VP Dick Cheney took marching orders early in 2001 about how to handle the California crisis--
directly from Enron's Ken Lay.

"Nooo price caps, Dick.."
"Aye-Aye, Cap'n Enron!"

We have just witnessed the worst blackout in American history.
In the case of the northeast grid, which corporate-energy taskmaster will he now obey?

"The moral of the story? Don't have heartburn over those 16 words. Have it instead over the folks who’ve gotten our nation in a megamess that might cost hundreds more casualties and around $100 billion by Christmas, a figure this regime’s Liars Club is busy doing its best to hide. Judgment is the essence of leadership. It seems sorely lacking when it comes to the president’s Iraqi solution. "

David Hackworth


What happens when truths are laid out beautifully ......

"....whether you're a Democrat or a Republican -- or an Independent, a Libertarian, a Green or a Mugwump -- you've got a big stake in making sure that Representative Democracy works the way it is supposed to. And today, it just isn't working very well. We all need to figure out how to fix it because we simply cannot keep on making such bad decisions on the basis of false impressions and mistaken assumptions.
Earlier, I mentioned the feeling many have that something basic has gone wrong. Whatever it is, I think it has a lot to do with the way we seek the truth and try in good faith to use facts as the basis for debates about our future -- allowing for the unavoidable tendency we all have to get swept up in our enthusiasms........"

Al Gore

....and no one (if you watch TV or read newspapers) seems to be listening?



"......Al Gore slipped into Manhattan last week and gave a rousing speech downtown before a very young audience at New York University. He got some coverage, but Mr. Gore has never been mistaken for an entertainer. In the superamplified media din created by the likes of Arnold and Kobe and Ben and Jen, it's very difficult for the former vice president, a certified square, to break into the national conversation.

That says a lot about us and the direction we're headed in as a nation. You can agree with Mr. Gore's politics or not, but some of the points he's raising, especially with regard to President Bush's credibility on such crucial issues as war and terror and the troubled economy, deserve much closer attention....."

Bob Herbert/NY Times


..instead, on our TV screens, we are fed propped-up propaganda laced with Laci and cobbled up with Kobe. To boot, we get all that serious-sounding pumped-up epic-style music behind the repetitive 'slogan du jour' in big important-looking graphics.
The truth would make us too angry, so FOX, CNN, and MSNBC transmit the nearly-meaningless old fluff-n-hype 24/7.


FROM LE CIRQUE DU FLUFF-N-HYPE:



Spread it, baby.....


___________________




0
0
0



*Northeastern U.S. 8-14-03*

*don't forget about us*


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From the speech: "We Stand Our Ground" by William Rivers Pitt:

"....If the American people fully knew what this war in Iraq was really about, if they fully knew what it means today to be a soldier in that part of the world, they would tear the White House apart brick by brick. If the people had but a taste of the horror and the lies, they would repudiate this administration and all it stands for. They don't know, because they have been fed a glutton's diet of misinformation and fraud. Changing that is why we are here...."

".... You will note that I did not name George W. Bush, for blaming Bush for the gross misadministration of this government is like blaming Mickey Mouse when Disney screws up. He is not in charge. Truman said "The buck stops here," and so we point to Bush as a symbol of all that has gone wrong. But he is not in charge. These other men, these New American Century men, have delivered us to this wretched estate, and by God in Heaven, there will be a reckoning for it....."
Quotes from William Rivers Pitt

*From a soldier's letter:

"... While the Army did a great in winning the war, what is not being covered is how broke the Army logistics system is and the damage it is doing to the long term readiness and moral of the Army. The Army seems to have this NTC rotation mentality, which consists of fuck it live in the dirt and filth you only have to be here for a month. That works at NTC, but it seems no one has thought of how to sustain an Army in the field for weeks and months at a time...."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Krugman wrote in one of his columns this week (entitled Thanks For The MREs):

"......Letters published in Stars and Stripes and e-mail published on the Web site of Col. David Hackworth (a decorated veteran and Pentagon critic) describe shortages of water. One writer reported that in his unit, "each soldier is limited to two 1.5-liter bottles a day," and that inadequate water rations were leading to "heat casualties." An American soldier died of heat stroke on Saturday; are poor supply and living conditions one reason why U.S. troops in Iraq are suffering such a high rate of noncombat deaths?

The U.S. military has always had superb logistics. What happened? The answer is a mix of penny-pinching and privatization — which makes our soldiers' discomfort a symptom of something more general.

Colonel Hackworth blames "dilettantes in the Pentagon" who "thought they could run a war and an occupation on the cheap." But the cheapness isn't restricted to Iraq. In general, the "support our troops" crowd draws the line when that support might actually cost something.

The usually conservative Army Times has run blistering editorials on this subject. Its June 30 blast, titled "Nothing but Lip Service," begins: "In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap — and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately." The article goes on to detail a series of promises broken and benefits cut...."


ALSO-SEE: "Some Of Army's Civilian Contractors Are No-Shows In Iraq"

I found this blog entry by Demosthenes to be very interesting.



Excerpt:
"....Thus, 2004. If Dean gets the nomination, or even if he doesn't, there will be an army of politically activated, angry, and nearly fanatical Democrats with a single goal: get the pretender off the throne. There will also be an army of political activated, desperate, and nearly fanatical Republicans with a single goal: keep their man around for that all-important second term. They already loathe each other: the former believes the latter to be psychotic and megalomanaical warmongers and profiteers, and the latter believes the former to be treasonous socialists who want America to die in flames. Appeals to bi-partisan consensus will likely be offered by the Republicans, who will have both 2002 and Grover Norquist's "Bi-partisanship is date rape" line thrown back in their faces. The media will focus less on the rhetoric, and more on the war. Civility is out the window; Republican calls for it will likely be quickly rebutted as well by the "Bourgeous riot" of 2000, where the Republicans proved that they have little taste for civility where it doesn't benefit them. Dirty tricks are out of bound only insofar as they might be found out....."