When I began this blog in 2001, I was appalled by President Bush's headlong rush to an illegal war (we were not in fact under attack). As time wore on and Bush began his assault on the Constitution and any people bold enough to criticize, I believed that "the republic is endangered more by actions of our own government than by those of any terrorist." With the election of a high-minded, compassionate, intelligent man like Barack Obama, my fears have ceased.
"Honor them with peace, not war"
United for Peace
Sunday, September 07, 2003
Over at the Smirking Chimp there's an essay by Dave Lindorff that wonders why the American electorate is asleep at the switch and doesn't call George Bush on his lies, misstatements, malaprops and megagoofs.
The bigtime screwups are listed as these:
Lindorff doesn't mention the assault on our civil liberties. Taken together, these failures-- or deliberate policy shifts, actually -- are terrifying. We are well underway toward a fascist dictatorship, and people seem oblivious. I can't believe they wouldn't care if they noticed.
It's stunning, too, how the news media ignore Bush's failures while agonizing over how much to reveal of Arnold Schwarenegger's past embarassing public statements.
Lindorff lays part of the problem at the feet of the media, "which has grown far more concentrated, and far less combative over the last decade or so," and part at the feet of the Democratic Party, noting that aside from Kucinich, Moseley and Sharpton the so-called 'leading' candidates "-have refused to seriously challenge the policies of the Bush administration" and are just rolling over and playing dead.
The 'last 10 years,' let it be noted, included most of the GOP assault on the presidence in the form of investigation and impeachment of the Democratic upstart who stole George Sr.'s second term. The media played along with them to the bitter end. I think the reason is the small handful who owns the media now . ...Read the rest
Copyright © 2001-03 Pam Shorey
(except the specific sources credited in quotes)
Call him on it, folks!
Over at the Smirking Chimp there's an essay by Dave Lindorff that wonders why the American electorate is asleep at the switch and doesn't call George Bush on his lies, misstatements, malaprops and megagoofs.
...we have an unelected president in Washington who has, on multiple fronts, made the ultimate hash of domestic and foreign policy, and yet he is still considered to be likely to win re-election next year....
...some of the Democratic candidates, notably Kucinich, but also Carol Moseley-Braun and Al Sharpton, are taking real aim at the Bush adminstration's follies, foibles and falsehoods, and in Kucinich's case, are proposing a set of real, progressive alternatives. The corporate media, however, ignore them, casting them as minor candidate
The bigtime screwups are listed as these:
- Bush led this nation into a bloody and costly war of aggression based upon blatant lies, self-deception and ignorance, a war that America cannot win, and that the country now cannot easily walk away from. This war has killed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and hundreds of Gis, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, is tying up the entire U.S. military, and has, like Vietnam before it, demonstrated not the might but the impotence of American military power.
- He has put the government and the economy on a path to bankruptcy so serious that even the International Monetary Fund, normally a docile handmaiden of U.S. hegemony, has criticized as irresponsible and unsustainable.
- He has abrogated a host of treaties which, painstakingly negotiated over decades, had been leading, albeit stumblingly, to a safer, more humane world.
- He has launched an unprecedented assault on the environment, undermining global efforts to confront the threat of global warming, opening up remaining U.S. old growth forests to commercial exploitation, and gutting clean air and clean water regulations.
Lindorff doesn't mention the assault on our civil liberties. Taken together, these failures-- or deliberate policy shifts, actually -- are terrifying. We are well underway toward a fascist dictatorship, and people seem oblivious. I can't believe they wouldn't care if they noticed.
It's stunning, too, how the news media ignore Bush's failures while agonizing over how much to reveal of Arnold Schwarenegger's past embarassing public statements.
Lindorff lays part of the problem at the feet of the media, "which has grown far more concentrated, and far less combative over the last decade or so," and part at the feet of the Democratic Party, noting that aside from Kucinich, Moseley and Sharpton the so-called 'leading' candidates "-have refused to seriously challenge the policies of the Bush administration" and are just rolling over and playing dead.
The 'last 10 years,' let it be noted, included most of the GOP assault on the presidence in the form of investigation and impeachment of the Democratic upstart who stole George Sr.'s second term. The media played along with them to the bitter end. I think the reason is the small handful who owns the media now . ...Read the rest
Palema
7:14 PM
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Copyright © 2001-03 Pam Shorey
(except the specific sources credited in quotes)
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