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LIVEBLOGGING: Patriotism and Dissent, John Kerry
UPDATE, 12:30 PM, (EST): Kerry Speech is reprinted in its entirety below, after the link to the LIVEBLOGGING by Tay-Tay. The speech text is followed by Kerry's Op-Ed from this morning.
Here's the link to Tay-Tay's liveblogging of John Kerry's speech at Faneuil Hall in Boston. Go over and make the action happen.
The speech will also be broadcast tomorrow on C-SPAN. Check your local listings.
The Speech (as prepared text)
Senator John Kerry
“Dissent”
Faneuil Hall
April 22, 2006
Thirty-five years ago today, I testified before the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, and called for an end to the war I had returned from fighting not long before.
It was 1971 – twelve years after the first American died in what was then South Vietnam, seven years after Lyndon Johnson seized on a small and contrived incident in the Tonkin Gulf to launch a full-scale war—and three years after Richard Nixon was elected president on the promise of a secret plan for peace. We didn’t know it at the time, but four more years of the War in Vietnam still lay ahead. These were years in which the Nixon administration lied and broke the law—and claimed it was prolonging war to protect our troops as they withdrew—years that ultimately ended only when politicians in Washington decided they would settle for a “decent interval” between the departure of our forces and the inevitable fall of Saigon.
I know that some active duty service members, some veterans, and certainly some politicians scorned those of us who spoke out, suggesting our actions failed to “support the troops”—which to them meant continuing to support the war, or at least keeping our mouths shut. Indeed, some of those critics said the same thing just two years ago during the presidential campaign.
I have come here today to reaffirm that it was right to dissent in 1971 from a war that was wrong. And to affirm that it is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a President who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a war in Iraq that weakens the nation.
I believed then, just as I believe now, that the best way to support the troops is to oppose a course that squanders their lives, dishonors their sacrifice, and disserves our people and our principles. When brave patriots suffer and die on the altar of stubborn pride, because of the incompetence and self-deception of mere politicians, then the only patriotic choice is to reclaim the moral authority misused by those entrusted with high office.
I believed then, just as I believe now, that it is profoundly wrong to think that fighting for your country overseas and fighting for your country’s ideals at home are contradictory or even separate duties. They are, in fact, two sides of the very same patriotic coin. And that’s certainly what I felt when I came home from Vietnam convinced that our political leaders were waging war simply to avoid responsibility for the mistakes that doomed our mission in the first place. Indeed, one of the architects of the war, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, confessed in a recent book that he knew victory was no longer a possibility far earlier than 1971.
By then, it was clear to me that hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen—disproportionately poor and minority Americans—were being sent into the valley of the shadow of death for an illusion privately abandoned by the very men in Washington who kept sending them there. All the horrors of a jungle war against an invisible enemy indistinguishable from the people we were supposed to be protecting—all the questions associated with quietly sanctioned violence against entire villages and regions—all the confusion and frustration that came from defending a corrupt regime in Saigon that depended on Americans to do too much of the fighting—all that cried out for dissent, demanded truth, and could not be denied by easy slogans like “peace with honor”—or by the politics of fear and smear. It was time for the truth, and time for it all to end, and my only regret in joining the anti-war movement was that it took so long to succeed—for the truth to prevail, and for America to regain confidence in our own deepest values.
The fissures created by Vietnam have long been stubbornly resistant to closure. But I am proud it was the dissenters—and it was our veterans’ movement—and people like Judy Droz Keyes—who battled not just to end the war but to combat government secrecy and the willful amnesia of a society that did not want to remember its obligations to the soldiers who fought. We fought the forgetting and pushed our nation to confront the war’s surplus of sad legacies—Agent Orange, Amer-Asian orphans, abandoned allies, exiled and imprisoned draft dodgers, doubts about whether all our POWs had come home, and honor at last for those who returned from Vietnam and those who did not. Because we spoke out, the truth was ultimately understood that the faults in Vietnam were those of the war, not the warriors.
Then, and even now, there were many alarmed by dissent—many who thought that staying the course would eventually produce victory—or that admitting the mistake and ending it would embolden our enemies around the world. History disproved them before another decade was gone: Fourteen years elapsed between the first major American commitment of helicopters and pilots to Vietnam and the fall of Saigon. Fourteen years later, the Berlin Wall fell, and with it the Communist threat. You cannot tell me that withdrawing from Vietnam earlier would have changed that outcome.
The lesson here is not that some of us were right about Vietnam, and some of us were wrong. The lesson is that true patriots must defend the right of dissent, and hear the voices of dissenters, especially now, when our leaders have committed us to a pre-emptive “war of choice” that does not involve the defense of our people or our territory against aggressors. The patriotic obligation to speak out becomes even more urgent when politicians refuse to debate their policies or disclose the facts. And even more urgent when they seek, perversely, to use their own military blunders to deflect opposition and answer their own failures with more of the same. Presidents and politicians may worry about losing face, or votes, or legacy; it is time to think about young Americans and innocent civilians who are losing their lives.
This is not the first time in American history when patriotism has been distorted to deflect criticism and mislead the nation.
In the infancy of the Republic, in 1798, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts to smear Thomas Jefferson and accuse him of treason. Newspapers were shut down, and their editors arrested, including Benjamin Franklin’s grandson. No wonder Thomas Jefferson himself said: “Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism.”
In the Mexican War, a young Congressman named Abraham Lincoln was driven from public life for raising doubts about official claims. And in World War I, America’s values were degraded, not defended, when dissenters were jailed and the teaching of German was banned in public schools in some states. At that time it was apparently sounding German, not looking French, that got you in trouble. And it was panic and prejudice, not true patriotism, that brought the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II—a measure upheld by Supreme Court Justices who did not uphold their oaths to defend the Constitution. We are stronger today because no less a rock-ribbed conservative than Robert Taft — “Mr. Republican” himself — stood up and said at the height of the second World War that, “the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.”
Even during the Cold War—an undeclared war, and often more a war of nerves and diplomacy than of arms—even the mildest dissenters from official policy were sometimes silenced, blacklisted, or arrested, especially during the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. Indeed, it was only when Joseph McCarthy went through the gates of delirium and began accusing distinguished U.S. diplomats and military leaders of treason that the two parties in Washington and the news media realized the common stake they had in the right to dissent. They stood up to a bully and brought down McCarthyism’s ugly and contrived appeals to a phony form of 100% Americanism.
Dissenters are not always right, but it is always a warning sign when they are accused of unpatriotic sentiments by politicians seeking a safe harbor from debate, from accountability, or from the simple truth.
Truth is the American bottom line. Truth above all is fundamental to who we are. It is no accident that among the first words of the first declaration of our national existence it is proclaimed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”.
This hall and this Commonwealth have always been at the forefront of seeking out and living out the truth in the conduct of public life. Here Massachusetts defined human rights by adopting our own Bill of Rights; here we took a stand against slavery, for women’s suffrage and civil rights for all Americans. The bedrock of America’s greatest advances—the foundation of what we know today are defining values—was formed not by cheering on things as they were, but by taking them on and demanding change.
And here and now we must insist again that fidelity, honor, and love of country demand untrammeled debate and open dissent. At no time is that truer than in the midst of a war rooted in deceit and justified by continuing deception. For what is at stake here is nothing less than life itself. As the statesman Edmund Burke once said: “A conscientious man should be cautious how he dealt in blood.”
Think about that now—in a new era that has brought old temptations and tested abiding principles.
America has always embraced the best traditions of civilized conduct toward combatants and non-combatants in war. But today our leaders hold themselves above the law—in the way they not only treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib, but assert unchecked power to spy on American citizens.
America has always rejected war as an instrument of raw power or naked self-interest. We fought when we had to in order to repel grave threats or advance freedom and self-determination in concert with like-minded people everywhere. But our current leadership, for all its rhetoric of freedom and democracy, behaves as though might does make right, enabling us to discard the alliances and institutions that served us so well in the past as nothing more now than impediments to the exercise of unilateral power.
America has always been stronger when we have not only proclaimed free speech, but listened to it. Yes, in every war, there have been those who demand suppression and silencing. And although no one is being jailed today for speaking out against the war in Iraq, the spirit of intolerance for dissent has risen steadily, and the habit of labeling dissenters as unpatriotic has become the common currency of the politicians currently running our country.
Dismissing dissent is not only wrong, but dangerous when America’s leadership is unwilling to admit mistakes, unwilling to engage in honest discussion of the nation’s direction, and unwilling to hold itself accountable for the consequences of decisions made without genuine disclosure, or genuine debate.
In recent weeks, a number of retired high-ranking military leaders, several of whom played key combat or planning roles in Afghanistan and Iraq, have come forward publicly to call for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And across the administration, from the president on down, we’ve heard these calls dismissed or even attacked as acts of disloyalty, or as threats to civilian control of the armed forces. We have even heard accusations that this dissent gives aid and comfort to the enemy. That is cheap and it is shameful. And once again we have seen personal attacks on the character of those who speak out. How dare those who never wore the uniform in battle attack those who wore it all their lives—and who, retired or not, did not resign their citizenship in order to serve their country.
The former top operating officer at the Pentagon, a Marine Lieutenant General, said “the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions–or bury the results.” It is hard for a career military officer to speak those words. But at a time when the administration cannot let go of the myths and outright lies it broadcast in the rush to war in Iraq, those who know better must speak out.
At a time when mistake after mistake is being compounded by the very civilian leadership in the Pentagon that ignored expert military advice in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, those who understand the price being paid for each mistake by our troops, our country, and Iraq itself must be heard.
Once again we are imprisoned in a failed policy. And once again we are being told that admitting mistakes, not the mistakes themselves, will provide our enemies with an intolerable propaganda victory. Once again we are being told that we have no choice but to stay the course of a failed policy. At a time like this, those who seek to reclaim America’s true character and strength must be respected.
The true defeatists today are not those who call for recognizing the facts on the ground in Iraq. The true defeatists are those who believe America is so weak that it must sacrifice its principles to the pursuit of illusory power.
The true pessimists today are not those who know that America can handle the truth about the Administration’s boastful claim of “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The true pessimists are those who cannot accept that America’s power and prestige depend on our credibility at home and around the world. The true pessimists are those who do not understand that fidelity to our principles is as critical to national security as our military power itself.
And the most dangerous defeatists, the most dispiriting pessimists, are those who invoke September 11th to argue that our traditional values are a luxury we can no longer afford.
Let’s call it the Bush-Cheney Doctrine.
According to the Bush-Cheney Doctrine, alliances and international institutions are now disposable—and international institutions are dispensable or even despicable.
According to the Bush-Cheney Doctrine, we cannot foreswear the fool’s gold of information secured by torturing prisoners or creating a shadow justice system with no rules and no transparency.
According to the Bush-Cheney Doctrine, unwarranted secrecy and illegal spying are now absolute imperatives of our national security.
According to the Bush-Cheney Doctrine, those who question the abuse of power question America itself.
According to the Bush-Cheney doctrine, an Administration should be willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the Iraq war, but unwilling to spend a few billion dollars to secure the American ports through which nuclear materials could make their way to terrorist cells.
According to the Bush-Cheney Doctrine, executive powers trump the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers.
According to the Bush-Cheney Doctrine, smearing administration critics is not only permissible, but necessary—and revealing the identity of a CIA agent is an acceptable means to hide the truth.
The raw justification for abandoning so many American traditions exposes the real danger of the Bush-Cheney Doctrine. We all understand we are in a long struggle against jihadist extremism. It does represent a threat to our vital security interests and our values. Even the Bush-Cheney Administration acknowledges this is preeminently an ideological war, but that’s why the Bush-Cheney Doctrine is so ill-equipped to fight and win it.
Our enemies argue that all our claims about advancing universal principles of human rights and mutual respect disguise a raw demand for American dominance. They gain every time we tolerate or cover up abuses of human rights in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, or among sectarian militias in Iraq, and especially when we defiantly disdain the rules of international law.
Our enemies argue that our invasion and occupation of Iraq reflect an obsession with oil supplies and commercial opportunities. They gain when our president and vice president, both former oil company executives, continue to pursue an oil-based energy strategy, and provide vast concessions in Iraq to their corporate friends.
And so there’s the crowning irony: the Bush-Cheney Doctrine holds that many of our great traditions cannot be maintained; yet the Bush-Cheney policies, by abandoning those traditions, give Osama bin Laden and his associates exactly what they want and need to reinforce their hate-filled ideology of Islamic solidarity against the western world.
I understand fully that Iraq is not Vietnam, and the war on terrorism is not the Cold War. But in one very crucial respect, we are in the same place now as we were thirty five years ago. When I testified in 1971, I spoke out not just against the war itself, but the blindness and cynicism of political leaders who were sending brave young Americans to be killed or maimed for a mission the leaders themselves no longer believed in.
The War in Vietnam and the War in Iraq are now converging in too many tragic respects.
As in Vietnam, we engaged militarily in Iraq based on official deception.
As in Vietnam, we went into Iraq ostensibly to fight a larger global war under the misperception that the particular theater was just a sideshow, but we soon learned that the particular aspects of the place where we fought mattered more than anything else.
And as in Vietnam, we have stayed and fought and died even though it is time for us to go.
We are now in the third war in Iraq in as many years. The first was against Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. The second was against terrorists whom, the administration said, it was better to fight over there than here. Now we find our troops in the middle of an escalating civil war.
Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America’s leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion. We want democracy in Iraq, but Iraqis must want it as much as we do. Our valiant soldiers can’t bring democracy to Iraq if Iraq’s leaders are unwilling themselves to make the compromises that democracy requires.
As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. It must be won politically. No American soldier should be sacrificed because Iraqi politicians refuse to resolve their ethnic and political differences.
Our call to action is clear. Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines—a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, and a deadline to hold three elections. It was the most intense 11th hour pressure that just pushed aside Prime Minister Jaafari and brought forward a more acceptable candidate. And it will demand deadline toughness to reign in Shiite militias Sunnis say are committing horrific acts of torture every day in Baghdad.
So we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet.
Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to deal with these intransigent issues and at last put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military. If Iraqis aren’t willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they’re probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave.
If Iraq’s leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year’s end. Doing so will actually empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country.
So now, as in 1971, we are engaged in another fight to live the truth and make our own government accountable. As in 1971, this is another moment when American patriotism demands more dissent and less complacency in the face of bland assurances from those in power.
We must insist now that patriotism does not belong to those who defend a President’s position—it belongs to those who defend their country. Patriotism is not love of power; it is love of country. And sometimes loving your country demands you must tell the truth to power. This is one of those times.
Lives are on the line. Lives have been lost to bad decisions – not decisions that could have gone either way, but decisions that constitute basic negligence and incompetence. And lives continue to be lost because of stubbornness and pride.
We support the troops—the brave men and women who have always protected us and do so today—in part by honoring their service, and in part by making sure they have everything they need both in battle and after they have borne the burden of battle.
But I believe now as strongly and proudly as I did thirty-five years ago that the most important way to support the troops is to tell the truth, and to ensure we do not ask young Americans to die in a cause that falls short of the ideals of this country.
When we protested the war in Vietnam some would weigh in against us saying: “My country right or wrong.” Our response was simple: “Yes, my country right or wrong. When right, keep it right and when wrong, make it right.” And that’s what we must do again today.
Kerry Op-Ed this morning:
Patriotism is truth, today as in Vietnam
By John F. Kerry | April 22, 2006
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago today, I testified before the United States Senate. I was a 27-year-old Vietnam veteran who believed the war had to come to an end.
Three years earlier, Richard Nixon had been elected president with a secret plan for peace -- a plan he kept secret from the American people as young Americans continued to die for a mission high-ranking officials of two administrations had decided was unwinnable.
We would watch the Nixon administration lie, break the law, and work overtime to squash dissent -- all the while claiming absurdly they were prolonging war to protect our troops as they withdrew. We were a country deeply divided. World War II fathers split with Vietnam generation sons over a war that was tearing us apart -- and split, particularly, over our responsibilities during a time of war.
Many people did not understand or agree with my act of public dissent. To them, supporting the troops meant continuing to support the war, or at least keeping my mouth shut.
But I couldn't remain silent. I felt compelled to speak out about what was happening in Vietnam, where the children of America were pulled from front porches and living rooms and plunged almost overnight into a world of sniper fire, ambushes, rockets, booby traps, body bags, explosions, sleeplessness, and the confusion created by an enemy who was sometimes invisible and firing at us, and sometimes right next to us and smiling. It was clear that thousands of Americans were losing their lives in Vietnam while politicians in Washington schemed to save their political reputations.
Thirty-five years later, in another war gone off course, I see history repeating itself. It is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a president who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a course in Iraq that weakens the nation. Again, we must refuse to sit quietly and watch our troops sacrificed for a policy that isn't working while Americans who dissent and ask tough questions are branded unpatriotic.
continued after the jump...Just as it was in 1971, it is again right to make clear that the best way to support the troops is to oppose a course that squanders their lives, dishonors their sacrifice, and disserves the American people and our principles.
True patriots must defend the right of dissent and listen to the dissenters. Dissenters are not always right, but it is always a warning sign when they are accused of unpatriotic sentiments by politicians trying to avoid accountability or debate on their own policies. We should know by now that those who are right should never fear scrutiny of their policy and thorough debate.
In World War I, America's values were degraded, not defended, when dissenters were jailed and the teaching of German was banned in some public schools. It was panic and prejudice, not true patriotism, that brought the internment of the Japanese-Americans during World War II, a measure upheld by Supreme Court justices who did not uphold their oaths to defend the Constitution. We are stronger today because no less a rock-ribbed conservative than Robert Taft stood up at the height of World War II and asserted, ''The maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur."
In recent weeks, a number of retired high-ranking military leaders have publicly called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And from the ranks of this administration and its conservative surrogates, we've heard these calls dismissed as acts of disloyalty or as a threat to civilian control of the armed forces. We have even heard accusations that this dissent gives aid and comfort to the enemy. That line of attack is shameful, especially coming from those who have never worn the uniform.
At a time when mistake after mistake is being compounded by the very civilian leadership in the Pentagon that ignored expert military advice in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, those who understand the price being paid for each mistake by our troops, our country, and Iraq itself must be heard. At a time when our nation is imprisoned in a failed policy and we are being told once again that admitting the mistakes, not the mistakes themselves, will provide our enemies with an intolerable propaganda victory, that we literally have no choice but to stay the course even to a bitter end, those who seek to reclaim America's true sovereignty and freedom of action must be respected.
Iraq is not Vietnam, and the war on terrorism is not the Cold War. But the threat of jihadist extremism is another ''long, twilight struggle," as President Kennedy said in his inaugural, and the threat is very real, but we will never defeat terrorists by trampling our own freedom and democracy. The Swift Boat-style attacks that have been aimed at dissenters from Gold Star mothers to decorated veterans like Jack Murtha hurt our democracy even more than they wound their target.
I still believe as strongly as I did 35 years ago that the most important way to support our troops is to tell the truth. Patriotism does not belong to those who defend a president's position -- it belongs to those who defend our country, in battle and in dissent. That is a lesson of Vietnam worth remembering today.
John Kerry is speaking today at Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusett. A link to the live-blogging of the event is above.
Thanks for the link - headed over!
Later check out Howard Dean, on electronic machines.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/22/13728/8193
We were lucky enough to have both Kos & Kerry in Seattle recently & both were fully exposed to the fact that most Seattleites who are politically active progressives fully believe the last two elections were stolen by a variety of means. I say this because I observed Q/A, comment & discussion similar to what is described here.
(Cross-posted from Kos)
This is the speech that John Kerry should have given to kick off his presidential campaign in 2003. This kind of direct attack on Bush and the Iraq War would have thrown Bush on the defensive, where Kerry could have kept him for the rest of the campaign. I think Kerry would have won following this strategy, but no one would have been grumbling after the end of the race that the country had not had the opportunity to fight over the issues that were really at stake, and not some details of Kerry's service record.
\What is courage? We all appreciate the courage of those who serve in our armed forces and who put themselves in harms way to carry out the orders of their civilian leaders, however stupid those orders may be.
But being willing to stand up and attack the powers that be in your country when you are under no obligation to do so other than your moral beliefs, is a very different kind of courage. War has always offered millions of men (and now women) the opportunity to demonstrate courage under fire.
But the number of people willing to criticize their own countries, particularly during times of war, is very much smaller. In World War I, Wilson and the Congress passed laws that criminalized such criticism of the U.S. war effort, and outspoken opponents of othe war ended up in federal prisons.
In 1971, there were no longer any laws on the books making it a crime to oppose the war. Even if you were draft age then, it may be hard to remember the anger and the bitterness with which most of American greeted opponents of the war, especially former members of the armed forces like Kerry.
What a different campaign 2004 would have been if the Kerry campaign had focused on Kerry's courage in 1971 as the actions that most qualified him to be president, as opposed to his service in the war, which turned out to be so vulnerable to the Swift boat style of dirty attack. Then the debate would not have been about the minute details of Kerry's service in Vietnam. This narrow debate allowed the Republicans to largely avoid discussing any of the issues about the conduct of the Vietnam War, and the parallels to the lying and deceptions of the Iraq War.
Instead, the debate would have been exactly about those parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, about the importance of speaking out against bad decisions by the president, reminding people about how history had shown that the Vietnam critics turned out to be right.
So if Kerry wants to shift the emphasis, and get us to focus back on the anti-Vietnam war and his role in opposing that war, I'm all for it.
I agree, Dick (of course I do; we talk about this all the time!). But it would have taken a braver campaign to allow him to be the TEACHER he is.
I really enjoyed your post, Dick. I read it first on Kos, where I made the mistake of reading the comments before reading the speech. The speech itself is very long but a good one, and no one will ever really know if this would have been the successful route to take during the election, but it's morally right. Strategy isn't everything. I hope this gets some coverage & support. The past can't be undone but we can slow down our blundering ahead.
It's easy to think back to 2004 and what this speech would have meant for the campaign, etc, etc... but the fact is that Kerry is giving this speech NOW, and it is needed NOW just as much as in any campaign. I'm so glad we have Kerry to help kick the country out of its dangerous, "willful amnesia." (Of course, its our job to do some of that too!) My favorite part of the speech was when he gives an answer to all those who call him/us "defeatist" or "pessimistic." They're the REAL defeatists! Thank you, thank you, Senator Kerry!!
Hello NT! Are you still in TX?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060422/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak
CIA Fires Employee for Alleged Press Leak
WASHINGTON - The CIA fired a top intelligence analyst who admitted leaking classified information that led to a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a network of secret CIA prisons, government officials say.
The officer was a senior analyst nearing retirement, Mary McCarthy, The Associated Press learned. Reached Friday evening at home, her husband would not confirm her firing.
Almost immediately, the firing turned political. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., praised the agency for identifying a source of the leaks and encouraged vigorous investigation of other open cases. "Those guilty of improperly disclosing classified information should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Roberts said.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., called on President Bush to hold accountable those in his administration who leaked information about the Iraq intelligence in the run-up to the war and outed undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. "Apparently, President Bush doesn't believe what's good for the CIA is good for the White House," Menendez said.
{{{More on link. OK, I see this as censorship, first and foremost. Then I see several other things wrong with the situation, not the least of which is quashing someone's attempt to get the truth out to the people of this nation....}}}
(Since not everyone out there in small-d-democratic puterland has the bandwidth or the multimedia options to follow up on the link that was posted as the last thread header... here are the lyrics to Pink's song "Dear Mr. President"...)
==============
Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly
What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why
Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell
What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing 'bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh
How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you
===============
yet another song sung blue,
Otter
(And as for the content of today's threader...)
Damn, John.
Damn.
still kerry4america,
Otter
Pearl Jam's depressing new political song .. Eddie Vedder has a long-time social conscience though & very politically active
& Dave Grohl (exNirvana) travelled with Kerry
Worldwide Suicide
I felt the earth on Monday, It moved beneath my feet.
In the form of a morning paper, Laid out for me to see.
Saw his face in a corner picture, I recognized the name.
Could not stop staring at the, Face I'd never see again.
It's a shame to awake in a world of pain
What does it mean when a war has taken over
It's the same everyday in a hell manmade
What can be saved, and who will be left to hold her?
The whole world, World over.
It's a worldwide suicide.
Medals on a wooden mantle, Next to a handsome face.
That the president took for granted,
Writing checks that others pay.
And in all the madness, thought becomes numb and naive.
So much to talk about, nothing for to say.
It's the same everyday and the wave won't break
Tell you to pray, while the devils on their shoulder
Laying claim to the take that our soldiers save
Does not equate, and the truth's already out there
The whole world, World over.
It's a worldwide suicide.
The whole world, World over.
It's a worldwide suicide.
Looking in the eyes of the fallen
You got to know there's another, another, another, another, another way
It's a shame to awake in a world of pain
What does it mean when a war has taken over
It's the same everyday and the wave won't break
Tell you to pray, while the devils on their shoulder
The whole world, World over.
It's a worldwide suicide.
The whole world, World over.
It's a worldwide suicide.
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
the more things don't change the more they stay insane,
Otter
Otter
That is for sure. We were just in Greenwich Village listening to folk music with young Bill Clinton interns. We heard Simon & Garfunkel songs, listened to as though still relevant, and thought - these are almost 40 years old!!
Looking on Kos and Dem Daily - looks like Kerry will get some coverage - C Span, ABC, CNN.
"He who can make you believe an absurdity can make you commit an atrocity."
-- Voltaire
it's only unfunny because it's true,
Otter
Kerry supporter Springsteen filling stadiums - with Pete Seeger protest songs
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--brucespringsteen0422apr22,0,1400617.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
Can MUSIC save us?
karen:
Maybe not by itself. But it's certainly one of the relatively few things that can.
Art = life ... + sentience ... --> sanity.
(Your mileage may vary, of course -- but somehow I suspect I might be preaching to the choir on this one...)
may goddess bless us every one,
Otter
*Major* props to Bruce for that one! (And thanks for the hot link, too, DiAnne...)
================
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.
The Lord will see us through,
The Lord will see us through,
The Lord will see us through someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.
We're on to victory,
We're on to victory,
We're on to victory someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We're on to victory someday.
We'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We'll walk hand in hand someday.
We are not afraid,
We are not afraid,
We are not afraid today;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We are not afraid today.
The truth shall make us free,
The truth shall make us free,
The truth shall make us free someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
The truth shall make us free someday.
We shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall live in peace someday.
================
and not necessarily only so deep in my heart I do too,
Otter
Art And Politics.
Art Vs. Politics.
And my bet is on the former rather than the latter.
But, of course, so is my art.
As well it should be.
bless the bass and children,
Otter
--------------------
[Way back in 1966, he wrote this... way back in 19-flippin'-66. Yowzers. It was 40 years ago today, Sgt. Stephen taught the Springs to play... Gee. Whillikers. Apparently, time Stills flies whether you're having fun or not...]
"For What It's Worth"
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Just heard on the afternoon NPR recap what most of y'all probably already knew, which is that we lost another five today in someplace that they never, ever should have been in to start with.
May flights of angels sing them to their rest, et cetera and so forth... *sigh*
Now lemme ask yez... just how obscene *is* it that there's nothing even left to say about their loss by now that isn't just another repetition of what's already been said about somebody else just like them before?
Pretty damn obscene at that, sez I.
If Dante Alighieri was still around, he'd be forced to name an entirely new circle of hell just to put all the Booshites in.
so where are we going and what are we doing in this handbasket,
Otter
================
Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son, if it was up to me"
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said "Son, don't you understand"
I had a brother at Khe Sahn, fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
[Bruce knows... boy *howdy*, does he ever know...]
Dependable William Rivers Pitt
FOCUS: John F. Kerry | Patriotism Is Truth, Today as in Vietnam
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042206X.shtml
John Kerry witnessed the Nixon administration lie, break the law, and work overtime to squash dissent. Now, thirty-five years later, in another war gone off course, he sees history repeating itself.
Karen
Can music save us? - you ask
When we saw Angelique Kidjo once, she talked about music being a positive universal form of international communication. She held a wireless mike & there were at least 2000 of us. While singing, she went around and hugged each and every one of us.
I believe that art, music & the internet can help win & salvage our earth. The really positive populist messages come by & large from our camp. I am exploring the use of art, music & the internet to fundraise for local candidates.
When I was in NYC I met an artist from my neighborhood!
I had not met her here, though she exhibits in one of the two closest coffeehouses to my house & I'd seen her work.
If we take advantage of patterns we notice, networking will bring us over the top!! I think that money is important and that numbers are important, but I think that networks are more important than either. There are many missed opportunities in life, but if we notice patterns, we can weave a net and it's up to us how strong & how far it goes.
Dedicated to John Kerry (this is his favorite)
ARTIST: Bruce Springsteen
TITLE: No Surrender
Well, we busted out of class
Had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three-minute record, baby
Than we ever learned in school
Tonight I hear that neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes
And follow your dreams down
Well, we made a promise, swore we'd always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Like soldiers on a winter's night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Well now young faces grow sad and old
And hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I'm ready to grow young again
And hear your sister's voice calling us home
Across the open yard
Maybe we'll find someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars
Lay lay lay lay...
Now, on the streets tonight, the light's grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There's a war outside still raging
You say it ain't ours anymore to win
I want to sleep beneath the peaceful skies
In my lover's bed
With that wild open country in our eyes
And those romantic dreams in my head
{Refrain}
Fela Means Freedom
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/21/1611/49450
Fela Kuti came to Seattle in the 1980s & the town was never the same! Fire Marshals went nuts as dancing descendants of Scandinavians filled the aisles!
Excerpt from the above diary:
Fela's music is frequently irresistible to the ear, the hips and the feet, it's insinuating, fresh and free from the American commercial restraint of commoditized, commercialized pseudo-rebellion. Sixty years after the death of the 78 record I would think America could accept the thirteen minute long pop song. But American is not yet safe for that kind of freedom. It's not just that the American attention span can't swallow such magnificent length, but that Fela had more to say than he didn't like the president, he was protesting against his government and his society.
Here, recently, musical protests against the political status quo have been relatively mild. There are many pop musicians who dislike the current state of affairs, not surprising considering that's the popular attitude across the country. Green Day, Eminem, the Dixie Chicks, they point out their obvious displeasure with things, and they do so in ways that are also obvious, no matter how sympathetic. That's one of the problems with political art in general, which is that the sentiment is often anodyne and commonplace, and the expression of it alone seems to a lack of the artful. There's also an essential commercial component to a lot of political art in America, a built in audience that confirms a kind of popularity or conformity of the work to received opinion: there's not much good or bad I can say about musicians and artists stating things like racism, war, poverty and human exploitation are bad. They self-evidently are bad. Pointing this out risks neither the overthrow of the government or sales, not even with the smug scolding of our self-appointed moral leaders.
For Fela, things were different. He didn't spend time in jail just for swallowing a joint, he was arrested frequently for criticizing the Nigerian government in public and in concert, and this not only in Nigeria. He lived in an armed compound to protect himself against his own government, although this was eventually stormed by 1,000 troops who nearly beat him to death and threw his mother from a window, mortally injuring her. Musical protests by popular artists in America just don't have the same frisson. Although the NSA is collecting all our emails, money transactions and phone conversations in a massive database they can mine at any time, they are not yet storming the homes of musicians who criticize the government. And although the mildest, most obvious and clichéd expressions critical of the government draw the predictable, obvious and clichéd condemnations from all the usual suspects, what kind of damage can the opinions of a bunch of cretins without any sense of taste do to a popular artist? Elvis, The Beatles and The Dixie Chicks all ended up doing pretty well with audiences.
'nother nice juicy Kos diary on Kerry:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/22/163953/961
Go there
Ok, question...
What is more important to Americans today? The price of gas or the war in Iraq?
I suppose it's a tin foil theory to suspect that our huge prices are a way to get the news off the Iraq news and the Fitz investigation. And they get a two-for-one'r--good for their own purposes AND their profits of their supporting lobbyists in the Oil industry can donate even more!
Posted by: Dick Bell at April 22, 2006 12:15 PM
Dick, I agree. Kerry should have given this speech three years ago, and taken the Sleaze Boat Veterans, and the fools who refuse to learn the lessons of American history, head on. This was the ground upon which to fight the battle that he was uniquely suited to lead.
As I wrote on September 18, 2004:
"Many commentators have questioned the wisdom of John Kerry making his Vietnam experience the centerpiece of his Presidential campaign. In truth, we do seem to be spending much more time focusing on the personal choices made by President Bush and Senator Kerry over thirty years ago than on more significant concerns – like the lessons that should have been learned though America's unhappy experience in the Vietnam conflict. And make no mistake: the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are real, and becoming more relevant every day. A substantial segment of the American people have either never absorbed, or have deliberately chosen to banish from memory, the lessons of Vietnam – preferring the images of an ultimately triumphant America conveyed in revisionist fantasy films like “Rambo II” and the Chuck Norris' “Missing in Action” series. This preference is both childlike and unworthy of us."
"The current Bush Administration is guilty of gross incompetence and imperial hubris. The evidence of its total failure in Iraq is everywhere to be seen. As General William Odom, a former head of the NSC during the Reagan Administration, told Sidney Blumenthal, in his powerful September 16th, 2004 story for the Guardian Unlimited, “Far Graver Than Vietnam” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html):
"'This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with a war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies.'
"Again, do note that Odom's are not the words of a partisan Democrat. Odom is rather displaying the insight that comes from hard-earned military experience. He is simply choosing to reflect upon the lessons of the Vietnam War – even if a substantial segment of the American people, including its current President, would prefer to forget or reinvent them. But were this nation to truly forget these lessons, then the sacrifice of the fifty-eight thousand American men who perished, and the hundreds of thousands who were physically, emotionally, or psychically maimed by their experience, will have ultimately been in vain. And their sacrifice must not be in vain. It is fair to say that John Kerry will never, can never, forget the lessons of Vietnam – or the memory of the men who died or were forever changed beside him.
"It is precisely because Kerry still serves for so many, as he did in 1971, as a symbol of resistance to the notion that American militarism is a virtue in itself that he has come under such withering attack. There is nothing ignoble about a nation admitting that there are wars that it should not seek, and circumstances that do not warrant putting its men and women in harm's way – especially when that war is actually a distraction from the pursuit of an actual enemy. War should always be the last resort of America – not for our imagined enemies' sake, but for our own. And when we do go to war, our cause must be as self-evident to the reasonable man or woman (both here and abroad) as are now the unalienable rights that Thomas Jefferson postulated some two hundred and twenty-eight years ago. That self-evident cause today is, and could only have been, the defeat of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. It was never Iraq. John Kerry understands this essential equation. George W. Bush, the once wastrel son of an American President, now transformed into a would-be American Messiah, clearly does not. In an era of economic, religious and nationalistic bubbles, Bush's sense of self and mission are as inflated as the bubbles that we have all watched implode before our eyes. And having been godfather to this spectacular debacle in Iraq, this President cannot be trusted with the near impossible task of turning catastrophe into something nearer to opportunity. That task need be entrusted to a man with broader shoulders, and infinitely greater understanding of the human experience."
Matthew,
I disagree. Three years ago people were not ready for that message. Only the hard left peace activists were. Remember, three years ago there was not the treasure trove of information that we have now.
In 2004, people still felt that the war in Iraq 'might' be justified. And they were already fighting the meme that Kerry was weak. In 04, this would have brought the peace activists closer but it would have turned off the rest.
Then turn them off. Alienate them. But show them what authentic spiritual leadership is about; and if they choose badly, let their shame be long and bitter in the aftermath.
Too many in the Red States were asleep, and someone had to rouse them from their stupor. And today, so many decent, God-fearing people in this nation are experiencing buyer's remorse. Well, it's too late. The devastating impact of a second Bush term will be with us for decades to come.
Had he found his voice, John had the authority, an authority that you simply cannot purchase at any price, to demand his country acknowledge the lessons of history, change direction, and avert disaster.
He played it safe, and ran as a veteran. But he could have run as a hero.
Matthew,
He was a hero. The swifties turned it against him and America wasn't willing to hear the truth.
I'll also point to how they smeared John Edwards and made him out to be the bad guy because he actually was a successful lawyer. They tried to tell the truth about the victims in these cases, but instead people were not willing to listen.
Main stream Republicans are now worried about their vote in Ohio.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/22/182648/314
There are no mainstream Republicans. There are pocketbook Republicans and religious Republicans, but no mainstream Republicans. Mainstream Republicans are now called moderate Democrats.
As far as I'm concerned, let them lose their votes to the religious nuts. If you lie down with dogs, you're going to get fleas. They deserve it.
Posted by: Linda Enterkin at April 22, 2006 07:34 PM
True...but personally, I see them as being 'ripe' for the picking. In other words, it's time to jump on board to Ohio's GETV efforts. Darn, I wish Hackett were running against Schmidt now!
Posted by: sparrow at April 22, 2006 07:48 PM
oops, tired. sorry...
GOTV not GETV...meaning--Let's get busy getting them out to vote their neocons up the river and into the pockey.
Apparently there is another Kerry-related blog at Democratic Underground but I'm not registered there so can't read it.
This is the link I was given:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=273×82885
Sparrow
I think the high oil prices are because there are problems with Iran & Nigeria & the refineries can't keep up - we have enough crude stockpiled. This creates a lag.
I think the bigger danger is that we're going to see high prices, as for food, as this will affect the trucking industry alot. I think it sucks that apparently Americans are driving even more than last year, driving up the demand.
We are as bad as newly liberated middle-class Chinese who are buying SUVs! (I mean we "collectively" not those of us who are trying to cut into our driving & utility use).
I hope that the high gas prices reflect badly on the Republicans in office & that people associate them in their minds with this on-going war that was supposed to last 5 days, 5 weeks or 5 months, according to Rumsfeld (the guy disliked by 6 generals out of thousands, as Fox says).
Matthew,
I enjoyed Dick's long post & your reply. I remember it & it was good to read it again. I think the tie-in to Kerry's vet experience was an ok "identity" for him to have, but I think the campaign was ineffective in tying his whole career continuity together (Vietnam through Senate through Iraq war leadership - or not).
I think there was a fear of his appearing abrasive or too bold, because the media painted Howard Dean as some kind of fanatic any time his voice raised a few decibels above the level of polite social conversation.
Even now, the conservative strategists have started to craft a message about the "angry" Democrats. We have to say Damn right we're angry & we're not going to take it any more - throw the bums out. People have to find it socially acceptable to express their dissatisfaction with the current system. Such dissent cannot be portrayed as lack of patriotism.
Oh 9/11 was SUCH a gift to these guys .. they just incorporated it into their propaganda so fast! & people fell right into it.
No retreat, babies.
No surrender.
And bushworld delenda est.
k4a,
Otter
DiAnne:
We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take bushit any more.
get up stand up,
Otter
Otter
Right on!
Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at April 22, 2006 05:25 PM
AWESOME POST, MATT. Very well articulated. Thank you!
Had he found his voice, John had the authority, an authority that you simply cannot purchase at any price, to demand his country acknowledge the lessons of history, change direction, and avert disaster.
He played it safe, and ran as a veteran. But he could have run as a hero.
Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at April 22, 2006 06:24 PM
Matt, it is now for me, as it always will be:
John Kerry DID find his voice. He had his following, he was charismatic, and don't forget ~ He had his MO and his MO was growing larger every day. He was hurt badly by the slimers, a media who censored and ridiculed him and sold him short ~ but he had the Mo anyway. And I think he could have it again. Triple, quadruple the strength.
Not his fault they trotted bin Laden out the weekend before the election and pulled dirty tricks at the ballot boxes.
"The hero is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms. Such a one’s visions, ideals and inspirations come pristine from the primary springs of human life and thought. Hence they are eloquent, not of the present, disintegrating society and psyche, but of the unquenched source though which society is born. The hero has died as a modern man; but as eternal man -- perfected, unspecific, universal man -- he has been reborn. His second solemn task and deed therefore is to return then to us, transfigured, and teach the lesson he has learned of life renewed.”
- Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Truth Shall Prevail
I agree with you.
There is a tendency to underestimate how "dirty" these supposedly moralists play. We have a friend who moved here from Texas & she tells us that the dirty tricks such as keeping minorities away from polls are now becoming more widespread & to watch out! There are people who want things back the way they were before positive social changes happened. They romanticize past times in an unrealistic way & it's effective with some people. The tactics also remind me of those of the Third Reich.
Thanks to a rightwing site for making me aware of this John Kerry piece on Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/patriotism-is-truth-toda_b_19603.html
Sherry, here's the thing. Once the Sleaze Boat Veterans came into the picture, there was only one response that would have effectively torpedoed their effort.
That was for the campaign the tell the story of John's real heroism, in the battle to end the Vietnam War, and save the lives of men like me, men my age, men who were spared the ordeal of having to go to Vietnam. To this day, when I think of what he did, and Dr. King, and Robert Kennedy, and the Berrigans, and all the people who joined together to stop that war, tears come to my eyes.
How many millions of American lives were changed for the better because John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War had the courage to speak truth to power? But rather than proudly own this moment, and frame it within context of Iraq, the campaign allowed those monsters to appropriate it for their own purposes.
The Sleaze Boat Veterans were evangelists for a gospel of death; but men like me are alive today because John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War had the courage to stand for life.
In an election that was tantamount to a battle for the soul of a nation, that was a story that campaign simply had to tell. That was the story that John had to insist be told.
Well I registered over at Huffington Post, because there are certainly alot of armchair candidates for office still sitting around in their pajamas, rather shameful at this time of night!
Matt
They ought to have also emphasized more the BCCI matter & Ollie North & so on, but people tend to have short attention spans & little historical breadth.
The Swift Boats used a politics of intimidation. One day I saw one sitting at a Starbucks in suburbia here, dressed in full Vietnam gear despite being an aging baby boomer. He even had a Vietnamese woman with him, like he was stuck in a time warp & thought he was still there. I saw his vehicle - a Humvee which has anti-Kerry stickers & a photoshopped poster of Kerry with Bin Laden. I thought about putting a "Bush is toast" napkin on his windshield but chickened out, thinking he might have an arsenal.
There is one rightwing house out that way which has had a huge Bush/Cheney sticker the size of a bedsheet. Someone defaced it & painted graffiti on that house. I had always wondered if the same guy lived there. I drove by there the other day and there he was, standing in the yard watering plants, in his full military regalia.
People like this should be marginalized, not influential!
What a strange world we live in!
Huffington Post needs you! It takes just a minute to register!
Apparently you have to be more politically correct than I to have your post numbered among those at HuffPo. Maybe I'll see if I have more luck at Free Republic.
Loook!
Cheney fell asleep during Wu's press conference
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/04/21/vice-president-cheney-sle_n_19564.html
As Sandra Bernhardt says, not everyone can have a stroke behind the knees.
I have to agree with Matthew and Dick.
I was glad that Kerry was Kerry and I hope it stays that way.
I didn't like the way the campaingn was handled. They were IMO too cautious in not letting the candidate (and spouse) be themselves.
I too sometimes wish that those words were said two years ago. This is what people like Cornel West hoped would happen. That the Kerry of 1971 would have appeared in 04. It doesn't matter how many were still supportive of the war and thinking it was winnable. What Kerry said in 35 and today was the truth and IMO, they held him back from that, and now Americans are waking up everyday and realizing that they have been had by this criminal administration and it's going to get worse.
I guess it cause the recent "two years, too late" "he should have said this in 04" "now he has balls, too little too late" comments have made me disillusioned at times.
Oops, I meant 35 years ago and today.
I don't think all the blame should go to Kerry or the campaign.
I think alot of it belongs squarely on the shoulders of many of the sheeplike American people. Those who did not look beyond the most shallow faux patriotism have blood on their hands. It's easy to blame the puppet Bush or to blame Kerry for not unseating him in the face of corporate greed, fraud, profit motive & media control.
I've been a little under the weather and am just catching up with all the comments.
Here's the thing. I'm done spending time focusing on 2004. We have 2006 to worry about and after that 2008 and 2010 and 2012, etc. We are here to learn how to participate in local democracy -- to demonstrate different ways that ordinary citizens can learn about issues and make their voices heard.
To the extent that Senator Kerry is a leader in the Senate, speaking out when the circumstances call for it, great. We need political leaders who will stand up and speak truth.
But re-hashing once again what happened in 2004 does nothing for us but spend time and energy that is better used elsewhere.
I'd much rather hear about what people are doing to participate in their local governments.
How many have taken up Veritas's challenge from several weeks ago to go find out about local government positions that are open? How many have followed up on Karen's action items? How did those actions turn out?
How many letters to the editor were written? Did anyone contact their representative and senators this week? What's going on with voting machines in your neck of the woods?
No one gets it yet. I guess I'll have to explain my husband's attitude once more- he's a vet of the Vietnam era, and he did vote for Kerry. But he basically held his nose in doing so, because Kerry certainly wasn't his first choice of Democrats in the original race. I agree that the Vietnam vets still wearing the camo jackets should get over their Rambo fetish, but their dislike for Kerry goes much deeper than that. There are deep psychological wounds left when a soldier witnesses so much death around him, and the only thing that can help those wounds heal is the belief that there was some reason for those deaths. I'm sorry, but most people on this planet like to believe that things happen for a reason- it helps them in their faith that life has a meaning and that there is a divine direction to life. When Kerry came back home and told America that there was no reason for even one more soldier to die in Vietnam, it rattled a lot of Vietnam vets to the core. They needed to believe their buddies had died for a purpose- to believe otherwise was just too hard for them. Whether it was true or not didn't really matter. John Kerry and Jane Fonda and other war protesters tested their faith in life and death having some purpose, and they've never forgiven them for that. The swift boaters just reminded them of all that pain, and just enough of them voted against Kerry to keep him out of office. Sometimes the truth is too hard to face- that's really what kept Kerry out of office. It's no disservice to Kerry- nor am I trying to put the vets down who voted against him. I understand it fully, because I'm married to someone who understands it fully. Humans aren't perfect, and they can't always handle the truth. That's what doomed Kerry's candidacy, and I don't think anything he said could have helped it. Not even the speech he made a couple of days ago. Because psychologically, it's just too hard to think your buddies bled and died for no purpose. That's just human nature.
Posted by: dwahzon at April 23, 2006 09:30 AM
Amen.
Linda:
That was a very thoughtful post. Thanks.
Also, anyone know if the Kerry speech will be televised?
Chuck in Houston
Linda,
Thanks for sharing your husband's viewpoint. I think you did a great job clarifying what must have happened for a lot of vets.
Posted by: Linda Enterkin at April 23, 2006 09:47 AM
Amen, also.
Chuck:
His resolution will not be televised.
aargh,
Otter
Hey all, the Fauneil Hall event is on CSPAN now.
Go Boston! Sam Adams, Brewer-Patriot!
Chuck in Houston
Linda, the more I live in different places, the more I think it's a regional thing (standing by for incoming!!).
In some parts of the country, to fight and die in uniform for your country is the most noble thing imaginable, even if the war is a sham and your death is a lie. There, it is cowardly to shirk your duty to defend those around you so that others may die in your stead.
In other parts of the country, it's reversed. There, the most noble thing imaginable is to protest, avoid, and hope to thereby stop a puppet war that serves only to kill pawns on a global chessboard while the players sit safe in their ruling chambers half a world apart. Joining up in those circumstances is the coward's way out, the easy solution that doesn't entail the difficulty of struggling against an intrusive and controlling government intent on sacrificing its most vulnerable to feed the maws of unrestrained power.
And then sometimes, somebody who's been there cuts through the crap and makes a difference, either from the outside or the inside, or both. And both sides are threatened. Maybe they worry, somewhere, that their foundational ideology is perhaps lopsided and all they've built their lives around and raised their children on might suddenly start sliding down into a sea of regrets.
Pity the realist.
Chuck:
"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin
and so are the constitution and the bill of rights and the nascent democratic republic that they ensured and the remaining opportunity to still appreciate all of them fully and freely,
Otter
V --
In re your summation of 10:10 AM today, and in re as to what you was replying at the time and so forth... and being as how this reply is well within the relevant context of my geocentrically impassioned responses to LE from last week, and not to mention besides and despite and because of my own far-flung traveling-gypsy lifestyle before since during and after, and all that sort of thing and scooby-dooby-dooby... well, all I can say in response to what you two just posted is this:
Boy howdy, do y'all ever get it.
you go grrls,
Otter
Otter- when you knew Lewis' joke, ya' won me over compltely again. I suspect that if he rose from the grave today, he'd be even more politically incorrect than he was back then, but he was a very funny man, nevertheless.
It might be regional- I've only lived in this part of the country, and I've only been to the North and West on vacations. So, I'm not familiar with how popular the Vietnam war protesters were in those places. But down here in the South, and in the Midwest (the very areas the Democrats keep losing) it really was a shock to the systems of a lot of vets. Yes, it's still the thing to do down here- to put on the uniform and serve no matter how wrong your CIC may be. And to want to believe that your service is worth something is just human nature. I doubt that my nephew who went in with the 1st Marine Division will ever believe that his friends who died in Iraq died for no good reason. It would just be too hard for him to accept. So, we're creating a new generation of Vets just like those from 'Nam, and it's a real shame. Wars really shouldn't be for nothing, but they are, more often than not.
Without necessarily weighing in on the regional thing, I just wanted to say that I watched the CSPAN Faneuil Hall event and it did my heart good to see a bunch of Boston Massachusetts Liberals get up on their feet and applaud and yell and get behind one of their own.
Now it's time for my mom's people in Northern Virginia to weigh in on this. Washington and Adams was a great combination too.
And my dad's people in Chicago.
Chuck in Houston in the Lone Star Beer State (and Shiner Bock)
Linda Enterkin
I think those people you mention join the military mostly because there aren't many job opportunities in the rural places.
I used to hear the phrase "get it over with" alot and also "go because you'll get drafted anyway." Most guys I knew who went knew nothing about foreign policy & didn't think much about patriotism. A relative who is career says alot of his underlings think about women & beer, mostly. My dad went to get GI bill and be in the Army band & also for lack of jobs. That was in WW2. In peacetime, people used to go to travel. Or some swallowed the BS about job training. Everyone I know who went to Vietnam was told they would go somewhere like Germany & that they'd have training that they in fact didn't get.
Yes I suppose some people are in denial about being used.
Now in this part of the west, there are many protesters and the urban population pretty much en masse is strongly antiwar, any war. The burbs are a little different but there is still much dissent. The most blind support lies in areas right around the local Air Force, Naval & Army bases. Even there, those Naval I know view it as a job or have enough invested they're afraid to quit. I never hear people talk much about politics or patriotism. That's more those around them who do not go. What I hear is financial problems, separation, sad stories.
Veritas
The only people I've ever seen who think it's a noble thing to die for this country are, ironically, Native Americans. I think it's in their tradition somehow, to be celebrated as a warrior at powwows.
No one wants to die. Only brainwashing can make someone have the mentality of a suicide bomber only institutionalized under a state system.
Speaking of which - someone told me there is a Bin Laden tape so Kerry's speech must have hit a raw nerve with the govt.
Linda Enterkin
Reading that I still don't understand why some vets find it easier to blame John Kerry for exposing the government's lies than accepting that they live under AND PAY FOR a government that lies.
Not being able to accept .. what does that mean except being in denial. I realized not to trust the government in grade school when I learned about Hiroshima & Auschwitz, that reasons would be given but still, civilians were killed & I was a civilian.
Around the same time, I realized it was preposterous that dinosaurs from different epochs with fossil records could not possibly coexist with a mindset that marched sets of opposite sex animals into a boat to avoid a flood.
Maybe I was like that kid in Woody Allen who is worried about the universe expanding but every time planes flew over, I was afraid WW3 had started. Maybe it had something to do with having a paranoid vet dad who was equipping a fallout shelter.
I don't need conspiracy theories because my eyes are open.
Whenever I told the story about Del (I think it was Del), who was on the SwiftBoat with JK, and who told us he was scared every single day he was there, but if John Kerry wanted him back in that hellhole, he'd go, they got it. They understood that this was a LEADER.
I think it is important to hear the Vietnam-era veterans, in all their pain, and to help them find their way to understanding that they were brave and they did their duty, and they deserve better than they have received, but that there are people who fight on their behalf every single day TO this day.
John Kerry does that and they must hear that, or they are wasting a lot of energy blaming the wrong people. John Kerry did not ever do what Jane Fonda did, and she is not doing what he does now. We must not let that laziness of analysis stand.
Telling the true stories is critical. I certainly do not want to argue the same points over and over again, but facts are facts and must be faced.
He was a hero in Vietnam, and he was a hero after Vietnam, and he works heroically to this day on behalf of the men and women of the Vietnam time. The whole "holding one's nose" thing is based on complete misunderstanding, IMO.
Linda, I cannot tell you how often I have heard people say that believing a lie is OK, because they experienced that lie as truth. I am sorry but I hope human beings are capable of revising beliefs based on newer and more accurate information.
I do see part of our job here as researchers and explorers of the truth to absolutely tell the truth, once we understand it. And the truth is, the Kerry-Fonda betrayal of troops--never happened. And any perpetuation of that myth does us all a disservice.
Emails just now from Missouri & Colorado from people who have just seen Kerry on C-Span.
Hope it gets around. Took a look at some winger blogs & they all have sections on it (predictable venom & spew, nothing original or insightful about why they feel that way). Plenty of advocates for nuking Iran too.
& their Supreme Leader
Bush Meets With Think Tank On Iran Military Strike
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042306Z.shtml
Bush traveled Friday night to Stanford University, where he met privately with members of the libertarian Hoover Institution, a think tank that has been aggressively promoting the viability of a preemptive military strike in Iran, to discuss the war.
This is the "think tank"
http://www.hoover.org/
"This Institution supports the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and its method of representative government. Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity.... Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves.... The overall mission of this Institution is, from its records, to recall the voice of experience against the making of war, and by the study of these records and their publication, to recall man's endeavors to make and preserve peace, and to sustain for America the safeguards of the American way of life. This Institution is not, and must not be, a mere library. But with these purposes as its goal, the Institution itself must constantly and dynamically point the road to peace, to personal freedom, and to the safeguards of the American system."
Herbert Hoover, 1959
Please can peace be emphasized, not just "ingenuity" and "American system" (which can slant things toward the big corporations rather than the common people)
Karen
From what I saw on rightwing sites, the myths continue without being substantiated and people who don't really analyze pick them up as part of their collective self-righteous but venom-filled ideology.
Saw the tail end of the speech. It was really good. I will catch it in its entirety this evening. Thanks for adding insight. On to 06!
Good movie illustrations are Alex and his Droogs in Clockwork Orange, with the guy named Dim who is violent & goes along with the group - or - the group of low-lifes in Trainspotting.
The same cliches are used over and over again. & it isn't just on the right, unfortunately! How often to we hear that so and so should "get some cahones." I know it's courageous to take a stand but it's violent to want to fight all the time & it's sexist to link the desire to fight to male genitalia & leave women out. I saw very few female-seeming people on rightwing sites.
Right on, Howard Dean!
Pointing to two abandoned hulks of cars, he added, "I hate to be partisan at a time like this, but this is why the Republicans are going to be out of business."
not my veep- sorry then, but it must be regional. My nephews are not native Americans, and they'd glady die for their country, no matter who the president was. The oldest of the two enlisted under Bill Clinton, and the youngest under GWB. They were (and still are in their minds, even though neither is active duty) Marines. No matter what the government policy is, no matter how wrong the war, they would fight for the flag and for their fellow Marines, without questioning the motives. I guess it is down to the tradition of honor, if you want to put it that way. I don't really want to say or to think that it's only a
Southern thing, because there are a lot of young Americans who enlist from all parts of the country with the same motives, but yes, a large percentage of them are from this part of the country. A lot of kids may enlist in the Air Force or Navy because they can't find jobs elsewhere, but not kids who enlist in the Marines, and not a lot of them who enlist in the Army. And as for wishing people could finally admit that their government was wrong, and that their buddies died for nothing, well, maybe that would be nice. But it would NOT be natural, and it would go against human nature. The mind is always seeking order and reason- it needs to know why things happen the way they do, and to give meaning to those events. The 'Nam vets are just human, and they need meaning. They're able to find that meaning by saying, as Bill Maher (not a 'Nam vet, of course) does, that the war in 'Nam helped us win the cold war. That it proved we weren't afraid to make a stand somewhere in the world militarily, even if we lost. I don't believe that, but a lot of 'Nam vets rationalize it that way. They have to, and we have to forgive them for it. They're not stupid- they're just human.
Linda Enterkin
Well we can thank large amounts of war cartoons, soldier doll figures & "boys will be boys" mentality. I see it every day working near the warship.
I raised my son without all that & with male role model teachers who promoted peace, & he also had his father, uncles & our male friends. Only grandpas were vets.
I don't believe in fighting for a country because I don't believe in war. I will never understand how nationalists think. I never understood school spirit either so I guess I was just born a "bad apple" & antisocial person.
On the other hand, I feel as sad for any mother any where on earth who loses a child as for a mother here. I got into a discusson with a Freeper once on Guardian Talk forum (he was American and in fact, Texan). He explained that he really doesn't care about people who aren't American & that he couldn't explain why. It was just the way he felt. I admired his honesty but shuddered, the same way I do when i read that 1 in 5 cars on the road is carrying a gun or that 1 out of 3 people don't finish high school.
I did tell my nephew who is an antiterrorism specialist & career Air Force guy that I understand about separating the war from the warrior. (I got that from John Kerry!) He was complaining about how his guys with families were underpaid and had to get food from the WIC program.
It's a sad state. My mom lives in ND & the whole town turned out for a funeral. They would all go out to the highway to watch the National Guard leave or return. People in those places are the ones dying. They may think it's an honor. That is especially sad.
notmyveep- and BTW- my dad priced fallout shelters too, but back in the early 60's, that wasn't being paranoid. In fact, It was a realistic expectation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only thing that stopped him from buying one was that he knew our neighbors would be outside banging on the door, trying to get in, and he couldn't stand the thought of keeping them out. If we'd had one, he'd have opened the door and the place would have been filled with the bodies of us and our dead neighbors anyway. So, we didn't waste the money. I honor my dad for that decision, and a lot of other decisions he made. I don't know what era you're talking about when your dad was saving goods for the fallout shelter. But he may have not been paranoid after all. A lot of Americans were thinking that way back then. Thank God forever for JFK and his wisdom about those two letters from Russia. He saved us all.