Op-Ed
Rock Star and long-time environmental activist John Hall just won the Democratic primary in an upstate New York district that hosts what could be the world's most catastrophic nuclear plant. He wants it shut, and may soon be in Congress working to do just that.
Hall was a mainstay of the group Orleans. His name is on such well-known hits as "Dance with Me" and "Still the One." When George W. Bush used "Still the One" at GOP rallies in 2004, Hall made him stop.
Now, Hall may be in place to help stop Indian Point, the reactor complex in the 19th Congressional District north of New York City. Indian Point is now best known as the plant that could have been hit on September 11, 2001. The first jet that flew into the World Trade Center flew directly over the two operating reactors there, and could have done apocalyptic damage had it dived down one minute early.
Hall was a mainstay of the group Orleans. His name is on such well-known hits as "Dance with Me" and "Still the One." When George W. Bush used "Still the One" at GOP rallies in 2004, Hall made him stop.
Now, Hall may be in place to help stop Indian Point, the reactor complex in the 19th Congressional District north of New York City. Indian Point is now best known as the plant that could have been hit on September 11, 2001. The first jet that flew into the World Trade Center flew directly over the two operating reactors there, and could have done apocalyptic damage had it dived down one minute early.
I'd actually be fine if ABC aired their Swift Boating mockudrama, The Path
to /9/11. They just have to do one little thing:
Every couple minutes they need to interrupt the movie with a black screen that stays around for at least a minute and says, in large readable letters:
TOO BAD THIS FILM HAD TO LIE AGAIN AND AGAIN. THIS IS AS IMPORTANT SUBJECT AS EXISTS. AND THEY TURNED AND TWISTED THE TRUTH, AGAIN AND AGAIN. THEY HAD PEOPLE DOING EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY DID DO.
THEY DID IT FOR THEIR LOVE OF POWER.
THEY DID IT TO KEEP THEIR PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON DC, TAKING ACTIONS THAT MAKE TERRORISM WORSE, AND BREED FEAR AND DESPERATION IN THE WORLD.
THEY DID IT BECAUSE THEY'VE LOST THEIR RESPECT FOR TRUTH.
SORRY WE'RE AIRING A FILM WHOSE LIES EMBODY THESE VALUES.
SINCERELY,
ABC
PS-Next time we'll try to get things right. But no guarantees.
I'd be satisfied with that, so long as it repeated throughout the show.
---
Every couple minutes they need to interrupt the movie with a black screen that stays around for at least a minute and says, in large readable letters:
TOO BAD THIS FILM HAD TO LIE AGAIN AND AGAIN. THIS IS AS IMPORTANT SUBJECT AS EXISTS. AND THEY TURNED AND TWISTED THE TRUTH, AGAIN AND AGAIN. THEY HAD PEOPLE DOING EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY DID DO.
THEY DID IT FOR THEIR LOVE OF POWER.
THEY DID IT TO KEEP THEIR PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON DC, TAKING ACTIONS THAT MAKE TERRORISM WORSE, AND BREED FEAR AND DESPERATION IN THE WORLD.
THEY DID IT BECAUSE THEY'VE LOST THEIR RESPECT FOR TRUTH.
SORRY WE'RE AIRING A FILM WHOSE LIES EMBODY THESE VALUES.
SINCERELY,
ABC
PS-Next time we'll try to get things right. But no guarantees.
I'd be satisfied with that, so long as it repeated throughout the show.
---
You trip over one fundamental idiocy of the 9/11 conspiracy nuts -- the ones who say Bush and Cheney masterminded the attacks -- in the first paragraph of the book by one of their high priests, David Ray Griffin, "The New Pearl Harbor." "In many respects," Griffin writes, "the strongest evidence provided by critics of the official account involves the events of 9/11 itself. . In light of standard procedures for dealing with hijacked airplanes . not one of these planes should have reached its target, let alone all three of them."
On Tuesday, September 5th, at least three things will change. Congress will finish vacationing and return to its long and difficult task of destroying the world; many of us will welcome our Congress Members back to Washington with a giant protest camp called Camp Democracy; and Network News will officially go Cable with Katie Couric playing the role of Edward R. Murrow.
That's right, Katie will be "anchor" and "managing editor" of CBS Evening "News". And she's already hard at work. "It's very exciting," she says, "because you're benefiting from all the terrific people and systems already in place, yet hopefully creating something different and fresh. Whether you're talking about the music and saying 'Can the trumpets be a little brighter?' or figuring out the sets and the graphics, it's a lot of fun."
That's right, Katie will be "anchor" and "managing editor" of CBS Evening "News". And she's already hard at work. "It's very exciting," she says, "because you're benefiting from all the terrific people and systems already in place, yet hopefully creating something different and fresh. Whether you're talking about the music and saying 'Can the trumpets be a little brighter?' or figuring out the sets and the graphics, it's a lot of fun."
Soon we will launch the last phase of the midterm elections.
Hopes will flare up. Though the numbers are dwindling, some people go
through their whole adult lives thinking that the next Democrat to hunker
down in the Oval Office is going to straighten out the mess, fight for the
ordinary folk, and face down the rich and powerful.
I got off the plane in New York in 1972 at the age of 31 with one big advantage over these naive souls. I'd already spent 20 years seeing the same hopes invested in whatever Labor Party candidate was on the way to 10 Downing Street.
By the time I reached my prep school at the age of 9, the first post-war Labor government was already slipping from power.
I got off the plane in New York in 1972 at the age of 31 with one big advantage over these naive souls. I'd already spent 20 years seeing the same hopes invested in whatever Labor Party candidate was on the way to 10 Downing Street.
By the time I reached my prep school at the age of 9, the first post-war Labor government was already slipping from power.
AUSTIN, Texas -- I know it's bad form to brag, but I am now a graduate of Texas A&M University, and you can't stop Aggie pride. I became a diplomee of the great institution in College Station after successfully completing the three-day short course in beef cattle this summer. I specialized in forage management and graduated "Quel fromage!" meaning "avec distinction."
It is also true that I was banned from the campus of Texas A&M many years ago after some students invited me to make a political speech. Also Quel Fromage! So you see how far we have all come.
The most amazing part of cow college was meeting the cow whisperer. Think of everything you know about moving cattle from one place to another -- for shots, round-up or loading into trucks for market -- just physically moving a lot of cattle. GEE, GIT ON, GO DOGIE, whistle, whip crack, move 'em out, chase 'em down. Turns out all these years we've been doing it wrong.
It is also true that I was banned from the campus of Texas A&M many years ago after some students invited me to make a political speech. Also Quel Fromage! So you see how far we have all come.
The most amazing part of cow college was meeting the cow whisperer. Think of everything you know about moving cattle from one place to another -- for shots, round-up or loading into trucks for market -- just physically moving a lot of cattle. GEE, GIT ON, GO DOGIE, whistle, whip crack, move 'em out, chase 'em down. Turns out all these years we've been doing it wrong.
In the aftermath of the onslaught on Lebanon you can open up the Israeli newspapers, particularly the Hebrew-language editions, and find fierce assaults on the country's elites from left, right and center.
The overall panorama is one of chickens of all ages coming home to roost. Small pustules highlight larger rot. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, a narcissistic bully, secretly took time off the morning he ordered the terror bombing of south Beirut to tell Bank Leumi to sell his stock portfolio before the market plunged, which it soon did by nearly 10 percent.
The capacity of the U.S. armed forces to fight intelligently and effectively has been almost destroyed by a system of graft-ridden procurement that favors expensive weapons systems validated by bogus tests. Israel's supposed military requirements have been a particularly ripe sector of that racket, and the consequences are plain to see.
The overall panorama is one of chickens of all ages coming home to roost. Small pustules highlight larger rot. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, a narcissistic bully, secretly took time off the morning he ordered the terror bombing of south Beirut to tell Bank Leumi to sell his stock portfolio before the market plunged, which it soon did by nearly 10 percent.
The capacity of the U.S. armed forces to fight intelligently and effectively has been almost destroyed by a system of graft-ridden procurement that favors expensive weapons systems validated by bogus tests. Israel's supposed military requirements have been a particularly ripe sector of that racket, and the consequences are plain to see.
He was a tough kid and determined to take what they could give him, but the dirty needle was too much.
Join the Marines, spit up blood.
Talk about a military that's strained to the breaking point. They're enforcing stop-loss orders, calling up the reserves, extending the enlistment age (in a recent spoof of a recruitment ad on "The Daily Show," doddering oldsters were lured to sign up with the phrase, "Remember, when you have a gun in your hands, they have to listen to your stories"). This is the paradox of waging an unpopular, morally ambiguous war.
What happened to 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Matt Solowynsky at the beginning of this year shows another aspect of the strain. The process of dehumanizing the enemy - the sine qua non of every war in human history, and crushingly obvious when a war grinds on without a clear strategic objective - sooner or later backs up on itself.
Join the Marines, spit up blood.
Talk about a military that's strained to the breaking point. They're enforcing stop-loss orders, calling up the reserves, extending the enlistment age (in a recent spoof of a recruitment ad on "The Daily Show," doddering oldsters were lured to sign up with the phrase, "Remember, when you have a gun in your hands, they have to listen to your stories"). This is the paradox of waging an unpopular, morally ambiguous war.
What happened to 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Matt Solowynsky at the beginning of this year shows another aspect of the strain. The process of dehumanizing the enemy - the sine qua non of every war in human history, and crushingly obvious when a war grinds on without a clear strategic objective - sooner or later backs up on itself.
Five years into the “war on terror,” it’s still at the core of
American media and politics.
Yeah, I’ve seen the recent polls showing a drop in public support for President Bush’s “war on terror” claims. And I’ve read a spate of commentaries about Bush’s current lack of political traction on the terrorism issue, like the New York Times piece by Frank Rich on Aug. 20 triumphantly proclaiming that “the era of Americans’ fearing fear itself is over.”
That’s a comforting thought, hovering somewhere between complacent and delusional.
Reflexive fear may be on vacation, but it hasn’t quit. The “war on terror” motif is fraying -- but it remains close at hand as a mighty pretext for present and future warfare.
Yeah, I’ve seen the recent polls showing a drop in public support for President Bush’s “war on terror” claims. And I’ve read a spate of commentaries about Bush’s current lack of political traction on the terrorism issue, like the New York Times piece by Frank Rich on Aug. 20 triumphantly proclaiming that “the era of Americans’ fearing fear itself is over.”
That’s a comforting thought, hovering somewhere between complacent and delusional.
Reflexive fear may be on vacation, but it hasn’t quit. The “war on terror” motif is fraying -- but it remains close at hand as a mighty pretext for present and future warfare.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Another bee-you-ti-ful example of the right-wing media getting it all wrong. Here they are having the nerve to mutter in public about "activist judges" because Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has pointed out that spying without a warrant is illegal in this country -- so warrantless telephone tapping is illegal in this country.
Improbably enough, the first complaint of many of these (SET ITAL) soi-disant (END ITAL) legal scholars is that Taylor's decision is not well written. No judicial masterpiece, they sneer. Nevertheless, warrantless spying is illegal. Did it ever occur to these literary critics that Taylor has a lay-down hand? The National Security Agency program is flat unconstitutional, and for those who insist this means Osama bin Laden wins, it's also ridiculously easy to fix so that it is constitutional.
Conservatives in this country have been yipping in chorus for years about "activist judges," and frankly, like fools, many of you bought into the phony political rhetoric about those terrible jurists.
Improbably enough, the first complaint of many of these (SET ITAL) soi-disant (END ITAL) legal scholars is that Taylor's decision is not well written. No judicial masterpiece, they sneer. Nevertheless, warrantless spying is illegal. Did it ever occur to these literary critics that Taylor has a lay-down hand? The National Security Agency program is flat unconstitutional, and for those who insist this means Osama bin Laden wins, it's also ridiculously easy to fix so that it is constitutional.
Conservatives in this country have been yipping in chorus for years about "activist judges," and frankly, like fools, many of you bought into the phony political rhetoric about those terrible jurists.