Mind Vomit by the ikss ~ a journal
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Monday, Aug. 30, 2004mis-leads galore
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�Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead�
-Lucille Ball
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
REGISTER TO VOTE
"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The "seven social sins": Knowledge without character,
Science without humanity,
Wealth without work,
Commerce without morality,
Politics without principles,
Pleasure without conscience,
Worship without self-sacrifice."
--Gandhi
"We have not inherited the world from our forfathers -
We have borrowed it from our children."
--Kashmiri, proverb
--Jet Li, explaining the third level of Martial Arts
~~~
RUMSFELD MISLEADS ABOUT PRISON ABUSE
Speaking [last week] in Phoenix, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed that there was no way that he and other top military officials could have known about the abuse and torture that took place at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Rumsfeld said, "if you are in Washington, D.C., you can't know what's going on in the midnight shift in one of those many prisons around the world."[1] But a classified portion of a report by three Army generals (the Fay report) - obtained by the New York Times - found that the atrocities that took place in military prisons were the result of actions taken at the top of the military hierarchy.
According to secret sections of the Fay report, the former top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez "approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan."[2] Moreover, "by issuing and revising the rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, General Sanchez and his legal staff sowed such confusion that interrogators acted in ways that violated the Geneva Conventions."[3]
A separate investigation headed by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger "faulted the Pentagon's top civilian and military leadership yesterday for failing to exercise adequate oversight and allowing conditions that led to the abuse of detainees in Iraq."[4] Rumsfeld was cited specifically for contributing to "confusion over what techniques were permissible for interrogating prisoners in Iraq."[5]
Sources:
1. "Rumsfeld: No plans to resign" Arizona Daily Star, 8/27/04,
2. "Army's Report Faults General in Prison Abuse" New York Times, 8/27/04
3. Ibid
4. "Top Pentagon Leaders Faulted in Prison Abuse" Washington Post, 8/25/04
5. Ibid
*
BUSH MISLEADS ON GLOBAL WARMING
Campaigning for the presidency in 2000, George W. Bush promised to place mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions to control global warming.[1] After he assumed office - in what was widely seen as payback for the energy industry that helped finance his campaign - Bush quickly reneged on his pledge.[2] Bush claimed such regulations were inappropriate because there was no clear scientific link between human activity and global warming.[3]
But last week, a report signed by Bush's Secretary of Commerce Don Evans and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham,[4] concluded, "rising temperatures in North America are due in part to human activity."[5] The report found that global warming was already causing draught, damaging farms and changing migration patterns.[6]
Nevertheless, the Bush administration is still content to do nothing. John H. Marburger, the president's top science adviser, said the report has "no implications for policy."[7] Bush himself denies that there has been any change in the administration's position. Asked by the New York Times to explain the switch, Bush replied "Ah, did we?...I don't think so."[8]
Sources:
1. "Bait and Switch" Pollution Engineering, 12/01/03
2. "Bush u-turn on climate change wins few friends" The Guardian, 8/27/04
3. Bush administration report links human acts to global warming" The Boston Globe, 8/27/04
4. "Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005" U.S. Climate Change Science Program , 8/25/04
5. "Administration Shifts on Global Warming" Washington Post, 8/27/04
6. "White House Climate Policy Remains Unchanged in Face of Science Shift" Natural Resources Defense Council, 8/26/04
7. "Administration Shifts on Global Warming" Washington Post, 8/27/04
8. "White House cites human role in global warming" CNN, 8/27/04
Visit www.Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion.
~~~
Also re Global Warming, from BushGreenwatch
New Book Contradicts Cheney-Bush Denials re Global Warming
Seven years ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan focused his reporter�s lens on the issue of global climate change and wrote The Heat Is On, a landmark book that exposed the links between the so-called global warming skeptics and the fossil fuel industry, which stands to lose much if the world gets serious about curbing oil and gas consumption.
Now Gelbspan is back with a new book, Boiling Point (Basic Books). This time he examines powerful new evidence that the world's climate system is on the verge of spinning out of control. At the same time, he offers some remedies that the world's governments can adopt before it is too late.
The obstacles -- particularly in the U.S. -- are enormous. The current chairman of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, James Inhofe (R-OK), has said, "With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it." And, Vice President Cheney has called energy conservation a "personal virtue," but not a "sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."
Despite the official denials, Gelbspan marshals an impressive array of facts showing that the climate is indeed changing. Seventeen of the 18 hottest years on record have occurred since 1980.
Glaciers are melting on every continent, and migratory species in both hemispheres are shifting their ranges toward the poles. Coral reefs around the world are dying in response to higher temperatures. Mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever are spreading to higher altitudes and higher latitudes. In Alaska, the average temperature has risen by a startling seven degrees over the past 30 years.
Meanwhile, Gelbspan reveals, the oil and coal industries are conducting a furious campaign of disinformation to confuse the public and delay action � and evidence shows that it is working. A 1991 poll by Newsweek magazine showed that 35 percent of the public thought global warming was a serious problem. By 1996, even after scientific evidence had become much stronger, another Newsweek poll found that this number had shrunk to 22 percent � although it has risen since that time, with many people expressing growing concerns about increasingly violent weather patterns.
Gelbspan lays much of the blame on his fellow journalists, who have allowed themselves to be manipulated into giving equal time to industry-funded skeptics, even though they are at odds with the overwhelming majority of mainstream scientists. Nor does he spare the major environmental groups, whom he finds too consumed with infighting and turf battles to mount an effective campaign to fight the oil and coal industries.
To avert the coming crisis, Gelbspan urges a rigorous, global campaign -- based on three specific interactive policies -- to shift power production to renewable energy. Such a program, he argues, would carry the added benefit of helping democratize the global economy, putting the public back in charge of both their governments and corporations.
It's a tall order. But as Gelbspan indicates in this highly readable book (very favorably reviewed by Al Gore in the August 15 Sunday New York Times Book Review), there is really little choice.
~~~
From MoveOn.org:
Last month John Pappageorge, a Republican state representative in Michigan, told a journalist that the Republicans would do poorly if they failed to �suppress the Detroit vote.� Detroit, of course, is 83% black.[1]
Democratic officials expressed their outrage, and Pappageorge eventually apologized for his words, but his statement spoke to a bigger truth: Republicans continue to actively suppress black and minority votes in order to win elections through intimidation, misinformation, and tampering with voter rolls and records. In 2000, the black voters who were not allowed to vote would have almost certainly swung the election in Al Gore�s favor. And the practice continues: a recent report from the NAACP and the People for the American Way Foundation documents suppression tactics in use right now.[2]
The Republican Party's continued silence is shameful. We�re joining with Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP*, Reverend Jesse Jackson, President of the Rainbow/Push Coalition*, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and others to demand that the Republican Party abandon these racist, unfair, and undemocratic tactics and condemn anyone in their ranks who uses them. Please join us by signing this petition
Many of the leaders above and other signers will personally deliver this petition to the Bush/Cheney campaign headquarters next month, so please sign today and ask your friends to sign.
Just last week, Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote a column describing armed, plain-clothes officers from the Florida state police (which reports directly to Governor Jeb Bush) going into the homes of elderly black voters and interrogating them, supposedly as part of an investigation into voter fraud. While ostensibly random, several of those questioned were members of the Orlando League of Voters, a group that has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote. According to Herbert, this supposed "investigation" has resulted in a blanket of fear, leaving organizers afraid to work and voters afraid of contact with campaign workers.[3]
Four years ago, Florida election officials removed over 52,000 voters from the rolls under the guise of �cleansing� the list of felons. Over 90% of those purged were not guilty of any crime and 54% were African-American, a group which, in Florida, are likely to vote Democratic over 90% of the time.[4] The company that provided the purge list warned Florida officials that thousands of eligible voters would likely be disenfranchised in the process, but Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State who also served as state campaign manager for George W. Bush, went forward with the purge anyway. The result was thousands of voters not allowed to vote in an election that was decided by just over 500 votes.
It�s not just Florida. A joint report from People for the American Way Foundation and the NAACP "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today" highlights recent attempts to suppress African-American and minority voting, documenting instances of the following:[5]
Challenges and threats against individual voters at the polls by armed private guards, off-duty law enforcement officers, local creditors, fake poll monitors, and poll workers and managers.
Signs posted at the polling place warning of penalties for �voter fraud� or �non-citizen� voting, or illegally urging support for a candidate.
Poll workers �helping� voters fill out their ballots, and instructing them on how to vote.
Criminal tampering with voter registration rolls and records.
Fliers and radio ads containing false information about where, when and how to vote, voter eligibility, and the false threat of penalties.
Internal memos from party officials in which the explicit goal of suppressing black voter turnout is outlined.
Here are a few other incidents highlighted in the report and elsewhere:
In 2003, in Pennsylvania, men with clipboards bearing official-looking insignias were reportedly dispatched to African American neighborhoods. Tom Lindenfeld, who ran a counter-intimidation campaign for Democratic candidate John Street, said there were 300 cars with the decals resembling such federal agencies as the DEA and ATF and that the men were asking prospective voters for identification. In a post-election poll of 1000 African-American voters, seven percent said they had encountered such efforts.
In 2002, in Louisiana, fliers were distributed in African American communities stating, �Vote!!! Bad Weather? No problem!!! If the weather is uncomfortable on election day [Saturday, December 7th], remember you can wait and cast your ballot on Tuesday, December 10th.� In a separate incident, apparently targeting potential supporters of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Republican Party admitted to paying African American youths $75 to hold signs aloft on street corners in black neighborhoods that appeared to discourage African-Americans from voting.
Last month, in South Dakota, Native American voters were sent to the wrong polling places, and given misleading information about the ID they need to vote.[6]
Stopping eligible voters from voting is a basic affront to democracy. It is an outrage for any political party to condone or encourage the practice, especially given the history of African-Americans and other minorities being disenfranchised in our country. In the vast majority of these cases, Republicans are the perpetrators or it's a Republican candidate that stands to benefit. Call on Republican leaders to to publicly disavow the suppression of the minority vote by signing the petition.
Thanks for all you do,
-- James Rucker, Laura Dawn, and the rest of the MoveOn PAC team
MoveOn PAC
Thursday, August, 26th 2004
1 http://www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw101420_20040721.htm
2 http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=16368
3 http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081704C.shtml
(original: http://nytimes.com/2004/08/16/opinion/16herbert.html?hp)
4 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040517&s=palast
5 http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=16399
6 http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=16362
Other links:
1 million black votes didn't count in the 2000 presidential election
Commentary in Detroit Free Press
"The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America" (pdf)
*Organizations named above are for identification purposes only.
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