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The son of the fortieth president of the United States takes a hard look at the son of the forty-first and does not like what he sees
by Ron Reagan
It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a part. As a result of all these displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual channels that old hands from the days of Bush the Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have had just about enough of what the Bush administration was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration of that highest of American prerogatives and the most deeply cherished American freedom: dissent.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0804-14.htm
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"The greatest price of not participating in politics is being governed by your inferiors." Plato
Brett Mann
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
There is a pathology at work in America, deliberately fueled by the exploitation of fear by the Busheviks, and festered by the complicit silence of the corporate media.
As Dubya himself said yesterday, " [Our enemies] never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we'' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/s ... 52,00.html). Amen, Georgie boy. Just as 'nobody died when Clinton lied', people keep dying as long as Bush keeps lying.
-Randy from RI
That was hilarious !!
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"Arrogance in Politics is unacceptable"
Jim Callaghan
Minden, Ontario
705-286-1860
www.misterc.ca
In his March 17, 2003 address preparing America for the Iraq invasion, President Bush stated unequivocally that there was an Iraq-al Qaeda nexus and that there was “no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
In the context of what we now know the White House knew at the time, Bush was deliberately dishonest. The intelligence community repeatedly told the White House there were many deep cracks in its case for war. The president’s willingness to ignore such warnings and make these unequivocal statements proves the administration was intentionally painting a black-and-white picture when it knew the facts merited only gray at best.
That has meant severe consequences for all Americans. Financially, U.S. taxpayers have shelled out more than $166 billion for the Iraq war, and more will soon be needed. Geopolitically, our country is more isolated from allies than ever, with anti-Americanism on the rise throughout the globe.
And we are less secure. A recent U.S. Army War College report says “the invasion of Iraq was a diversion from the more narrow focus on defeating al Qaeda.” U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi put it this way: “The war in Iraq was useless, it caused more problems than it solved, and it brought in terrorism.”
These statements are borne out by the facts: The International Institute of Strategic Studies in London reports al Qaeda is now 18,000 strong, with many new recruits joining as a result of the war in Iraq. Not coincidentally, the White House recently said the American homeland faces an imminent threat of a terrorist attack from a still-active al Qaeda operation in Afghanistan. Yet, the administration actually moved special forces out of Afghanistan in 2002 to prepare for an invasion of Iraq. Because of this, we face the absurd situation whereby we have no more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan hunting down those who directly threaten us, yet have 140,000 troops in Iraq—a country that was not a serious menace before invasion.
Of course, it is those troops who have it the worst. Our men and women in uniform are bogged down in a quagmire, forced to lay down life and limb for a lie.
To be sure, neoconservative pundits and Bush administration hawks will continue to blame anyone but the White House for these deceptions. They also will say intelligence gave a bit of credence to some of the pre-war claims, and that is certainly true.
But nothing can negate the clear proof that President Bush and other administration official officials vastly overstated the intelligence they were given. They engaged in a calculated and well-coordinated effort to turn a war of choice in Iraq into a perceived war of imminent necessity.
And we are all left paying the price.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.p ... 04/1614046
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0804-11.htm
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/19465/
http://members.ij.net/rex/pledgewonschik.html
And read amazing arguments now before the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time ever debunking the "Roman" salute myth. Wonschik v. United States is bigger news than the Elk Grove case and is at the same url.
The graphic shows the original Pledge of Allegiance on the left and on the right it shows the salute of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. It explains that the pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag is the origin of the salute of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
The Elk Grove court case was a blessing in disguise, by providing a temporary delay. It allows the fight to widen against the entire Pledge, not just two words. New court litigation is being spearheaded as a pro bono service to the public to liberate Americans from government pushing the totalitarian Pledge and government schools.
The Wonschik court case will be a blockbuster sequel to the Elk Grove case. The Elk Grove case led to scary discoveries about the Pledge's pedigree. It led to the historic news-breaking discovery that exposed the Pledge as the origin of the salute of the monstrous National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis). It is a myth that the Pledge's original straight-arm salute is an ancient Roman salute. http://members.ij.net/rex/pledgesalute.html
The history of the Pledge has been suppressed because it is so frightening. The Pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a self-proclaimed National Socialist in the U.S., who wanted a government takeover of education to produce an "industrial army" for the authoritarian vision portrayed in his cousin Edward Bellamy's book "Looking Backward." The Bellamy cousins promoted national socialism worldwide for decades. Their acts resulted in racist and segregated government schools that lasted through WWII and into the 1960's, setting a horrid example for hate-spewing groups worldwide.
Another school year has started and a webpage is working to repeal laws that require teachers to lead a robotic chant of the Pledge of Allegiance in the oddball states where government schools are required by law to begin each day with the Pledge, after the ringing of a bell, like Pavlov's lapdogs of the state. http://members.ij.net/rex/pledge_lawyer.html
Another url helps students learn that the Pledge was written by a National Socialist and the rest of the Pledge's true terrifying history:
http://members.ij.net/rex/stopthepledge.html
For more mind-boggling photos and articles about the pledge see http://members.ij.net/rex/pledge2.html
The only website that provides the scary original speech given by Francis Bellamy for the debut of his Pledge of Allegiance is http://members.ij.net/rex/pledgespeech.html
There is also the only website that collects and displays true historic photographs of the original Pledge of Allegiance (with the straight-arm salute). http://members.ij.net/rex/pledge2.html
And fan mail praising the expose' of the totalitarian Pledge of Allegiance is at http://members.ij.net/rex/pledge_heart.html
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Life is a one way trip, make it a good one.
Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."
http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/vi ... s-virginia