But Boondocks Still does the best job of telling it like it is.  I've long suspected that the primary purpose of the Homeland Security Terror Alert System is to keep the American population sufficiently cowed to ruberstamp all of the Bush Administration's anti-libertarian, anti-populist, anti-poor, anti-labor, anti-middle-class, anti-child, anti-senior-citizien, anti-minorities policies without any critical thinking:

Boondocks

2:53:23 PM    

Doonesbury last week captured the increasing absurdity and bizarness of the Bush Administration's public utterances - where more often than not what they mean is the exact obverse of what they say. To wit:

Doonesbury

Doonesbury

Doonesbury

Doonesbury

 

 

2:47:58 PM    

Jim also sent out the following email a couple of weeks ago, but I think it is particularly apropos right now:

Lewis Lapham, editor of Harpers Magazine, recently published this,
from Mark Twain in 1905.  Twain was addressing the Americans of his
time who were eager to go to war with and occupy the Philippines:


O Lord our God,
Help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
Help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their
patriot dead;
Help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded,
writhing in pain;
Help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
Help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;
Help us to turn them out roofless with their little children
to wander unfriended, the wastes of their desolated land
in rags and hunger and thirst,
sports of sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter,
broken in spirit, worn with travail,
imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it.

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord,
blast their hopes,
blight their lives,
protract their bitter pilgrimage,
make heavy their steps,
water their way with their tears,
stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love,
of Him Who is the Source of Love,
and Who is the ever faithful refuge
and friend of all that are sore beset
and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen


But this prayer wasn't printed until 1923, thirteen years after
Twain's death and long after the Philippines were a war issue in the
U.S.A.

Harpers' editors at the time thought it unsuitable' for publication at a moment
of high and patriotic feeling.

11:35:31 AM    

I live on Kings Mountain in Woodside, CA. One of my neighbors is Jim Warren, who describes himself as follows:

Jim Warren; jwarren@well.com, founder, [digital] Peninsula Citizens' Advocate, Woodside CA, U.S.A.;

[Soc.of Prof.Journalists-Nor.Calif.James Madison Freedom-of-Information Award;
California Senate Task Force on Electronic Access to Public Records (1996-97);
Member, Board of Trustees, San Mateo County Community College Dist. (1985-89);
Founder & Chair, First Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy ('91); etc.]

He sent out an alert today on yet another attempt by the Grand Inquisitor (aka John Ashcroft) to strip away more of our liberties:

"It's often said, regarding regulations and legislation, that, "The
devil's in the details."

This is a MUST READ!  It's one of the most telling administrative
documents I've seen, regarding how the administration is planning to
change citizen access to information essential in evaluating how the
public's business is conducted.

===

"[This] is a draft Bush Administration revision of Executive Order
(EO) 12958 on national security information policy. When finalized,
the new executive order will define information classification and
declassification policy. This draft document was circulated among
executive branch agencies for comment in March 2003."

Draft Bush Executive Order on Classified National Security Information,

===

Remember the "secret" Pentagon Papers?  The "classified" files about
the government's v.d. testing on black patients/victims in Tuskegee?
And hundreds of other examples of abuse of embarrassing "security"
information that was classified/censored, in the past?

If, we, the citizens, voters and tax-payers -- and most elected
congressional representatives -- are unable to see masses of
information about how our nation's business is being conducted by
*any* administration ... then how can we be informed participants in
the processes of our own governance?  How can we learn of, much less
verify information that may be contradictory to -- much less refute!
-- the official pronouncements of that administration?

--jim"

FAS is an interesting site run by the Federation of American Scientests which has an entire section dedicated to the Bush Administration's secrecy policies.  Check it out here

11:33:17 AM    

On a completely different note, I find the last video from columbis'a final flight to be particualrly poignant and haunting.  it shows the human side of those brave folks who risk their lives to further science and huamn exploration.  Check it out.

Watch the shuttle's last video

 

11:04:00 AM    

Newsweek's cover story this week sez - Bush has transformed something which should have been a united worldwide effort to bring a tyrant to task for his sins in the spirit of Bosnia and Kosovo and has turned it into a world-wide referendum on the abuse of power, by America, that is. American unilateralism and imperialism are or far more concern in the world at large than Saddam Hussein, North Korea, and all other crises combined. It will take years to restore the world's confidence in America once Bush and his cronies - who are mainly pursuing a form of Crony Capitalism and Right Wing conservatism for narrow parochial  reasons - get done with it.

The Arrogant Empire

A professional journalist since 1950, Al Aronowitz, founder, editor and publisher of THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST, has met and/or has known; or has had a friendship with and/or has had a close association with; or has interviewed and/or has written about some of the greatest figures to have ennobled our culture. He has also written about Bush and Big Oil, which is what attracted my attention for this blog.  A good read:

THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST

Molly Ivins is one of the most cogent and hard hitting commentators on the Bushies and has the unique perspective of having lived and worked in the belly of the beast for most of her career.  This is a talks he gave, based on a column she wrote, showing  the links between Cheny and Iraq that for some reason most mainstream journalists find less shocking and important  than who was giving Bill Clinton a blow job in the White House. I suggest you grok her columns regularly.

Molly Ivins: Cheney-linked nonsense: VP boosted Saddam

and here is the link to read her columns daily:

Molly Ivins

To know your enemy you need to be able to get close to ground on his home turf.  Bookmark this link for regular news from Texas about the oil industry, the wheeling and dealings that has made Texas the post child for Cowboy Capitalism.

Texas Cable News

Finally, just between you and me, you knew all along that its about Big Oil, didn't you?  MSNBC spells it out just in case you missed it:

What Oil Wants

 

 

10:52:06 AM    

Crony Kaptializm

It was a bumper weekend for clipping links to really powerful commentary and analysis of the Situation we are in.  I don't have time to comment on it all, so here are the links and please check them out for yourself.

First, some humor from Slate - this is an animation:

Loser Dicatator

 

9:39:20 AM