of recognition of our joint grief it seemed. When I went to visit my local firehouse the Friday after the calamity, and took them cookies and told them how sorry I was for the loss of their comrades and how devastated they must be, they seemed so sad and grateful and surprised. I didn't know any other way to express what I was feeling, which was far more negative than my actions belied.
When I brought these thoughts up to my mom last night, she immediately recalled when JFK was assasinated and how everyone kept saying how graceful and "strong" Jackie was not to cry or show emotion in public. She stoically followed that coffin in front of the entire American public and did not bow her head. And she was so admired for that.
Where is our sense of grief in this country? Why are we not allowed to show the emotion that should so naturally flow after tragedy? What is it that allows us to define "strength" as the absense of emotional expression?
(I won't even go into how this is compounded by the fact that the very government who urged us to totally ignore our grief is now exploiting that latent grief for its own poltical gains.)
In a country across the world, they have no qualms about declaring three whole days for the entire country to mourn after the deaths of 180 people. They did not hesitate to postpone what would have been the single most important day in years for that country in order to allow their people to go through the stages of grief that follow such a tragedy.
And we call them uncivilized.
( 9:49 AM )
God Hates Shrimp
Emily over at Strangechord went down to the Multnomah County Offices yesterday to pass out congratulatory cookies and take pictures. Her photos are great.
This one is my favorite. (it is a supporter holding a sign that boldly states "God Hates Shrimp" and names Leviticus 11:2-12 as its reference).
This picture really puts into perspective for me one particular issue that is raised in the gay marriage debate. I realize that most people against it are so because of their religious beliefs. And while I honor anyone's right to believe what they believe, I confess that I do not understand how you can take only one or two bits of the Bible literally and claim that as your argument, yet let all the other bits not matter. I was raised to believe the Bible was God's literal word and that every word of it was literally true. When I became an adult and explored my relationship to and with God in different lights, I realized that I don't believe that fundamental underpinning of the Christian Conservative: that the Bible is literal truth. So I find God's word in many other ways besides the Bible itself. I will always defend the right of those who believe it to be literal to do so, but I do not understand the arguments they may use against certain things.
A case in point: One of the major arguments I hear conservative pundits keep bringing up is that if we allow gay marriage, then this opens the door for polygamy and all sorts of things like marrying your kitchen appliances and such. But why are these folks against polygamy? It's very clearly in the Bible, and God's favorite son, King David, was a very popular polygamist, as was his son Solomon. There are many "laws" or edicts in the old testament that are very different from what we consider social norms now. This is just one argument against gay marriage that I don't understand.
If people are so adamant about "protecting marriage," and I think I've said this a thousand times so far, then why are there no laws against divorce? Why are not people required to go to marital counseling before getting a license? Why are there not fully-provided child care benefits, ensured jobs, and healthcare for families so they can stay married against financial odds? If this is purely a moral issue, then I don't understand how the morality of one edict in the Bible is more important than the foundational edict of our society: that all people are created equal and due equal treatment under the law.
If marriage is only in the purview of religion or "sanctity," then is my marriage not really real because I got married in a courthouse (on a Friday afternoon because I could leave work early that day)? Nope, my marriage is valid because I signed a piece of paper along with my husband, and nowhere on that paper does it mention God or tradition or sanctity. This issue is important to me because it's important to people I love and care about, and it's important for our society. But I understand that it's an argument that must take place and a discussion that will have to go on, probably for years. But that's a good thing for this country. When we talk about stuff, it's more likely to resolve itself than if we just fight forever.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
( 2:54 PM )
Speaking of Ethics
Don't plan on seeing any coming from the Rove Campaign headquarters. Here's a little taste of the depths they are willing to sink to(from Kos):
CLAIM:
"I can't believe he said that. They are playing politics
with a national tragedy."
- Bush-Cheney spokesman Kevin Madden refuting
charges that the Administration is using 9/11 for
political gain, Newsday, 2/20/04
FACT:
"President Bush's re-election team unveiled his
first campaign advertisements on Wednesday and
they in part use the events of Sept. 11, 2001...Two
ads refer to the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001...One ad,
entitled 'Tested,' shows, among other images, a
damaged building from the World Trade Center ruins."
- Reuters, 3/3/04
Look for the Rove Reelection Machine to exploit 9/11 as much as possible. It is the only event this administration exists for. Nothing has happened before or since that equals the great moment that it was when they got to be the ones to declare revenge.
Bush has not given a moment's notice to the 9/11 Commission, much less been in any way helpful in handing over crucial documents or assisting in their mandate. He has not honored his promise to New Yorkers to help invest in and rebuild their city, and he has prosecuted a war on a country that has nothing to do with bring to justice those who participated in or aided and abetted 9/11 (including Saudi Arabia). So invoking 9/11 is the lowest of shameful tactics, but that won't stop him from using it.
I hope that Kerry's commercials will take the high road, and come out immediately to define our candidate as the one who can win. And the other groups like Soros and MoveOn.Org will make the hard hits and call a spade a spade: Bush is a liar and he's done nothing, not ONE thing, good for this country in 3 1/2 years.
( 1:17 PM )
Den of Iniquity
...that would be the House of Representatives I'm referring to. Yesterday, a conglomeration of groups including Common Cause and Judicial Watch issued a study which concluded that there are literally no ethics in the House of Representatives.
The House ethics system is virtually shut down
because public interest groups are barred from
filing complaints and leaders of both parties
have a pact to avoid seeking investigations,
liberal and conservative groups charged Tuesday.
Eight organizations -- from liberal Common
Cause to conservative Judicial Watch -- said
the ethics committee has taken action on only
five cases since 1997, when the panel ended
an investigation of former Speaker Newt
Gingrich. Gingrich was forced to pay a $300,000
fine after the probe on charges he used
charitable funds for political purposes.
There used to be a committee that oversaw investigations into breaches of ethical conduct by Congressional members. That is no more. Both Republicans and Democrats are to blame - they made a deal with each other not to bring up charges against each other or even deal with ethics issues.
At a news conference, the organizations demanded
that the committee -- formally the Committee on
Standards of Official Conduct -- investigate a
reported attempt by Republican leaders to offer
Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., $100,000 for his son's
congressional campaign if he voted for the
Medicare overhaul legislation last year; and
Majority Leader Tom DeLay's purported offer of
attendance at gala events at the Republican
National Convention this summer for donors to
his childrens' charity.
The groups recommended that the House end
a rule, established after the Gingrich case, that
barred non-governmental organizations from
filing complaints and that the leadership end
its agreement, which several organizations
called a "sweetheart" arrangement, to avoid
filing complaints.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a
conservative legal organization, said of the
committee, "It's essentially a black hole."
If the House actually investigated every questionable ethical behavior then the American public might actually KNOW what kinds of scandalous behavior goes on in the federal government. And we can't have that. It's just ludicrous the things these guys get away with. The legal stuff is bad enough (like the kickbacks from lobbyists, etc). Why are our elected officials not accountable ethically? That's like asking why do our elected officials get to raise their own salaries? Being a Congressperson seems like a good gig if you can get it. Unfortunately, like the ethics question, the Dems and Repubs have made a deal to keep their incumbent seats virtually uncontested. What a country.
( 6:30 AM )
Wedding Bells Around the Corner
We heard the news last night that our County Board of Commissioners here in Multnomah County would begin granting marriage licenses to same sex couples today. They did so after a huge mail and email campaign from Multnomah County residents. I am very proud of my county for recognizing that there is neither a law in Oregon prohibiting civil granting of marriage to anyone, nor is there a reason why certain couples should be denied that right. There's bound to be tons of controversy today and over the next days as conservatives scramble to try and stop the issuing of the licenses. I put myself squarely on the side of the supporters of this action, for personal reasons and for political reasons.
Personally, I know and love several people who are denied the rights of marriage simply because they are gay or lesbian, and thus they are denied the same equality my husband and I enjoy. In one example, I find myself wondering if two of my neighbors may take advantage of what the County offers today. They are two women who have been together almost 30 years. They have children and grandchildren. They are going to retire this summer to live in their beach house on the coast and grow old together. But despite the fact that they have faced life together this long, they still have no spousal rights in sickness, in death, in the sharing of benefits, assets or children or any of the things we married couples take for granted.
Politically, I support my County's action today because indeed, Oregon law does not prohibit it and codifying discrimination and unequal treatment is not what this country is about. I have a feeling that after a few years, this issue will go the way of interracial marriage - people will wonder what the big deal was. For now, it is in the headlines, and especially here in Oregon today.
What gay marriage is: a civil union that is a right, not a privilege and should be viewed as an equality issue; a state's perrogative to decide based on the feelings of its citizens. There are more marriages in this country that have nothing to do with religion or "sanctity" than do. I myself was married in a courthouse. So either we do away with "marriage" altogether and everyone gets a civil union, or we grant marriage in its current form to all couples who want to enter that union. What gay marriage is not: a federal issue; something that will threaten the fabric of society or threaten heterosexual marriages, nor is it a valid campaign issue for 2004. Outside of cities and counties that are allowing the issuing of licenses, this issue is a non-issue. It has nothing to do with the state of the nation, the reasons why we need new national leadership, or the things that are most affecting American families - which are jobs, the economy, the lack of healthcare, and poverty and hunger. President Bush put this on the national agenda when he announced support for a Constitutional Amendment denying rights to a portion of our citizenry. He did so in a very calculating way: to take the nation's eyes off his screw-ups, his lies and the way he has driven our country into the ground. Sure he wants to solidify his religious-right base. But more than that, he wants people divided and talking about something else other than what a horrible president he is. We need to rise above that tactic and hit him where it really hurts: the true issues.
So while I fully support the step my County takes today, I put it in perspective with all the other pressing issues we face in our country, and especially here in my state. Oregon leads the nation in hungry people, and that is not a distinction worthy of this great state. Hunger is an issue that should create havoc in our headlines, but of course it doesn't. Oregon leads the nation in unemployment and our previously enviable statewide healthcare system is in a shambles. So let's just let people get married if they are consenting adults and as willing to enter the state of matrimony as any couple in history that has done so before them. Meanwhile, let's talk about the things that really ARE important to the fabric of our society.
UPDATE: My fellow Oregonians are already blogging on this today. The Portland Communique has already visited the Multnomah County Offices where people have been lining up since last night. The One True b!x also mentions a very crucial point in this action, and that is that the County attorney said it would be illegal not to issue the licenses. Also, Emily is thinking of going down with some flowers and cake, and Alas A Blog gets a little intellectual about it. I'm sure there will be more as the day progresses.
UPDATE 2: Over at Notes on the Atrocities (another Oregon blog), a link to the four new anti-gay initiatives that may be on our ballots this November.
UPDATE 3: Courtesy Lakshmi Mama (another Oregon blogging Mama), we now have insight into the terrible, awful GAY AGENDA! Watch Out!!
UPDATE 4 (Final): I have now heard what the "protesters" have been yelling at the folks getting married today. One protestor interviewed on our local NPR affiliate declares that it is obscene that these people are making a mockery of the sanctity of marriage and that God destroyed Soddom and Gomorrah for actions like this. The only thing I have to say about this "sanctity" issue is that the government is not in the sanctifying business. Thus, marriage as defined in our laws and recognized in our courts and for other official purposes is a civil union, not a religious one, and the only authority over it is the state. If "sanctity" were protectable by the state then we would not have a separation between church and state. And if that were the case, I would venture to guess that many religious folks and churches would not like it so much if they were governed by the state. So screaming at people who are getting married in order to have the recognition from the state that the rest of us married folks have is not an effective way to argue your case, in my view. Some people are always going to subscribe to the idea that gay folks are disgusting and that they have some kind of sick agenda to drag us all down into the muck of deviancy. But the force of such people's belief doesn't make them right.
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
( 1:21 PM )
Vote Early and Often!
Those of you in Super Tuesday states, have fun voting today! Vote your conscience, not the trend. You'll have plenty of time to vote ABB in November, go for who you really think is the best candidate on your ballot. This is your chance to have your say.
Monday, March 01, 2004
( 1:04 PM )
Coup Central
So here we are in Haiti again. Last time Aristide escaped and we put him back. This time, it's looking like we kidnapped him out of the country. I recall yesterday, as I watched the President's wandering, jumbled comments as he arrived from Camp David that Haiti was following the constitutional process and everything was fine, but then hearing Aristide's lawyer interviewed and saying that they didn't know where he was and he'd been out of communication with his family, I thought, "Hmmm, something isn't right here." Evidently, something wasn't right.
Aristide has claimed he was kidnapped while our government insists he signed a resignation and left of his own accord. Now, Aristide isn't exactly a shining example of a democratic leader. But then again, neither is George Bush. Here is how it stands currently:
The kidnapping accusation also was reported
Monday by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, and
Aristide's attorney, Ira Kurzman. Waters said she
had spoken with Aristide by phone and he had
told her a story similar to Robinson's.
Waters said that Aristide also had told his story
to Rep. Charles Rangle, D-New York.
"What you need to ask is this: Would [Aristide] call
three different people -- two members of the
United States Congress and tell us that he has been
kidnapped -- that a coup d'?tat has taken place --
unless he believed that?" Waters said. "And do
you think we would make this information up?"
Actually, yes, he could have made it up. And why not - he doesn't have anyone on his side this time. Unfortunately, the issue isn't whether he was taken against his will or not. The international community, led by the US who installed Aristide the last time around, should have seen this coming four weeks ago. Instead, Bush issued proclamations saying that all refugees would be turned back and delegations were dispatched to try and "negotiate." Last time, we made a huge deal about Aristide being the "democratically elected leader" and that's why we forcefully re-installed him in office.
But this time we allowed the riots to go on and eventually assisted in his fleeing the country. He was a terrible leader, and he did no good for Haitians. But he WAS democratically elected. So we have now shown once again that we have no qualms about assisting in the overthrow of a country's leader, just because we don't like him. If we were consistent, we would have supported Aristide once again and then perhaps actually invested in the country of Haiti and urged Aristide to step down when there was more calm. But we allowed the riots to grow and gain power, and we gave legitimacy to the rebel leaders, thus making it obvious that we had no intention of supporting an elected government against mob action.
I am in no way justifying Aristide's leadership. What I'm saying is that we are crude hypocrites. We left Haiti to shrivel up and die after the last time we occupied it, and we only encouraged its most recent destruction. It's the same with Africa. We allow the most horrible violence, destruction and cruelty to continue unabated because we simply have no economic interest in saving human lives in the Congo or the Sudan. What good are they to us? Let them be brutalized and extinguished. We have treated Haiti the same.
The US has not only squandered its good will around the world, but it has squandered its riches. We have spent money on weapons and destruction, on lies and the acquisition of false power. We have let our own citizens go hungry and un-cared for, and those even worse off in other countries we have ignored, betrayed and cast off. Our actions will not go unanswered, I am sure of it. Though I do believe this country has done some good, I cannot find many examples where the good was not simply a by-product of acting in our own best economic interests. The question is how much will it take before American citizens wake up to the reality of our own crass treatment of humanity. I know it's unrealistic to believe that we could ever become an altruistic country that cares more for the state of humankind than for the lining of a few people's pockets. But I can't help hoping.
"An Owie to One
is an Owie to All"
- as modeled by
Mama's Little Activist
| Marriage is love. | |||||
Cost of the War in Iraq
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It's Up To Us. All Humanity is a Family. Give. Regularly.
Mercy Corps
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Mothers Acting Up
( what War is good for )
"The point of revolution is to get away with it."
--Abbie Hoffman
"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine."
--Che Guevara
"Democracy is not a state in which people act like sheep." - Gandhi
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to teach him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently."
-F. Nietzche
"We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free."
-Epictetus
"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."
-Robert A. Heinlein
"Those who will give up essential liberty to secure a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
"As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place."
-Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."
-Mark Twain
"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."
-US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
"Do not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exists because of their silent consent."
-Bruno Jasienski
"The phrase "working mother" is redundant."
-Jane Sellman
In Mama Solidarity
Maryam & Sofia - Baghdad, Iraq
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