More evidence that the President, Veep, Rummy, Rice, etc LIED to the American people and the world about Iraq. They're still lying.

The Real Gen. George Patton was a major player in the original Operation Cobra. But like George C. Scott (left) Bush, Cheney & Rumsfield are merely 'playing' at war, playing at leadership and coming nowhere near the level of performance that Scott delivered.

Listening to General Bernard Trainor and Michael R. Gordon, authors of Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq -- on the Diane Rheem Show on NPR. I've seen them interviewed on several news shows but his format affords a more in-depth exchange, in addition to audience participation. I hope to see/hear more of these interviews because what they have to say is vital for American (and world) citizens who still have an open mind to hear.

Another must-read, particularly with the newest revelation in today's NY Times that "Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says."

The book is sitting in my Amazon.com cart, but I think today it gets ordered along with American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips and that way I get free shipping (every pinched penny counts these days!).

Speaking of which, everyone I heard on the Sunday morning news shows completely missed a major underlying piece in the immigration issue: the economy.

I like and respect Katrina Vanden Heuvel but I don't think she's a very effective spokesperson for the 'left' -- she's not very fact- (or life-experience)-based, makes clichéd arguments that are not fact- or experience-based, sounds like the stereotypical 'bleeding heart liberal' and is easy to dismiss. So why does ABC keep having her appear -- exactly for those reasons. There are others who would be more effective -- she's typical of the ineffectiveness of the dems and the left, which I'll continue to critique.

Fareed Zakaria is actually a far better, more thoughtful, analytical, and effective spokesperson, but he apparently represents...the middle? Intellectuals? I don't know, but he's much more highly informed than anyone else on that show, indeed many of those MSM venues, including well-meaning but ineffectual Vanden Heuvel along with pipsqueak Stephanopolous.

Here's the point they missed entirely: If American workers weren't so (justifiably) anxious about their/our own economic well-being, xenophobes and security-freaks notwithstanding, people would be more rational about immigration issues and the corresponding, linked security issues. (Dan Balz at WaPo mentions this link briefly in his online chat today.) Immigrants have become easy targets and scapegoats when once again, it's the rich, powerful men behind the curtains pulling the levers who ought to be 'outed' and who almost never are.

..................................
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting on the definitive book that documents how Robert Rubin was in large part the real genius behind the economic boom days of the Clinton presidency -- with large doses of pragmatic, progressive input from Robert Reich. I'd like to see more of both on those talk shows. Chris Matthews ('spitball') seems to favor the Dem numbnuts like major failure Bob Schrum (sp?) and then just loves to talk about how he votes republican -- that is, when you can decipher his nonsensical bullshit. No wonder he and Schrum get along -- they're both idiots. I try to limit my dose of Matthews to about 2 minutes per week. He's the himbo equivalent of the Faux News bimbos. I'm hopeful his airhead will continue grow so full of hot sycophantic narcissistic hot carbon monoxide that it will soon explode and the world will be rid of him for good. He's outlived his usefulness. Either that or they should shuttle him off to Faux News ASAP.

I'll stick with Keith Obermann, the only person on MSNBC with any gravitas or credibility. (okay maybe Dan Abrams but only in the legal-coverage sense, not journalism. He often provides thoughtful analysis -- because he originated at CourtTV -- and his father is the well-respected Floyd Abrams, a first amendment legal eagle. Of course, Matthews is no journalist in any sense. He's not even a thinker. He's...like I said, a male himbo, at best.

I definitely wish we could hear and read more by Martha Radditz of ABC news who shared on Capitol Week in Review (PBS) that things really pretty much are as bad as we all suspect in Iraq, if not worse. Ditto the gorgeous and talented Lara Logan of CBS news whose reality-based information countered the propagandists for the right that things are oh-so-swell-but-the-media-isn't-covering-the-'good'-news by telling Howie Kurtz of the WaPo on his CNN show yesterday that what 'good news' may be happening is far outweighed by the danger and lack of security there which makes it difficult, if not impossible, for journalists to cover the 'joyful' news.

Here's part of what Logan shared:

When journalists are free to move around this country, then they will be free to report on everything that's going on. But as long as you're a prisoner of the terrible security situation here, then that's going to be reflected in your coverage.

And not only that, but their own figures show that their reconstruction project was supposed to create 1.5 million Iraqi jobs. To date, 77,000 Iraqi government jobs have been created. That should give you an indication of how far along they are in terms of reconstruction...

I mean, I really resent the fact that people say that we're not reflecting the true picture here. That's totally unfair and it's really unfounded...

our own editors back in New York are asking us the same things.

They read the same comments. You know, are there positive stories? Can't you find them?

You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack.

Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked.

I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country.

I suspect if we had the interruptions to and lack of reliable electricity, water, gas, utilities, etc -- not to mention bombings, murders, beheadings, executions -- we'd be pretty damn upset too and expect the media to report on it every single day until it wasn't happening anymore.

Footnote: Even the self-proclaimed 'last blue-state skeptic', Richard Cohen of the Washington Post has conceded Bush wanted war. His own account of what made him 'fold' makes for interesting reading.

I don't agree with Cohen that the evidence is that Bush did not lie; I think there is plenty to conclude that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Tenet and many others did lie. However, Cohen concludes:

...the one thing that's so far missing from the record is proof of him looking for a genuine way out of war instead of looking for a way to get it started. Bush wanted war. He just didn't want the war he got.

On that we can definitely agree.

republicans Iraq War Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Bush Lied WWII Patton George C. Scott Richard Cohen Washington Post

Are IRISH Flag Wavers on St. Patrick's Day Villified anymore?

Not being much of a nationalist or flag-waver myself (entrainment's definitely not my thing), I don't think it's strategically wise to be marching with the Mexican national flag -- I mean, how much more powerful a symbol would it be to have a sea of people marching with only the stars & stripes?

Just my thoughts about having a realistic, pragmatic strategy when you really want to send a powerful message via images across the world.

That being said, this is one of the most astute, provocative observations and challenges I've seen anywhere by anyone -- and this by a 16-year old boy:

Garden Grove High School junior Jose Covarrubias, 16, carried both flags Monday. He doesn't think anyone should read too much into protesters' use of the Mexican flag.

"St. Patrick's Day just passed," Covarrubias said. "Just because they wave an Irish flag doesn't mean that they care about Ireland more than they do the U.S."

Entire article at the LA Times here.

Irish Flag

Something Freudian this Way Comes

Thoughtful column by Richard Cohen about HRC in the WaPo today.

Like Marie Antoinette, Hillary has emerged as the repository of so many fears, so much dread, such aspirations -- so much good and bad -- that we have to look past her office or her ambitions and suggest, strongly, that something deeply Freudian is at work. It was Freud, after all, who spoke for all men (and many women) by asking, "What do women want?" Now -- some fear, others hope -- we may finally have the answer. The White House.

Personally, I don't think Freud spoke for all that many people, but we'll not be pedantic. Nonetheless, he did make significant contributions to our understanding of the complexities of the western mind. And from what I can tell the right & the repubs would sooner behead HRC than allow her become the next prez.

Quote of the day courtesy of Maureen Dowd (modo to her friends)

Sometimes happiness means being protected from news about other people's unhappiness.

In reference to Dick's proclivities to hear his views of the world repeated ad-nauseum and without challenge on Faux, er Fux, I men F-x news. Just one more tricky Dick for the world to contend with. And there are always people at one's beck and call, sorta like royalty...or perhaps dictators.

Isn't it nice to be so enveloped in the unreality of a virtual universe where little annoying things like facts, and human beings, don't matter?

Thanks to TN Guerilla Women for the full, freebie post of MoDo's NYTimes column, here.

Catnap afternoon.

I see the neighbor's cat over there chasing something.

Another reason the Dems are the party of bumbling stumbling idiots continually shooting themselves in both left feet

David Broder had an online WaPo chat today and shared this very insightful tidbit about the continuing failures of the democrats to present an attractive, electible alternative to voters:

"Q:.....why haven't the Democrats been able to make any inroads with voters?

David S. Broder: I believe the Democrats are paying a price for failing to give themselves any kind of a party policy mechanism. They have relied on their congressional leaders and Howard Dean to deliver their messages, and those folks have not been effective. [boy is that an understatement]. Two years ago, I wrote that the answer to this institutional problem of a policy voice for the opposition party had been found in the late 1950s by Paul Butler, in the Democratic Advisory Council, made up of leading members of past Democratic administrations, governors and some able members of Congress. Dean refused to follow that model, and the party has paid the price."

He makes similar points further down in the conversation: "...I don't think the Democrats' problems stem from fear of Republicans as much as they stem from a lack of a coherent leadership and message structure of their own. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the answer to their dilemma is there in their own history from the late 1950s, but they have not shown any eagerness to apply the lesson.

..as on many other things, the [democratic party's] voice has been muted and ineffective."

Not that I'm enamored of Broder by any means, but the answer in response to the question sounds like one of the many reasons the Dems are such miserable ongoing failures -- idiot clowns with idiot clowns as the public spokespersons, but it's the first I've read/heard of this particular strategy failure directly attributable to Dean.

Transcript of entire chat here.

Live Chat with Prof. Noam Chomsky TODAY

This should be a humdinger and buzzzing HOT!

Friday, March 24, 2 p.m. ET
Chat With Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Linguist, Author and Professor
Friday, March 24, 2006; 2:00 PM

Noam Chomsky, noted international activist and professor of linguistics at M.I.T., will be online Friday, March 24 at 2 p.m. ET to offer analyses and insights on the latest headlines on domestic and international affairs.

And one of the brilliant thinkers, analyzers, truth-tellers of our time or any time in history. Live online at the WaPo.

A list of books by the prolific Chomsky.

Don't worry, be Toxic. aka Just trust Bush & the repubs

We 'merikuns don't have to worry about homeland security, secure borders, globalization, wars, poverty, healthcare anymore -- not when our Congress and their corporate greed-partners are in charge. No sirree. We'll die before it ever reaches that point because our own FDA, elected robots and mass food production industry will kill us long before it comes to that.

Warning: This bill could make you sick
By Al Meyerhoff and Carl Pope/LA Times

March 21, 2006

THE HOUSE of Representatives this month passed the National Uniformity for Foods Act, a measure that would kill or cancel significant parts of 200 food-safety laws in 50 states. This ill-advised bill, supported by millions of food-industry dollars, passed without a single hearing. Now it's in the hands of the Senate. If it passes there, among its many victims would be California's requirement that foods containing harmful chemicals display a warning for consumers.

Those warnings are mandated by Proposition 65, enacted, as one court described it, to be "a legislative battering ram" by an overwhelming majority of voters in 1986. In passing the measure, Californians wanted to encourage manufacturers to remove dangerous substances from their products before they reached supermarket shelves.

Proposition 65's requirement that companies either warn consumers or remove harmful chemicals works, and it remains a vital protection.

Consider the controversy over mercury in tuna, swordfish and other types of seafood. The Food and Drug Administration recently announced that seafood contaminated by mercury ? a heavy metal found in our oceans mainly as the result of burning coal ? can be so hazardous that women "who are pregnant or may become pregnant" should avoid consumption. Mercury was present in fish at levels sometimes far exceeding the FDA's "action level."

So what "action" did the FDA take? Instead of seizing mercury-laden fish, as federal laws allow, it issued a press release; the seafood remained on supermarket shelves. Despite the FDA's inaction, Proposition 65 mandated that consumer warnings be placed on contaminated seafood sold in California. That encouraged the creation of the nation's first line of low-mercury fish under the "Safe Harbor" brand. Now it is your choice.

Full post here.

Deserves its own separate post

Here's one of the answers to Helen Thomas' recent question to Bush about why he REALLY wanted to invade Iraq:

"an uncle of the commander in chief is collecting $2.7 million in cash and stock from the recent sale of a company that profited from the war. "

Complete story in the LA Times.

On a totally, excruciatingly revealing and related note:

This film deserves to be seen, widely circulated, widely discussed:

Why We Fight A film by Eugene Jarecki. See the captivating sliver-of-a-what's-inside trailer here.

Can western superiorists possibly learn a little something from Communist China?

8 Do's and Don'ts

• Love the motherland, do not harm it.
• Serve, don't disserve the people.
• Uphold science, don't be ignorant and unenlightened.
• Work hard, don't be lazy.
• Be united and help each other, don't benefit at the expense of others.
• Be honest, not profit-mongering.
• Be disciplined and law-abiding, not chaotic and lawless.
• Know plain living and hard struggle, do not wallow in luxuries.

...all across China, the Communist Party propaganda apparatus has been spreading the word [see poster, left] from President Hu Jintao: Do good and avoid evil.

Hu's fatherly advice, in the form of eight do's and don'ts, was issued two weeks ago as an antidote to the corruption and cynicism spreading across China, a result of the often raw capitalism that has emerged during 25 years of dramatic economic change. Although his aphorisms may sound simplistic to Western ears -- "Work hard, don't be lazy" and "Be honest, not profit-mongering" -- Chinese analysts said they are a response to a deep-seated desire among people here for a moral compass to guide them through the unsettling transformation.

Ha! As if. You'll never convince the slavish 'free market' advocates here to moderate their lust for unmoderated greed, profit and wealth.

And what about that #3??? -- Uphold science, don't be ignorant and unenlightened. Whoops. Too late. That would never work here. Apparently we're on par with Afghanistan in that department.

From a story in the Washington Post entitled "Eight-Step Program For What Ails China: President Reacts to Rising Greed, Cynicism" by Edward Cody.

Footnote: moved up to its very own entry.

American Theocracy Part 2: CLEAR and PRESENT DANGERS

By describing a series of major transformations, by demonstrating the relationships among them and by discussing them with passionate restraint, Phillips has created a harrowing picture of national danger that no American reader will welcome, but that none should ignore.

Got this email summary of the NY Times Book Review by Alan Brinkley entitled

"CLEAR and PRESENT DANGERS"

Four decades ago, Kevin Phillips, a young political
strategist for the Republican Party, began work on what
became a remarkable book, "The Emerging Republican Majority"
(1969). Phillips long ago abandoned his enthusiasm for the
Republican coalition he helped to build. His latest book (his
13th) looks broadly and historically at the political world
the conservative coalition has painstakingly constructed over
the last several decades.

He presents a nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness. In an era of best-selling jeremiads on both sides of the political divide, "American Theocracy" may be the most alarming analysis of where we are and where we may be going to have appeared in many years. It is not without polemic, but unlike many of the more glib and strident political commentaries of recent years, it is extensively researched and for the most part frighteningly persuasive.

I almost always like any review or essay that includes the word 'jeremiad'. It also reminds me of Three Dog Night. Complete book review here.

NYT Reviews of Featured Author Kevin Phillips' "The Emerging Republican Majority" (1969), "Wealth and Democracy" (2002) and others here.

Things I miss about the West & Southwest

Virgin River, Mount Zion National Park. From a visual essay and travel article at the WaPo

American Theocracy

New book to be released this month (3/21/06), a much-anticipated nonfiction book which is on the must-read list -- at the very least, must-see interviews with the author, Kevin Phillips.

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century

From Amazon.com: Kevin Phillips established himself as a powerful critic of the political and economic forces that are ruling 'and imperiling' the United States. Now, Phillips takes an uncompromising view of the political coalition, led by radical religion, that is driving America to the brink of disaster.

From Kirkus reviews: A dazzling treatise on the collapse of Republican virtues under the fundamentalists and plutocrats united in the perfect storm of Bushism.

From Publishers Weekly: A critic of the Bush family, Phillips sees little hope in Hillary Clinton. Expect him to make some provocative appearances on chat shows.

Phillips is the one-time Reagan revolutionary who had the intellectual honesty to understand and write about what has really happened since that time -- when the hard right and ultra-wealthy began in earnest to completely take control of America.

He actually worked in the Reagan administration and is also the author of these books:

• Wealth and Democracy : A Political History of the American Rich
  


• American Dynasty : Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush


• Arrogant Capital : Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics
  


• Boiling Point : Democrats, Republicans, and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity


• The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath (This was his groundbreaking book which started out as a project to prove how good Reagan and the Republicans were for America, but which in fact proved to him just the opposite).

Publishers Weekly wrote this in 1990 about Rich and Poor:

Phillips proposes that the legacy of Reagan's presidency includes an enormous concentration of wealth at the top, intensifying pain and inequality for the poor, a massive, mounting debt, and foreigners gobbling up large chunks of America. The losers in this economic polarization include women, racial minorities, young people, single-parent families. Phillips demonstrates that deregulation has especially hurt organized labor, poorer city neighborhoods, people in small towns and rural areas. His analysis linking Reaganism to America's global loss of economic power is compelling. While George Bush [Sr.] keeps "imitating Ike in the 1990s" and refuses to develop a national strategy, post-Reagan Democrats take the blame for failure to resuscitate liberal economic populism. A stunning refutation of George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty....

Personally -- I can't wait to hear him on the political talk shows -- he's one of those people who doesn't put up with the disingenuous liars and blowhards like Chris 'sycophant' Mattews on Spitball or Tim Russert's corporate ass-kissing & hide-the-truth-fest or certainly not those Faux news idiots.

Now, if only OPRAH would interview him since what he knows and has to say is far more important to regular folks than the incestuous, out-of-touch, dishonest beltway punditry.

Order American Theocracy today! New book here,unabridged audio CD here.

Other books by Kevin Phillips

Kevin Phillips' bona fides: a former Republican strategist, he has been a political and economic commentator for more than three decades. He is currently a regular contributor to the and Los Angeles TimesNational Public Radio and also writes for Harper?s Magazine and Time. He has written twelve books, including The New York Times bestsellers The Politics of Rich and Poor and Wealth and Democracy.

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American Dictatorship: Retired Supreme Court Justice Issues Dire Warning

Oh yeah -- don't forget to check out Slate's coverage of Nina Totenberg's great catch and her NPR story on 3/10/06 about retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's warning in a speech at Georgetown University on March 9.

I'm no big fan of O'Connor -- she has proved herself a committed Republican and conservative and was the swing vote who gave the 2000 election to Bush. But ToteNberg gets KUDOS and mainstream media gets THUMBS DOWN (again, but what else is new?).

"We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary. . . It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

Question of the month: Why did the media, other than Totenberg & NPR, miss it? Will they play catch up or just continue to ignore it?

O'Connor Forecasts Dictatorship Slate article here.

"Love Survivies Death" Brilliant Rosanne Cash on Nightline Tonight!

ABC Nightline's Terry Moran does a feature with Rosanne Cash, one of my very most favorite ever ever ever artists (writer, singer, songwriter, poet, ARTIST!). She's getting a lot of coverage for her critically acclaimed new CD, Black Cadillac.

My previous entry about her here.

Amen, Brother!

Finally a MSM story on agnostic author Bart Ehrman whose bestseller, Misquoting Jesus, picks apart the gospels that made a disbeliever out of him.

[Ehrman's] specialty was the ancient texts that tried to explain what actually happened to Jesus Christ, and how the world's largest religion grew into being after his execution.

What he found there began to frighten him.

The Bible simply [is]n't error-free. The mistakes grew exponentially as he traced translations through the centuries. There are some 5,700 ancient Greek manuscripts that are the basis of the modern versions of the New Testament, and scholars have uncovered more than 200,000 differences in those texts.

"Put it this way: There are more variances among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament," Ehrman summarizes.

Most of these are inconsequential errors in grammar or metaphor. But others are profound. The last 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark appear to have been added to the text years later -- and these are the only verses in that book that show Christ reappearing after his death.

Another critical passage is in 1 John, which explicitly sets out the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). It is a cornerstone of Christian theology, and this is the only place where it is spelled out in the entire Bible -- but it appears to have been added to the text centuries later, by an unknown scribe.

For a man who believed the Bible was the inspired Word of God, Ehrman sought the true originals to shore up his faith. The problem: There are no original manuscripts of the Gospels, of any of the New Testament.

Hello! All you Falwells, Dobsons, Robertsons (finally hoisted on his own petard), etc, etc. These blindly following idiots who believe the bible is THE word of god -- and inerrant at that -- usually don't even know it wasn't originally written in English, much less that it was not a single document, that many other contradictory elements were left out, banned, removed, burned ... nor written during the time of the person now known as Jesus. And I should know. I live among those whom Kathy Griffin refers to as the 'aggressively ignorant.'

"Bart was, like a lot of people who were converted to fundamental evangelicalism, converted to the certainty of it all, of having all the answers," says Dale Martin, Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University, and a friend of three decades. "When he found out they were lying to him, he just didn't want anything to do with it."

Boy can I relate to that.

Publishers Weekly writes: "Ehrman claims ancient scribes were so deeply influenced by the cultural, theological and political disputes of their day that they altered the texts of the Bible." Gee...what contemporary culture, country, administration, belief system does that remotely sound like? Similar atterns of behavior in fact: misleading the world about Iraq and WMDs, purposefully linking Iraq to 9-11 when there was no connection, lying about how 'great, really great' it's going over there, ad infinitum.

Good for Ehrman -- having the courage to look logically and critically at history, reality and at these stories, fictions, legends, propaganda -- I plan to get the book ASAP. It costs $25 at Harper Collins but only $15 at Amazon.com. Read the entire WaPo story here.

What happened to derail Plan B? When Politics Defeats Science

Important questions, reminders and reality-check today in the WaPo from Susan F. Wood, a former assistant commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and senior policy adviser to the Reproductive Health Technologies Project.

It's been nearly three years since the first application came in to make Plan B emergency contraception available over the counter, so that women, including rape victims, could have a second chance to prevent an unintended pregnancy and the need for an abortion. How many chances have we missed? I still can't explain what is going on here, and why women 17 and older are still denied this product in a timely way. When did adult access to contraception become controversial? And why have we allowed it to happen?

Wood's entire WaPo column here.



On a related note -- reflecting upon many of the big questions and concerns of our day as artists are wont to do -- maybe we can again look to the arts and to some of those artists to help us see more clearly what we know, feel, experience. A WaPo review(?) of the Whitney Biennial is entitled "Red, White and Bleak" subtitled Grim Reflections on the Dispirit of the Times.

When even the pompous, wouldn't-know-about- working-class-life-or-poverty-if-it-bit-him-in-the-ass George Will continues an increasingly adamant litany in his recent string of critiques directed at the most right-wing administration ever, you know they're in trouble. "Rhetoric of Unreality" is his column today.