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Wednesday, November 5, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"John Ashcroft is 350 years old. You know why? We saw him at a previous incarnation, Arthur Miller's Play, "The Crucible." Now you recall "The Crucible", the Salem witch hunts of the late 17th century. 1690, around there. Salem, Massachusetts, the women were accused of being terrorists. The witches. Here comes this evangelist, Reverend Parris, and that is John ashcroft, word for word. If you're not with me, you're against me. If you're not with the word of God, which I represent, You're consorting with the devil. The women were hanged, the ladies. John Ashcroft is 350 years old. Second oldest guy of our species next to Methusla."
- - Studs Terkel
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - NOVEMBER 5th
1968 -- US: Shirley Chisholm is first black woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress.
RHINO HERE:
On Monday, the u.s. senate voted to give the shrub gang everything it wanted; 87 BILLION U.S. Taxpayer Dollars. It went down with a voice vote and witnesses said there was only one voice that could be heard shouting NO! That voice was the Senior Senator from the great state of West Virginia; Robert C. Byrd. I offer his statements on the floor of the senate before the vote as today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE. But first...
I have featured the work of Amy Goodman and Democracy Now here on the blog before. If you haven't caught on to the fact that Amy is one of the true heroes of the day, I urge you to tune into her show which is available from many sources including Pacifica Radio affiliates & Free Speech TV.
http://www.democracynow.org
Yesterday, Any's guest was 91 year old legendary progressive hero, Studs Terkel who besides expressing his outrage that Senator Byrd's speech was not front page news on the N.Y. Times, was also speaking about his new book, "Hope Dies Last." You'll find below Amy's introduction of Studs and a link to the entire interview. These two living treasures together were enough to make the Rhino cry even at six thirty AM.
http://www.studsterkel.org
Hope Dies Last
An Hour with Legendary Broadcaster and Author, Studs Terkel
by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Tuesday, November 4th, 2003
Studs Terkel, 91, has worked as an activist, a civil servant, a labor organizer, an ad writer, a television actor, and a radio DJ, among many other occupations. But since the 1960s, he's been particularly well-known as a world-class interviewer, a writer and radio personality who draws celebrities and, far more often, average citizens into sharing their oral histories.
For 45 years, Studs Terkel spent an hour each weekday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conversing with famous and not-so-famous guests and with a loyal audience of Chicago listeners. With his unique style of oral history on subjects such as race, war and employment, Terkel has spent decades interviewing Americans across the country, creating intimate portraits of everyday life and chronicling changing times through this century.
Hope Dies Last is the latest in the series of American oral histories he's been publishing since his first book, Division Street: America appeared in 1967. In the thirty-six years between then and now, he's covered, in separate books, the Great Depression, World War II, race relations, working, the American Dream, and aging. Hope Dies Last features interviews with presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, Voices in the Wilderness founder Kathy Kelly, Tom Hayden and many others...
READ THE INTERVIEW AT:
Hope Dies Last
8:29:32 AM 
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SENATOR ROBERT BYRD's Address OnThe Floor Of The U.S. Senate, 11/3/03
It has been said many times on the floor of this senate that a vote for this supplemental is a vote for our troops in Iraq. The implication of that statement is that a vote against the supplemental is a vote against our troops. I find that twisted logic to be both irrational and offensive.
To my mind, backing a flawed policy with a flawed appropriations bill hurts our troops in Iraq more than it helps them. Endorsing and funding a policy that does nothing to relieve American troops in Iraq is not in my opinion a Support The Troops Measure. Our troops in Iraq and elsewhere in the world have no stronger advocate than Robert C. Byrd, Senior Senator from the great state of West Virginia, where mountaineers are always free. I support our troops. I have been supporting our troops for more than 50 years, as a member of the Congress of the United States. I pray for the safety of our troops. I will continue to fight for a coherent policy that brings real help, not just longer deployments and empty sloganeering to American forces in Iraq.
The supplemental package before us does nothing to internationalize the occupation of Iraq, and therefore, it is not, I say not, a vote for the troops in Iraq. We had a chance in the beginning to win international consensus on dealing with Iraq, but the administration was in too big a hurry. The White House was in too big a hurry. The administration squandered that opportunity, when the President gave the back of his hand to the United Nations and preemptively invaded Iraq, under this administration's Iraq policy endorsed in the President's so-called victory on this supplemental. It is American troops who are walking the mean streets of Baghdad. It is American troops who are succumbing in growing numbers to a common and all-too-deadly cocktail of anti-American bombs and bullets in Iraq.
Mr. President, the terrible violence in Iraq on Sunday, the deaths of 16 soldiers in the downing of an American helicopter, the killing of another soldier in a bomb attack, and the deaths of two American civilian contractors in a mine explosion is only the latest evidence that the administration's lack of post-war planning for Iraq is producing an erratic, chaotic situation on the ground with little hope for a quick turn-around. We appear to be lurching from one assault on our troops to the next while making little if any headway in stabilizing or improving security in that unfortunate country.
The failure to secure the vast stockpiles of deadly conventional weapons in Iraq, including shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles such as the one that may have brought down the u.s. Helicopter on Sunday is one of many mistakes that the administration made that is coming back to haunt us today. But perhaps the biggest mistake, the costliest mistake, following the colossal mistake of launching a preemptive attack on Iraq is the administration's failure to have a clearly defined mission and exit strategy for Iraq. The President continues to insist that the United States will persevere in its mission in Iraq and that our resolve is unshakeable. But it is time -- past time for the President to tell the American people exactly what that mission is, how he intends to accomplish it, and what his exit strategy is for the American troops in Iraq. It is the American people out there. It is the American people who will ultimately decide how long we will stay in Iraq.
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7:51:38 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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