Live on http://kucinichtv.com as I write.
December 2007 archive
Dec 17 2007
It Tattoos Everything
It’s pretty obvious that a decision has been made.
I don’t know exactly when, or where, or who participated; I don’t know what was said during what phone calls. And I don’t exactly mean to suggest that a conspiracy was involved, other than the ordinary everyday sorts of conspiracies involved in Washington cloak-room negotiations, in gentlemen’s agreements made in the back seats of Manhattan taxicabs, and most of all, perhaps, in the ebb and flow of conversations on the balconies overlooking shorelines and forests behind million-dollar homes during dinner parties in Nantucket, Massachusetts and MacLean, Virginia.
But it’s pretty obvious that somewhere in the midst of all of that a new normal was decided upon by people who don’t care about you or me: the new normal of the 21st century.
Consider this article from The Cleveland Examiner, Sept. 24, 2007. In fact, consider it very carefully.
“Look, I’d like to make as many hard decisions as I can make, and do a lot of the heavy lifting prior to whoever my successor is,” Bush said. “And then that person is going to have to come and look at the same data I’ve been looking at, and come to their own conclusion.”
As an example, Bush cited his detainee program, which allows him to keep enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay while they await adjudication. Bush is unmoved by endless criticism of the program because he says his successor will need it.
“I specifically talked about it so that a candidate and/or president wouldn’t have to deal with the issue,” he said. “The next person has got the opportunity to analyze the utility of the program and make his or her decision about whether or not it is necessary to protect the homeland. I suspect they’ll find that it is necessary. But my only point to you is that it was important for me to lay it out there, so that the politics wouldn’t enter into whether or not the program ought to survive beyond my period.”
The decision – and I don’t even mean to say, here, that I know what the grammar of the decision was, or what it means to those who made it, or even that it was ever exactly articulated – can be seen everywhere in the news. To see it, you need only read recent news stories and keep one thing in mind: The Bush Administration only has one year left in office.
Dec 17 2007
Cool Yule
For reasons of timing and geography, I’ll be celebrating the holidays this week. One of the things I’m repeating from last year is that several people will recieve cd’s of music I’ve put together for them as gifts. Today I’ve been finalizing all those and thought it might be fun to share some of the music with all of you here.
I’ve made a holiday playlist that I’m calling “Cool Yule” after miss Bette’s recent rendition:
How about a little coolness from the great Luther Vandross?
Dec 17 2007
Doing something beats doing nothing every time
(An op ed column from Sunday’s Wisconsin State Journal, in Madison.)
The fifth Christmas with U.S. troops in Iraq is upon us, with no end in sight.
It’s a time to remember those families who are missing a loved one this season, especially those who are facing the first holiday of the rest of their lives without their loved ones. It’s a time to remember and honor the troops who are away from home.
It ‘s also a time to ask: How can we stop the war? And it’s a time to do something — even if it ‘s something small — to say we want it to end.
President Bush will not be moved, despite the fact that every poll says a solid majority, perhaps two-thirds, of the American people want to end the war and bring our troops home.
The Democratic Congress, elected a year ago with a mandate to end the war, is too chicken-hearted to confront the bull-headed president. Next year’s presidential election offers precious little hope, as the leading candidates refuse to commit to having our troops out by 2013.
Opponents of the Iraq war have become the new Silent Majority. They tell the pollsters they ‘re against the war, but do nothing — perhaps because it seems fruitless.
It is understandable if they are disheartened. They spoke out in huge numbers before the war began, and were ignored. Four years of beating their heads against the wall may have worn them out.
But it’s not a time to give up. Doing nothing is not a viable option.
That’s why I have joined many who have signed on with the Iraq Moratorium, a decentralized but growing national grassroots effort that asks individuals to take personal responsibility to do something — anything — to show their opposition to the war.
The moratorium asks people to take some action, individually or collectively, on the third Friday of every month, from wearing a black armband or button to participating in a large-scale protest, or many things in between.
The group’s website, IraqMoratorium.org ,has ideas, information and reports on past and upcoming actions.
The fourth monthly Moratorium Day is Dec. 21, four days before Christmas. It is guaranteed to be ignored by the media, George Bush and the Congress.
The cynics say nothing we do matters, so why do anything?
The answer is obvious: Doing something is infinitely more likely to have an impact than doing nothing. That’s what the Iraq Moratorium is all about.
Buttons and armbands won’t stop the war by themselves. Neither will rallies and marches, or letters to the editor, or phone calls to Congress, or speeches or civil disobedience. There ‘s no single magic solution.
Those who want to end this war need to do everything to keep the flame alive until the silent majority catches fire and demands an end to this senseless war.
That’s why I will do something for Iraq Moratorium No. 4 on Dec. 21. And you?
Dec 17 2007
The long road back to respectability
This is something that has been on my mind for some time, yet I still haven’t quite figured out where I am going with it. Over the past decade, this country has fallen from grace in a big way. Granted, “grace” is overstated, since there were many stains on the integrity and hypocritical nature of what we say as opposed to what we do long before Mister Bush took office in 2001.
But even taking that all into consideration, the way that this country’s promise and opportunity was hijacked – not by “republicans” or “Democrats” or even “neoconservatives” per se – since 2001 makes one (or at least makes me) look at what has gone on and how much respectability has been lost and wasted by a combination of greed, money, arrogance and wanton disregard for the rule of law.
Dec 16 2007
Edwards Mops The Floor With Republicans
like no other Democrat, feigned or real.
http://www.alternet.org/story/…
Edwards makes no attempt to be more Republican than the Republicans like Clinton. He doesn’t seek to get along like Obama.
Edwards is not appealing to the mythical middle class of the DLC. He is talking to the people. People don’t count for much these days.
Edwards is not the plutocratic candidate with money to burn. He doesn’t have the glamor and the backing of the two that occupy the front of the stage. Most polls don’t even bother to record the horrendous drubbing Edwards would deal the Republicans.
Thought someone here might like to know before Edwards is banished forever from the scene.
Best, Terry
Dec 16 2007
Weekend News Digest
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Turkish planes bomb PKK targets in Iraq
By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 11 minutes ago
| ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey said dozens of its warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets as deep as 60 miles inside northern Iraq for three hours Sunday in the largest aerial attack in years against the outlawed separatist group. An Iraqi official said the planes attacked several villages, killing one woman.
In the nighttime offensive, the fighter jets hit rebel positions close to the border with Turkey and in the Qandil mountains, which straddle the Iraq-Iran border, the Turkish military said in a statement posted on its Web site. It said the operation was directed against the rebels and not against the local population. As many as 50 fighter jets were involved in the airstrikes, private NTV television and other media reported. Turkey has recently attacked the area with ground-based artillery and helicopters and there have been some unconfirmed reports of airstrikes by warplanes. |
Dec 16 2007
Towards a Definitive Bushco Scandal List: Help!
It is the heart of any call for investigations or impeachment. It is intended to bring the ire of every person reading to the forefront and spur them to action. It is intended to refresh the memory and to sharpen the focus. It is intended to never let the crimes die…or the criminals rest…
It is The List.
Impeachment/Investigation essays are emotional to some people, they react to the meme or the ‘current political reality’ and not to the larger reality of what has occurred over the last seven years. The List is a reminder to FUCK the current political reality and push for justice and principle.
Dec 16 2007
Got Kids, Meet Their Future
An Iraqi boy reacts after seeing his sister and both of his parents killed in the car, in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005
As we bring Freedom and Democray at the point of a gun!
Dec 16 2007
Tues 10:56a edt 90,160 & Wexler’s Office Explains Issues with Petition Count
I just heard from a colleague who spoke with a senior staffer at Wexler’s office. In her words here is the explanation:
Okay, just got a call from a senior staffer at Congressman Wexler’s office. They, indeed, were aware of the problems with the counter yesterday. I am pretty much a moron when it comes to website technical issues, so the best way I can explain it is that they were having a huge spike in traffic and having issues with the server. They actually had to switch servers as a result – twice – and in the process had to reset the counter which caused the error in the numbers. They way he described it and the timing and the actual numbers he provided matched exactly what we were witnessing – the sudden jump to over 100,000 and then the drop to 83,000. Later, there was another jump and subsequent drop when they had to repeat the process.
But, he is confident that it is all accurate now and running smoothly again. I know everyone is excited (and concerned) and while I think it’s good to keep an eye on things, the constant refreshing and checking most likely is putting strain on the system. They are using a reliable professional database and have multiple backups for the data. He explained as well that he personally scanned the list of names/email addresses and didn’t note any glaring discrepancies or duplicates and, again, is confident that the number currently displayed is accurate.
Bottom line, Congressman Wexler is committed to this and no there is no conspiracy or sabotage.
We spoke as well regarding Rep. Wexler’s interest in impeachment and he will be addressing the issue and providing more information on his plans this Thursday so stay tuned. They understand the challenge we are facing with the “media” and urged us to keep doing what we’re doing. He assured me that as far as the congressman is concerned, this is not going to fade away next week. So, keep putting it out there, encourage others to sign up.
Last count of the “night.” Something strange is going on with the site because the count was higher at 7:27p – 90,235 – than it is now. Not sure if the site is under attack. Be curious to see what Wexler’s office has to say in the morning.
At 5:27p the count was 88,953. Two hours later it was 90,325. That’s 11.43 signers per minute.
I don’t have time to calculate, but it looks like the votes are increasing by over 20 a minute. The site is also loading faster again. I called Wexler’s office and they said they had done server upgrades over the weekend. Maybe they did more today. At this rate it will be 100,000 easily by morning, maybe sooner.
Wow! I told somone last night around 1:30a that I expected it to hit 70,000 by mid-day today. This happened overnight!! Wexler must be overjoyed. I heard last night that the response to him personally for doing this has been overwhelming. He is being treated like a rockstar!
Update: I saw Dave Lindorff and John Nichols on a panel this afternoon in NYC at a presentation of The Culture Project’s “The Question of Impeachment.” Dave was awesome, but Nichols stole the show when he said that there will soon be 6 Dems calling for impeachment hearings! So all of the forwarding and cajoling we are all doing with this petition will have an impact. Our goal is to convince the entire Judiciary Committee this is imperative. Liz Holtzman emphasized that for impeachment to work it must be bipartisan so please do not hold back from contacting your Rep even if s/he is Republican.
The message that I got today was that IMPEACHMENT CAN HAPPEN, but it will take a lot of work and it doesn’t happen overnight. Holtzman who has been through it before remembered that things really started to happen February – July. So let’s gear up and get ready to make it happen in February!
They will have a podcast of this afternoon’s performance up sometime tomorrow. I strongly recommend it – this panel was amazing – Dave Lindorff, Liz Holtzman, Scott Horton, Marjorie Cohn, and John Nichols.
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They will have a podcast of this afternoon’s performance up sometime tomorrow. I strongly recommend it – this panel was amazing – Dave Lindorff, Liz Holtzman, Scott Horton, Marjorie Cohn, and John Nichols.This is a drive by diary, but I hope I will be forgiven because I am busy organizing an impeachment event in NYC for Wednesday (more on that later). I am hoping everyone here has signed Rep. Wexler’s petition and if you haven’t please go to Wexler’s Web Page and read his powerful oped and watch his video and SIGN. We hit 50,000 just before midnight last night – Wexler’s goal was 50,000 – let’s multiply that tenfold and show his colleagues what the American people want. Wexler needs our help to help us. I have seen skepticism and cynicism that he is doing this as a campaign ploy. I can’t tell you how I know, but I can verify that he is 100% committed to this and has been working on it since November 7th, the day after Dennis Kucinich introduced his motion of privilege. Please do whatever you can do to gather signatures on this significant petition. This is what will get us impeachment hearings.
Also, if you can please go orange for a moment and recommend Dave Lindorff’s new diary, we should be able to build this further if it remains on the recommended list for the afternoon. Dave is participating in a performance of “A Question of Impeachment” at The Culture Project today and I doubt he will be able to babysit the diary. The Culture Project is an amazing series that has been happening in SoHo. Check out the podcasts of the panel discussions – some really great stuff by incredibly knowledgable people.