Duty to Warn
A rare moment of truth – several of them, actually – occurred at last week’s meeting of the Toledo Board of Education’s Policy Committee when school officials, peace activists and military recruiters assembled to discuss a draft policy to control recruiters in public schools.
Thanks to the federal No Child Left Unrecruited Act, kicking the snake oil salesmen out altogether was not on the table (frankly, I think the vast majority of school board officials around the country are glad “No Child Left Alone” gives them the political cover to tell peace activists “gee, we’d love to ban recruiters altogether, but the federal law, blah blah blah…”).
So before the discussion fixated on how many pounds of Pentagon refuse per square foot of cafeteria space would be permitted on alternate Tuesdays, I asked to speak. Board President, Larry Sykes, who prefers to go by his first name, nodded in my direction.
Thanks to the federal No Child Left Unrecruited Act, kicking the snake oil salesmen out altogether was not on the table (frankly, I think the vast majority of school board officials around the country are glad “No Child Left Alone” gives them the political cover to tell peace activists “gee, we’d love to ban recruiters altogether, but the federal law, blah blah blah…”).
So before the discussion fixated on how many pounds of Pentagon refuse per square foot of cafeteria space would be permitted on alternate Tuesdays, I asked to speak. Board President, Larry Sykes, who prefers to go by his first name, nodded in my direction.
Future historians will remember the George W. Bush administration for allowing two colossal catastrophes on U.S. soil: the 9/11 terrorist attack and the Katrina hurricane invasion. In both cases, Bush the Younger ignored mounds of evidence pointing to each impending disaster.
In December 2002, Bush announced that his administration planned to study the issue of climate change for five more years rather than be forced into any action regulating fossil fuel emissions. The question of global warming was put on the back burner.
Even if Bush refused on principle to read those boring policy papers he might have accidentally stumbled on the fact that New Orleans was in peril from leafing through the pages of Rolling Stone, glancing at the pictures and reading a paragraph or two.
The February 20, 2003 issue of Rolling Stone had a graphic of the U.S. Capitol under water, and citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said "New Orleans, which has an average elevation of eight feet below sea level could become the next Atlantis."
In December 2002, Bush announced that his administration planned to study the issue of climate change for five more years rather than be forced into any action regulating fossil fuel emissions. The question of global warming was put on the back burner.
Even if Bush refused on principle to read those boring policy papers he might have accidentally stumbled on the fact that New Orleans was in peril from leafing through the pages of Rolling Stone, glancing at the pictures and reading a paragraph or two.
The February 20, 2003 issue of Rolling Stone had a graphic of the U.S. Capitol under water, and citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said "New Orleans, which has an average elevation of eight feet below sea level could become the next Atlantis."
Slidell, LA - The residents of Chalmette are glum: three and a half weeks ago, Hurricane Katrina ravaged their coastal community, a suburb east of New Orleans. Chalmette was determined to be "100%"; this damage classification means that all of the homes in the community were badly damaged by the storm, nearly obliterating the small town. Thirty-seven year-old Ben Holder, longtime resident and homeowner, came back Monday to find his two-story home flooded with six feet of brackish water and briny mud. Holder, like many of the residents I spoke with, has an unusually optimistic attitude:
"My grandmother and mother-in-law were both drowned in the flood, and my truck is completely destroyed, my boat is upside-down on the roof of my house, which is also upside down; but somehow, by the grace of God, these two little lizards I was keeping upstairs spent ten days alone without food and water and both of them survived!"
"My grandmother and mother-in-law were both drowned in the flood, and my truck is completely destroyed, my boat is upside-down on the roof of my house, which is also upside down; but somehow, by the grace of God, these two little lizards I was keeping upstairs spent ten days alone without food and water and both of them survived!"
The devastation and misery created in so many lives by the recent hurricanes is horrible. And the outpouring of generosity and assistance by government, organized philanthropy and the general public is wonderful. It is impossible to be perpetually confronted with the scope of the tragedy and not want to respond.
And yet, here in Columbus, our homeless neighbors are being issued tickets by the police for “camping” on public land because the shelters cannot accommodate them, while evacuees are receiving free rent and utilities.
It has been a year since the City of Columbus bulldozed The Open Shelter facility on the Scioto Peninsula, hiding behind the official position that we were no longer necessary. And in that one year, our Advocacy and Day Center has worked with 4,000 different people – twice as many as last year, even though we no longer can provide shelter ourselves.
And yet, here in Columbus, our homeless neighbors are being issued tickets by the police for “camping” on public land because the shelters cannot accommodate them, while evacuees are receiving free rent and utilities.
It has been a year since the City of Columbus bulldozed The Open Shelter facility on the Scioto Peninsula, hiding behind the official position that we were no longer necessary. And in that one year, our Advocacy and Day Center has worked with 4,000 different people – twice as many as last year, even though we no longer can provide shelter ourselves.
The special prosecutor investigating the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame
Wilson is trying to determine whether Deputy White House chief of staff Karl
Rove lied to the FBI when he was first interviewed by agents about his role
in the case in October 2003, attorneys close to the case said.
News reports in recent weeks have suggested that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has narrowed his criminal inquiry into whether Rove purposely failed to tell the grand jury hearing evidence in the case that he spoke with Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003 and revealed the identity of the undercover CIA agent.
But Fitzgerald hasn't resolved another important element in the case: what appears to be misleading statements Rove made to FBI investigators on Oct. 8, 2003, less than two weeks after the Justice Department announced that it had launched a criminal probe into Plame's outing, the attorneys said.
News reports in recent weeks have suggested that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has narrowed his criminal inquiry into whether Rove purposely failed to tell the grand jury hearing evidence in the case that he spoke with Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003 and revealed the identity of the undercover CIA agent.
But Fitzgerald hasn't resolved another important element in the case: what appears to be misleading statements Rove made to FBI investigators on Oct. 8, 2003, less than two weeks after the Justice Department announced that it had launched a criminal probe into Plame's outing, the attorneys said.
How much more will the American people endure?
"Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
---Frederick Douglass, African-American slave, and abolitionist
229 Years Later Have Passed and True Freedom Still Eludes Most of Us
In support of the brave and intelligent citizens of Vermont who recently passed a resolution to secede from the union, I decided to update and modify our Declaration of Independence to fit the circumstances we are facing in 2005. Despite the numerous distinctions between then and now, in some significant ways, little has changed. Like our Founding Fathers, I enumerated grievances of the Oppressed in my version of the Declaration, and many are similar to those spelled out in the original version drafted in 1776. Even the name of the lead Oppressor remains the same.
"Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
---Frederick Douglass, African-American slave, and abolitionist
229 Years Later Have Passed and True Freedom Still Eludes Most of Us
In support of the brave and intelligent citizens of Vermont who recently passed a resolution to secede from the union, I decided to update and modify our Declaration of Independence to fit the circumstances we are facing in 2005. Despite the numerous distinctions between then and now, in some significant ways, little has changed. Like our Founding Fathers, I enumerated grievances of the Oppressed in my version of the Declaration, and many are similar to those spelled out in the original version drafted in 1776. Even the name of the lead Oppressor remains the same.
During my childhood, November 11th was called Armistice Day -- to commemorate the day that the Armistice was signed that ended the World War, The Great War, The War to Make the World Safe for Democracy, The War to End All Wars. Since then we have been through so many wars that the day’s name has been changed to Veterans Day.
Understandably, all the attention on this day has been on those who were killed, with no notice taken of the killers and why they started the War. Understandably because no one in public life or among the veterans knows, or has even thought about it. That sad ignorance and indifference will be compensated for here now, albeit all too briefly.
Understandably, all the attention on this day has been on those who were killed, with no notice taken of the killers and why they started the War. Understandably because no one in public life or among the veterans knows, or has even thought about it. That sad ignorance and indifference will be compensated for here now, albeit all too briefly.
Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover-up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity?
That’s one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out. It’s unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned—not under oath—about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it.
The five-count criminal indictment handed up by a grand jury last month against Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the press. Months after Plame’s identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists.
What the Vice President denied knowing
That’s one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out. It’s unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned—not under oath—about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it.
The five-count criminal indictment handed up by a grand jury last month against Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the press. Months after Plame’s identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists.
What the Vice President denied knowing
Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader of the upper chamber of the U.S. Government, infuriated the Bush administration and its Republican cronies on Tuesday by forcing the body into closed session. The move is allowed under a little used rule that permits any member to demand that the session be closed, ostensibly to facilitate the discussion of secret or sensitive information. Why now? Why this? Reid's statement may be the strongest of any Democratic Party leader to date: after years of stumbling into oblivion—by supporting the war and offering little but tepid opposition to the Bush cabal's most offensive policies-—is it just possible that the Dems may finally have seen the light?
On November 2nd, one year after an election that saw more 'irregularities' than any in recent history, I will be leading a march to the streets to drive out the Bush regime! For me, a 65 year old retiree, who has believed in the orderly transition of power and reasoned argument in the public forum, I can tell you that this is a radical departure from my pattern of support for and trust in our system.
When our vote is taken away or made meaningless, as has now happened, our reality in America is changed in a fundamental way. No longer can we, the citizen, hold those in government accountable for their actions. That is what has happened in America, I am now certain, after examining the many studies done following this election. We now must face the terrible fact that we are ruled by a regime that claims a mandate to do as they please, when in fact they represent an illegitimate and criminal tyranny over us.
When our vote is taken away or made meaningless, as has now happened, our reality in America is changed in a fundamental way. No longer can we, the citizen, hold those in government accountable for their actions. That is what has happened in America, I am now certain, after examining the many studies done following this election. We now must face the terrible fact that we are ruled by a regime that claims a mandate to do as they please, when in fact they represent an illegitimate and criminal tyranny over us.