Okay, so the hottie from Arkansas thinks the retired General would make a
good president. This is centrist Democrat politics at work. You know,
"Republican Lite."

I don't WANT a general in the White House, even though I think Wes Clark is
a pretty decent guy.

The thing is, he can't go toe to toe with Rove and make Karl crap his pants
a few times.

I want a SCRAPPER! I want a brawler. Which is why I'm backing Dean so far.
I'm picking the Dem candidate the way Machiavelli would pick a race horse.
Not the pretty one. The one that can run the fastest.


GIMME SEABISCUIT!
_____________

Clinton: Clark Would Make Good President
By James Jefferson
Associated Press Political Writer
Saturday 28 June 2003

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - While he's making no endorsements, former President
Clinton says fellow Arkansan Wesley Clark would make a good president if he
should decide to run.

Clinton says he has been impressed by the retired Army general's career
from its inception, as a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, where Clark
finished first in his class.

"He has always exceeded in every endeavor," Clinton told The Associated
Press on Friday, noting in particular Clark's major role as NATO commander,
when he ran the 1999 Kosovo air war that drove Serb forces out of the
embattled Serbian province.

"While I cannot take sides in the Democratic primary, I believe Wes, if
he runs, would make a valuable contribution because he understands America's
security challenges and domestic priorities," Clinton said. "I believe he
would make a good president."

Clinton's comments were in an e-mailed response to a question to his New
York office.

Clark is contemplating a presidential bid next year and has visited New
Hampshire, as have the nine declared Democratic presidential aspirants.

Like the Democrats already in the race, Clark embraces policies that
Clinton pursued during his eight years as president.

Clark speaks well of Clinton, even attributing the swift U.S.-led
victory in Iraq this spring to seeds sown or cultivated during Clinton's
years in Washington.

The battlefield tactics and technology, which won high praise, "was an
idea that we put in place during the 1990s, through the investments, the
training, leadership and leadership development processes," Clark said in an
interview.

Clark also approved of Clinton's $241 billion tax increase in 1993,
among the largest in U.S. history. He criticized Bush for reversing the
Clinton tax strategy.

Last week, the Draft Clark 2004 for President Committee announced plans
to open its first campaign field office in New Hampshire over the
Independence Day weekend.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

Why Americans are not standing in the streets tearing their hair and rending
their garments is beyond me. How much do we have to lose before they wake
up?
________________

Dear Mr. Hunter:

Yes, U.S. journalists are truly spineless.

You may think me a crank, but I'll tell you a little bit of what I see. The
USA has been hijacked by a right wing cabal the likes of which we haven't
seen since Mussolini. Yes, we're living under fascist rule and we might as
well get out of denial about it. The penalty for bucking the Bush cartel by
really reporting the news is to risk awakening some morning with a horse
head in your bed. You remember that grisly scene in "The Godfather," I bet.

It really is that bad. And it really is a shame that it is going to get
worse so long as the majority of Americans, including the press, either
remain in denial or avoid the "inconvenient" by looking the other way.

BTW, your byline appears as "David Hundter," but at the bottom of the net
page, your name is spelled as "David Hunter." Somebody in journalism, one of
those with the fancy degrees you mentioned in your article ought to fix
that. Back where I come from, we call this a typo. An attorney would call it
"an error in fact."

Most sincerely,
Claudia D. Dikinis
Santa Monica, California

This is a real email sent to the author of the article at the link below:

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_2075548,00.html



Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium



And here is Mr. Hunters answer to Claudia:


----- Original Message -----
From: David Hunter
To: Claudia D. Dikinis
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: Are U.S. journalists truly spineless?


Claudia, thanks for the heads-up on the misspelled name. They should fix it soon.
David

Thanks for your letter. I do not like impersonal replies, but I have been truly overwhelmed
with supporting Email for my column about spineless journalists.



For information purposes only, I have started a small blog site where I will appear uncensored..


http://heartland_1.pitas.com


Once again, thanks for your kind words.

David

This is the article in "The Washington Monthly" Paul Krugman (NYT) mentioned
in his terrific editorial "Toward One Party Rule"

(http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/opinion/27KRUG.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEdi
torials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists)

Karl Rove has K Street in DC locked up the way JEB Bush had all law firms in
Florida locked up by 4:00 am, the wee hours of the morning just after the
2000 prez polls had closed.

Can you believe that people don't "get it" that 2000 was a coup d'etat and
we're living under a fascist dictatorship? Yeah. The same people that say
astrology doesn't work.






http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.confessore.html


Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

Get Rid of the Bush Fascist Regime! "We hold these Truths to be
self-evident, that all Men [and Women] are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these
Rights, Governments are instituted among Men [and Women], deriving their
just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ..." -
Declaration of Independence.

About Those Recent Supreme Court Rulings. How About a Conspiracy Theory?

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

Call me "Sleepless in Washington State."

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I'm not very tolerant of conspiracy
theorists. But this has been an upsetting week. Listen to this and then
tell me if I'm over the top.

OK, let's say a friend asked me what I thought about the two latest
prime-time Supreme Court decisions: upholding affirmative action at the
University of Michigan, and striking down anti-sodomy laws in Texas.

I said I was reassured and encouraged. Maybe we're not headed down the
tubes so fast after all. The Court is still in synch with the American
mainstream.

Then he said, well, do you think it's just possible that the Supreme
Court's ostensibly moderate decisions are an early manifestation of the
Bush campaign's 2004 campaign strategy?

Huh?

-- Don't the Democrats always rally their voters on the issue of Supreme
Court appointments? Aren't some voters a little scared of a Supreme Court
moving too far right, out of the mainstream? How convenient for the Bush
campaign to be able to neutralize that argument.

But you're saying the Bush people instructed the justices -- or maybe just
Justice O'Connor -- to uphold affirmative action in Michigan? I thought
the administration submitted an amicus brief on the other side -- to
disallow consideration of race in the University's admissions processes.

-- And so it did. And maybe I wouldn't say instructing the justices, or
any one of them, to go the other way. You'll never see any memo or minutes
of a meeting. But there are lots of ways to do things in Washington D.C.,
as everyone knows. Think Karl Rove. A word or two at a cocktail party or a
working lunch, that's all it took: Hey, just let people see that the Court
is mainstream, even a bit to the left. Minorities will feel really good,
and Dems citing the bogeyman of far-right Supreme Court domination will
look foolishly alarmist. They'll show that the Court is not only
mainstream, but independent. And they'll build the pressure to go for the
whole enchilada after the election's in the bag.

Wait a minute. You mean the Court is helping the Bush administration
appear centrist to help him out in the '04 election?


Read more of this commentary at:
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/06/29_court.html

A Special Guest Satire from Betty Bowers, BuzzFlash's Religious Advisor



June 28, 2003

Betty Bowers, "America's Best Christian," dispenses her advice for fellow
"lady Christians" at The Betty Bowers Online Ministry. Betty says that she
is, "So close to Jesus, I returned the lingerie he bought me for
Christmas." Betty is founder of "T.R.A.S.H," Traditional Families Raging
Against Sluts and Homos ("Throw out the heathen Trash!").

With Jerry Falwell all in a titter about the Supreme Court Ruling that
meant that you can't arrest homosexuals for cavorting in the privacy of
their bedrooms -- and with Antonin Scalia clearly nervous that he was
about to outed -- we couldn't think of a better Christian to turn to than
Betty to explain what God is thinking about all of this, and who God has
sex with and all that.

As a result, Betty was kind enough to pen us this confidential member,
which BuzzFlash hopes that you will share with everyone in the non-pagan
world.


A Confidential Memorandum from America's Best Christian, Mrs. Betty Bowers

Not to be disseminated to liberals and other unsaved trash

Dear Fellow Professional Conservative:

Perhaps, many of you think I was rendered inconsolable by the Supreme
Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision, a stinging rebuke to industrious
conservative Christians who employ an artfully edited version of Jesus to
demean people who willfully refuse to cast themselves in my image. I can,
of course, see where a misapprehension like this might arise. No doubt, if
you caught me on Hannity & Colmes fulminating about America's slide into
the depraved abyss that allows willful people to make up their own minds
about how they wish to live their own lives, you might have reason to
think I am angry - even sincere. But don't trouble yourself with
unnecessary anguish on my account. And, please, don't think when leaders
in the conservative Christian community complain about the decision we are
being any more truthful than ubiquitous irritant Jennifer Lopez when she
calls a press conference to bemoan publicity.

For more of Betty's exclusive interview with BuzzFlash.Com, go to:

http://www.buzzflash.com/buzzscripts/buzz.dll/content

Jerry Falwell Appears Very, Very Threatened by Homsexuality, As Does His
GOOD Buddy Antonin Scalia
June 27, 2003

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

This is an actual alert sent out by Jerry Falwell on January 26th. Are
Jerry and Antonin Scalia threatened by homosexuality? Sure looks like it.
Maybe they are one step from coming out of the closet.

FALWELL CONFIDENTIAL
DATE: June 26, 2003
FROM: Jerry Falwell

TEXAS SODOMY LAW OVERTURNED - A TRAGEDY FOR AMERICA

In a stunning reversal from its 1986 decision upholding the rights of
states to enact anti-sodomy laws, the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, ruled
to overturn a Texas law that banned same-sex sodomy, saying that it
violated a right to privacy.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion for the majority, citing a
"right to privacy" in his decision. Joining him in the decision were
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen
Breyer. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agreed with the ruling, but differed
in the rationale for her decision. (Sadly, four of the six Justices voting
for the majority ... O'Connor, Souter, Kennedy and Stevens ... were
appointed by Republican presidents.)

Dissenting were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin
Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Justice Scalia, who chose to read his dissent aloud from the bench, said
that the Court "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."

"The court has taken sides in the culture war," Scalia said. He further
noted that this ruling would invite laws allowing same-sex marriage.

"This reasoning leaves on shaky, pretty shaky grounds, state laws limiting
marriage to opposite-sex couples," Scalia wrote.

Mathew Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel called the
decision a "wakeup call" to the majority of Americans who believe in
traditional marriage.

"The goal of the radical homosexual agenda is to eliminate any and all
laws regulating consensual sexual conduct," Staver said. "This would mean
the elimination of laws banning polygamy as well as those that ban sex
between adults and minors."

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT


Do We Hear That Closet Door Slowly Opening, Jerry and Antonin?

http://www.buzzflash.com/buzzscripts/buzz.dll/sub2

http://www.buzzflash.com/buzzscripts/buzz.dll/quotA BuzzFlash Editorial

Is BuzzFlash Endorsing a Democratic Candidate for President?

No, at this time, we are not.

Being a pro-Democracy news site, we believe that our readers should make
their own choices in the MoveOn.Org virtual primary and in the campaign
activity over the months ahead....

What qualities will a candidate have to have to beat the "brand" marketing
of George W. Bush in 2004?

Here are some of the characteristics that we believe are essential
ingredients for an individual to succeed in restoring democracy and
Constitutional rights to Americans by winning the White House next year:

1) The ability to define the terms of the debate and put the Republicans
on the defensive. Throughout the Bush administration, the GOP has kept the
Democrats on the defensive. You CANNOT win a presidential election when
your party only knows how to play defense. Al Gore was "defined" by Bush
(i.e., Karl Rove) in 2000 (and he still won the election). If Gore had
"defined" Bush as the rich kid affirmative action candidate who was a
failed businessman, a lousy governor, and a tool of the right wing, he
would have blown him out of the water, winning by hundreds of thousands
more votes than the 542,000 votes he beat Bush by. If you define the
opposition, you win. If the opposition defines you (even if it is a
slanderous caricature), you lose (although Al Gore really won, but you
know what we are talking about).

2) The ability to penetrate Bush's "Teflon" credibility. Needless to say,
the see-no-evil approach of many Democratic Congressional leaders is not
only counter-productive; it is dishonest. If you enable a liar, you become
tainted by the liar. If Bush's "credibility" isn't exposed as a phony
front for serial lying, Bush will win the next presidential election. The
polling that shows such a high percentage of Americans believe that we
found WMD in Iraq shows you how an unchallenged presidential assertion
gets the benefit of the doubt. A winning Democratic candidate will have to
pierce through the thin veil of Bush's "trustworthiness" and reveal the
snake pit of deception behind it. It will not be an easy task, given the
pro-Bush bias of the media, but it must be accomplished or Bush wins.


For more of this editorial, go to:

http://www.buzzflash.com/buzzscripts/buzz.dll/quote

Enjoy!

A Fate Sealed Under Secrecy

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/nyc-bres0622,0,2929594.column

Jimmy Breslin

June 21, 2003, 9:53 PM EDT

On Friday, I rode across the Brooklyn Bridge, whose gray netting went with the sky, and as long as there was tension about the bridge, I was remembering Richard Seaberg, a big cop from Emergency One, who climbed to the top of the bridge so many times and pulled somebody down before he jumped. Seaberg protected the Brooklyn Bridge.

Now there is a charge by the government that terrorists intended to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, or pull it down. Simultaneously, while protecting the bridge, the government was doing frightening damage to the life of the country.

Because of it, I am thinking that it could be time for me to begin thinking about leaving this news business. It is not mine anymore. Let me tell you why. Friday, the newspapers and television reported the following matter with no anger or effort to do anything other than serve as stenographers for the government:

On March 1, give or take a day, in Columbus, Ohio, the FBI arrested an American citizen they say is Iyman Faris. There wasn't a word uttered. He vanished. No lawyer was notified. He made no phone calls and wrote no postcards or letters. He was a United States citizen who disappeared without a trace into a secret metal world.

This citizen's proper name was Mohammed Rauf. He took the Faris from a street name in his neighborhood in Columbus. I don't know why he did this for sure. A friend of mine in Columbus, Mike Weber, told me Friday that he thought the federal agents wanted him to use Faris because the real name, Rauf, purportedly would alert others that he had been caught. Who knows? You believe the FBI, you belong back in public school.

They held him secretly in an iron world for the next six weeks. This is plenty of time to hand out giant beatings. Oh, yes, don't gasp. If cops are performing a Fascist act, then always suspect them of acting like Fascists. They have fun beating people up.

In mid-April, again in deep secrecy, the government says Faris was allowed to plead guilty to plotting to pull down or blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. He was in a sealed Virginia federal courtroom. If he had a lawyer, that was some lawyer.

After that, he was sentenced. We don't know what the sentence was because it is sealed.

I don't know what Faris looks like or sounds like or what he thinks and what he was doing. He could be the worst. I don't know. Prove he wanted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and let him paste a picture of Osama bin Laden on the cell wall for inspiration over the next half a century. But first bring him into open court and try him. Pretend you live in America. Even pick a jury. I don't know. What a thing it would be if he comes up not guilty.

What we do know is that this is your country now.

Once before this, in 1942, we detained Japanese-Americans in secrecy. The nation swore never to do it again. We haven't. This case is out of the old Soviet Union. He was neither booked with television watching nor arraigned in front of a judge. Anybody concealed by government agents and guards for more than three months could have marks on him somewhere. And our newspeople write like the worst of the old Pravda. I read in papers from everywhere yesterday morning, "After Mr. Faris was secretly arrested three months ago... " and "court papers this week said that Mr. Faris secretly pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism last month." They say. They were simply typed out, as if to report the guy getting a parking ticket. Now, the FBI doesn't even tell you the right name of a kidnapped man and makes the news reporters love it.

Why would the government say he is a terrorist if he isn't guilty?

The only thing that could possibly bother anybody is the thought of somebody reading this 50 years from now and saying, "Look at that. This is where they blew a couple of amendments."

This government's kidnapping of Faris/Rauf violated the laws handed down by Madison, Jefferson, Marshall. A small religious zealot, John Ashcroft, takes their great laws and bravery and using our new Patriot Act, turns it into Fascism.

He could do this openly because news reporters go about the government like gardeners, bent over, smiling and nodding when one of the owners shows up. You only have to look at a White House news conference to see how they aggressively pursue your right to know.

The newspeople stand when the president comes into the room. They really do. They don't sit until he tells them to. You tell them a lie and they say, "Sir."

And now you have a citizen kidnapped by agents and there is no anger. The day's news is about a children's book, and a has-been heavyweight, Mike Tyson, under arrest in a Brooklyn precinct at the foot of the bridge. Newspeople like to be called "journalists" and write of "the need to protect sources." They don't have any. Here's a guy held for three months and nobody even got a phone call.

The newest attribution in today's news reporting is, "senior law enforcement official." That is news report for a cop. Newspeople can speak French all over the place but I know of only two reporters in New York who can speak Arabic, and one of them is in the Middle East now and is of no help. That means you can't even quote somebody and attribute it to a "senior Arab."

There is not even the beginnings of anger about an American kidnapped by his government, over freedom being taken from us all, and bet me you won't see it back. The newspeople are comfortable with being known as the "media." That is a dangerous word; all evil rises around those afflicted with it.

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

Warmly,

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

Establish Democracy in America. Impeach Bush!

Published on Monday, June 23, 2003 by the San Francisco Chronicle
What You Can Do About Bush
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0623-09.htm
by Harley Sorensen

From our 1776 Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness --
That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form
of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ..."

And, also from the Declaration of Independence:

"... when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce [the people] under absolute
Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."

And, finally:

"The History of the present King of Great Britain is a History of
repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the
Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States."

Take out "King of Great Britain" in the last paragraph above and
substitute "President George W. Bush," and you have a perfect beginning for
a modern American Declaration of Independence.

Folks, Bush has gone too far, too many times. He is a one-man wrecking
crew, destroying, bit by bit, what decent men and women have created and
improved upon for 227 years.

We have to stop him. We have to do it soon. If we don't, we won't have
an America to protect.

Perhaps some of you can't see the forest for the trees. Perhaps you're
too close to the picture to see it clearly. But, I assure you, the rest of
the world knows what's going on in America. The rest of the world is aghast.
"What is happening to America?" they ask. "Why don't the Americans do
something about Bush?"

Last week I got an unbelievably heavy surge of e-mail from readers.
And roughly 80 percent had the same question: "What can I do?"

What can I do? What can anybody do? Does it help to write to members
of Congress? Should I write letters to the editor? Please, please, tell me,
what can I do?

My answer last week was, "I don't know." But I've been thinking about
it, and I've come up with a few ideas that might actually work, if we're
lucky.

And if we're good.

First, let me tell you what won't work: violence. Any violent attempts
to correct our national problems will do nothing but make them worse.

A new American revolution at this point would be counterproductive. It
would just divide us and lead us into civil war. And any thought of
assassination is idiotic.

We need nonviolent solutions.

Our first step, I believe, is to hold public rallies and protest
demonstrations. I know, I know, I opposed the recent anti-war demonstrators,
but there's a difference. The anti-war demonstrators had no chance of
succeeding.

Anti-fascist demonstrators might have better luck.

"Fascism" is an incendiary term when applied to America, but consider
its dictionary definition: "A political ... regime ... that exalts nation
... above the individual and that stands for a central, autocratic
government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social
regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition."

With the exception of economic regimentation, the Bush administration
seems to fit the "fascist" definition rather neatly.

Bush is not a dictator, but is he "dictatorial"? I'd say he is. My
dictionary says "dictatorial" "stresses autocratic, high-handed methods and
a domineering manner." That fits George W. Bush's style to a T. In fact, he
even once said, on his first trip to Washington after being elected, that
his job would be easier if he were a dictator.

In any event, it's time to start demonstrating against this man and
what he represents. It's time to declare our independence from this man. We
need to create a small army of modern Thomas Paines.

Bush's war against Iraq has become the disaster many of us feared it
would become. Our troops are being killed on a daily basis. So are Iraqi
citizens. We've virtually destroyed Iraq's major cities.

We've accomplished our stated goals -- getting rid of Saddam Hussein
and his ethereal weapons of mass destruction -- so what are we doing there?
It's time to pull out and leave the Iraqi oil behind.

There is no shortage of administration sins upon which to focus and
demonstrate against. We could have massive demonstrations in every American
city every day of every week.

Take the FCC decision of a fortnight ago. The only people who favored
it were the three commissioners who voted for it, the Bushies who led them
and the communication companies that stand to increase their fortunes from
it. The remainder of America was against it, yet it slithered its way into
law.

We should be protesting anti-American stuff like that. We should make
our voices heard.

Just last week the Bushies edited out data about climate change in an
Environmental Protection Agency report. Bush made it clear early in his
administration that he has no interest in environmental protections that
might cost industry money, so he and his cronies are pretending global
warming can't possibly exist.

We should be protesting stuff like that. The air we breathe and the
water we drink are far more important than any company's profits.

But we must not divert our energies. To be successful, we must focus.
Our job is to protect ourselves from Bush. We should let other social ills
pass for the moment. Saving our nation is more important than saving the
whales.

To be successful, our movement can't be limited only to Bush's
political opponents -- Democrats, liberals and professional rabble-rousers.
We need good conservatives who are tired of playing follow the leader as
they watch our liberties go down the drain.

The salvation of our nation is not a partisan issue.

In Congress, we need more John McCains -- senators and representatives
who think for themselves and refuse to slavishly follow the party line. We
need conservative citizens who will do the same. We need brave Democrats in
office (if they exist!) and even braver Republicans, like Jim Jeffords of
Vermont, who risked all to save his nation.

We need the help of rich people who love their country, people like
George Soros or Bill Gates Sr. or Bill Gates Jr.

We need to get out of Afghanistan as well as Iraq. For all our bluster
over there, we control perhaps one neighborhood of Kabul. The rest of the
country is controlled by warlords and drug lords. The opium-poppy crop is
leaving Afghanistan by the ton -- so where is our sanctimonious "war on
drugs"?

Folks, Bush and his gang have angered our enemies and inspired them to
try harder. Thus, our foes are doing exactly what we would be doing if we
were in their shoes: planning bigger and better attacks. We treat them as if
they are one criminal organization run by Osama bin Laden, but in fact
they're a hydra-headed monster that can't be defeated. Chop off one head and
another appears. Our only hope is to learn to get along with them, and the
Bush people are doing just the opposite.

We should be protesting such a stupid foreign policy, not just in the
streets but in letters to the editors, calls to talk shows and discussions
with our friends and neighbors.

We need courageous foreign-service officers who will tell it like it
is. We need civil servants who will risk their jobs to serve their country.
We need rival political parties, like the Greens and Libertarians, to back
off their dreams -- for now -- and join the fight to save our nation.

We need corporate CEOs to draw the line and quit paying the bribes
demanded by both parties. "But, Harley," the CEOs will argue, "if we don't
pay, we lose out, our profits drop and we lose our jobs." That may be true,
but the health of our nation is more important than any company's profits,
any man's job. If we lose this good thing we have going here, this wonderful
United States of America, we may never get it back.

And we need character in our press. The much-chronicled sins of one
cheating New York Times reporter pale compared with the propaganda that
comes out of Fox News or MSNBC on a daily basis.

I know that sucking up to the lowest common denominator builds
ratings, and high ratings translate into bigger paychecks, but our nation is
at stake and it's time to stop pandering. We need a responsible press. You
and I should demand a responsible press.

So, organize. Do what you can as an individual. We have to fight back.
I've made a few suggestions, but I know from experience that people who read
this column can come up with a thousand better ones. Do that. And spread the
word.

Will all our efforts drive Bush from office? No. But we can distract
him, and slow down his attempts to rebuild America in his own image. In 17
months we can vote him out of office. If our movement is powerful enough,
we'll have a choice then between a good Democrat and a good Republican not
named Bush.

"...Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
new Government..."

(Late-breaking news: I just heard VoterMarch is sponsoring a permitted
protest from 5 pm to 7 pm today in Manhattan, where Bush will be staging a
$2,000-a-plate reelection-campaign fund-raiser at the Sheraton New York
Hotel. I've also heard a rumor that an anti-Bush march is planned for July 4
in Philadelphia. So the movement is already under way!)

Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist and liberal iconoclast. His
column appears Mondays. E-mail him at harleysorensen@yahoo.com.


Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

The Masters of Spin: Why the Bush administration is the most arrogant in memory


http://www.msnbc.com/news/929206.asp


A WorldCom of Trouble

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
June 20, 2003

AUSTIN, Texas - My, my, my, the great Iraqi Gold Rush is on, and who should
be there at the front of the line, right along with Halliburton and Bechtel,
but our old friends at WorldCom, perpetrators of the largest accounting
fraud in American history.


WorldCom, shortly to become MCI, has been given a contract worth $45 million
in the short term to build a wireless phone network in Iraq. I learned via
The Associated Press that Washington Technology, a trade newspaper that
follows computing-related sales to the U.S. government, "found WorldCom
jumped to eighth among all federal technology contractors in 2002, with $772
million in government sales." And that is only counting the deals in which
WorldCom is the primary contractor. It is actually getting much more as a
subcontractor.


The Securities and Exchange Commission recently reached a settlement with
WorldCom, fining the company $500 million for its $11 billion defrauding of
investors. The company did not have to admit any guilt. "The $500 million is
in a sense laundered by the taxpayers," Tom Schatz, president of Citizens
Against Government Waste, told AP.


WorldCom got the Iraq contract without competitive bidding, to the anger of
rival companies A&T, Sprint, etc., which actually have experience in
building wireless networks, according to AP. A WorldCom spokesman "also
stressed the company's deep, overall relationship with the U.S. military and
government."


Among those continuing to make a good thing out of the Iraqi war is Richard
Perle of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. According to the Los Angeles
Times, last February Perle and the board received a classified briefing on
the potential for conflict in Iraq and North Korea, including information on
new communications networks. "Three weeks later, the then-chairman of the
board, Richard N. Perle, offered a briefing of his own at an investment
seminar on ways to profit from possible conflicts with both countries,"
wrote reporters Ken Silverstein and Chuck Neubauer.


It's a subject on which Perle is fully qualified. He was forced to resign as
the Policy Board's chairman (though he did not resign from the board itself)
in late March after it was learned he had been employed as a consultant by
Global Crossing Ltd., then trying to get Pentagon clearance to sell itself
to an Asian concern. Perle also serves on the board of several defense
contractors and is co-founder of Trireme Partners, a venture capital firm
that invests in the defense and homeland security industries.


Also according to Silverstein and Neubauer, Perle's partner at Trireme,
Gerald Hillman, has been put on the Defense Advisory Board, despite having
no background in national security or defense.


One has to scramble to keep up with the Gold Rush and its players. Tim
Shorrock has an excellent article in the June 23 issue of The Nation
detailing the state of play: Hundreds of major corporations are interested
in getting a piece of this pie. Meanwhile, the invaluable Rep. Henry Waxman
of California is keeping an eye on Halliburton. He is raising questions
about the company's ties to countries that sponsor terrorism, specifically
Iraq, Iran and Libya.


As President Bush begins his two-week, $20 million "shock and awe" campaign
fund-raising sprint, we will naturally be keeping an eye on the connections
between the campaign contributions and government contracts. And if you
think that's too cynical, boy, have you not been paying attention.


One of the many horrors Shorrock found was a statement by Martin Hoffman,
former secretary of the Army and close adviser to Donald Rumsfeld, on the
privatization of Iraq. He told Shorrock his strategy is like that of the
strategic hamlets program in Vietnam. "That was basic economic development,"
Hoffman said.


Ooops. The only problem is that the strategic hamlet program was a colossal
failure, producing untold damage, chaos and hatred. It was a key reason we
lost that war.


Another player with business interests in all this is Paul Bremer, the
American viceroy in Iraq. Bremer's company is Crisis Consulting Practice,
set up after 9-11 to advise multinationals on how to handle terrorism. Naomi
Klein concludes in The Nation: "Many have pointed out that Bremer is no
expert on Iraqi politics. But that was never the point. He is an expert at
profiting from the war on terror and at helping U.S. multinationals make
money in far-off places where they are unpopular and unwelcome. In other
words, he's the perfect man for the job."


Other efforts to abruptly introduce a capitalist economy into a state-run
system have had awful results. The "shock therapy" applied to Russia after
the Soviet Union broke up almost destroyed the country, and it still hasn't
recovered. Argentina went through a similar process.


So where's a president like Franklin D. Roosevelt when we need him? "I don't
want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a
result of this world disaster," he said during World War II.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16215


Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

Delusional on the Deficit

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11221-2003Jun18.html?referrer
=emailarticlepg

By Ernest F. Hollings

Thursday, June 19, 2003; Page A27


Nobody is paying any attention to the budget deficit. Last month the House
Budget Committee's Democrats forecast a deficit of nearly $500 billion, and
The Post reported the story on Page A4. Last week the Congressional Budget
Office reported that the deficit would balloon to a record $400
billion-plus, and The Post again buried the story on A4. Spending trust
funds, such as Social Security, is what keeps the estimate at $400 billion.
The actual deficit will be approximately $600 billion.

That's a win for Mitch Daniels. The goal of the departed Office of
Management and Budget director was to keep any news that could hurt
President Bush's reelection prospects off the front page, and The Post
willingly aided and abetted him. In fact, when Daniels left two weeks ago to
run for governor of Indiana, he told The Post that the government is
"fiscally in fine shape." Good grief! During his 29-month tenure, he turned
a so-called $5.6 trillion, 10-year budget surplus into a $4 trillion
deficit -- a mere $10 trillion downswing in just two years. If this is good
fiscal policy, thank heavens Daniels is gone.

Congress is no better than the press. Republicans, totally in control of
this town, just casually raised the limit on the national debt by a record
trillion dollars so the president could borrow more money to pay for tax
cuts. I say casually because the seriousness of this move was passed over
and hardly debated. In The Post, this story wasn't even worthy of A4. It was
relegated to A8.

Bush and Daniels used to talk about how they would repay the nation's debt
more quickly than any administration in history. Before Sept. 11, 2001, the
president bragged that his budget reserved $1 trillion for unforeseen
circumstances. Perish the thought that the war on terrorism, Afghanistan and
Iraq cost $1 trillion. Those factors had an impact, but the real culprit,
according to the nonpartisan Concord Coalition, is that this president has
cut $3.12 trillion in revenue since taking office. These are the largest tax
cuts in history, yet the administration claims they have no relationship to
the record deficits reported on Page A4. Amazingly, he asks for more.

The London-based Financial Times, in a front-page lead story, recently
reported the Treasury Department projection that at the present rate, fixing
the deficit would require "the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66
percent across-the-board income tax increase." The White House deep-sixed
the Treasury study. The Post ignored it.

Former commerce secretary Peter Peterson, a lifelong Republican, says that
every time this administration faces a choice, it chooses tax cuts. Between
fiscal responsibility and tax cuts, it picks tax cuts. Between preserving
Social Security and tax cuts, it picks tax cuts. Between providing necessary
funds to fight the war on terrorism and tax cuts, it picks tax cuts. "Again
and again," Peterson says, "they choose tax cuts."

The question: How huge must the deficit grow for this A4 story to make the
front page, and for the public to scream for relief? Across the country
teachers are being laid off, there are more kids per classroom, the school
year is shorter, and tuition is up at state colleges. Bus service is being
cut off, volunteers are running park systems, prisoners are being released,
and subsidies for the working poor are being slashed.

How much more must we dismantle before the public cannot stomach this? Will
it take a shutdown of all the national parks? Or the release of all federal
prisoners because we can't afford to guard them? Or will workers need to pay
half their salaries to keep Social Security and Medicare from the chopping
block?

I dread to think how bad it has to get before Bush makes some changes. But
the Republican leadership in Congress is in lockstep. They've just passed a
budget calling for a $600 billion deficit each year, every year, for the
next 10 years.

The writer, a Democratic senator from South Carolina, has served on the
Senate Budget Committee since its inception in 1974 and was its chairman in
1980-81.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

I'm furious!

This [story] is just unmitigated bullshit one more time from this terrifying
"1984" cabal of Republicans installed in the White House. They over
estimate, or outright lie about WMD's in Iraq, then under report and lie
about risks to the environment. Naturally, Stepford Americans think nothing
of it. As long as they can gas up their SUV's and drink their soy lattes,
who cares?!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&ncid=68&e=3&u=/nyt/20030619/ts_nyt/reportbytheepaleavesoutdataonclimatechange



Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

http://www.buzzflash.com/buzzscripts/buzz.dll/sub2


Ari Lies About Lies and Donald Rumsfeld Dishonors Our Dead Soldiers in
Iraq. Can We Court Martial Both of Them? They are a Disgrace to Our
Fighting Men and Women.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire! Quote of the Day:

This one's a classic from last December.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20021205/wiraq1205/Front/homeBN/breakingnews


"The President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would not
assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for
saying it," Mr. Fleischer said.

--Hesiod


Disgraceful Quote of the Day:

Rumsfeld actually had the nerve to compare the daily death of a U.S.
soldier from hostile action in Iraq to a typical homicide in your average
large U.S. city!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89795,00.html

"You got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad,
we would be having something like 215 murders a month. There's going to be
violence in a big city." Rumsfeld noted that Baghdad has nearly six
million residents."

Unbelievable.

--Hesiod

Courtesy of Hesiod at http://counterspin.blogspot.com/

Will We See Gore TV?
The former Veep is assisting in an effort to create a liberal alternative to
conservative talk radio, and is exploring a cable television venture
By KAREN TUMULTY

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,459345,00.html

(Updated 3:15 PM ET)


Look out, Rupert, here comes . Al?

Since deciding not to make another race for the White House in 2004, former
Vice President Al Gore has been devoting considerable time to another dream,
one he shares with many Democrats these days - creating a media enterprise
that could challenge the dominance of conservative voices in cable
television and talk radio. Numerous sources in Hollywood and Washington tell
TIME that Gore has been quietly sounding out potential financial backers for
a cable television network. Separately, Gore has helped arrange meetings
between key Hollywood figures and a wealthy Chicago couple who have publicly
announced plans to invest $10 million in a liberal radio network.

What role Gore himself would play in any of these ventures is still far from
clear. "He can pull out at any time," says one associate who has spoken to
him about the concept. "He can say, 'This isn't my deal.' But he's
interested." Gore has been exploring and encouraging several types of
possibilities in recent months, and consulting closely with Joel Hyatt, the
founder of Hyatt Legal Services, a nationwide chain of low-cost, storefront
legal clinics. (Hyatt ran for Senate from Ohio in 1994, unsuccessfully
seeking the seat that was vacated by the retirement of his father-in-law,
Howard Metzenbaum.) One entertainment industry source who met with Gore and
Hyatt earlier this year said that, at that time, part of what they
envisioned was youth-oriented programming, "putting video cameras in the
hands of kids." Another source close to Gore and Hyatt says the venture
would not resemble a traditional cable news outlet, but would be "something
totally different in concept and format."

Gore is also making his influence felt in other ways in Hollywood, a place
where he has not always been warmly received. When the former Vice President
attended the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, earlier this year,
he arranged a series of private meetings with politically oriented
entertainment industry figures. One session was with a handful of people
from the Environmental Media Association, a group that promotes the idea of
incorporating environmentalist story lines into movies. "He was very
interested in what we are doing, because he is very interested in media,"
says Debbie Levin, the group's executive director.

Gore has also been helpful to Chicago venture capitalists Sheldon and Anita
Drobny, who announced in February that they planned to fund a liberal radio
network to counterbalance such conservative commentators as Rush Limbaugh.
Several sources said Gore has helped introduce the Drobnys to such Hollywood
political forces as producer-director Rob Reiner. Comedian Al Franken,
author of the book "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot," is considering
hosting a show on the Drobnys' network, and added that the couple has
approached Gore to do regular essays. Anita Drobny declined to comment about
any venture involving Gore, telling TIME: "I'm not at liberty to say
anything about that. As far as Vice President Gore, you'll have to call him
to ask him about his project and what they are doing." Gore and Hyatt did
not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

Gore has long been interested in the nexus between politics and media. His
99-page senior thesis in college was titled "The Impact of Television on the
Conduct of the Presidency, 1947-1969." Before running for Congress in 1976,
Gore worked as a newspaper reporter for the Nashville Tennessean.

The ascendancy of conservative outlets such as Rupert Murdoch's Fox News
Channel - and particularly such ratings powerhouses as commentator Bill
O'Reilly - have been a growing source of frustration for Democrats. And
while liberal commentators such as former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim
Hightower have made a stab at syndicated talk shows, they have by and large
been unsuccessful. In March, the MSNBC cable news network canceled Phil
Donahue's talk show after a disappointing six-month run against The O'Reilly
Factor. However, some liberals point to the success of Hillary Clinton's
just-released memoir as evidence that a marketplace exists for their
viewpoint.

Gore has shared their frustration. In an interview last December with the
New York Observer, he described the conservative outlets as a "fifth column"
within the media ranks that injects "daily Republican talking points into
the definition of what's objective."

"The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major
institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the
Republican Party," Gore said. "Fox News Network, The Washington Times , Rush
Limbaugh - there's a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy
ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican
administrations and the rest of the media."

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

Tipping the Republicans' Hand?

By David S. Broder

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7630-2003Jun17.html

Wednesday, June 18, 2003; Page A25


Without intending to, Grover G. Norquist has done the Democrats a huge
favor. The president of Americans for Tax Reform and influential presiding
officer at a famous weekly strategy session of conservative organizations
honored The Post last week with an op-ed article modestly headlined
"Step-by-Step Tax Reform" [June 9].

In it, Norquist, who is most noted for pressing candidates at all levels to
sign a pledge that they will never raise taxes, hailed the Bush
administration for pushing through a fresh tax cut in each of the three
years it has been in office.

It will continue to do so, he said, because this president -- unlike Ronald
Reagan and the elder George Bush -- can operate with confidence that
Republican control of Washington will provide him eight years to pursue his
economic agenda.

"This," Norquist explained, "is because the 2002 redistricting gave
Republicans a lock on the House of Representatives until 2012 and the
Founding Fathers gerrymandered the Senate for Republican control. In the
50-50 election that was 2000, Bush carried 30 states and Al Gore 20. Over
time, a reasonably competent Republican Party will tend to [elect] 60
Republicans in the Senate. This guarantee of united Republican government
has allowed the Bush administration to work and think long-term."

Norquist is, of course, assuming Bush will win reelection next year, and
nothing in politics is as certain as he may think. But this is a plausible
scenario, and his description of what Republicans will do with the
opportunity is one that commands attention.

He foresees Bush signing into law measures to abolish both the estate tax
(or "death tax," as he calls it) and the capital gains tax. He also expects
to see a statute that will make all savings accounts tax free. This is
hardly speculative. Bush already has seen Congress pass a phaseout of estate
taxes and a reduction in capital gains levies. The tax-free savings idea was
floated by the Treasury last winter but temporarily set aside. With an
increase in corporate deductions for capital investments and an end to the
alternative minimum tax -- designed to catch those who would otherwise
shelter all their income -- Norquist says the Bush era will eventually
produce the conservatives' dream of a flat-rate income tax. When janitors
and CEOs have to give the same share of their paychecks to Uncle Sam,
Norquist foresees voters uniting in a continuing demand for ever-lower
rates -- and no longer will Democrats be able to advocate tax hikes that
target only the top brackets.

The consequence of this -- not spelled out in his essay but clearly in his
mind -- is a massive rollback in federal revenue and what he regards as a
desirable shrinkage of federal services and benefits. In short, the goal is
a system of government wiped clean, on both the revenue and spending side,
of almost a century's accumulation of social programs designed to provide a
safety net beneath the private economy.

When I asked Norquist what had prompted this exercise in candor, he said
that when The Post's editorial page invited him to explain the Bush tax
strategy, he saw it as an opportunity to show his fellow conservatives that
"we don't have to try to operate under the radar screen. We can be very open
about our agenda."

And the White House reaction? "They didn't ask me to do it, but they
certainly didn't complain about what I did. I have exchanged several e-mails
with Karl Rove since then, and it's never come up," he said.

I told Norquist that his op-ed had been the subject of many comments -- both
favorable and critical -- from people in an online chat I'd done for
washingtonpost.com, and that several Democratic operatives had discussed it
in phone interviews. Did you think you were tipping off the opposition? I
asked.

"No," he said, "I think the smart guys on the left have known for a long
time they are in trouble -- and that we are going to dig out their whole
structure of programs and power."

For once Norquist may have underestimated himself. The amount of talk his
essay has engendered makes it clear it was as much an alarm bell to the
Democrats as a rallying cry for the Republicans.

A wide variety of Democratic groups are gearing up for what they describe as
"long-term strategies" for their party's comeback. Norquist clearly has told
them that the Republicans already are well-advanced on such a plan.

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

June 17, 2003

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/06/17_dean.html


The Man Who Told Richard Nixon That There Was a Cancer on His Presidency

John Dean Talks to BuzzFlash.com About George W. Bush, Watergate, Evidence
of Misconduct and Possible Impeachment (If There Were Justice)

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

John Dean is someone who knows about the impeachment process, so when he
recently wrote an article reflecting on George W. Bush and impeachment, it
spread across the net like wildfire. Not that anyone thinks that with Tom
DeLay pulling the strings in Congress, you will even hear a pip-squeak of
criticism out of the rabid right wing that controls the House. But one can
dream about justice, can't one?

BuzzFlash has found John Dean's ongoing legal and political commentary
incisive, trenchant and compelling. Forever known as the man who "warned"
Nixon of the "cancer on his presidency" (i.e., Watergate), Dean has emerged
as one of the most articulate analysts warning of the threats to our
Constitutional and civil rights that we face under the Bush administration
and the right wing direction of the federal bench and Supreme Court. He is
the author of many books, including "The Rehnquist Choice."

In this BuzzFlash.com interview, Dean further explains his thoughts on the
accusations being made that George W. Bush engaged in official misconduct,
and the implications for Bush and our country. Or as BuzzFlash charges, Bush
lied a nation into war.

* * *

BUZZFLASH: In a recent article in FindLaw.com , you wrote:

"In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I
have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. [...] To put it
bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus
information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national
security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a high crime' under the
Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal
criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which
renders it a felony 'to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in
any manner or for any purpose.'"

If investigating committees can prove that there was no reason to go to war
at this time, at least not on the grounds that Saddam Hussein posed an
imminent threat, Bush's crimes would be considered far more reprehensible
than Nixon's. Based on your political and government experience, what's your
gut reaction about how this will play out? Do you think impeachment hearings
are potentially possible? Particularly given Republican control of the House
of Representatives, where impeachment proceedings would have to be
initiated?

JOHN DEAN: Let me start from the end of your question and work back,
addressing your last two sub-questions first. Given the fact that
Republicans control the Congress, there is absolutely no chance, because of
the way Bush has handled the matter of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,
escalating into impeachment proceedings. Impeachment is a political
proceeding, of quasi-legal nature. Republicans are not going to impeach
their president. To the contrary, it is very clear they would defend him.

While the political soothsayers believe it a long shot, it is not impossible
that the Democrats could regain control of Congress with the 2004 election,
and should that happen it would be a different story. With that thought --
however remote -- in mind, let me address your "if" question. If an
investigation established that the president had lied to Congress and the
American people to take the country to war in Iraq, and that in fact Hussein
did not pose an imminent threat, would that be "more reprehensible" than
Nixon's abuses of power?

Clearly it is more reprehensible than the abuses that fall under Watergate,
which is a litany of activity that related to domestic matters. You will
recall that there was an effort in 1973-74 to impeach Nixon for his
unauthorized and secret bombing of Cambodia -- which resulted in untold
deaths of innocent Cambodians. Nixon was charged with "false and misleading
statements to the Congress" concerning that bombing. But the House Judiciary
Committee's impeachment inquiry did not address the question of the
president's lying, rather whether he had conducted an unlawful war.

By a vote of 26 to 12 the committee decided Nixon had not committed an
impeachable offense, because he had informally informed a few select members
of Congress of his action, and that he was acting within his powers as
commander-in-chief to protect American troops in Vietnam. President Bush, of
course, had Congressional authority, if not United Nations authority, for
his actions in Iraq. But he certainly didn't have authority to lie.

BUZZFLASH: Could you explain the specific steps that would lead to charges
being brought against Bush or anyone in his administration? What sort of
evidence would be needed to prove that intelligence data was manipulated or
misused? Would it have to be proven that Bush knew he was using lies to lead
the American public into war? Would he be let off the hook if an aide said,
"I withheld information from the president that he was assuring Americans
about information that we knew was likely false, or knew to be a lie?"

DEAN: Some of the most interesting evidence developed so far, which is
public, has been largely ignored. It is the work of one of the country's
best investigative journalists -- who has not become part of the
establishment. I am referring to the work of Sy Hersh in The New Yorker,
specifically his essay "Selective Intelligence" in the May 12, 2003 issue.

Sy presents a powerful case that Rumsfeld's team -- no doubt with Dick
Cheney's support -- knew what they wanted and managed to intimidate the rest
of the intelligence community into agreeing with them. That they, in effect,
had a pre-determined conclusion and simply ignored any and all information
that conflicted with their conclusion. Needless to say, this is not
intelligence gathering. Hersh's work is precisely the type of information
that can start opening up the closed doors. Indeed, Sy has done this before,
and his work resulted in the revelatory hearings by the Senate (the Church
Committee) and the House (the Pike Committee) during the mid-1970s. Sy
doesn't get it wrong very often, and if he does, he will be the first to say
so.

Both the House and Senate intelligence committees have scheduled what they
are calling "reviews" of the pre-war intelligence. They are going through
all the boxes of documents that have been given to them now, and then they
will meet with witnesses. Unless the inter-agency/department internecine war
between the Defense Department and the CIA, or the Defense Intelligence
Agency and Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans erupts before one of these
committees, I doubt much will surface. More likely, hard information -- if
it exists -- will be uncovered by a reporter like Hersh, who has been
digging and has a good source. That, I suspect, will be how any misconduct
will be discovered.

To more specifically answer your question, it will take either documentary
evidence, like e-mails or memoranda, or sworn testimony, to make a case of
misconduct. There also may be recorded telephone conversations, because
making such recordings is very common in the intelligence community, and it
appears from some of the leaks that there is a good bit of typical
bureaucratic "CYA" thinking going on. [Editor's note: CYA refers to "cover
your ass."]

What will have to occur is the entire pre-war period will need to be
carefully reconstructed: Who said what to whom and when. Then it will be
known if there was a deliberate, or improper, manipulation of the pre-war
intelligence. Given George Bush's executive style, and the fact that he has
no background or experience with national security intelligence, the person
I suspect has been guiding Bush through this is Cheney. Indeed, Cheney is to
a war like a Dalmatian dog is to a fire: He wouldn't miss it.

I have little doubt that Cheney is the player in the middle of all this
intelligence business, but the likelihood of his testifying about it is nil.
Dick Cheney is the most secretive man in government, the most powerful, and
the most unaccountable with no responsibility other than to give the
president behind-the-scenes help. I doubt we will ever know what transpired
between Cheney and Bush; therefore, I doubt we will ever know the true
story. I am reluctant to speculate further because whether Bush could defend
himself by claiming he was not given the information will depend on the
facts. We are still very, very early in the efforts to unravel all this. So
no one should jump to any conclusions, even if the aroma has a bit of a
stench about it.

BUZZFLASH: If Bush manages to get away with starting on a war based on false
information, what does this mean for future presidencies in terms of
extending presidential powers?

DEAN: It is a sad but unfortunate truth that our history is filled with
examples of presidents misleading the country about wars. President Madison
did not exactly lay all the facts and mixed motives on the table in seeking
a declaration of war with England in 1812, nor did President Polk in leading
the nation to war with Mexico in 1846. President McKinley glossed over facts
when calling for war to "free" Cuba in 1898, just as President Wilson did in
1917 with World War I. President Franklin Roosevelt campaigned in 1940 with
a pledge that American boys were not going to be sent into any foreign wars
and President Lyndon Johnson used a similar ploy in 1964 regarding Vietnam.

It will be a sorry commentary if another president is added to this list,
which I have only partially set forth. Yet historians and presidential
scholars regularly have the highest historical praise for presidents who
take us to war, regardless of how they do it -- not those who keep us out of
war. This has always struck me as not only ironic, but moronic. It may be
the best reason in the world to start electing women presidents, because
that will end measuring presidents by their machismo -- although lots of Ame
ricans like Bush's warmongering, and like our nation being a bully. The fact
that such people have an aberrant gene is another story.

BUZZFLASH: You had personal experience with the Watergate scandal, as the
legal counsel to President Nixon. You warned him that there "was a cancer"
on his presidency. Is there currently a "cancer" on the Bush presidency?

DEAN: No signs of cancer, yet. But he certainly has a viral infection that
could weaken his immune system.

BUZZFLASH: In the FindLaw.com article, you identified six speeches in which
Bush unequivocally stated that Iraq possessed chemical and biological
weapons. Looking back, are you surprised that he spoke with such certitude?
Clearly this was not merely an attempt at innuendo on his part.

DEAN: Actually, I was stunned when I went back and pulled all of his pre-war
statements about WMDs. None of them is the slightest bit equivocal. To the
contrary, he speaks like a man who has actually seen the weapons. These
pre-war declarative statements make glaring his most recent statement where
he now has become equivocal. His last public statement was that Iraq had "a
weapons program." A program, of course, is only a plan, not actual
possession. This is an inconsistent statement that calls into question his
prior statements. While the White House has tried to spin it, the president'
s latest statement effectively undercut all his prior statements.

As lawyers know, when a witness gives inconsistent statements it is said he
or she has been impeached. Once a witness is impeached it takes additional
evidence to rehabilitate that witness. What the White House needs to
rehabilitate the president is obvious: They must find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, or this president's credibility is in trouble.

BUZZFLASH: What about the responsibility of our elected officials to
investigate Bush's claims? How could members of Congress not have known
about the shoddy intelligence and overwhelming flaws of Bush's argument
before jumping on the war bandwagon? Even before the Iraq war, some of the
key pieces of Bush administration "evidence" against Iraq were being
seriously challenged in the British press.

DEAN: Absent a public outcry, Congress will do nothing. The only conception
of "checks and balances" remaining in the Congressional conscience are
campaign contribution checks, and whether they have met or exceeded the
balance of the last campaign. While there are a few members of Congress
trying to flush out the facts, like Congressman Henry Waxman, he is the
exception, not the rule.

BUZZFLASH: Though U.S. television programs like Nightline and several
notable columnists have been on top of the "Where are the weapons?" story,
the issue seems to be causing more of a stir in other countries, such as
Britain. In America, it is generally still not a front-page story. After
all, a recent poll indicated that more than 40 percent of Americans thought
that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And Bush claimed
that two mobile vans were WMDs, despite evidence to the contrary. Is the
American press asleep at the wheel?

DEAN: No one knows better than BuzzFlash and its readers how this
administration plays to public ignorance, and has become one of the most
effective presidencies at manipulating the news media. It is remarkable that
this story has run as many news cycles as it has. And it does pop up on the
front page. On Sunday, June 15, the Los Angeles Times did a front page
story, along with an extensive inside story on the missing WMDs. But the
implication of your question is correct. Let me explain:

In the aftermath of Watergate, the news media became highly vigilant of the
presidency. Before Watergate, presidents were given the benefit of any
doubts. After Watergate, they had to make their case, and quickly. But in
late 2000, after the Florida election recount debacle, there was a
collective mood change in the news media. While there are a few exceptions,
as you mention, by and large, reporting has returned to its pre-Watergate
status: Almost any news is more important than the potential of presidential
failures or screw ups.

BUZZFLASH: Finally, not even the Democratic leadership in Congress is making
much of a deal about Bush misleading the nation. What would it take to move
public opinion to the point that lying about going to war would be
considered at least as impeachable an offense as lying about sex?

DEAN: If this issue has not been resolved by the time the Democrats nominate
their standard bearer next summer, I believe it will become a campaign
issue -- potentially a serious issue for Bush if he has not been able to put
it away by then. At that time, it could become a real problem for Bush. In
fact, he will have trouble launching another war until he gets this issue
resolved. Other than that, only Barney showing up at a White House press
briefing to announce he is leaving home over the issue, is it likely to get
widespread public attention. Needless to say, if such weapons are found,
Bush will have a great "I told you so" that you can be sure will be
exploited in the 2004 campaign, as he and his father parachute into New York
City for the GOP 2004 Convention, and then proceed down Wall Street, wearing
flight suits with helmets under their arms, in their tickertape parade.

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

Fascism: "A philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of
the state ... obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will
to the state's authority ... suppression of dissent. Martial virtues are
celebrated, while liberal democratic values are denigrated ... led by
charismatic leaders who represented to their publics the strength that could
rescue their nation from political and economic conditions." -
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia.

June 17, 2003

Bamboozling Revisited

by Maureen Farrell

An excerpt:

In January, 2003, Mike Ward addressed the conspiracy theories that had sprung up since the 911 attacks. "Angry speculation - focused mainly on government dirty dealings, ulterior motives, and potential complicity in the attacks - has risen to a clamor that easily rivals what followed the Kennedy assassination," he wrote . Not surprisingly, the more Team Bush shows contempt for truth and the public's right to know, the worse it gets. And if a miracle doesn't happen -- that is, if the Bush administration doesn't cooperate with the September 11 commission or satisfactorily address claims that they knowingly presented forged information to make their case for war [LINK] -- sentient citizens are going to want to know why.

"Was Press Asleep on Pre-War WMD Issue?" the June 12, 2003 edition of Editor and Publisher belatedly asked, with Dallas Morning News international editor Tim Connelly admitting, "Questions were being raised, not necessarily by the press, but by diplomats. The skepticism was there, but it may be the case that the press failed to ask this or that question.

. . .[H]ere then, is a sampling of attempts to manipulate, control and bamboozle the public -- then and now:

MORE: http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/06/17.html

Guardian: "Hans Blix, the UN chief weapons inspector, lashed out last night at the 'bastards' who have tried to undermine him throughout the three years he has held his high-profile post."


"Blix: I was smeared by the Pentagon "

Hans Blix, the UN chief weapons inspector, lashed out last night at the "bastards" who have tried to undermine him throughout the three years he has held his high-profile post.
In an extraordinary departure from the diplomatic language with which he has come to be associated, Mr Blix assailed his critics in both Washington and Iraq.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian from his 31st floor office at the UN in New York, Mr Blix said: "I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much.

"It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an irritant."

In a wide-ranging interview Mr Blix, who retires in three weeks' time, accused:

·The Bush administration of leaning on his inspectors to produce more damning language in their reports;

·"Some elements" of the Pentagon of being behind a smear campaign against him; and

·Washington of regarding the UN as an "alien power" which they hoped would sink into the East river.

Asked if he believed he had been the target of a deliberate smear campaign he said: "Yes, I probably was at a lower level."

Before he had even flown to Iraq to relaunch the sensitive weapons inspections after a four-year hiatus last November, senior US defence department officials were excoriating the septuagenarian as the worst possible choice for the post.

It was just the beginning. By autumn, the happily married father of two was being branded in Baghdad as a "homosexual who went to Washington every two weeks to pick up [his] instructions".

"The Iraqis were spreading that rumour about me early in the autumn and then I heard the counter-rumour that I had told my wife, Eva, about this rumour and that she said she had never noticed it. My alleged comment to her," he said, breaking into laughter, "was that nor had I." But the criticism clearly hurt.

A lot of the sniping "surely came" from the Pentagon, said Mr Blix, who has since won plaudits for his handling of the unenviable brief of divining whether Iraq had disarmed.

Staff attached to the UN monitoring and inspection commission, headed by the Swede for the past three years, openly say there is no love lost between hawks in the Bush administration and their mission.

Mr Blix, a former foreign minister, prefers to remain sanguine. "By and large my relations with the US were good," he said, reiterating his belief that the Iraqi regime would likely never have complied with any of the UN resolutions around disarmament had it not been for the presence of 200,000 US troops in the region.

"But towards the end the [Bush] administration leaned on us," he conceded, hoping the inspectors would employ more damning language in their reports to swing votes on the UN security council.

Washington, he claimed, was particularly upset that the UN team did not "make more" of the discovery of cluster bombs and drones in March.

He said Washington's disappointment at not getting UN backing for an attack was "one reason why you find scepticism towards inspectors".

The life-long civil servant -who is looking forward to returning to a shared life with his wife in Stockholm as he turns 75 - said he was convinced that "there are people in this administration who say they don't care if the UN sinks under the East river, and other crude things".

Instead of seeing the UN as a collective body of decision-making states, Washington now viewed it as an "alien power, even if it does hold considerable influence within it. Such [negative] feelings don't exist in Europe where people say that the UN is a lot of talk at dinners and fluffy stuff."

That was especially worrying given President Bush's openly proclaimed belief in the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. "It would be more desirable and more reasonable to ask for security council authority, especially at a time when communism no longer exists and you don't have automatic vetoes from Russia and China," he said.

Similarly it would be much more "credible" if a team of international inspectors were sent into Iraq instead of the 1,300-strong US-appointed group now conducting the search for weapons of mass destruction, he said.

Helena Smith in New York
Wednesday June 11, 2003
The Guardian

June 9, 2003 CONTRIBUTOR ARCHIVES



Ousting The Liars: What We Need To Do

BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by Mike Kress

History shows that if there's one thing people can't stand it's a liar. While we BuzzFlashers knew Bush and his cronies were lying all along, it's finally dawning on the larger population that they may have been duped into supporting a war on Iraq.

As many writers and commentators have pointed out -- particularly Paul Krugman -- Bush is a serial liar. His administration is the empire of saying one thing and doing another, so there's no shortage of contradictions and hypocrisy to point out. But it doesn't get any simpler to explain than killing people in an illegal war based on a bunch of lies.

Unfortunately, the problem we face is that America's media gatekeepers don't want this horrific con job -- which wasted thousands of human lives -- to get exposed. The trans-national corporations that own the vast majority of our media will finesse the coverage to keep a lid on the lies that are now trying to claw their way to the light of day. Bush is their cash-cow and they'll protect him like a sacred cow.

The only way to persuade the media to air the horrible truth -- or at least the pursuit of some facts -- is to convince them that they'll make more money by not covering for Bush. The only thing more sacred to these corporations than a sugar daddy is more money to stuff in their already fat coffers.

Our news media gets ratings and makes money from scandal. The more people watching TV, the more the media can charge advertisers. If the media sense that the populace is thirsty for blood, the media will react to that blood much like sharks react to chum in a shark tank. The prospect of higher ratings as hearings convene and accusations fly and whistle-blowers emerge is a juicy prospect indeed.

However, starting this "blood in the water" media frenzy is going to require a massive display of citizen outrage about Bush's lies, made clearly visible to the media. Here are a few suggestions to start a movement that will hopefully see the impeachment of George W. Bush and the abolishment of the so-called "Bush Doctrine":

1.) Write letters to the editor;

2.) Protest and picket at the headquarters of national media outlets (CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, USA Today, Washington Post, NY Times, etc.);

3.) Call every political talk show possible;

4.) Leaflet and flyer;

5.) Submit op-eds to local papers;

6.) Conduct education forums in your community;

7.) Talk to your friends and relatives;

8.) Make and wear buttons and bumper stickers;

9.) Hold protests and vigils in your community;

10.) Make sure the media knows about every protest, picket, forum, etc., in advance;

11.) Buy magazines and papers that expose the gradually emerging truth (e.g. Time, US News, Newsweek);

12.) Write and call your representatives.

Feel free to add to this list. Just keep in mind that in our 24-hour news cycle environment, history is short. With Karl Rove's masterful ability to manipulate people via brilliant photo-ops, memories are even shorter. We've got to jump on this scandal now and move with a quickness!

If you remember the worldwide protests against the war on Iraq, you'll know that we can do it. Standing idle now will only guarantee darker days ahead.

Mike Kress
Spokane, WA

BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

* * *

Mike Kress is a veteran and a member of the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane.

Good Morning All!

Repugs think that taxes are "confiscation" by a "rogue government" when it
comes to their personal money and any taxes that might apply to corporate
dividends -- But not when it comes to taxing the Internet to pay for Bush's
reckless handling of the economy. Then taxes are okay. Then taxes are the
answer. -- Claudia
_________________________

washingtonpost.com
States Skirt Internet Tax Ban
Several States Are Trying to Get Around a Federal Tax Moratorium to Battle
their Budget Deficits

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33787-2003Jun9.html?nav=hptoc
_tn

By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, June 9, 2003; 7:46 AM


At least 18 states have found a way to collect taxes on Internet access,
despite a federal law that bans the practice.

Tax authorities in Alabama, Florida and Kentucky are assessing sales taxes
on the amount consumers pay for high-speed digital subscriber line Internet
service, commonly referred to as DSL.

Maryland, Virginia, and 13 other states have passed laws that require
Internet access to be taxed when it is "bundled" with other taxable services
by a single provider, such as a telephone company. Another six states are
poised to enact similar legislation.

The states' actions appear to violate the Internet Tax Freedom Act, a law
first enacted in 1999 that specifically bans taxes on Internet access as
well as any "discriminatory" taxes targeting the Internet.

The moratorium, set to expire this fall, was not a major crimp in the
states' budgets when it was first put in place during the late 1990s
economic boom. But four years later, a large portion of the American public
and business community is buying Internet access -- an enticing tax prospect
for states facing some of the toughest fiscal problems in decades.

Classifying DSL broadband service as a telecommunications service, not as
Internet access, is one step states are taking to get around the Internet
tax moratorium.

"This isn't necessarily a tax on access per se, but a tax on the [telephone]
line," said Clark Bruner, spokesman for the Alabama Public Service
Commission.

Another tactic some states are using is requiring Internet service providers
to pay hefty taxes on the bandwidth they use to handle Internet traffic.
Service providers often buy or lease bandwidth from wholesalers, but because
the bandwidth not associated with access per se, companies have been unable
to claim that bandwidth purchases are exempted from state taxes.

This week, Atlanta-based EarthLink, the nation's third-largest Internet
service provider (ISP), said its DSL subscribers will see an up to 9 percent
increase in their monthly bills because of taxes it now has to pay on the
purchase of bandwidth.

Earthlink tax director Mike Shaw said the company opted to make the change
after deciding it was no longer able to absorb the taxes on its own.

"Many states are carving out the underlying telecom network portion of DSL
as not being in the nature of Internet access and therefore not protected by
the moratorium," Shaw said. "The law does infer some amount of distinction
between telecom service and Internet service, and that's enough for states
to latch onto and say it was never intended to protect telecom services."

America Online started collecting taxes on its DSL service in May 2002.
Company spokesman Nicholas Graham said that the nation's largest Internet
service provider sent e-mails to its members who would be affected by the
change, and offered an 800-number explaining why DSL is not covered by the
moratorium.

The nation's telephone companies and wireless providers want Congress to
rewrite the law so that it bans taxes on Internet access, even when it is
DSL service. Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) last month offered the idea as an
amendment on a bill to make the Internet tax moratorium permanent, but later
withdrew it.

An aide to Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) said states are misreading the
moratorium. "I think [Cox] is very sympathetic to the telecom position on
this. The way we read it, the law was meant to say the tax ban was never
intended to knock out other taxes that telecommunications companies already
pay," the aide said.

For the former regional telephone monopolies, the so-called Baby Bells, the
issue is one of fairness. The Bells are struggling to compete with the cable
industry to offer packages of voice, video and high-speed data services.
They note that the states are imposing taxes on DSL while cable companies
remain protected under the tax moratorium.

"The bottom line is we want to get it clarified in the legislation that DSL
as it is a part of accessing the Internet should be exempt from taxes," said
BellSouth spokesman Joe Chandler.

Nearly all the major telecommunications companies are working on changes
they would like to see when the bill to extend the moratorium comes before
the House Judiciary Committee.

An example of the give-and-take approach the telecoms are taking is the fact
that the companies are preparing an amendment would exempt from the ban any
service that allows people to make phone calls via the Internet. While
Internet telephony is still in its infancy, some industry observers predict
that one day it will give the long-distance companies a run for their money.

Critics of the telecom industry's plans worry that exempting all
telecom-based Internet services from taxation would further cut into state
revenues, which are already feeling the pinch as taxes on long-distance
service decline as consumers substitute e-mail for phone calls.

Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America,
questioned the very premise of an Internet tax moratorium.

"The Internet is not a baby anymore," he said. "As a commercial enterprise,
it's well in its late teens, and it is clearly using the telecom
infrastructure of this country in ways that are replacing certain
traditional telecommunications services. So, it's high time for us to
consider whether or not the Internet is paying its fair share of the
resources it uses."


© 2003 TechNews.com


Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

June 9, 2003

Planting Weapons of Mass Destruction, Karl Rove, And "Sympathy for the Devil"

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

You know it's coming.

As BuzzFlash and many other Internet sites pointed out again and again beginning last fall, Bush and Blair were lying about WMD's to mount a war for oil. There were other covert reasons for the Iraq war (see BuzzFlash's "The Perfect War" and "Endgame", but the WMD's were clearly the "red alert" that was the justification for attacking Iraq immediately to achieve those publicly unrevealed goals.

Despite the vaunted KGB-like secrecy apparatus of the Bush Cartel, evidence is now leaking out that Bush and Blair blatantly and brazenly lied. The truth is spilling out in the British press like a sieve. Even the American press is starting to report that disgruntled American intelligence agents were furious that they were forced to churn out doctored data to provide the Bush Cartel with political cover to justify an immediate invasion of Iraq. After all, it turns out, Dick Cheney started hanging out at the CIA just to make sure that the spooks got the message that Cheney wanted them to know that Iraq HAD to have WMD's (with a wink, a nod, and a slap upside the head).

So what will Karl Rove do to distract the lapdog press, which is beginning to actually report the truth, from the serial lying of the Bush Cartel being exposed? Read here and find out!

Whoa! Good morning America, lol.

Eric Alterman talks about this in his book, "What Liberal Media?" -- What???
You mean you guys haven't read it yet?!?! You'll be glad that you did, if
ya' do! -- claudia


IN THESE TIMES

This article is permanantly archived at:
http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=216_0_3_0_C



By Salim Muwakkil | 6.6.03
Neocon Convergences
A funny thing happened while following the money trail of the
neoconservatives who have hijacked U.S. foreign policy. The path led to a
network of financial and intellectual resources that also is dedicated to
neoracism.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has been the economic fount for the
neoconservative notions of global affairs now ascendant in the Bush
administration. According to a report by Media Transparency, from 1995 to
2001 the Milwaukee-based foundation provided about $14.5 million to the
American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the think tank most responsible for
incubating and nourishing the ideas of the neocon movement.

The Bradley Foundation also made grants totaling nearly $1.8 million to help
fund the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the influential group
that had urged an invasion of Iraq since its 1997 founding. PNAC, headed by
Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, boasts a membership that includes
many players in the Bush administration, including Vice President Dick
Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

The Bradley foundation also helped fund Samuel P. Huntington's neocon
classic The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, a
book that brought the domestic culture wars to the global stage. Hitting a
familiar, Eurocentric note, Huntington's book argued that the
Judeo-Christian "West" is the protagonist in an epic struggle of
civilizations against the "other" (this time the Islamic East). For a group
that supposedly has left Marxist thinking behind, these neoconservatives are
rigidly dialectic.

All of this wouldn't much alarm me; after all, the battlefield of ideas is
as good a place to fight as any. But then I began to notice other
beneficiaries of Bradley's largess since 1995, and I found some troubling
patterns. The foundation has provided nearly $2 million to the National
Association of Scholars, which played a key role in the anti-affirmative
action campaign known as the Californian Civil Rights Initiative and
regularly questions black-oriented scholarship. It has also given $1.8
million to help fund the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, a group
that provides guidance and support for 70 right-wing campus papers across
the country.

The Bradley Foundation seems to have a soft spot in its heart for the kind
of neoracist ideas that have gained currency in recent years. It has heavily
subsidized authors like Charles Murray and Dinesh D'Souza, whose work on
welfare and race has reinforced ancient stereotypes. Murray's book Losing
Ground argued that poverty is the result of personal failings and thus most
government anti-poverty programs should be eliminated. And his book The Bell
Curve (written with Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein) argued that
poverty is the result of genetic traits of a subclass of human beings. These
arguments were deployed to help convince conservative legislators of the
futility of affirmative action and other compensatory social programs. After
all, if African-Americans are genetically incapable of achieving racial
equality, we must rethink the goals of the civil rights movement.

David Horowitz, one of neoconservatism's most incendiary racial
provocateurs, has raked in nearly $4.5 million in grants from the Bradley
Foundation for his think tank, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.
Horowitz's combative tactics seem designed to ratchet up tensions between
blacks and Jews, a theme that seems to be a Bradley favorite.

It's clear to me that the Bradley Foundation has forged a link between a
neo-imperialist foreign policy and a neoracist domestic policy, and that it
provides generous funding to push these views in both realms. And Bradley is
just one of other like-minded foundations such as the Koch Family
Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Scaife Family Foundation, and
the Adolph Coors Foundation, groups examined in the report "Buying a
Movement: Right Wing Foundations and American Politics," by People for the
American Way.

The link that connects these views is the notion that Western civilization
is both the global ideal and the world's official arbiter. It's an old
notion: white supremacy unhinged-the same notion that justified the original
imperialism and slavery. What's particularly troubling to me is the lack of
domestic concern about this connection. Did the world not reach a consensus
on the dangers of racist reasoning and military aggression following World
War II?

That neocons are galvanized by race is no surprise. One of the founding
documents of neoconservatism is Norman Podhoretz's 1963 essay "My Negro
Problem-and Ours." In that famous Commentary essay, Podhoretz's comments
helped create a gap between blacks and Jews that has yet to be bridged.
Among other things, he suggested that the solution to America's racial
problem would be for blacks to accept miscegenation as an unobtrusive form
of genocide.

Victims of these evils see the link between neo-imperialism and neoracism
much more easily than the victimizers. And they fear this axis of evil much
more than the one concocted by Bush's speech writers. That's likely one
reason black Americans resisted overwhelming media propaganda and opposed
the Iraq invasion. The funding priorities of the Bradley Foundation show
those fears are not misplaced.



Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked
since 1983, and a weekly op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He is
currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society
Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in leadership
positions in the black community.

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Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

"The arc of the universe is long, but it always bends toward justice." -
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.