Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Pissin' In The Cistern FEATURED ARTICLES - The Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket, by Robert Scheer, AlterNet - Why We Cannot Endorse President Bush For Re-Election, The Tampa Tribune - Daily Endorsement Tally: Kerry Carries Louisville, Bush Gets Riverside, Editor & Publisher - Republican ex-governor will be voting for Kerry, by Elmer L. Andersen, Minneapolis Star - Terrorism as 'Indian Country' is Wrongful Assumption, Indian Country Today - Kaplan Needs to Study Harder, Indian Country Today QUOTE OF THE DAY "We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all -- by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians -- be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing." - - Wendell Berry (From Compromise, Hell!) http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1014-29.htm KNOW YOUR HISTORY - October 20 2001 -- US commandos struck 2 targets in Afghanistan that included an airfield and a command complex near Kandahar. Two 500-pound bombs hit a residential center area northwest of Kabul. As usual, no report on how many civilians died. The US Government doesn't compute collateral damage. Same Day -- Traces of anthrax were found in a US House of Representatives mail room. This became the 3rd Capital Hill building infected. The toxic powder was later determined to have come from a US Government Source. Government investigators never charged anyone with any of the anthrax crimes. Are they still looking? RHINO HERE: The latest scandal in DC? A CIA directorate, a report on the bungling of 9/11, culminating from an exhaustive 17- month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, is being buried until after the election, because unlike other 9/11 reports, this one names names & they go high up the chain of command. The Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket by Robert Scheer, AlterNet, October 19, 2004 ..."It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward." When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago asking for it to be delivered. "We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned." AT: http://www.alternet.org/story/20222/ This past weekend, the Tampa Tribune, a traditionally conservative rag in Florida, broke with tradition & refused to endorse Dubya. That publication is one among many that can see through the neo-robber baron bushies. Here's an excerpt & link to their statement: Why We Cannot Endorse President Bush For Re-Election Tampa Tribune, 10/19/04 "As stewards of the Tribune's editorial voice, we find it unimaginable to not be lending our voice to the chorus of conservative-leaning newspapers endorsing the president's re-election. But we are unable to endorse President Bush for re-election because of his mishandling of the war in Iraq, his record deficit spending, his assault on open government and his failed promise to be a 'uniter not a divider' within the United States and the world."... MORE AT: http://www.tampatrib.com/News/MGBU3UEHF0E.html Meanwhile, the total number of newspapers in the country endorsing Kerry is mounting as is the total circulation of those publications. And from the blurb above, it's not cause of the so called, "liberal media." Daily Endorsement Tally: Kerry Carries Louisville, Bush Gets Riverside By Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher, October 19, 2004 Sen. John Kerry has widened his lead in daily newspaper endorsements, landing five of the seven new additions to E&P's exclusive tally. He holds a 53-36 edge over President Bush. It also pushes the Democrat past the 9 million mark in circulation total for backing papers. Bush trails with about 5 million... MORE: Endorsement Tally Today's Featured Republican piece is an op-ed written by the beloved former Minnesota Governor Elmer L. Andersen. At 91 years old, he's the state Republican Party's most honored elder statesman. In his autobiography entitled, "A Man's Reach", (http://www.ecm-inc.com/mans_reach) he gave his insider's account of President Kennedy's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the story of how Charles Lindbergh taught him to fly & his recollections of fellow Republicans Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, & Harold Stassen, & political rival Hubert Humphrey. In this Minneapolis Star Tribune Op-Ed, he reveals his 2004 election stance writing, "The two 'Say No to Bush' signs in my yard say it all." "SEND THIS ARTICLE TO A REPUBLICAN!" RHINO'S FEATURED REPUBLICAN Why this Republican ex-governor will be voting for Kerry By Elmer L. Andersen, Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 13, 2004 Throughout my tenure and beyond as the 30th governor of this state, I have been steadfastly aligned -- and until recently, proudly so -- with the Minnesota Republican Party. It dismays me, therefore, to have to publicly disagree with the national Republican agenda and the national Republican candidate but, this year, I must. The two "Say No to Bush" signs in my yard say it all. The present Republican president has led us into an unjustified war -- based on misguided and blatantly false misrepresentations of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The terror seat was Afghanistan. Iraq had no connection to these acts of terror and was not a serious threat to the United States, as this president claimed, and there was no relation, it's now obvious, to any serious weaponry. Although Saddam Hussein is a frightful tyrant, he posed no threat to the United States when we entered the war. George W. Bush's arrogant actions to jump into Iraq when he had no plan how to get out have alienated the United States from our most trusted allies and weakened us immeasurably around the world. Also, if there as well had been proper and careful coordination of services and intelligence on Sept. 11, 2001, that horrific disaster might also have been averted... MORE: http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5029512.html On the Fall Equinox, in Washington DC, a huge gathering of American Indian people occurred for the opening of The National Museum of the American Indian. It was a spectacular event, and for many Indian people, encouraging that the U.S.A. would finally honor & celebrate their cultures & contributions. Photos of the opening at: http://www.nmai.si.edu/opening/openingimages/opening_images.html Meanwhile, in the editorial offices of the Wall Street Journal, the powers that be, were releasing an article called, "Indian Country." But there was no mention of the museum opening. The piece was supposed to be a critique of the U.S. Army's handling of the war in Iraq. For many Indian scholars & journalists, the article showed not only an ignorance of US history, (if not a premeditated revisionist distortion), but it continued a string of mean spirited & racist rants by the Journal against contemporary Native American communities. As Indian Country Today Editor, Jose Barriero wrote in response: "The Journal has published more consistent diatribes against American Indians than any other major print publication in recent years. Anything nasty that can be found or told or implied about tribal American Indian nations, including not a few falsehoods, Journal editorial editors have seen fit to print in the former venerable conservative newspaper. " What follows is a link to the Journal piece & then today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is the Indian response. Indian Country by Robert D. Kaplan, Wall Street Journal, 9/25/04 Response 9:40:03 AM    comment

Terrorism as 'Indian Country' is Wrongful Assumption Terrorism as 'Indian Country' is Wrongful Assumption Indian Country Today Editorial, October 05, 2004 The latest insulting, matter-of-fact reasoning for Indian hating and Indian killing, which, by the way, did not stop all that long ago in the United States, is on display, again, in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Incredible as it may seem, a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, titled ''Indian Country'', by Robert D. Kaplan, offers the be-all and end-all justification for the genocide, as Buffy St. Marie sang it in the 1970s, ''basic to this country's birth.''  How can it be, in 2004, that a major American newspaper will so blatantly publish such a wrongheaded play on historical Indian wars and the current military strategic debate? To casually connect, as Kaplan takes for a given, the current war on ''terrorism'' with the wars of extermination conducted by the United States at various points in the past against American Indian nations is an historical insult. It feeds the heart-wrenching realization that American public discourse is increasingly revisionist, distorted, inherently biased and so self-absorbed in its own supremacist thinking that it can only become the object of world condemnation.  Kaplan's argument, such as it is, is worth engaging and rebutting, starting as it does with the assumption that what was done to Indians was the right thing to do. Kaplan's casual justification for genocide is, again, deeply disturbing... READ IT ALL AT: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id96409627 Kaplan Needs to Study Harder Indian Country Today Editorial, October 05, 2004 People who know Robert D. Kaplan say he's actually a decent guy who has written several perceptive books on Europe. We suspect he would be dismayed by the highly-negative response to his recent Wall Street Journal column looking to the 19th century Indian wars for lessons in the global fight against terrorism. (The same can't be said for the Journal editors. They are delighted to exploit him in their own campaign to equate Indian country with the enemy.) Our problem with Kaplan is that he doesn't know his history. The moral terrain of the Indian wars was as different as day and night from the war on al-Qaeda. The war against terror is a justified response to unprovoked attacks. The wars against the tribes were thefts of land and resources. With one exception, the performance of the Army in the late 19th century is nothing one would want to copy in the 21st. Wherever one fits the invasion of Iraq into the "War on Terror," there is a great deal in common between the U. S. military's current blundering in Baghdad and its indiscriminate slaughter of "friendlies" and "hostiles" in the American West. And the Indian wars ended, not as Kaplan imagines with the crushing annihilation of the tribes, but with a series of peace treaties, which are still binding in law if not in fact. But aside from Kaplan's false analogy and his massive ignorance of historical detail, he does have one valid point, which boiled down is that the U.S. military could learn, and possibly already has learned, valuable lessons from its Native encounters... READ IT ALL AT: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id96409585 Rhino's Blog is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. Feedback & requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. (rhino@kifaru.com) Search the Rhino's Blog Archives, The Daily Rhino Photo, and lots of 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 8:16:41 AM    comment

© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.