We Are the Change

Memorial Day Editorial

Nothing young Americans can do in life is more honorable than offering themselves for the defense of their nation. It requires great selflessness and sacrifice, and quite possibly the forfeiture of life itself. On Memorial Day 2005, we gather to remember all those who gave us that ultimate gift. Because they are so fresh in our minds, those who have died in Iraq make a special claim on our thoughts and our prayers.

In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.

The "smoking gun," as some call it, surfaced on May 1 in the London Times. It is a highly classified document containing the minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting at 10 Downing Street in which Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair on talks he'd just held in Washington. His mission was to determine the Bush administration's intentions toward Iraq.

At a time when the White House was saying it had "no plans" for an invasion, the British document says Dearlove reported that there had been "a perceptible shift in attitude" in Washington. "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The (National Security Council) had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

It turns out that former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill were right. Both have been pilloried for writing that by summer 2002 Bush had already decided to invade.

Walter Pincus, writing in the Washington Post on May 22, provides further evidence that the administration did, indeed, fix the intelligence on Iraq to fit a policy it had already embraced: invasion and regime change. Just four days before Bush's State of the Union address in January 2003, Pincus writes, the National Security Council staff "put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims" about Saddam Hussein's WMD programs. Read more...

Are You a Republican

Here is a fun little test you can take to find out where you fall on the political spectrum.

I came out with this result:

You're a complete liberal, utterly without a trace of Republicanism. Your strength is as the strength of ten because your heart is pure.

Take the test and report back with your result.

Judge Didn't Get the Memo That We Are Supposed to Have Freedom of Religion in the U.S.

An Indianapolis father is appealing an order by
Cale J. Bradford, chief judge of the Marion Superior Court, that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

The parents (Thomas E. Jones Jr. and his ex-wife, Tammie U. Bristol ) practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth.

The parents' Wiccan beliefs came to Bradford's attention in a confidential report prepared by the Domestic Relations Counseling Bureau, which provides recommendations to the court on child custody and visitation rights. Jones' son attends a local Catholic school. But Jones, disputes the bureau's findings, saying his son attended Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis as a non-Christian.

"There is a discrepancy between Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones' lifestyle and the belief system adhered to by the parochial school. . . . Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones display little insight into the confusion these divergent belief systems will have upon (the boy) as he ages," the bureau said in its report.

"This was done without either of us requesting it and at the judge's whim," said Jones, who has organized Pagan Pride Day events in Indianapolis. "It is upsetting to our son that he cannot celebrate holidays with us, including Yule, which is winter solstice, and Ostara, which is the spring equinox." The ICLU and Jones assert the judge's order tramples on the parents' constitutional right to expose their son to a religion of their choice. Both say the court failed to explain how exposing the boy to Wicca's beliefs and practices would harm him.

"When they read the order to me, I said, 'You've got to be kidding,' " said Alisa G. Cohen, an Indianapolis attorney representing Jones. "Religion comes up most frequently when there are disputes between the parents. There are lots of cases where a mom and dad are of different faiths, and they're having a tug of war over the kids," Kenneth J. Falk, the ICLU's legal director, said. "This is different: Their dispute is with the judge. When the government is attempting to tell people they're not allowed to engage in non-mainstream activities, that raises concerns."

One Real Reason Why the U.S. is Hated by So Many

The Bush administration recently tried to blame Newsweek for hatred of America in the Muslim world. I’m reminded of the SNL bit where Dana Carvey’s church lady character says “Well, isn't that special” while screwing her face around. It seems everyone, except the most devout Busheviks, knows that the real reason for the tattered reputation and hatred of the U.S. around the world is the unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

"Louie, Louie" Raunchy Lyrics

The Benton Harbor MI, school superintendent, Paula Dawning has prohibited the school band from playing a 1950's favorite, "Louie, Louie", because of "raunchy lyrics". I was never really sure exactly what the lyrics were, so I looked them up. Here they are, you be the judge.

"Louie Louie, me gotta go. Louie Louie, me gotta go. A fine little girl, she wait for me. Me catch the ship across the sea. I sailed the ship all alone. I never think I'll make it home. Louie Louie, me gotta go . Three nights and days we sailed the sea. Me think of girl constantly. On the ship, I dream she there. I smell the rose in her hair. Louie Louie, me gotta go. Me see Jamaican moon above. It won't be long me see me love. Me take her in my arms and then I tell her I never leave again. Louie Louie, me gotta go." (By Richard Berry. Copyright 1957-1963 by Limax Music Inc.)

Second Guessing Franklin D. Roosevelt

In his recent European trip, President Bush said Franklin D. Roosevelt's Yalta agreement was "one of the greatest wrongs of history" which allowed the Soviet Union to impose its rule across Central and Eastern Europe. He continued, "We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability,"
It's not likely Bush actually wrote this speech, he probably doesn't know much about the history of the time. Whoever wrote Bush's words, his statements are devoid of historical reality. If the U.S. had tried to push the Soviets out of Europe, they would have kicked our ass. The realities are:

• At the end of the war, the Soviets had 7 million soldiers and 40 thousand tanks in Eastern Europe.
• The Soviet T-34 tanks were superior to our Shermans; The T-34 tanks ate Panzers and it was said that it took ten Shermans to take out a Panzer.
• We were still fighting Japan in the Pacific and didn't know how long that might take.
• This is before we had the bomb.
• The national will to extend the fighting into Eastern Europe did not exist.
• FDR knew, if push came to shove, the Soviets could take all of Europe and we couldn't stop them.

Yes, you can second guess FDR, but he secured freedom in Western Europe which is more that a belligerent "get out of Dodge" policy would have achieved. Also Bush is wrong in claiming the Yalta agreement gave the Soviets Eastern Europe. The Yalta agreement required the Soviets to have elections in the Eastern European countries with both communist and capitalist parties represented. The fact is that the Soviets reneged on the agreement and we couldn't do anything about it.
The way I see it, Bush has at least three ulterior motives in attacking FDR:

1. He wants to rewrite history to justify his own preventive war doctrine.
2. He wants to smear FDR, and by extension his policies, to aid his dismantling of Social Security.
3. He wants to rehabilitate the image of his hero, Joseph McCarthy, who accused FDR of being a communist and the Yalta agreement as giving in to the communists.

Ironically, it was Germany that had the preventive war doctrine in World War II. The war began with Hitler's preventive invasion of Poland.  German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted and convicted for planning and waging what is now called "preventive war" in international law.  It means attacking another country when that country is no imminent threat to the attacking nation.

The Evolution of Theory

In common vernacular, "theory" often means a guess or a hunch. In science, theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. The longer a scientific theory stands the test of time, the more solid and accepted it becomes. Thus theories like evolution, general relativity or gravity that have been around for a long time and have withstood repeated attempts to disprove them become accepted as essentially true. I use the word “essentially” since science can never know things perfectly. For instance with the theory of gravitation there is a lot we don’t know: Is gravity a wave phenomenon? Does mass curve space? Is there a graviton particle? While there is a lot we don’t know about gravity, that doesn’t mean that gravity isn’t real. Because of its’ religious implications, evolution has withstood more attempts at disproving it than any theory ever, yet it keeps getting stronger and more widely accepted since the failed attempts at disproof only serve to show evolution as the best model to account for all the observed facts.
Evolution is the only theory that explains all the observed facts and is also predictive. For instance evolution along with plate tectonics explains why all mammals indigenous to Australia have no placentas. Australia split off from the landmass of the other continents before placentas evolved. Even before DNA was discovered, evolution predicted that life closer on the evolutionary tree would have more similarities in genetic makeup and that is exactly what DNA evidence has shown. Creation beliefs can’t explain the observed facts. To explain why there are no placental mammals indigenous to Australia, the only solution creation can come up with is: God did it that way to fool scientists. So we are supposed to believe that God gave us brains to figure things out with and then planted false clues to fool us. That makes God sound more like a ten year old prankster, rather that a supreme being.

Finally, a Republican with the Kahunas and Integrity to Tell the Truth

Here is what Paul Roberts (conservative Republican and former assistant Treasury Secretary under Reagan) has to say about Bush.

"George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States.

America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable.

As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush’s far more serious lies. Bush’s lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America’s reputation, caused 1 billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting.

America’s reputation is so damaged that..." Read More...

The Bush Rule of Journalism

This article by Robert Parry was written in January of 2005 yet is even more relevant now in light of the Bush attack on Newsweek.

“Don’t take on the Bushes” is becoming an unwritten rule in American journalism. Reporters can make mistakes in covering other politicians and suffer little or no consequence, but a false step when doing a critical piece on the Bushes is a career killer.

The latest to learn this hard lesson are four producers at CBS, who demonstrated inadequate care in checking out memos purportedly written by George W. Bush’s commanding officer in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s. For this sloppiness, CBS fired the four, including Mary Mapes who helped break last year’s Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

A painful irony for the CBS producers was that the central points of the memos – that Bush had blown off a required flight physical and was getting favored treatment in the National Guard – were already known, and indeed, were confirmed by the commander’s secretary in a follow-up interview with CBS. But even honest mistakes are firing offenses when the Bushes are involved.

By contrast, journalists understand that they get a free shot at many other politicians who don’t have the protective infrastructure that surrounds the Bush family. Take for example the case of reporters for the New York Times and the Washington Post who misquoted Al Gore about his role in the Love Canal toxic waste clean-up. Read more...

The 1,346th Day

Today is the 1,346th day since the attacks of 9/11. That is the same length of time from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the end of WWII on V-J Day. (Dec 7, 1941 to Aug 24, 1945) See this Angry Bear article.

What have we accomplished?