Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Secrets, Lies & Whistleblowers FEATURED ARTICLES - 90-Day Media Strategy by Bush's Aides to Define Kerry, NY Times - GWB and the Incredible Shrinking FDR, By Norman Solomon, Media Beat - Lifting the Shroud, By Paul Krugman, NY Times, QUOTE OF THE DAY "No business which depends for existence by paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country" - - President Franklin D. Roosevelt (June 1933, a few months after taking office) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - MARCH 1965 -- First Vietnam teach-in, University of Michigan. 500 participants were expected, but 3,000 showed up for an all-nighter.  Forty-nine faculty members started planning the all-night session after the University president said they should trust "competent" leaders like Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Students stay until eight in the morning to listen to the speeches & seminars. Twice during the night, the hall was evacuated because of bomb threats, but the teach-in continued outside in freezing weather. In upcoming weeks, teach-ins are held on hundreds of campuses across the country. 1980 -- El Salvador: Archbishop Oscar Romero assassinated during mass, San Salvador, by US-supported rightist goon squads (graduates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas).  Archbishop Romero has exhorted the police & soldiers to disobey orders to kill innocent people, & he refuses to be silenced by those in power.  Those in power deliver the only ovation they know -- a hail of bullets. 1989 -- In the largest oil spill in US history, the Exxon Valdez dumps its load into Prince William Sound, Alaska destroying thousands of square miles of pristine wildlife habitat. Exxon Corp. spends the next several years spending millions avoiding lawsuits, creating new PR spins & obstructing cleanup efforts. Exxon has to date successfully avoided paying most cleanup costs. RHINO HERE: The shrub gang is carrying out a Karl Rove designed 90 day strategy to define John Kerry as indecisive & lacking conviction. They're orchestrating advertisements, speeches & sound bites to destroy the positive image Kerry earned during the Democratic primary contests & then they'll try to define him in their terms, on the issues, especially  national security & taxes, before summer begins. This according to shrub gang lackeys who spoke to The NY Times.  Apparently Rove nixed their proposed new campaign motto, "FOUR MORE WARS!" 90-Day Media Strategy by Bush's Aides to Define Kerry By Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times, 20 March 2004 ... The Bush campaign's strategy began in earnest last week, with its first confrontational advertisement, asserting that Mr. Kerry would raise taxes significantly and weaken the Patriot Act, "used to arrest terrorists and protect America." It intensified this week with a new, multipronged effort to define Mr. Kerry as "weak on defense" and too unsteady to lead the nation in the war on terror. The campaign did that most precisely with a new advertisement broadcast in West Virginia on Tuesday highlighting Mr. Kerry's vote against the $87 billion package to support military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. ... Mr. Kerry's campaign acknowledges that he is nowhere near as well-known as is Mr. Bush. But it contended that was more of a problem for Mr. Bush, who they said was trying to turn the election into a referendum on Mr. Kerry rather than one about the president. "The important thing to remember is that the American people see George Bush as the steward of a bad economy, the leader who led them to war under false pretenses," said Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kerry, striking two themes the campaign believes will be a strong suit against the president.... MORE: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/032104H.shtml As Democrats.com points out, referring to an informative piece by Norman Soloman of FAIR,  the gangs nasty ways thrown down so early in the campaign could backfire.  And so could their disingenuous attempts to compare dubya to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Reminds the Rhino of Dan Quayle trying to compare himself to John F. Kennedy. GOP's Vicious Anti-Kerry, Anti-Labor Campaign Eerily Similar to Anti-FDR Campaign of 1936 Democrats.com, 3/24/04 In 1936, the GOP, funded by big, anti-labor corporate $, backed oil baron Alf Landon. Armed with far more $ than FDR, the GOP used the media to conduct a vicious smear campaign. It backfired big-time. "Roosevelt seemed to relish the attacks... maintaining that he and his New Deal protected the average American against the predations of the rich and powerful. Said FDR, "Never before have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred." "Roosevelt's supporters believed their candidate understood and sympathized with them. As one worker put it in 1936, Roosevelt 'is the first man in the White House to understand that my boss is a son of a (expletive.)' FDR won the election in a walk, amassing huge majorities in the popular vote and in the Electoral College." We predict a repeat of 1936! for more on FDR vs Bush see the article below: GWB and the Incredible Shrinking FDR By Norman Solomon, Media Beat, January 31, 2002   A new media tic -- likening George W. Bush to Franklin D. Roosevelt -- is already so widespread that it's apt to become a conditioned reflex of American journalism. By the time Bush gave his State of the Union speech, countless reporters and pundits had proclaimed GWB and FDR to be kindred inspirational leaders -- wildly inflating the current president's media stature in the process. Hammering on the comparison until it seems like a truism, the Washington press corps is providing the kind of puffery for the man in the Oval Office that no ad budget could supply. But the oft-repeated analogy doesn't only give a monumental boost to Bush's image. It also -- subtly but surely -- chips away at FDR's historic greatness, cutting him down to GWB's size... MORE: http://www.fair.org/media-beat/020131.html Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is a look by economist Paul Krugman, at the most recent whistle blower to, as he puts it, lift the shroud off the most secretive presidential administration in U.S. history; that patriot being former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke.  Two incredibly informative books on the goings on in our country over the last few years have been penned by these two men; 1) Richard Clarke's,  "Against All Enemies" about the shrubies failure to follow through on the warning about Al Queda which the Clinton Administration tried to get them to heed, and 2) Paul Krugman's, "The Great Unraveling" which is a compilation of his NY Times column's from 1998 through 2003, from the economic bubble of the late 90's, through the burst, the 2000 campaign, 9/11, and the 2 shrub started wars, all from the perspective of an economist. Fascinating stuff. 8:48:12 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Lifting the Shroud Lifting the Shroud By Paul Krugman, NY Times, March 23, 2004 From the day it took office, U.S. News & World Report wrote a few months ago, the Bush administration "dropped a shroud of secrecy" over the federal government. After 9/11, the administration's secretiveness knew no limits - Americans, Ari Fleischer ominously warned, "need to watch what they say, watch what they do." Patriotic citizens were supposed to accept the administration's version of events, not ask awkward questions. But something remarkable has been happening lately: more and more insiders are finding the courage to reveal the truth on issues ranging from mercury pollution - yes, Virginia, polluters do write the regulations these days, and never mind the science - to the war on terror. It's important, when you read the inevitable attempts to impugn the character of the latest whistle-blower, to realize just how risky it is to reveal awkward truths about the Bush administration. When Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress that postwar Iraq would require a large occupation force, that was the end of his military career. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV revealed that the 2003 State of the Union speech contained information known to be false, someone in the White House destroyed his wife's career by revealing that she was a C.I.A. operative. And we now know that Richard Foster, the Medicare system's chief actuary, was threatened with dismissal if he revealed to Congress the likely cost of the administration's prescription drug plan. The latest insider to come forth, of course, is Richard Clarke, George Bush's former counterterrorism czar and the author of the just-published "Against All Enemies." On "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Mr. Clarke said the previously unsayable: that Mr. Bush, the self-proclaimed "war president," had "done a terrible job on the war against terrorism." After a few hours of shocked silence, the character assassination began.... MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/opinion/23KRUG.html "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 7:10:40 AM    comment

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