Op-Ed
Imagine that you're at the ceremonial opening of a time capsule, half
a century after some forward-looking Americans sealed it during a
multimedia festival just before Thanksgiving 2002.
It's now late autumn in the year 2052. Gathered around a canister, the onlookers stare at the rusty container while someone punctures the metal top. Inside, through the stale air, they watch as symbols of early 21st-century media emerge from the past.
There's a desktop PC, a palm computer and a cell phone -- evidently selected back in 2002 to symbolize the high-tech achievements of the era. Now, as might be expected, those once-cutting-edge products look crude, even a bit pathetic -- kind of like an old black-and-white TV would have seemed to people at the turn of the century.
Also pulled from the dust are samples of long-forgotten movies and music videos: best sellers in their day. Someone cranks up a pair of ancient machines capable of playing videotapes and DVDs. The crowd is attentive. The faces of senior citizens betray the flickering of nostalgia; the young people cringe.
It's now late autumn in the year 2052. Gathered around a canister, the onlookers stare at the rusty container while someone punctures the metal top. Inside, through the stale air, they watch as symbols of early 21st-century media emerge from the past.
There's a desktop PC, a palm computer and a cell phone -- evidently selected back in 2002 to symbolize the high-tech achievements of the era. Now, as might be expected, those once-cutting-edge products look crude, even a bit pathetic -- kind of like an old black-and-white TV would have seemed to people at the turn of the century.
Also pulled from the dust are samples of long-forgotten movies and music videos: best sellers in their day. Someone cranks up a pair of ancient machines capable of playing videotapes and DVDs. The crowd is attentive. The faces of senior citizens betray the flickering of nostalgia; the young people cringe.
Freep Hero: U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)
While most of the Senate Democrats sit idly by looking for their spines, Sen. Robert Byrd nearly single-handedly fights to protect the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights from the smiley-faced friendly-fascist assault by the Bushmen. Byrd also revealed on September 27 that government documents establish that the Reagan-Bush administration sent numerous shipments of biochemical agents to the government of Iraq. After U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he had no knowledge of any U.S. shipments to Iraq, Byrd revealed that between 1985-88, the nonprofit American Type Culture Collection made eleven shipments to Iraq, with the government’s approval, of biological warfare pathogens. These include anthrax, botulinum toxin and gangrene. Also, between January 1980 and October 1983 the Federal Center for Disease Control shipped a variety of toxin specimens to Iraq including West Nile virus and Dengue Fever. The Center for Disease Control was forced to deny that the current outbreak of West Nile virus in the U.S. is linked to the shipments it made to Iraq.
While most of the Senate Democrats sit idly by looking for their spines, Sen. Robert Byrd nearly single-handedly fights to protect the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights from the smiley-faced friendly-fascist assault by the Bushmen. Byrd also revealed on September 27 that government documents establish that the Reagan-Bush administration sent numerous shipments of biochemical agents to the government of Iraq. After U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he had no knowledge of any U.S. shipments to Iraq, Byrd revealed that between 1985-88, the nonprofit American Type Culture Collection made eleven shipments to Iraq, with the government’s approval, of biological warfare pathogens. These include anthrax, botulinum toxin and gangrene. Also, between January 1980 and October 1983 the Federal Center for Disease Control shipped a variety of toxin specimens to Iraq including West Nile virus and Dengue Fever. The Center for Disease Control was forced to deny that the current outbreak of West Nile virus in the U.S. is linked to the shipments it made to Iraq.
Recently, U.S. President George W. Bush addressed your august assembly. Despite obtaining his office by what appeared to be a fraudulent coup and stealing the electoral votes of the state of Florida where his brother Jeb is governor, he did make one impressive point: “Our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions.”
The UN needs to realize that Bush’s statement is a Freudian slip – a self-confession about the real terrorist network that surrounds him in Washington, D.C.
On December 20, 1983, once and future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Iraq to extend his hand of friendship to Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld, then a private citizen was acting as a liaison for the Reagan-Bush administration. As we say in U.S. politics, they knew Saddam was a son-of-a-bitch, but we wanted him “as our son-of-a-bitch.” You know the history here – Somoza, Pappa Doc Duvalier, the Shah of Iran, Marcos, Franco. These are just a few of a long list of fascists and thugs employed by the U.S. to do its imperialist bidding.
The UN needs to realize that Bush’s statement is a Freudian slip – a self-confession about the real terrorist network that surrounds him in Washington, D.C.
On December 20, 1983, once and future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Iraq to extend his hand of friendship to Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld, then a private citizen was acting as a liaison for the Reagan-Bush administration. As we say in U.S. politics, they knew Saddam was a son-of-a-bitch, but we wanted him “as our son-of-a-bitch.” You know the history here – Somoza, Pappa Doc Duvalier, the Shah of Iran, Marcos, Franco. These are just a few of a long list of fascists and thugs employed by the U.S. to do its imperialist bidding.
AUSTIN -- Under the radar. Wheee, it is coming down fast and hard out here.
The Wall Street Journal devoted some coverage to the interesting case of Janet Rehnquist, inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Rehnquist, daughter of the chief justice, is in hot water for politicizing her nonpartisan office and forcing out longtime career civil servants: This is the kind of thing that draws attention in Washington, D.C., but buried in the story, we find some interesting nuggets concerning Inspector Rehnquist's efforts to create a kinder, gentler IG department.
"The HHS office is responsible for safeguarding $450 billion-plus in annual spending, including Medicare and Medicaid, giving it a big role in policing health-care fraud. It annually makes cost-saving recommendations totaling billions of dollars, participates in hundreds of criminal prosecutions and bars thousands of entities from government work," reports the Journal.
The Wall Street Journal devoted some coverage to the interesting case of Janet Rehnquist, inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Rehnquist, daughter of the chief justice, is in hot water for politicizing her nonpartisan office and forcing out longtime career civil servants: This is the kind of thing that draws attention in Washington, D.C., but buried in the story, we find some interesting nuggets concerning Inspector Rehnquist's efforts to create a kinder, gentler IG department.
"The HHS office is responsible for safeguarding $450 billion-plus in annual spending, including Medicare and Medicaid, giving it a big role in policing health-care fraud. It annually makes cost-saving recommendations totaling billions of dollars, participates in hundreds of criminal prosecutions and bars thousands of entities from government work," reports the Journal.
AUSTIN -- Never say this is not a great nation. A campaign in which Jesse Ventura took offense at someone else's behavior: Mr. Etiquette, the sensitive male. Poor Charlton Heston, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, no shame to him, shipped about the country, urging us all to buy more guns while being held up by supporters on each arm. Both candidates for governor in California capable of inducing brain damage in anyone luckless enough to listen to them speak. Another great year!
As a veteran of many an electoral defeat at the polls, may I remind you of the proper Texan attitude toward slaughter at the polls. A few years before Billie Carr died this September at age 74, a friend called to ask how she was doing. "Well," she said, "They just impeached my boy up in Washington, there's not a Democrat left in statewide office in Texas, the Republicans have taken every judgeship in Harris County, and yesterday, I found out I have cancer." Pause. "I think I'll go out and get a pregnancy test because with my luck, it'll come back positive."
As a veteran of many an electoral defeat at the polls, may I remind you of the proper Texan attitude toward slaughter at the polls. A few years before Billie Carr died this September at age 74, a friend called to ask how she was doing. "Well," she said, "They just impeached my boy up in Washington, there's not a Democrat left in statewide office in Texas, the Republicans have taken every judgeship in Harris County, and yesterday, I found out I have cancer." Pause. "I think I'll go out and get a pregnancy test because with my luck, it'll come back positive."
AUSTIN, Texas -- So the new guy in charge of reforming the
accounting industry himself sat on the board of a company now being
investigated for fraud, and when that company's outside auditors
complained
about accounting irregularities, he voted to fire them. This is just
peachy.
Why don't we add Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers to the new accounting oversight board, as well?
It's not as though it weren't already painfully clear the Bush administration is both opposing and undermining all efforts to clean up corporate corruption, but do they really have to make a mockery of them, as well?
The headline in The Wall Street Journal read, "Criticism Mounts as Pitt Launches Probe of Himself." SEC chairman Harvey Pitt has just made himself immortal: Pitt, inventor of the self-probe. It sounds painfully rectal.
This is obscene. Where are the big fish on this one? We used to say of Bush in Texas, "He doesn't care about the topwaters." The topwaters are the bitty fish that swim on the top of the pond; Bush always worked for the big fish that swim underneath.
Why don't we add Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers to the new accounting oversight board, as well?
It's not as though it weren't already painfully clear the Bush administration is both opposing and undermining all efforts to clean up corporate corruption, but do they really have to make a mockery of them, as well?
The headline in The Wall Street Journal read, "Criticism Mounts as Pitt Launches Probe of Himself." SEC chairman Harvey Pitt has just made himself immortal: Pitt, inventor of the self-probe. It sounds painfully rectal.
This is obscene. Where are the big fish on this one? We used to say of Bush in Texas, "He doesn't care about the topwaters." The topwaters are the bitty fish that swim on the top of the pond; Bush always worked for the big fish that swim underneath.
About a day before I decided to write this me and a couple friends were having a discussion about the nature of the columbus activist community. A little joke came up between us where we gave our activist community a motto:"Welcome to Columbus! Please tone it down a little!" Now we all had a good laugh over this statement about what we consider to be the lack of tactical radicalism within our activist community here in Columbus, Ohio, but this is a very serious matter or at least I feel it is and it has compeled me to write this critique.
PORTLAND, Ore. -- My, what fun we are having this festive fall campaign season. Ads running coast to coast informing us that if the other guy wins the election, pestilence will fall upon the land, weevils will eat the corn, our children will be sacrificed to Baal, and we'll all be afflicted with piles. It makes me miss the warm, positive, upbeat, people-loving candidates of yesteryear. Like Richard Nixon.
Tough times for those of us who are just little rays of sunshine all the damn time. I was trying to think of a single area where the country appears to be headed in the right direction.
The economy? Flop. Health care? Disaster. Homeland security? The director of the CIA says we're about to be attacked again. Foreign policy? Even our allies are starting to hate us. The environment? Please.
Meanwhile, our only president continues to insist that we need to go bomb Iraq, as he so lucidly explained the other day, "for the sake of peace." We once had a war to end war, but we've never actually tried a war for peace before.
Tough times for those of us who are just little rays of sunshine all the damn time. I was trying to think of a single area where the country appears to be headed in the right direction.
The economy? Flop. Health care? Disaster. Homeland security? The director of the CIA says we're about to be attacked again. Foreign policy? Even our allies are starting to hate us. The environment? Please.
Meanwhile, our only president continues to insist that we need to go bomb Iraq, as he so lucidly explained the other day, "for the sake of peace." We once had a war to end war, but we've never actually tried a war for peace before.
Marketing a war is serious business. And no product requires better
brand names than one that squanders vast quantities of resources while
intentionally killing large numbers of people.
The American trend of euphemistic fog for such enterprises began several decades ago. It's very old news that the federal government no longer has a department or a budget named "war." Now, it's all called "defense," a word with a strong aura of inherent justification. The sly effectiveness of the labeling switch can be gauged by the fact that many opponents of reckless military spending nevertheless constantly refer to it as "defense" spending.
During the past dozen years, the intersection between two avenues, Pennsylvania and Madison, has given rise to media cross-promotion that increasingly sanitizes the organized mass destruction known as warfare.
The American trend of euphemistic fog for such enterprises began several decades ago. It's very old news that the federal government no longer has a department or a budget named "war." Now, it's all called "defense," a word with a strong aura of inherent justification. The sly effectiveness of the labeling switch can be gauged by the fact that many opponents of reckless military spending nevertheless constantly refer to it as "defense" spending.
During the past dozen years, the intersection between two avenues, Pennsylvania and Madison, has given rise to media cross-promotion that increasingly sanitizes the organized mass destruction known as warfare.
SAN FRANCISCO -- He was the rarest of all rare breeds -- a mensch from Minnesota. But this is not a column about Paul Wellstone. No one has to wonder for a minute what he would have wanted, "What would Wellstone do?" The answer all but roars back, "Don't mourn, organize!"
The contrast between Paul's passionate populism and this dreary mid-term election is as sad as his death. There's many a contest between political pygmies this year -- we're down to seeds and stems again --- but even in proud Texas we have to admit that this year's palm for nose-holding voting must go to California. Not to overstate, two of the most titanically unattractive candidates in the history of time -- Gray Davis and Bill Simon -- are vying for the governorship. A new nadir in modern politics. How we got from the Lincoln-Douglas debates to this -- or what we ever did to deserve it -- is unclear. The debate between Davis and Simon raised the always-timely question: Is God punishing us?
The contrast between Paul's passionate populism and this dreary mid-term election is as sad as his death. There's many a contest between political pygmies this year -- we're down to seeds and stems again --- but even in proud Texas we have to admit that this year's palm for nose-holding voting must go to California. Not to overstate, two of the most titanically unattractive candidates in the history of time -- Gray Davis and Bill Simon -- are vying for the governorship. A new nadir in modern politics. How we got from the Lincoln-Douglas debates to this -- or what we ever did to deserve it -- is unclear. The debate between Davis and Simon raised the always-timely question: Is God punishing us?