Beliefnet
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Thought for Today
If you're a business guy, no one tells you to "shut up and do business [and] stay out of public policy." If you're in a big corporation, you influence the government your way, right?
--Bruce Springsteen in the Wall Street Journal, talking about the double standard that comes into play when entertainers venture into politics
A Favor for Little Uptown
That I want John Kerry to be President is not news.
That most of you who come here regularly also want Kerry elected--again, no surprise.
I don't need to ask you to vote--you will. [Do be especially nice to those older people--Mother Uptown among them--working the polls. It's a long day, with strange equipment.]
I do need to ask you--especially if you live in a swing state, or who have friends and relatives in a swing state--to do that hard thing: talk politics to friends and family.
How can you reach them this late in the game?
My thought: make it personal.
The Uptowns have, as you may know, a two-and-a-half year-old daughter. We're old; she's it. Our hope for her is that she'll be a good citizen of the planet, that she'll relieve a bit of misery and add a bit of knowledge and joy. Our responsibility is to protect and guide her and educate her until she's old enough, strong enough and educated enough to flap her wings and go it alone.
We take this responsibility seriously. Because we work at home, we spend outrageous time with her. We take her pretty much everywhere; she's visited even more museums than zoos. And it's largely because of her that I go to a gym three mornings a week and, under the prodding of a rugby player who's way too smart to be charmed by the likes of me, lift steel until my muscles scream and my eyes are about to pop--damned if I'm gonna croak before I dance with Little Uptown at her wedding.
But the Bush crowd--they don't care about Little Uptown. The wind blows West to East, picking up crap from ever-less-regulated smokestacks, and that crap ends up in our kid's lungs. She can't eat much fish, or she'll get mercury poisoning. And don't get us started on what global warming could do to make her world politically unstable and environmentally dangerous.
The environment. That's our issue. Even more than Iraq--Iraq will end, and soon, no matter who's President. But damage to the planet persists. Even if you vote Bush out and change the regulations and put a gun to the heads of corporate polluters, it's going to take years to turn the environment around.
Americans don't like to think long-term. Unless it's for their kids. Maybe, beyond their blessed tax breaks and their "I've got mine" smugness, you can get friends and family to understand why so much is at stake in this election. Why there clearly is a difference between the candidates. Why, at some level, you're begging for your kid's--and their kid's--life.
What Can You Do?
Voting Tueday? Got a video camera? Would you take it with you when you go to vote? And if you see anything funky, alert
the Video Vigil crew, who will post your video on the web as fast as those pixels can fly.
What Can You Do? (2)
First, take Tuesday off. Then
get on your bike and make like Paul Revere--meet at coffee houses and bike shops in your community every hour on the hour, to either bike with bells on, or support those who are.
What Can You Do? (3)
Re Rush Limbaugh appearing on NBC on Election Night, you can write to the head of NBC News (scroll down to "Today's Action Item: Rush Limbaugh on NBC" for more details). The best e-mail I've seen so far is from my ultra-articulate friend Robert S:
I am frankly stunned by your decision to have Rush Limbaugh appear on NBC. His callous, cruel and patently incendiary commentary, his racist, anti-democratic, xenophobic point of view, his denigration and attempted erosion of the principles that keep America free, call for a response above the norm: not only will I not watch NBC, but I will TIVO NBC, speed through the programming later, but make note of every national advertiser. I will email them individually of my intention to boycott their products and place the blame squarely on NBC. If I am able to find out who will be advertising prior to his appearance, I'll do it then.
Can you top that? Please CC me when you write
neal.shapior@nbcuni.com.
Will Brett Favre Throw a Touchdown Pass to John Kerry?
By e-mail, our faithful reader Renee makes an intriguing argument:
In election years with an incumbent running, when the Sox win their division, the incumbent is re-elected. But the last time the Sox won the World Series, the incumbent was defeated.What about football?
In election years with an incumbent running, when the Washington Redskins win their last home game before the election, the incumbent wins the election. In the last home game before this election, the 'Skins will be playing the Green Bay Packers.
It's up to Bret Favre to save the world.
Lending credence to this scenario is the fact that Bret Favre, in the past calendar year, has endured far too much--the death of his father, his brother-in-law's tragic fatal ATV accident, and now his wife's diagnosis with breast cancer. Does this not lead one to believe that the Minions of the Evil War Mongering Neo-Fascist Regime (Cheney, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz and Co.) are calling in help from the Realms of Darkness to lay traps in the path of the Leader of the Cheese Nation?
Bret, we're counting on you.
The Terror Tape: Wasn't That Ali G?
So
the CIA can't authenticate the tape. The spy boys aren't the only ones who are raising eyebrows over this 90-minute video. On the right wing blogs, the Freepers are asking, "Isn't this guy too...gay to be a terrorist?" Others wonder if this is an
Ali Gprank. Closer to home, Mrs. Uptown remarked that "Little Uptown's Halloween costume is scarier."
Of course the tape might be real. And we might be too jaded to appreciate that. But after a couple of years of Bush/Cheney threatening us with nuclear extinction if we don't let them keep us safe, you can understand how we'd be a little skeptical by any "al Qaeda" threat delivered in Engish.
Iraq: So What Are You Gonna Believe? What I Tell You or Your Lying Eyes?
Nah-nah-nah-boo-boo,
Loose Canonand all the other knee-jerk naysayers of wingnut negativity--those Iraqi explosives, secured by UN inspectors, were still secure when American troops arrived, nine days after Saddam was toppled. Our guys broke the seals in at least one bunker. And left. Three weeks later, those explosives were gone. (You can read
the New York Times account--or if, like LC, you have secret knowledge that the Times is just Pravda-in-drag,
the Minneapolis TV stationwhose crew made the decisive tape.
Oh, there are surely details we don't know--like how much of that cache was used to make the devices used against us. And how much American soldiers (and others, whose lives are of equal value, just not to us) died as a result. But as for the main points, the story holds. Today--Friday--the Pentagon produced a major who spoke of removing 200 tons of explosives, but he turned out to talking about an ammunition removal mission near all QaQaa, not explosives, and, honorable fellow that he was, he wouldn't say more than he knew.
A few hours later,
Josh Marshallpointed us to a more meaningful military official, who reports:
An Iraqi working for U.S. intelligence alerted U.S. troops stationed near the al Qaqaa weapons facility that the installation was being looted shortly after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003.
But, they said, the troops took no apparent action to halt the pillaging."That was one of numerous times when Iraqis warned us that ammo dumps and other places were being looted and we weren't able to respond because we didn't have anyone to send," said a senior U.S. military officer who served in Iraq.
Poor Bush. He can run, but he can't hide--not from his own Army, anyway.
The Fun Part: "How Painful Was It When the Doctor Removed Your Sense of Shame?"
Triumph, the insult comedy dog
, visits Spin Alley. [Warning: This dog has a potty mouth.]
Thought for Today
"I'm just going to delicatessens and having fun. We're on a tour bus going from deli to deli. There's a lot of bad breath on the bus."
--
Larry David, star of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and co-creator of "Seinfeld," as he campaigns for John Kerry in Boca Raton and South Florida
The Red Sox: Thanks, Guys
The great conservative thinker--yes, there are some--James Q. Wilson says America doesn't really concentrate on a Presidential election until the World Series ends.
A 7-game series would have ended Sunday....around midnight.
Leaving one day for America to get serious about politics.
Now, thanks to the Sox sweep, baseball is over.
Leaving five days for politics.
Who thinks this is good for Bush?
390 Tons: Mr. President, We Can Handle the Truth
For those who want to examine the controversy over 390 tons of missing explosives in excruciating detail,
Andrew Sullivan(usually to be found on the right) and
Josh Marshall(always to be found on the left) track the complicated chronology.
I'd like to focus on something else: what the military knows and what the military has said.
Look at
this account:
The first U.S. military unit to reach the site in Iraq where U.N. officials say 377 tons of high explosives are missing did not carry out a hunt for such material, the unit's commander said on Wednesday.Col. Dave Perkins, then the commander of the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, said the immediate concern when his troops reached the Al Qaqaa site on April 3, 2003, was to defeat a couple of hundred Iraqi troops who were firing from the compound as the Americans surged toward Baghdad.
Perkins also said it was "very highly improbable" that enemy forces could have trucked out such a huge amount of explosives in the weeks after U.S. forces first arrived there, considering the high level of U.S. military presence and how clogged the roads around the site were with U.S. convoys.
And it's not just Col. Perkins. From
The New York Times:
The commander of the troops that went into the Al Qaqaa facility on the way to Baghdad in early April, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, has said he was never told the site was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began.
My question for
Loose Canon: Why is the Pentagon persistently knifing the President? Is it possible the military wants Kerry to win? (Or is the military essentially neutral, and its leaders just represent the best of America?)
Bush finally addressed the missing explosives yesterday (mostly to criticize Kerry for jumping to conclusions--like he didn't!). Again, from
The New York Times:
But Mr. Bush on Thursday did not address a critical issue raised by the discovery of the missed explosives: why American forces were not alerted to the existence of a huge cache of explosives, even though the atomic energy agency and American officials had publicly discussed the threat it posed, and knew its exact location.
But wait--the "weapons of mass destruction" were the reason (one of many, changing all the time) we were hell-bent on toppling Saddam (or, at least, his statue).
You would have thought we'd secure any and all weapons dumps--we knew where they were, thanks to the U.N. inspectors---at the same time we secured the oil fields. Maybe even before we secured the oil fields.
But we didn't.
Only two reasons make sense:
One, they weren't really important.
Two, however important they were, we just didn't have enough soldiers to fight Saddam's troops and, at the same time, protect Iraq's most troublesome assets.
Loose Canon tells us it's not a disaster. Two-day old, completely discredited news reports and hot air from conservative pundits are all the proof she needs to blow off the whole affair as liberal propaganda (oh, for the days of the Swift Boat Veterans, when LC wanted us to read the book and consider the possibility that there were two sides to the accounts of Kerry's heroism)
. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal--and it was a scandal, though hardly on the order of this wretched war--people joked about "Presidential kneepads." One might ask: How tall are LC and her cronies standing?
The Missing Explosives: An Easy Solution
There is a way to resolve this controversy--let's look at the satellite images we took of Iraq. Did the Russians spirit these explosives out of Iraq? Did a ragtag convoy of looters take the stuff as souvenirs?
The Pentagon knows. Colin Powell knows. Bush knows.
But they're silent on this point. All of them. And their silence convicts them.
So Where Are All The Troops?
Look at this Bush rally
. There are your troops. Lots of them. Well, maybe not. Looks like the Repubs used Photoshop to turn an Army of one into a crowd of many. Maybe they could figure out a way to use Photoshop to create a Potemkin army in Iraq.
Query to LC: Does this count as cheating? Would it count as cheating if Kerry did it?
Rudy Giuliani Just Lost the Military Vote
"America's Mayor"--just ask him--was on the "Today" Show this morning and, when asked about the missing explosives, reportedly said:
The actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?
Hey, isn't that criticizing the troops? Undermining their morale? Isn't that what Bush says Kerry does? If case you didn't think he was a jerk...file this away. (You can bet Hillary Clinton is laughing at Rudy's gigundo gaffe.)
When Johnny Comes Marching Home: Some Truth About the Troops
In his documentary, "Soldiers Pay"--to be aired Monday night on IFC, the Independent Film Channel--David O. Russell (he directed "Three Kings") interviews soldiers (pro and anti-war), Iraqis, Democrats and Republicans.
His takeaway:
The soldiers uniformly report how ill-equipped American forces are, not even having proper gas masks or water supply or flak vests - while private Halliburton contractors, former soldiers doing exactly what our troops are doing - earn huge salaries and enjoy vast privileges and the best equipment available.
Why Kerry Doesn't Have a 10-Point Lead
Here's an explanation from
Seymour Hersh, New Yorker writer and author of
Chain of Command:
I think one thing you have to face up to is the fact there are roughly 70 million people in America who do not believe in evolution--and those are Bush supporters.
Today's Action Item: Rush Limbaugh on NBC
So NBC seems to have hired Rush to bloviate on Election Night.
Media Mattersmakes the case against him:
Limbaugh has a track record of using extreme, hateful speech that has no place in civil discourse. To pick just a few examples from this year, as documented by Media Matters for America: Limbaugh compared the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib to a fraternity prank, telling America and an international audience on the taxpayer-funded American Forces Radio and Television Service that the torture was a "brilliant maneuver" and that the photos were "good old American pornography." Limbaugh further claimed that "the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country." He has also labeled Senator John Kerry a "stupid S.O.B." and a "gigolo."Limbaugh's racist commentary also makes him unsuitable for an appearance on your network. Just last month, Limbaugh, commenting on Reverend Jesse Jackson joining the Kerry campaign, stated: "The Kerry campaign has finally gotten a chocolate chip," sparking outrage in the African American community. On March 26, Limbaugh said: "Hugo, Cesar -- whatever. A Chavez is a Chavez. We've always had problems with them." The talk show host also claimed: "[T]ruce is an old Arabic word. Goes way, way back in Islamic-Arabic culture, and it means, 'We will get you later.'"
Limbaugh's sexist commentary is beyond the pale as well. Last spring, Limbaugh said that women "actually wish" for sexual harassment. Limbaugh shared with listeners his "pet name" for the National Organization for Women (NOW): "National Association of Gals" (his acronym: "NAG"), claiming that the "militant feminists" who make up the "NAGs" "aren't determining who wins elections. White men are."
What can we do? Just what we did to Sinclair Broadcasting. In this case, write to Neil Shapiro, head of NBC News--
neal.shapior@nbcuni.com
Here's a draft of a message you might want to send:
Surely there is a genuine, thoughtful conservative you could hire to "balance" your Election Night coverage.If you hire Rush Limbaugh to do commentary for Election Night 2004, I won't watch NBC. I will, however, endeavor to learn who your advertisers are that night, and then I will boycott them--and tell them the reason why.
Halloween Fun
The Monster Slash
. Yes, a parody of that song. With the political angle you expect. (That liberal media!) But short. And--some would say--amusing.
Thought for Today
Come along, follow me, as I lead through the darkness.
As I provide just enough spark that we need, to proceed.
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength, come with me, and I won't steer you wrong.
Give your faith and your trust, as I guide us through the fog, to the light at the end of the tunnel
--Eminem, from "Mosh"
Eminem: The October Surprise
Americans of a certain age--boomers who lived through the Civil Rights years--feel a nostalgia for the music of that period that can't be easily shaken. Dylan, Baez, and their crew filled our hearts with commitment and hope and the promise of community; no one's come along since to write a new generation's "Masters of War" or "With God on Our Side."
Well, the new Dylan is here--and he's none other than Eminem.
Yeah, that guy. The potty-mouth rapper. Who just happens to have made some scorching CDs and one of 2002's better movies. And who, a week before the election, has released a new song ("Mosh") and a video. "Mosh" is making its way around the Internet as quickly as kids can hit the FORWARD button.
It should be. It's beyond exciting--I'm more turned on by this video than by any film I've seen this year. The graphics are chilly as old Fritz Lang movies, and the steady pounding of Eminem's music is just as Germanic. But then Eminem makes a thrilling turn--he bends fear of the evil Bush government into hope. How? Youth on the march. Kids taking to the steets. And ending up.....in the voting line.
A blogger's take
:
Mosh lets the world know that there is an army of us out there, and we're not going to be intimidated or silenced, and we're not going away.Mosh puts the thugs at the highest levels on notice: Not this time will you divide and conquer. Not this time will you have us knocking each other instead of knocking you out of power.
There's an undercurrent of resolve. You've felt it. Some people want to call it rage, and yes, there is some of that. But do you know what it really is? It's a fierce hope.
A fierce hope that the people still have it in them to take power back from those who've stolen it. A fierce hope that the people still care enough about each other to take up the arms of voter registration cards and ballots and fight. A fierce hope that the determination of millions will not... cannot be thwarted by the money and lies of a few.
Over the top? Not at all. "Mosh" is just that exciting. Listen for yourself--
right here--with your speakers cranked high.
And then, if you will, forward it to every kid who's registered to vote but might...you know....forget.
Laugh of the Day
From
the corrections column of the Wall Street Journal:
NEWS CORP.'S Fox News was incorrectly described in a page-one article Monday as being sympathetic to the Bush cause.
"The Jewish Vote"
You'd think it's a monolithic force--a closed-ranks cadre that asks only "Who's good for the Jews?" and always answers "The Democrats."
But wait, hasn't Bush given Israel more support than any President in history? Shouldn't he be the beneficiary of many Jewish votes--indeed, of "the Jewish vote"?
Apparently not,
says Peter Beinartin the Washington Post:
Early this year some Republicans boasted that Bush would realign Jewish American politics -- ending the community's 80-year love affair with the Democratic Party. In recent weeks, however, with polls showing most Jews planning to vote for John Kerry, the brash predictions have stopped. Jewish Democrats are poised to declare victory, to announce that Bush's overtures have come to naught.But that won't be true. Because while President Bush hasn't realigned the Jewish vote, he has done something even more intriguing: He has ended it.
History Disappears
Here's the opening page of Milan Kundera's "
Book of Laughter and Forgetting":
In February 1948, the Communist leader Klement Gottwald stepped out on the balcony of a Baroque palace in Prague to harangue hundreds of thousands of citizens massed in Old Town Square. That was a great turning point in the history of Bohemia. A fateful moment of the kind that occurs only once or twice a millennium.Gottwald was flanked by his comrades, with Clementis standing close to him. It was snowing and cold, and Gottwald was bareheaded. Bursting with solicitude, Clementis took off his fur hat and set it on Gottwald's head.
The propaganda section made hundreds of thousands of copies of the photograph taken on the balcony where Gottwald, in a fur hat and surrounded by his comrades, spoke to the people. On that balcony the history of Communist Bohemia began. Every child knew that photograph, from seeing it on posters and in schoolbooks and museums.
Four years later, Clementis was charged with treason and hanged. The propaganda section immediately made him vanish from history and, of course, from all photographs. Ever since, Gottwald has been alone on the balcony. Where Clementis stood, there is only the bare palace wall. Nothing remains of Clementis but the fur hat on Gottwald's head.
I thought of that passsage as I read about the "scrubbing" of the White House website on
Bradblog:
On Nov. 1, 2001 George W. Bush issued Executive Order #13233 which modified some of the measures of the "Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978", instituted in the wake of the Nixon Administration's legal imbroglio over which Presidential documents were private and which were public. The PRA, according to the National Archives, "changed the legal ownership of the official records of the President from private to public."In a bit of Orwellian irony that has now become all too recognizable for the Bush Administration, their Executive Order #13233 which modified that PRA, is not listed at all on the White House website page entitled "Executive Orders Issued by President Bush".
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Brad's piece tells how how many "inconvenient" events and comments have--like Clementis--"disappeared."
Visualize Winning
Here's another pick-me-upper going around in the best e-mail circles. It's called
Visualize Winning. Damned if it doesn't pack a wallop.
The Beauty Part
Mortally wounded, King Arthur was brought to the enchanted island of Avalon and placed on a golden bed. Enchanted, indeed--the island was always ruled by a woman, and all her followers were women.
On the cover photo of this CD, we see the back of a knight's helmet. Resting on his hand is a falcon. They look out over clouds and what seems like the rising sun to a strip of land in the distance--a goal so prized it might as well be Avalon, the paradise where the knight might find rest. And comfort. Even, perhaps, love.
Dreamy music. Sexy and soul-stirring all at once. The CD? Of course ---
Avalon,by Roxy Music.
Thought for Today
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
--Milan Kundera, from "
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting"
"I Can't Take It Any More"
So spoke Little Uptown (now two-and-a-half) this morning. She wasn't complaining about anything in particular--or anything at all. She was just quoting her mother, who is so fraught about the election it might become necessary to sedate her.
Mrs. Uptown's morning distress was, of course, the Republican reaction to the Big Story, the Only Story, the October Surprise (in reverse). I mean the 390 tons of gone-missing explosives that have hit the White House....no, I'm not going to say: like a bomb. Let's be kind: like a karmic ha-ha.
Here's the guy who says we're safer. But it's all words with this President (until it comes to tax cuts for the upper crust or forest cuts for big lumber-- then he's Action Man). For not only is he creating terrorists as surely as if he were running a terrorist factory, he's given them the weapons to use against us. Inspired by my Humvee metaphor of yesterday, a reader gives us some other ways to think about these 390 tons of death--"enough to sink 1,000 USS Coles, blow up 10,000 small buildings or make 20,000 to 40,000 roadside bombs."
Drudge and, briefly, CNN tried to whitewash Bush with a claim that these explosives disappeared before we toppled Saddam. But the very sources they cited punctured that story before the news cycle ended. This reduces Bush to calling Kerry a liberal and Cheney, now very much out of his crypt, describing Iraq as
"a remarkable success story to date when you look at what's been accomplished overall."
Loose Canon
, who I prayed would duck this one, has outdone herself today. For her, the explosives are a liberal media plot to torpedo Bush--a plot as misguided as the failed CBS exposure of Bush's National Guard service. Reading LC, I really can't be sure if she thinks there were ever any explosives at al Qaaqaa.
Not to bash a defenseless colleague, but LC's position reveals a psychological construct that's worth pointing out--the total denial that is the hallmark of this President and his most passionate supporters. There's no such thing as a fact with these people; for them, journalism is just opinion with the qualfiers left out. Unless the President or Bob Novak or David Brooks or Hannity or Coulter or Peggy Noonan says it. Then it's gospel truth.
The collision of fact and fantasy is never a happy one. That is why
The Consumer Confidence Indexdropped 3.9 points to 92.8. (No President seeking re-election has ever won when this number dips below 99.) The influential conservative pundit
Andrew Sullivan has just endorsed Kerry. And
The Cleveland Plain Dealerendorses no one--which is almost as good as an endorsement for Kerry.
All of this is bad, bad news for George Bush.
Am I wrong to be guardedly optimistic--to think that those people who have left their homes and jobs to knock on doors in battleground states really might make the difference? That the Constitution will be preserved? That women who choose to have abortions won't have to take boats out to hospital ships anchored beyond the three-mile limit? Is it just possible that people who cling to minority doctrine and manufacture fear will discover that we've had enough of cant and government-generated terror?
Yes, it's possible. It didn't seem so all summer. But now it does. Which is, I suspect, why Mrs. Uptown can't take it any more--nothing makes you tremble like unaccustomed hope.
"Hello, Is This the Military Strategy Hall of Fame? Are You Accepting Nominations for 2004 Yet?"
Yes, David Rees--the best topical humorist we've got--has put out a new edition of
Get Your War On.
"War! What Is It Good For?"
Wrong question. Better to ask: Who is it good for? Some New York kids with attitude have made
a telling video. (Warning: R-rated language at the end.)
Who are these kids?
The same crewthat made a video this summer featuring Bush & Co. as "a posse of rich white prep school kids who think they're gangsta."
Faith of Our Fathers
What does George Bush really believe? Whatever his (rare) visitor seems to believe.
The New York Times reports:
In interviews with more than two dozen religious leaders who have met with the president, the startling thing that emerges is that Mr. Bush has managed to convince the most traditionalist believers of almost every stripe--Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and even Sikhs--that his beliefs are just like theirs. He charmed a group of Muslims when he said he could understand their concern about shutdowns of Islamic charities, because Christians are also required to tithe. He gave a bear hug to a visiting rabbi who had told the president in a meeting earlier that day that Israel was the Holy Land given to the Jews by God."The only Jews he doesn't seem to like," said another rabbi, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, "are the ones who aren't religious, because he can't understand them." Above all, Mr. Bush appears to have faith in faith.
"I Believe in President Bush"
Thomas F. Schaller
explains what "believing" in the President really means:
I believe we have enough troops on the ground in Iraq to ensure stability. I believe the rising American fatality rates, the rising casualty rates, and the rising American share of those coalition fatalities and casualties testify to the undeniable progress we're making there. I believe it is inappropriate and traitorous, however, for the media to broadcast pictures of American flag-draped caskets returning from Iraq....I believe the best response against an Islamic fundamentalist network operating from a South Asian cave which used boxcutters to attack us is to invade a secular Arab dictator living in 11 palaces in a Middle Eastern country whose (supposed) weapon of choice was nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Domestically, I believe income tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are the solution to budget surpluses or deficits, high or low inflation, stable or unstable interest rates, expanding or shrinking trade deficits, widening or narrowing wealth gaps, increasing or decreasing poverty rates, rising or falling unemployment, prosperity or recession, wartime or peace...
The Beauty Part
Bruce Springsteen
, cutting up at the Vote for Change concert in Washington, D.C. Makes you dream of seeing him play at the Inaugural Ball in January. Or would you prefer Toby Keith?
Thought for Today
Let the President answer on high anarchy
Strap him with AK-47, let him go
Fight his own war, let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our soil
No more psychological warfare to trick us to think that we ain't loyal
If we don't serve our own country we're patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes, it's all lies, the stars and stripes
They've been swiped, washed out and wiped,
And Replaced with his own face, mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you'll know why, because I told you to fight
--just some of "Mosh," the new song by Eminem
Download it here.
"How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy, Mister Death?"
380 tons of ultra-deadly explosives goes missing in Iraq, and the official reaction from the White House is to slough this disaster--which occurred well over a year ago--onto the new Iraqi government, which didn't exist until late this spring and cannot possibly be responsible for it.
Oh, and the President--who really is concerned about your safety--"wants to find out what went wrong."
This is what happens when you don't read the papers--
what went wrong was in The New York Timesthis morning. What was in danger of going wrong was in International Atomic Energy Agency reports before the war. What was on the verge of going wrong was communicated to our government by the Iraqis shortly after the liberation.
So all that remains, really, is to give you some sense of the disaster that now afflicts us--and our children.
It took less than one pound of RDX explosives to blow up Pan Am 103 over Scotland. Stolen from a once-secure facility in Iraq was 380 tons--that is 760,000 pounds--of this stuff. That's more than 20 standard tractor trailers packed with explosives.
Let's try a home-grown analogy. The Cadillac Escalade weighs about 6,000 pounds. Imagine 160 Escalades made out of explosives. And then remember that it only takes a pound to bring down a jumbo jet--think how much damage an artful terrorist could do.....
This is the gift our government--the government once obsessed with WMDs--has given to Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists. (Much of it may have left Iraq, for all we know; we haven't bothered to secure the border.) And make no mistake--these explosives have been used against our soldiers. As
Juan Cole reports:
A lot of the roadside bombs that have killed hundreds of US troops and maimed thousands have been made of HMX and RDX, as suggested by how infrequently the guerrillas have blown themselves up in planting them. HMX and RDX are favored by terrorists because they are stable and will only explode via a blasting cap.
A monumental screw-up. Short of giving the insurgents nuclear weapons, it's hard to imagine what we could have done to top this. It obliterates all that comes before it.
It is a disaster of such magnitude that the mind resists it. No matter your politics, you think: "Okay, it's true, but it doesn't matter" or "We'll get this stuff back somehow." You do not think: Our swaggering empire, gorged on its own rhetoric, is now in greater danger than it's been since 9/11--and it's our fault. 100% our fault.
How anyone can now say he/she will vote for Bush because he's better equipped to make America "safer" boggles the mind. But you can be sure that pundits of small imagination and boundless ideological loyalty--pundits who preach faith over common sense--will do all they can to throw pixie dust in our eyes this week.
Kerry's slurping salsa before Communion and his odd belief that women should be in charge of their bodies--expect those really important issues to dominate the commentary of
Loose Canonand her ilk. Bet this gang won't even mention Iraq this week (unless it's to cheer our "progress" and slag the "liberal" press for undermining the troops). But one Catholic will--
Jimmy Breslin:
The Catholic bishops have a national issue, abortion. And this is what they want of a nation that has itself in a war that we appear to be losing. That is some commander in chief, this Bush. It looks like we're losing to Iraq. We come with unlimited bravery and planes and tanks and artillery and the people in Iraq run around in rags and sandals and they are winning. Nobody does well in the other guy's neighborhood. But we are against abortions.
Other pundits will, this week, have their own one-note trumpets. They all play the same tune: fear, hate, divisiveness, self-interest.
We can fault Kerry, if we must, for not raising the standard higher, for not sounding a battle cry so inspiring that we greet each other on the street with pumped fists and high fives and the sense that we will soon have America back. We can fault him for caution, for choosing the wrong wife, for all the silly and petty "flaws" that this gutter campaign has "revealed."
But if we're going to fault Kerry for "sins" so small they're not even misdemeanors, then we really ought--in the much-abused name of "fairness"--to pump up the rhetoric on the other side. What Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Powell have done in Iraq isn't a "mistake." It's not "deliberate deception." It's incompetence on crucial matters of national security on a scale so grand--so threatening to the safety of Americans in Iraq and at home--that we ought to call it what it has now, finally, been shown to be.
Criminal negligence. Dereliction of duty. And, just possibly, treason.
"We're All Wearing the Blue Dress Now"
You want to influence lots of your fellow Americans in this last week before the election?
Consider freeway blogging.
Who Does Your Favorite Celeb Support?
Can't be serious all the time. Who does Christie Brinkley want to be President? And Pierce Brosnan? And Charlize Theron?
Check the political celebrity register.
Film Fun
For whatever reason, I'm seeing a sudden burst of online creativity. Check out two clever commercials:
Threats to Marriageand
Permission.
And for those who like their politics spicy (that's code for "sexy"), these
flag-waving, Bible-thumping girlsare waiting for you....
That Wolf Commercial
You just knew this was coming:
Wolf Packs for Truth.
Thought for Today
The Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security are not going to be involved in the campaign.
--
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, on August 10, 2004. (He is currently touring the country, appearing at "public events"
in the 17 most hotly contested states.)
Weekends are for...Movies
Admit it. If the election were held today, you'd be thrilled. You've had enough. The last thing you want is one more person talking at you.
Swami would love to indulge you. If he could, he'd bug out now and start phoning voters in Pennsylvania. But his editors at Beliefnet pay him the Big Bucks to Preach to the Choir and Confront the Unconverted. So he has to fill this space. What to do?
Got it! Remember in elementary school, when the teacher didn't want to teach? The King of the Nerds would wheel the AV cart in and you'd watch a 30-minute movie--usually
"The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,"if memory serves.
So...let's watch some film, shall we?
"My Brother Died Looking for Those Weapons"
A few weeks ago, Swami published
a letter from Brooke Campbell, whose brother was killed in Iraq. She urged Americans not to vote for George Bush. "My brother," she said, "would not be pleased."
You may recall, at a black-tie dinner in Washington, the President made a joke about the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.
The President now shares the stage with Ms. Campbell
in a new commercial.
Dances with Wolves
In the Bush campaign's latest commercial
, we're in the forest. But these woods aren't "lovely, dark and deep."
Born in the USA
Bruce Springsteen delivers
what he calls "my public service announcement."
The Amazing Disappearing Website
So the President didn't really spend much time thinking about Osama. Once you could see him saying that on the White House website. But...now you see it, now you don't.
Here are interesting Bush momentsthat have been "scrubbed" from the White House website.
Don't Worry About a Draft--Unless You Need a Doctor
No draft. Read his lips. Or, for the truth,
read The New York Times:
The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelms the military's medical corps.In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted.
Don't Forget to Say "Merci"
Guess who made the flu vaccine that you'll be getting?
France.
A French pharmaceutical company will supply 2.6 million extra anti-flu shots to help the United States cope with a vaccine shortage that has sparked public concern, a top U.S. health official said.Tommy Thompson, Health and Human Services Secretary for the United States, said Aventis-Pasteur, a division of French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis, will raise the number of vaccines available in the US to 58 million in January.
The doses represent more than half of what the United States needs.
The Beauty Part
Swami never does the bait-and-switch, substituting pain for pleasure. But Swami has been thinking all day about Brooke Campbell and her brother, and the way she has chosen to honor his memory. (Some days Swami can't find a stand-up guy to save his soul; Swami never has trouble finding a stand-up woman.)
Did you click on Brooke Campbell's commercial (above)? If not, would you now? As a favor to Swami? Better: as a favor to your soul.
Here you go.
Thought for Today
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
--Saul Bellow
The Fun Stuff
Advertisement
Advertisement
|
About Beliefnet Our mission is to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness. More about Beliefnet. |
Help |
Media Kit |
Subscribe |
Legal Copyright © Beliefnet, Inc. and/or its licensors. All rights reserved. Use of this site is subject to Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy. Constructed by Beliefnet. |
Advertisement
|
| beliefnet |
Comments
Add Comment »To comment on this content you must be a registered user:
Sign-Up or Log-In