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Sat 29 Oct, 2005 03:02 pm
The wheels are falling off. The carriage is headed towards a cliff. The passengers are beginning only beginning to get scared. And where is the driver? Or in our case, where is the president? He is absent without leave, once more leaving the country in the lurch.
This isn't about partisan politics. It isn't about scoring political points. It doesn't matter what politics or ideology you have. Look around. This country is in serious straits and there is no sign of adult super version.
William Odom, the head of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, describes Iraq as the "worst strategic debacle in American history." We've committed American lives and over $250 billion in taxpayers' money to an occupation in which we are taking sides in a civil war against the Sunnis, while our allies, the Shiites, are creating a state in the South where most of the oil is, that is ruled by Mullahs allied to Iran, charter member of the "axis of evil," fighting a civil war, largely against the Sunnis. As Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel and former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell concludes, "We have courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran. And if something comes along that is truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence."
In New Orleans, the cronyism and incompetence were lethal during the storm. But now the survivors are being abandoned once more by the so-called reconstruction. There is still no plan to return people to their homes. No plan to give them priority to rebuild their neighborhoods. No administrator to coordinate various government programs. The government is giving out literally hundreds of millions in no bid contracts to corporations from outside the region, while the city of New Orleans lays off 3000 badly needed public employees. And the Republican Congress is pushing to cut catastrophic aid for poor people - Medicaid, housing, and food stamps to pay for catastrophic aid to the survivors of Katrina - even while it nods at another $70 billion tax break for the wealthiest Americans. They are not making sense.
In the economy, the bankruptcy of Delphi, the largest automobile parts manufacturer in America, will likely be followed by the bankruptcy of Ford and possibly General Motors. These companies are giving executives new bonuses and severance packages, even while they are abandoning promises made to former workers on their pensions, and demanding that current workers take a pay cut of two-thirds - from some $27 an hour to $10 an hour. These are workers with families, mortgages, kids in college. Few working families can absorb that kind of pay cut and sustain expenses that they are already committed to.
And the president? He thus far has refused to do anything, failed to call a summit to figure out how to save Detroit. And worse than that, he keeps peddling the same trade deals that have racked up the worst trade deficits in the history of man, made America into the world's largest debtor, and insured that our children will work hours a week to repay the Chinese and Japanese central bankers that are holding an ever larger portion of our debt. This does not make sense.
The president, of course, hails the economy as successful, and says his economic plan is working. Profits are up, CEO salaries are up. But wages are down and health care is getting rolled back, and pensions are being abandoned. His economic plan is working for the few, not the many. His top end tax cuts are creating more jobs in China than in America.
If we rolled back tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, we could use some of that money to invest in alternative energy and energy efficiency and make this country less dependent on foreign oil and Americans less vulnerable to rising gas prices. Instead the president and the Congress keep lavishing more benefits on the oil companies that are already wallowing in record profits. They are not making sense.
Partisans say, well Democrats aren't much better. And in fact, Democrats haven't had a lot to say. But they can control nothing with the right in control of both houses of Congress and the White House. We only have one president. We look to him for leadership and to the Congress to keep his aides honest and accountable. Instead he's on vacation and the Congress is out to lunch.
I devote my energy trying to rouse the poor and the afflicted, urging them to stand up work harder, stay responsible and fight for justice. But given the reality we face, isn't it time for conservatives and Republicans to call their own president and their own majorities in Congress to account? This country needs a new direction and we can't wait to the elections of 2008 to begin.
Jesse Jackson
Yeah and Iran wants to wipe Israel from the map. The Iran-Contra affair makes me wonder how is Iran connected with the Republicans.
And don't forget that we also supported Sadam Hussein in his war against Iran (even the gassing).
I can't imagine any president or administration worse than the present one. Cronyism, disception, profiteering, corruption, conspiracy, arrogance, class warfare, military (imperial) adventurism. You name it.
Oh, I forgot: gross incompetence and lack of concern for the welfare of Americans.
talk72000 wrote:Yeah and Iran wants to wipe Israel from the map. The Iran-Contra affair makes me wonder how is Iran connected with the Republicans.
Countries like Iran and Iraq like to attack Israel because their bombs don't reach the United States. I wonder if Iran would have made that statement if Rice and Bush hadn't been threatening hostile action against Iran. Everything Bush is doing backfires and he's only making the world a more dangerous place. Hillary is sure going to have to clean up a big mess when she's president.
We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.
We should all be in the streets demanding an end to this war.
This administration has obviously been less than forthright about our reasons or needs to go to war. But the lie continues. We need to establish a democracy in Iraq. Bullshit. We need to take out that evil despot. Bullshit. The WMD's......yeah right. You may or may not like Jesse Jackson, but it's hard to disagree with what he says. Over 2000 young men and women won't be celebrating the upcoming holidays this year because of this administration. May they rot in hell!
How many of these threads do we need?
Same ol' same ol'...
McG
Apparently that's what we're getting from this administration.................
The same ol' same ol'..............??
Prosecutor Should Dig Deeper
By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith
The Baltimore Sun
Sunday 30 October 2005
Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name has reaffirmed the basic American principle that even the highest government officials are subject to the rule of law. His charges represent the start of a revitalization of the institutions designed to maintain government under law. But that revitalization still has a long way to go.
As a prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald rightly brought charges where the law was clearest and the evidence most compelling. But the alleged crimes he is investigating are in essence the apparent cover-up operation for another possible set of crimes against national and international law. Why would I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby commit perjury and lie to FBI agents, as he is accused of doing?
The letters from Acting Attorney General James B. Comey appointing Mr. Fitzgerald delegated to him "all the authority of the attorney general" to investigate and prosecute "violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure."
We would argue that Mr. Comey's charge, based on the evidence Mr. Fitzgerald has uncovered, authorizes the special prosecutor to investigate the following:
Did top Bush administration officials deceive Congress? Several federal statutes make it a crime to lie to Congress. As Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York recently put it, "If, as mounting evidence is tending to show, administration officials deliberately deceived Congress and the American people, this would constitute a criminal conspiracy against the entire country."
Did top administration officials violate the U.S. Anti-Torture Act? The law makes torture and conspiracy to commit torture a crime. The former commander at Abu Ghraib prison, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, has stated that abusive techniques were "delivered with full authority and knowledge of the secretary of defense and probably [Vice President Dick] Cheney."
Did top administration officials violate the War Crimes Act? Passed by a Republican Congress in 1996, the law makes it a federal crime for any U.S. national to commit a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.
In a 2002 memo, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, urged that the United States "opt out" of the Geneva Conventions for the Afghan war on the grounds that opting out "substantially reduces the likelihood of prosecution under the War Crimes Act."
What was he worrying about? Did the special prosecutor find evidence that top Bush administration officials ordered or condoned the string of Geneva Conventions violations that run from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay and from the leveling of Fallujah to attacks on medical facilities?
Did top administration officials violate the War Powers Act? The law requires the president to present to Congress the basis for proposed U.S. military action. If the administration provided false information, is it guilty of violating the War Powers Act and, in effect, usurping the war powers given to Congress under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution?
Did top administration officials violate the U.N. Charter? U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said the U.S. attack on Iraq was "illegal." The conduct of the war has involved many breaches of internationally guaranteed protections of civilians. Did the special prosecutor find evidence of deliberate violation of U.S. treaty obligations, which under Article VI of the Constitution are the law of the land?
If the special prosecutor found evidence of violation of "any criminal laws," he is obliged to investigate and prosecute. Where the abuses he finds are not covered by existing federal law, they must be addressed by Congress, either by new laws or through the impeachment process.
The Bush administration's alleged abuses of national and international law are closely linked. The Valerie Plame affair was not just a random incident, but rather an effort to silence critics attempting to halt an aggressive war whose initiation and conduct appear to have violated both national and international law. Indeed, aggressive war, illegal conduct of war and torture are nothing less than war crimes.
Investigation and, if warranted, prosecution of such crimes is crucial for the revitalization of democratic government in our country. To let such flagrant flouting of the rule of law go unpunished would be to invite government officials to subvert our Constitution again.
Repudiating war crimes committed by high U.S. officials is also an essential starting point for repairing the damage done to our country's international relationships and reputation. There is no way to take the taint off our country for the abuses symbolized by Abu Ghraib without holding those responsible for them accountable.
Someone complained to me that the Bush administration acts as if it loves Iraqis more than the young men and women we send to die "for them". Then we rationalize the continuance of the war by saying that more americans must die in order to justify the deaths of those who have already perished and suffered horrible life-destroying injuries.
We did not go there, obviously, to eliminate a vicious tyrant. We have always supported him and his antics when we thought he served our interests.
We are in a time of official insanity and evil--not mention hypocrisy.
The truth has to continue to be told as often as necessary, until something gets done about it.
JLN, your remarks recall to mind Winston in 1984 . . .
Yes, Set. What was it called? Double think...speak?
Yes, and Winston's job was to rewrite history to conform to whatever the current party line was . . .
Hell of a nude scene in the movie of 1984.
Which movie? Was that in the Edmond O'Brien one or the later one, the dark sepia one with John Hurt?
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