100, 10, 5 Years Later

What a wonderful piece of writing to read on this day. I have a ten year old library book by Chomsky that I was paging through. He was talking about speaking truth to power and also about how the pyramid of corporate power works. Then I noticed that most of the people he was influenced by wrote at least half a century ago. It always impresses me too, when reading Buddhist scriptures about greed and compassion, especially, to think not much has changed about human nature - in more than 3000 years.

Today I can already hear an alarm clock radio from the basement but have no real reason to pay much attention to media. They will layer word upon word and image upon image but I doubt most will say anything very original, provocative or insightful - not like you wrote about. I do know that the peace movement is still strong here, and that we're still surrounded by at least 3 military bases & a big factory that makes things for war.

Karen, thanks for being there to honor their memories.

Namaste

From Winning the War for Hearts and Minds - While We Still Can

It strikes this observer that the war that we became engaged in after 9/11 may indeed be about bigger issues than we can possibly imagine. In a very real sense, the ideal endpoint of this war may not be victory at all, but reconciliation, and a new paradigm where all of us change a little, and some of us change a lot. That may seem like a frightening prospect, but it may also ultimately represent the only credible option – the decision of a nation and a world to embark on a collective journey of discovery and reconciliation. As Joseph Campbell wrote, the essential outlines of this path are neither strange nor forbidding, and have been with us from the very beginning of spiritual history.

"Furthermore, we have not even to risk the journey alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

In an era where weapons of mass destruction make it entirely possible to end life as we know it, and the very strong likelihood that those weapons will someday end up in terrorist hands if things continue apace, it strikes me that it is in the best interests of the United States – the nation that clearly has the most to lose, and a nation that possesses what I would argue is a spiritual charter entirely consistent with such a process – to begin to actively, and seriously, promote this kind of expansive spiritual and intellectual dialogue across the planet.

America is about nothing if not ideas, or the courage to expand frontiers, or a willingness to perpetually adjust for the discrepancy between our Founders' magnificent vision and reality on the ground. As a nation that exists as an ever expanding global village, who is better positioned to lead this process of understanding the many strands of the great cosmic song – and to very specifically identify those things that unite us, rather than divide us? What I am very specifically suggesting is that the ultimate weapon in a war of ideas might actually be the embrace of a greater, more luminous idea. In this time of ever-increasing danger for the species, it simply strikes me that friends who share so much with each other, and who believe that they have so much to learn from each other, are much less likely to destroy each other. Hence, in the final analysis, my lofty idea could also be viewed as nothing more than a prudent strategy for self-preservation.

http://www.hpleft.com/110603.html

Posted without comment:

Worried CIA Officers Buy Legal Insurance
Plans Fund Defense In Anti-Terror Cases

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 11, 2006; Page A01

CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing, according to current and former intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the program.

The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the CIA that officers may be vulnerable to accusations they were involved in abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They worry that they will not have Justice Department representation in court or congressional inquiries, the officials said.

The anxieties stem partly from public controversy about a system of secret CIA prisons in which detainees were subjected to harsh interrogation methods, including temperature extremes and simulated drowning. The White House contends the methods were legal, but some CIA officers have worried privately that they may have violated international law or domestic criminal statutes.

read the rest here...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/10/AR2006091001286.html

Karen,

Thank you for your post.

Message Man
by The Subdudes

The pressure's on
You got to make it happen
Deadline stares you in the face
Will you pull up, will you carry on?
The people around you
It seems like they've lost their faith

But it ain't me
I'm just the message man
It ain't me
'Cause there's no news at hand
I'm not the one
That's come, to set them free
It ain't me
I'm just the message man

Late last night you called
You said that I'11 have to wait
Well you know that I'm under the gun
You say in time it will come
But I can't help being scared
Because I know not what's out there

But it ain't me
I'm just the message man
It ain't me
Cause there's no news at hand
I'm not the one
Thats come, to set them free
It ain't me
I'm just the message man

We can't help but feel unwanted
Being held upon a string
It was just a mistake that somebody made
I guess it was just one of those business things

They're not friends
They're just a company
But it hurts me when I hear them say
'Cause I wasn't brought up that way
What you done boy it ain't through
Well you know they don't understand

But it ain't me
I'm just the message man
It ain't me
'Cause there's no news at hand
I'm not the one
Thats come, to set them free
It ain't me
I'm just the message man

It ain't me
I'm just the message man

"The medium is the message."

Marshall McLuhan knows.

Posted by: Otter at September 11, 2006 11:14 AM

Now ya tell me, I've been in the XL section all this time.

Super Size Lies

That's very big of you, monkeyman.

At the Pentagon, where 184 people died when American Flight 77 plowed into the building, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld walked side-by-side to a platform. They sang along to “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and observed a moment of silence at 9:37 a.m., the time the plane struck.

“We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history’s latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power,” Cheney said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14780747/

Bush said in an interview broadcast Monday that on the day the country was attacked, he came harshly to grip with the reality that “we were involved in an ideological struggle akin to the Cold War.”

“In the long term, we’ve got to defeat an ideology of hate with an ideology of hope,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show.

“There’s a reason why people like (al-Qaida leader Osama) bin Laden are able to recruit suiciders,” Bush said, “because if you don’t have hope, you’re attracted to an ideology which says, it’s OK to kill people and kill yourself.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14780747/

Cheney said it is "hard to say" whether there are more terrorists now than five years ago. But the fact that al-Qaeda has launched no successful attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, shows that the administration's policies are working, he added.

"I don't know how you can explain five years of no attacks, five years of successful disruption of attacks, five years of, of defeating the efforts of al-Qaeda to come back and kill more Americans," Cheney said. "You've got to give some credence to the notion that maybe somebody did something right."

Cheney said he sees "part of my job is to think about the unthinkable, to focus upon what, in fact, the terrorists may have in store for us." He said the threat that drives administration thinking is "the possibility of a cell of al-Qaeda in the midst of one of our own cities with a nuclear weapon, or a biological agent. In that case, you'd be dealing -- for example, if on 9/11 they'd had a nuke instead of an airplane, you'd have been looking at a casualty toll that would rival all the deaths in all the wars fought by Americans in 230 years."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/10/AR2006091000427.html?nav=rss_email/components

And if Grannie had wheels, she'd be a tricycle.

Monkey
They are mental! (those dignitaries)

I'm reading a really interesting article:

Unwinding Bush: How long will it take to fix his mistakes.
Mine is from the magazine, but hope this link will open.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610/bush/2

-snip-
For a short while - an instant in geopolitical time - virtually the whole world stood with America, even those who didn’t really care for us. What did we do with this moment?

Are we better off for not more effectively pursuing the architect of this atrocity, Osama bin Laden? Could we not see that to a culture steeped in a tradition of honor and vengeance, this failure to bring bin Laden to justice shamed us? Did we think that would make it easier to win hearts and minds?

Secret prisons, torture, and an unnecessary war against the wrong enemy - were these signs of wisdom or panic? Was there no more constructive way to approach that part of the world which spawned our attackers - not to appease but to creatively engage? Have we, in the intervening years, done our nation proud?

We will all remember 9/11 in our own ways. For me, the tragedy merely began on that day, then continued every day since in a litany of missed chances and squandered opportunities.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5445086/#060911c

They are mental! (those dignitaries)

Posted by: DiAnne at September 11, 2006 01:27 PM

One might say, fundemental.

Two can be as sad as one.

Five years after 9/11, Arab resentment grows
U.S. ‘War on Terror’ not winning friends in the Arab world

ANALYSIS
By Jim Maceda
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 1 hour, 26 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon — September 11th is a date that resonates in several ways for the Arab world.

It is marked with pride and celebration by al-Qaida leaders and operatives; it is mourned by the families of hundreds of Muslim victims who died in the terrorist attacks five years ago. And, for many ordinary Arabs, from Cairo, to Riyadh, to Beirut, it evokes fear — and the prospect of further pain.

“9/11 was a turning point,” explained Makram Rabah, a law major and one of several graduate students I spoke to at the American University of Beirut campus this week. ''This is a new world war, basically, that will change everything. It has changed our lives from bad to worse,” he said.

Five years after that fateful day and the subsequent launching of the Bush administration's “War on Terror,” Arab-affairs analysts and media professionals say that Arab public opinion — the so-called “Arab street” — is even angrier against America and U.S. policies today than it was then.

Indeed, most of these experts agree that the positive, sympathetic feelings that emerged, across the Arab world immediately following the 9/11 attacks were quickly squandered. ''People perceive it as a kind of victimization of the Arab world,'' said Dr. Gamal Abdul Gawad, professor of international relations at the University of Cairo. ''The American invasion of Iraq had a huge negative effect, so did America's perceived disregard for Palestine and, recently, the war in Lebanon.”

Insults continue to mount (more)...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14784142/from/RS.1/

I was nosey and kind of wanted to see what the ABC docudrama was like, so I turned it on but turned the sound off and glanced at it once in a while.

They had the Al Qaeda guys and all arabs basically looking dark, mean, wrinkled. They even showed a booger in one guy's nose (they did, really!) The screen was very dark when on them, and then, ta da, lighter when on others. You know, the old dark like night and death and bright like day, hope, and life.

At a quarter to eleven they had a brief "news snippet" from ABC saying that because of CIA Director George Tenet pulling the plug every time they had bin Laden in the cross-hairs, we didn't get him when we could have. They said the 9-ll Commission states that our best shot to get him was while Clinton was in office, showed the page from the Commission's report stating that date and place, then stated that:

The Clinton administration and the Bush administration both failed to get bin Laden before 9-11.

Tweety is on MSNBC giving the Neocons hell. He said: (paraphrased by me, but pretty accurate) All these words about the war in Iraq being about terrorism is pure political propoganda from the Neoconservatives and is a bunch of crap. Everybody knows the war in Iraq was preplanned before 9-ll, and was partly a personal vendetta, and had nothing to do with "terrorists", or Al Qaeda.

P.S. The airing of the Path to 9-11 last night "was brought to you without interuption".
I saw no commercials.

Monkey's right at 2:04 pm, as he so often is at other times, too, it's the loneliest number since the number one.

I am sitting here with Ryan McAllister. The workshop is Parenting for Social Change, and since we have bad weather and no one here to DO the workshop, I am going to BLOG it!

Ryan started down this road by studying how humans relate to one another. It does not always go warmly. He has studied how people are raised.

There is a huge opportunity to learn about all human relationships through understanding how we raise children. Soren, who is with Ryan is sharing her own experience of watching her siblings being born. She describes the beauty of the process and she learned that pain is OK; it can be a good thing. Pain can produce a sense of empowerment.

Some terms and perspectives:

Ryan aims to increase consciousness about the choices. Every human is a set of human needs and choices about how to fulfill those needs. Some things that are harmful: that we do not have choices. We tell ourselves "I have to...".

First it is easy to feel bad; to judge ourselves, find our selves less than others. We pretend we don[t have personal responsibility and that others dont either. We are having those feelings because of something someone else did and I need to tell you that. This is a doomed approach.

We have a good model for conflict and relationships that makes learning and growing much more difficult.

We want to raise consciousness about our choices and shift our vocabulary to create a different world with words (This is Liza and Ryan.)

What are we trying to do with all these things we want to eliminate? Every judemtn or mainpiulation is an attemtp to get human needs met. (ours or others) It is enrichment. It may be a tragic attempt.

List human needs people have:

(We all have these) (universal)

Nutrition
The Need to Contribute to Others' Well-Being
Connection
To be heard
Rest

etc.

I shared with Ryan that this blog is very much about the need to contribute to the well-being of others and connection. I shared Truths current concerns about her mother as something we are all more or less aware of and concerned about as we talk politics.

Autonomy is also essential. Perhaps not the best name but acknowledging choices is a way of acknowledging humanness.

As social progressive activists, most of us want people to be make those cpnscious choices rather than being directed by the power structures around us.

As parents if we use authority with our children as a way of training, we are modeling that power structure.

Every moment we are using authority, we are not in relationship with them. If we take the authority out we get to experience a fuller relationship with them.

What we need to parent for social change:

Give Attention for strong feelings

Develop a needs-based awareness.

As an aside, we have been trained to demand things from people rather than ask. We have low expectations of asking. Sonia just expressed hunger and Ryan happened to offer a Clif bar; David a sandwich. Sonia was surprised to find her needs met, especially after such a rigorous schedule (Sonia has been running the bookstore)

We hear requests as demands as well. Check out Marshall Rosenberg on nonviolent communication.:
http://cnvc.org/
(Possibly one of the single best tools for peace activists).

Why do we need attention for feelings? When they are not met there is a lack.

A person needs something that isn't happening, do we need to guess? Attention: tantrum-training--holding a space for someone to cry or tantrum.

Holding a space, creating a container for those real human needs.

Ryan's website: http://www.notjustskin.org

Tools that help:

special time: child knows it's his/her time and he/she is in charge

play-listening: a way of interacting with children in a context in which that behaviors they do are processing. We flexibly and playfully react to what they throw at us. Put them in charge and give them the strong role.

Stay-listening: When they "have" their feelings, (the bumpy part), the parent stays, provides as large a container as possible.

Of course, these also work with peace activists. Too often we attack the people whose cooperation we could use .
(Moment of personal contemplation. hmmm. yes)

These tools of attention for feelings and others are really to help us get to needs-centered awareness.

For adults Ryan speaks of listening partnerships. Taking turns with attention.

We're taught to shut down our feelings, but even more importantly we shut down our needs. Once we have let the feelings happen, we may get to more clarity about what those needs might be. Getting needs met: a way to resolve conflict and be the peace.

Every time we try to meet a need we can find a approach. But if the approach becomes the need, the problem is not solved.

In Shanksville, where United Flight 93 crashed into the ground, killing 40, hundreds of people gathered at a temporary memorial — a 10-foot chainlink fence covered with American flags, firefighter helmets and children’s drawings. They opened the ceremony with prayer.

United 93 crashed after passengers apparently rushed the cockpit in an effort to wrest control from the terrorists.

“These men and women stood in solidarity so others would receive salvation,” said Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania and the nation’s first homeland security secretary.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14780747/

Salvation???? Gee, subtle framing, TommyBoy.

Resignation Superman
by Big Head Todd & The Monsters

He'll come flying out of this town,
A resignation superman,
And today the bad guys win,
Cause he turned his cape in,
Now, he says,
And I'll turn my back on this world,
Yes I'll turn my eyes from this world,
Oh well...

Yes he's tired of fighting in this town,
All the suffering and vice,
He wants to fall in love,
Maybe settle in and live a life,
And I'll turn my back on this world,
Yes I'll turn my eyes from this world,

Oh I want to believe in you now that I'm suffering.
Oh lord, I need to receive your hand in my heart.

And he keeps an eye upon this town,
The resignation superman,
He'll keep himself amused,
With the evening news,
Oh my...
And I'll turn my back on this world,
Yes I'll turn my eyes from this world,
Now I broke my back on this world,
Now I'll wash my hands of this world,

Oh I want to believe in you now that I'm suffering.
Oh lord, I need to receive your hand in my heart

CNN Poll
Have the 9/11 attacks made the United States stronger or weaker?
Stronger
Weaker
or View Results

Running 52:48 Stronger:Weaker

Posted by: karen at September 11, 2006 03:06 PM

Excellent thoughts and facts, Karen.

Leads me to think why the neocons equate might with right. Most times I believe it is because of the way they were raised. Performance oriented, and very image oriented. Extreme performance centered mindsets tune out and shut out personal needs of one's self, as well as others' needs. Then one loses contact with his authentic self, can't bear to admit let alone contemplate mistakes or failures, and this process is essential to grow. The process shuts down, and denial sets in to the point where the person himself begins believing the lies.

When "they" lie they may believe their own lies. It really does happen in the process.

M. Scott Peck has wonderful writings about these truths, I believe his first book was "The Road Less Traveled". He delves into this extensively - both on a personal and interactive level. One of the very best books I have read. I recommend it highly.

Peck also wrote "People of the Lie", and he sees evil as an extreme personality disorder.

Peck also wrote a book on community building, titled "The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace".

He converted to Christianity while writing "The Road Less Traveled", but many fundamentalist Christians took ought with him. He was a psychiatrist, but took a spiritual (not religious) approach to emotional health.

I absolutely loved his books and wasn't aware of his religious preference as a way of expressing his spirituality until well after I finished a couple of them. I am sad to see he died last year after a bout with cancer and Parkinson's disease.

More about M. Scott Peck and his writings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck

Jason Leopold | Iraq and 9/11: The Truth Is Out
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106A.shtml
Jason Leopold writes, "9/11 gave the Bush administration the excuse they needed to execute a long-planned military strike against Iraq. President Bush and his cabinet duped Congress and the American people into believing the country had ties to al-Qaeda, and helped the terrorist organization plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon five years ago."

Ahmed Rashid | Losing the War on Terror
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106B.shtml
"Islamic extremists are winning the war by not losing, and they are steadily expanding to create new battlefronts," writes Ahmed Rashid.

The Hidden Scope of Domestic Spying Since 9/11
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106C.shtml
The scope of domestic surveillance has steadily expanded since 9/11. But lawmakers and privacy experts complain of too little information on it.

Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily | Fallujah Under Threat Yet Again
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106D.shtml
After enduring two major assaults, Fallujah is under threat from US forces again, residents say.

GOP Plans to Get Personal Digging Up Dirt on Democrats
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106E.shtml
Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

30 Arrested Calling For Action on Dafur
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106F.shtml
Protesters marched yesterday on the White House, demanding that the president press for UN peacekeepers who could halt the continuing attacks in the country's Darfur region.

Global Media Abhors US Response to 9/11
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106G.shtml
Newspapers across the world have strongly criticized the US response to September 11, accusing the Bush administration of bungling its "war on terror" and squandering global goodwill by invading Iraq.

Jean-Pierre Stroobants | September 11, Permanent Fear
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106H.shtml
"In order to eliminate fear of the other - by definition a mysterious, multiform, and more or less anonymous other - further risks are taken that give birth to other fears: the risks of outrages to personal freedom and the fear of violence coming from those same states or empires that we had charged with protecting us," a prophecy Jean-Pierre Stroobants suggests has come true.

Robert Scheer | Gaping Holes in the 9/11 Narrative
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091106I.shtml
Robert Scheer writes, "What we still don't know about 9/11 could kill us ... Instead of grappling with the thorny origins of that disaster, George Bush willfully turned the nation's attention and resources to a totally unrelated and disastrous imperial adventure in Iraq."

I went down to Red River today, and I expected many things.

I expected to get arrested, treated badly, thrown off a bridge. I expected to get chewwed out with the words 'You better be very careful who you accuse young lady!' I was waiting for those words.

I expected monkeys to fly from the belfy of the courthouse as soon as I pulled up, or lightning to strike me as soon as I reached the stairs.

What I never expected was to sit across the desk from a sheriff who was so scared his whole body was shaking.

At first I thought he was angry, I kept my head down, stuck to the script and thought I was trippin, but when I looked back across at him that second time, I saw nothing but a terrified old man.

I knew he was not afraid of me, he is afraid of HER. Of this thing that is happening.

Halway through the questions he was sweating and stammering and dodging, spinning like crazy, and he was literally shaking so hard he kept throwing down the papers in his hand to keep it from being even more obvious.

Of my three pages of questions he only answered 2 of them.

It was an unbelievable scene.

Not 2 pages of questions.

He only answered two questions, in all.

PS,.. Did I mention I got it all on tape and how sickly white he turned when I sat the recorder on his desk and hit record?

IT WAS AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!!

(Christy,

In the course of looking up something else, I found & re-read this particular ritual right after I read your posts above. The coincidence of this is not lost on me, especially in connection with your own unabated and undeterred commitment to Faye Aline.

blessed be, both ye and she,
Otter)

---------------------

Sending a message to a departed love:

1. ink made of soot and pink wine
2. two black candles
3. place paper between the two black candles

Write at the top of the letter:

"Thou who are mourned, see now the nature of this mourning: As thou knowest now my sorrow, so on this paper I affirm it. I write thee my heart here, for thy sight and that we may be bound by such silent words even better than when our words were spoken. Receive this letter, a sign of my commitment not to forget thee nor to cease mourning for thee until my own life shall be ended."

4. Now write your feelings, emotions, devotion, memories, love, etc.
5. Fold the paper three times
6. Seal with herbs
7. Burn in a fire.

Posted by: Christy at September 11, 2006 04:52 PM

I pray for you and your every night hun, you will get justice for her!! I have no doubt.

She is at peace knowing you and your family are searching and will find her.

Hugggss and much love to you and yours hun.

Fragile
by Sting

If blood will flow when fresh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrows rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetimes argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are

Excellent selection, monkey. Those lyrics are particularly apropos today. As are these words, which I've posted here before and spoken elsewhere often:

The wheel of life turns,
The cycle of rebirth continues.
Those beyond life,
You are remembered today.
Gifts of love and hope
Are offered whole heartedly,
To those we remember,
To those we do not,
To all of those we have lost.
Lady and Lord,
In your gentle embrace,
Our dead you have taken.
All threads of life are cut,
All threads are woven anew.
May the wheel turn,
And begin the cycle again.
We give freely
Juniper for love
Yew for rebirth
Bay for strength
Parsley for cleansing
Alyssum for happiness
Basil for peace.
May our blessings be received.
You are remembered.

Great songs by great people (and posted by some of my favorite people)...

Here's one more that seems a propos for today:

One Word (Peace)
by Subdudes

A man stands on the corner holding a sign
People yell at him as they drive by
I wonder what they read
That made them so upset
I looked at the sign and all it said was

One word
Peace, peace, peace, peace
In the neighborhood
One word
Peace, peace, peace, peace
In my own backyard

A man in a foreign land kneels to pray
Wonders where the bombs will fall today
My leaders tell me to fear him you see
But love conquers all
Is what I believe

One word
Peace, peace, peace, peace
In the neighborhood
One word
Peace, peace, peace, peace
In my own backyard

Everybody's talkin' about it
Everybody's got to have their say
But to achieve it there is only one way
And it starts with me and the word
And the word is

One word
Peace, peace, peace, peace
In the neighborhood
One word
Peace, peace, peace, peace
In my own backyard

Thank yall.

Just your awareness alone is what will make the truth come out.

They can no longer contain the lies and deceit. It is bigger than they are, and I saw today, they are terrified of it.

And strangely enough, I no longer am afraid of them.

TERRORISM: WE'RE IN DESPERATE NEED OF PERSPECTIVE
Joshua Holland, AlterNet
The threat posed by terrorists - like that of the Soviet menace during the Cold War - has been massively exaggerated, and the public is understandably terrified. It’s time for Americans to get a grip.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/41444/

Christy - you've got nothing to fear. You've got the quest for truth on your side.

Sorry to disrupt the good vibes.. Here's some potentially good news (hattip rawstory):

American Airlines criticizes ABC miniseries on 9/11 attacks
By TREBOR BANSTETTER
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH — Executives with American Airlines say they are “outraged” at the airline’s depiction in the ABC miniseries The Path to 9-11.

Airline spokesman Roger Frizzell said Monday that the miniseries, which concludes tonight, falsely portrays an American gate agent at Boston’s Logan Airport allowing a terrorist onto a flight despite a warning that he may have been a threat.

“It’s important for the public to know that the ABC dramatization is inaccurate and irresponsible in its portrayal of the airport check-in events that occurred on the morning of Sept. 11,” he said.

more here: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/15494253.htm

Can anyone say....lawsuit?

Posted by: Carol at September 11, 2006 08:01 PM

This had to come, considering that some of us have been doing a letter-writing campaign to American Airlines regarding this. Thanks for sharing!

According to military intelligence, we've lost Anbar Province to Al Queda in Iraq - and it would take a miracle to take it back.

Dubya - doing for Iraq what he did for Harken and Arbusto.

ABC Consultant Richard Clarke Blasts First Installment Of Film, Hints At ABC "Conspiracy"
By Greg Sargent

Richard Clarke, a consultant for ABC News and a senior counterterrorism official in the Bush and Clinton administrations, has just released a statement blasting the first installment of "The Path to 9/11."

Interestingly, Clarke appeared to suggest that more than profit motivated the film: "Although I am not one to easily believe in conspiracy theories and have spent a great deal of time debunking them, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the errors in this screen play are more than the result of dramatization and time compression. There is throughout the screenplay a consistent bias and distortion seeking to portray senior Clinton Administration officials as holding back the hard charging CIA, FBI, and military officers who would otherwise have prevented 9-11. The exact opposite is true."

more (including full statement from Clarke)...
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/sep/11/abc_consultant_richard_clarke_blasts_first_installment_of_film

WHO: Senator John Kerry

WHAT: Speech on the War in Iraq and National Security

WHEN: Thursday, September 14, 2006
12:30 pm

WHERE: Howard University
A.J. Blackburn Center

------------------------------------------------------

Seattle: (making my head spin!)

Tonight
PBS Newshour correspondent Ray Suarez on his new book "America, The Holy Vote"

Tuesday
Profession Skeptic Michael Shermer on Evolution as it relates to his new book
"Why Darwin Matters, the Case Against Intelligent Design"

Wednesday
Former Colorado Senator and Hart-Rudman Committee on Terrorism co-chair Gary Hart (D) on Homeland Security and an alternative to our current policy.

Thursday
Former Ag Commissioner and populist radio host Jim Hightower kicks off the Institute for Washington Future's "Back to the Roots" series of forums on
sustainable comunity.

Saturday
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on hew new book "Static: Government Liars, Media
Cheerleaders and the People Who Fight Back"

Wednesday, 9/20, 7:30 $5
James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, on his new book "Blind Into Baghdad: America's War In Iraq"
_______________________________________________________________

The Ten Suggestions
by Paul Krassner

1. Stay well-informed and be on the alert for disinformation;
besides mainstream media, check out alternative papers
and the Internet, especially the international press.

2. Maintain empathy for the motivation of terrorists and sympathizers,
bearing in mind that they are victims of their own conditioning.

3. Start saving the world by acting in every aspect of your daily life
as though you were a role model for all humankind.

4. Understand and forgive your foibles instead of guilt-tripping yourself.

5. Resist police-state legislation passed in the guise of security.

6. Pro-choice or not, Don't Abort your Inner Child.

7. With the stench and sadness of death so much in the air,
practice loving those you cherish while they're still alive.

8. Keep feeling hopeful by finding your balance between
total despair and the 100th Monkey fable. As Harry Chapin said,
"If we don't act like there's hope, there is no hope."
And remember, placebos work.

9. Pay attention to God's spin, such as,
"I never said Promised Land,
I said I'd see what I could do."

10. When eating a sandwich at the delicatessen,
be sure to remove the toothpick before taking your first bite.

To xxx:

I think it is important for you to know that ABC had factual errors in its dramatization, and we are looking at possible legal actions as a result. According to the 9-11 Commission report, it was not American Airlines, nor was it even the right airport that was depicted. Inreality, it was another airline, flying out of Maine. Please know this was a tragic incident in our company's history and we hope you will be sympathetic to our employees and our airline on this day especially.

Again, we are outraged by this situation, and we alerted ABC about its gross error. It is very unfortunate.

Roger Frizzell
Vice President, Corporate Communications & Advertising
American Airlines

This Hole in the Ground
by Keith Olbermann

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

I heard the Olbermann Special Comment.

He nuked Dubya. He simply nuked him.

Posted by: Cyrano at September 11, 2006 09:00 PM

Good. Damn good.

Hell To The Cheat

"On 9/11 Americans saw the face of evil".

I didn't know Cheney was on TV that night?

Posted by: Cyrano at September 11, 2006 09:04 PM

Nope, he was under it.

Jackal & Hide

is there something wrong with the irc?

IRC works for me. But it's lonely in there...

"The terrorists are thrown into panic by the sight of an old man pulling an election lever."

Mr. President, that's because Rove, Cheney and your brother haven't taught them how to steal elections.

cyrano and monkey,

I watched Olbermann as well - God, he's good.

If anyone out there is watching in central, mountain, or pacific time, watch him on Countdown on msnbc. His commentary about 9-11 comes at #1 on the countdown, about 10 minutes before the end of the show.

It is nothing short of amazing.

I think my computer has been bugged by the NSA. I am still unable to get into the irc.

Watch Olbermann here:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

Blah, Blah, Blah

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush told the American people Monday night that the country faces "a struggle for civilization" as it fights the war on terrorism sparked by the 9/11 attacks five years ago.

In an address from the Oval Office, the president stressed the necessity of victory, tying together conflicts from Afghanistan to Iraq to Lebanon as a "struggle between tyranny and freedom" that rivaled World War II.

"Do we have the confidence to do in the Middle East what our fathers and grandfathers accomplished in Europe and Asia?" Bush asked.

"If we do not defeat these enemies now, we will leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons," Bush said. "We are in a war that will set the course for this new century and determine the destiny of millions across the world."

"We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations, and we are fighting for the possibility that good and decent people across the Middle East can raise up societies based on freedom and tolerance and personal dignity," Bush said. "By standing with democratic leaders and reformers, by giving voice to the hopes of decent men and women, we are offering a path away from radicalism."

Bush said the invasion of Iraq was a necessary part of the war on terror because the regime of Saddam Hussein was a "clear threat" that posed "a risk that the world could not afford to take."

The president pledged not to waver in Iraq so terrorists would not gain psychological and tactical victories.

"If we yield Iraq to men like (Osama) Bin Laden, our enemies will be emboldened," Bush said. "They will gain a new safe haven, and they will use Iraq's resources to fuel their extremist movement."

During the speech, the president acknowledged setbacks in Iraq.

"Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone.

"They will not leave us alone. They will follow us.

"The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad," Bush said.

Bush said doubts about promoting democracy in the Middle East had led to 60 years of failed policy.

"On a bright September morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. Years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither," he said.

Bush said the war on terror was "unlike any we've ever fought before," but said the sacrifices Americans made to defeat Japan and Germany in World War II, and to prevail in the Cold War, are akin to what is needed now.

"America has confronted evil before, and we have defeated it," he said.

The president called on the American people to "put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us."

"We will defeat our enemies, we will protect our people, and we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty," Bush said.

moreon...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/11/bush.memorials/index.html

I saw Obermann as well, and after that came Bush's hollow speech. Obermann ripped Bush a new one. Maybe that was why Bush was grimacing during his speech.

Thank Keith and msnbc here:

countdown@msnbc.com

Here's my email:

Keith and staff,

Thanks once again for your strong and true statements on this September 11 anniversary. All you say is true, and has needed to be said as boldly and strongly as you say it. If only our politicians were as true to us. I hope you'll continue with the EXCELLENT work you are doing. You are a light in the darkness.

You are doing your country proud.

Here are other msnbc addresses (thanks FDL). Write!

viewerservices@msnbc.com
letters@msnbc.com
countdown@msnbc.com
KOlbermann@msnbc.com
dabrams@MSNBC.com

Posted by: Carol at September 11, 2006 10:00 PM

I just sent him my letter.

And speaking of http://www.crooksandliars.com/ ... right below the piece there on Olbermann's special report tonight (complete with links to .wmv and .mov video of same) there is also the following item (complete with links to .wmv and .mov video of same):

--------------------

Matt Lauer went after Bush over his secret prisons and the use of torture on the captured terrorists via 'The Today Show' this morning. He was uncommonly strong and didn't back down when Bush gave his pet answer. He hits the right note because if what we've been doing is legal then why was there the need for secret prisons? When Bush gets cornered, he starts saying he's not going to talk about it anymore ... (Glenn Greenwald has a post up now about John Yoo -- Bush's torture man.)

Matt Lauer: And yet you admitted that there were these CIA secret facilities. OK?

President Bush: So what? Why is that not within the law?

-------------------

constitution? what constitution?,
Otter

Posted by: Otter at September 11, 2006 10:41 PM

No man is above the law... this so-called man is far below it.

Falling through the bottom line.

Has to look straight up to salute a snake's belly as it slithers by.

(Glenn Greenwald has a post up now about John Yoo -- Bush's torture man.)

Posted by: Otter at September 11, 2006 10:41 PM

John Yoo likes to crush testicles.

Now, that's something we could use against Mann Coulter.

Nuts to that!

Just gave my husband the link for Olbermann. He has the complete Twilight Zone set & says Rod Serling had subtle messages in his old films, to counteract the paranoia about the Red Menace. He was a huge fan when he was a kid & still is.

This is great.

This will scare the bejesus out of you.

http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/

More Mush From the Wimp
http://www.politicalgateway.com/main/columns/read.html?col=651
Good counterpoint.

Oncall
That scared the hell out of me. The music alone. It crashed my computer. I Googled and morbidly watched the trailer.

Re W, my husband just watched Olbermann, then watched Matt Lauer with Bush. He is commenting that Bush doesn't really seem to be able to empathize with anything to do with suffering, humanity.

Go to Bloggerman and rate his page. It is getting freeped.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

No Mercy
By Sheila Samples
We have been insulted and deceived, our courts dismantled, our Congress neutered, our children murdered in an illegal, genocidal war, our elections stolen, our tax dollars wasted. Today, we are stranded on our own rooftops, pleading for a November 2006 rescue.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14926.htm
Excerpt:
Which brings us back to FEMA. Bush said FEMA had learned its lesson and would be "ready" for the next disaster. No doubt. The next time Bush declares martial law, Halliburton's KBR should have the detention facilities, for which it received a $385 million contract in January, ready and waiting. According to a KBR release, the camps call for preparing for "an emergency influx of immigrants or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies, such as "a national disaster." Under emergency plans already in existence, the power exists to suspend the Constitution and turn over the reins of government to FEMA. State and local governments will be under military control.
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eed74d9d44c30493706fe03f4c9b3a77
http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon5.html

Is American Democracy Too Feeble To Deal With 9/11?
Paul Craig Roberts
I would be more confident of the survival of democracy and civil liberty in the United States if, on this fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a majority of Americans were reading David Ray Griffin’s challenging new book, “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14921.htm

9-11; the "unifying myth" for the war on terror
By Mike Whitney
To a large extent, the war on terror is a shabby promotional scheme designed to mobilize the nation for a permanent state of war while curtailing civil liberties. There’s nothing original in this analysis, but it does explain the importance of media as a vehicle for Bush’s public relations campaign. It also explains why high-ranking officials in the administration are still provided unlimited air-time to reiterate the same bland bromides over and over again without being challenged.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14927.htm

Annals of Liberation: The Noble Fruits of 9/11
By Chris Floyd
Let us turn our tear-filled eyes away from the noble Leader's sentimental journey through the three sites of mass murder in which his greatness is firmly rooted, and look for a moment to Mesopotamia, to the great and ancient land of Babylon, where the noble Leader has bestowed – entirely unasked, an act of purest noblesse oblige – the benefits of liberation, democracy and the free market.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14928.htm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060912/ap_en_mo/film_toronto_death_of_a_president
Bush 'Death' drama aired at Toronto fest

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060911/ap_on_go_pr_wh/sept11_bush_43
Bush to appeal for unity in terror war

http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/

Posted by: oncall at September 11, 2006 11:37 PM

Thanks for sharing!

PFAW alerted me to this film as well, and will hold a screening this week somewhere on the west (progressive) side of Los Angeles.

Re W, my husband just watched Olbermann, then watched Matt Lauer with Bush. He is commenting that Bush doesn't really seem to be able to empathize with anything to do with suffering, humanity.

Posted by: DiAnne at September 11, 2006 11:59 PM

I don't think empathy is in the Bush family gene. A posh family that can't even shop at a supermarket is NOT qualified to represent the best interests of the common people. After all, W's mother can't waste her beautiful mind on the sufferings of the Katrina victims.

Dumbya is the snotty little kid who used to love to put firecrackers in frogs mouth and watch em done blowed up.

Dumbya is the spoiled rich kid who talks tough only when he KNOWS the cards are heavily stacked in his favor, and gets his butt kicked on the odd occassion that he has a little too much of the naughty stuff and runs his mouth off when he doesn't have his posse around.

Dumbya talks to the world with his fingers crossed behind his back, winking sheepishly at Turdblossoms, Grim Reapers and Cocoa Krispies.

The Bully Armpit

And now for something completely different, check out this diary for something to do with the money that you won't be spending on Disney/ABC:

How I started a third world lending organization. From nothing.

by HollywoodOz

I run an editorial services company in Vancouver BC - a company called Unreel Media. It's not a bad company, as far as company's go. Makes a little profit, keeps thirty writers in rent and food, but it has an added benefit to dozens - perhaps hundreds - of other people, all over the world... a benefit that few companies I know of could boast.

See, my company is also a money lender. No, we're not loan sharks, and we're not a payday loan outfit. Rather, we give loans to people in places like the Sudan and Tanzania, Samoa and Cambodia, Honduars and Bulgaria, in the form of business loans for entrepreneurs who wish to get themselves and their families out of poverty forever.

Over the past year, we have handed out loans to 23 third and developing world entrepreneurs, one of which has since been fully repaid, three of which have been almost fully repaid, and 15 of which are in some sort of early stage of repayment.

In my eyes, it's an outstanding success, but the reason I decided to write a dairy about it is not to boast, and it's not to brag. It's to point out that, with a little time, and a little effort, you too could be in charge of a third world business development fund. Here's how we did it:

So a few years back, I read something here about a new non-profit outfit called Kiva. You might have heard something about them yourself. If not, here's the skinny:

Kiva is like Napster for people who have a little coin they'd like to send to people in the developing world, to help them start businesses and get out of poverty. That is, the third world entrepreneur puts forth a request for a business loan, which is administered by a third party microcredit organization (IE: someone who will ensure the money is properly spent), and Kiva is the peer-to-peer method for people like you and me to actually send some cash to help out.

Simply go to their website, look at the businesses in need, and if you spot one you think you'd like to invest in, you can do so via credit card or Paypal. Simple.

It's not a donation - you're not throwing money down the memoryhole - it's a loan. And it also happens to be a loan that is repaid somewhere around 97% of the time, which is a far better rate than local banks manage.

The entrepreneur pays interest on the loan, and that interest goes to covering admin costs (feet on the ground isn't cheap, especially in places like Sudan and Palestine), and the principal, when it is paid back, comes back to you. When it's paid off, you then decide whether you want to take the money back, or reloan it.

Once you've given out your loan, you receive monthly updates from the borrower, telling you how the money has been spent, and how the business is progressing.
~snip~
My company has loans to the following entrepreneurs:

Tanzania: General store, cattle breeder
Palestine: Construction company
Senegal: Jewelry makers, fishing collective, farmers supplies
Cambodia: Food seller, tuk tuk driver, soil transporter
Uganda: Food shop, peanut butter maker, maize seller, water tap, cattle breeder
Honduras: Shoe store, restaurant, hot dog vendor, barber
Ecuador: Clothing shop
Kenya: Electrical repair store, groundnut miller, furniture manufacturer

Now, that's a LOT of good being done by really not a lot of effort on my company's part. It cost the same amount to buy a Cambodian guy a Tuk-Tuk as it would have cost to fly me to Seattle for a business meeting, so instead of flying to the meeting, I took the train and put the money saved towards the tuk-tuk.

The recipe to set up your own charitable loan organization is simple: Just go to Kiva right now and pick someone to loan $25 to. Then, in a few weeks, go do it again. Don't even think about it, just go do it.

~snip~
We talk a lot about how we want to make change in the world, but how much do we really make? We, as first world consumers, exploit the ever-loving heck out of the developing (and undeveloping) world, and we think that by not going to Starbucks or driving a Prius we're really doing our part?

I can't imagine what it would be like to have to not send your kids to school because school fees take up half your income. I can't imagine what it would be like to not have two cents to my name, and have a family starving to death before me. But I know that other people in this world suffer that indignity every single day, and I also know that I'm doing my part to change that.

Build your non-profit organization today. It'll only cost you $25 to start, but if you've got a few grand sitting in the bank earning pennies on the dollar in interest, think about using it for something better.

It's the least we can do, to those we've exploited for so long. I mean, geez, can you imagine if all of us with companies started making small loans here and there? If we can get political candidates elected, we could transform much of the third world in a few years. Imagine if just one of us with the right contacts managed to get an AT&T or Microsoft to devote 0.0001% of profits to something like this.

All too often we look to government to do this kind of stuff, but this is the online age - nowadays, we can go do it ourselves.

Your turn.

read the complete diary...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/11/2022/05238

Bush tries to win over war-weary nation
Five years after 9/11, his capacity to move public is weakened

ANALYSIS
By Dan Balz and Michael Abramowitz
The Washington Post
Updated: 29 minutes ago

President Bush's Oval Office speech last night was the culmination of two weeks of efforts to rally the nation behind his policies and presidency by summoning the memory of Sept. 11, 2001. Five years after that indelible day, however, this president's capacity to move the public is severely diminished.

There were echoes of the language and logic Bush invoked five years ago when he united a stricken nation looking to him for both comfort and leadership. But he was speaking to a different nation last night.

Setbacks in Iraq have soured a majority of Americans on that mission. Falsely optimistic predictions of progress have undermined the administration's credibility. A majority of Americans question fundamental elements of the president's argument, including his contention that Iraq is the central front in the campaign against terrorism.

Cumulatively, it leaves decidedly uncertain whether this week's flood of rhetoric and remembrance can alter Bush's perilous circumstances -- at a critical moment for the future of the Iraq mission and the president's own domestic standing 56 days before the midterm elections.

"The power of his rhetoric is in marked decline, and that's no reflection on the quality of what he says, which is still very high," said Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a neoconservative scholar who has been sympathetic to Bush's anti-terrorism policies. "There's a desire in the country for more deeds, not more words. . . . We are losing a war right now, and there is no way to get around that."

Three previous times in the past 18 months, as public opinion has slipped, White House officials have announced that Bush would embark on a renewed effort to explain and defend his Iraq and anti-terrorism policies. None produced a lasting positive effect on how Americans view either the president or his policies.

more on...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14777090/

Even though I am getting sick of seeing my own name in the newspaper, we made front page again!

Man how we have dreamed about this happening without ever once daring to believe it would.

Her name, our families name, it is all over and they will not be able to put the genie back into the bottle this time.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060912/NEWS01/609120327/1002

White House officials are hopeful that the round of speeches will have some impact on moving public opinion. They said that Bush has presented an enormous amount of information and background about Iraq and terrorism, much of which they believe will come as news to many Americans with only a general impression of events.

"I am not so sure that the views [about the Iraq war and terrorism] are chiseled in stone," said White House press secretary Tony Snow. "There's been a lot of debate -- one side that may not have been fully represented in ours. . . . It seems that on a lot of things, people may not have fully understood the approach the president took and his thinking."

Both Snow and White House counselor Dan Bartlett singled out the effort to quote the terrorists' own words as a tactic they hope will break through to ordinary Americans who may not be aware of the terrorists' aims. "We may be having a debate in this country about whether Iraq is part of the war on terrorism, but our enemies believe it is," Bartlett said. "We were trying to transcend the political debate in Washington by letting the words of the enemies speak for themselves."

More Things That Make You Go 'Hmmm':

"More than a third (36 percent) of the American public believes it is likely that the Bush administration either perpetrated the 9/11 attacks or deliberately failed to stop them 'because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East,' according to a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll released last month. A Zogby poll in August 2004 found that half of New York City residents believed the Bush administration knew the attacks were coming and 'consciously failed to act.'"

Good for you, Christy. It was amazing to see your comments earlier about how nervous the sheriff was when you met with him.

I'm sending lots of wishes / vibes for strength and wisdom. You are doing great at this.

Dwahzon
Thanks for posting about the microloan thing. My husband also read an article where those have been proposed for people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Can any one go?

Senator John Kerry
Address at Pepperdine University
Monday, September 18, 2006
1:30 PM Smothers Theater
Corner of Pacific Coast Highway
and Malibu Canyon Road
Malibu, CA

Marine Report Sees Grim Outlook in West Iraq
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 — The political and security situation in western Iraq is grim and will continue to deteriorate unless the region receives a major infusion of aid and a division is sent to reinforce the American troops operating there, according to the senior Marine intelligence officer in Iraq.

The assessment, prepared last month by Col. Peter Devlin at the Marine headquarters in Anbar Province, has been sent to senior military officials in Iraq and at the Pentagon.

While the American military is focused on trying to secure Baghdad and prevent the sectarian strife there from escalating into a civil war, the assessment points to the difficulties in Anbar, a vast Sunni-dominated area of western Iraq where the insurgency is particularly strong. The province includes such restive towns as Ramadi, Haditha and Hit.

Marine commanders have been mounting a campaign to secure the province in the face of a virulent insurgency. But they have had to cope with seriously short-handed Iraqi Army units and a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad that has tended to view the area as a low priority for government spending and programs.

Elements of the assessment were reported Monday in The Washington Post. Military officials familiar with the document disclosed additional material and provided several quotations from the assessment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/world/middleeast/12anbar.html

TY DW.

Before we got to the courthouse, we made an extra two blocks, so I could show my friend Alines old house, and the one beside it where Browne lived. (The one Wanda lived in was 'removed' some time ago).

The teddybears and flowers and pictures of her we left are still there!!!! Right smack dab in the middle of his family's property!

I am all choked up just thinking about it, it feels so strange to feel so grateful for that, but I am. They even added some to it.

Someone has even put a little tiny fence around them and has been taking care of it.

I will make it a point to find out who that person is. They deserve a hug no matter what name they carry.

I prayed to her when I saw it, I asked her to give me clarity. I really did feel she came with me to see about the sheriff. I could FEEL her and it made me completely calm.

It was an amazing day, even if we still have no answers we are closer now than ever.

Thank you guys for being here, for caring about her. To my family it is a miracle we can never repay you for.

There are other families too that still need answers in Red River, if we can just go a little bit further, we will find the others lost along this same path.

I choose to believe they refused to look for Aline, because she would bring others home with her. Others they also refused to look for. I still believe that. I believe it more every day now.

This may be our last and only chance to find any of them.

Posted by: Otter at September 12, 2006 09:11 AM

No "Hmmmm..." about it.

6 August 2001 PDB was IGNORED. That (IMHO) just shows me that willful gross negligence "allowed" 9/11 to happen on Dumbya's watch. Period. It no longer matters whether or not the gross negligence was willful or not; 9/11 happened on their watch, and they're responsible because the Aug. 6 PDB was IGNORED (as were all the other intelligence reports prior to the Aug. 6 PDB).

It indicates complicity before or after the fact, and it doesn't matter any longer if it was before or after the fact. It still happened on Dumbya's watch, and a misdirected, misbegotten illegal war of aggression and occupation was begun because they wanted to go into Iraq and take over the oil fields anyway, so they IGNORED the PDB and the attack happened and it gave PNAC members the "excuse" they needed to invade and occupy Iraq, even though no one in that country from Saddam Hussein on down, had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11.

But I notice the entire McAdministration is STILL trying to push that LIE as truth, by direct LIES and/or implication and allusion by mentioning 9/11 and Iraq and Hussein in the same sentences usually - it's designed to set up the connection in the hearer's mind, even if it is nothing but a pack of LIES. To hear them say "al Qaida-like" 'ter-rists' (in Iraq or Afghanistan, since I notice now 'news' reports are placing al Quaida-like activities in Afghanistan, too, even if it's technically the Taliban committing criminal terrorist acts, not al Qaida) is enough to make the false connection because the hearer eliminates the word 'like' and just thinks all criminals who commit terrorist acts are somehow connected to al Qaida, whether that's true or not. The McAdministration has made all 'ter-rists' into al Qaida members by that implied association. The false allusion is enough to set up a false link.... and Lamestream McMedia spinmeisters never catch that and ask for clarification....

The fact that McMedia spinmeisters have not investigated the reality vs. the implied associations has irritated me for five very long years....

President Bush: "So what? Why is that not within the law?"

"So what? Why is that not within the law?"

That particular soundbite from yesterday's Today Show is still ringing in my ears. It alone, all by itself, sums up the most egregious elements of this administration's droit-de-seigneur arrogance -- and it alone, run all by itself in the midst of a soundless series of black-and-white images (from 9/11, from Abu Ghraib, from Katrina, et al), would make an incredibly powerful, incredibly damning anti-neocon television commercial when the time comes. Hello, progressive media consultants? Are you listening out there?

Breaking The Law
by Judas Priest

There I was completely wasting, out of work and down
All inside its so frustrating as I drift from town to town
Feel as though nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life

Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law

So much for the golden future, I cant even start
Ive had every promise broken, theres anger in my heart
You dont know what its like, you dont have a clue
If you did you'd find yourselves doing the same thing too

Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law

You dont know what its like

Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law

Breaking the law

Down Bylaws.

More Like Buy Down Laws.