Global
When the Iraqi Survey Group released its long awaited report last week that
said Iraq eliminated its weapons programs in the 1990s, President George W.
Bush quickly changed his stance on reasons he authorized an invasion of
Iraq. While he campaigned for a second term in office, Bush justified the
war by saying that that Saddam Hussein was manipulating the United Nation's
oil-for-food program, siphoning off billions of dollars from the venture
that he intended to use to fund a weapons program.
The report on Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, prepared by Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said Saddam Hussein used revenue from the oil-for-food program and "created a web of front companies and used shadowy deals with foreign governments, corporations, and officials to amass $11 billion in illicit revenue in the decade before the US-led invasion last year," reports The New York Times.
The report on Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, prepared by Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said Saddam Hussein used revenue from the oil-for-food program and "created a web of front companies and used shadowy deals with foreign governments, corporations, and officials to amass $11 billion in illicit revenue in the decade before the US-led invasion last year," reports The New York Times.
Do you really believe we would be in Iraq
if they didnt have the second biggest oil supply in the world?
Our sons and daughters are dying for future oil profits for the rich, and we are also paying the bill.
Our sons and daughters are dying for future oil profits for the rich, and we are also paying the bill.
The American Presidential election is always important for the rest of the world. The US is the primary sponsor and maintainer of the present global order and changes in the US can have direct impact in the economic and political structure of the world.
This time the elections are doubly important because of the enormous ideational and ideological differences between the two candidates on how the global order must be structured and serviced.
If Bush Wins
If George W. Bush wins he and his neoconservative ideologues will assume that their departure from traditional American foreign policy positions has been vindicated and they may be tempted to pursue the same course with greater arrogance, recklessness and abandon.
1. Expect more attempts at regime changes, particularly in Iran, Sudan, Syria and perhaps Saudi Arabia. It is possible that the Neocons may turn on Pakistan and its nuclear capabilities to ensure that no Muslim country has the capacity to ever balance/threaten Israel in the near or distant future.
2. There will be no progress on the Palestinian State. Israel will consolidate further in the West Bank.
This time the elections are doubly important because of the enormous ideational and ideological differences between the two candidates on how the global order must be structured and serviced.
If Bush Wins
If George W. Bush wins he and his neoconservative ideologues will assume that their departure from traditional American foreign policy positions has been vindicated and they may be tempted to pursue the same course with greater arrogance, recklessness and abandon.
1. Expect more attempts at regime changes, particularly in Iran, Sudan, Syria and perhaps Saudi Arabia. It is possible that the Neocons may turn on Pakistan and its nuclear capabilities to ensure that no Muslim country has the capacity to ever balance/threaten Israel in the near or distant future.
2. There will be no progress on the Palestinian State. Israel will consolidate further in the West Bank.
Was George bush "miked-up" during his second debate with John Kerry like he was during the first debate? In the first debate it became very obvious when, roughly half way through the debate in the middle of talking about how a commander in chief acts, Bush told someone to "let me finish"?. There was no one in the room talking to Bush and the only place Bush could have heard a voice was from a microphone in his ear or on his person. Also, can anybody really believe Bush could have remembered all those facts and figures he came up with? How can Bush call himself a leader when he can't even debate John Kerry without help?
Seems like every group and its hamster has put out some kind of dossier on the last four years. Top Bush Lies. One Hundred Mistakes Bush could admit to. Best scandals. Biggest Bush flip-flops. Iraq. The economy. The environment.
Corporate pork and payoffs galore. Homeland insecurity. The deficit. On and on it goes.
But I like to remember the little things, those itty-bitty things that really made it special. Those touches of style. The je ne sais quoi of it all. Like choosing Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday to announce his administration would oppose affirmative action in the University of Michigan case, calling it "divisive," "unfair" and "unconstitutional." Classy timing. Of course, Bush (Andover, Yale, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Harvard Business, three failed oil companies rescued by Daddy's friends, set up by Daddy's friends in baseball and given a huge cut for a tiny investment) never experienced affirmative action in his life. Made it all on his own, pulled himself up by his bootstraps -- black people can do it, too.
Corporate pork and payoffs galore. Homeland insecurity. The deficit. On and on it goes.
But I like to remember the little things, those itty-bitty things that really made it special. Those touches of style. The je ne sais quoi of it all. Like choosing Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday to announce his administration would oppose affirmative action in the University of Michigan case, calling it "divisive," "unfair" and "unconstitutional." Classy timing. Of course, Bush (Andover, Yale, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Harvard Business, three failed oil companies rescued by Daddy's friends, set up by Daddy's friends in baseball and given a huge cut for a tiny investment) never experienced affirmative action in his life. Made it all on his own, pulled himself up by his bootstraps -- black people can do it, too.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Now is the time for all good men -- and women -- to race to the aid of their country. Liberals and libertarians unite! The Sinclair Broadcasting Group has moved this election into the realm of creeping fascism, state propaganda, Big Brother and brainwashing. What me, hyperbole?
This is SO simple -- how would you conservatives feel if NBC, CBS or ABC decided to pre-empt primetime programming a week before the election to air Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"? And then announced, "But we've offered President Bush a chance to reply"?
Sinclair has also offered President George W. Bush the inestimable service of diverting attention from his record and is using OUR publicly owned airwaves to do it.
This is SO simple -- how would you conservatives feel if NBC, CBS or ABC decided to pre-empt primetime programming a week before the election to air Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"? And then announced, "But we've offered President Bush a chance to reply"?
Sinclair has also offered President George W. Bush the inestimable service of diverting attention from his record and is using OUR publicly owned airwaves to do it.
Forty years ago this month, a young man named Mario Savio, 21 years old, climbed on top of a car in Berkeley, Calif., and let fly with a stream of incendiary rhetoric, and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement was born.
I'll skip the next chapters and go straight to "forty years later," meaning Oct. 7, 2004, when a fellow two years older than Savio would have been if he hadn't keeled over a few years ago, clambered onto a chair at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft, right outside the entry to the University of California at Berkeley and let fly with a stream of rhetoric that would have been a lot more incendiary for the crowds in Sproul Plaza if Lenni Brenner had remembered to bring a bullhorn.
I'll skip the next chapters and go straight to "forty years later," meaning Oct. 7, 2004, when a fellow two years older than Savio would have been if he hadn't keeled over a few years ago, clambered onto a chair at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft, right outside the entry to the University of California at Berkeley and let fly with a stream of rhetoric that would have been a lot more incendiary for the crowds in Sproul Plaza if Lenni Brenner had remembered to bring a bullhorn.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, which plans to air a CIA-agit-prop-style documentary called “Stolen Honor: Wounds that never heal” which is highly critical of John Kerry’s anti-war activities, should be regarded as part of a shadow government operation running a psychological covert action against the American people.
Sinclair plans to air the program October 22 at 8pm, a week and a half before the November 2 election. Sixty-two Sinclair affiliates including a dozen in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin, plan to air the 42-minute long negative campaign ad for George W. Bush in the form of a documentary.
The airing of the documentary to nearly a quarter of all TV markets in the U.S. represents tens of millions of dollars in in-kind campaign donations to the Bush coffers. It is one of the most blatant and illegal uses of the people’s airwaves in U.S. history and another signal that the return of Cold War-era-style covert operations are being unleashed on the American people.
Sinclair plans to air the program October 22 at 8pm, a week and a half before the November 2 election. Sixty-two Sinclair affiliates including a dozen in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin, plan to air the 42-minute long negative campaign ad for George W. Bush in the form of a documentary.
The airing of the documentary to nearly a quarter of all TV markets in the U.S. represents tens of millions of dollars in in-kind campaign donations to the Bush coffers. It is one of the most blatant and illegal uses of the people’s airwaves in U.S. history and another signal that the return of Cold War-era-style covert operations are being unleashed on the American people.
In an election likely to be decided as much by voter turnout as by convincing the remaining undecided, how do we maintain the hope that’s necessary to keep making the phone calls, knocking on the doors, funding the key ads, and doing all the other critical tasks to get Bush out of office?
Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it’s worthwhile to keep making the effort.
We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.
Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it’s worthwhile to keep making the effort.
We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.
This week, Sinclair Broadcasting, the largest owner of local television stations in the U.S., ordered its 62 stations to preempt regular programming to air an anti-Kerry documentary just a few days before the election.
Sinclair's mission is clear: sway the election in favor of an administration that lets companies like Sinclair get even bigger. It's great for Sinclair's bottom line — terrible for our democracy.
This is not about 'liberal' or 'conservative.' It's about corruption, the threat to democratic discourse, and the manipulation of elections. Together, we can stop them.
Stop Sinclair: http://freepress.net/sinclair/
Sinclair's mission is clear: sway the election in favor of an administration that lets companies like Sinclair get even bigger. It's great for Sinclair's bottom line — terrible for our democracy.
This is not about 'liberal' or 'conservative.' It's about corruption, the threat to democratic discourse, and the manipulation of elections. Together, we can stop them.
Stop Sinclair: http://freepress.net/sinclair/