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Tuesday, September 5, 2006 |
Norman Horowitz: A Bush in a China Shop. Having worked for 50 years in the entertainment industry, the notion of stealing ideas comes naturally to me. Sadly, when I write, I hardly ever plagiarize, but the temptation is always out there, particularly as it pertains to politics.
One of my friends suggested this analogy in response to the question "what will the Democrats do should they be faced with making a plan to deal with Iraq?" His reply: "The President has barged into a china shop and broken all of the china, and would ask us for our plan as to how to put all of the china back together again. The Democrats are in a bind in that the Republicans have "broken it" and they are not taking responsibility for fixing it."
I continue to be appalled by the politics of the Iraqi war, and its purported connection to terrorism. There is Iraq, and there is terrorism, and they are for the most part not connected.
I believe that it is a mischaracterization to say Republicans and Democrats will or will not protect us as though one party is "more patriotic or more American then the other." We do not ask our soldiers if they are Democrats or Republicans before they are put in harms way.
The Bush administration certainly engaged us in this horrid war and "broke all of the china." They "wore Republican uniforms," and they were "bad Americans" because they did bad things. People who took us to war in Iraq and lied to America as to the reasons, then waged the war badly, should not be given another chance to do other bad things in the world, nor should they be allowed to "try and fix the broken china."
Does anyone think that the Democrats are "weak on terrorism" or that Republicans are somehow "more American then their opponents?"
The incumbent criminals would have America believe that "the President will keep Americans safe, and that they will be in jeopardy with the Democrats in control."
How sad!
I believe that it is the American Police, Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Firefighters and such that will keep America safe, not the President. Terrorists are criminals, and I don't think that the FBI agents or CIA operatives are Democrats or Republicans, and they will function badly if congress or the White House is held by Democrats. We are all Americans, but some function on a higher level then others.
One can infer from the television blitz that Bush and his people will try and convince Americans that without them, terrorists will be running amok in our streets blowing things up and threatening our civilization.
We are doing things badly, not as Republicans but as people wearing their "uniform". I would like someone to tell me what there is about an administration starting a war and lying about why we went to war in the first place, and then running the war incompetently while shouting "stay the course." What has this to do with being a Republican?
This situation has not to do with the usual demarcations of left and right like socialized medicine or prayer in schools. It is rather that some people wearing Republican uniforms have screwed things up and the Democrats might just run things better.
 [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
2:04:47 PM 
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Tell The Governor To Give Us Affordable Universal Health Care
Thanks to your thousands of personal message submissions to your members of the CA legislature, Senate Bill 840, the historic single payer health care measure has passed.
LOOK, THE FOLLOWING ACTION IS ABSOLUTELY LAUDABLE. BUT YOU HAVE TO GO ONE STEP MORE ...
TELL THE GOVENROR THAT THIS IS TOO IMPORTANT FOR HIM TO IGNORE. THAT IF HE VETOES THIS BILL, THERE WILL BE POLITICAL REPERCUSSIONS. YOU WILL NOT VOTE FOR HIM, AND YOU WILL TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW NOT TO VOTE FOR HIM. WE WON'T SUPPORT HIM BECAUSE HE DOESN'T SUPPORT US. INSTEAD HE SUPPORTS HIS BIG DONORS, THE HMO'S.
Now we must all contact the Governor to compel him to pass the bill which is on his desk NOW. The have a 24 HOUR automated voting system set up that will take messages on SB 840 SPECIFICALLY. When you call press 1 (for English), then 2 (to speak out on issues), then 4 (for SB 840), then listen carefully. When we called we pressed 1 to vote in FAVOR. It's that easy!
CALL NOW AT 916-445-2841
1:52:09 PM
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Afghan Symbol for Change Becomes a Symbol of Failure. When the Taliban fell nearly five years ago, Lashkar Gah seemed like fertile ground for the United States-led effort to stabilize the country. For 30 years during the Cold War, Americans carried out the largest development project in Afghanistan's history here. Afghans called this city "Little America." Today, across Afghanistan, roadside bomb attacks are up by 30 percent; suicide bombings have doubled. Statistically it is now nearly as dangerous to serve as an American soldier in Afghanistan as it is in Iraq. [t r u t h o u t]
1:01:14 PM
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David Corn: New Book (Mine) Reveals What Valerie Plame Did at the CIA. Please allow me to plug my new book in declaring that another Plamegate mystery has been solved.
Last week HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War, by Michael Isikoff and myself (and out this week), revealed that Richard Armitage was the original souce for the Robert Novak column that outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA officer. Today, a new excerpt of the book discloses what Valerie Wilson did at the CIA.
Was she merely ananalyst--as Bob Novak and others have claimed? Was she only a desk-jockey--as Jonah Goldberg of The National Review insisted? No. She was operations chief of the Joint Task Force on Iraq (JTFI), a unit of the Counterproliferation Division of the clandestine Directorate of Operations.
For the two years prior to her outing, Valerie Wilson worked to gather intelligence that would support the Bush White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was loaded with WMDs. This means that Armitage--as well as Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--leaked classified information about a undercover CIA officer whose job it had been to look for evidence of Saddam's WMD programs. Any irony here? During this part of her career, Valerie Wilson traveled overseas to monitor operations she and her staff at JTFI were mounting.
This is all explained in an article based on HUBRIS that is appearing in the next issue of The Nation and that has been posted on the magazine's website today. Click here to see the full story.
HUBRIS and The Nation piece also report new revelations that undermine the charge that Valerie Wilson sent her husabnd, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, on his trip to Niger.
HUBRIS--which chronicles the inside intelligence battles that occurred at the CIA, State Department, Capitol Hill and the White House in the run-up to the war--arrives in bookstores in a day or two. It contains many other revelations that are unrelated to the leak case. For more information on the book, you can go to its Amazon.com page here. Or visit my own blog at www.davidcorn.com.
 [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
12:54:38 PM
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Government Secrecy Under Bush Unprecedented. Surprising no sentient being (but offering lots of good evidence), a new report from openthegovernment.org shows "a continued
expansion of government secrecy across a broad array of agencies and actions." Reminding that information created by or for the federal government belongs to the American public, the exec summary notes, "The current administration has exercised an unprecedented level of restriction of access to information about, and suppression of discussion of, the federal government[base ']s policies and decisions." Among the report's highlights: -
For every dollar spent declassifying old secrets, fed-
eral agencies spent $134 in 2005 creating and storing
new secrets. The serious imbalance between taxpayer
dollars devoted to generating secrets versus those
spent to release records that are no longer sensitive
continues.
- With 2,072 secret surveillance orders approved in
2005, federal surveillance activity under the jurisdic-
tion of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court more than doubled in five years.
- Over 60 percent of federal advisory committee meet-
ings in 2005 were completely closed to the public.
More were partially closed.
- Since 2001, the [base "]state secrets[per thou] privilege has been used
a reported 22 times[~]an average in 5.5 years (4) that is
close to twice as high as the previous 24 years (2.46).
In the 211 years of our Republic to 2000, fewer than
600 signing statements that took issue with the bills
were issued. In five years, President Bush has issued at
least 132, challenging 810 provisions of laws.
Full report (PDF) here. [MotherJones.com | MoJo Blog - Social Issues and Political Commentary]
12:30:21 PM
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060901 - Oil workers win strike
Here is a real bit of good news from Iraq. In the midst of all this mayhem and slaughter, the Iraqi oil workers have successfully organized (despite U.S. sanctioned laws making their union illegal) and have just completed a successful strike for higher wages and more certain pay. These workers have also successfully prevented the transfer of administration of the Southern Oil Company to Bechtel.
There is what appears to be a growing labor movement in Iraq, with increasing signs of success.
InfoShopNews 060901 [^] Oil workers win strike
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060829054216451
Welcome to Infoshop News Friday, September 01 2006 @ 07:40 PM PDT
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Iraqi oil workers win strike
Tuesday, August 29 2006 @ 05:42 AM PDT Contributed by: WorkerFreedom Views: 135
Oil workers on strike in Iraq win a pay increase and profit-sharing.
Reuters reported that striking oil workers in southern Iraq on Wednesday ended action that closed the main pipeline supplying Baghdad with refined oil products a day after they had won higher pay, a union leader said.
"We received a document from the ministry of oil. It is a document to increase our salaries and to pay us (a) share in seasonal profits," Hassan al-Asadi said.
Asadi is the head of a workers' syndicate representing over 700 employees from the stated-owned General Company for Oil Lines and Pipes in the southern cities of Basra and Nassiriya.
Tuesday's action did not have any impact on oil exports, oil ministry and union officials had said.
Asadi said the oil minister had agreed to meet with a union delegation in the next 48 hours.
But he warned that the workers would go back on strike on Sunday if remaining grievances about management practices were not resolved.
Basra accounts for most of Iraq's crude exports.
Political parties in the south have demanded greater control over revenues from the oil produced there and greater autonomy from Baghdad.
Security in Basra has deteriorated this year.
In May, a Shi'ite faction there said it had the power to halt oil exports.
http://libcom.org/news/iraq-oil-strike-wins-250806
To: info@uslaboragainstwar.org From: Traven Date: 08/22/2006 10:37AM cc: "USLAW Iraq Labor Soli":; Subject: Basra Oil workers Strike
Support the strike of the Basra Oil workers!
Under the leadership of the Southern Oil Union, the workers of the Oil Pipes Company in Shoayba in the southern Iraqi city of Basra began a general strike at 8.00 AM on 22 August 2006. The strike has completely paralysed pumping oil from all Iraqi ports in Basra.
This strike came after months of protests by workers against their working condition and low wages. The workers' demands are as follow:
1. Wages must be paid in due time.
2. Overtime work must be paid
3. Increase workers' allowances
4. Provide ambulances at working places to transfer sick workers to hospital when needed.
The government and its administrations have turned a blind eye to the demands raised by workers for months. Therefore the workers were forced to resort to the weapon of strike to impose their demands on the government and South Oil Company.
We express our support for the workers and their demands. We ask the government and its administrations to immediately meet the workers' demands. We hold the occupation and the government installed by it responsible for the consequences of this strike.
We call on all labour organisations, trade unions and all freedom loving people to support this strike and to exert pressure on the Iraqi government to meet the demands of Basra oil workers.
From the "Abroad Organisation of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq".
11:45:26 AM
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A new historical analogy by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, comparing critics of the war in Iraq to Civil War-era slavery supporters, is called "perhaps the most breathtakingly stupid remark ever uttered by a Bush administration official." [Cursor.org]
10:51:00 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.
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