Report by US think tank says only '4 to 10' percent of insurgents are foreigners.
By Tom Regan | Christian Science Monitor
The US and Iraqi governments have vastly overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, and most of them don't come from Saudi Arabia, according to a new report from the Washington-based Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS). According to a piece in The Guardian, this means the US and Iraq "feed the myth" that foreign fighters are the backbone of the insurgency. While the foreign fighters may stoke the incurgency flames, they only comprise only about 4 to 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgents.
The CSIS study also disputes media reports that Saudis comprise the largest group of foreign fighters. CSIS says "Algerians are the largest group (20 percent), followed by Syrians (18 percent), Yemenis (17 percent), Sudanese (15 percent), Egyptians (13 percent), Saudis (12 percent) and those from other states (5 percent)." CSIS gathered the information for its study from intelligence services in the Gulf region.
The CSIS report says: "The vast majority of Saudi militants who have entered Iraq were not terrorist sympathisers before the war; and were radicalized almost exclusively by the coalition invasion."
The average age of the Saudis was 17-25 and they were generally middle-class with jobs, though they usually had connections with the most prominent conservative tribes. "Most of the Saudi militants were motivated by revulsion at the idea of an Arab land being occupied by a non-Arab country. These feelings are intensified by the images of the occupation they see on television and the internet ... the catalyst most often cited [in interrogations] is Abu Ghraib, though images from Guantánamo Bay also feed into the pathology."
The report also gives credit to the Saudi government for spending nearly $1.2 billion over the past two years, and deploying 35,000 troops, in an effort to secure its border with Iraq. The major problem remains the border with Syria, which lacks the resources of the Saudis to create a similar barrier on its border.
The Associated Press reports that CSIS believes most of the insurgents are not "Saddam Hussein loyalists" but members of Sunni Arab Iraqi tribes. They do not want to see Mr. Hussein return to power, but they are "wary of a Shiite-led government."
TheLos Angeles Times reports that a greater concern is that 'skills' foreign fighters are learning in Iraq are being exported to their home countries. This is a particular concern for Europe, since early this year US intelligence reported that "Abu Musab Zarqawi, whose network is believed to extend far beyond Iraq, had dispatched teams of battle-hardened operatives to European capitals."
Iraq has become a superheated, real-world academy for lessons about weapons, urban combat and terrorist trade craft, said Thomas Sanderson of [CSIS].
Extremists in Iraq are "exposed to international networks from around the world," said Sanderson, who has been briefed by German security agencies. "They are returning with bomb-making skills, perhaps stolen explosives, vastly increased knowledge. If they are succeeding in a hostile environment, avoiding ... US Special Forces, then to go back to Europe, my God, it's kid's play."
Meanwhile, The Boston Globe reports that President Bush, in a speech Thursday that was "clearly designed to dampen the potential impact of the antiwar rally" this weekend in Washington, said his top military commanders in Iraq have told him that they are making progress against the insurgents and "in establishing a politically viable state."
Newly trained Iraqi forces are taking the lead in many security operations, the president said, including a recent offensive in the insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar along the Syrian border – a key transit point for foreign fighters and supplies.
"Iraqi forces are showing the vital difference they can make," Bush said. '"They are now in control of more parts of Iraq than at any time in the past two years. Significant areas of Baghdad and Mosul, once violent and volatile, are now more stable because Iraqi forces are helping to keep the peace."
The president's speech, however, was overshadowed by comments made Thursday by Saudi Arabia's foreign minister. Prince Saud al-Faisal said the US ignored warnings the Saudi government gave it about occupying Iraq. Prince al-Faisal also said he fears US policies in Iraq will lead to the country breaking up into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite parts. He also said that Saudi Arabia is not ready to send an ambassador to Baghdad, because he would become a target for the insurgents. "I doubt he would last a day," al-Faisal said.
Finally, The Guardian reports that "ambitions for Iraq are being drastically scaled down in private" by British and US officials. The main goal has now become avoiding the image of failure. The paper quotes sources in the British Foreign department as saying that hopes to turn Iraq into a model of democracy for the Middle East had been put aside. "We will settle for leaving behind an Iraqi democracy that is creaking along," the source said.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Immediate Withdrawal!
It is far more reasonable, based on what we now know, to assume that if the U.S. were to leave Iraq quickly, the level of violence would be reduced, possibly drastically, not heightened. Here are the four key reasons:
1. The U.S. military is already killing more civilian Iraqis than would likely die in any threatened civil war;
2. The U.S. presence is actually aggravating terrorist (Iraqi-on-Iraqi) violence, not suppressing it;
3. Much of the current terrorist violence would be likely to subside if the U.S. left;
4. The longer the U.S. stays, the more likely that scenarios involving an authentic civil war will prove accurate.
1. The U.S. military is already killing more civilian Iraqis than would likely die in any threatened civil war;
2. The U.S. presence is actually aggravating terrorist (Iraqi-on-Iraqi) violence, not suppressing it;
3. Much of the current terrorist violence would be likely to subside if the U.S. left;
4. The longer the U.S. stays, the more likely that scenarios involving an authentic civil war will prove accurate.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Challenging the Times
By Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher
Posted on September 20, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/25756/
What will it take, exactly, for The New York Times to declare on its editorial page that the United States should begin to bring to a close its adventure in regime change and national building Iraq? Other newspapers face the same question, of course, but as the nation's leading journal, and with plenty of influence -- at least in elite and left-liberal circles -- any shift by the Times is sure to have wide repercussions.
It wasn't long ago that the Times was actually calling for more U.S. troops in Iraq. Lately it has made no sweeping calls, up or down. But considering recent events, you'd expect a ringing call to disengage at any moment, especially since there is some evidence that at the Times -- in contrast to, say, The Washington Post -- the editorialists actually ponder what's in their own news pages. And those pages have been filled with plenty of fodder for arguing in favor of a phased withdrawal.
Just yesterday came news of the murder of a Times reporter/photographer, Fakher Haider, in Iraq. Surely this is not reason enough for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq -- but look at the circumstances. Haider was apparently killed not by insurgents or terrorists or even run-of-the-mill Sunnis or Baathists, but by Shiite militia and police ostensibly aligned with "our" side. Freelance American journalist Steven Vincent died under the same circumstances in August.
These two killings took place in Basra, long described as one of the major success stories in Iraq. In today's edition, the Times said the city "has grown increasingly violent, with a complex web of sectarian agendas playing itself out almost daily on the streets." Shiite militias, reporter Robert Worth noted, are even fighting British troops.
Just last week, the Times looked inside another "model" city, Najaf, and found similar or worse problems there, with reconstruction projects "hobbled by poor planning" and "corrupt contractors." Sure, these cities are relatively calmer than Baghdad, but is this reason enough to justify a never-ending U.S. presence? And what of all the new tales of rampant corruption or missing billions elsewhere in that land?
Then there's the cost of the Katrina catastrophe. The Times has lamented the true budgetary trainwreck that the hurricane will cause under the current Bush plans, or maybe under any scheme. If it was once true that we could not afford to fight a foreign war while also boosting homeland security, it is now certain that the hurricane recovery makes this impossible. Added to the possible costs: Some people actually want to spend a lot more money on reducing poverty.
The longterm post-Katrina threat to the American economy and our children's futures is enormous. So: Will the Times declare that it is not just desirable, but imperative, that we start to end our hideously costly occupation of Iraq?
If it did that, it could (and no doubt would) say that it does this with a heavy heart -- while pointing out that several years of sacrificing our treasury, and the lives and limbs of thousands of Americans, is quite enough to give the Iraqis a good head start on solving their own problems. And, more than ever, our own people need our help now.
The American public, if not the editorial boards of most newspapers, seem to understand this well enough. Polls in the past week clearly show that they want to shift spending from the New Iraq to the Old South.
Now, it's true that neither newspaper editors nor public officials should blindly follow public opinion on any matter. Yet it is startling to note the disconnect between public views of Iraq, as gathered by pollsters, and what opinion leaders and, even most Democratic politicians, are willing to declare.
Every major poll, for quite some time now, has revealed that the majority of American people feel that 1) invading Iraq was a mistake 2) based on misleading information or lies and that 3) things are going poorly for the U.S. in Iraq because 4) President Bush is handling the war badly so 5) we should immediately begin withdrawing. About 1 in 3 Americans take the "radical" position of a complete pullout ASAP.
The Times editorial board surely agrees with points one through four -- yet has not yet make the logical conclusion that is #5.
I haven't even mentioned other concerns, such as the loopholes in the Iraqi constitution, the new Iraqi leaders' possible alignment with Iran, and the coming threat to women's rights (all previously denounced by the Times). And if the Times needs just one more reason to shift course, surely it is provided in the fresh evidence, from the federal response to Katrina, that this gang occupying the White House does not deserve, and can not be trusted, to continue to carry out our open-ended commitment in Iraq. How many more years of "Rummy, you're doin' a great job," can we take?
For the sake of our physicial and financial security here at home, something has to give: and that something must be Iraq. Come on, New York Times board. We know you can say it. Probably, you even want to.
Greg Mitchell is editor of E&P and author of seven books on politics and history.
Posted on September 20, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/25756/
What will it take, exactly, for The New York Times to declare on its editorial page that the United States should begin to bring to a close its adventure in regime change and national building Iraq? Other newspapers face the same question, of course, but as the nation's leading journal, and with plenty of influence -- at least in elite and left-liberal circles -- any shift by the Times is sure to have wide repercussions.
It wasn't long ago that the Times was actually calling for more U.S. troops in Iraq. Lately it has made no sweeping calls, up or down. But considering recent events, you'd expect a ringing call to disengage at any moment, especially since there is some evidence that at the Times -- in contrast to, say, The Washington Post -- the editorialists actually ponder what's in their own news pages. And those pages have been filled with plenty of fodder for arguing in favor of a phased withdrawal.
Just yesterday came news of the murder of a Times reporter/photographer, Fakher Haider, in Iraq. Surely this is not reason enough for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq -- but look at the circumstances. Haider was apparently killed not by insurgents or terrorists or even run-of-the-mill Sunnis or Baathists, but by Shiite militia and police ostensibly aligned with "our" side. Freelance American journalist Steven Vincent died under the same circumstances in August.
These two killings took place in Basra, long described as one of the major success stories in Iraq. In today's edition, the Times said the city "has grown increasingly violent, with a complex web of sectarian agendas playing itself out almost daily on the streets." Shiite militias, reporter Robert Worth noted, are even fighting British troops.
Just last week, the Times looked inside another "model" city, Najaf, and found similar or worse problems there, with reconstruction projects "hobbled by poor planning" and "corrupt contractors." Sure, these cities are relatively calmer than Baghdad, but is this reason enough to justify a never-ending U.S. presence? And what of all the new tales of rampant corruption or missing billions elsewhere in that land?
Then there's the cost of the Katrina catastrophe. The Times has lamented the true budgetary trainwreck that the hurricane will cause under the current Bush plans, or maybe under any scheme. If it was once true that we could not afford to fight a foreign war while also boosting homeland security, it is now certain that the hurricane recovery makes this impossible. Added to the possible costs: Some people actually want to spend a lot more money on reducing poverty.
The longterm post-Katrina threat to the American economy and our children's futures is enormous. So: Will the Times declare that it is not just desirable, but imperative, that we start to end our hideously costly occupation of Iraq?
If it did that, it could (and no doubt would) say that it does this with a heavy heart -- while pointing out that several years of sacrificing our treasury, and the lives and limbs of thousands of Americans, is quite enough to give the Iraqis a good head start on solving their own problems. And, more than ever, our own people need our help now.
The American public, if not the editorial boards of most newspapers, seem to understand this well enough. Polls in the past week clearly show that they want to shift spending from the New Iraq to the Old South.
Now, it's true that neither newspaper editors nor public officials should blindly follow public opinion on any matter. Yet it is startling to note the disconnect between public views of Iraq, as gathered by pollsters, and what opinion leaders and, even most Democratic politicians, are willing to declare.
Every major poll, for quite some time now, has revealed that the majority of American people feel that 1) invading Iraq was a mistake 2) based on misleading information or lies and that 3) things are going poorly for the U.S. in Iraq because 4) President Bush is handling the war badly so 5) we should immediately begin withdrawing. About 1 in 3 Americans take the "radical" position of a complete pullout ASAP.
The Times editorial board surely agrees with points one through four -- yet has not yet make the logical conclusion that is #5.
I haven't even mentioned other concerns, such as the loopholes in the Iraqi constitution, the new Iraqi leaders' possible alignment with Iran, and the coming threat to women's rights (all previously denounced by the Times). And if the Times needs just one more reason to shift course, surely it is provided in the fresh evidence, from the federal response to Katrina, that this gang occupying the White House does not deserve, and can not be trusted, to continue to carry out our open-ended commitment in Iraq. How many more years of "Rummy, you're doin' a great job," can we take?
For the sake of our physicial and financial security here at home, something has to give: and that something must be Iraq. Come on, New York Times board. We know you can say it. Probably, you even want to.
Greg Mitchell is editor of E&P and author of seven books on politics and history.
ZNet Commentary: Are You A Speed Freak?
September 22, 2005, ZNET
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Are you a speed freak?
That's what Daimler Chrysler wants to know.
Everything about their current campaign pushing the new Dodge Charger is about speed and power.
We learned about this campaign last week. We picked up USA Today, and out dropped a glossy 23-inch-by-21-inch color poster.
On one side is a picture of the Charger SRT8. 425 horsepower. 6.1 Liter SRT Hemi V8 engine. 420 lb-ft of torque. 0 to 60 mph in the low 5 seconds. (The low 5 seconds?)
"Grab Life by the Horns," it said at the top.
Then in bigger letters at the bottom: "Get Your Adrenaline Out of Neutral."
Flip over the glossy ad, and there is a picture of Charger R/T in red.
And the question, emblazoned in red: "Are you a speed freak?
The ad encourages you to go to .
So, we went there.
And clicked on "power freak." There is an animation of a Charger R/T ripping through some road barriers and fencing.
We then clicked on "speed freak." To the music of the Soledad Brothers, (Break Em On Down), we learn that the car is "wickedly fast -- a sleek fastback silhouette slips through the wind as pure, unadulterated speed crescendos from one adrenaline rush to the next."
Back to the glossy ad that dropped out of USA Today.
Also, in large letters is the following: "Remember, Speed Limits Are Laws, Not Suggestions."
We reached Suraya Da Sante, a corporate spokeswoman, at Daimler's home office in Detroit.
"The ad campaign is not necessarily about speed per se," she says. "It's more about unleashing your desires."
What about the 0 to 60 mph in the low 5 seconds?
"We certainly don't want to encourage someone to do that on 0 to 60 on a residential street or even a highway," she says. "If you want to do that, there are racing tracks around where you can take the car."
Racing tracks?
"Yes, there are places where you can take your car to race," Da Sante says.
The whole ad campaign is about power and speed. Why insult our intelligence and say, "Remember, Speed Limits Are Laws, Not Suggestions?"
Well, it's never appropriate to break the law -- laws are there to protect us, she says.
Da Sante says she isn't sure whether Daimler's legal department required that they put that statement in the ad.
She says that the demographic for the Charger is a 40-to-59-year-old male, married with two kids, income from $65,000 to $90,000, and living in the suburbs of a large city. She says that the psychographic is someone who is confident, self-expressive, genuine and enterprising.
What about the video on the web site, with the driver knocking down barriers and ripping through fences?
"That is an animated video," she says. "It is clearly fantasy. It's not real people ripping down a road. It is more like a game. Gaming graphics are popular. It is not a television commercial where it is a real vehicle and someone is launching a vehicle 20 feet in the air. They were designed to get you excited and tap into that untamed spirit."
The campaign is more than just speed, she says.
The theme of the ad campaign: unleash.
The ideal customer is someone who wants to liberate their untamed spirit, she says.
They are looking for ways to go out and grab life by the horns.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton signed a law revoking the national 55 mph speed limit.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that one act by President Clinton has cost thousands of lives.
Richard Retting of the Institute says. "When speed limits are raised, it's no surprise that drivers go faster, and when drivers go faster, there are more deaths."
Retting says that the auto companies are just adding fuel to the fire.
He says that the DaimlerChrysler ad "encourages reckless, irresponsible driving."
But the ad says -- right there in large print - "Remember, Speed Limits Are Laws, Not Suggestions."
"Are they saying -- we didn't mean what we just said?" Retting asks.
Retting says that there were 41,000 deaths on U.S. highways last year.
At least a third of them are due to speeding.
That's at least 13,000 deaths per year due to speeding.
That would be four 911s.
Every year.
Due to speeding.
And irresponsible ads like the DaimlerChrysler ad are just fueling the fire.
Bloody Daimler.
Bloody Chrysler.
Bloody Dodge.
Bloody Charger.
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Are you a speed freak?
That's what Daimler Chrysler wants to know.
Everything about their current campaign pushing the new Dodge Charger is about speed and power.
We learned about this campaign last week. We picked up USA Today, and out dropped a glossy 23-inch-by-21-inch color poster.
On one side is a picture of the Charger SRT8. 425 horsepower. 6.1 Liter SRT Hemi V8 engine. 420 lb-ft of torque. 0 to 60 mph in the low 5 seconds. (The low 5 seconds?)
"Grab Life by the Horns," it said at the top.
Then in bigger letters at the bottom: "Get Your Adrenaline Out of Neutral."
Flip over the glossy ad, and there is a picture of Charger R/T in red.
And the question, emblazoned in red: "Are you a speed freak?
The ad encourages you to go to .
So, we went there.
And clicked on "power freak." There is an animation of a Charger R/T ripping through some road barriers and fencing.
We then clicked on "speed freak." To the music of the Soledad Brothers, (Break Em On Down), we learn that the car is "wickedly fast -- a sleek fastback silhouette slips through the wind as pure, unadulterated speed crescendos from one adrenaline rush to the next."
Back to the glossy ad that dropped out of USA Today.
Also, in large letters is the following: "Remember, Speed Limits Are Laws, Not Suggestions."
We reached Suraya Da Sante, a corporate spokeswoman, at Daimler's home office in Detroit.
"The ad campaign is not necessarily about speed per se," she says. "It's more about unleashing your desires."
What about the 0 to 60 mph in the low 5 seconds?
"We certainly don't want to encourage someone to do that on 0 to 60 on a residential street or even a highway," she says. "If you want to do that, there are racing tracks around where you can take the car."
Racing tracks?
"Yes, there are places where you can take your car to race," Da Sante says.
The whole ad campaign is about power and speed. Why insult our intelligence and say, "Remember, Speed Limits Are Laws, Not Suggestions?"
Well, it's never appropriate to break the law -- laws are there to protect us, she says.
Da Sante says she isn't sure whether Daimler's legal department required that they put that statement in the ad.
She says that the demographic for the Charger is a 40-to-59-year-old male, married with two kids, income from $65,000 to $90,000, and living in the suburbs of a large city. She says that the psychographic is someone who is confident, self-expressive, genuine and enterprising.
What about the video on the web site, with the driver knocking down barriers and ripping through fences?
"That is an animated video," she says. "It is clearly fantasy. It's not real people ripping down a road. It is more like a game. Gaming graphics are popular. It is not a television commercial where it is a real vehicle and someone is launching a vehicle 20 feet in the air. They were designed to get you excited and tap into that untamed spirit."
The campaign is more than just speed, she says.
The theme of the ad campaign: unleash.
The ideal customer is someone who wants to liberate their untamed spirit, she says.
They are looking for ways to go out and grab life by the horns.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton signed a law revoking the national 55 mph speed limit.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that one act by President Clinton has cost thousands of lives.
Richard Retting of the Institute says. "When speed limits are raised, it's no surprise that drivers go faster, and when drivers go faster, there are more deaths."
Retting says that the auto companies are just adding fuel to the fire.
He says that the DaimlerChrysler ad "encourages reckless, irresponsible driving."
But the ad says -- right there in large print - "Remember, Speed Limits Are Laws, Not Suggestions."
"Are they saying -- we didn't mean what we just said?" Retting asks.
Retting says that there were 41,000 deaths on U.S. highways last year.
At least a third of them are due to speeding.
That's at least 13,000 deaths per year due to speeding.
That would be four 911s.
Every year.
Due to speeding.
And irresponsible ads like the DaimlerChrysler ad are just fueling the fire.
Bloody Daimler.
Bloody Chrysler.
Bloody Dodge.
Bloody Charger.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Chavez Offers Cheap Oil To US Poor
President Chavez was in New York last week for a summit of world leaders at the United Nations. In his speech, Chavez blasted US foreign policy and accused the Bush administration of trying to hijack the UN summit. He described the United States as a terrorist nation because it is harboring the televangelist Pat Robertson who recently called for his assassination. Chavez has long charged that the US was behind the aborted coup against him in 2002.
In the interview, he reveals for the first time, details of a plan to offer of cheap oil to the poor...of the United States.
Democracy Now! met with President Chavez on Friday in his first sit-down interview in the United States. I interviewed him with Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez and Margaret Prescod of Pacifica Radio station KPFK at the Venezuelan ambassador to the UN's residence here in New York City.
AMY GOODMAN: Welcome Mr. President to the United States. You have come to a country who’s government, the U.S. government, you have accused of trying to assassinate you. What evidence do you have of this and of your other charge that it was involved with the attempted coup against you?
PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: Thank you for the invitation to come to this show, Juan, Amy and Margaret and my greetings to all the people and the viewers and the listeners to these programs these well known programs. Let’s talk about life, rather than death, because we are fighting for life. However there are always threats, those who are devoted to the struggle for life and use the truth as a flag and or principles as a lifeline. There is no doubt whatsoever that the U.S. government, lead by Mr. Bush, planned and participated in a coup d’etat in Venezuela in April, 2002. There’re many
proofs and evidence of this. There is a U.S. lady who wrote a book called the Chavez’s Code,” Mrs. Eva Golinger and she was sitting here not too long ago, and she is very close and there are declassified documents that she has found thanks to an effort to investigate the situation.
I have many evidences that my assassination was ordered on April the 11. More precisely on April the 12, and I was ready to die, however thank God and thanks to the Venezuelan people and thanks to the soldiers, Venezuelan soldiers, this order was not accomplished and this order was given by Washington. And there are many evidences and witnesses, however I would like to talk about life and greet the U.S. people with a lot of affection, with a lot of love and with a lot of pain due to the tragedy in New Orleans and the gulf states.
We’ve been accompanying these states from the very beginning, and we’ve been watching TV and receiving reports by our ambassadors and the CITGO people from the very beginning, cooperating very humbly trying to save lives and assist the homeless. We have offered assistance, up to five million dollars, a very modest sum, but I guess it would be useful. We have offered medicine, water, and electric power plants, the same way Cuba offered doctors. So far we have not being authorize to reach the area.
However, we hope the best for the poor, the poorest of these countries.
AMY GOODMAN: And televangelist Pat Robertson, his call for your assassination. What do you demand now, what is your response to that?
PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: Well as a matter of fact, Robertson is not acting alone. He’s just conveying, in a perhaps desperate manner, the thinking of those people closer to Mr. Bush. This is the voice of the most radical - of the extreme right wing in the U.S., I am totally convinced that is the situation with Mr. Robertson. And as you can see, so far there has been no reaction by the U.S. government in this regard. There’s nothing being said about these terrorist remarks that is in full breach of international law and breaches the laws of the United States.
But it’s not only Mr. Robertson here. For some time, for some months, people who participated in a coup attempt in Venezuela and are living here in the United States. And from TV stations in this country these people are calling for my assassination. A week ago, in another TV show, people in uniform, in fatigues, like terrorists. Venezuelans and Americans and Cubans exiled in the United States, and a former agent of the CIA, very recently said on TV that Chavez should be dead already. That Robertson is right. So this is the desire and the voice of the ultraconservative right-wing elite of the United States. They threatened Chavez. Chavez is nothing. Who is me? I’m nothing.
They are threatening the world. That is serious. They invaded Iraq. Without any reason whatsoever. They violated international law and are ignoring the rules of the U.N. Terrorists bombard complete cities, such as Fallujah, Baghdad, innocent women and children. Now, history is long. Hiroshima for instance-- Nagasaki, Grenada, Haiti, Panama, Santo Domingo. No, that is not - they do not represent the people of the United States. They are part of the imperialist dictatorship that the U.S. people are suffering today.
MARGARET PRESCOD: Mr. President, on behalf of KPFK, Pacifica Radio in Southern California, welcome to the United States. We have been waiting for this moment. Many people in the United States have been shocked at the racism they have witnessed against low income people in New Orleans and the other gulf cities and we wonder how Venezuelans view what has happened. And also you are clearly working to unite people of color throughout the world. You are the first Latin American president we know of who identifies as black and indigenous, and this breaks a long tradition of racism in the Americas. You’ve also identified with the people of Haiti who are fighting to defeat a brutal coup against their president how crucial do you think the defeat of all racism is to making the fundamental economic and social changes needed to save the world from the destruction of the market?
PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: When we were children, we were told that we have a motherland, and that motherland was Spain. However, we have discovered later, in our lives, that as a matter of fact, we have several motherlands. And one of the greatest motherlands of all is no doubt, Africa. We love Africa. And every day we are much more aware of the roots we have in Africa. Also, America is our motherland. Africa, America - and Bolivar used to say that we are a new human race in Latin America, that we are not
Europeans, or Africans, or North Americans. That we are a mixture of all of those races, and there is no doubt that Africa resounds with a pulse like a thousand drums and happiness and joy.
But, also there’s a lot of pain when you think of Africa. Yesterday, I met with the president of Mozambique, because fully aware of these roots and these realities, we have designed an agenda for Africa in Venezuela. And we have spoken to other South American leaders. Lula for instance, is fully aware of the African roots of brazil and South America, and I want to share the African agenda with other leaders in South America, but Venezuela has also it’s own African agenda. In the case of Mozambique. The life expectancy in Mozambique is 38 years old, and going down, because AIDS is
causing havoc in the population. It’s terrible, it’s a tragedy, it’s a million Katrina’s hitting this country. The president of Mozambique told me the number of children, orphaned children, whose parents have died as a result of AIDS. The teachers are dying, the doctors are dying. That’s a tragedy, and it’s a disgrace, and that’s why it hurts. It hurts so much to see the U.N. opening its doors to listen to speeches and speeches and more speeches, while at the same time, every year a population equivalent to Argentina today, or Columbia die of hunger, or Venezuela die of hunger, and those deaths could be avoided. Most of them are children, little girls, little boys, and most of them are in Africa.
So, we need like a shaking of the world. To shake up the world. That’s why when people talk about my style-- my style - that’s why the speech I delivered yesterday before the United Nations Assembly – because it doesn’t work! It’s not working. If we reduced the military expenses in 10 percent of the world, we would have enough money to save millions of lives in this world.
In Venezuela, with the little resources - few resources - we have initiated a program to bring food to feed the poor people in Venezuela, and we are covering today 15 million people in Venezuela - receiving this food distribution and assistance. And most of them receive this food for free, and others a percentage, they have to pay only 50 percent of the total amount for the food they eat. Of course this is possible only if the people themselves, participate and with a new awareness.
Racism is very characteristic of imperialism. Racism is very characteristic of capitalism. Katrina is – indeed, has a lot to do with racism - no doubt about it. Hate against me has a lot to do with racism. Because of my big mouth, because of my curly hair. And I’m so proud to have this mouth and this hair, because it’s African. So we need a new morality, a new ethic at this point. And from my Christian point of view, we need a revolution of the ethic. And in the political and economic fields we need to take back the flag of socialism, in my view - in order to be able to defeat - with the will of the people, with the participation of the people – to beat those ominous phenomenon such as racism.
AMY GOODMAN: Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in his first interview in the United States.
Article...
In the interview, he reveals for the first time, details of a plan to offer of cheap oil to the poor...of the United States.
Democracy Now! met with President Chavez on Friday in his first sit-down interview in the United States. I interviewed him with Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez and Margaret Prescod of Pacifica Radio station KPFK at the Venezuelan ambassador to the UN's residence here in New York City.
AMY GOODMAN: Welcome Mr. President to the United States. You have come to a country who’s government, the U.S. government, you have accused of trying to assassinate you. What evidence do you have of this and of your other charge that it was involved with the attempted coup against you?
PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: Thank you for the invitation to come to this show, Juan, Amy and Margaret and my greetings to all the people and the viewers and the listeners to these programs these well known programs. Let’s talk about life, rather than death, because we are fighting for life. However there are always threats, those who are devoted to the struggle for life and use the truth as a flag and or principles as a lifeline. There is no doubt whatsoever that the U.S. government, lead by Mr. Bush, planned and participated in a coup d’etat in Venezuela in April, 2002. There’re many
proofs and evidence of this. There is a U.S. lady who wrote a book called the Chavez’s Code,” Mrs. Eva Golinger and she was sitting here not too long ago, and she is very close and there are declassified documents that she has found thanks to an effort to investigate the situation.
I have many evidences that my assassination was ordered on April the 11. More precisely on April the 12, and I was ready to die, however thank God and thanks to the Venezuelan people and thanks to the soldiers, Venezuelan soldiers, this order was not accomplished and this order was given by Washington. And there are many evidences and witnesses, however I would like to talk about life and greet the U.S. people with a lot of affection, with a lot of love and with a lot of pain due to the tragedy in New Orleans and the gulf states.
We’ve been accompanying these states from the very beginning, and we’ve been watching TV and receiving reports by our ambassadors and the CITGO people from the very beginning, cooperating very humbly trying to save lives and assist the homeless. We have offered assistance, up to five million dollars, a very modest sum, but I guess it would be useful. We have offered medicine, water, and electric power plants, the same way Cuba offered doctors. So far we have not being authorize to reach the area.
However, we hope the best for the poor, the poorest of these countries.
AMY GOODMAN: And televangelist Pat Robertson, his call for your assassination. What do you demand now, what is your response to that?
PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: Well as a matter of fact, Robertson is not acting alone. He’s just conveying, in a perhaps desperate manner, the thinking of those people closer to Mr. Bush. This is the voice of the most radical - of the extreme right wing in the U.S., I am totally convinced that is the situation with Mr. Robertson. And as you can see, so far there has been no reaction by the U.S. government in this regard. There’s nothing being said about these terrorist remarks that is in full breach of international law and breaches the laws of the United States.
But it’s not only Mr. Robertson here. For some time, for some months, people who participated in a coup attempt in Venezuela and are living here in the United States. And from TV stations in this country these people are calling for my assassination. A week ago, in another TV show, people in uniform, in fatigues, like terrorists. Venezuelans and Americans and Cubans exiled in the United States, and a former agent of the CIA, very recently said on TV that Chavez should be dead already. That Robertson is right. So this is the desire and the voice of the ultraconservative right-wing elite of the United States. They threatened Chavez. Chavez is nothing. Who is me? I’m nothing.
They are threatening the world. That is serious. They invaded Iraq. Without any reason whatsoever. They violated international law and are ignoring the rules of the U.N. Terrorists bombard complete cities, such as Fallujah, Baghdad, innocent women and children. Now, history is long. Hiroshima for instance-- Nagasaki, Grenada, Haiti, Panama, Santo Domingo. No, that is not - they do not represent the people of the United States. They are part of the imperialist dictatorship that the U.S. people are suffering today.
MARGARET PRESCOD: Mr. President, on behalf of KPFK, Pacifica Radio in Southern California, welcome to the United States. We have been waiting for this moment. Many people in the United States have been shocked at the racism they have witnessed against low income people in New Orleans and the other gulf cities and we wonder how Venezuelans view what has happened. And also you are clearly working to unite people of color throughout the world. You are the first Latin American president we know of who identifies as black and indigenous, and this breaks a long tradition of racism in the Americas. You’ve also identified with the people of Haiti who are fighting to defeat a brutal coup against their president how crucial do you think the defeat of all racism is to making the fundamental economic and social changes needed to save the world from the destruction of the market?
PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: When we were children, we were told that we have a motherland, and that motherland was Spain. However, we have discovered later, in our lives, that as a matter of fact, we have several motherlands. And one of the greatest motherlands of all is no doubt, Africa. We love Africa. And every day we are much more aware of the roots we have in Africa. Also, America is our motherland. Africa, America - and Bolivar used to say that we are a new human race in Latin America, that we are not
Europeans, or Africans, or North Americans. That we are a mixture of all of those races, and there is no doubt that Africa resounds with a pulse like a thousand drums and happiness and joy.
But, also there’s a lot of pain when you think of Africa. Yesterday, I met with the president of Mozambique, because fully aware of these roots and these realities, we have designed an agenda for Africa in Venezuela. And we have spoken to other South American leaders. Lula for instance, is fully aware of the African roots of brazil and South America, and I want to share the African agenda with other leaders in South America, but Venezuela has also it’s own African agenda. In the case of Mozambique. The life expectancy in Mozambique is 38 years old, and going down, because AIDS is
causing havoc in the population. It’s terrible, it’s a tragedy, it’s a million Katrina’s hitting this country. The president of Mozambique told me the number of children, orphaned children, whose parents have died as a result of AIDS. The teachers are dying, the doctors are dying. That’s a tragedy, and it’s a disgrace, and that’s why it hurts. It hurts so much to see the U.N. opening its doors to listen to speeches and speeches and more speeches, while at the same time, every year a population equivalent to Argentina today, or Columbia die of hunger, or Venezuela die of hunger, and those deaths could be avoided. Most of them are children, little girls, little boys, and most of them are in Africa.
So, we need like a shaking of the world. To shake up the world. That’s why when people talk about my style-- my style - that’s why the speech I delivered yesterday before the United Nations Assembly – because it doesn’t work! It’s not working. If we reduced the military expenses in 10 percent of the world, we would have enough money to save millions of lives in this world.
In Venezuela, with the little resources - few resources - we have initiated a program to bring food to feed the poor people in Venezuela, and we are covering today 15 million people in Venezuela - receiving this food distribution and assistance. And most of them receive this food for free, and others a percentage, they have to pay only 50 percent of the total amount for the food they eat. Of course this is possible only if the people themselves, participate and with a new awareness.
Racism is very characteristic of imperialism. Racism is very characteristic of capitalism. Katrina is – indeed, has a lot to do with racism - no doubt about it. Hate against me has a lot to do with racism. Because of my big mouth, because of my curly hair. And I’m so proud to have this mouth and this hair, because it’s African. So we need a new morality, a new ethic at this point. And from my Christian point of view, we need a revolution of the ethic. And in the political and economic fields we need to take back the flag of socialism, in my view - in order to be able to defeat - with the will of the people, with the participation of the people – to beat those ominous phenomenon such as racism.
AMY GOODMAN: Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in his first interview in the United States.
Article...
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame
by SHARON OLDS
[from the October 10, 2005 issue, The Nation]
For reasons spelled out below, the poet Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington, which, coincidentally or not, takes place September 24, the day of an antiwar mobilization in the capital. Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War ("Mr. Feiffer Regrets," November 11, 2002). We suggest that invitees to this year's event consider following their example. --The Editors
[from the October 10, 2005 issue, The Nation]
For reasons spelled out below, the poet Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington, which, coincidentally or not, takes place September 24, the day of an antiwar mobilization in the capital. Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War ("Mr. Feiffer Regrets," November 11, 2002). We suggest that invitees to this year's event consider following their example. --The Editors
Laura Bush
First Lady
The White House
Dear Mrs. Bush,
I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.
In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.
And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women's prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and their students--long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.
When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit--and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person's unique story and song.
So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.
I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.
But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.
So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.
Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS
There Is No 'Noble Cause' For War
By Cindy Sheehan, TruthOut.org
Posted on September 20, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/25684/
It has been one month, one week, and 4 days since I sat in a ditch in Crawford, Texas.
My request was very simple: I wanted to speak to the man who has sent over a million of our young people over to fight, kill, and die in a country that was absolutely no threat to the United States of America. I wanted to ask him: "What is the Noble Cause that you keep talking about?"
Well, we all know now that George Bush never came down the road to talk to me. Thank God! Many people have been saying that I am the "spark," "catalyst," "face of the anti-war movement," etc. I beg to differ.
George Bush and his arrogant advisers are the spark that lit the prairie fire of peace activism that has swept over America and the entire world. If he had met with me that fateful day in August it would not have been good for him (because I knew he was going to lie and I would have advertised that fact) but it would have had less of an impact on the peace movement if he had.
Upon reflection on the events of this past August, I have come up with two reasons why George could not meet with me: He is a coward, and there is no Noble Cause. If George had as much courage and integrity in his entire body as Casey had in his pinky, he would have met with me. But, ironically, if George had that much courage and integrity he never would have preemptively invaded a practically defenseless country. His syncophantic cabinet and hangers-on are also incontrovertible evidence that he is a coward. No one had better dare disagree with him. How dare a mom from Vacaville, California, have the nerve to contradict the emperor of Prairie Chapel Road!!??
Article...
Posted on September 20, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/25684/
It has been one month, one week, and 4 days since I sat in a ditch in Crawford, Texas.
My request was very simple: I wanted to speak to the man who has sent over a million of our young people over to fight, kill, and die in a country that was absolutely no threat to the United States of America. I wanted to ask him: "What is the Noble Cause that you keep talking about?"
Well, we all know now that George Bush never came down the road to talk to me. Thank God! Many people have been saying that I am the "spark," "catalyst," "face of the anti-war movement," etc. I beg to differ.
George Bush and his arrogant advisers are the spark that lit the prairie fire of peace activism that has swept over America and the entire world. If he had met with me that fateful day in August it would not have been good for him (because I knew he was going to lie and I would have advertised that fact) but it would have had less of an impact on the peace movement if he had.
Upon reflection on the events of this past August, I have come up with two reasons why George could not meet with me: He is a coward, and there is no Noble Cause. If George had as much courage and integrity in his entire body as Casey had in his pinky, he would have met with me. But, ironically, if George had that much courage and integrity he never would have preemptively invaded a practically defenseless country. His syncophantic cabinet and hangers-on are also incontrovertible evidence that he is a coward. No one had better dare disagree with him. How dare a mom from Vacaville, California, have the nerve to contradict the emperor of Prairie Chapel Road!!??
Article...
Monday, September 19, 2005
Pocket Paradigm
THOSE WHO dreamed up the federal government-enforced Constitution Day for schools and colleges might want to spend that day reading the Tenth Amendment which says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The way the feds repeatedly get around the Tenth Amendment is through greenmail, saying in effect, "We don't have the right to tell you what to do but we do have the money so if you want our money you have to do what the Tenth Amendment says we can't tell you do." Since schools and college get federal funds, they are easy targets of greenmail.
This would be a worthy topic of discussion in schools and colleges on Constitution Day.
-- Sam Smith, Progressive Review
The way the feds repeatedly get around the Tenth Amendment is through greenmail, saying in effect, "We don't have the right to tell you what to do but we do have the money so if you want our money you have to do what the Tenth Amendment says we can't tell you do." Since schools and college get federal funds, they are easy targets of greenmail.
This would be a worthy topic of discussion in schools and colleges on Constitution Day.
-- Sam Smith, Progressive Review
MICHAEL BROWN EXPLAINS IT ALL
NY TIMES - Mr. Brown acknowledged that he had been criticized for not ordering a complete evacuation or calling in federal troops sooner. But he said the storm made it hard to communicate and assess the situation.
"Until you have been there," he said, "you don't realize it is the middle of a hurricane."
The jokes just write themselves, don't they?--Pete
"Until you have been there," he said, "you don't realize it is the middle of a hurricane."
The jokes just write themselves, don't they?--Pete
Sunday, September 18, 2005
White House Backs NASA Plan for Vehicles
A curious article, wouldn't you say?--Pete
September 16, 2005
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/science/space/16nasa.html
The White House has approved NASA's plan to replace the nation's aging fleet of winged spaceships with a new generation of vehicles meant to carry human explorers back to the Moon and onward to Mars and beyond, aerospace experts said yesterday.
The new rockets and spaceships are a radical departure for the space program, rearranging the components of the space shuttle into a new design expected to be more powerful than the shuttle but also safer. The shuttle has had two fatal accidents in 114 missions.
"It's a thumbs-up for NASA to pursue the shuttle-derived vehicle," said John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and an adviser to the NASA initiative. "The question is the schedule, not the basic approach."
Other experts, who refused to be identified because the space agency will not formally announce the proposal, also spoke about the plan yesterday.
The redesign proposal was first reported in August by agency officials and private experts. Unlike the shuttle, the new vehicles would separate the jobs of hauling people and cargo into orbit and would put the payloads atop the rockets - as far as possible from the dangers of firing engines and falling debris, which were responsible for the accidents that destroyed the Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003.
But by making the rockets from shuttle parts, the new plan would draw on the shuttle's existing network of thousands of contractors and technologies, in theory speeding its completion and lowering its cost.
The plan has been ready for unveiling for roughly six weeks but was held up because of delays in White House approval.
Yesterday, the aerospace experts said Michael D. Griffin, NASA's administrator, met with White House officials on Wednesday and won a preliminary approval for the project despite continuing questions about how to pay for it.
One problem is that the existing shuttle is still consuming a large share of the agency's budget. A complicating factor, they added, is growing fiscal pressure on Washington because of the government's unexpected need to help rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The Bush administration has called for the shuttles to be retired by 2010. Dr. Griffin had wanted the first of the replacement vehicles to be ready to fly by 2011. But the experts said yesterday that the earliest conceivable date for the first flight of the replacement was now 2012.
The smaller rocket, for carrying people, would still dwarf the shuttle, which stands 184 feet high. The larger one, for lifting heavy cargoes and spaceships but not people, would rise to a height of some 350 feet, rivaling the Saturn 5 rockets that sent astronauts to the Moon.
In theory, the cargo hauler would have its first test flights in 2016 and 2017 and first hurl people toward the Moon in 2018, the experts said
September 16, 2005
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/science/space/16nasa.html
The White House has approved NASA's plan to replace the nation's aging fleet of winged spaceships with a new generation of vehicles meant to carry human explorers back to the Moon and onward to Mars and beyond, aerospace experts said yesterday.
The new rockets and spaceships are a radical departure for the space program, rearranging the components of the space shuttle into a new design expected to be more powerful than the shuttle but also safer. The shuttle has had two fatal accidents in 114 missions.
"It's a thumbs-up for NASA to pursue the shuttle-derived vehicle," said John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and an adviser to the NASA initiative. "The question is the schedule, not the basic approach."
Other experts, who refused to be identified because the space agency will not formally announce the proposal, also spoke about the plan yesterday.
The redesign proposal was first reported in August by agency officials and private experts. Unlike the shuttle, the new vehicles would separate the jobs of hauling people and cargo into orbit and would put the payloads atop the rockets - as far as possible from the dangers of firing engines and falling debris, which were responsible for the accidents that destroyed the Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003.
But by making the rockets from shuttle parts, the new plan would draw on the shuttle's existing network of thousands of contractors and technologies, in theory speeding its completion and lowering its cost.
The plan has been ready for unveiling for roughly six weeks but was held up because of delays in White House approval.
Yesterday, the aerospace experts said Michael D. Griffin, NASA's administrator, met with White House officials on Wednesday and won a preliminary approval for the project despite continuing questions about how to pay for it.
One problem is that the existing shuttle is still consuming a large share of the agency's budget. A complicating factor, they added, is growing fiscal pressure on Washington because of the government's unexpected need to help rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The Bush administration has called for the shuttles to be retired by 2010. Dr. Griffin had wanted the first of the replacement vehicles to be ready to fly by 2011. But the experts said yesterday that the earliest conceivable date for the first flight of the replacement was now 2012.
The smaller rocket, for carrying people, would still dwarf the shuttle, which stands 184 feet high. The larger one, for lifting heavy cargoes and spaceships but not people, would rise to a height of some 350 feet, rivaling the Saturn 5 rockets that sent astronauts to the Moon.
In theory, the cargo hauler would have its first test flights in 2016 and 2017 and first hurl people toward the Moon in 2018, the experts said
Saturday, September 17, 2005
FBI Ordered to Lift Patriot Act Gag on Librarian
A federal judge today ruled that the FBI must lift a gag that is preventing an organization with library records from participating in the Patriot Act debate. The opinion comes in a case brought by the ACLU challenging a provision of the Patriot Act that authorizes the FBI to demand records without judicial review.
"We are extremely pleased that the court has recognized that gagging our client from participating in the Patriot Act debate violates the First Amendment and is profoundly undemocratic," said Ann Beeson, ACLU Associate Legal Director and the lead attorney in the case. "Today's ruling makes clear that the government cannot silence innocent Americans simply by invoking national security."
The decision marks the second time a federal court has dealt a blow to the National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the FBI to demand a range of personal records such as the identity of a person who has checked out books from a library or engaged in anonymous speech on the Internet. The first ruling, which also came in a case brought by the ACLU, found that the entire NSL provision was unconstitutional.
In last week's decision, which has been stayed until September 20 to allow the government to appeal, U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall held that the "John Doe" organization has a First Amendment right to engage in the "current and lively debate in this country over the renewal of the PATRIOT Act."
TAKE ACTION: Urge Attorney General Gonzales to lift the gag on the Patriot Act debate. Sign the ACLU petition.
"We are extremely pleased that the court has recognized that gagging our client from participating in the Patriot Act debate violates the First Amendment and is profoundly undemocratic," said Ann Beeson, ACLU Associate Legal Director and the lead attorney in the case. "Today's ruling makes clear that the government cannot silence innocent Americans simply by invoking national security."
The decision marks the second time a federal court has dealt a blow to the National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the FBI to demand a range of personal records such as the identity of a person who has checked out books from a library or engaged in anonymous speech on the Internet. The first ruling, which also came in a case brought by the ACLU, found that the entire NSL provision was unconstitutional.
In last week's decision, which has been stayed until September 20 to allow the government to appeal, U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall held that the "John Doe" organization has a First Amendment right to engage in the "current and lively debate in this country over the renewal of the PATRIOT Act."
TAKE ACTION: Urge Attorney General Gonzales to lift the gag on the Patriot Act debate. Sign the ACLU petition.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Racism Kills, But Don't Report On It...
New Orleans -- A long caravan of white vans led by an Army humvee rolled Monday through New Orleans' Bywater district, a poor, mostly black neighborhood, northeast of the French Quarter.
Recovery team members wearing white protective suits and black boots stopped at houses with spray painted markings on the doors designating there were dead bodies inside.
Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.
"No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.
On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.
But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.
Dean Nugent, of the Louisiana State Coroner's Department, who accompanied the soldier, added that it wasn't safe to be in Bywater. "They'll kill you out here," he said, referring to the few residents who have continued to defy mandatory evacuation orders and remain in their homes."
"The cockroaches come out at night," he said of the residents. "This is one of the worst places in the country. You should not be here. Especially you," he told a female reporter.
Nugent, who is white, acknowledged he wasn't personally familiar with the poor, black neighborhood, saying he only knew of it by reputation.
Later Monday, the recovery team collected a body from a green house on St. Anthony Street in nearby Seventh Ward. The dead man, who was slipped into a black body bag and carried out to one of the white vans, had been lying alone on the living room floor for nearly two weeks, neighbors said.
"I told them weeks ago he was in there," said Barry Dominguez, 39, who lives across the street and has refused to leave the neighborhood he grew up in.
After the recovery team took away the St. Anthony Street body, two workers urinated on the side of a neighbor's house.
The CNN suit was in response to comments Friday at a news conference in which officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency said members of the news media would not be allowed to witness the recovery of hurricane victims' bodies.
Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security director, had said Friday that the recovery effort would be done with dignity, "meaning that there would be no press allowed." Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore later said there would be zero access to the recovery operation.
During a hearing Saturday morning in U.S. District Court in Houston, a lawyer who represented the government said FEMA had revised its previous plans to limit coverage.
Government agencies may still refuse requests from members of the media to ride along, or be "embedded," on recovery boats as crews gather the dead. "But, to the extent the press can go out to the locations, they're free to do that," said Keith Wyatt, an assistant U.S. attorney, according to a transcript of the hearing. "They're free to take whatever pictures they can take."
Army Lt. Col. Richard Steele said the government's position as explained in court Saturday didn't represent a change in policy. Reporters can watch recovery efforts they come upon, but they won't be embedded with search teams.
"We're not going to bar, impede or prevent" the media from telling the story, he said. "We're just not going to give the media a ride."
Article...
Recovery team members wearing white protective suits and black boots stopped at houses with spray painted markings on the doors designating there were dead bodies inside.
Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.
"No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.
On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.
But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.
Dean Nugent, of the Louisiana State Coroner's Department, who accompanied the soldier, added that it wasn't safe to be in Bywater. "They'll kill you out here," he said, referring to the few residents who have continued to defy mandatory evacuation orders and remain in their homes."
"The cockroaches come out at night," he said of the residents. "This is one of the worst places in the country. You should not be here. Especially you," he told a female reporter.
Nugent, who is white, acknowledged he wasn't personally familiar with the poor, black neighborhood, saying he only knew of it by reputation.
Later Monday, the recovery team collected a body from a green house on St. Anthony Street in nearby Seventh Ward. The dead man, who was slipped into a black body bag and carried out to one of the white vans, had been lying alone on the living room floor for nearly two weeks, neighbors said.
"I told them weeks ago he was in there," said Barry Dominguez, 39, who lives across the street and has refused to leave the neighborhood he grew up in.
After the recovery team took away the St. Anthony Street body, two workers urinated on the side of a neighbor's house.
The CNN suit was in response to comments Friday at a news conference in which officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency said members of the news media would not be allowed to witness the recovery of hurricane victims' bodies.
Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security director, had said Friday that the recovery effort would be done with dignity, "meaning that there would be no press allowed." Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore later said there would be zero access to the recovery operation.
During a hearing Saturday morning in U.S. District Court in Houston, a lawyer who represented the government said FEMA had revised its previous plans to limit coverage.
Government agencies may still refuse requests from members of the media to ride along, or be "embedded," on recovery boats as crews gather the dead. "But, to the extent the press can go out to the locations, they're free to do that," said Keith Wyatt, an assistant U.S. attorney, according to a transcript of the hearing. "They're free to take whatever pictures they can take."
Army Lt. Col. Richard Steele said the government's position as explained in court Saturday didn't represent a change in policy. Reporters can watch recovery efforts they come upon, but they won't be embedded with search teams.
"We're not going to bar, impede or prevent" the media from telling the story, he said. "We're just not going to give the media a ride."
Article...
A Bridge Too Far
by Jason Cherkis and Erik Wemple, Washington City Paper
The print media get picky about a story involving police forcing evacuees back into New Orleans.
Soon after the floodwaters engulfed New Orleans, reporters chronicled the thousands trapped at the Superdome, trapped at the convention center, and trapped on rooftops. As the days passed, news consumers had to wonder: Why couldn’t citizens just hike out of the city to the nearest patch of dry land?
The Socialist Worker webzine on Sept. 6 provided an answer: You couldn’t leave without facing down a police barricade and gunfire.
Lorrie Beth Slonsky and Larry Bradshaw, Socialist Worker contributors, had traveled to New Orleans to attend a convention for emergency-medical-services personnel. Then the storm hit. They holed up inside a French Quarter hotel for several days. Once the hotel’s food and water ran out, Slonsky and Bradshaw were booted onto the street, along with other hotel guests.
The group set out for the convention center but decided to change plans after learning that it wasn’t fit for humans. So they consulted a police commander posted near Harrah’s on Canal Street. “He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge…” Slonsky and Bradshaw wrote. Buses would be stationed on the other side, the commander said.
They headed for the bridge, about 200 people, nearly all of them African-American, according to Slonsky. As they approached the structure, Slonsky and Bradshaw reported, they were met with a police barricade and the sound of bullets whizzing overhead. Soon dozens and dozens from their crowd began to peel away and scatter. Slonsky and Bradshaw wrote that they and a few others managed to approach the police line. They were told there were no buses waiting for them.
“We questioned why we couldn’t cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the six-lane highway,” Slonsky and Bradshaw wrote. “They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans, and there would be no Superdomes in their city. These were code words for: if you are poor and Black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River, and you are not getting out of New Orleans.” Bradshaw reports that there were about a dozen cops guarding the bridge, and only one of them was black.
In covering Katrina, journalists expertly documented the seismic fuckups of officialdom—the stifling conditions at the Superdome, the convention-center fiasco, the weak levees that gave in to floodwaters. The coverage turned Michael Brown from an obscure political appointee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into cannon fodder for Bush-administration detractors nationwide. And it told the compelling stories of people who never made it out of the Crescent City. But it largely ignored the most compelling one, in large part because a pair of lefty Web types were first on the scene.
Article...
The print media get picky about a story involving police forcing evacuees back into New Orleans.
Soon after the floodwaters engulfed New Orleans, reporters chronicled the thousands trapped at the Superdome, trapped at the convention center, and trapped on rooftops. As the days passed, news consumers had to wonder: Why couldn’t citizens just hike out of the city to the nearest patch of dry land?
The Socialist Worker webzine on Sept. 6 provided an answer: You couldn’t leave without facing down a police barricade and gunfire.
Lorrie Beth Slonsky and Larry Bradshaw, Socialist Worker contributors, had traveled to New Orleans to attend a convention for emergency-medical-services personnel. Then the storm hit. They holed up inside a French Quarter hotel for several days. Once the hotel’s food and water ran out, Slonsky and Bradshaw were booted onto the street, along with other hotel guests.
The group set out for the convention center but decided to change plans after learning that it wasn’t fit for humans. So they consulted a police commander posted near Harrah’s on Canal Street. “He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge…” Slonsky and Bradshaw wrote. Buses would be stationed on the other side, the commander said.
They headed for the bridge, about 200 people, nearly all of them African-American, according to Slonsky. As they approached the structure, Slonsky and Bradshaw reported, they were met with a police barricade and the sound of bullets whizzing overhead. Soon dozens and dozens from their crowd began to peel away and scatter. Slonsky and Bradshaw wrote that they and a few others managed to approach the police line. They were told there were no buses waiting for them.
“We questioned why we couldn’t cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the six-lane highway,” Slonsky and Bradshaw wrote. “They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans, and there would be no Superdomes in their city. These were code words for: if you are poor and Black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River, and you are not getting out of New Orleans.” Bradshaw reports that there were about a dozen cops guarding the bridge, and only one of them was black.
In covering Katrina, journalists expertly documented the seismic fuckups of officialdom—the stifling conditions at the Superdome, the convention-center fiasco, the weak levees that gave in to floodwaters. The coverage turned Michael Brown from an obscure political appointee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into cannon fodder for Bush-administration detractors nationwide. And it told the compelling stories of people who never made it out of the Crescent City. But it largely ignored the most compelling one, in large part because a pair of lefty Web types were first on the scene.
Article...
Talk About Obscenity
Congress' latest idiotic effort to make the airwaves "decent" explains why Americans favor lawmakers about as much as telemarketers and drunken drivers.
By Garrison Keillor, Salon
Sept. 14, 2005 | One of the benefits of Katrina is how it got Congress to focus on real things: the relief of suffering and devastation and eventually an investigation to learn why Homeland Security stumbled so badly. And to cancel the nonsense for the time being, such as the push to roll back the estate tax, a private bill for the relief of billionaires; and the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, a high-water mark of official stupidity that swept through the House and now is lapping at the doors of the Senate.
The BDEA is the anti-Janet-Jackson's-nipple bill that would make broadcasters liable for fines of up to $500,000 for any obscene, indecent or profane material they disseminate. Every congressman who voted for it should have his or her name engraved on a brass plaque on the Monument to Cowardice.
To the CBS network, a half-million is petty cash, but to the manager of a radio station in Lexington, Ky., it may mean extinction. So when you hang that enormous sharp sword over his head, you force him to monitor closely everything uttered, muttered, sung or chanted on his airwaves. It is not possible to do that and still have a wife and children. So the station manager is forced to cut out any programming that is original or that originates live and switch over to syndicated programs that come with a Decency Guarantee. Or else live in fear.
Talk about abuse of government power. Talk about government intruding into the lives of people to no good purpose whatsoever.
This summer, a radio station canceled a radio show of mine because I read a poem that used the word "breast." The poem was far from lascivious or obscene. If you'd read it to your Aunt Esther in Greenville, maybe she would blush faintly. But the word "indecent" can be interpreted so many ways and a Federal Communications Commission hearing would be long and tedious and the show is broadcast on 500 radio stations, so the fine would come to $250 million, or about half the cost of a baseball stadium, which is a lot to pay for freedom of speech, and what boob would want to take those risks? So, here in the land of the free, freedom won by brave men whose speech was salty and whose interest in women was keen, a man cannot say "breast" on the radio. How do these people manage to order Kentucky fried chicken?
The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act illustrates beautifully why the American people's opinion of Congress is only slightly more favorable than our view of telemarketers and drunken drivers. You need go no farther. Congress can sometimes be so removed from reality that it goes after a mosquito with a chain saw. The word for this is dementia.
I would feel better about the law if Congress held itself to the same high standards and subjected members of Congress who utter obscene, indecent or profane things to the same heavy penalties.
If Sen. Bleaughhh, posing on the Capitol steps with a delegation of 4-H'ers from Cooterville, should slip and fall on his hinder, and land on a hemorrhoid the size of a Concord grape, and suddenly make a vulgar reference to holy excrement and call down God's wrath all in one succinct phrase -- shouldn't there be some recourse for the decent and God-fearing just as there would be if Howard Stern had said it?
What a horrible experience for those 4-H'ers. To travel all the way to Washington and stand in awe at the gaudy splendor of it all and get the chance to shake hands with an actual U.S. senator and suddenly the old fattycakes cuts loose with some ripe language you didn't hear at the prayer breakfast -- bummer!
What rules do we have in place to protect schoolchildren from some old demented Republican walking around exposing his right nipple and saying crude things and waving sparklers? None that I'm aware of. A Congressional Decency Enforcement Act would specifically forbid the waving of genitalia, while either whooping or not, or exposing the mammary glands, either male or female, or exposing the posterior (also known as "mooning"), or referring to the posterior, or to fecal matter, whether chicken, horse, bull or any other species, and a half-million-dollar fine would be a good deterrent, though I'd prefer locking offenders in the stocks and pelting them with offal, dead cats, fish heads and rabbit pellets. I do not think you can ever do enough in behalf of our children.
By Garrison Keillor, Salon
Sept. 14, 2005 | One of the benefits of Katrina is how it got Congress to focus on real things: the relief of suffering and devastation and eventually an investigation to learn why Homeland Security stumbled so badly. And to cancel the nonsense for the time being, such as the push to roll back the estate tax, a private bill for the relief of billionaires; and the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, a high-water mark of official stupidity that swept through the House and now is lapping at the doors of the Senate.
The BDEA is the anti-Janet-Jackson's-nipple bill that would make broadcasters liable for fines of up to $500,000 for any obscene, indecent or profane material they disseminate. Every congressman who voted for it should have his or her name engraved on a brass plaque on the Monument to Cowardice.
To the CBS network, a half-million is petty cash, but to the manager of a radio station in Lexington, Ky., it may mean extinction. So when you hang that enormous sharp sword over his head, you force him to monitor closely everything uttered, muttered, sung or chanted on his airwaves. It is not possible to do that and still have a wife and children. So the station manager is forced to cut out any programming that is original or that originates live and switch over to syndicated programs that come with a Decency Guarantee. Or else live in fear.
Talk about abuse of government power. Talk about government intruding into the lives of people to no good purpose whatsoever.
This summer, a radio station canceled a radio show of mine because I read a poem that used the word "breast." The poem was far from lascivious or obscene. If you'd read it to your Aunt Esther in Greenville, maybe she would blush faintly. But the word "indecent" can be interpreted so many ways and a Federal Communications Commission hearing would be long and tedious and the show is broadcast on 500 radio stations, so the fine would come to $250 million, or about half the cost of a baseball stadium, which is a lot to pay for freedom of speech, and what boob would want to take those risks? So, here in the land of the free, freedom won by brave men whose speech was salty and whose interest in women was keen, a man cannot say "breast" on the radio. How do these people manage to order Kentucky fried chicken?
The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act illustrates beautifully why the American people's opinion of Congress is only slightly more favorable than our view of telemarketers and drunken drivers. You need go no farther. Congress can sometimes be so removed from reality that it goes after a mosquito with a chain saw. The word for this is dementia.
I would feel better about the law if Congress held itself to the same high standards and subjected members of Congress who utter obscene, indecent or profane things to the same heavy penalties.
If Sen. Bleaughhh, posing on the Capitol steps with a delegation of 4-H'ers from Cooterville, should slip and fall on his hinder, and land on a hemorrhoid the size of a Concord grape, and suddenly make a vulgar reference to holy excrement and call down God's wrath all in one succinct phrase -- shouldn't there be some recourse for the decent and God-fearing just as there would be if Howard Stern had said it?
What a horrible experience for those 4-H'ers. To travel all the way to Washington and stand in awe at the gaudy splendor of it all and get the chance to shake hands with an actual U.S. senator and suddenly the old fattycakes cuts loose with some ripe language you didn't hear at the prayer breakfast -- bummer!
What rules do we have in place to protect schoolchildren from some old demented Republican walking around exposing his right nipple and saying crude things and waving sparklers? None that I'm aware of. A Congressional Decency Enforcement Act would specifically forbid the waving of genitalia, while either whooping or not, or exposing the mammary glands, either male or female, or exposing the posterior (also known as "mooning"), or referring to the posterior, or to fecal matter, whether chicken, horse, bull or any other species, and a half-million-dollar fine would be a good deterrent, though I'd prefer locking offenders in the stocks and pelting them with offal, dead cats, fish heads and rabbit pellets. I do not think you can ever do enough in behalf of our children.
Media, Protesters Kept Away from ‘Freedom Walk’
by Brendan Coyne, NewStandard
Sep 12 - Yesterday's Pentagon-sponsored September 11 memorial walk and concert was billed as a "Freedom Walk," but the news media and people who desired to speak out against the Bush administration were restricted to small areas, mainly away from the day's events. Restrictions also extended to participants, all attendees had to register by Friday evening and were subject to search upon arrival.
The Defense Department claimed that over 13,000 people attended the event, Stars & Stripes reports. They marched along a two mile route lined by US Park Police and fencing, according to the military newspaper.
Hundreds of protesters also attended, mostly corralled near the end of the route. Park Police prevented reporters from speaking with the group, Stars & Stripes said.
Friday, the Washington Post reported that the entire Washington, DC contingent of the Park Police would be handling event security.
In addition to keeping protesters from interacting with marchers, security kept reporters limited to three separate areas.
Critics of the event -- which was billed as a memorial for the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks as well as a march to support American troops -- charged that it was designed to tie the September 11 attacks to the war on Iraq.
Additional criticism came from privacy advocates who questioned the Pentagon's original registration requirements as intrusive. The policy was slightly altered shortly after a NewStandard reporter inquired why registrants were to supply their mailing addresses and other information in order to participate.
A group of anti-war protesters participated in the walk. They wore anti-war imagery, but did not disrupt the march, the Associated Press reports.
© 2005 The NewStandard.
Sep 12 - Yesterday's Pentagon-sponsored September 11 memorial walk and concert was billed as a "Freedom Walk," but the news media and people who desired to speak out against the Bush administration were restricted to small areas, mainly away from the day's events. Restrictions also extended to participants, all attendees had to register by Friday evening and were subject to search upon arrival.
The Defense Department claimed that over 13,000 people attended the event, Stars & Stripes reports. They marched along a two mile route lined by US Park Police and fencing, according to the military newspaper.
Hundreds of protesters also attended, mostly corralled near the end of the route. Park Police prevented reporters from speaking with the group, Stars & Stripes said.
Friday, the Washington Post reported that the entire Washington, DC contingent of the Park Police would be handling event security.
In addition to keeping protesters from interacting with marchers, security kept reporters limited to three separate areas.
Critics of the event -- which was billed as a memorial for the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks as well as a march to support American troops -- charged that it was designed to tie the September 11 attacks to the war on Iraq.
Additional criticism came from privacy advocates who questioned the Pentagon's original registration requirements as intrusive. The policy was slightly altered shortly after a NewStandard reporter inquired why registrants were to supply their mailing addresses and other information in order to participate.
A group of anti-war protesters participated in the walk. They wore anti-war imagery, but did not disrupt the march, the Associated Press reports.
© 2005 The NewStandard.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
All-Time Record Profits Not Enough?
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush is tapping the strategic oil reserve to help petroleum refiners.
Obviously, the oil industry can't rely on soaring prices and record profits to weather this meteorological inconvenience. They need a hand up. Good thing they thought ahead enough to install their buddy into the Oval Office.
How much of this will you stand, because I've had enough.
Obviously, the oil industry can't rely on soaring prices and record profits to weather this meteorological inconvenience. They need a hand up. Good thing they thought ahead enough to install their buddy into the Oval Office.
How much of this will you stand, because I've had enough.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Questions for the 39%
From Yellow Dog Blog
While we were focusing on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last week, the results of an AP-Ipsos poll taken September 6-8 were released. The poll shows President Bush's approval rating sinking faster than his mother's compassion for the poor and resting at a lowly 39 percent.
I have forwarded some follow-up questions to the Ipsos organization. I'm hoping they will use these questions for the next presidential approval poll and ask them of the respondents who still approve of the job Bush is doing as president:
1. Who dresses you in the morning?
2. Do you use common utensils when you eat?
3. Which of these items is different from the others? a) Cup b) Plate c) Bowl or d) Porcupine
4. Do you take your medication before answering polls?
5. If a car is going 60 miles per hour, how far will it go in one hour?
6. How many words are in your vocabulary? Please be exact.
7. Do you steer your car with the big wheel in front of the driver's seat or with one of the pedals on the floor?
8. Which goes “woof,” a doggie or a kitty?
9. In what state is the Kentucky Derby held?
10. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being President Bush and one being a rock, just how stupid are you?
It is my belief that these questions will provide some granularity on the intellect of people still responding positively to questions on George W. Bush's job performance.
While we were focusing on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last week, the results of an AP-Ipsos poll taken September 6-8 were released. The poll shows President Bush's approval rating sinking faster than his mother's compassion for the poor and resting at a lowly 39 percent.
I have forwarded some follow-up questions to the Ipsos organization. I'm hoping they will use these questions for the next presidential approval poll and ask them of the respondents who still approve of the job Bush is doing as president:
1. Who dresses you in the morning?
2. Do you use common utensils when you eat?
3. Which of these items is different from the others? a) Cup b) Plate c) Bowl or d) Porcupine
4. Do you take your medication before answering polls?
5. If a car is going 60 miles per hour, how far will it go in one hour?
6. How many words are in your vocabulary? Please be exact.
7. Do you steer your car with the big wheel in front of the driver's seat or with one of the pedals on the floor?
8. Which goes “woof,” a doggie or a kitty?
9. In what state is the Kentucky Derby held?
10. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being President Bush and one being a rock, just how stupid are you?
It is my belief that these questions will provide some granularity on the intellect of people still responding positively to questions on George W. Bush's job performance.
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