"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." --George W. Bush, 12.18.00
Editorial: The Liarfuhrer of the combined forces of unfettered corporate greed and undemocratic theocracy has led his thoughtless followers to the promised land of arrogance, thought-control, and selfishness run amock. Our country can ill-afford four more years of the kind of Bush domestic and foreign policy that we have already experienced. There is no reason to suspect that Bush will not continue to harm us, both here and abroad. His economic polices are calculated to reward the rich, destroy the social safety nets of the poor and the middle-class, and drive up the massive national debt that will punish the nation for decades to come. Bush's neocon-hawk-driven foreign policy is isolating us from our traditional allies all over the world, is responsible for the deaths and suffering of hundreds of thousands of U.S., Iraqi, and world citizens, and is exposing us to the whims of terrorists and the authoritarian deceits of both foreign and American fundamentalists. It is up to us, every one of us, to fight this corrupt and disreputable administration every day of our lives and to demonstrate our dissatisfaction and moral concern to our fellow citizens as often as we can. --Politex, 11.03.04
Bush (total 254) wins: Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska (4), Wyoming, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah, Arkansas, Missouri, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Alaska, Nevada
Kerry (total 252) wins: Vermont, Illinois, Connecticut, D.C., New Jersey, Maryland, Maine (3), Massachusetts, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island. Pennsylvania, California, Washington, Oregon, New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota, Hawaii
Undecided: Ohio (20), New Mexico (5), Iowa (7) CNN
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Why Bin Laden Fears Kerry More Than He Fears Bush
Many observers have thought for some time that Bush's words and his administration's deeds have helped the Al Qaeda effort to gather new recruits to terrorism throughout the Muslim world. Bush began by calling his war on terrorism a crusade, setting the Christian vs. Muslim tone that remains today in the mind of the Muslim world. Bush went to war to remove imagined terrorists from Iraq, and today there are more terrorists in Iraq than ever before. As Slate's William Saletan writes:
"Osama Bin Laden has finally repaid his debt to President Bush, who has spent the three years since the Afghan war doing everything he could, inadvertently, to help Bin Laden. He let Bin Laden get away, turned our attention to Saddam Hussein, and conducted both prewar diplomacy and the postwar occupation of Iraq in a manner perfectly calculated --or rather, not calculated-- to discredit the United States and piss everyone off. Bin Laden couldn't have scripted it better."
Naturally, Bin laden would want to have Bush continue as President, given his failed anti-terrlorism policies that produce more terrorists, so it was not surprising to see a new Bin Laden tape scant days before the election, a tape in which Bin Laden renewed his threat to attack the U.S. because it has not changed its ways. Kerry, on the other hand, has proposed policies designed to put greater heat on Bin Laden, and Kerry has made clear that he will not continue Bush's failed anti-terrorism policies. As we know by now, Bin Laden and the men around him are not dummies. (U.S. ex-anti-terrorist head Richard Clarke to Ted Koppel On ABC's NIGHTLINE: "Bin Laden's a smart guy. If he attacks Bush, it moves the American people toward Bush's side.") Bin Laden knows how the tape would influence the election. So do the Bush and Kerry camps. Should it come as a surprise that Democrats believe that Bin Laden has harmed Kerry's campaign? Should it come as a surprise that Republicans believe Bin Laden's tape is helping Bush? Americans know that a last-minute focus on the threat of terrorism favors Bush because his poll numbers are strongest as an anti-terrorist leader. Bin Laden knows that, too. It comes as no surprise that Bin Laden wants Bush to continue as President. --Jerry Politex, 11.01.04
Top Ten Films About The Real America: 1. OLIVER STONE (JFK, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, WALL STREET, NIXON, BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY, SALVADOR)...2. THE GODFATHER TRILOGY...3. MICHHAEL MOORE TRIOLGY (FAHRENHEIT 9/11, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, ROGER AND ME)...4. DR. STRANGELOVE...5. APOCALYPSE NOW...6.. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN...7. GRAPES OF WRATH. What Are The Other Three?Thus far, nominees for the last three (should we make it 15?) are SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1st thirty minutes), 3 DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE PARALLAX VIEW, MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (first version), CATCH 22, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THE DEER HUNTER, NETWORK, ADVISE AND CONSENT, NASHVILLE, RAGTIME, THE CANDIDATE, AVALON, MEDIUM COOL, BEING THERE, THE CORPORATION, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, PATHS OF GLORY, COMING HOME, GLENGARRY GLENROSS, DEATH OF A SALESMAN. (check 'em out) Also, OBEDIENCE. PLEASE KEEP 'EM COMIN'
1.Bush, 2. Cheney, 3. Ashcroft, 4. Rumsfeld, 5. Rice, 6. Rove, 7. Wolfowitz, 8. Norton, 9. Goss, 10. DeLay (e-mail)
1. Corporate State, 2. Wars, 3. Massive Debt, 4. Payoffs To Wealthy, 5. Civil Repression, 6. Conservative Judges, 7. Pro-Theocracy, 8. Anti-Environmental Protections, 9. Anti-Social Services, 10. Cultural Desert 11. Anti-Minorities/Poor, 12. Anti-Workers/Unions, 13. Anti-Health Patients, 14. Anti-Energy Consumers 15. Governing Through Fear And Lies (e-mail)
1.WMDs, 2. Nation Building, 3. Al Qaeda-Saddam, 4. 9/11 Commission, 5. Free Trade, 6. Homeland Security, 7. Same-Sex Intervention, 8. Winning War On Terror, 9. Campaign Finance Reform, 10. Gas Prices (e-mail)
Inside BW, Bush Debagte Lies.....
Kelley, Judging Debating Substance.....
Burns, Dead Osama "Shoot-Out".....
Jenkins, The Media Fears Journalism.....
Hoot, Whim Of A Hat.....
Soto, GOP-Controlled Polls.....
Weiner, How to Beat Rove.....
Partridge, Pravda On The Potomac.....
Lower, Bush's Political Violence.....
Stasi, Shove It, Jeb.....
Bushlexia....Today's Toon
"Republican election commissioner...didn't want us to give people water or food"
Yesterday was one of the most moving, meaningful days of my life. My job is to get people to the polls and, more importantly, to keep them there. Because theyre crazily jammed. Crazily. No one expected this turnout. For me, its been a deeply humbling, deeply gratifying experience. At todays early vote in the College Hill district of East Tampa -- a heavily democratic, 90% African American community we had 879 voters wait an average of five hours to cast their vote. People were there until four hours after they closed (as long as theyre in line by 5, they can vote).
Heres what was so moving:
We hardly lost anyone. People stood outside for an hour, in the blazing sun, then inside for another four hours as the line snaked around the library, slowly inching forward. It made Disneyland look like speed-walking. Some waited 6 hours. To cast one vote. And EVERYBODY felt that it was crucial, that their vote was important, and that they were important.
And there were tons of first time voters. Tons.
Aside from some hassles from the republican election commissioner (he didnt want us to give people water or food, even if we did it in a non-partisan manner; in fact, I actually overheard him on a cell phone saying we need to find a way to leak out that there are 4 hour lines here in College Hill, that might thin it out a little -- but we gotta be careful cause we can get bad spin from it; we gotta find a way to do it without getting bad spin)... Aside from that, I had an amazing experience. No, actually, in a way because of that I had an amazing experience. Because these people know that the system thats in place doesnt want them voting. Yet theyre determined to do it. The best of all was an 80 year old African American man who said to me: When I first started I wasnt even allowed to vote. Then, when I did, they was trying to intimidate me. But now I see all these folks here to make sure that my vote counts. This is the first time in my life that I feel like when I cast my vote its actually gonna be heard.
To see people coming out elderly, disabled, blind, poor; people who have to hitch rides, take buses, etc and then staying in line for hours and hours and hours... Well, its humbling. And its awesome. And its kind of beautiful.
Sometimes you forget what America is. I think theres hope.
Dear Jerry: My wife & I attended your book signing at Toledo this past Thursday. I want to inform you that I had my voter registration challanged --along with many other Toledoans. Here's a link to a news story covering this cheap trick: http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/news/1030_meetingcancelled.html Briefly, I was challanged on the basis of being a first time voter who had registered by mail. This was completely bogus. A check with the local Board of Elections confirmed that I had voted last November. My wife & I went down to the Government Center yesterday to protest this bit of chicanery. We have been in communication with the local Democratic Party about this & have learned of other scams, e.g., phoney calls to people advising them that their precinct has been changed. I know this is part of nationwide efforts to do the same thing, which you are well aware of; I just thought you might like to hear about the Toledo angle. Keep up the good work. Frank McElhannon & Jill Berkana, Sunday Oct. 31, 2004
"In Philadelphia, where a large black vote is essential to a Kerry victory in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, the Republican speaker of the Pennsylvania House, John Perzel, is hard at work challenging Democratic voters. He makes no bones about his intent, telling U.S. News & World Report: "The Kerry campaign needs to come out with humongous numbers here in Philadelphia. It's important for me to keep that number down." That's called voter suppression, folks, and the G.O.P. concentrates its voter-suppression efforts in the precincts where there are large numbers of African-Americans. And that's called racism." --Bob Herbert
INSIDE BUSH WATCH: Reading the Morning Papers (October 23)
Christine: Why should people vote now?
Jerry: Because if they're prevented from doing so by the officials at the polls or by the machines, they would have time to do something about it.
Christine: Well, if they show up at the polls on the final day of the election and they're turned away, they can do something about it then.
Jerry: The 2000 elections indicate that would be too late.
Christine: The Democratic lawyers could always sue if Kerry loses.
Jerry: The Democratic lawyers should sue if Kerry wins.
Christine: Huh?
Jerry: You think the Republicans aren't going to sue if Kerry wins? The Dems should be ready to sue if Kerry wins or loses. It's time to get proactive. In 2000 I tried hard to push the Gore people to act, but they were always 48 hours behind the Republicans in Florida. We can't let that happen again.
Chrinstine: So, we shouldn't leave it in the hands of the lawyers?
Jerry: Certainly not, we should leave it in our hands. We should drive people to the polls, we should keep an eye on voting at the polls. The Republicans have big bucks to hire people to flood the polls. We should volunteer to watch the polls. We should call people up. We should do whatever we can. We should not sit by and let the Republicans steal another presidential election. And whether Kerry wins or loses, we should protest. If he wins, we should protest all of the eligible voters that the Republicans have prevented from voting. If he loses, we should protest all of the eligible voters that the Republicans have prevented from voting. This election is only a battle in the war for democracy. We can no longer sit back and allow others to do our work. We can no longer afford to be selfish. We must battle against the forces of fascism every singele day, in every way we can. --10.23.04
Bush Talks, Journalists Snicker
It didn't sound like a hard question. After George W. Bush delivered a tepidly received address to a convention of minority journalists, a Native-American editor from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer asked, "What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century?" As president and a former governor, the journalist said, Bush had a "unique experience, looking at [the issue] from two perspectives." The president fumbled. "Tribal sovereignty means that-it's sovereignty," he stammered. "I mean, you're a-you're a-you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity." As Bush rambled, looking like a schoolboy unprepared at the front of the class, many of the hundreds of Asian, black, Native American and Hispanic journalists gathered before him...well, snickered.
Washington, D.C. 08.06.04
OTHER BUSH WATCH OP-EDS...
"Neocons" believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power – forcefully if necessary – to promote its values around the world. Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the US can no longer be reliably contained and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action.
Most neocons believe that the US has allowed dangers to gather by not spending enough on defense and not confronting threats aggressively enough. One such threat, they contend, was Saddam Hussein and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Since the 1991 Gulf War, neocons relentlessly advocated Mr. Hussein's ouster.
Most neocons share unwavering support for Israel, which they see as crucial to US military sufficiency in a volatile region. They also see Israel as a key outpost of democracy in a region ruled by despots. Believing that authoritarianism and theocracy have allowed anti-Americanism to flourish in the Middle East, neocons advocate the democratic transformation of the region, starting with Iraq. They also believe the US is unnecessarily hampered by multilateral institutions, which they do not trust to effectively neutralize threats to global security.
What are the roots of neoconservative beliefs?The original neocons were a small group of mostly Jewish liberal intellectuals who, in the 1960s and 70s, grew disenchanted with what they saw as the American left's social excesses and reluctance to spend adequately on defense. Many of these neocons worked in the 1970s for Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a staunch anti-communist. By the 1980s, most neocons had become Republicans, finding in President Ronald Reagan an avenue for their aggressive approach of confronting the Soviet Union with bold rhetoric and steep hikes in military spending. After the Soviet Union's fall, the neocons decried what they saw as American complacency. In the 1990s, they warned of the dangers of reducing both America's defense spending and its role in the world.
Unlike their predecessors, most younger neocons never experienced being left of center. They've always been "Reagan" Republicans.
What is the difference between a neoconservative and a conservative?
Liberals first applied the "neo" prefix to their comrades who broke ranks to become more conservative in the 1960s and 70s. The defectors remained more liberal on some domestic policy issues. But foreign policy stands have always defined neoconservatism. Where other conservatives favored détente and containment of the Soviet Union, neocons pushed direct confrontation, which became their raison d'etre during the 1970s and 80s.
Today, both conservatives and neocons favor a robust US military. But most conservatives express greater reservations about military intervention and so-called nation building. Neocons share no such reluctance. The post 9/11-campaigns against regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate that the neocons are not afraid to force regime change and reshape hostile states in the American image. Neocons believe the US must do to whatever it takes to end state-supported terrorism. For most, this means an aggressive push for democracy in the Middle East. Even after 9/11, many other conservatives, particularly in the isolationist wing, view this as an overzealous dream with nightmarish consequences.
How have neoconservatives influenced US foreign policy?
Finding a kindred spirit in President Reagan, neocons greatly influenced US foreign policy in the 1980s.
But in the 1990s, neocon cries failed to spur much action. Outside of Reaganite think tanks and Israel's right-wing Likud Party, their calls for regime change in Iraq were deemed provocative and extremist by the political mainstream. With a few notable exceptions, such as President Bill Clinton's decision to launch isolated strikes at suspected terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, their talk of preemptive military action was largely dismissed as overkill.
Despite being muted by a president who called for restraint and humility in foreign affairs, neocons used the 1990s to hone their message and craft their blueprint for American power. Their forward thinking and long-time ties to Republican circles helped many neocons win key posts in the Bush administration.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 moved much of the Bush administration closer than ever to neoconservative foreign policy. Only days after 9/11, one of the top neoconservative think tanks in Washington, the Project for a New American Century, wrote an open letter to President Bush calling for regime change in Iraq. Before long, Bush, who campaigned in 2000 against nation building and excessive military intervention overseas, also began calling for regime change in Iraq. In a highly significant nod to neocon influence, Bush chose the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as the venue for a key February 2003 speech in which he declared that a US victory in Iraq "could begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace." AEI – the de facto headquarters for neconservative policy – had been calling for democratization of the Arab world for more than a decade.
What does a neoconservative dream world look like?
Neocons envision a world in which the United States is the unchallenged superpower, immune to threats. They believe that the US has a responsibility to act as a "benevolent global hegemon." In this capacity, the US would maintain an empire of sorts by helping to create democratic, economically liberal governments in place of "failed states" or oppressive regimes they deem threatening to the US or its interests. In the neocon dream world the entire Middle East would be democratized in the belief that this would eliminate a prime breeding ground for terrorists. This approach, they claim, is not only best for the US; it is best for the world. In their view, the world can only achieve peace through strong US leadership backed with credible force, not weak treaties to be disrespected by tyrants.
Any regime that is outwardly hostile to the US and could pose a threat would be confronted aggressively, not "appeased" or merely contained. The US military would be reconfigured around the world to allow for greater flexibility and quicker deployment to hot spots in the Middle East, as well as Central and Southeast Asia. The US would spend more on defense, particularly for high-tech, precision weaponry that could be used in preemptive strikes. It would work through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations when possible, but must never be constrained from acting in its best interests whenever necessary. --Christian Science Monitor
COMMENT Bush Joke | Bush, Sharon, Assassination | Meet the Neocons | Bush As Student | Bush 9/11 Ad | Negative Bush | Major-President | BushTwins | We Beat Moore | Bush "Growth" | Bush Failure | WMD? Who Cares? | Taco Bush | Bush, Katherine Harris | Oh, Canada | Canada Letters | Bush Bottle | Mission Creep | Bush, Kerry, Dean | No Light Song | Brit Bush Interview | Recall Arnold | Ralph Naderbush | Vidal Blast | Bush Vets Lie | Democracy Joke | Real Reagan | Bush Midland Myth | Reagan Boycott | Extreme Bush | Disliking Bush | Bush Lies| Strategic Bigotry| 9/11 Coincidence| U.S. 31st| Angry Bush| Bush Dollar| UN Resolution| Soviet Texas| Israeli Nukes| Media Bias| Arnold's Dangerous| Addict Rush| Bush Energy| White Arnold| Bush ADD | Bush Blackout | Bush Reads| Israel Losing| Bush Fiction| TV Lies| Vote Machine Bias| Baghdad Kids| Rice Lies| Arms Traffic|
Note: Editorials have been replaced by Inside Bush Watch
The Bush-Saudi-Pakistan Nuke Connection
Editorials: Texas Gov. Perry Wants Sword To Cut One Way
Dean's Warning And The "Coke-Pepsi" Progressive Pundits
Good And Bad: A Guide To The Dem Candidates
Michael Moore, Nader, And the Green Machine
Bush And Faust: American Suckers And Worldwide Money Whores
GOP: The Party Of Social Intrusion, Corporate Control, And Big Government
Has Bush Repaid The Man Who "Fixed Florida"?
An "Oops" Theory of Bush Policy
How Bad Is This Mess, How Long Will It Last?
Bush Midland Fantasy Plays Buckingham Palace
Madrid: Bush Tries Spin To Fix A Leaky Roof
Bush Talks Burnt Trees But Not Dead Troops
Paul Krugman, Wiley Cayote, And The Dark Tunnel
Photos: Paul Krugman at Threadgill's in Austin, 10.18.03
What's Wrong With American Politics?
Notes Towards A GUT Of BushAdmin Policy
Revenge Of The Neocons: Goodby Colin, Welcome Princes Of Darkness
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