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For The Trees
Who is our economy FOR, anyway? About the Authors: Dave Johnson John Emerson Richard Reich Thomas Leavitt
Recent Posts: BEST OF STF: Dave's: Articles not at STF: The ATLA Speech on building a progressive infrastructure Lowering the Bar The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law Who's Behind the Attack on Liberal Professors On the Right and their communications infrastructure: Why Republicans Win Win or Lose The "Conventional Wisdom" Machine Some History of the Conservative Movement HOW TO FIGHT BACK An Amplifier Of Our Own Don't Blame the Democrats How They Do It 1 2 3 4 Getting Rolled Other: You're Gonna Get Drafted Scalia and Self-Government Who is Our Economy For? Voting Machine Story Link Collection What's Wrong with this Picture? (Voting Machines) Like Meat in the Supermarket Get Active Thin Line 1 2 3 Fixing Social Security Seeing the Forest I, II, III "Incredibly Positive News" The Breadth of It The Republican Crony Club Moon Bush Ralph Nader is a Scab John's Best Of: Kerry Smear Page Bandar Bush 9/11 Commission Report Damages Bush -- if you read it Florida Goon Squad Intimidated the Supreme Court The Use and Abuse of George Orwell Zizka's Archives (John's previous identity) Zizka Sampler News Sources: AlterNet BuzzFlash Common Dreams Cursor Drudge Retort Information Clearing House Smirking Chimp TruthOut What REALLY Happened Links to Other Weblogs: |
 7/31/2004 Balloon Drop 
Here's a "stitched" photo of the balloon drop.--- Posted at 7/31/2004 10:53:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
What The Republicans Are Encouraging DEM'S MARINE MISFIRE , in a Republican newspaper: John Kerry's heavily hyped cross-country bus tour stumbled out of the blocks yesterday, as a group of Marines publicly dissed the Vietnam War hero in the middle of a crowded restaurant.John Kerry is a United States Senator, and recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, three purple hearts and many other honors. Yes these active-duty Marines -- SOME IN UNIFORM! (thanks, Ollie) -- felt free to act this way toward him in public. I can't imagine members of the armed forces acting this way toward an honored veteran OR a U.S. Senator before the Republican hate machine started cranking out its horrible, divisive smear and fear campaigns. If Kerry becomes President I have a feeling he will finally, finally do something about the right-wing takeover of the military culture. It's bad for the military, bad for our country, bad for our traditions, and dangerous for democracy. --- Posted at 7/31/2004 03:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
STF in Best Ten Posts List! 2004 DNC Bloggers : The Ten Best List @ Radio Free Blogistan --- Posted at 7/31/2004 03:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Weblog Still Looks Funny The blog still looks really funny, text crowded up against the edges, etc. I think it is because some of the pictures posted below are interfering with the template. I'm still working on it. Apologies. --- Posted at 7/31/2004 03:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Republican Tactic Remember what I wrote about Repubolicans accusing their opponents of what they are, in reality, actually themselves guilty of, as a tactic? Bush Questions Kerry's Record: "President George W. Bush launched his counterattack against John Kerry on Friday, saying his Democratic rival has spent 19 years in the U.S. Senate with 'no signature achievements.'" --- Posted at 7/31/2004 12:43:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
An IM Conversation Him: what about the promised stuff about the convention!!!!!????????????? Me: that's so last week... Him: then blogging failed at the convention Me: I'm joking Him: everybody's been saying: "see, i dont have no stinking deadline, so i'll write a great piece later, and you'll all love it" Him: so now it's like last week. Him: you guys are even worse than the pros. Him: at least they write some shit. Me: I just f*****g woke up. Got home late, just woke up Him: you just promise to right something good and then don't even write SH*T? Him: i didn't say you had to do it now. Him: you just sadi you weren't goinbg to do it AT ALL. Me: I also said I was joking --- Posted at 7/31/2004 12:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Moore C-SPAN seems to have found it. Update - That link doesn't seem to work. For now, try this. [Dave] --- Posted at 7/31/2004 01:13:00 AM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/30/2004 Nader I wonder if the Greens here have seen the Let Nader Debate ad over on the right there. --- Posted at 7/30/2004 11:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" Reuters, quoting Susan Sheybani, "an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt." When questioned about this, her response: "Oh, I was just kidding." Yeah. Sure. Saw a pointer to this in the Salon article on John Kerry's speech to the DNC. Thought it deserved more play, as an example of the underlying attitudes held by the Bush/Cheney campaign. --Thomas Leavitt, posting from Santa Cruz, CA --- Posted at 7/30/2004 02:00:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Seeing the forest: a "greenwash" example. So, one of the first things that Dave made me hip to was how the right has spent billions creating a vast array of "front" organizations to push it's message - and that one of the first things I should do whenever I see something suspect was to check it out on MediaTransparency.org. So, I got this in my mailbox today (a posting to the Politech list): -------- Original Message -------- Subject: IHS Environmental Art/Film Contest Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 11:18:09 -0400 From: Max Borders To: Declan McCullagh Declan This is Max Borders at aBetterEarth.org, a project of the Institute for Humane Studies. I may have sent you information about some of our environmental programs in the past, since I think your blog, like our website, is open to innovative approaches to environmental challenges, including utilizing market solutions and property rights. I think your audience might be interested in our latest art/film contest. We are conducting an “EnviroAds” contest to encourage innovative thinking about the environmental challenges we face. We are looking for clever, outside the box thinking about some very old problems. Here’s a description of the contest you could pass along: $6,000 Enviro-Ads Film/Art Contest A total of $6,000 in awards will be given to the creators of the best EnviroAds, as determined both by visitors to aBetterEarth.org website and by our distinguished panel of judges. Create and submit an ad that's funny, satirical, creative, inspiring, ironic, sexy or dramatic. Win the top prize of $3,000, or one of the runners-up prizes of between $250 and $1,000. We're looking for original material that causes people to think about environmental issues in different ways. The goal is not persuasion per se, but to start a conversation. Make us think. Make us cry. Make us laugh out loud. For contest details, go herehttp://www.abetterearth.org/enviroads. Deadline for submission is September 30, 2004. Winners will be announced in October. If you have any questions, please contact Max Borders at info@abetterearth.org Thank you very much, and good luck with your writing. Sincerely, Max Borders aBetterEarth.org*** $$$ for environmental films/ads... sounds pretty cool, right? Well, maybe... but: "innovative approaches to environmental challenges, including utilizing market solutions and property rights" raises a red flag for me. These are right wing key words (as I'm sure most readers of this blog know). ... and Declan has some pretty strong libertarian tendencies. So, let's see what MediaTransparency has to say... Institute for Humane Studies Fairfax, VA 22030 Be sure to see the grants to George Mason University. The Institute for Humane Studies' mission is to support "the achievement of a freer society by discovering and facilitating the development of talented, productive students, scholars, and other intellectuals who share a commitment to liberty and who demonstrate the potential to change significanly the current climate of opinion to one more congenial to the principles and practices of freedom." Among its many objectives, the Institute seeks "to enhance [young peoples'] career skills and their understanding of strategically targeted career paths through seminars, mentoring, internshps, and networking." Toward that end, IHS holds summer seminars for students on free market economics and libertarian thought. Participation at these seminars is free. The Institute is also well enough funded to offer student fellowships of up to $17,500 for continued Study. Awards more than $400,000 a year.... and how much moola has been rained on these folks? $5,600,500 Makes you wonder why they're being so cheap about the prize money, eh? :) --Thomas Leavitt, posting from Santa Cruz, CA --- Posted at 7/30/2004 01:19:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Last Post from Boston Heading for the plane. Brilliant analysis later... --- Posted at 7/30/2004 01:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Yet Another Smear Kerry's exploits in Vietnam are disputed in best seller. Smear after smear after smear. Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam, was wounded, and got serious medals. Bush ... --- Posted at 7/30/2004 01:11:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
NLRB erodes worker rights. Excuse: terrorism. Saw this on the Labor Greens mailing list list: Friends, Below is a blurb and and a link to my recent article on a new NLRB decision which cuts back on what are called Weingarten rights in labor law. Weingarten rights are the watered-down version of Miranda rights you have not to incriminate yourself when you are arrested under the criminal law. Under Weingarten, you have the right to demand the presence of a co-worker if your employer is interrogating you for possible discipline. The new ruling holds that Weingarten applies only to union employees. The stated reason: Terrorism since 9/11/01. Ellis *********************** Labor Board to Non-Union Workers: "You're On Your Own When You Face The Boss" by Ellis Boal Reversing course for the fourth time in 30 years, in June the NLRB announced it would no longer protect the right of a non-union worker to refuse to participate in an investigatory interview without the assistance of a co-worker. Read about the history of your Weingarten rights and what rationale the NLRB has used this time. http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2004/08/articles/b.html *** The author notes that the NLRB, under Clinton in 2000, had established the previous rule. It will be interesting to see if this decision is reversed (and worker's rights restored), under the Kerry Administration (and if it takes eight years to do so). --Thomas Leavitt, posting from Santa Cruz, CA --- Posted at 7/30/2004 12:57:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
$175,700 a year not enough (for a Republican) to put kids through college. Tom Ridge, our Secretary of Homeland Security, is considering resigning from office, because he "needs to earn money in the private sector to put his teenage children through college", say others in the Bush Administration according to CNN. Also, according to CNN, Ridge's decades of public service have left him with "relatively little savings" - this after six years as Gov. of Pennsylvania, where he earned $138,316 a year. He owns an $873,000 home with a $784,000 mortgage, and his financial disclosure reports from 2003 show that he owned between $122,000 and $787,000 in equities. This prompts the question: if a man currently making $175,000 a year, who has been earning a six figure salary for almost a decade can't manage to accumulate enough savings to finance the college education of two kids, what hope do the rest of us have? Or perhaps the question should be: has the ruling political class in our country had its expectations so distorted by close association with private sector potentates that they've lost all perspective? Seems like it to me. --Thomas Leavitt, posting from Santa Cruz, CA (and earning well under six figures a year, with two kids). --- Posted at 7/30/2004 12:18:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Go See the Novak Picture! Go read the Burnt Orange Report about Natasha and Novak, and see the picture of Novak just before he turned into a bat and flew away. I was there, too, and Natasha of Pacific Views chased Novak down the street, holding out a microphone, saying "Mr. Novak, do you have any comment on the aftermath of your outing of Valerie Plane?" It was something to see, especially coming from us HAYSEEDS! Us HAYSEEDS didn't get the memo saying not to ask, what Michael Moore calls, THE QUESTIONS.) --- Posted at 7/30/2004 12:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"Anti-American" Marketing Campaign? This came in an urgent emergency e-mail from Heritage Foundation's Town Hall, in its entirety (please, sue me, and get FOX to sue me, too!): To: Conservative Friends From: Center for Individual Freedom Re: Subway's Anti-American Tray-Liners Dear Friends, I am writing today to ask for your help on an issue of utmost importance. It has come to our attention that SUBWAY, an American company, is using this tray liner (see below for English translation) in their restaurants in Germany and across Europe. In a shameless and anti-American effort to increase sales in Europe, SUBWAY restaurants are promoting the film, "Super Size Me," a documentary about a man who gains weight by gorging himself at McDonald's for 30 days straight without any exercise. Learn more about “Super Size Me”, and its irresponsible message. The most offensive part of this new advertising campaign is the display of an obese Statue of Liberty holding a burger and fries in her hands. The headline screams “Why are Americans so fat?” (The headline uses the German word “Amis” – a derogatory term for Americans.) Simply put, SUBWAY’s advertising strategy is a new low in corporate behavior -- exploiting cultural tensions and inflaming anti-American sentiment abroad just to sell more sandwiches. It is appalling that SUBWAY, a U.S. company, would attack Americans and the Statue of Liberty in a time of war ... just to gain market share. In response, the Center for Individual Freedom (www.cfif.org), together with Frontiers of Freedom (www.ff.org) and several other organizations, has launched its own campaign to demand that SUBWAY immediately end its anti-American marketing ploy. To be effective, we desperately need your help! An excerpt from today’s Houston Chronicle, which reported on this issue in a front page article, reads: "SUBWAY officials thought a tie-in with a movie featuring [Jared] Fogle and raising awareness about the nation's weight problem 'just seemed to make sense' for a company that has just launched a campaign to fight childhood obesity,” Kane said. There you have it folks. No denial, no apology, no shame. Please join us in demanding that SUBWAY immediately halt its anti-American propaganda scheme overseas. Call SUBWAY CEO Fred DeLuca today! Urge him to stop his cynical advertising campaign against the United States. The phone number for Mr. DeLuca at Subway's Executive Offices in Connecticut is 800-888-4848, ext. 1401. I also want to encourage you to write letters to the editor of your local newspapers condemning SUBWAY for its anti-American marketing scheme. And to make this campaign successful, it’s critical that you help spread the word by forwarding this call to action to your friends and family. We need your help. Let SUBWAY know that Americans refuse to tolerate their shameless gambit. Take Action NOW! Sincerely, Jeff Mazzella Executive Director Center for Individual Freedom www.cfif.orgThis is "attacking Americans in a time of war." What this REALLY is, is flat-out intimidation. It looks to me like Subway's check was late and they're being made an example of. Seriously, there are probably meetings going on between the organization putting out this letter and Subway management, looking for a $500,000 contribution. --- Posted at 7/30/2004 11:42:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Greatest Band in the World Today "Amelia" is a classy indie band whose self-released CD is getting some airplay (reviews below). If you just hate alt country or anything that's called "retro", you won't like them, but if you like that kind of thing they are in the top rank. Their lyrics tend toward the edgy and dark. I love their stuff but then, I've never been known for my objectivity. This link should take you directly to free Rolling Stone downloads: http://tinyurl.com/66dup You can find out more here: http://www.ameliaband.com Buy here: http://www.ameliaband.com/store.html REVIEWS: "Sultry and sophisticated cabaret pop with just a whisper of twang that flits in and out like a friendly ghost. The music of Amelia is a staggeringly cool exercise in understatement". Clay Steakley, "Performing Songwriter" "'After All' opens with the sound of a needle being dropped into the groove of an LP, or maybe an old 78, telegraphing Amelia’s retro approach to their music, but there’s nothing old-fashioned about their playing, songwriting or the smoky confidence of lead singer Teisha Helgerson." Waxed J. Poet (?), "No Depression" "Subtle bands like Amelia usually count on such audience diligence, but the indie group from Portland, Ore., is immediately addictive with 'After All.'" Chuck Campbell, Scripps A couple of years ago I swore I'd never use my awesome blogging powers for selfish purposes, but sooner or later each of us must fall. My disclaimer: my son plays on this album and wrote some of the great songs. Amelia's disclaimer: they like me fine but they are not terribly political and would rather not be identified with my vivid persona. --- Posted at 7/30/2004 11:01:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Lots of dirt on Bush from the 9/11 report While everyone else has been having fun in Boston, I've been plugging away at the 9/11 Commission report (*sniff*). I've come up with some results. Bush doesn't look good in the report, but you have to search things out. If the facts were embarassing for Bush or for Clinton, the bipartisan commissioners reported them without spelling out their significance. And while they did leave stuff out, there's a lot to work with in there. 1. Despite many urgent warnings, Bush took almost no action on terrorism before 9/11. On August 6 he was informed by PDB that Osama Bin Laden intended to strike within the U.S. He left for a month-long vacation the next day, and did not talk with anybody about this new information until after the 9/11 attack had taken place. http://tinyurl.com/44hfo (Text of Bush's Aug. 6 PDB) http://tinyurl.com/53nsl 2. Easy-to-get Saudi visas made Osama's job a lot easier. The problem was bipartisan, but Bush made it worse and, for fear of offending the Saudis, was very slow to correct the situation. There are some very odd twists and turns in this story. For example, how did Armenia get lumped in with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? http://tinyurl.com/3kurx 3. Bush and Ashcroft have a propensity for fibbing and passing the buck. http://tinyurl.com/4st9a 4. Contrary to the media spin, the 9/11 report is devastating for Bush. Where comparisons can be made, Clinton's pre-9/11 performance was definitely better than Bush's (which was wretched). http://tinyurl.com/6ypjt 5. Before 9/11 Ashcroft had no interest in terrorism and took no action on it whatsoever, despite repeated attempts to talk to him about the subject. The day before 9/11 he denied a request for additional counterterrorism funds. http://tinyurl.com/6w64x Revised 10:46 PDT --- Posted at 7/30/2004 09:19:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Balloon Drop I think being there for a balloon drop is one of the more wonderful experiences in life. Here's one picture. More later, but it might be tomorrow, after I get home. 
Actually, I named this picture "BD1" when I uploaded it. Is that too Hayseed? Should I have given it a longer name?
--- Posted at 7/30/2004 07:28:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Info For the Hayseeds Through Dave Winer I found Cybertourists in Boston. It's full of great professional journalism like: With a few exceptions, most of the credentialed bloggers came off like cyberhayseeds in the big city. Many dared for the painfully obvious as they updated their posts. Most of the blogging entries I have read ranged from the insufferably pedantic to the sublimely mediocre. There were exceptions, of course, but the see-me, hear-me tenor of their reporting was only exceeded by the vapidity of the banal commentaries peddled as analyses. Did they get co-opted? Sure seems that way at first glance. Maybe the ego-lifting moment of their 15 minutes of prime-time fame got in the way of clear thinking. Or maybe they were simply starstruck at rubbing shoulders in the lvoiine for the men's room with folks like Ben Affleck and Warren Beatty. I remember covering my first political convention as a college junior in 1976 and how wowed I was when bandleader Peter Duchin deigned to smile at me. But these are big boys and girls. After spending years belittling the shortcomings of the mainstream media, they had me expecting more. Instead, I had to content myself with gems such as, "Bill Clinton looks really small from the upper tiers of the Fleet Center." Really? If that knocks your socks off, my advice would be to take in the view from the bleachers at Fenway Park sometime.The thing is, pretty much every insult he flings at the bloggers I took as compliments! Seriously! Meanwhile, Paul Krugman writes about the Big City journalists today: The failure of TV news to inform the public about the policy proposals of this year's presidential candidates is, in its own way, as serious a journalistic betrayal as the failure to raise questions about the rush to invade Iraq.It says a lot that Charles Cooper COVERS things like bloggers, yet he is so far from "getting it." People who read Seeing the Forest and other weblogs learn a lot more about what is happening to their country than people who get their information from the Big City professionals. I mean hard, factual information that is important for citizen participation in a democracy. But that isn't all that blogging -- at least THIS blog -- is about. It's ABOUT the "hayseed" perspective. It's ABOUT being told what it's like to actually BE in a convention for the first time, and meet famous people, and what a balloon drop is like from the balcony. It's ABOUT seeing things through the eyes of SOMEONE WHO IS LIKE THEM. Scroll down and read the interview with the anarchist, including the invitation to Ricky to leave a comment to make sure his perspective is voiced correctly, and the rest of the comments and tell me where you're going to find anything like that in a Big City paper. Then scroll down a little further and look at the pics starting with the one FROM THE BALCONLY -- only a Hayseed would show THAT -- and the rest of the pics, and tell me which Big City journalist would have posted those. And then tell me if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm getting plenty of e-mail from other hayseeds asking for more just like that. I don't know if I have any Big City readers, though, since that's what counts. I'm working on a serious piece about all of this, but like I said a few days ago, I gotta get home, walk the dogs, eat actual food at actual mealtimes, etc. before I can really digest what I have seen this week. --- Posted at 7/30/2004 06:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/29/2004 Finally Mike Malloy at AAR. Yeah. At last. --- Posted at 7/29/2004 08:19:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Pics - Late Thursday More pics: 
Randi Rhodes
An extra Randi Rhodes. And yes, I got you an Air America Radio pen. You know who you are.
Jesse Jackson.
Democratic Party Donky at the Ritz Carlton.
Espresso, home, not waiting.
--- Posted at 7/29/2004 06:30:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Oh, Please! U.S. Lacks Records for Iraq Spending: "U.S. civilian authorities in Baghdad failed to keep good track of nearly $1 billion in Iraqi money spent for reconstruction projects and can't produce records to show whether they got some services and products they paid for, a new audit concludes. "However, spending in restaraunts in Washington and Dallas, and orders for private jets are WAY up. --- Posted at 7/29/2004 04:53:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Fear III Fear of Death Wins Minds and Votes, Study Finds: "President Bush may be tapping into solid human psychology when he invokes the Sept. 11 attacks while campaigning for the next election, U.S. researchers said on Thursday. Talking about death can raise people's need for psychological security, the researchers report in studies to be published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science and the September issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 'There are people all over who are claiming every time Bush is in trouble he generates fear by declaring an imminent threat,' said Sheldon Solomon of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, who worked on the study. 'We are saying this is psychologically useful.' Jeff Greenberg, a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said generating fear was a common tactic. 'A lot of leaders gain their appeal by helping people feel they are heroic, particularly in a fight against evil,' Greenberg said in a telephone interview from Hawaii, where he presented the findings to a meeting of the American Psychological Association. 'Sometimes that may be the right thing to do. But it is a psychological approach, particularly when death is close to peoples' consciousness.' "Roosevelt: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Bush: "Be afraid. I want you all to be afraid." "In one we asked half the people to think about the September 11 attacks, or to think about watching TV," Solomon said. "What we found was staggering." When asked to think about television, the 100 or so volunteers did not approve of Bush or his policies in Iraq (news - web sites). But when asked to think about Sept. 11 first and then asked about their attitudes to Bush, another 100 volunteers had very different reactions. "They had a very strong approval of President Bush and his policy in Iraq," Solomon said.Gosh, you don't think the Bush campaign has employed psychologists who already figured this out,, do you? Nah - no one would do that to other people on purpose, just to get elected, would they? The volunteers were aged from 18 into their 50s and described themselves as ranging from liberal to deeply conservative. No matter what a person's political conviction, thinking about death made them tend to favor Bush, Solomon said. Otherwise, they preferred Kerry. "I think this should concern anybody," Solomon said. "If I was speaking lightly, I would say that people in their, quote, right minds, unquote, don't care much for President Bush and his policies in Iraq." --- Posted at 7/29/2004 03:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
An E-mail I Received Here's an e-mail I just received (from Frances Cherman -- with a 'C') about the convention center: Why is the security-conscious Democratic party holding its national convention at Boston's FleetCenter when everyone knows Fleet is public enema #1? --- Posted at 7/29/2004 02:32:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Interview With an Anarchist I'm posting from a Starbucks on Boylston, about a block and a half from a park where several anarchists are gathered. I just interviewed a young man named Ricky, who says to use the last name "Fight Capitalism!" He's from New Jersey. He's one of two holding a banner that says, "MAKE KERRY WALK THE PLANK". He's wearing a mask. Ricky says he will check here later and post comments if I don't accurately convey our conversation. Also, Ricky, please feel free to ADD anything you want to say. I know I always think of things later that I wanted to say. I start by asking, "Why?" Ricky: "There's really no difference that matters. Both support the war. Both probably support the draft. They are both funded by the corporate elite. Both of the party campaigns are financed by the corporate elite." I asked if he had heard about what Moore is saying here, in Boston, asking the Greens and Nader voters to support Kerry anyway in this election because it is so important. Ricky: "It's bullshit." (He doesn't mean that what I'm saying Moore said is bullshit.) "It's all pay to play. The only way to make it work is to have more candidates and more parties. If Moore was a real liberal he'd support 3rd parties because of the corporate financing. He's done a lot of good with his movies, but he's just a reformer." He repeated "just a reformer" but I don't have the exact quote. I asked about the Dean campaign, funded by lots of people giving small donations. Ricky: "That's really cool, the whole idea." He asked me to say that the reason he is wearing the mask is because "the cops are swarming us, FBI, cops, taking pictures to put in files, so we wear the masks for our own security." I told him I was doing what he's doing now, back in the 60's with Vietnam, and they certainly were taking pictures and keeping files back then. 
Ricky is on the left side of this picture.
It happens that I KNOW some of the major funders of the Democrats, both from a past life as a Silicon Valley person, and from my day job, which is trying to help start organizations that will be a "Progressive infrastructure" to counter the massive communications/propaganda machine that the Right has in place, that is much of the reason they have become so successful in elections. (For more info on this, please read this transcript of my recent talk at the national Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) convention. Get past the parts that are specifically about trial lawyers -- this is happening to ALL of us!)
I am sure that Ricky would be very surprised to learn that when I talk to people who are major funders of the party, (I was talking to one ten minutes before I met Ricky), they pretty much agree with him that the corporate influence is a danger to people and to our democracy. They are all VERY concerned about what is happening! This is WHY they are funding Kerry and the Democrats! Think about this, if they wanted corporate rule in America, wouldn't they just put their money into Bush at this point? What would be the POINT of giving money to the Democrats NOW if you want more, not less, corporate influence over our government?
So the question is, how do the Democrats get the word out to people like Ricky?
I also understand how Ricky feels. I used to be a Green. I realized it was a mistake.
Note - I had to rewrite this completely from scratch. I promise that the first draft was much better. ;-) I lost 45 minutes of typing because Blogger burped. This happens all the time. And these guys are going to sell STOCK for $130 a SHARE????--- Posted at 7/29/2004 10:03:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Pics, Thursay Morning This is Dave from Boston. Here are some new pictures: 
This is the crowd going nuts for Edwards, from where the bloggers are sitting.
This is me with the next Governor of California. (Taken by Bill from Liberal Oasis using my camera.)
This is Buddy, back home, all alone, waiting...
--- Posted at 7/29/2004 08:42:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Favoritism to the Saudis: Visas (A non-Conventional report from John in Portland) It takes a Kremlinologist's skills to decode the 9/11 Commission's bipartisan, exquisitely tactful report. Take these two sentences, for example: That same day [June 22], the State Department notified all embassies of the terrorist threat and updated its worldwide public warning. In June, the State Department initiated the Visa Express program in Saudi Arabia as a security measure, in order to keep long lines of foreigners away from vulnerable embassy spaces. The program permitted visa applications to be made through travel agencies, instead of directly at the embassy or consulate. (VIII, p. 257) That looks pretty good, doesn't it? Protecting the embassy -- good idea! What they don't tell you here -- though that information can be found elsewhere in the report -- is that that the convenient Saudi visas made the terrorists' job much easier. And in this case, it isn't bipartisanship that's the problem, since most of the terrorists entered the U.S. during the Clinton administration. Apparently the Commission decided that the only objective, neutral course would be never to blame anybody at all, as if they were running a daycare center. The 9/11 report is like a series of jokes with all the punchlines removed. Travel issues thus played a part in al Qaeda’s operational planning from the very start. During the spring and summer of 1999, KSM realized that Khallad and Abu Bara, both of whom were Yemenis,would not be able to obtain U.S. visas as easily as Saudi operatives like Mihdhar and Hazmi......Yet because individuals with Saudi passports could travel much more easily than Yemeni, particularly to the United States, there were fewer martyrdom opportunities for Yemenis. (V, p. 156) Hazmi and Mihdhar were ill-prepared for a mission in the United States. Their only qualifications for this plot were their devotion to Usama Bin Ladin, their veteran service, and their ability to get valid U.S. visas. (VII, p. 215) Jarrah was supposed to be joined at FFTC by Ramzi Binalshibh, who even sent the school a deposit. But Binalshibh could not obtain a U.S. visa. His first applications in May and June 2000 were denied because he lacked established ties in Germany ensuring his return from a trip to the United States. In eptember, he went home to Yemen to apply for a visa from there, but was denied on grounds that he also lacked sufficient ties to Yemen. In October, he tried one last time, in Berlin, applying for a student visa to attend “aviation language school,” but the prior denials were noted and this application was denied as well, as incomplete. (VII, p. 225) The majority of the Saudi muscle hijackers obtained U.S. visas in Jeddah or Riyadh between September and November of 2000. (VII, p. 235) The problems with the terrorists' applications weren't trivial, such as punctuation or spelling. Omitted information included home addresses, means of financial support and travel plans while within the United States. Only three forms listed a "Name and Address of Present Employer or School," and only one of the 15 applicants listed an actual destination address in the United States. The rest of the hijackers put down vague locations such as "California," "New York" and "Hotel." One simply wrote "No." Only two were given oral interviews, which are common for applicants from poorer or less stable countries or those whose written applications require clarification. (Sen John Kyl) Getting an American visa in Saudi Arabia had already been easy, partly because of corruption: A single Foreign Service Officer in the Jeddah consulate issued 10 of the visas to the Saudi hijackers. Yet GAO investigators told House staffers that no one from State ever interviewed that officer after 9/11 to learn what might have gone wrong. We've also had a scandal about foreign nationals working in the U.S. Embassy in Qatar, who sold at least 71 visas, including three to people with al Qaeda connections. (Wall Street Journal)But the Visa Express program made getting a visa even easier. It essentially allowed Saudis to pick up their visas at the travel agency along with their plane ticket, without any control whatsoever. The general rule under both Clinton and Bush was to give the Saudis everything they wanted, mostly for business reasons: "Melendez-Perez said that leading up to Sept. 11, customs officials were discouraged by their superiors from hassling Saudi travelers, seen as big spenders who made frequent visits to theme parks in the Orlando area. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia." (LA Times, Jan. 27, 2004) And according to the WSJ piece, it wasn't just politics: the professionals within the State Department were a big part of the problem. (Ray Mabus, the only American diplomat who stood up to the Saudis on visa questions, was a Clinton political appointee whose policies were reversed by the professionals once he left office -- the issue was American women married to Saudis who were unable to leave Saudi Arabia because they could not get exit visas.) All the above was before the 9/11 attack. So what did the Bush administration do after 9/11? They were slow to do anything at all. According to the WSJ, the Visa Express program was still in effect in June, 2004, nine months after the attack, and it took over a year to add Saudi Arabia to the list of nations to which "Special Registration" visa rules appled. nefore 9/11 this list included Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria. (North Korea and Cuba were on a separate list of countries to and from which travel was entirely forbidden.) The Special Registration rules required the fingerprinting, photographing, and interviewing of applicants, and established special ways of tracking individuals from the countries listed who were travelling on student or tourist visas. On November 22, 2002 -- over a year after the 9/11 attacks -- were thirteen countries added to the original five on the Special Registration list: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. But unbelievably, Saudi Arabia, the place of origin of most of the attackers, was not listed then! Nor was Pakistan, which was heavily implicated with the Taliban. Only on December 16, 2002 were these two countries finally added -- along with Armenia. (There's a little twist here. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had, in fact, already been secretly added to the list on September 5, 2002. Presumably this original secrecy was to save these two nations from public embarassment, whereas the later public announcement was because of U.S. public outcry. Conjecturing further, perhaps Armenia was listed at the same time for the same reason that North Korea was added to the Axis of Evil -- in order to make it slightly less obvious what was actually happening. In any case, Armenia was removed from the list two days later.) This is a genuinely bipartisan issue. How often do you see Rep. Dan Burton Henry Waxman working together? (And how often do you see me citing the WSJ editorial page?) It seems clear enough that, if the Saudis had been treated like Yemenis instead of like Canadians, Osama bin Laden's job would have been much more difficult. And while the Bush administration was indeed unduly soft on the Saudis, the Clinton administration and the State Department pros were almost as bad. And some of this is in the 9/11 report, sort of. If you read like a Kremlinologist. More on the Visa Express program: USN&WR 9/11 Commission Report (Substantial editing, revision, and expansion until 3:40 PDT.)--- Posted at 7/29/2004 08:28:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Remember to See The Forest In the Washington Post, Kerry Returns to Boston With 'Band of Brothers': "Surrounded by 12 veterans of the Swift boats he captained in Vietnam and by Jim Rassmann, a Green Beret he rescued from a river in the Mekong Delta, Kerry crossed the Boston Harbor aboard the LuLu E taxi ship, which was adorned in red, white and blue."Keep in mind why all this "showboating" (sorry) about Kerry's military service is necessary. The Republicans are doing everything they can to smear Kerry's record. Remember, the smears are the trees. See the big picture, see the forest, Kerry went to Vietnam, served with distinction, and went on to a brilliant and honorable career serving US. Bush didn't. Period, end of story. I wrote this on my second day as a blogger: "Let's see if we can see the forest. Look back to the 2000 election. Step back and look at the candidates. The Democrat's candidate was a well respected, well liked, extremely experienced, Vietnam vet, former seminary student, character beyond reproach, faithfully married family man, foreign policy expert, with many accomplishments including being the person in the Congress most responsible for advancing the Internet... The Republicans ran a foul-mouthed thoroughly inexperienced scandal-ridden (Harken oil, Rangers stadium, recipient of bribes directed at his father) failed businessman, continuously bailed out of jams by his father's connections, draft-dodger (worse, he got into the Nat. Guard through connections and then played hooky!), former drunk, probable drug-user, kids constantly in trouble, with a campaign entirely financed by large corporations obviously looking for favors. But by election time the only issue was “character”, and the character in question was the Democratic candidate’s! That's the forest. Issues like the "Love Canal story" and "I invented the Internet" were trees. The forest was how they pulled it off - the smears, the propaganda blitz, the way they spread their message and the way people hear messages these days. With this weblog I'll be writing about this issue, seeing the forest for the trees."Now we KNOW what they do. Don't let this happen to Kerry. --- Posted at 7/29/2004 07:41:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Two Ways to get your Blogs This is interesting. It's a live feed of weblog coverage from the convention, putting on the screen in large type the beginnings of the very latest posts from the convention, sort of like a stock ticker crawl... and you can click on it to get the full posting. Sort of by-the-second coverage... If you want to receive a digest of THIS weblog, containing summaries of the day's posts, sent to you at the beginning of the next day, scroll down on the right side and enter your e-mail address. I think NEXT WEEK is when the most useful blogger observations begin. Friday I'll be heading home, walking the dogs, and eating actual food at actual mealtimes. And thinking. --- Posted at 7/29/2004 07:30:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Big Anti-Kerry Hit Piece Today ABCNEWS.com : Is Dems' Biggest Money Man Mob-Connected? --- Posted at 7/29/2004 06:58:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Michael Moore's Speech Transcript Here's a transcript of Michael Moore's speech the other day, from AlterNet. Just awesome, but if you can actually SEE it... there was a power in the WAY he said thing, but it wasn't like prepared remarks, it was like he was sayingwhat he was feeling at the moment. Remember what I said about the women on both sides of me crying - one with a brother in Iraq and one with a daughter-in-law there and her son in the Guard on his way over there. To the press: You do us no service by hopping on a band wagon, by becoming cheerleaders, by looking the other way, because you know that's the safest way to play it if you want to keep your job. Or, you are just afraid of being accused of being un-American if you were to ask a hard question to the President or his administration. That's not un-American. That's pro-American! To ask the questions. That's patriotic! But I know it was rough. I know in those first days of the war, I know. I stood on an Oscar stage five days into the war. I know what the mood was like. It was not easy to say we are being led to war for fictitious reasons. Right? And those of you who felt the same way at the beginning of this war, you know, remember what it was like at work or at school? You had to be kind of careful. Right? And if you expressed any opposition to the war, you had to immediately say, but I support the troops! Right? But I support the troops. You didn't need to say that. Of course you support the troops. You've always supported the troops. Who are the troops? The troops are those who come from the other side of the tracks. The troops are the people who come from families who have been abused by the Bush administration. You've always supported them. You've always been on their side! This no one should question that! The way that you don't support the troops is to send them into harm's way when it isn't necessary. The way that you hate the troops is when you send them off, some of them, to their death, so that your rich benefactors can line their pockets even more. The Halliburtons, the oil companies. That is anti-American. That is unpatriotic.And read what he says about Kerry and the war. It's important. At least now you can forward this transcript to people, so they can forward it. But I'll make sure to post where to find it if I find out it is online. Everyone should read this, just like everyone should see 9-11. --- Posted at 7/29/2004 06:44:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/28/2004 More Good News! Huge deficits coming. More "Incredibly Positive News!". From my post then: Let me help sort this out, and note the date as he tries to blame 9/11. New York Times, August 25, 2001President Bush said today that there was a benefit to the government's fast-dwindling surplus, declaring that it will create "a fiscal straitjacket for Congress." He said that was "incredibly positive news" because it would halt the growth of the federal government. --- Posted at 7/28/2004 06:34:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Interviewing Non-Bloggers Now the people sitting here who AREN'T bloggers are being interviewed by the press.... One guy is a blogger who snuck into the area. --- Posted at 7/28/2004 05:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Graham Who did Bob Graham piss off, that he has to follow Al Sharpton? Can't even hear him - somehow the blogger area has become swamped with people... can't move, can't work, can't hear. --- Posted at 7/28/2004 05:47:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Wednesday Pics 
Jessamyn West of Librarian.net.
This is the crowd outside of the Ritz Carlton, just standing around watching famous people coming in and out.
Right-wing porn. How come nothing about war or death penalty? (Or charging interest, etc.) It's not a sin if Republicans do it?--- Posted at 7/28/2004 04:29:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Jesse Jesse Jackson is speaking now. "The Bible speaks of the difficulties of rich young rulers getting into the Kingdom. It's because they are intoxicated by the rarefied air of privilege." Here at the convention I'm observing the press and the celebrities walking around and the cultures I see operating. I've been interviewing every famous person I can - on and off the record - and I'll have something up about this maybe tomorrow. --- Posted at 7/28/2004 04:09:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Convention Pics This is Dave from Boston. Here are some pictures: 
This is Bill Clinton from where the bloggers are sitting.
Michael Moore, just after telling 100 press photographers, "Come on, I look the same as I did five minutes ago!"
Air America Radio's Majority Report and the back of Maxine Waters' head.
Jerry.
This is what a California Delegation Breakfast looks like. (The press isn't allowed to eat and has to sit at little tables in the back. "We" even have plastic cups for the water we get. Breakfast sponsored by ATT, PGE, others...
Billionaires for Bush. If you get a chance to see them...!
--- Posted at 7/28/2004 01:33:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bloggered What's up with the weblog? It looks funky. I haven't changed the template, so I guess I've been "bloggered" again. If it doesn't fix itself I'll try fiddling with the template... --- Posted at 7/28/2004 01:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What Trippi Said About Kerry Joe Trippi also talked about Kerry. He said what Kerry shoud to tomorrow night is "opt out" of public financing for the campaign. He should look out at the public and say (something like) I have available to me $70 million [or whatever it is] in public financing, but I think it is time to make a change in the way we do things in America. I am going to refuse this money and ask the people of the United States to step up and say that they want to participate. So today I am starting with zero dollars. I am asking every American to send something to contribute to my campaign ... What I [Trippi] am afraid of is that if he doesn't then Bush is going to do this in September, and opt out, and be able to spend any amount, and be the candidate of reform. Steve Soto was taping this, and might be able to post something later that is closer to what he said. It was more profound than I am using here -- I couldn't take notes fast enough... --- Posted at 7/28/2004 01:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What He Says I just left a session where Joe Trippi spoke. He talked about how organizations are top-down, power concentrated at the top, commands flowing out form a center. Information is power, and this is why information is concentrated in organizations. He says that this has started to change because the Internet enables tools for bypassing this. He said that we should look back to Napster as an example of this change occurring. Napster preceded Dean as an example of breaking up the top-down nature of organizations structures. It was the bottom, using the net to bring chaos to top-down structures. He says that the situation with the Internet is like television in 1952. 1952 was the first instance of television having an effect, when Nixon - Eisenhower's VP candidate - was "caught with his hand in the till." Eisenhower was going to throw Nixon off the ticket, when Nixon asked for one more chance to talk to the American people, and went on television to deliver the famous "Checkers speech". He mimicked the speech, but just go read it. Trippi called this televised speech "the instant bullshit had its own medium." (The public rallied around Nixon and he stayed on the ticket.) So this is the Net's 1952, and Dean is the first time it has had a major effect in politics. In the campaigns up until then, candidates traveled around the country on trains. Truman talked to 19 million people over several months by pulling into a station where the people were waiting, and giving a speech. After 1952 Eisenhower got on TV and talked to 19 million people at once. But the train stations were gatherings of people - social occasions where people shared a common experience, and talked with each other. Television is a common experience where people are isolated. The Internet blends the two, enabling people to share a common experience and be in contact with each other. --- Posted at 7/28/2004 12:43:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Email from a British friend [Richard, not in Boston] So the UK government release the http://www.preparingforemergencies.gov.uk site yesterday. Showing the country still has a sense of humour this site came out a few hours later. http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk --- Posted at 7/28/2004 12:16:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Shameless Self-promotion Dept. (A non-Conventional post by John in Portland) I thought I'd use this moment of high traffic to plug a couple of political pages I put together awhile back. Both are a couple of months out of date, but there's a lot of interesting stuff in there. "Who is Bandar Bush?" (Can be though of as documentation for "Fahrenheit 9/11"). Kerry Smear Page (They keep recycling the same rumors, so it's still somewhat timely.) And I'l also take this opportunity to plug my son's band again: "Sultry and sophisticated cabaret pop with just a whisper of twang that flits in and out like a friendly ghost. The music of Amelia is a staggeringly cool exercise in understatement". Clay Steakley, "Performing Songwriter" Amelia --- Posted at 7/28/2004 07:50:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Read Bloggers NEXT WEEK, Too! I think the best stuff from the bloggers will be next week. Too much is happening, and I know that I need time to digest. But there is a LOT coming from this. I feel it. All those things that just MAKE me need to write are happening, and I'm working on some good stuff to post here. So I think that NEXT WEEK is going to be the week to really read bloggers. I have started understanding that bloggers are going to be able to contribute something very valuable to this process, for the same reasons they did with Dean, and with the electronic voting problem and all the other things we have forced into the attention of enough of the opinion leaders and public to make things start happening. There really IS something about what we're doing that allows us to have a perspective that you are not going to get from the press or the party or the professional punditry. It's 8:30, been up since 7, which is actually 4, and I have to go get my press credentials every day, and then at 9 there's a California Delegation breakfast with Barbara Boxer. At 10 Arianna is speaking somewhere across town. I might be able to get on for a while between that and the David Brock thing I want to attend. So you see how it is here. This is what they call the Juice, the flow. The cliche about trying to sip from a fire hose... no time, no sleep and in fact breakfast yesterday was part of a muffin, lunch was two Dunkin Donuts (I try to do that one while I'm east...) and dinner was a bag of popcorn. --- Posted at 7/28/2004 05:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines Story This is the headline at Drudge: NEW ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM IN FLORIDA: FLAWED... electronic records from first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost ,,, records disappeared after two computer system crashes last year, leaving no audit trail for the 2002 gubernatorial primary...At Drudge? Here's the story: Lost Record of Vote in '02 Florida Race Raises '04 Concern --- Posted at 7/28/2004 05:20:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/27/2004 Bush and Ashcroft: fibs, excuses, evasions (A non-Conventional post from John in Portland) Bush and Ashcroft's explanations of the events leading up to 9/11 have a pattern familiar to those who have raised children. While Bush was questioned only once and was not under oath (and had Cheney holding his hand), several of the little evasions that have served him so well during his career showed up.(As for Ashcroft, he's apparently one m of the Lying Baptist denomination immortalized by Mark Twain.) "They're lying! I didn't really say that!" "Clarke has written that on the evening of September 12, President Bush told him and some of his staff to explore possible Iraqi links to 9/11. 'See if Saddam did this,' Clarke recalls the President telling them.'See if he’s linked in any way.' While he believed the details of Clarke’s account to be incorrect, President Bush acknowledged that he might well have spoken to Clarke at some point, asking him about Iraq." (X, p. 334) "Pickard told us that after two such briefings Ashcroft told him that he did not want to hear about the threats anymore. Ashcroft denies Pickard’s charge." (VIII, p. 265) "Nobody told me!" "The President told us the August 6 report was historical in nature. President Bush said the article told him that al Qaeda was dangerous, which he said he had known since he had become President." (VIII, p. 260) Aug 6 report: "Al-Qa’ida members—including some who are US citizens—have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.Two al- Qua'da members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.....Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives." (VIII, pp. 261-2) Clarke: "Clarke mentioned to National Security Advisor Rice at least twice that al Qaeda sleeper cells were likely in the United States. In January 2001, Clarke forwarded a strategy paper to Rice warning that al Qaeda had a presence in the United States. He noted that two key al Qaeda members in the Jordanian cell involved in the millennium plot were naturalized U.S. citizens and that one jihadist suspected in the East Africa bombings had “informed the FBI that an extensive network of al Qida ‘sleeper agents’ currently exists in the US." (VIII, p. 263) "It's not my fault!" Ashcroft said he therefore assumed the FBI was doing what it needed to do. He acknowledged that in retrospect, this was a dangerous assumption. He did not ask the FBI what it was doing in response to the threats and did not task it to take any specific action. He also did not direct the INS, then still part of the Department of Justice, to take any specific action. (VIII, p. 265) The President said Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire to attack America. He recalled some operational data on the FBI, and remembered thinking it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way.... He did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so. He said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it. That never happened. (VIII, p. 260) Chapter 8 pdf Chapter 10 pdf August 6, 2001 PDB Read between the lines: George W. Bush failed on 9/11 --- Posted at 7/27/2004 08:28:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Moore -- Hatriotism not Patriotism (Greens read) Michael Moore was held up, so they had the entire second hour session, and then Moore finally arrived. He gave a very different kind of talk. I wouldn't call it a speech, more like someone talking about something in the news. Anyway, it was extremely, extremely powerful, and moving, PERSUASIVE, heartfelt, profound... This talk has to find its way online and if I learn about it I'll post where to find it. This talk is SO good, that if enough people see it, it could really change minds. Christian Crumlish of The Power Of Many said it was the best political speech he has ever heard. I don't agree, partly because I don't consider it a political speech, partly because the guy was talking an hour after Howard Dean and the day after The Big Dog's great, great speech and partly because I have seen Jesse Jackson speak live. More described people coming out of theaters saying "How come I never saw that on the news?" ASking why they didn;'t know about these things -- things that are not disputable, because they had just seen films of them, like the Black members of Congress being shut out of the Senate, one by one, asking for redress of what happened to Black voters in Florida. He said, "I haven't seen the mothers of dead soldiers on the news." He said the problem was the press, they were cheerleaders for the war. Standing ovation, hollering, as he says to the press, (almost quoting) We, the people, we need you. Start asking questions. Ask questions about the war. It's not un-American, it's PRO-American to ask the questions. It's patriotic. He talked about how, after the war started, anyone criticizing the war felt obligated to throw in, "But I support the troops." Then, "OF COURSE WE SUPPORT THE TROOPS! The troops are the people who come from the other f the tracks - the very people being abused by the Bush administration."The woman on my left side is crying now. I ask and she says her brother is in Iraq. The older woman on my right takes out a picture of her daughter-in-law in uniform, says she is in Baghdad and her husband, in the Guard, is going in a month. Then Moore is talking again about the mainstream press, "You have cameras and microphones and the ability to get into paces of power and you can ask the questions AND THEY CAN'T ARREST YOU. They can't stop you from asking the questions." Then later, about Republicans opposing gays. "They're not patriots, they're HATEriots". Then he talked about the Republicans holding on to power. ""They are going to fight, and they are going to smear and they are going to HATE." Finally, he talked about Ralph Nader and the Greens. He said Nader is a great American who has accomplished so much, that he tried to explain to Nader that the Democratic Party of 2004 is NOT the Democratic Party of 2000, (that even Al Gore of 2004 is not the Al Gore of 2000). He said, "You did a great thing. They've already gotten the message." "My appeal to the Nader voters and the Greens out there is that we have a different job to do out there now." He talked about taking Kerry's daughter to a college showing of F-911, with her sitting in the back anonymously, and afterwards asking how many planned to vote for Nader. He says about half raised their hands. (Nearly quoting) After showing them so many reasons that it is important to get Bush out of office... (end near quote) He believes that she took the message back to her father: "Dems need to give those thinking of voting for Nader a REASON to vote for the Democratic Party." UPDATE - Transcript here. --- Posted at 7/27/2004 07:45:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Down On The Main Floor I got a "floor pass" and walked the main convention floor while Howard Dean was speaking. It was like this: In ten minutes in a huge crowd there was Wolf Blitzer, George Mitchell, David Gergen, Jeff Greenfield, Frank Luntz, George Stephanopoulos, Judy Woodruff, Tom Daschle, Charlie Rangle, about a hundred familiar faces that I can't reachtheir names right now and spent a few minutes with a guy I know from 1992... A few pictures later. Dean was sort of lukewarm, but there were enthusiastic people. He was just amazing earlier today. When I have time I'll write more about the main convention floor, and will spend more time there during slower parts of the day. --- Posted at 7/27/2004 06:52:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Howard Dean and Robert Reich I went to an event put on by Campaign for America's Future, where Howard Dean, Robert Reich, Michael Moore and others spoke. (I'm posting about Moore later.) I'll post pictures soon. CAF is a Progressive organization, and describes themselves this way: Over 100 Prominent Americans ? citizen activists and policy experts concerned about our country and our planet ? joined together to launch and build the Campaign for America's Future. We are challenging the big money corporate agenda by encouraging Americans to speak up ? to discuss and debate a new vision of an economy and a future that works for all of us.They have a series of event just across the river from the convention center this week. Howard Dean spoke at our Blogger Breakfast the other day, but that was much more of a conversation. This was a speech event, with an enthusiastic crowd. This was at least as good as any speech I saw him give during the primary campaign. He talked about rebuilding the party structure and about running candidates. He said that 70 Republican members of Congress are not contested and we need to be running candidates in every single district. We won't win this time, but each time we'll get closer. Then he talked about how YOU should be running for office. He said that as long as people think someone else is going to do the job, things will stay the way they are. He said he used to encourage people to vote, but voting is just the bare minimum of what people need to be doing to take the country back. He repeated that he wants YOU to run for office. He's even campaigning for one guy who is running for Library District Administrator to make the point that EVERY office is important, and we can't expect to take back the country from the top down, we need change across the entire system. It takes more than organizing, more than raising money -- it takes going out there and doing it yourself. He also talked about Democrats taking their case to Utah and Alabama and Mississippi and Texas (yes, he had the cadence going). He said the most underrepresented person in the US is the White Southerner who is not rich because they vote for Republicans and the Republicans head for office and immediately forget about them, and take away their pensions and health care and government services and hurt their public schools. My description isn't doing justice at all, I'm just talking content. It was an amazing fiery wonderful speech and it made me feel like I was listening to a true leader. So someone just handed me a copy of Dean's speech for tonite. It's not the speech he gave earlier today. It's toned down, short, I don't see any room for his fire. So if you get a chance to see his speech this afternoon online somewhere (I'll post info if I find out) -- especially if you are a Dean fan -- be sure to see that. Later Robert Reich talked, and gave a great speech talking about how this recovery is not recovering things for average people. He used his great line about him and Shaquille O'Neal having an average height over 6 feet. Later - I just got a "floor pass" and was on the convention floor while Dean spoke. The speech was just nothing like this afternoon. I'll write about the convention floor later. It's late, and I have four or five different posts underway... This post was just descriptive - I have some things coming. But there is so much coming at me from so many directions... --- Posted at 7/27/2004 06:49:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Picture of Me at LiberalOasis LiberalOasis. (Scroll down.) Oh Jeeze, if that's what I looked like yesterday... A long day, sweating, no food, no mirrors... (When did I get old? When did that HAPPEN?) It LOOKS like I'm "blogging" but actually I'm just trying to get online or get the computer working... And I don't usualy wear a cell phone on my belt. Looks like I should have a pocket protecter. Update - Sorry, shouldn't have posted this... the dark side of blogging. Wanna see a picture of my dog? At least now I know what to say to the next reporter who asks what I blog about. --- Posted at 7/27/2004 09:30:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Convention Blogs Remember to check here regularly for convention postings from ALL the bloggers here. --- Posted at 7/27/2004 08:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What It's Like What's it LIKE, being at the convention? The Fleet Center is a big sports arena. You already know what the hall looks like, from TV. I walked around on the main floor before the convention started, and it's smaller than it looks like on TV. (Everyone says that about TV.) Things are close by. When someone is on the stage, they are right there, not too far from you. I'll try to get a pass to walk around on the main floor today after the convention opens, to get a feel for what it must be like to be a delegate, so I can write about that. From where I'm sitting way up in the stands, though, it actually looks bigger way down there, and your television is a much better seat for seeing the convention. The proceedings themselves are entirely geared to TV. All day people are giving speeches and almost nobody is listening, except maybe the delegation of the state the speaker is from. Then there are the big speeches. There was times last night when the speaker would be saying something from the stage, and people would be cheering, and we'd all be going, "What did he say?" and the cheering would get louder and the speaker would just keep talking. (Probably to stay on schedule.) So on TV you would hear the cheering but not at the amazing overwhelming level that we hear it in the arena. It would be like the "Dean Scream" where the part you hear (over and over and over) makes him sound like a loon yelling his head off, but if you were actually there all you could hear was the crowd and him trying to talk loud enough for people to hear him. I said it is a big sports arena, and when you go out into the hallway surrounding the main floor that is exactly what it is like there, too. There are concession stands with amazing prices (a large Coke is $5), and stands with people selling hats and buttons and t-shirts. It's very hard to find a drinking fountain. (And of course it is about half ice.) Now, for the political junkies, here's how it is not like a sports arena. Steve Soto and I went wandering around for a while yesterday. We started out in the press area -- which looks so different from what you see on TV or what you might expect. I posted a picture of the scene in the Press Filing Room yesterday -- long tables covered with white plastic, little chairs, crowded, dirty with trash people have left behind and full wastebaskets. The press area is down in the part of the arena people never see, and it's all cement and cardboard and pipes and wires. Cement walls and floors, and rigged up "rooms" with curtains for walls with signs made with marker pens that say things like "CBS RF", or "DIGITAL DARKROOM." We're walking around and Steve says "That was Wolf Blitzer," and then "Sam Donaldson." We passed a lot of people like that. The faces you recognize coming by every fourth person. We decided we'd become "The Blogger Story" if we told Andrea Mitchell "Your husband is Bush's Bitch." Anyway, we just stopped and watched press people go by for a while to see who we could pick out. A nudge from Steve, "Isn't that...?" "Hey, look who's over there..." Then we went walking around on the ground floor, where there's an area for talk radio shows, and there's Sam Seder and Air America, so I'm talking to Sam about the right-wing communications infrastructure. The people who the New York Times Magazine story from Sunday talked about are supposed to be on either tonite or tomorrow, and I'm going to nail down when that is and be sure to be there to hear it live, maybe be on the show he says. AND I'm going to show up to see Randi Rhodes for sure. Of course, there's Al Franken and I'll make sure to see that live as well. I have run into him a few times walking around. Running into people walking around... After we talked to Air America a while we went down to the McDonalds because drinks cost much less there. We're in line and Ted Sorenson walked by, being helped by a couple of guys because he's pretty old. And then Michael Moore comes in the door, and he is SURROUNDED by a cocoon of press and camera, with the TV camera guys walking backwards in front of him and the lights on him and the microphone booms overhead and this weird gaggle comes walking down the hall. I've never experienced anything like this. And they're coming straight for us and the cameramen back right into us and look at us like, "Who the f... are you?" so we get out of the way and the procession slowly goes by. Al Franken jumps into the middle of it to say Hi. I'm thinking that I could never, ever live like that. And there's another press gaggle down the hall a ways and we see it's Jesse Jackson. And in the crowd around him Steve is saying, "That's, oh darn, I can't remember his name." (Another one upstairs and it's two of the Daily Show guys.) So the power of celebrity and the power of the press? It's everything you read about but still, when you see it, it's both amazingly attractive and also somehow perverted and shameful at the same time. It's crowded. It's a Democratic gathering, which one journalist speaking to yesterday's blogger breakfast, Walter Mears from the AP, described as a big class reunion. That was a great description. He's an old guy with a respected career in journalism and he talked about striving for objectivity (and the bloggers made faces at that and some of us thought about starting to chant, "Nedra, Nedra, Nedra" but we didn't.) I hope I have been able to give you some sense of What It's Like to be at a convention -- with a press pass. --- Posted at 7/27/2004 07:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Clinton This is Dave from Boston. I wrote this last night, pretty late. Clinton. OK, so I'm a political blogger. I'm supposed to write about The Speech. But what is there to say? Clinton. OK? The big dog barked. You saw it. There just isn’t anything left to say. I was there, but you saw it on TV (so you actually got to hear all of it.) And if you didn't see it on TV you're probably not a person who is reading a political weblog. So you aren't here. What's to say? You're floored. I'm floored. He's the best. As Richard would say, "Period, end of story." After, a few of us went out looking for food and beer. So in the wisdom of the owners of restaurants of Boston they all closed JUST before a crowd of approximately 20,000 people came flooding out of the Fleet convention center toward downtown, all hungry and looking for food. Finally, after maybe an hour walking around Boston the Long Warf Marriott bar had food. But there's a funny story about this trek, because on the way there we passed by a large crowd with a lot of lights next to Faniuel Hall, and it turns out it's the Hardball show live. And we're too busy looking for food to stop and watch so we try to go around the crowd, and we get behind where the show is and we see from behind who it is on the show and there's Joe Trippi sitting there. Obviously a commercial is on, so we all start saying, "He Joe, we're bloggers from the convention" and stuff like that so he comes over to that end of the back of the stage to talk to us. He asked if we're hanging around but we said no we're looking for food and does he know anywhere open? (The mind becomes incredibly concentrated after a day with no food.) But he's got to go back on before the commercial break ands, and we simply have to find food, so we go our different ways. He says he'll see us at the"Blogger Bash" Wednesday night. Beer and food and gossip about other bloggers (never mind that) at the Marriott. At about 1:30am I started walking across town. (Remember, this is only 10:30 California time – still too late for me but before the Daily Show is on at home.) Tom said something about walking through town at night, getting mugged… Christian asked if the computer is insured. So I'm walking down alleys, through the middle of the Commons, trying to get someone to hit me on the head and take the damn computer… --- Posted at 7/27/2004 07:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More on Daily Show This is Dave from Boston. Computer is working today (finders rossed) AND I am online at a Starbucks. So all is well. The Daily Show: I figure I was probably in trouble right away, from when I said, "I'm sorry, what was your name again? Did you say Samantha?" I think I said, "Are you the producer?" Now that I think about it, she was probably thinking to herself, "Oh man, this is going to be really good." I have a feeling some of you are wondering what I'm talking about, and some of you are rolling your eyes and saying, "Oh man, this is going to be really good." OK, I have seen some clips from "The Daily Show" online, but, well, it's on too late. OK? Now some of you are thinking, "What time is it on?" and some of you are thinking, "Oh man, this is going to be really good." So, was it on last night? --- Posted at 7/27/2004 07:21:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
George W. Bush failed: 9/11 Report (A non-Conventional post from Portland, Oregon) The media consensus seems to be that the 9/11 Commission report either exonerates Bush, or else says that Bush and Clinton were equally bad. But the consensus is wrong. Here's Richard Clarke's verdict: "Yet, because the commission had a goal of creating a unanimous report from a bipartisan group, it softened the edges and left it to the public to draw many conclusions. Among the obvious truths that were documented but unarticulated were the facts that the Bush administration did little on terrorism before 9/11, and that by invading Iraq the administration has left us less safe as a nation". (archive link) Most of the media have taken the report's discreet refusal to draw any conclusions to mean that they should not draw any conclusions either. But as Clarke says, the report merely leaves it up to us to articulate the "obvious truths" ourselves. (As I have phrased it, "Some assembly is required"). One of these truths is that the Bush administration's pre-9/11 counter-terrorism performance was poor, and definitely worse than Clinton's. Another is that the link he claimed between Iraq and al Qaeda – one of the main justifications of the war – was non-existent. The only positive note in the 9/11 report was "The Millenium Exception": "Before concluding our narrative, we offer a reminder, and an explanation, of the one period in which the government as a whole seemed to be acting in concert to deal with terrorism—the last weeks of December 1999 preceding the millennium. In the period between December 1999 and early January 2000, information about terrorism flowed widely and abundantly.... After the millennium alert, the government relaxed .....In the summer of 2001, DCI Tenet, the Counterterrorist Center, and the Counterterrorism Security Group did their utmost to sound a loud alarm, its basis being intelligence indicating that al Qaeda planned something big. But the millennium phenomenon was not repeated." (XI, pp. 358-9) The report charitably explains the difference by the fact that in 2001 there was no millennium scare to get people excited. But there was another, more important difference between 1999 and 2001: a change of administration. And whereas Clinton, during the millennium scare, was banging heads and shaking the trees in order to get some action, during his first eight months in office Bush exhibited a complete lack of leadership on counterterrorism. The supposed "organizational deficiencies" of structure and process in the counterterrorism effort were in large part due to the fact that in 2001 the man on top wasn't interested. Clarke's tenure with Bush consisted of a long series of unsuccessful attempts to get the attention of his superiors, especially Rice. Under the Clinton administration, Clarke (as counterterrorism coordinator) had been a de facto member of the NSC "principals" committee, but under Bush, counterterrorism was relegated to the lower-level "deputies" level. Partisan Bush supporters use this to argue that Clarke is simply a disgruntled former employee with a personal grudge against Bush, but Clarke was not himself demoted. He retained his title and his responsibilities, but Bush, despite repeated warnings from Clarke and from outgoing Clinton staffers, simply did not think that counterterrorism was as important as Clinton did. (VI, pp. 199-204) Bush is quoted as saying that he was tired of "swatting at flies". Besides the characteristic Bush Administration contempt for anything the Clinton Administration did, this statement probably indicates Bush's (mistaken) belief that the problem of terrorism should be dealt with at the state level -- there are a number of complaints in the report about the folly of wasting good three million dollar missiles on mud huts. But what Bush "really meant" isn't too important, because before 9/11 he did nothing much about state-level terrorism either --- deciding, for example, not to retaliate against the late-2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. (VI, pp. 211-213; X, p. 335; VI, pp. 201-2) And it also must be said that many of those who now criticize Clinton for not being aggressive enough against al-Qaeda are the same ones who made jokes about "wagging the dog" whenever Clinton did try to do anything, and who did their level best to cripple him during his term in office (in the process tying up 78 FBI agents who could have been out chasing terrorists.) The report is also devastating for Bush on the Saddam-al Qaeda links. Clarke told Rice as early as September 18 that there was little evidence for links between Saddam and Osama, and Atta's supposed trip to Prague is also debunked in the report. While the report does show that the Clinton administration had also suspected a Saddam-al Qaeda connection, and that there were indeed some feelers back and forth between al Qaeda and Saddam, these feelers came to nothing in the end and it has to be concluded that Saddam had nothing at all to do with the 9-11 attack. (X, p. 334; VII, pp. 228-9) In the report Wolfowitz is seen as the strongest advocate by far of an attack on Iraq. There are four instances in which Bush is shown resisting the idea of attacking Iraq, but (in an account disputed by Bush) Clarke has also testified that as early as September 12 Bush asked him to explore possible Iraqi links to 9/11, and on September 17 Bush admittedly ordered that a contingency plan be drawn up for an Iraq attack. The strongest evidence that Bush decided to attack Iraq very early on, however, was his repeated statements that not only terrorists, but harborers would be attacked. While these statements obviously included the Afghans, they were not really necessary if only the Afghans were intended, since al Qaeda were located in Afghanistan and would have to be attacked there. I think that in speaking so often of the harborers, Bush was setting the stage for the attack on Iraq he had been planning all along. (X, pp 335-6; pp. 326, 330, 333) Throughout the report I found myself wondering whether Bush's loyal aides were coordinating their testimony in order to protect Bush (as well as themselves), and to me it seems possible that Wolfowitz has already been selected to be the fall guy if one is needed -- though as far as I know, the official story is still that the Iraq War was an enormous success. It's not really surprising that the media are mostly ignoring this report, but it's disappointing that the Democrats apparently aren't capitalizing on it much either. From one point of view, the report doesn't tell us much that we don't know already, and from another point of view it leaves out a lot of important questions that deserve more attention, but there's still a lot of now-incontestable ammunition for use against candidate Bush this fall. And as far as I know, this is still a free country where we elect our presidents. 9/11 Commission Report September 10, 2001: Ashcroft denies FBI request for more counter-terrorism funding August 6, 2001: Bush is informed that al Qaeda is determined to strike within the U.S., and immediately goes on vacation for a month (Three dropped sentences restored, 3:25 p.m. PDT). --- Posted at 7/27/2004 06:05:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/26/2004 Look For Me On the Daily Show This is Dave from Boston. I missed Gore's speech because I was being interviewed for the Daily Show on the Comedy Channel. Look for it! --- Posted at 7/26/2004 07:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Computer Died This is Dave from Boston. Computer is completely dead. As soon as it has booted up it restarts, goes to CheckDisk... boots up, restarts. I'll try again tomorrow. I can borrow computers to blog from, but can't post pictures. Expect a lot of pictures after I get back. --- Posted at 7/26/2004 06:59:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Monday Pics Here are two more pictures from the convention. 
This is reporters covering reporters interviewing bloggers while bloggers interview the reporters.
This is my view in the Press Filing Room.
I just noticed over at the Convention Bloggers website that everyone posted at the same time - around 4pm, so the wireless upstairs must be working, AND I just heard the Star Spangled Banner being sung, so I'm leaving behind this nice Press Room view and heading upstairs now.--- Posted at 7/26/2004 01:27:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Pics from the Convention Here are a couple pictures from this morning. 
Gov. Howard Dean at the "Blogger Breakfast"
The view of the convention floor from the Blogger seats.
--- Posted at 7/26/2004 01:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Monday Afternoon from Boston This is Dave from Boston Monday afternoon. (Of course, you'll be reading this after I finally do.) I STILL haven't been able to get on the Internet. I'm in the press room, and they have Ethernet outlets but I don't have an Ethernet cable. (They also don't have more than maybe 20 power outlets in a room with maybe 150 computer stations.) I'm typing while I wait to borrow one from Tom Burka of Opinions You Should Have. The wireless that was set up for the bloggers isn't working well – only some can get on but I don't even see the signal. Tom's here in the press room for the same reason.) (By the way, Tom's great and everyone should go read his weblog.) And to top it off my computer is starting to flake out. It is restarting all by itself while I'm typing, and when it restarts again the file system is corrupt. I can run diskcheck and then use the computer again for a while, but this isn't a good sign at all… So I went to a blogger breakfast, and Howard Dean showed up! He talked about innovation in campaigns and opening up campaigns to a two-way interaction, as he did. I suggested that one thing he hadn't mentioned was that his campaign was clearly reading blogs VERY early, and letting us know, and that this put him at an advantage because they were aware of the leading edge of opinion even before those opinions became salient with a wider public. Anyway, the convention is starting soon, and when it does I'll stop blogging about bloggers and leave that story to all the reporters who are reporting about bloggers. (They were even filming us EATING at the blogger breakfast. One guy opened up a laptop and the film crews went NUTS.) I'll write about the convention and I'll be talking to as many actual delegates as I can to try to bring you a story that is "closer to home." Do any readers have any particular state delegations you want me to try to talk to? --- Posted at 7/26/2004 12:26:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
From Boston This is Dave from Boston, Monday morning. I'm waiting for the press office to open so I can get credentials. I still haven't found anywhere to get online, but I DID get something to eat this morning. I didn't eat all day yesterday. (My wife won't believe that.) I tried a couple of Starbucks, but for some reason I haven't been able to use my new T-Mobile HotSpot account… But I am confident that I will be able to get online, check my e-mail and start finding out what is going on in the world. A reporter here assures me no cities have been nuked or anything. Last night I went to a blogger gathering in a bar in Cambridge. I met several of the bloggers we all read. Like Jeralyn from TalkLeft, Matthew Gross, Jesse and Ezra from Pandagon and Tom Burka from Opinions You Should Have and American Street. On the subway coming back from last night's blogger gathering one station was full of people with signs saying "You Can't be Catholic and Pro-Abortion." I'm wondering where the "and Pro-War" or "Pro-Death Penalty" signs were. So at the blogger gathering there were reporters who were there to interview the bloggers! I was told the bloggers at the convention is a BIG story. I'm told that there is even a special section of the convention where bloggers have seats assigned and CNN is maybe going to set up a camera to televise us while we "blog." (Talk about not "getting it.") So there I am the night before the convention even starts and I have reporters asking me the question, "What is the difference between blogging and journalism?" And "Will all this attention co-opt the bloggers?" I'm thinking, "What attention?" but I'm getting signs of what is likely to come. So here is how I answered. I compared blogging and journalism to the music industry. You've got a lot of great music out there, but you've got a huge commercial music industry. And you can be in Santa Cruz and turn on KPIG and hear great music in no format, or you can drive over to Silicon Valley and go through Clear Channel station after Clear Channel station and hear the same old commercial crap – "Every Breath You Take" is a great song, but not when it is on every station at the same time – and the reason it's on the air is because the corporations are paying for it to be there… They have carefully prepared playlists designed to maximize the marginal return… Blogging is "keeping it real." There seems to be something "stale" about much of the professional punditry. For one thing, so many of the pros have been doing it for soooooo long…. But I think something happens when you are hired and start getting paid and start HAVING to write and produce and create and do it on a schedule. I think when you're in that situation you moderate what you write. AND the publication has its own requirements so your editors might moderate what you write for you. I'm talking about punditry, not reporting here – reporting is an entirely different story and we talk in the "blogosphere" about what is wrong with the So-Called-Liberal-Media so I won't here today. I gave an example of a difference between blogging and professional journalism. I sent an e-mail to RSVP that I was going to attend an event this week, and I got a response that said only "I put you down!" So if he was going to put me down I was going to send a reply "I fart in your general direction." And I said I was going to blog that. So the reporter said, "I can't put that in my article" and I said "That is preciselym the difference." (Actually after no food and two beers I said something less coherent but you get the idea.) Blogging is regular people voicing what regular people are feeling, and doing it because they feel they have to say this because no one else is. There are plenty of bloggers who "quit" and the two weeks later they're back. It's because you just have to say it. And the blogging that has made a difference – like bringing Howard Dean to the forefront of public attention back in 2003, or sticking on the Trent Lott story because the press wouldn't – was written because people were PISSED OFF and were going to write about it, and yell, and try to bring attention to stories that NEEDED attention. And finally, for those who follow MY ISSUE here at Seeing the Forest, if you haven't seen the big NY Times Magazine article about changing the nature of politics on the "Progressive" side, please go read it. It is important, it is what I have been talking about for three years, finally breaking into the "mainstream" so it will be talked about a lot this week. The story is online online here. --- Posted at 7/26/2004 12:16:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/25/2004 Something Completely Different (A non-Conventional post from Portland, Oregon) A couple of years ago I swore I'd never use my awesome blogging powers for selfish purposes, but sooner or later each of us must fall. So now I'm promoting my son's album. "Amelia" is a classy indie band whose self-released CD is getting some airplay (reviews below). If you just hate alt country or anything that's called "retro", you won't like them, but if you like that kind of thing they are in the top rank. Their lyrics tend toward the edgy and dark. I love their stuff but then, I've never been known for my objectivity. P.S. The band is politically cool but for some reason does not want to be closely identified with my vivid persona. You can find out more here: http://www.ameliaband.com Buy here: http://www.ameliaband.com/store.html This link should take you directly to free Napster downloads: http://tinyurl.com/3qlux This link should take you directly to free Rolling Stone downloads: http://tinyurl.com/66dup REVIEWS: "Sultry and sophisticated cabaret pop with just a whisper of twang that flits in and out like a friendly ghost. The music of Amelia is a staggeringly cool exercise in understatement". Clay Steakley, "Performing Songwriter" "'After All' opens with the sound of a needle being dropped into the groove of an LP, or maybe an old 78, telegraphing Amelia’s retro approach to their music, but there’s nothing old-fashioned about their playing, songwriting or the smoky confidence of lead singer Teisha Helgerson." Waxed J. Poet (?), "No Depression" "Subtle bands like Amelia usually count on such audience diligence, but the indie group from Portland, Ore., is immediately addictive with 'After All.'" Chuck Campbell, Scripps --- Posted at 7/25/2004 08:42:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Ashcroft in the 9/11 Committee Report (An non-Conventional post from John in Portland) In the 9/11 Committee report, no one looks worse than John Ashcroft. Since 9/11 Ashcroft has used the threat of terrorism to justify enormously expanding the powers of his office at the expense of traditional civil liberties. He has viciously attacked anyone who has questioned what he does: "Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies." Ashcroft's appointment was a plum for the religious right, and the religious right's pet issues take up much of his time: he's been tough on medical marijuana, assisted suicide, prostitution in New Orleans, and Tommy Chong's bongs. So what did Ashcroft do about terrorism before 9/11? Approximately nothing. When the acting head of the FBI tried to brief him about terrorism in 2001, Ashcroft told him to shut up: "Attorney General Ashcroft was briefed by the CIA in May and by Pickard in early July about the danger. Pickard said he met with Ashcroft once a week in late June, through July, and twice in August. There is a dispute regarding Ashcroft’s interest in Pickard’s briefings about the terrorist threat situation. Pickard told us that after two such briefings Ashcroft told him that he did not want to hear about the threats anymore. Ashcroft denies Pickard’s charge." (9/11 Committee Report, VIII, p. 265). Ashcroft offered no leadership, but just let things happen: "The Attorney General told us he asked Pickard whether there was intelligence about attacks in the United States and that Pickard said no. Pickard said he replied that he could not assure Ashcroft that there would be no attacks in the United States, although the reports of threats were related to overseas targets. Ashcroft said he therefore assumed the FBI was doing what it needed to do. He acknowledged that in retrospect, this was a dangerous assumption. He did not ask the FBI what it was doing in response to the threats and did not task it to take any specific action. He also did not direct the INS, then still part of the Department of Justice, to take any specific action." (VIII, p. 265) During the year 2001, Ashcroft was preparing a budget for 2003 to be presented to Congress in 2002. Counter-terrorism was not featured in this budget: "The budget guidance issued the next day [May 10, 2004], however, highlighted gun crimes, narcotics trafficking, and civil rights as priorities. Watson told us that he almost fell out of his chair when he saw this memo, because it did not mention counterterrorism....." (VI, p. 209). The FBI tried unsuccessfully to change Ashcroft's mind: "The Justice Department prepared a draft fiscal year 2003 budget that maintained but did not increase the funding level for counterterrorism in its pending fiscal year 2002 proposal. Pickard appealed for more counterterrorism enhancements, an appeal the attorney general denied on September 10." (VI, p. 210) September 10, 2001. Great timing! Chapter 6 pdf Chapter 8 pdf --- Posted at 7/25/2004 01:04:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/24/2004 Convention Bloggers Remember to also check DNC 2004 Weblogs: News Aggregator for convention news from bloggers. --- Posted at 7/24/2004 08:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Heading To Boston I'm leaving in the morning for Boston, arriving about 4:30pm Boston time. So this is my last post before I arrive. There's a blogger gathering tomorrow evening and I'll let you know how that goes, depending on when I can get a connection, and time. Same throughout the week -- connection and time. There is supposed to be WIFI for bloggers in the convention hall. I also have signed up for T-Mobile so I can use Starbucks as needed. (They have those in Boston, right?) (That was a joke.) (But they DO have a Peets in Harvard Square so I'll be able to get some ACTUAL coffee while I'm there...) I'm also attending numerous events outside the hall, put on by organizations like the New Democrat Network, 21st Century Democrats, etc., and I'll write about those. I have a digital camera and will try to post pictures each day as I get time. To everyone who contributed a bit for this trip - THANKS, and I'll write to each of you during the trip or after, depending on time and connectivity. And finally, not very many people wrote or left comments with specific requests for things to talk about from the convention. So feel free to leave a comment here. What should I, and other bloggers, look for? What should bloggers do that is different from so-called "journalists?" (At BOPNews I left a comment that I'll be trying to be LIKE a real reporter, and flock to everything I hear about where there is free food and drinks.) --- Posted at 7/24/2004 07:40:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Divider Voters Are Very Settled, Intense And Partisan, and It's Only July: "Rarely has a presidential campaign been this intense, this polarized, this partisan, this early."I think the contrast between Bush's 2000 campaign slogan, "I'm a uniter, not a divider", and the reality of his term-to-date speaks volumes. Directly resulting from Bush's "governing" style, the country is more divided than ever before. Yet he campaigned as a uniter. This is an example of what drives his opponents nuts, while strengthening his base. His supporters would say that he says what he needs to say to get elected, or to get things done, and that's OK because they trust that he is on their side, and the things he wants to accomplish are things they agree should be done. So deceptions like scaring the wits out of the country to get them to go to war with Iraq are OK and are fully consistent with changing the rationale after the fact to say that we are there to bring democracy and liberate the people and Americanize the Middle East. Most Republicans I talk to are in agreement with this, and freely say that it was probably necessary to do the things he did to get the Congress to vote to pay for, if not fully authorize, the invasion. They understand propaganda, and like it. And on so many other issues the Freepers and the Limbaugh Dittoheads and other self-identified "movement conservatives" are fully on board with the strategy of saying one thing and doing another. They don't see it as a failing, they see it as a strength. If you point out to them that Bush lies when he says he is helping Africans with AIDS because he isn't providing the funding, or lies when he talks about the No Child Left Behind Act because he refuses to provide the money, or point out that his "War On Terror" budget did not provide even one penny to help rebuild Afghanistan they'll laugh at you and tell you to "get over it." Thet get what he is trying to accomplish, and agree. "Nowhere are the partisan divisions sharper than in the voters' views of President Bush. Eighty-four percent of the Republicans approve of the job he is doing, but just 16 percent of the Democrats do, according to the latest Times/CBS News poll."Committed Republicans are fully cognitive of the politicization of everything, and like it. Just listen to the callers to the Limbaugh show on any given day, as they talk about how things should be spun to trick the general public into agreement. Limbaugh's audience is not small, and it is not fringe. And, in case we forget where the divisiveness and nastiness came from, here's a reminder. And here. And here. (Read these carefully - he is accusing "liberals" of doing things that they do not, in order to justify the Right actually doing them.) And here. Just a few examples, of so many. --- Posted at 7/24/2004 01:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Covering the Democratic Convention - Please Help Fund My Trip I have received press credentials to cover the Democratic Convention next week. So please leave a comment and let me know what YOU want to hear about! That will be my first priority, and I'll try to post as often as possible. I'm asking Seeing the Forest readers if they could pitch in and help me pay for this trip. I'll be staying with friends at least some of the time. So, I need to get there from California, and pay for local transportation and food, and maybe a night's lodging or two. (And I lose a whole week's pay -- I'm not getting paid while I'm there.) On the right side of this page, under the Beat Bush button, there is a Paypal "Donate" button, and an "Amazon Honor System" button. Please pitch in, even if it's only a dollar or two. THANKS! 
Update - I'm resetting the date on this to keep it at the top of the page this week. --- Posted at 7/24/2004 11:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Amazing Luck - Big Class Action With amazing luck and timing my laptop is starting to flake out. I leave tomorrow at 8am for Boston. Great, huh? Here's what it is - (yes this is leading to something.) Sony Vaio laptops have two memory slots. There's the one that comes with memory installed, and a second slot. The second slot is cheap plastic and isn't soldered well. So the laptop stopped recognizing my second ram bank, and got really slow. It's hard to describe how slow Windows can get. (You can't put more than 256mb in one slot.) I had to have a PC to do my job, OK? Don't start with me. My wife has a really nice new PowerBook. OK? Anyway, I found that this is a common problem and one place I found suggested putting a piece of a CD over the memory card and closing the lid on it, so it pushes the card down and forces the contacts to contact. AND THAT WORKED - for a while. But for some reason that causes the screen to suddenly go black at random times. Which is no good. Here's where this is leading: I read in my search for answers one forum talked about a site called Big Class Action, where you can go see if your problem is subject to a class action suit, and can describe the problem so a lawyer can see if it SHOULD be subject to a class action suit! SO if you have a product problem, or a problem with a big company that might be something worthy of joining with others to go to court over, check out this site. Other laptop problems - It keeps downloading Windows XP Service Pack 2 BETA, filling up the hard drive, and asking if I want to install it. I don't. AND I have the setting for downloading updates turned off. After a lot of back-and-forth with MS tech support they said it was probably due to a virus. It isn't. That's the oldest tech support weenie answer in the book, so I gave up. AND I just got a new "G" 108mb wireless card, but the configuration utility just beeps and won't run. AND whenever I come back from standby or hibernation the only way I can get the wireless card to find the internet (it does connect to the transmitter) is to force it to disable and then re-enable... AND now it ALWAYS does "checkdisk" when I restart. For some reason it takes almost 10 minutes to boot up when I restart. And it won't even finish unless I right-click on the desktop, which starts the hard drive spinning again and then something happens for a nother 2 or 3 minutes before I can do anything. There must be 100 other quirks that I have found ritualistic and superstitious ways around just to get my work done. And this next week I have to sit and wait while it swaps things out to disk, because the computer won't recognize more than 256mb, and Windows wants a LOT more than that. Why did Microsoft have to crush BeOS? I know the answer, but jeeze. --- Posted at 7/24/2004 11:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/11 Commission: Who Cares? The 9/11 Commission report has fallen off the first page of Google News, and none of the big Democrats except Conason are talking about it. (Maybe there will be more interest tomorrow when people finish plowing their way through the 500+ pages.) The initial media spin was to blame the CIA and Congress, but not Bush or Clinton -- I think that the idea was to cut some kind of deal with the Democrats. Democrats would be stupid to accept that deal: Bush is running and Clinton isn't. I'm working on it, but for the moment are a few links. No essential documents missing, 9/11 panel says "Kean said the commission has been assured that it was able to get copies of each document that apparently was lost. If those lost documents had written notations from former President Clinton or others, they would have been included in those copies, Kean said." The Berger hooplah is phony. Berger didn't have or lose any unique documents, but just copies. Nothing was withheld from the 9/11 commission. (Apparently where he was working was not the archive itself, but a working library of copies for people who wanted access to archive materials. The materials were important because they were secret, but they were not irreplacable). "One result is that the report has cast a pall over the president's vacation plans" Poor George. This article has lots of interesting stuff about the Bush Administration's resistance to outside ideas and his original resistance to the establishment of the 9/11 Commission. The 9/11 Commission (and other related investigative committees) There's a lot of interesting old stuff in there about Bush's bitter resistance to the 9/11 commission every step of the way, as well as some of the conflicts of interest of the members of the commission. (While I'm finding the commission report usable, you still have to do a lot of reading between the lines, and it would be a mistake to think that they are irreproachable.) Bush and Cheney adamantly insisted on being questioned together. When you read that Bush confirmed Cheney's claim that his shoot-down order had been authorized by Bush, you have to keep that fact in mind. Just for laughs, here's Scooter Libby's description of Cheney's order: "President Cheney was asked for authority to engage the aircraft. His reaction was described by Scooter Libby as quick and decisive, 'in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing'" (p. 41). Libby belongs in the Kissass Hall of Fame. --- Posted at 7/24/2004 10:20:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/23/2004 Finding Convention Blogs You'll find a good source of convention info here, at ConventionBloggers. This site will always have the latest from ALL the bloggers at the convention. Also, you can sign up to have Seeing the Forest e-mailed to you daily by scrolling down until you see "Enter your email address below to subscribe to Seeing the Forest!" on the right column of this page, entering your e-mail address, and clicking the "Subscribe" button. --- Posted at 7/23/2004 10:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Some assembly required: politicizing 9/11 The bipartisan 9/11 commission was careful not to blame individuals or draw political consequences from the events. The media have also come to the speedy conclusion that no one was really to blame. (And as an emergency back-up, they have also concluded that Clinton and Bush were equally to blame. As I said below, it's as if they failed keep score and called the game a tie.) So that part of the job is left to us -- the politicization, which the commission was forbidden by its charter to do. In free countries you have political parties, and issues tend to become politicized in a partisan way. Countries where this does not happen are called dictatorships. The Republicans have already done a tremendous job of politicizing 9/11 -- the War on Terror is practically the only thing Bush has to run on. We Democrats are playing catch-up. Bush's wretched counter-terrorism performance before 9/11, as revealed especially in Chapter 8 of the report, is a legitimate political issue. One man's "fingerpointing" is another man's accountability. Certainly the worst thing we can do with the 9/11 issue is to conclude that "mistakes were made" -- no one's to blame, everyone's to blame, and Clinton and Bush were equally to blame. That's more or less what the commission said, but they had to say that. The facts they gave us are not so nonpartisan. But suppose I make the Republicans an offer. And I'll go first, too: from here on out, I'm not going to defend Clinton's performance. You can have Clinton. Hang him high. But you can't defend Bush either. Deal? I don't think so. The 9/11 issue is going to be politicized, and that is as it should be. Bush is going to have to defend his record against Kerry. And that seems sort of unfair, since Kerry has never been President and doesn't have a record on counter-terrorism. But that's OK, because Bush (whose pre-Presidential record was short and skimpy) has been going through Kerry's 30-year political record with a fine-tooth comb for a year now, looking for waffles and flipflops. Bush didn't waffle much during his short career because he hardly did anything. His Presidential record is all he's got, and 9/11 is the biggest part of it. (And sometimes, you know, if a pitcher is really stinking up the place, you pull him in put in someone else just to see what they can do). We still do have a democratic two-party system in this country. Let the wild rumpus begin! --- Posted at 7/23/2004 10:37:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Oh No! San Franciscans (never, ever say, "Frisco") will understand what this means. I was looking at a schedule of convention-related entertainment events and came across this: "Thursday, July 29, 2004 CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE/PROTEST starts at 8 a.m. at Copley Square, Boston."Oh No! --- Posted at 7/23/2004 08:40:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/22/2004 Text of Bush's August 6, 2001 PDB "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US" "Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example ofWorld Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and “bring the fighting to America.” After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [—] service. An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [—] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative’s access to the US to mount a terrorist strike. The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin’s first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself,but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack. Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997. Al-Qa’ida members—including some who are US citizens—have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.Two al-Qua’ da members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s. A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American outh for attacks. We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [—] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Shaykh” ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists. Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives." From the 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 8 --- Posted at 7/22/2004 10:21:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The system was blinking red, but Bush was on vacation The 9/11 report doesn't dot the i's or cross the t's. It doesn't come out and say that Bush and his team screwed up. But if you read Chapter 8, there's really no other conclusion that you can come to. On Aug. 6th Bush was read a brief titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US", which was the 36th briefing he had mentioning Bin Ladin or al Qaeda. He then went on vacation for a long month, apparently without talking about al Qaeda either with Ashcroft, with Rice, or with Tenet. The official story line of the 9/11 report is that there were failures of process and structure leading to inefficiency and lack of coordination, which led in turn to a failure to confront the challenge of terrorism. But the details of the story itself show us Bush, Ashcroft, and Rice repeatedly being briefed about a rising threat level by Tenet and an increasingly agitated Clarke, without any of the three of them ever taking any initiative on the issue whatsoever. Chapter 8 of the 9/11 Commission report (pdf) Page 7: During the spring and summer of 2001, President Bush had on several occasions asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States. Reflecting on these questions, the CIA decided to write a briefing article summarizing its understanding of this danger.Two CIA analysts involved in preparing this briefing article believed it represented an opportunity to communicate their view that the threat of a Bin Ladin attack in the United States remained both current and serious.35 The result was an article in the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US" It was the 36th PDB item briefed so far that year that related to Bin Ladin or al Qaeda, and the first devoted to the possibility of an attack in the United States. The President told us the August 6 report was historical in nature. President Bush said the article told him that al Qaeda was dangerous, which he said he had known since he had become President. The President said Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire to attack America. He recalled some operational data on the FBI, and remembered thinking it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way. As best he could recollect, Rice had mentioned that the Yemenis’ surveillance of a federal building in New York had been looked into in May and June, but there was no actionable intelligence. He did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so. He said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it. That never happened. Page 9: We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States. DCI Tenet visited President Bush in Crawford,Texas, on August 17 and participated in PDB briefings of the President between August 31 (after the President had returned to Washington) and September 10. But Tenet does not recall any discussions with the President of the domestic threat during this period. Page 12: Attorney General Ashcroft was briefed by the CIA in May and by Pickard in early July about the danger. Pickard said he met with Ashcroft once a week in late June, through July, and twice in August. There is a dispute regarding Ashcroft’s interest in Pickard’s briefings about the terrorist threat situation. Pickard told us that after two such briefings Ashcroft told him that he did not want to hear about the threats anymore. Ashcroft denies Pickard’s charge. --- Posted at 7/22/2004 09:50:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
George W. Bush and Terrorism The premise of the bipartisan commission was neutrality and bipartisanship: both sides are equally to blame. They came to that conclusion because they looked around the table, counted noses, and saw that they were divided 5-5. It's as if they agreed not to keep score, and then called the game a tie. So it's our job to figure out whether Bush deserves to be blamed or not, since the 9/11 commission made a point of not asking that question. (We can ask the same question of Clinton too, but the question about Bush is more important, since he's running for reelection in four months and Clinton isn't.) I haven't been able to look at the 9/11 report yet, but here are some links to earlier research of mine on the topic. This stuff is several months old and there are probably some dead links, but there a lot of stuff there. The Bush Administration's indifference to counter-terrorism (pre-9/11) Missed Warnings of 9/11 The Iraq War and the War on Terror The Republicans and the Islamofascists before 9/11 The 9/11 commission assures us that our Saudi and Pakistani allies had nothing whatever to do with 9/11. I'm not so sure, as you can see here: Who was Bandar Bush? --- Posted at 7/22/2004 06:49:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush doesn't look so good on 9/11 I am in agreement with Dave that we shouldn't waste any more time on the pitiful, ridiculous Berger distraction. That's all just designed to divert attention -- primarily from the 9/11 Commission report, which doesn't make Bush look at all good for Bush, and secondarily from the upcoming Democratic National Convention. I have never seen the trolls so ferocious and vivid. Initial press reports seem to be spinning it this way: Bush and Clinton were both equally to blame, but really no one was to blame, since it was an institutional problem which should be dealt with by -- ta-DAH! -- a bureaucratic reshuffling! You expect something like that from a bipartisan blue-ribbon commission, and of course the media should be expected to deliver us mush. However, I feel that a closer look will find lots of interesting stuff. Below are the URLs of the three reports: the recent 9/11 Commission report, the relatively recent Senate Intelligence Committee Report, and the 2002 Congressional 9/11 report. Everything is in PDF format; sometime when you've got a few hours, come around and explain to me why ANYTHING should ever be in PDF format. And there's a link at the bottom where you can buy print versions; the recent 9/11 report is less than $20. 9/11 Commission Report (2004) http://www.9-11commission.gov/ Senate Intelligence Committee Report (2004) 30 page PDF summary of Senate Intelligence Committee Report on pre-Iraq War Intelligence: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_rpt/ssci_concl.pdf Complete Senate Intelligence Committee Report: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_rpt/index.html Analysis of Senate report from Brad Delong's site: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001229.html Congressional 9/11 Report (2002) http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/911.html Print versions of all three reports can be bought here. The 9/11 report is cheap. http://bookstore.gpo.gov/911commission.html#911 --- Posted at 7/22/2004 04:52:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Clearing Something Up The reaction from "our side" to the Berger smear should be to simply ignore it. We have a bigger fish to fry. The 9/11 Report came out today and every single one of us should be speaking loudly, saying, "This report says that Bush was 'asleep at the switch' and let 9/11 happen!" We should do this for three simple reasons: 1) It is what the report says. 2) Bush was asleep at the switch and let 9/11 happen. 3) It is the right thing to be doing, for the good of the country and for our own protection.They have planned this Berger smear for months. They are using it to claim that Clinton was responsible for 9/11. They are using it to manipulate the voters. They are using it to distract us all from the conclusions in the report - and when we spend time on the Berger smear that is exactly what is happening to us. "Our side" has a RESPONSIBILITY to overcome their distractions and get the truth out. --- Posted at 7/22/2004 01:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Mark of the Beast I think that the Berger classified documents kerfluffle is pretty good diagnostic test for Republican tools. Everyone flogging this story bears The Mark of the Beast indelibly on his forehead (or hers: hi, Steno Sue!) and should never be taken seriously again. And as Dave (almost) says below, Democrats who take the story at face value bear the mark of a different beast on their own foreheads. A weaker and more pitiful beast. As Dave points out, this is a staged event meant to distract from the 9/11 Commission's report. It's been sitting on the shelf for months. The offense was not taken terribly seriously by the relevant authorities (e.g.the FBI or the 9/11 Commission itself). It's not certain that what Berger did was a crime at all. And no information was destroyed or concealed from the committee -- all Berger ever had was copies. Most of the people circulating this story have to know that they're lying. There's really an smell of desperation among the trolls these days. The pants-and-socks part of the story bears all the marks of a Rove operation -- make your opponent look silly. It reminds me of the storyline way back when about Noriega's red underpants. What kind of guy would wear red underpants? What kind of guy would put top secret documents in his socks, or grind them down into his groin area? (I tend to suspect that Berger put the documents in the parts of his pants called "the pockets", where most people put things, but that doesn't sound nasty enough.) The odious Wolf Blitzer played along. Berger's spokesman stated that Berger had indeed carried away some documents in his leather portfolio. But when Blitzer later referred to the portfolio, he had to call it "his little briefcase". (See? Berger is such a ridiculous guy that even his briefcase is is a silly little briefcase! How much sillier could he get?) My guess is that Berger failed to realize that, not only was he not the boss anymore, but that he was now on the opposing team. There were people waiting for him to screw up, and he screwed up. At this point no one has said anything about how strictly security rules had been applied before then, or how seriously cases of this kind are normally treated. But we do know that, early on, information about Berger's offense was in the hands both of Ashcroft's Justice Department and Rove's White House -- two organizations which have the habit of leaking sensitive material for political purposes. The inside-baseball stuff is stupid and weak. One guy says that he thinks that the Democrats Biden or Holbrooke did the leaking. A lot of people argue that when Berger failed to inform Kerry about the leak, it showed that he was no damn good at all, and go on to argue that the fact that Kerry had trusted Berger (who does not have a long rap sheet) proves that Kerry is not fit to be President. (Follow that? -- and this mostly comes from supporters of a guy who appointed several convicted Republican felons to high government positions!) Except that there is so much at stake, these clowns would be hard to take seriously. But let me ask a question. Why is it that the various people talking gravely and thoughtfully about this farce are the sensible, mainstream professionals -- and why is it that Dave and I are the wacko extremists? --- Posted at 7/22/2004 12:17:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Berger - Missing the Point! Missing the point on the Berger thing... I'm reading Alterman, and Talking Points, and Kevin, and Slate, and everyone else, and it's like they're blind. They're all caught up in what Berger did or didn't do and how bad was it and why aren't the Republicans investigating Plame, etc... Just not getting it at all. Just missing the point. Just seeing the trees and missing the forest. Here is what is going on. The Republican Noise Machine is saying this proves Clinton is to blame for 9/11. Got that? Just as the 9/11 Comission releases its report, they are saying that the proof of Clinton's guilt was there, and Berger took and shredded that proof. Let that sink in a while. This theme is ALL OVER THE MEDIA - at least the media that matters to the voters they want to reach. Never mind that he only took copies of drafts of the documents, and they still have the originals -- that small fact is slipping WAY under the radar, and no one on "our side" even seems to understand that is the central issue. Here's a sample headline: Clinton Spook Sandy Berger is Caught Destroying Terror Evidence. "Berger stuffed highest-classified documents, including leather-bound after-action reports on Millennium attacks, into his clothing to get them out of the National Archives before they were reviewed by the 9/11 Commission. ... After-action documents showing the Clinton "response" to al-Queda terror plans still are missing. ... Stolen documents were all the originals of after-action drafts, and Berger was caught in a sting, when given another copy, by stealing it too."Never mind that this is just a lie. That doesn't matter. Here's an example of a small-town newspaper editorial, One Sandy Berger and a side of lies: "The central question now is, what was he trying to hide? We know that some of the discarded documents had to do with the foiled Millennium bombing plot and what the administration did with the gathered intelligence afterward. Attorney General John Ashcroft testified in April about the documents we now know Berger was trying to hide. "The NSC's Millennium After-Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 - with luck playing a major role,- Ashcroft told the Commission."Even Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert said this, "Was Mr. Berger trying to cover-up key facts regarding intelligence failures during his watch? What happened to those missing documents?"and this, "What could those documents have said that drove Mr. Berger to remove them without authorization from a secure reading room for classified documents? What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our nation's most sensitive secrets?"Which coincidentally exactly parallels what Limbaugh is saying. I checked Instapundit (for the first time in at least a year) and got so disgusted I just left without gathering any quotes to link to. I never, ever read Andew Sullivan, so you're on your own as to what he is saying. (And this is the first time I have ever used his name on this blog.) AND they are now working to EXPAND the story. This is the tactic of overwhelming. By the time anyone can refute the lies put out at 8am, the lies put out at 9am and 10am are what is being talked about. Here are a couple of examples: Did Sandy Berger "Fry" Flight 800 Records?, So, what does this link between Bill Clinton and Flight 800 have to do with the current John Kerry presidential campaign? Well, perhaps nothing, except that John Kerry also referred to Flight 800 as a terrorist incident in a televised interview. The problem is that, with the upcoming release of the final report of the '9-11' Commission, the general public will have the opportunity to refresh their memory about the link between Flight 800 and terrorism.and Sandy Berger's Curious Military Records, "I think it's ironic that Kerry, who takes every opportunity to tout his military record, picks as his [informal] adviser on national security and reportedly short-lists as a potential secretary of state a man with the military service record of Sandy Berger," B.G. Burkett, co-author of "Stolen Valor -- How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History," tells NewsMax.Once again, just so you get it, they are saying that this proves that Clinton is responsible for 9/11, that it is a big cover-up, and that this proves Kerry is somehow implicated in trying to hand the country over to our enemies. This has been planned for MONTHS, from the day the 9/11 Commission was formed. It took TIME to research and put together that story about Berger's military records. Limbaugh surely didn't put that complicated 3-part smear together himself. And - and this is important - all these talking points and military record research, etc. were obviously prepared before the story leaked this week. --- Posted at 7/22/2004 11:35:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Where was Bush? and other stuff from the Kerry campaign. The Democrats seems to be learning hardball. The DNC has a site up called "Where was Bush?" which conveniently summarizes the questions about Bush's military service. I'm not a military guy myself, but I'd love to see Kerry call out Bush personally during the debates. Kerry's speechwriters should be working up a few zingers that he could throw in somewhere -- something like "I'd really love to have seen what kind of soldier you would have been, little man!" Bush is a fake in pretty much everything he's ever done, and if Kerry calls him on that personally on TV, it might work. Here is a Kerry release asking why the Bush administration has still not supplied body armor to all of the American troops in Iraq, and suggesting that maybe Jeb Bush could have a word with his wayward brother. Here is a summary of the failures of Bush's domestic policies. --- Posted at 7/22/2004 09:07:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Scott Ritter: How we got it so wrong in Iraq Scott Ritter, one of the few Americans in the loop who got it right before the Iraq War, points out that both the British nor the American Iraq War commissions (both of which were stacked with promoters of the Iraq War) got to the root of the problem. The search for WMD was never taken seriously by the Bush administration; all they wanted from it was an excuse to invade Iraq. "The unwillingness of the American and British governments to capitalize on the dramatic breakthroughs regarding the disarmament of Iraq between July 1995 and July 1996 only underscores the reality that, when it came to the fate of Saddam's government, the outcome had been preordained. There was never an intention to allow a finding of Iraqi compliance concerning its disarmament obligation, even if one was warranted. Saddam was to be removed from power, and WMD were always viewed by the policymakers as the excuse for doing so. The failure of either the Senate committee or the Butler Commission to recognize the role that the policy of regime change had in corrupting the analytical efforts of U.S. and British intelligence services means that not only will it be more difficult to achieve meaningful reform in these services, but more importantly, the general public will continue to remain largely ignorant of the true scope of failure regarding Iraq policy. " Scott Ritter: How we got it so wrong in Iraq. Ritter was the victim of a smear campaign early in 2002 and has never been quite rehabilitated. More information here and here. If there are any decent Republicans left, they have to be bothered by the Rove administration's propensity for smearing professionals, even former staff members, who dare to disagree with Bush. --- Posted at 7/22/2004 08:29:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/21/2004 I Am a Conservative I Am a Conservative --- Posted at 7/21/2004 08:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Mary Asks, "Why Democracy?" Pacific Views: Why Democracy? --- Posted at 7/21/2004 05:18:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
It Started in April -- Smearing the Report There are three well-planned, coordinated Republican smear operations underway, designed to discredit key accusers who told us that the Bush administration was asleep on the job before 9/11. I'll bet if you took a poll of voters, at least 40% of the likely voters would call these the biggest stories of the election, while most of those on our side of the political spectrum have barely even heard about them. The context of the smears is to destroy the credibility of those accusing Bush of not paying attention before 9/11, and of lying about WMD before the Iraq war, and, finally, to blame Clinton for all of it. It is ALL OVER the Right-wing media, but is largely "under the radar" for most of us. The first smear is the "Gorelick memo." This is a bit complicated, but is a key to this effort to shift blame from Bush to Clinton. It started in April, and lays the groundwork for the second smear I'll be talking about. During the 9/11 hearings Attorney General Ashcroft accused former Clinton Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick of having written a memo that caused agencies of the government to not share information that would have been crucial to learning that the 9/11 plot was underway. It is called the "Wall of Separation" memo. (Note the allusion to the hated "Wall of Separation" between church and state.) Some background from an April National Review column: "In his public testimony before the 9/11 Commission the other day, Attorney General John Ashcroft exposed Commissioner Jamie Gorelick's role in undermining the nation's security capabilities by issuing a directive insisting that the FBI and federal prosecutors ignore information gathered through intelligence investigations. But Ashcroft pointed to another document that also has potentially explosive revelations about the Clinton administration's security failures. Ashcroft stated, in part:More on this later. (Other related April Gorelick stories from the Right here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and so on. This just touches the surface of the attention the Right gave to this.) The second is this week's Sandy Berger smear. If you just read the newspapers, it doesn't seem like a big deal. But if you pay attention to the Right's channels of communication, it is a very big deal. On talk radio it is the ONLY thing. The NY Times has a little story about Berger today, A Kerry Adviser Leaves the Race Over Missing Documents... [T]he Commission should study carefully the National Security Council plan to disrupt the al Qaeda network in the U.S. that our government failed to implement fully seventeen months before September 11. The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 ? with luck playing a major role. Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government.What is Ashcroft talking about? An article in Reader's Digest, "Codes, Clues, Confessions" (March 2002; by Kenneth R. Timmerman), provides some valuable insight. It states, in part:[. . .] When the Department of Justice began interviewing "Norris"/Ressam, they didn't have a clue who he was. But Judge Bruguière did. He called the Department of Justice, and offered prosecutors his file on Ressam and his ties to al Qaeda. At the time, Bruguiere said, DOJ had no idea what a big catch they had, nor did DOJ have access to any intelligence about Ressam's ties to al-Qaeda. Ultimately, because of "The Wall" Bruguiere had to testify for seven hours in Seattle to lay out the al Qaeda connection to help U.S. prosecutors make their case against Ressam.In other words, the "wall of separation" constructed by Jamie Gorelick made it virtually impossible for U.S. authorities to stop Ahmed Rassam, the "Millenium Bomber," by design or intention. It was left to blind luck. The NSC's Millennium After Action Review ? which, based on Attorney General Ashcroft's testimony, must be devastating in its analysis of not only this event but of the Gorelick policy ? remains classified. And, most significantly, it's likely the Review's criticisms and warnings were either ignored or rejected by the Clinton Justice Department. ..." Mr. Berger's aides acknowledged that when he was preparing last year for testimony before the Sept. 11 commission, he removed from a secure reading room copies of a handful of classified documents related to a failed 1999 terrorist plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport. Republicans accused him on Tuesday of stashing the material in his clothing, but Mr. Breuer called that accusation "ridiculous" and politically inspired. He said the documents' removal was accidental.No big deal. But all day yesterday on Limbaugh's show, and Beck's, and others, it was a different story. Limbaugh, Trousergate: Serious: Theft of Papers Showing Al-Qaeda in US Under Clinton is HUGE: "The 9/11 commission leaked this. This is a 9/11 commission leak, I think, and I'm wondering. The White House claims they didn't know about this investigation, even though the justice department was doing it. I'll tell you what this does. This puts this into even greater context. You remember when Ashcroft showed up and testified on television even before the commission and outed Jamie Gorelick with her memo that built the wall? I think this places a lot of that in greater context now, why he did that. I think he might have been -- he couldn't discuss the investigation, but he was letting everybody know what he did know. [. . .] When he went in there to "inadvertently" purloin these documents and stuff 'em down his pants, there was no Clinton administration. He was sent in there by Bill Clinton, not the Clinton "administration." [. . .] Here I am laughing about it, but it's big. This is big, and I'll tell you why. It's the stuff that was stolen, the stuff that's probably now been shredded, the stuff that he just inadvertently sloppily can't find. [. . .] You know what those documents contained? Elements of evidence that Al-Qaeda was in the country in 1999! It's all part of this millennium plot that the Clinton administration tried to take a lot of credit for stopping when in fact it was just good police work by a single Customs agent. It was not the results of any directive. This all came out in the 9/11 commission report as well, or hearings. But what's missing is that there are documents elevating, or detailing elements of, Al-Qaeda entry into the United States in 1999, and so when Sandy Burglar says, "Yeah, well, I was sent by the Clinton administration," da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, of course he was sent there by Bill Clinton to get the evidence out. That's what one of the suspicions is, because the whole point of all this has been to shove every bit of Al-Qaeda, 9/11 blame onto the Bush administration. So, you know, none of this is an accident. You don't go in there and inadvertently take things out when you're the national security advisor! You know what the rules are. [. . .] And you know who he's working for now is John Kerry. Now, how much of what he saw did he pass on to John Kerry? Is it time maybe for John Kerry to have something to say about this? I mean, look at two of Kerry's advisors: Joe Wilson -- now patented liar -- and Sandy Berger, thief. Well, presumed, alleged thief. Oh, he admitted it. He's a thief. He admitted he took the documents, a sloppy, sloppy thief. I think it's time for Senator Kerry here to maybe tell us a little bit more than just that he went to Vietnam: what he thinks of some of his advisors. [. . .] Now, look, there are many of us, uh, ladies and gentlemen, who suspect that one of the objectives of the 9/11 commission Democrats is to deflect any blame or association for any acts of terrorism on this country to inaction or lackadaisical behavior, laziness on the part of the Clinton administration -- and the reason we believe this is because we know that the Clinton people have been hauling ass trying to rewrite a legacy for this man. They have been doing everything they can to erase the Monica Lewinsky image from everybody's frontal lobe when they think and hear the name Bill Clinton, and so Clinton has been doing everything he can to rehab his image. He has a very large coterie of loyal supporters, one of whom is on the 9/11 commission, one of whom should have been a witness, not a member -- one of them, Jamie Gorelick, whose memo erected the wall that prevented intelligence from sharing information it gathered with law enforcement, and now we find out that Sandy Burglar, Clinton's #1 spook outside of the CIA. I mean this is the national security advisor guy! [. . .] So you will pardon us if we have some doubts and suspicions about this when it's the critical assessments that are suspiciously missing. The former national security advisor himself, Sandy Burglar, had ordered his anti-terror czar Richard Clarke in early 2000 to write the after-action report. He has spoken publicly about how to review brought to the forefront a realization that Al-Qaeda had reached America's shores and required more attention. That's what's missing. Berger testified that during the millennium period, "We thwarted threats, and I do believe it was important to bring the principals together on a frequent basis to consider terror threats more regularly." [. . .] Now, let's go back, and ask: "What is this really all about, folks?" because this, despite the obvious humorous aspects, this is really serious stuff because there is an ongoing effort to spare the Clinton administration -- and Bill Clinton personally -- of any responsibility whatsoever for anything that has happened deleteriously to this country in the world of terrorism. [. . .] And something very, very suspicious about this information that was never put into action, and that's I think another reason why it's vanished. But this information clearly illustrations and I think points out how Al-Qaeda in 1999 and 2000 are in the country, and the United States government knew it, and they didn't put any plan into action to deal with it, and that's what they are deathly afraid of having been seen. So Sandy Berger has fallen on the sword -- and as Web Hubbell had to do, may have been asked to roll over here. The information was so obviously damning that he risked his career and freedom to take this information out of there and do who-knows-what with it, and that means, folks, that that report and those documents related to it provided advice and information relevant to the 9/11 attacks, some kind of complete breakdown which was not improved later otherwise it wouldn't have been necessary to get rid of it, and that's the bottom line. Take all this sloppiness out. Take all this inadvertently out." [all emphasis added]Let me clear one thing up - nothing is "missing". The documents that Berger took out were copies of drafts of the memos. But the entire premise of Limbaugh's - and the rest of the Right's - massive explosion yesterday is that Berger took and shredded the only copies of documents criticizing Clinton. It is just a lie. But it is repeated and repeated and repeated -- and Limbaugh's audience is very large. And for those that missed it on Limbaugh the same story was on every other right-wing talk show I tuned in yesterday. The third component is the Joe Wilson story. Joe Wilson is the guy who went to Niger, came back and said Iraq was not trying to buy uranium, and went public with this after Bush claimed Iraq WAS trying to. So in retaliation the Bush administration "outed" his wife, a covert CIA agent tracking down people who peddle WMDs. In preparation for the Berger story, and to counter the damage done by the White House's "outing" of his wife, the Right has been circulating a new batch of lies about Wilson. In A Right-Wing Smear Is Gathering Steam, Wilson writes, "For the last two weeks, I have been subjected ? along with my wife, Valerie Plame ? to a partisan Republican smear campaign. In right-wing blogs and on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, I've been accused of being a liar and, worse, a traitor."This story is all over the Right-wing media. From the same Limbaugh show, "I mean, look at two of Kerry's advisors: Joe Wilson -- now patented liar -- and Sandy Berger, thief."In other words, don't believe anything you may have heard about the White House "outing" a CIA agent, and, by extension, anything about Bush lying about WMDs in Iraq. Did you wonder why the Republican machine made such a big deal about Gorelick, and demanded that she resign from the 9/11 Commission? Well, now we know -- it was all preparation for this week. So, we have Gorelick, and by extension Clinton, preventing the government from sharing information. We have Wilson, and by extension Clarke and other accusers, discredited. And now we have Berger, the guy who led the effort to stop the Millenium bombing and who was trying to get the incoming Bush Administration to pay attention to al Queda, discredited. Note that even Limbaugh credits Ashcroft with setting this all up in his April testimony to the 9/11 panel, obliquely referencing the things that were "leaked" this week. Remember, by April the entire Berger situation was over. But Ashcroft knew about it and they were using it to weave this tale to discredit critics of Bush. Any why this week? Because this week the 9/11 Commission releases its report. And what happened was that the Clinton Administration was ALL OVER the terrorism threat, while the Bush Administration ignored it and went on vacation. That is the essence of what happened. That's the big picture. So how do they counter that? The same way they're countering ANOTHER big picture - that Kerry is a war hero and Bush didn't show up for even the light duty his daddy had arranged for him. How they do that is they spread a fog of smears so thick that people lose track of what really happened. As Richard Clarke told us, when the government detected increased "chatter" in 1999 they TOOK ACTION. They convened a task force to see what was going on, and put top people on the problem, and coordinated, and stayed up nights, AND THEY CAUGHT THE MILENIUM BOMBERS. Contrast that with the Bush Administration before 9/11 -- on vacation, literally. And the 9/11 commission report comes out this week, and it is probably going to SAY that. Even if they don't explicitly say that, it's there and it will be the story. The Clinton Administration did their job, and governed. The Bush administration was never about governing, and we all have to live with the consequences. So the Republicans have to knock this story down. The way Republicans fight back is with smears to discredit their accusers. They constructed a 3-part discrediting action that phased in, coming to a conclusion just before the commission releases its report. Update - Go read this. Update - this post was modified slightly about an hour after original posting - because Blogger went down for an hour while I was working on it. --- Posted at 7/21/2004 09:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Here We Go Again I don't know whether this has been on the national news or not. A pipe bomb exploded on the steps of one of the entrances to the Times Square subway hub on Monday. This is a huge station, perhaps the busiest in New York. The bomb was in a paper bag left on the steps. A policeman was injured. That's all the details we can be sure of at the moment. At first the report was that this was a bag of fireworks. The people on the street and in nearby buildings were certain they'd heard a bomb. It was a bomb. The suspect is the policeman who discovered the bomb. The bag was on fire, and he says he tried to remove it. He's a suspect because he is about to retire from the police force for psychiatric reasons. He suffers from PTSD because of his service on 9/11. Plenty of New Yorkers still suffer from PTSD because of 9/11. Whether they were downtown, worked at or near the site, were part of the rescue crew, were among those who took part in cleaning up the debris afterwards, or simply live in the city. I have friends, otherwise reasonably sane people, who still haven't gone downtown at all, ever, since 9/11. They just can't make themselves do it. I live within walking distance of the WTC site. I stood out front with a neighbor and watched the towers fall. Our apartment complex was evacuated. I live on the West Side Highway, and everything removed from the site went by my place. I saw things I'll never try to describe. For months afterward this neighborhood smelled like -- roast pork. No other way to put it. We were breathing in vaporized people, among other horrors. We had no public transportation and had to show identification at check points. I realized that I had to go down to the site as soon as possible or I'd never be able to go down there again. About 1 1/2 weeks after the attack, in a gray drizzle, I walked down there, sneaking around check points, getting as close as possible. What struck me as I walked down there was how huge the disaster really was -- and at that point I didn't really see all of it. It wasn't just the WTC site that was damaged. I won't go into details, but buildings were damaged for blocks around the site. There is one huge building, draped in black netting, that still has to be torn down. Debris was scattered all across the island, and as far as Brooklyn. I was stepping over cables laid above ground to bring electricity to the area. The infrastructure, sewers, water mains, power, the subway system, were incredibly damaged. The phone company was not only hit by debris that damaged the building but the switching system was flooded out. And of course TV and cell phones were knocked out because the top of the WTC had been the communications hub for the entire area. I managed to sneak close enough to "the pile" to take a good look. You've seen enough photos so I don't have to describe it. This was no joke, not just something you see on TV. Take my word for it, this was Real Life. A friend of mine gave a course in crisis intervention for health professionals. I took it because I was spending most of my time doing crisis intervention. The weeping postman putting mail in the box of the neighbor he knew had been killed, the weeping supermarket manager, the weeping clerks, the weeping neighbors -- somehow my walk down there calmed me and I was the neighborhood comforter. I'd had the guts to face it. The crisis intervention course I took turned out to be both accurate -- and inaccurate. Nobody seems to have realized that a disaster on this scale leaves scars that don't go away for years afterwards. Yes, that poor policeman who found -- or maybe left -- that bomb at the Times Square station on Monday, probably does still suffer from PTSD. However, I know enough about PTSD to know that it inspires nightmares and timidity, not the building of bombs. I hope they manage to clear the poor guy. If there's anything this city does not need now it's pipe bombs in the subway system. Remember the anthrax scare? Boil your mail? The fear campaign the Bush administration is conducting is going to bring out the crazies, of course. All these vague "terrorist" threats right before the election. Well, we know how cynically manipulative they can be for the sake of political advantage. These are the same people who insisted the air was safe at the WTC site. Had to keep us suckers working down there, living here, make everything look normal, no matter how many people were going to suffer physical damage for the rest of their lives. Couldn't risk huge clean-up expenses, or shutting down the stock market, could they? --- Posted at 7/21/2004 06:10:00 AM by Meryl Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/20/2004 Sheesh Bush Says: 'I Want to Be the Peace President': "'The enemy declared war on us,' Bush told a re-election rally in Cedar Rapids. 'Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president... The next four years will be peaceful years.' Bush used the words 'peace' or 'peaceful' a total of 20 times. "What else can you say, besides, "Sheesh!"? And what's worse is, this stuff works. They'll eat it up. By August no one will remember Iraq, or the "Axis of Evil." You won't be able to go anywhere without hearing about Bush being the "President of Peace." --- Posted at 7/20/2004 10:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Analysis of Kerry's "liberal" label from the Washington Post The article itself is fairly interesting conventional wisdom, for the most part... a few things that caught my attention: 1. The contention that a "liberal" voting record means a lot less than it used to... because basically speaking, the legislation offered in Congress, on average is more conservative than in the past (at least on economic issues and issues of governmental activism). This would square with a recent analysis (Thomas Frank, Red-State America against Itself) I saw about how the DLC has been pushing the Democrats to "forget blue-collar voters and concentrate instead on recruiting affluent, white-collar professionals who are liberal on social issues" by "stand[ing] rock-solid on, say, the pro-choice position while making endless concessions on economic issues, on welfare, NAFTA, Social Security, labor law, privatization, deregulation, and the rest of it." (*) 2. A related development, according to the ADA, the average House Democrat earned a rating of 90 out of 100 on a series of twenty important votes. In 1980, the average was 58. Not only is legislation more conservative in general, but it voting is more polarized. 3. But, of most interest to STF readers, is the rather pathetic quote from the ADA's communication's director, Don Kusler - someone needs to tell him that we've identified the source of his problems (and that he should start throwing some of ADA's funding muscle behind organizations like the Commonweal Institute). For his part, Kusler wishes that a word that he regards as having an honorable heritage -- backing civil rights at home and robust human rights policies abroad -- will be one Democratic presidential nominees will again embrace. Conservatives have "been working on redefining the word 'liberal' for decades, and turning it into a four-letter word," Kusler said. "We don't want to give up the word. We've been losing the fight for the definition."No kidding Don. Time for a new communications strategy? I think so. --Thomas Leavitt * obligatory poke at my deluded Democrat friends: Can you say John Kerry? I think you can: no on DOMA, yes on welfare reform, yes on NAFTA. To cite three examples. Fits like a glove. --- Posted at 7/20/2004 06:09:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
MoveOn PAC: The Corporation's choice vs. the People's Choice MoveOn.Org is attempting to raise $690,000 to air a television advertisement contrasting (in a very simple and direct fashion) the differences between Kerry and Bush. Now, as a Green and former Nader voter, I have to admit that the ad spawned giggles, rather than convincing me of anything, but hey - if the Democrats want to hijack Nader's rhetoric in the belief that it will win them votes in November, all power to 'em. Apparently the ad was so effective that it moved the numbers 6% in Kerry's favor. This might explain why the Democrats are so desperate to keep Nader off the ballot, out of the debates, and out of the news. Imagine if a candidate (like the Green Party's David Cobb), who really believed in this stuff had a chance to make his or her case to the American public -- things might never be the same. :) But again, what the hell... I'm interested in the end result, not the process. If the Democrats notice that MoveOn's rhetorical strategy moves the numbers, and decide to pursue it more often, then maybe they might even decide to actually carry out policy along these lines, and encourage more candidates who wanted pro-people policies enacted to run for office. I might then actually be able to vote for a Democrat running for higher office for once in my life. What a concept? --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/20/2004 05:36:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Speech at Common Dreams My ATLA speech is up over at Common Dreams. --- Posted at 7/20/2004 12:28:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
A Must-Read I recommend everyone read The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: "It Can Happen Here". "In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy as anti-American. When Windrip becomes President, he opens a Guantanamo-style detention center, and the viewpoint character of the book, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, flees to Canada to avoid prosecution under new "patriotic" laws that make it illegal to criticize the President. As Lewis noted in his novel, "the President, with something of his former good-humor [said]: 'There are two [political] parties, the Corporate and those who don't belong to any party at all, and so, to use a common phrase, are just out of luck!' The idea of the Corporate or Corporative State, Secretary [of State] Sarason had more or less taken from Italy." And, President "Windrip's partisans called themselves the Corporatists, or, familiarly, the 'Corpos,' which nickname was generally used." --- Posted at 7/20/2004 08:11:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
I Was Wrong I was wrong. I have been saying that the Bush Justice Department simply will not investigate ANY top administration officials. But they ARE investigating a top administration official. Former Clinton Adviser Target of Justice Dept. Probe. --- Posted at 7/20/2004 07:20:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/19/2004 An argument to be postponed until later Recently Brad DeLong said that having Barbara Ehrenreich writing for the New York Times will be a waste of ink and paper. When Ehrenreich wrote a piece a few days later renouncing Ralph Nader, DeLong wrote another piece telling her how irrational she had been ever to have voted for Nader in the first place. Over the next few days Henry Farrell and Kevin Drum came to Ehrenreich's defense, Matt Yglesias posted twice, first ambivalently and then scornfully, and finally Digby weighed in with a ferocious post which Matt Stoller mostly endorsed. (And don't let be forget Max). After a couple of cooling-off timeouts, now it's my turn. First of all, I agree with everyone named (including Ehrenreich) that no one should vote for Nader this year, or the Green candidate either. I also have agreed for some time, as Ehrenreich probably doesn't, that it was wrong to support Nader in 2000. Mea maxima culpa. But is this really the right time for score-settling? Ehrenreich's piece very clearly renounced Nader and was clearly designed to persuade other ex-Nader voters not to vote for him. Isn't that a good thing? [Three lines of heavy sarcasm deleted]. After Nov. 3 we should have plenty of time to work out our differences. Rather than make a detailed response to the various posts, I'll just make a few main points. First, when people call the Democrats wimps, it's not just a right-wing slander. In Florida 2000, in particular, Gore, Lieberman, and Christopher were massacred by Bush, Cheney and Baker. The whole Republican campaign was ruthless, down to goon squads intimidating election officials, and the Democrats were timid. At every point the Republicans grabbed, and the Democrats hesitated. Particular examples were the overcautious request for a partial recount, the failure to contest the postdated military ballots, and above all the refusal even to touch the charges that black voters were wrongly excluded from voting by the inaccurate felon list and otherwise. Yes, it's true that the Congressional minority has to pick its battles, but I don't see how that was true in Florida. I have come to believe that voters take the resourcefulness and ruthlessness of a campaign as a proxy for the military effectiveness of the candidate, and that the Democrats failed that test. (As the infamous Bartcop asks, how can the Democrats protect the American people when they can't even protect themselves?) Incidentally, a recent report makes it clear that Kerry will be prepared this time around. Good for him. Second, while Clinton really did do a lot of good, his results were mixed. Somewhere DeLong said that the Clinton program enacted was really only part one of a two-part plan. Unfortunately, only the first, Republican part got enacted (with Republican votes, and in defiance of the Democrats in Congress). And I think that it is reasonable to believe that the damage Clinton did the Democrats by this had something to do with the eventual loss of Congress. Third, to my memory it was not the leftists (except for the egregious Hitchens) who abandoned and double-crossed Clinton during the fraudulent impeachment attempt. It was moderates like Lieberman, who was rewarded with the vice-presidential nomination. Finally, I wish I agreed with Digby about this: "It's good to remind ourselves that our internecine battle is, and always has been, about the right strategy to get where we all agree we want to". During the DLC ascendency I have frequently found myself running into Democrats who are completely uninterested in, or hostile to, questions of equality or economic democracy, and who talk harshly about "pandering to the core constituency" and "outmoded zero-sum class warfare politics". (Matt Yglesias is a little that way, though far from the worst). Many DLC Democrats, probably including Clinton, were simply dealing realistically with the political realities, but there are others who really, truly are Republicans Lite. (And as I keep saying, the Democrats might have been able to make an issue of Enron if Lieberman hadn't been Arthur Anderson's main man.) While voting for Nader was the wrong choice, there were good reasons why people had their doubts about Clinton and Gore. When I read the comments of some of the rising lights of the Democratic party about this episode, I get a definite feeling that they believe that the Clinton accomodations should define political reality from here on out, and that either they have no idea whatsoever why some Democrats have their doubts about Clinton's accomplishment, or else that they completely disagree about these doubts. "Hats Off to Matt Stoller who is trying to do God's work in bringing the fractious Democrats together," concludes Digby. I do hope that this turns out to be what happening. I must say that I think that the beginning could have been a bit more graceful. DeLong I Farrell Drum Max Yglesias I Delong II Yglesias II Digby Stoller --- Posted at 7/19/2004 05:55:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Friendly poll: Green or Democrat or neither? Based on the comments I've seen posted, STF seems to have a very diverse audience. I'm curious to see if there aren't more Greens here than I'd otherwise expect. Cast your vote in the comments section, and let us know where you're coming from. Also, if you've changed from a Green to a Democrat as a result of postings on this blog, or vice versa, or something else, let us know. My gut instinct is that the Green/Democrat flame wars are pretty ineffective at recruiting for each side, but maybe I'm flat out wrong. --Thomas Leavitt P.S. Trivia time: name the one presidential ticket with a woman on it(*). I know the answer. :) Update: Hey, one of the comments prompted another couple of trivia questions: a) name two parties that have not had a woman on their presidential ticket in 1996, 2000, and 2004; b) name a party that has had a woman on the ticket in the last three elections. I know what my answers are. :) And the Prohibition Party is not among them. :) * among the 6 that Ballot Access News estimates will qualify for enough ballot lines to theoretically win in November --- Posted at 7/19/2004 05:18:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Greens, Democrats, and Multiparty Democracy in a Winner Take All system [Note: the bulk of this essay was written before Dave's posting below.] First of all, a bit of political trivia: both Canada and the United Kingdom have an electoral system that is more or less similar to ours - candidates for national, regional and local office (with some newly created exceptions in Britain) run for office under a winner take all system. What's the trivia here? Citizens of the United States may be surprised to learn (given the alleged anti-third party bias of a system like ours) that both Canada and Britain, for many many years, have sustained significant third parties (i.e. ones that regularly win seats in Parliament, and that have controlled legislative bodies and governed at the regional level). In fact, there has not been a single election in the last hundred years in which no "non-major" party failed to receive a seat in the British Parliament, and since 1983, the "third party" (the Liberal Democrats or their predecessor coalition) has received over 15% of the vote every time. Canada, in 1997 and 2001, had no less than *four* national parties (plus a 5th regional/nationalist party receiving seats in Parliament) - and in no election since 1930, has the "third" (or "fourth" in many cases) party failed to receive a seat in Parliament. Since 1984, the third parties have consistently received between 15 and ~40% of the vote (more in recent elections). In Britain, there are currently three major parties with a reasonable hope of becoming the governing party of the entire nation - the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats (historically a "third party"). Beyond them, there are a HOST of regional parties and other third parties with members elected to major offices (such as the United Kingdom Independence Party, which has 17 members in the European Parliament after the most recent election to that body). In a recent "by-election" no less than FOUR parties (including a anti-war protest party, "Respect") obtained more than 10% of the vote for their candidate. In a second such election, the fourth candidate obtained 6% (pushing, with other candidates, the total "minor party" vote to over 10%), within striking distance of the lowest "major party" candidate's 17%. In Canada, there are three major parties (one of which is a combination of a former major party that collapsed, and it's replacement), a very strong regional/nationalist party in Quebec, and a host of smaller parties that have at one point or another obtained and or controlled regional office or have prospects of doing so. Including the Green Party, which is the only party other than the "big three" to qualify for federal funding of $1.75 (Canadian) per vote received in the most recent election (the threshold for this, by the way, was set at 2%, the Greens got 4%... and this was the first election under which a party could quality for federal funding, so they did it without funding). On a side note: the success of third parties in Britain has lead to the establishment of regional legislatures for Scotland and Wales which use "proportional representation", a system under which the number of seats in parliament is more or less equivalent to the percentage of the vote received by a party - win 8% of the vote, you win 8% of the seats up for grabs. In Canada, several regional governments are seriously considering such systems as well. So, Dave - here's my answer to your claim that "There is simply no way that the Green party - or any third party - can make a positive contribution within the confines of our political system. The country is designed around a two-party system." Look North, Dave. Look North. :) Green since 1990. Green till 2090 (or later), yours truly... --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/19/2004 04:36:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Teddy Roosevelt on the importance of criticizing the President Something to respond back to people who complain about criticism of Bush as being unpatriotic. "The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." -Theodore Roosevelt --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/19/2004 03:42:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Hate Mail From Greens I get a lot more hate mail from Greens than from right-wingers. Sometimes it's pretty serious stuff, too. Funny how that works. I used to be a Green, and two of the bloggers here are Greens. I stopped being a Green because I realized that it wasn't going to go anywhere - that there was no point. There is simply no way that the Green party - or any third party - can make a positive contribution within the confines of our political system. The country is designed around a two-party system. Third parties can only make a destructive contribution, as we saw in 2000. They can't win, they can only cause those who are closest to them in political ideals to lose, thus defeating their supposed reason to exist. I mean, someone tell me how George Bush and the Right in charge is BETTER for anyone or anything that Greens care about!? And this is about the things I care about. My political involvement is based on actually getting things done, and actually helping people & protecting the environment. Maybe this is because I once was a Chief Steward with AFSCME, during a time of turmoil, strikes, actions, etc. for people who were making little more than the minimum wage and trying to support families. ACTUALLY accomplishing things can take a lot more work than just making statements. But ACTUALLY accomplishing things makes a HUGE difference for those at the margins of our society. If Gore had won we would have a higher minimum wage, people in unions would be earning more and receiving rather than losing health benefits, the environment would be protected, and we certainly would not have invaded Iraq, killing tens of thousands of them and hundreds of us. Those are ACTUAL things that matter. Additionally I have decided that the Green's analysis is flawed. The Democratic Party is nothing more than the people who show up and vote. And it is not the PARTY'S job to lead the people. Parties, by definition, respond to the voters. The Right has accomplished what they have by changing public attitudes and their candidates ride that wave. The Republican Party is not funding the hundreds of think tanks and advocacy organizations but it's (farthest right) candidates are benefitting from it. It is not the Democratic Party's fault that the Right has set up this network that is changing public attitudes. And it is not the Party's fault that moderate and progressive funders haven't yet caught on to what is happening to them. I think it is past time for the Greens to wake up and realize that they are hurting the very things they profess to care about. Even Ralph Nader is making fun of them. Update - I meant to add that I was a Green because of my frustration and anger with the rightward movement of the Dems, and the DLC types, and the wimpiness of the national party, and the number of Dems that were actually JOINING Republicans and voting for tax cuts, war, etc. And I was really, really angry about it! Still am! But I decided that splitting up the Demcorat coalition, built over decades, was not the answer. The coalition was built the hard way, by the working people, to fight the moneyed interests, and the only way it wins is by people sticking together, That's what solidarity means. That's what the word UNION means! If anyone should leave it's the corporate DLC types! (And Zell. Good riddance to Zell.) --- Posted at 7/19/2004 02:18:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fighting Back! Digby at Hullabaloo writes about a new Kerry ad that finally DOES put it in Bush's face. He also has a link to the ad so you can see it. Update - Digby got me good. I posted before I watched the ad. Go see for yourself how he got me. --- Posted at 7/19/2004 08:41:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Curiouser Apparently Newsweek has the Allawi story, but with interesting twists. NEWSWEEK: New Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi Reportedly Cut Off Suspect's Hand With Ax, Shot Captive Terrorists, According to Stories Circulating in Baghdad: "Since Ayad Allawi became prime minister of Iraq's interim government last month, stories circulating on the streets of Baghdad include reports that he ordered two suspected insurgents shot in front of him, shot seven captive terrorists himself and personally chopped off the hand of a suspect with an ax, ..."The actual Newsweek story words this a bit differently: "Baghdad's streets are as mean as any in the world, and since Ayad Allawi took office, the stories people tell in them are even meaner. Soon after he became prime minister of the interim government last month, many Iraqis whisper, he ordered two suspected insurgents shot in front of him. Or, goes another account, he shot seven captive terrorists himself, one after another. Or he personally chopped off the hand of a suspect with an ax."Here is Allawi's response: "Asked by NEWSWEEK if he had killed anyone since taking office, Allawi chuckled and said, "This is a big lie, this is not true, I deny it categorically, No. 1. No. 2, we will spare no effort to secure our people.""Since?" Of course he "chuckled" at the question. Wink, wink, nod, nod. He denies killing anyone since taking office. And goes on to say he will spare no efforts? Yes, this question used the word "since" (wink, nod), but of course he knew that the report said he did this before taking office. --- Posted at 7/19/2004 07:19:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/18/2004 Getting our point across... I've been thinking about this for a while now. Every time I talk to someone about this issue (how we progressives have had the political rug pulled out from underneath us by a bunch of ultra-rich, ultra-conservative ideologues), I flail around for a few minutes and then wind up saying, "Go to the Commonweal Institute web site, and read the information there about how the right wing has manipulated the media and public consciousness... spend two or three hours reading some of the reports, and you'll never look at a news article the same way again." This obviously limits the potential audience for the ideas and information we're trying to communicate. Reading Dave's speech prompted some thoughts, and I thought I'd share them. Basically, it seems to me that we are victims of the standard liberal disease of making everything just too damn complex for your average harried human to follow. You get 10 seconds or less to make your case when someone hits your web page, and if you don't manage it within that time, they're gone. If you want an excellent example of this, take a look at the Commonweal Institute's website - click on "learn more" on the home page, and you get this (not too bad, four bullet points, four paragraphs of exposition) - but click one more level down, and you get an entire essay's worth of exposition on each point - most people will bail immediately. Dave's information page on that same site is another example. It's an incredibly valueable resource - but you have willing to take the time to dig down and read a score of multi-page reports to get anything from it. How many people are going to do that? Even STF doesn't have a single, clear exposition of our core position. We have Dave's posting, "How to Fight Back", but even that is (a) buried and (b) too long -- a new vistor to this blog would have no idea what our core value proposition is, or what the title, "Seeing The Forest" refers to. We need an "About This Blog" link, right above the "About The Authors" one. And it needs to be short and sweet. And visible. But we need more than that. As organizers, we need the basic communications tools to make our case to the public, the media, and potential funders. I spent several years over the hill, at a VC-funded start-up that went through several rounds of funding and learned quite a bit in the process. In the following essay, I talk about the tools entreprenuers use to convince investors to fund their companies, and how they can be applied to our needs. The first step in getting any company funded is "the elevator pitch". If you can't communicate the essence of your idea in 30 seconds or less, you haven't refined your core pitch enough to persuade anyone to even let you in the door to speak with them, let alone get funded. What's our elevator pitch? If we have one, it isn't visible. It should be the first thing anyone visiting STF, Commonweal, or any of our own personal sites sees. It should be the first thing any one of us says when we raise this issue in a conversation. I see pieces of it on the Commonweal site, but nothing I could easily lift out and repeat to someone in under thirty seconds, that would convince someone that we've got something new and different that could level the political playing field. Once you've gotten your foot in the door you need to convince someone to let you walk through it. That's where the next tool in the entreprenuer's bag of tricks comes in: the business plan and executive summary. You expect people to read the executive summary - you don't expect people to read the business plan. The executive summary lays out your case for why your company is worth funding in one or two pages (at most). It boils your argument down to something that can be read and processed well inside ten minutes. It describes the opportunity available, your plan for capitalizing on it, and why you and your team are the people to make it happen. Put another way: people, market, product. What's our equivalent? Where have we laid out our complete case in as concise a fashion as possible, such that someone could read it, and nothing else, and come away convined that we're on the right track? I looked around on STF for something like this, and the closest thing I was able to find was Dave's "How To Fight Back" posting, and even that is too long (as I said above) and complicated. I don't think we can honestly expect even someone who is seriously interested what we have to say to read through that whole thing if we sent it to them in email. Seems to me that we have a business plan without an executive summary, which means that most likely, our most valueable work will never get read. Strike two. Not doing so well, eh? But, hey, this is fixable. We just need to write this up. :) Now that you've gotten in the door, you've got thirty minutes or less to convince an incredibly busy, highly skeptical and extremely financially conservative professional to invest in your company. Oh yeah, did I mention that they're are looking for reasons to say no, and focused on finding the flaws in your argument? We had a highly trained, throughly experienced CEO at my last company, and even he was hard put to keep on message when confronting a potential investor. How do you prepare for this? Focus. Refine. Simplify. Repeat. And then repeat again. What does every entreprenuer walk into this meeting with? A PowerPoint presentation (along with a copy of their executive summary and business plan, to leave behind when they're done). About that PowerPoint presentation: 1. It consists of not more than ten pages. 2. Each page has no more than three or four high level bullet point points. 3. It doesn't last longer than twenty minutes (at most). This (and the presentation around it) is your basic selling tool. More than anything else, how well this presentation goes over determines whether or not your company gets funded. Creating it is an extremely valueable exercise - it forces you to refine your ideas to their essence, and discard anything even slightly extraneous or distracting from your core message. What's our equivalent? A short web based presentation that walks a new visitor through the core elements of our presentation (and their underlying rationales) in five minutes or less. Someone needs to walk away from having clicked through a half dozen pages with a solid grip on our entire case. Of course, we also need a script to go along with it, for in person presentations to groups and individuals, and for those wanting to dig deeper, later on. Do we have this? Doesn't look like it. Strike three. No wonder we're losing the battle. We're the smart ones on our side (since we see the forest), and we still haven't managed to put the basic communications tools in place to make our case with. 'cause you're all too damn smart, I guess, and haven't needed our help to figure things out. But, we can fix this. See tomorrow's posting for some thoughts on how to refine things down to meet these requirements. --- Posted at 7/18/2004 11:58:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More news on Enron: quid-pro-quo fundraising. AP reports that internal emails from Enron show that the No. 2 leader in the House, ultra-conservative Republican Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, was intimately involved with efforts to raise funds from Enron and that Enron viewed their donations as very practical investments for which it expected a tangible return. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/18/2004 11:03:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
American Media and Hersh's speech to the ACLU re: sodomized child prisoners in Iraq. I wss going to post this as a comment on the "Something Is Wrong" item, but it turned into something more comprehensive. Something IS wrong. Very wrong... the total and complete silence of the U.S. news media, AT EVERY LEVEL, from the local paper and TV news, up to the networks and national papers. No one in the media appears willing (or able) to break the silence on major events, ANYWHERE. No one (except progressive/independent news media who source international publications - which is where I found out about the alleged summary execution of prisoners by the Iraqi Prime Minister). Why is it that, today, a search on Google News for Seymour Hersh reveals ONE major publication has mentioned it on their web site... the Washington Times, for God's sake! And probably not intentionally and not in print, at that (it appears via the UPI breaking news section). Add the ACLU as a modifier, and even that disappears! The article in question only re-emphasizes the bizarre nature of this phenomenon - it is datalined Baghdad, Iraq and cites Aljazeera.net as the source and doesn't even mention that he made the speech before the ACLU! This for a speech made before a nationally prominent and credible organization in the United States for which video has been made available over the 'net, and which has been widely publicized via moveon.org via misleader.org, and in the blogosphere. Why did they need Al-Jazeera to break the story for them? The Dallas-Fort Worth Star Telegram ran a feature article (in the Living section) on Hersh's return to prominence, on July 18th, and mentioned NOTHING about his speech before the ACLU or what it revealed. NOTHING. How can this be? No journalist or editor, anywhere, in the entire United States, feels this is worth commenting on? Is EVERY local paper corporate owned? Are there no iconoclasts left in the entire American media ownership or editorial structure? The summary execution story STILL has yet to really break in the U.S. Google News reveals that Bloomberg has covered it (via Australian reporters), and apparently UPI (via Australian reporters) has also picked it up (ironically enough, once again, it appears first in the U.S. media via the UPI breaking news section of the Washington Times web site), but this has resulted in exactly ONE article in a U.S. paper (as least as far as I can tell) - the Philadelphia Daily News. Again, I ask: How can this be? No one in the U.S. media is willing to take the risk to "break" either of these stories? What happened to the capitalist being willing to sell you the rope to hang him, if he can make money? Postscript: I just discovered that Newsweek references the summary execution story briefly in their latest issue... and then asks the wrong question: had he killed anyone SINCE taking office? (the alleged executions happened 1 week before he assumed office). And they play the story as one of a series of rumors, and even quote unnamed U.S. officials as saying they believe the stories are planted by Allawi himself as a P.R. tactic aimed at the Iraqi people's desire for security. Update: William Rivers Pitt of truthout.org (hallelujah for him, and a big raspberry to the DMCA and copyright fascism) has an editorial on the absence of coverage of this story... it ends this way: "Where is the American news media? Where are the pictures? Who is responsible for this abomination? Torturing children in the name of freedom? Is this what we have become?" I have these same questions, myself, and no answers. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/18/2004 09:53:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What's the Point? Over at DailyKOS they are Debunking '59 Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11'. I have two comments on this. 1) During the Clinton years, how many right-wing sites, magazines, pundits, etc. spent time publicly debating about other right-wing media were "getting their facts right" about the Clintons, or being fair to the other side, etc.? Is that where they spent their time and energy? And now they have the White House, the House, the Senate, the Courts, and every other lever of power. 2) The post itself identifies the site they are spending time arguing about as funded by "the usual suspects." Why aren't we awake enough to just dismiss what they say BECAUSE THEY JUST LIE? The TREES are the lies, cover stories, excuses, smokescreens, PR, weasel words, and all the other tricks they use to keep you from seeing what is going on. The Forest is WHAT IS GOING ON. SEE THE FOREST! --- Posted at 7/18/2004 06:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Something Is Wrong At Orcinus Orcinus - "Something is wrong here": "If ever one needed evidence that there is a real problem with the American press' handling of the occupation of Iraq, one need look no further than the fact that it is impossible to find anywhere in the American press -- outside of, apparently, Bloomberg News and the Washington Times (!) -- the report that Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi summarily executed six Iraqi detainees by shooting them in the head."Why is this not a huge story? Update - (Thanks to Atrios.) This is so serious that media in other countries are asking why US media is ignoring this story. Iraq's Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin is investigating. In the UK former foreign secretaryRobin Cook is also calling for an investigation. --- Posted at 7/18/2004 02:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Credibility C.I.A. Sends Terror Experts to Tell Small Towns of Risk:
Here's the problem. The Bush administration has politicized the issue and used terror alerts for political purposes. We were subjected to numerous terror alerts leading up to the war, for the purpose of terrifying the public to get them to support invading Iraq -- and then the alerts stopped after the invasion! Do you remember the fear? The warnings about smallpox? The warnings about possible nuclear attacks? The Bush people have SAID they are going to campaign based on their "war on terror." Just last week Bush said people should vote for him because they would be safer than if they vote for Kerry. So there is no credibility when they tell us their is a new threat. It could mean there is a threat - or it could mean this is part of a political campaign. And we have no way of knowing which it is. Jeeze, what if there WAS a real threat? Or what if it was discovered that a country like North Korea or Iran really WAS about to do something to us? No one would believe it! Event the Republicans would assume it was a campaign ploy - and approve. The idea of actual governance, or the good of the country isn't even in the equation! It is entirely about The Party. --- Posted at 7/18/2004 01:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Spy for God -- Laura's Cookies Because I want to know what the other side's up to, I signed up to receive e-mail from the Bush campaign. What are they up to? Pretty much a carbon copy of what we're doing -- "copy" being the right word, since whenever the Kerry campaign comes up with something innovative the Bush campaign copies it. A few days ago I got an e-mail from Laura Bush, talking about Meetup-style activities and how much she enjoys them, asking me to volunteer. In a PS she mentioned that I might like her recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, now posted in her dear husband's make-believe Blog. A cookie recipe? I'm supposed to believe that Laura Bush actually bakes cookies? What are the odds that this woman has ever baked a cookie in her life? What's the sinister meaning behind this PR push for cookies? At first glance this looks like a pitch to all those soccer moms out there who just might vote Republican. Picture it. The fragrant kitchen, the pans of warm cookies fresh from the oven, Mommie in her fresh white apron offering them to the freshly scrubbed kiddies. So folksy and so cute. A portrait of Family Values in action. Actually a perfect portrait of soccer mom guilt. You just can't do enough for those kiddies. Gotta rush home from all those errands -- probably, loaded with guilt, home from that job you wish the neighbors didn't know you must have now to keep your middle class status -- and try out Laura's recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies! Can't let those 50s values slip. Gotta pretend your family's just like the Brady Bunch. It's also a swipe at feminist values -- feminists don't bake cookies, do they? Now, I know cookies. I can bake a really mean cookie that could stack up against anybody's cookies and win. I decided to deconstruct Laura's cookie recipe and expose it for the political ploy it wants to be. I'm a cookie purist, and this is a bastard cookie. I have a copy of the original Toll House Cookbook with the original Toll House cookie recipe in it. No wonder chocolate chip cookies won the hearts of Americans everywhere! This was a truly inspired creation! That other great American cookie, the oatmeal cookie, is a completely different creation; spicy, flat, and crisp, more like breakfast, packed with raisins and maybe walnuts or pecans. Keeping in mind that Laura's cookie is probably a PR invention, what's the political purpose behind combining chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies into one horrific recipe? A vision of a united America? I can tell what a recipe will taste like by reading it. I'd never bake this cookie. This is not a successful political cookie baking ploy. There's even a political conflict of interest involved. We're being told by the Bush administration's public health officials that America's kiddies are suffering an epidemic of obesity -- more soccer mom guilt -- so why isn't Laura pushing carrot sticks instead of a cookie recipe that contains THREE STICKS OF BUTTER AND THREE EGGS? If by chance this is a genuine Laura Bush cookie recipe, maybe it explains that dazed look on GW's face. I'd assumed it came from all those years of booze, but maybe his arteries are all plugged up and blood is no longer circulating in that dim brain! I can tell you what should be done with this cookie. Serve it at every Republican event and assure that Republicans will die young! Meryl --- Posted at 7/18/2004 08:45:00 AM by Meryl Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/17/2004 My Talk at the ATLA Convention I was invited to speak at the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) national convention last week in Boston. I talked about the Right's communications machine, and how it affects the "tort reform" debate. I encouraged trial lawyers to fund advocacy/communication organizations to counter the Right. I have posted my remarks online here. --- Posted at 7/17/2004 11:54:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Introducing Me Dave has invited me to guest post. I read Seeing the Forest at least daily and rely on it, so I consider this quite an honor! He says I should introduce myself in my first post -- and keep it short. Well, I could say "I'm just that mysterious lady" and let it go at that. I'm liberal, or progressive, or whatever bleeping old-fashioned out-of-date word we're using today to describe a particular set of shared values, or I wouldn't be here. I'm also deeply conservative, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word, a conservative being someone who wishes to preserve things. In my naive youth I decided to become a conservator, to preserve art and archaeological artifacts, because I felt strongly that in cold war America civilization itself was under threat and it would make sense to try to keep the best of the past available for future generations. Later I worked for the Department of Environmental Protection in New York City; preserving the environment and quality of living is quite a challenge in a city of over 8 million messy people. I'm proud of that department. I also live within walking distance of the World Trade Center site, watched the twin towers fall, and coped with the aftermath, and I'll write about that. I agree entirely with Dave's point of view and political analysis. These are wildly dangerous times, and there's more going on than just a battle between points of view or belief systems. This is a battle of values, and there's nothing rational about what's going on. The way I see it, the hidden agenda of the radical right is a determination to undo the great secular accomplishments of the enlightenment. In other words, if we aren't careful, we're gonna find ourselves coping, not just with the conditions of the last century, but back somewhere before the 16th century. One of the major accomplishments was the establishment of great collective public works. The huge advances in public health and safety didn't come from medical advances as much as from public, collective engineering projects -- safe water supplies and sewer systems for example. Unglamorous but essential. With all collective public works now labeled "Socialism" even this is under threat, and that's a threat to our health and safety. Just for openers. - Meryl Johnson --- Posted at 7/17/2004 05:18:00 AM by Meryl Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More you can do: Donate to Kucinich and/or Cobb I'm still a Green (not to mention broke), and matched my contribution to Dennis with one to the Green Party's nominee for President, David Cobb, but I felt compelled to do something to impact the course of events at the DNC and within the Democratic Party and Kerry campaign in light of the events below. By sending a donation to Dennis, you send a message to the Democratic Party establishment that the war in Iraq matters (along with all the other progressive efforts and principled positions taken by Kucinich in this campaign). Money talks. Give Dennis the resources to wage an effective campaign for progressive values at the Democratic National Convention. He's the one candidate who hasn't folded up and gone home, and he deserves the thanks of the progressive community for carrying our flag within the Democratic Party. By sending a donation to David, you send a message to the Democratic Party establishment that the war in Iraq matters (along with all the other progressive efforts and principled positions taken by the Green Party, as outlined in their national platform). Every dollar donated to David drives home the message that there is an alternative to the status quo, and that the Democratic Party does not have a automatic lock on the progressive vote. You do have a choice in November. --Thomas Leavitt Payment Information You have sent a secure payment of $10.00 USD for the eBay items below. You will receive an email receipt for this transaction shortly. Amount: $10.00 USD Item Number: [deleted] Item Title: Cobb/LaMarche Campaign (limit $2,000 per individual) Your Employer: None Your Occupation: Unemployed Quantity: 1 Total Amount: $10.00 USD Contact Information Business Name: Cobb/LaMarche Campaign Contact Email: kaitlin@riseup.net 07/17/2004 12:08 AM (PT) Kucinich For President Thomas Leavitt PO Box 7095 Santa Cruz, CA 95061-7095 Thank you very much for your contribution. Your dollars are crucial to the success of our campaign. Kucinich for President http://www.kucinich.us The following summarizes your contribution: Total Contribution Amount: $10.00 Reference ID: Kucinich For President contact information: Email Address: phil@kucinich.us [deletia] --- Posted at 7/17/2004 12:10:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/16/2004 Something to do in response to Hersh's revelation. Go to FaithfulAmerica.org, and donate to support their campaign to put this ad, on Arab television. More than ever, the world needs to hear the message that at least some Americans are horrified by the torture in Iraq. --Thomas Leavitt 07/16/2004 10:38 PM (PT) True Majority Thomas and Gunilla Leavitt PO Box 7095 Santa Cruz, CA 95061-7095 Thank you for endorsing the ad and helping to buy air time on Arabic language television in the Middle East. Let's make this message truly powerful by getting it endorsed by as many Americans as possible. We're sending you a confirmation email with an action alert that you can forward to people you think might want to get involved. Your donation is being processed by our partner, TrueMajority. The following summarizes your contribution: Total Contribution Amount: $25.00 Reference ID: [deleted] True Majority contact information: Email Address: info@faithfulamerica.org --- Posted at 7/16/2004 10:40:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking..." Excerpted from a "MisLeader.Org" update: Leading investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has told the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that videotapes were made of young boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison. The Bush administration is holding videotapes of these acts, said Hersh, a regular contributor to the New Yorker and other publications and who spoke this week at the ACLU’s annual membership conference. "The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," Hersh told the group, adding that there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."You can hear him for yourself, 1 hour and 30 minutes into the video: "America at a Crossroads," 2004 ACLU Members Conference. These is what happened to young children of the some of women who were arrested, Hersh says. Clearly, the implication is that this was done to coerce confessions from the women, who must have known about it, perhaps even witnessed it. No wonder they wanted to die. I can't even begin to imagine the horror of it, the pain, the guilt, the sense of helplessness they must have felt. This is vile and unspeakable. The only appropriate reaction to it is shame and horror. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al have not only dragged our nation's good name through the mud, killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process, but he's turned us into a nation of baby-rapers. I feel like throwing up. The shame of it is unbearable. It is absolutely inconceivable to me that I should have lived to see this day, that my nation should have sunk to such depths of infamy. Bush must go. Bush must go, now. Not in November. If the leader of any other civilized government on the face of this planet had permitted this to happen on his or her watch, that individual would have resigned, immediately, and unconditionally, regardless of whether or not they knew about it, regardless of whether or not any policy of theirs could even vaguely be interpreted as having lead to these events, merely out of respect for him or herself and the people of the nation he or she lead, by taking full responsibility for the actions of those under his or her command. We should not find out about these events from the press. Our government should not be hiding this information, however horrific, from us. Bush clearly has no shame. He must go. Now. If he won't go, we must hound him from office, he should not be permitted to show his face in public without being confronted about this. Our self-respect as a nation demands nothing less. Tomorrow, I will spend at least two hours standing on the corner with a sign quoting the words in the header above: "The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking..." I am overwhelmed with grief. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/16/2004 08:54:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
In The Right Column Over on the right side of this page, scroll down and you'll see a new news feed below the BuzzFlash news feed. This is the new Media Matters feed. Check it out. --- Posted at 7/16/2004 04:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Concert I heard that Calexico was giving a free concert in San Jose yesterday, and drove down to see them. Visit their website and listen to some of the tunes they have posted there. They're great. I live in a neighborhood that is mostly Spanish-speaking, and the band sounds a bit like the neighborhood. Rock, mariachi, surf and some jazz. --- Posted at 7/16/2004 01:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Politicizing Terrorism? Nah... AuthenticGOP.com --- Posted at 7/16/2004 08:50:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/15/2004 The Story Behind The Title Joe Trippi sent me his new book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, with a note on the inside cover saying he is a long-time reader of Seeing the Forest. I haven't read the book yet, but will post about it when I have. There is an ad for the book over in the right-side column, clicking the ad takes you to a blog for the book. Go visit the blog. The lyrics to the Gil Scott-Heron tune that names the book are here. The revolution will not be right back after a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl. The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. The revolution will put you in the driver's seat. --- Posted at 7/15/2004 07:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bill Moyers: Get Mad! Do something! Bill Moyers recently gave a Keynote Address at the Inequality Matters Conference held in NYC. It's a powerful statement that resonates with many of the themes the writers of this blog have been expounding on (our memes are spreading). He even references the Enron Tapes. It is definitely worth reading (it came to me via my mother and an League of Women Voters mailing list). --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/15/2004 12:53:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/14/2004 Richard Dreyfuss: "you can only learn from your bleeps and move on." [Ashcroftism at work. Bleepin' bleep of a bleep. -Thomas] PBS watches its mouth rather than pay big fines. Now it's up to the other networks to fight the FCC. by Tim Goodmanm, SFGate.com *** Because of this, a new drama called "Cop Shop" starring Richard Dreyfuss and other actors who made a sort of creative labor of love on the cheap for public broadcasting, has been edited to avoid the potential wrath of the FCC. The cuts prompted executive producer and writer David Black and Dreyfuss to whip out prepared statements before facing the nation's TV critics here on Friday. "Ladies and gentlemen, 'Cop Shop' was never meant to be bleeped," said Dreyfuss, reading from his prepared statement, via satellite from New York where he's appearing on Broadway. "David and I agreed to be bleeped because we were told that KCET, our greatly appreciated allies in this affair, could be subject to intimidating fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. ... And so, more reluctantly than I can describe, we agreed to be bleeped. But being bleeped is more than it is cracked up to be. Having now been bleeped, I can only say that it doesn't feel very good. It feels kind of dirty. But you can never be unbleeped, so you can only learn from your bleeps and move on." *** --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/14/2004 06:18:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Background info on John Ashcroft. [The article is rather long, but it goes a good way towards explaining Ashcroft's behavior (insanely rigid, morally certain). Ironically, my Mom is from the Springfield, Missouri area as well (most of her family is still back there). This is scary stuff! -Thomas] Son of a Preacher Man How John Ashcroft's religion shapes his public service Vicki Haddock, Insight Staff Writer Sunday, August 4, 2002 Of all the Bible stories John Ashcroft knows by heart, none mirrors his own life like the Old Testament melodrama of Daniel. As a Hebrew captive exiled to Babylon, Daniel worked his way into the palace and was promoted to a high-ranking administrative position. The powers- that-be saw him as smart and politically ambitious, but also as a sanctimonious prig. His religious rectitude invited ridicule, as when he refused to "defile" himself by partaking of the rich food and wine of royalty because his God favored a vegetable-and-water diet. So his critics set him up, persuading King Darius to outlaw worship of anyone else but the king. Daniel kept praying. They dropped him into a den of lions. This was a lesson that John David Ashcroft absorbed as a Pentecostal minister's son reared in an Assemblies of God congregation in Springfield, Mo. The moral was clear: Never waver, never doubt, never permit skepticism and mockery to deter you from the course you believe is right. [... continued ...] --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/14/2004 04:09:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Abraham Lincoln speaks up regarding cancelling elections [Received this through Dave Farber's Interesting People mailing list. Thought it topically relevant. -Thomas] From: Joseph Holder Date: July 14, 2004 3:29:16 AM EDT Subject: Abraham Lincoln speaks up regarding cancelling elections Recently, the Bush appointed head of the EAC, Soaries, requested guidance from Homeland Security regarding the possiblity of cancelling the upcoming November election in case of a "terror" attack somewhere in the United States somewhere around that time. It seems that this type of "crisis" has presented its self before. In 1864, when Washington, DC, was within five miles of Confederate General Jubal Early's attacking troops (http://www.nps.gov/rocr/ftcircle/defense.htm), President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, did not even dream of cancelling, or even postponing, the 1864 elections. Here's a bit of what Ol' Abe had to say on the subject, taken from http://www.nps.gov/liho/writer/1864.htm: "We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us." --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/14/2004 03:46:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kerry Campaign: Nuclear Proliferation One of the less-amusing peculiarities of the Bush administration is their relative lack of interest in nuclear proliferation. Nuclear proliferation is a question in itself, independent of terrorism, but one of the biggest fears about terrorism is that they might get nuclear weapons someday. Beyond that, nuclear proliferation is intrinsically destabilizing. A world with 12 nuclear nations would be many times more dangerous than a world with the present five-to-seven. Nuclear proliferation is a wonk issue which isn't going to win any votes in Philadelphia, Mississippi. There are certain countries you want to look at very closely (e.g., Russia, N. Korea, Iran, and our new non-NATO ally Pakistan), and there are others which are not really involved (e.g., as it happens, Iraq.) There are various things you can do about nuclear proliferation, but it's mostly low-profile stuff that doesn't involve blowing shit up. Furthermore, if you're a national leader who feeds on public hysteria, nuclear proliferation is actually a good thing, sort of like Abu Mussab al-Zarkawi, since it can be used to justify whatever it is that you're planning to do. So it's not surprising that Bush is not very interested and that Kerry is. Because Bush doesn't have time for that wonk shit, and Kerry does. The above is my opinion. Go to the link for what the Kerry campaign has to say. Kerry Press Release and Fact Sheet --- Posted at 7/14/2004 03:17:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kerry Campaign: What Did Bush Know? One of the big questions about our president is how much he knows about anything. He seems to prefer to make his decisions on the basis of simple one-page summaries of the evidence, a method which obviously gives control of policy to whomever it is that prepares the summary. However, the Senate Intelligence Committee was unable to get a copy of the briefing on the basis of which we invaded Iraq. The most recent Bush administration excuse -- "It's the CIA's fault!" -- lies perilously close to an admission that our President is refusing to do his homework. BUSH REFUSES TO RELEASE ONE-PAGE SUMMARY OF PRE-WAR IRAQ CLAIMS The New York Times reports today, “The White House and the Central Intelligence Agency have refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee a one-page summary of prewar intelligence in Iraq prepared for President Bush that contains few of the qualifiers and none of the dissents spelled out in longer intelligence reviews, according to Congressional officials. [NYT, 7/14/04]" (Reuters version) BUSH AND RICE DID NOT READ THE NIE. A senior administration official who briefed reporters in July 2003 said neither Bush nor national security adviser Condoleezza Rice read the NIE in its entirety. “They did not read footnotes in a 90-page document,” said the official, referring to the “Annex” that contained the State Department’s dissent. The official conducting the briefing rejected reporters’ entreaties to allow his name to be used, arguing that it was his standard procedure for such sessions to be conducted anonymously. [Washington Post, 7/19/03] (Boston Globe version). KERRY PRESS RELEASE (Note: I recently started getting press releases from the Kerry campaign, some of which I will reprint or excerpt here. Be it noted that Seeing the Forest is completely independent and mostly self-funded, with a little help from advertisers). --- Posted at 7/14/2004 12:22:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Madrid bombings - excellent example of media manipulation. Something that really pisses me off about all the coverage surrounding the issue of postponing federal elections, is the fact that every bleeping story out there repeats the canard that the Madrid train bombings turned the Spanish people against the Anzar government and thus Al-Qaeda managed to manipulate the course of the elections in that country. This is simply not true, what turned people against the Spanish government was the fact that it laid the initial blame for the bombings on the ETA (Basque nationalists) and continued to persist in this even after it became increasingly clear that Al-Qaeda was to blame... the Spanish people reacted very negatively to what they perceived was an attempt by the Anzar government to mislead them (and thus avoid blame for the bombings due to their policy in Iraq), even to the point of mass demonstrations in the streets against the government, two days later, immediately preceding the elections. Thus, it can be credibly argued that what turned the course of the Spanish elections was a FAILED MANIPULATION by the government, NOT a successful one by Al Qaeda. If the government had played it straight with the Spanish people, the outcome might well have been different. A quote from the article above: "Analysts say the public's anger at the way the government handled the information arising from the investigation, as well as the fact that Spaniards overwhelmingly opposed Spain's support for the U.S.-led war on Iraq, led to the Sunday defeat of the PP." I haven't seen a SINGLE blessed article on the issue of postponing elections in the mainstream press that points this out when the Madrid bombings are mentioned. But, of course, the immediate line taken by the Bush administration, and repeated uncritically by our gullible, lazy and far too easily manipulated mainstream press, was that the Spanish people had let themselves been manipulated by Al Qaeda, which of course serves the Bush administration's political needs then (Anzar's government wasn't defeated by legitimate opposition to the war in Iraq) and now (terrorists might seek to do the same here). One might even wonder if they promoted that interpretation, in the knowledge that later on, they would be proposing a mechanism for post-poning federal elections as the result of a terrorist incident. I urge everyone reading this to write letters to the editor, and write letters to the journalists in question, pointing out the truth about what turned the Spanish people against their government: not the bombing, but outrage over the government's lies about the bombing. I'm sure that people will connect the dots to the current administration's habits as well. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/14/2004 01:57:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/13/2004 Bush AGAIN Accuses Kerry of Bragging About Abandoning Troops ABCNEWS.com : Bush: Kerry Brags About Abandoning Troops: "Bush: Kerry Brags About Abandoning Troops Bush Tours Midwestern States, Says Kerry Abandoned Support for Troops and Then Bragged About It Courting conservative voters in Michigan's rural Upper Peninsula, President Bush said Tuesday that rival John Kerry abandoned support for U.S. troops in Iraq and then bragged about it. "Leaders need to stand up with our military," Bush told a cheering crowd, kicking off a two-day tour of three crucial states that he lost in 2000 to Democratic Vice President Al Gore. Kerry said Monday that he and running mate John Edwards were proud of the fact that they opposed the $87 billion aid package for Afghanistan and Iraq "when we knew the policy had to be changed." Kerry said the Bush administration should have gotten other allies to help with the war in Iraq. "He is entitled to his view," Bush said, adding that Kerry should not have gone on to "brag about it."How long IS Kerry going to let Bush get away with this? It is time for Kerry to SMACK THIS DOWN. It is time for Kerry to look American in the face and say that Bush is LYING, and that THIS is just too important to Kerry to continue to let Bush get away with it. Letting Bush go on saying things like this really makes Kerry look like a wimp. It is working. There really is no other way to deal with this than to smack it down. I mean, being accused of bragging about abandoning the troops DOES make Kerry angry, doesn't it? But if I don't SEE Kerry getting really angy about this, well, ... maybe it DOESN'T make him angry! So, Sen. Kerry, what are you going to DO about this? Are you a person who stands up to bullies? That's what the country needs. --- Posted at 7/13/2004 03:52:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Senator Boxer on Possible Election Delays STATEMENT BY U.S. SENATOR BARBARA BOXER: "To even consider postponing our elections, the most ardent symbol of American democracy, because of threats made by terrorists would be nothing short of allowing fear to rule our country. America is too great and too strong and too brave for that. If this Administration is so concerned about the possibility of terrorist attacks disrupting U.S. elections, the priority should be how to best defend against those attacks, not how to close polling places. We need to pass the Rail Security and Port Security bills, both of which passed unanimously out of the Senate Commerce Committee in April. We need to pass my Homeland Defense Act, legislation authorizing grants for our local first responders so they can purchase interoperable communications systems that will allow them to talk to one another in the event of a terrorist attack. And we need to put more federal dollars toward funding these Homeland Security initiatives, including our local first responders. We are focusing far too many of our resources abroad trying to bring democracy to others while this Administration seems completely at a loss on how to protect us here at home. All we hear about is fear from them and no plan. It is time to stop the fear-mongering and start protecting our people, our homeland, and our democracy here at home." --- Posted at 7/13/2004 08:54:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/12/2004 Why we can't let the election be postponed The main lesson to take home from the recent uproar about postponing the fall elections is that the Democrats have to have an immediate, aggressive political response ready for any terrorist event that might take place. In many respects, the Kerry campaign's ability to respond quickly to events during the campaign will be taken by the voters as an indicator of President Kerry's ability to respond effectively to terrorism. (If Kerry can't beat Bush, he certainly can't beat Osama Bin Laden.) Recent reports have told us that the Bush administration is trying to schedule Osama's capture in accordance with the Republican Party's political needs. For that reason, it is important that no one in the executive branch should be given the power to postpone the election. Whichever one of them has that power will postpone the election if he thinks that doing so will help Bush, and not otherwise. The Republican behavior during the Florida recount tells us not to expect them to pull any punches this year either, and we should make systematic preparations to match them tit for tat -- even down to the formation of flying goon squads, on the model of the Brooks Brothers rioters who did such a great job intimidating the Supreme Court in 2000. We should fight for every single point at every stage of the game. Since we cannot hope for a neutral arbiter this time around (because of the Supreme Court's outrageous Florida decision), this means that the situation we're facing is exceptionally brittle. If I were David Broder I would make some gaseous comments about civility and implore everyone to be nice and play fair, but I'm not David Broder, and we know that the Republicans are not going to play fair. Rush Limbaugh doesn't want the elections postponed either, mostly because he thinks that a terrorist attack will help Bush. Does this mean that the trial balloon from the virtually unknown DeForest Soaries was a cunning trick to fool the Democrats into opposing any postponement? I doubt it. Obviously the bad guys need to have a response for every contingency, and Limbaugh is working the no-postponement side. The Kerry campaign has to be ready for anything too, and the no-postponement principle will take a key weapon out of the Bush campaign's hand. The big job is to make sure that a terrorist attack, if it takes place, does not help George Bush. And indeed, why should his failure work in his favor? The war in Iraq had nothing much to do with fighting terror. If there's another terrorist attack, won't it tell us that Bush has screwed up? Postponing the Election: Collected Links Take my $50! --- Posted at 7/12/2004 07:44:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Spend Time in the Desert Everything isn't Under Control: "Coalition deaths have now hit 1,000 Why are we fighting again? It was the anthrax right? No wait, the drones. No, no, the nuclear weapons. All the sarin gas aimed at NYC. The smallpox machine gun! Saddam's doomsday device! A moon-raker like scenario with Saddam living in space and killing all human life on earth! No wait, the Iraqis perfected time travel and were going to kill George Washington's grandmother! Those bastards! Seriously, cross your fingers and hope you don't get drafted to die in some desert somewhere for reasons unknown. "Found thanks to skippy. And Bob Herbert today: "A government with even a nodding acquaintance with competence and good sense would have launched an all-out war against Al Qaeda, not Iraq, in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. After all, it was Al Qaeda, not Iraq, that carried out the sneak attack on American soil that destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon and killed 3,000 people. You might think that would have been enough to provoke an all-out response from the U.S. Instead we saved our best shot for the demented and already checkmated dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda must have gotten a good laugh out of that. Now they're planning to come at us again. On Thursday, the same day Iraqi insurgents killed the five G.I.'s in Samarra, the Bush administration disclosed that bin Laden and his lieutenants, believed to be operating from hideouts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, were directing an effort by Al Qaeda to unleash an encore attack against the United States. According to Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, the latest effort may well be timed to disrupt the fall elections. If that happens, I wonder if we'll finally get serious about the war we should be fighting against bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Maybe not. Based on the impenetrable logic of the president and his advisers, a new strike by Al Qaeda might lead us to start a war with, say, Iran, or Syria. If we know that bin Laden and his top leadership are somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and that they're plotting an attack against the United States, why are we not zeroing in on them with overwhelming force? Why is there not a sense of emergency in the land, with the entire country pulling together to stop another Sept. 11 from occurring?"Why not? BECAUSE ALL OUR TROOPS ARE TIED DOWN IN IRAQ! Vote Republican and kill a --- Posted at 7/12/2004 09:54:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Postponing the election: a collection of links Q On Ridge's security warnings, can the President today guarantee Americans that no terrorist attack can upset the U.S. elections this November, that they will go ahead as planned? MR. McCLELLAN: Ann, I don't think anyone can make guarantees. But the full intention is to move forward and hold those elections. White House non-answer: "The prospect that Al Qaeda might seek to disrupt the U.S. election was a major factor behind last week's terror warning by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Ridge and other counterterrorism officials concede they have no intel about any specific plots. But the success of March's Madrid railway bombings in influencing the Spanish elections—as well as intercepted "chatter" among Qaeda operatives—has led analysts to conclude "they want to interfere with the elections," says one official". Newsweek "U.S. officials have discussed the idea of postponing Election Day in the event of a terrorist attack on or about that day, a Homeland Security Department spokesman said Sunday. The department has referred questions about the matter to the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, said spokesman Brian Roehrkasse, confirming a report in this week's editions of Newsweek magazine." CNN "It was crazy to go ahead with an election a mere three days after the Madrid massacre..... But I do know that reversing course in the wake of a terrorist attack is inexcusable." (David Brooks, March 16, 2004) "The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission. Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel." (AP, June 25, 2004) "A steady stream of intelligence, including nuggets from militant-linked Web sites, indicates al-Qaida wants to attack the United States to disrupt the upcoming elections, federal officials said Thursday." (AP, July 9, 2004) "Osama bin Laden could have made a good living as a political consultant if he did not choose to kill babies instead. The al Qaeda/Ba'ath Party strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan is, at core, a political one. They seek not just to pull Iraq into chaos, but to defeat President Bush as well." ("Terrorists for Kerry", Dick Morris, NY Post, June 5, 2004) "'While a political resolution to the election might not be quick and might be a brawl, Souter argued that the nation would still accept it,' Kaplan wrote. Souter tried desperately to get Kennedy to vote with the minority, according to the book, but he wouldn't flip. 'He thought the trauma of more recounts, more fighting — more politics — was too much for the country to endure,' Kaplan wrote." (Kennedy had been intimidated specifically by the "Brooks Brothers Riot" of paid Republican staffers which ended the recount in Miami-Dade County; that was the only actual violence that there had been, though a number of Republicans had stated their unwillingness to accept a result which made would put Gore in the Presidency). (Story: AP/CBS, Sept 10, 2001) Billmon has something to say Riba has a lot of interesting stuff The Left Coaster has a lot of interesting stuff. Moderate Voice has a lot of stuff "Memeorandum" has collected a lot of interesting stuff: I II III IV "Not only is the country's leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year." (Salon, Sept. 23, 2003) Black Box Voting I Black Box Voting II Black Box Voting III --- Posted at 7/12/2004 09:37:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Election futures III People say that my original bet was too vague, so I'm tightening it up a bit. It's still 30-1, my $50 against your $1500. Show your confidence in America! You are betting that none of the following will happen: 1. Whoever is in office on Jan. 21, 2004 is not there because he's been elected. Either Bush stays in, or a caretaker is appointed. 2. The November election does not take place as scheduled, but is postponed. 3. In a significant number of states (greater than the margin of victory) the vote in the electoral college is not based on a count of the votes (for example, the state legislature intervenes). 4. Some unprecedented intervention decides the election, as in 2000. 5. Major branches of government openly defy President Kerry and refuse to obey his orders. I've left out the "denial of legitimacy" point because there's a 100% chance that many conservatives will not accept President Kerry's legitimacy. This supercedes all previous offers. I'll lower the odds until I get a bet. This is not gambling, but a scientific attempt to determine how much confidence the American people have in our electoral system. --- Posted at 7/12/2004 07:18:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/11/2004 Election Futures Market, II OK, I'll change my bet. Show how much confidence you have in our electoral system! I'm willing to bet $50 at 30-to-one that we'll see problems in the 2004 Presidential election as bad or worse than those in the 2000 election. Your $1500 says everything will be OK, my $50 says that there will be major problems -- as bad as or worse than 2000. Everyone's been telling me that the chances of that happening are insignificant, but the best offer I've seen so far is 10-to-1. Not much confidence there, folks! My definitive bet is here. Here are some new stories on the possibility of a postponed election, plus links to the original stuff we had up: Newsweek CNN Riba has a lot of good stuff White House non-answer Left Coaster Black Box Voting I Black Boc Voting II Black Boc Voting III Original story here, with links --- Posted at 7/11/2004 05:47:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
YOU Can Join A Union Working America: "Nonunion workers and retirees are invited to join the people power of America's union movement and help make America work for all of us."Go sign up and be part of the labor movement, even if there is no union where you work! --- Posted at 7/11/2004 04:52:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Goebbels on Hitler as a Speaker I ran across this while Googling for details to use in my "spoof" of McClennan's statement, earlier today. Here are the first three paragraphs: There are two fundamentally different kinds of speakers: those who use reasoning, and those who speak from the heart. They reach two different sorts of people, those who understand through reason, and those who understand through the heart. Speakers who aim for the reason are generally found in parliaments, those who speak from the heart speak to the people. The speaker who uses reason, if he is to be effective, must command a wide range of statistical and factual material. He must be a master of dialectic as the pianist is master of the keyboard. With ice cold logic, he develops his line of thinking and draws irrefutable conclusions. He is most effective with people who work primarily or exclusively with reason. Big and compelling successes are denied him. He does not understand how to fire up the masses for a great cause. He is limited to educational discourse. Since he is cold, he leaves his listeners cold. At best he persuades people, but never mobilizes them and sets them marching, regardless of their own ideas or the element of personal risk involved. The speaker from the heart is different. He may have the skills of the master of reasoning. They are however only tools he uses as a true rhetorical virtuoso. He has abilities not found in the reasoning speaker. He combines clear diction with simple argumentation, and instinct tells him what to say and how to say it. Language is united with ideas. He knows the secret corners and aspects of the mass soul and knows how to reach and touch them. His speeches are masterpieces of declamation. He outlines people and conditions; he inscribes his theses on the tablet of the age; with deep and noble passion he explains the pillars of his world view. His voice reaches out from the depths of his blood into the depths of the souls of his listeners. He brings to expression the secrets of the human soul. He rouses the tired and lazy, fires up the indifferent and the doubting, turns cowards into men and weaklings into heroes.Does this sound like the difference between right and left in this country? What tactics do Michael Savage and the rest of the 'wingers and wing nuts filling the AM airwaves use, but those straight out of Goebbel's playbook? These folks don't care about reason, logic... all they care about is provoking a reaction. Who are they most populat with? Folks who don't work primarily with reason (to all appearances, judging by way too many of the emails I get at SavageStupidity.com and other sites). Who do progressives hold up as our models? Thinkers, reasoners, theorists... I gotta wonder if Goebbels is right, if all our high faltin' liberal thinking is just going to get us nowhere, if we oughta just rip up the playbook and get down and dirty, mix it up in the trenches, appeal to people's primeaval passions and fundamental emotions. Are any of us capable of that? It certainly makes my head hurt to try and think that way... I'm so intensively devoted to the academic model of proving your point by citing sources, facts, studies, statistics, etc. from credible and documented sources, etc. What would a speech formulated in that fashion look like? How would it differ from the typical politicians speech? Here's a Kerry speech (and here's a more recent one)... it doesn't sound too bad to me... how would it change? How about an Edwards speech? --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/11/2004 05:57:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Let's start a list... I'm going to start a collection of quotes from the media regarding the current administration's policies - ones that, under normal circumsstances, would cause any reader to give pause. The goal here is to help assemble the trees into a forest. If you've got ones of your own to contribute, please post a comment with them (citing source, and a URL if possible). Here's a couple of examples from articles I recently posted to STF: "Chambers' departure may not garner the same spotlight as those of former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but it appears to fall into a similar category: officials who leave or are forced out after questioning Bush administration policies." --Ex-chief of Park Police denounces firing, CNN, Saturday, July 10, 2004 "Many in the U.S. intelligence community have been making similar points [regarding the local origin of the guerilla warfare in Iraqi -TL], but have encountered political opposition from the Bush administration, a State Department official in Washington said, also speaking on condition of anonymity." --Iraq Insurgency Far Larger Than Thought, AP, July 8, 2004 I'm looking for stuff that points to a systematic pattern of behavior by the Bush Administration that is contrary to the expected norm by any administration. As I come across other items of a similar nature, I'll post them here. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/11/2004 03:08:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush to federal employees: "shut up or lose your job". [I wonder how many other public employees are on "paid administrative leave" (seven months) for daring to talk to the press, on the record, about a disagreement with Bush Administration policies? Only in the Bush Administration would a law enforcement official be fired as a result of asking for more funding for his or her organization! Wouldn't your average American consider this woman's actions patriotic? -Thomas] Ex-chief of Park Police denounces firing Chambers: Administration 'silencing' dissenting views Saturday, July 10, 2004 Posted: 8:56 PM EDT (0056 GMT) WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One day after she was fired, former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers accused the Bush administration Saturday of silencing dissenting views in the rank and file. Chambers' departure may not garner the same spotlight as those of former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but it appears to fall into a similar category: officials who leave or are forced out after questioning Bush administration policies. [...] "My professional judgment, based upon 27 years of police service, six years as chief of police, and countless interactions with police professionals across the country, is that we are at a staffing and resource crisis in the United States Park Police -- a crisis that, if allowed to continue, will almost surely result in the loss of life or the destruction of one of our nation's most valued symbols of freedom and democracy," she wrote. A week earlier, Chambers had spoken with a Washington Post reporter about the budget shortfalls, and the article appeared December 2. Three days later, the chief was on administrative leave. Chambers said her story effectively put a chill on National Park superintendents who were facing their own shortfalls. She said she has spoken with current officials who know the situation but fear for their jobs. [...] --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/11/2004 02:54:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Reichskanzlei won't guarantee elections in November Press Briefing by Dr. Joseph Goebbel: "Q On Colonel-General von Brauchitsch's security warnings, can the Fuehrer today guarantee the German people that no terrorist attack can upset the German elections this November, that they will go ahead as planned? DR. GOEBBEL: Ann, I don't think anyone can make guarantees. But the full intention is to move forward and hold those elections. I don't know specific information related to election day or any other of the high profile events that we have coming up. What we can guarantee to the German people is that we will continue to take strong steps to make sure that we are doing a better job every day of protecting the fatherland, Heil Hitler!, and enhancing protective measures in certain areas of the country. And we will continue waging the war on communism, on the offensive, to defeat the communists! Heil Hitler! That's what we will continue to do. These are threats that we need to take seriously, and that's why it's important to keep the German people informed. Heil Hitler!"[O.K., so I'm in a lousy mood.] --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 7/11/2004 12:20:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/10/2004 NRA vs. Hunters NathanNewman.org picked up an interesting split forming between the NRA and hunters. Go read. --- Posted at 7/10/2004 10:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
A Question for Kerry The Bush campaign said this in an ad back in March: "The 30-second ad labels Kerry "wrong on defense" and says the Massachusetts senator did not support bills that would have ensured troops had body armor and earned higher combat pay, and that would have given reservists and their families better health care."Bush is STILL saying this: "On issue after issue, from funding our troops who are on the battlefield, to involving parents in important decisions of their minor daughters, to supporting faith-based and community organizations that are helping those in need, the senator is out of step with the mainstream values that are so important to our country."Bush himself said this. My question is, why doesn't Kerry come out and say that Bush is LYING? I mean, look straight at the camera, use that word, make it a big challenge. Obviously this has not been effectively answered, since Bush still feels free to say this. And obviously this is a huge opening for Kerry to challenge Bush on this issue. BUSH SAID IT HIMSELF YESTERDAY. What Washington campaign strategery is going on with the Kerry campaign, allowing Bush to get away with repeating that Kerry is against funding our troops? Is it the usual Washington Democrat cowering, because they are afraid that Rush Limbaugh will say bad things about them if they fight back? Bush personally lied about Kerry when he said that Kerry is against funding our troops in the battlefield. Kerry continues to let him get away with this. This makes Kerry look weak, and Bush look strong. AND IT IMPLIES THAT BUSH IS TELLING THE TRUTH! Kerry should say Bush is lying and that he will not tolerate Bush lying about THIS. Especially not THIS. What is Kerry afraid of? That Rush might say something bad about him? Update - Kerry did say this: "The value of truth is one of the most central values in America and this administration has violated it", Kerry said in an interview aboard his campaign plane on Friday. "Their values system is distorted and not based on truth."and this "We have not stood up and attacked our opponents in personal ways," Kerry said.And that is my point. The first is said Kerry-style. Haughty. My point is that the particular people that Bush is playing to with his accusation are even MORE turned off to Kerry by this kind of response. Kerry should look straight into the camera and say that Bush is LYING, and lying about supporting the troops is too important to allow the miserable coward to get away with, and he'd better stop it. NASCAR-dad-style. --- Posted at 7/10/2004 03:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Questions at The Left Coaster, Too The Left Coaster: Will Bush/Cheney Use Terrorism Once Again For Political Gain?: "So it should be troubling to see that Ted Olson is leaving his job as Bush’s Solicitor General to return to his law practice (the same firm from which he argued Bush’s case to shut down the recount). But note from this Washington Post piece today that both Olson and Miguel Estrada are working at the same firm, and in the Crisis Management team and constitutional law area of the firm. Are they getting ready their arguments for a Supreme Court hearing to suspend the election and seek extraordinary powers for the Executive Branch in a time of national emergency this fall?"My comment: "Is it that a terrorist attack might happen - or that a fanatical CHRISTIAN is going to be talked into driving a truck full of explosives into the Dem. convention, to save The One Chosen By GOD from the Liberal Evildoers?" We're ALL wearing tin foil hats, now. --- Posted at 7/10/2004 03:29:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
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Translation of Subway Tray-liner--Germany
Michael Moore quote:
“The only time I have been scared/frightened for my life has been going through a McDonald’s drive-thru.”
Trayliner text:
Why are Americans so fat?
In the Michael Moore tradition, New York filmmaker Morgan Spurlock does some deep questioning and self experiments for 30 days on products from the world’s largest fast food company.
Astounding revelations…scary liver levels and horrifying blood levels that would cause any doctor the highest degree of alarm.
In this top satire, which won the prize for best direction from Sundance 2004, Spurlock explores the questions of responsibility between big business and consumers, and the big money which contributes to this “Fast Food” culture, and how to make Americans healthy again. An ironic hit into the stomach that is enriched by fat and facts behind this dubious mega industry.
Passage near Statue of Liberty:
You care about what you eat and everything isn’t equal? Then you shouldn’t miss this film about foolish intake. It will open your eyes.