Hear John Edwards' Podcast - NOW!

Hear John Edwards' Podcast - NOW!

John Edwards Podcast - March 23

UPDATE:

The first John (and Elizabeth) Edwards Podcast is ready for you to hear.
Go to this address and download the MP3.

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

The "Today Show" will profile Senator Edwards and his work on poverty on Wednesday, March 23, 2005. Check your local listings and tune in!
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Wednesday, March 23, 2005
By David Ingram
JOURNAL RALEIGH BUREAU
John Edwards leads panel of experts on poverty at UNC-CH
Discussion on wealth accumulation bolstered by former senator, vice-presidential candidate in new role

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On Wednesday, March 23, the One America Committee Web site will post John Edwards' first podcast. We hear that he will have a very special guest.

From the "One America For All of Us" Blog:

This week, March 23rd, John Edwards will participate in an exciting new medium: podcasting. He will answer your questions and update you on his family and projects.

What is podcasting? It starts with an MP3 file that will play on your computer or portable music player - but it acts like a subscription. This means you are alerted when there is a new podcast available - and you are always kept up-to-date!

How do I get started? Download free software for your Mac or PC at iPodder.org. Then check back here at One America: next week we will provide a link to download John Edwards' podcast!

Do you have a question for John Edwards? Click here to e-mail your question!


SUBSCRIBE TO THIS FEED:
http://www.oneamericacommittee.com/
podcast.xml

More about Podcasting:

See PODCASTING 101 at The One America website

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John Edwards would like to hear your ideas::

Today, at the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I am going to join a group of prominent experts from across the country who have dedicated their careers to fighting poverty. We are going to talk about one of the most important things we can do to help lift people out of poverty and into the middle class - helping people save so that they can start getting ahead instead of just getting by.

While poverty is all around us, the first step in eradicating it is to shine a bright light on it. Here's what we know: 36 million Americans live in poverty today, which is 13 million more than 30 years ago. About one in four working families is earning so little they struggle to make ends meet. And nearly 30 percent of families have less than $10,000 in assets - which means that the value of their savings, their home, and their car altogether is less than $10,000.

What we can do as a country is help families build a foundation and a safety net so that if they have a medical emergency, lose a job, or go through a traumatic event like a divorce it doesn't push them off the cliff and into bankruptcy.

So today we are going to talk about how we can help families save and put money in the bank. We will explore ideas like establishing savings accounts for children at birth, like baby bonds, to help them prepare for the future. We'll also look at different types of savings accounts for adults with matching funds to encourage people to save. And we will take a close look at ways to help more families become homeowners while also making sure that predatory lenders don't take away homes families already own.

These are some of the many ideas that we will discuss. We will report back on our blog but please let me know what you think we can do to help people save. Please visit the One America Committee Blog where we have started a new thread entitled: Poverty, Work, and Opportunity and give us your thoughts and ideas about this important issue. Some of our best ideas will come from you! Your input is invaluable, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Podcasting Info *thanks to Amy Gahran:

- What is podcasting and why should you care?
- How to receive and listen to podcasts
- What are feeds (RSS) and why should you care?


Podcasting News on John Edwards

Iddybud Thanks You

Iddybud Thanks You

I'd like to thank Common Ills and Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude for their recent comments and links.

From Common Ills:

"...isn't jude a groovy blogger? she's a woman and we're supposedly wondering where the female bloggers are so why doesn't she get more attention for all her hard work? or is that all 'so last week' already?"

From Sex and Politics, Screeds and Attitude:

"Jude of Iddybud has written an incredible entry on what's going on in Ohio today. It's entitled "Your Vote: Worthless in the Eyes of Media - Judging from the lack of news media coverage, you probably haven't heard about today's House Committee hearing." This puts the entire thing into perspective (no relying on implications or allusions I did). Again, please read the entire thing. (Though judging by the e-mails a lot of members already have Maria gets credit for being the first one to e-mail on it.)

there's your iddybud link.

Jude took on the issue, BuzzFlash is noting it and Ron of Why Are We Back In Iraq? is also addressing it providing background on why Kenneth Blackwell was 'too busy' to testify last time. (No, Ron's not justifying Blackwell's thumbing his nose at the Congress and the people.) From his entry entitled "Did Anyone Hear About The Hearing In Ohio?"

___________


These comments mean a lot to me. It's so good to know I'm not alone in this venture...this search for the truth in a labyrinth of mysterious-yet-blatant media ommissions.

I wrote to U.S. Rep Stephanie Tubbs Jones today to thank her for all the hard work she's done. I would imagine (from experience) that it all seems like a terribly thankless job to her, considering the fact that we're the only ones who seem to give a crap about all she's tried to accomplish.

By the way, Maria deserves the credit she's gotten at Common Ills on this story.

_____________

I thought this would be a fitting place to provide a link to Jeff Sharlet's (The Revealer's) latest entry - The Media Do Suck (Why The Heathen Rage) - Journalism, Democracy, and the Greatness of America's #1 Celebrity Weekly News Magazine

Excerpt:

"...my guide to understanding what myth, journalism, and democracy actually do -- is "bali to," a Papua New Guinean linguistic convention described by anthropologist Steven Feld in Sound and Sentiment as "turned over words," language that "encompasses aspects of analogy, metaphor, euphemisim, litotes, irony, and sarcasm" -- and that's just for starters. "Turned over words" are like a pretty stone you turn over in your hand; those with eyes to see discover that the other side of the rock reveals new meanings; turn it again, and there's another. Minogue celebrates this kind of perception in "religious people, philosophers, [and] scientists," those whom he defines as "genuinely educated." Such people "will find new things in quite exiguous materials"; but then, sooner or later everyone will. That's the problem with those damn words: They keep turning over. Myth, journalism, and democracy are all notoriously unstable, as is religion, a kinship across ways of knowing and living that will as often as not lead to unanticipated and undesirable outcomes."

Charlotte Bloggercon Slated for September 17, 2005

Charlotte Bloggercon Slated for September 17, 2005



According to the Trade Street Journal, Charlotte, North Carolina will host a regional blogger conference on September 17, 2005.

According to Dave Beckwith of Parker Web Developers:

"Small-business blogging will be given more attention, since there has been a veritable revolution in business blogging, much of which is so new as to have been impossible to cover during previous conferences."

*Dave is also my co-blogger here at Iddybud.

Conference: Examining Agenda of the Religious Far Right

"Until progressives come to understand what [fundamentalists] read, hear, are told and deeply believe, we cannot understand American politics, much less be effective."

- Joe Bageant

Conference: Examining the Agenda of the Religious Far Right
April 29-30

There will be a two-day conference co-sponsored by the NY Open Center and CUNY Graduate Center Public Programs, to be held at CUNY Graduate Center (Fifth Ave & 34th St, Manhattan) on April 29 and 30.

The conference, called Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right, will include some of my favorite political activists.

Speakers: Karen Armstrong, Joan Bokaer, Chip Berlet, Katherine Yurica, John Sugg, Hugh Urban, Frederick Clarkson, Jeffrey Sharlet, Skipp Porteous, Charles Strozier, Robert W. Edgar, and Joseph C. Hough Jr.
(presenter bios here)


Susan at Suburban Guerilla has a blog-post about a Mo-Jones interview with Jim Wallis (of Sojourners).

Betsy Cronkite

"They had a great relationship, a partnership in the real sense of the word."

- Kay Barnes, Mayor of Kansas City, cousin of Walter Cronkite, speaking of Walter and his wife Betsy

Betsy Cronkite

Kevin Hoffman did a very nice job on this article about Betsy (Mary Elizabeth) Cronkite, the beloved wife of Walter Cronkite. Last week, Betsy died after a long struggle with cancer. Walter and Betsy would have celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary later this month

My thoughts and prayers go out to Walter and his family.

Arrogant Blackwell Refuses to Admit Ohio Mistakes

Blackwell Gives the Finger to Concerned Voters
......but he won't give U.S. Congresswoman his hand to shake.

Yesterday, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell appeared before a Congressional field committee and had the audacity to state, simply, that "everything went smoothly" in the Ohio election last November.

He called citizens' concerns - your concerns and mine - "fabrications and exaggerations". He even jabbed at people like me, who are talking about him on this blog. (Read the linked Toledo Blade story by Jim Provance).

I guess he cannot take criticism in a constructive or non-defensive manner. Regardless, I don't see how he thinks he can just sweep all these concerns away with his horrid accusations, arrogant insults, and closing his eyes and pretending the problems aren't there. Unless we allow him to do so.


"What you don't want to hear, or what you are not hearing, is that Ohio..had one of the best election administration performances in the country." said J. Kenneth Blackwell.

U.S. Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D., CA.), countered: "Irrespective of that, there have been allegations put out there. Again, you don't want to hear that, but they're out there."

According to U.S. Rep Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D., OH.), the arrogant Blackwell refused to shake her hand outside the committee room.

The divisive Blackwell is going to run for Governor in Ohio. The cause for his rise to national prominence? Delivering Ohio to George W. Bush, thus hijacking the election.

In January, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who prepared a report on election problems in Ohio, said that an improper fund-raising letter for Blackwell's gubernatorial run supports suspicions that Blackwell's actions as secretary of state during the election "stemmed from partisan political motivations" to help Bush.

Funny Photo

"Mini-Me" Tumor Appears on President's Head

"Just how's he gonna manage, lugging that extra dome around?" a bystander was reported to have asked.

Originalism

"More improbable than unique..".
Originalism has some incredible photography and prose.

I saw a joke I liked at the blog - from the Edinburgh festival:

"I joined a dating agency and went out on a load of dates that didn't work out. And I went back to the woman who ran the agency and said: "Have you not got somebody on your books who doesn't care about how I look or what job I have and has a nice big pair of boobs?" And she checked on her computer and said: "Actually, we have one, but unfortunately, it's you."

N.Z. Bear To Wed

N.Z. Bear To Wed



Sorry, girls. He'll soon be out of the running. N. Z. Bear is getting married. He's also known as Truth Laid Bear, owner of the Ecosystem. I'm very happy to hear the good news about Bear and his Lady M.
Here's wishing the best of luck and love to them both.

Brandenn

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

- Marcus Aurelius

Brandenn

There are some things that make me profoundly sad.
This is one of them.

Ted Honderich: The Principle of Humanity

Ted Honderich: The Principle of Humanity

I've been reading a book on free will and determinism by Ted Honderich. A fascinating philosopher, Honderich speaks of the series of causal lines which create our life narratives. I've been thinking about one particular point he made. He says that your own inner world, it can be argued, is no less "real" than the perceived part of the physical world. If the latter is not to be made into "mysterious stuff in the head" by its dependence on PERSONS generally, then why should your world of perceptual consciousness be degraded into such stuff by its dependency upon YOU?

While it seems that some people are "living in their own head", it's far too easy to consider them anti-social eccentrics (some call them 'geeks'). Think about the wisdom they could impart, by their (admitted) hyper-dependence upon their own neural system versus reliance upon persons, generally. Who are we to judge which is of more value - to that individual and what could be of value to the physical world by that person's very neural existence?

Since I cannot send you the entirety of his rather complex book "How Free Are You?", I thought I would share an online paper of Professor Honderich's, which is a politics-related philosophy. In it, he provides us with 10 observations about familiar principles, rules, maxims, and propositions mentioning equality, of which he says are reflective of "ordinary enlightened convictions and feelings."

He says:

The fundamental question to which liberalism, conservatism and other such things give answers - or should give answers - and arguments for the answers, is sometimes called the question of justice. It is the question not of what laws there are, but of what laws there ought to be, how societies ought to be. Better, it is the question of who ought to have what.
An answer needs first to decide on a prior question. Of what ought who to have what shares or amounts? My answers are given in this paper.

The first, to the prior question, has to do with our great desires, and the wretchedness or other distress of having them unfulfilled. Other answers have to do with bad answers to the main question, and then the right one. Morality has a majesty. Despite ourselves, and yet to ourselves, it stands over the rest of our existence, in particular over our self-interest in its various forms.

To my mind it is the Principle of Humanity above all that has that majesty.

Happy reading, should you decide to take the dive into Honderich's world of ideas.

______________

Other recent references from the reality-based philosopher:
Counterpunch- On Being Persona Non Grata

The Need for a New Disrespect:

"Murdoch of The Sun in England [and FOX News] has a thousand or ten thousand times greater control over the alternatives scheduled for debate and decision in a national election than you do. He is about that much more free to get what he wants for himself and the people with whom he identifies. You can safely say that they, some millions of them, are at least 100 times freer than the rest of us."

Iraq - The 2nd Anniversary from Azania's View

Iraq - The 2nd Anniversary from Azania's View

Helioith has a downloadable MP3 of a radio broadcast by Azania Al-Shabazz, a 6th grader at Crossroads Middle School in Harlem, New York. As part of the Radio Roots series, this particular segment deals with the child's own thoughts and the thoughts of his community members about the war in Iraq and its affect upon the community.

Archy's Liberal Coalition Blogsketches

Archy's Liberal Coalition Blogsketches

Hmmmm- just what does an Iddybud and a Scrutiny Hooligan look like?
Check out some of John's groovy blogger-sketches.

Stribley on Quashie

- from the O.J.Simpson Coloring and Activity book, downloadable here.

Stribley on Quashie

At Hitched to Everything, Robert Stribley talks about meeting artists Colin Quashie and Colbert Mashile at Charlotte's McColl Center for Visual Art.

Your Vote: Worthless in the Eyes of Media

Your Vote:
Worthless in the
Eyes of Media
Judging from the lack of news media coverage, you probably haven't heard about today's House Committee hearing


"There's reason to suspect that our 2004 election was stolen."

That's a strong accusation. Daring to utter such a statement has gained citizens little more than a label of "paranoid conspiracy theorist". The news media has shied away from talking about it, apparently afraid to be seen as "liberal media" and having a massive advertising-boycott campaign mounted against them by right-wing activists.

In January, Senator Barbara Boxer (D CA) stood up to vote against the certification of the Ohio Electors. In the House, Republican Representatives accused her of aiding terrorism and betraying our troops in Iraq.

Recent developments will show you that this is not a matter which revolves around delusion, nor does it indicate antiAmericanism.

A House Administration Committee field hearing will be held today in Columbus, Ohio. You can access information about it online: "Committee to Continue Oversight on Election Reform with a Field Hearing in Ohio on Monday."

The committee is chaired by Rep. Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio. I have my doubts about the progress that will be made by this committee, having already read Rep. Ney's comments about the 2004 election:

“Despite the formidable challenges faced by election administrators and notwithstanding the predictions of the skeptics, the 2004 election was a tremendous success and there is growing evidence that this was due in large part to the bipartisan Help America Vote Act. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of the demise of the American election system were greatly exaggerated and those who still continue to insist otherwise are not only wrong on the facts, but their baseless criticisms are a disservice to the thousands of state and local election workers who did a very good job.."

There are currently TWO (2) stories about the Congressional field hearing available on Google search.

It would appear, if you look at the media coverage, that no one cares about the integrity of our electoral process. Yet, I know that is not true. In an Annenberg poll taken on election eve, only 62% of voters felt that they could trust the integrity of the process. (*And voters committed to Bush were far more confident).

When - and why - did news-reporting about the fight for the right to vote leave the forefront?

At Daily Kos, a diarist named 'Freedom' has said that all the problems we see in America and the world today will mean "NOTHING if, come next election, the people are not given the means to exercise their right to vote."

At the Common Ills blog, there is disappointment and frustration at the lack of media and blog coverage. They report that electiononline.org was one of the only online information outlets that cited the hearing in an Associated Press story in yesterday's New York Times ("Counting of 2004 Provisional Ballots Varied Widely, Study Finds").

I think it's high time we started talking about this. We need to pressure the news media to talk about it as if it means something - because it means everything.

As it just so happens, the front pages of most of today's newspapers are slathered with heartstring-twanging news about Terry Schiavo and the fight to save what little life she has left in her. Meanwhile, the life of our democracy is nearly as fragile and brain-dead as Mrs. Schiavo. I cannot help but think this is a very convenient way for the mainstream news editors to avoid giving too loud of a voice on news that is material to our most important right as citizens - the right for our voice to be heard through our vote in elections we can trust.

The media's negligence allows people like Ohio's Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to virtually thumb his nose at concerned citizens. In the recent past, Blackwell
- has refused to be deposed about the Ohio election,
- has refused to appear before Congress ( Lawmakers were frustrated with Blackwell when he did not attend a Feb. 9 hearing in Washington, especially when they discovered that he was in the area that day)
- has refused to answer questions from members of the House Judiciary Committee who have been investigating allegations of election fraud.

Even today, Blackwell is expected to defend Ohio's electoral process and try to slink away with nothing more than a simple accusation of partisanship.

From the Beacon Journal:

A report prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee accused Ohio election officials of disenfranchising minority and Democratic voters by misallocating voting machines in their districts and restricting the use of provisional ballots. Blackwell's order that registrations must be on a certain weight of paper also drew fire in the staff report.

Blackwell has denied the staff's allegations.

"It was a stunning and disgraceful display demonstrating that there are those in Congress who are very willing to cast aside the Constitution and the lawfully certified vote of the people to wage a nasty and disingenuous partisan attack," Blackwell said in his testimony.

Political writer Christopher Hitchens has a new article in Vanity Fair entitled "Ohio's Odd Numbers." The lead-in states

"No conspiracy theorist, and no fan of John Kerry's, the author nevertheless found the Ohio polling results impossible to swallow: Given what happened in that key state on Election Day 2004, both democracy and common sense cry out for a court-ordered inspection of its new voting machines."

Hitchens forwards the belief that the thinking-caps Democrats have been wearing are not composed of "tin foil":

"..there is one soothing explanation that I don’t trust anymore. It was often said, in reply to charges of vote tampering, that it would have had to be “a conspiracy so immense” as to involve a dangerously large number of people. Indeed, some Ohio Democrats themselves laughed off some of the charges, saying that they too would have had to have been part of the plan. The stakes here are very high: one defector or turncoat with hard evidence could send the principals to jail forever and permanently discredit the party that had engaged in fraud.

I had the chance to spend quality time with someone who came to me well recommended, who did not believe that fraud had yet actually been demonstrated, whose background was in the manufacture of the machines, and who wanted to be anonymous. It certainly could be done, she said, and only a very, very few people would have to be “in on it.”

Some additional background information and news:


Twenty three House members have endorsed a vote-tabulation devistiture campaign known as the Velvet Revolution. The House members signed on to Waters/Conyers' letter to voting machine companies, which have been given until April 15th to reply. Members vow to withhold HAVA funding from companies who do not comply with standards set forth in the campaign. Click here for list of signers, the full letter to the voting companies, and a letter to VR from John Conyers. Brad Friedman, founder of the campaign, says that he expects to gain support from some "big names" in the Senate.

Last week, David Cobb, who was the presidential candidate for the Green party, sent a letter to the voting machine companies of America, formally endorsing the Velvet Revolution's campaign. Mr. Cobb's attorneys, along with Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik, have jointly requested a Ohio election recount. The case is still pending in the Eastern Division of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, before Judge Sargus.

John Kerry and John Edwards, through their Ohio attorney, have filed a one sentence statement with the Judge which supports the Cobb and Badnarik position. John Kerry's attorney has also filed a short, two page summary charting inconsistencies observed by Democratic Party witnesses to the recount.

Additional information about the recount and the entire 102 page report by the House Judiciary Committee's Democratic staff can be found at http://www.votecobb.org.

When four attorneys in Ohio sued that state to discover details of how voting was conducted in that state, they report they were slapped with a massive and expensive lawsuit engineered by Ohio's Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell (also co-chair of the Ohio Bush For President campaign) and Ohio Attorney General, Republican Jim Petro. The Ohio lawyer/activists have launched a legal defense fund (information available at http://freepress.org/store.php#donate) to help them fight both for an exposé of Ohio irregularities and to defend themselves against this attack by the Republican officials who control the voting systems in that state.



There's logic and reason behind the suspicion that our election was hijacked again in 2004


Sometimes it seems like we're living in a world I like to call Bushworld - a topsy-turvy rightwing-heavy universe where everything that truly matters is given the lowest priority. Our elections mean everything to the survival of our republican democracy. The Washington Times has given a big megaphone to Ferrell Blount, Republican North Carolina state chairman, who is whining about John Edwards getting some free "visibility" at Chapel Hill, but stop a moment to listen to their deafening silence about John Edwards' "media-invisiblity" in relation to today's Congressional Committee investigation about the state of the American electoral process.

"There's reason to suspect that our 2004 election was stolen."

This is our trust in the right to vote we're talking about, people.

Our one and only vote.

Pay attention to what's happening today in Columbus, Ohio.


- Jude

On my CD player this afternoon

On my CD player this afternoon

Karsh Kale - Realize

Loreena McKennitt - Live in Paris

Jim Lauderdale with Donna the Buffalo - Wait 'Til Spring


I can't wait for the next
Grass Roots Festival in Ithaca
Hope you'll join me.
I'm sure some EcoFolk will be there.

Steve Earle - The Revolution Starts Now

Planet Chant - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Lama Gyurme, Choying Drolma, Angelite (The Bulgarian Voices), Russian State Symphony, Saraband

Paul Hillier/His Majesty's Clerkes - Ghoostly Psalmes/Anglo American Psalmody

Kronos Quartet - Mugam Sayagi/Music of Franghiz Ali-Zadeh

Eleni Karaindrou - Euripedes / Trojan Women

Push Stars - Meet Me At the Fair


Push Stars and are friends
Hear part of one of my favorite Push Star songs, "Freedom".


Oops - can't forget Scott Leslie

Push Stars will be at Nietzsche's in Buffalo on April 13.

I will be listening to Larry Hoyt's Common Threads from 2-5 on WAER Jazz 88 in Syracuse.

A calendar of upcoming concerts in the Syracuse/Central NY area are here.

The F-Word: Examining Our Nation's Character

The F-Word: Examining Our Nation's Character

Take a look at this video and think about it.

*Thanks to Hamilton for this referral

Blog fever is spreading

Blog fever is spreading

I've recently heard and read a lot about people who are getting bored with mainstream media stories about blogging. While I sympathize, I think it's important to realize that most people out there haven't even heard of blogs and the fever is just catching on out there in America.


Where's Kevin?

Freelance journalist/blogger Kevin Sites has been mentioned by young bloggers as an inspiration. I've been wondering where he's been lately. He did a fantastic blog-story about post-Tsunami Banda Aceh, and he hasn't blogged since then. Come back, Kevin! We miss you. Congratulations are overdue to Kevin for his recent Rave's Best New Blogger Award from Wired magazine.

Dave Winer on Blogging

photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Journalists, Step Inside!
The Blog-gospel According to Dave


Dave Winer on Blogging

There was a conference on Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility, which was held in late January at Harvard. It featured an invitation-only group of fifty journalists, bloggers, news executives, media scholars and librarians.

Dave Winer , who was in attendance, makes blogging sound a bit like an evangelist's tent meeting. I think that's a pretty accurate description, if you understand the zeal of the committed blogger.

We're going to change the world, you know.

Here are Dave's words:

"If you want to understand the blogger mentality, think of us as evangelists. We're zealots. We want to bring you in. We want you to use our tools. We want you to learn what we have learned and then make the world a better place. We are the idealists. We are into, you know, truth and justice and so forth. We have a passion for news, and maybe that can act as a reminder to the professionals that somewhere deep inside of your core is that same passion. That's the thing that unites us. That's the bond that we share. Rather than looking at it as an adversarial relationship, let's look at the ways we can help each other, because God knows we have much bigger problems to solve."

- From an article by Rebecca MacKinnon at The Nation, March 17, 2005

*Sorry to hear Rebecca has the flu. Heal, Rebecca!

Photo - Art

photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell


"In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love."

- Marc Chagall

Unhappy Anniversary

Iraq: Unhappy Anniversary
Worldwide protests
Fog of War
Fayetteville
Drain
Brian
shh

$2500 Buys An Iraqi Civilian Unjustly Killed

"Two thousand five hundred dollars," said a relative of the deceased Mr Dulaimi derisively. "Twenty-five million would not pay for a hair of his head. I have experience in fighting, and my friends have offered to fight with me. God willing, we will make an example of them."

Blood Money - $2500 Buys An Iraqi Civilian Unjustly Killed Under Current Rules of Engagement

Jimmy Massey's story is given factual support in a March 18 Financial Times report.

Link: Shoot first, pay later culture pervades Iraq by Awadh al-Taee and Steve Negus

Read what happened to Abd al-Naser Abbas al-Dulaimi and his family.

What if he'd been your son?
Your brother?

Is it time for a rethink by US commanders of their rules of engagement in Iraq?

Bush has yet to stand behind Blair on poverty

Poverty in the Midst of Plenty (1939)
Gerard Sekoto

Bush has yet to stand behind Blair on Poverty

"Tony [Blair] and Gordon have to prepare to ring up George [Bush] and say, 'Do this, George, do this one thing for me, it's going to cost you [nothing], do it for me," [Bob] Geldof said. Any thoughts that Mr. Blair would disapprove of Mr. Geldof's rant were dispelled when the prime minister walked on stage and backed the aging rocker. "Because I'm a politician in a suit, I wince at the occasional word, but, actually, what he said is really what I think."

Tony Blair stood behind George W. Bush on the Iraq war, but Bush has yet to stand behind Blair on poverty.

___________________

The Financial Times Commentary/Analysis

A report that sees Africa is changing. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala [Nigeria's finance minister]. Financial Times. March 10 2005.

Amnesia and self-interest cloud debate on Africa. Michael Peel. Financial Times. March 11 2005

Top-level call for radical change in Africa aid. David White. Financial Times. March 11 2005.

Let them eat words. Editorial. Financial Times. March 12 2005

The business case for helping Africa. Niall Fitzgerald. Financial Times. March 13 2005

Europe should take the lead in Africa. Martin Wolf. Financial Times. March 15 2005



The Guardian Commentary/Analysis

I believe this is Africa's best chance for a generation ... Our report is an ambitious call for action, but it's rooted in the real world. Tony Blair. The Guardian. March 12, 2005

Leader: The next step is action. Editorial. The Guardian. March 12 2005

Time to help, not hinder Too many plans to aid Africa create problems by assuming that the west knows best, says ActionAid's Taaka Awori.

Larry Elliott: No gain without pain

The greatest tragedy of our time: how the world can help, and why it must do so now

Photo

After The Hurricane
photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Please Sign the Online Coalition Letter to FEC

Please Sign the Online Coalition Letter to FEC

I have signed on to what I consider to be a very important letter to which all concerned political bloggers should attend. The bipartisan letter is to the FEC from the blogging community at large. Michelle Malkin, Kos, Matthew Stoller, Kevin Aylward, and others have signed. There are currently close to 3000 signatures. Please go this THIS ADDRESS and sign the letter regarding the Upcoming FEC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking governing political activity on the internet.

Looking Toward 2008?

Looking toward 2008?

At JWR, Mugger has his doubts about certain political figures for 2008:

Rudy Giuliani -"way too socially liberal"

John McCain - "too old, cranky and contradictory"

Condi Rice - "black, female, single, ambiguous about abortion and has never run for office"

Hillary - Bill's baggage ("Marc Rich, Monica, his inattention to Islamic terrorists")

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


In the Boston Herald, Hillary's top advisor Ann Lewis talks about Kerry's 2004 campaign in non-glowing terms:

".... top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton thinks fellow Democrat John Kerry "ran what was basically an inconsistent campaign" for president last year..

..The Kerry campaign had "a different message every two or three weeks," Ann Lewis, director of communications for Clinton's political action committee, told the Forward, a weekly New York City-based newspaper aimed at a Jewish audience...

..the Kerry campaign "kept trying to rationally convince, to put a presidency together, line by line, plan by plan...." She said people "don't vote for plans, they vote for presidents."

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


At Salon.com, Paul Harris wonders how Hillary's somewhat schizophrenic political persona will be played out in the mainstream media:

"That was evident enough a week ago. March 6 saw two key appointments in New York that exposed Clinton's dilemma. First was a speech to a Jewish community group on the Upper East Side. She spoke emotionally of meeting U.S. soldiers, "heroes," in the Middle East. A few hours later, after a short cab ride downtown, Clinton addressed a very different audience at a women's rights conference at New York University. There, to a hall of United Nations workers, students and feminists, Clinton struck a much more familiar tone. She briskly attacked Bush's policy on abortion and said women's reproductive health "lies at the very heart of women's empowerment." It was an old-fashioned, pro-choice kind of speech. Her audience loved it.

Clinton's problem will be which version of herself becomes the accepted one in the mainstream. If it is the spiky progressive, liberal on social issues, she will lose a presidential campaign, her strategists believe. But if it is the new Hillary, a muscular moderate who is tough abroad and churchgoing on Sundays, she just might end up in the White House, they believe, returning home after eight years away."

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


The San Francisco Chronicle reports on John Edwards' appearance in their fair city yesterday. Edwards said the issue on which Democrats may have missed the boat in the last election was moral values, and that they must be central to the Democratic Party's core message. He also explained that his current campaign is less political and more about a focus on fighting poverty.

"My campaign now is to fight poverty and is a continuation of work over the last several years. That's what I'm committed to. I'll make decisions about politics down the road -- and that's particularly true given what's happening with Elizabeth.".....

"....We believe in standing up for people who don't have a voice," Edwards told about 400 people at the bar association's event. "And we also believe we have a moral responsibility to help those around us who are struggling."

"My family and my faith did not teach me to turn my back on people in their time of need," he said. "We're going to let the Republicans stand with their friends on Wall Street, with the big oil companies. We will stand with the nurses, with the teachers, with the working people."

Democratic consultant Chris Lehane reminds us about the elephant in the "wide-open" roomful of Democrats for 2008:

"....all of them may have to contend with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, "who is literally hovering over the field in terms of the institutional advantages she starts out with," Lehane said."

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


Alameda Times-Star - Inside Bay Area

John Edwards spoke to the Bar Association of San Francisco at the Pan Pacific Hotel and had praise for Howard Dean while saying other unnamed Democrats have lacked the courage of their conviction.

EXCERPT:

Democrats stand for equal protection under the law, for standing up for the voiceless and powerless, for offering opportunity and rewarding hard work, for choosing hope over despair and for offering a helping hand to those who struggle

....his time on the campaign trail taught him that Americans want leaders with conviction, a strong set of values and the strength and passion to stand up for those values. Democrats have those core values..."We ought to have the courage to stand up for them," he said.

After his speech, Edwards declined to name any specific instances in which the party or its candidates lacked the courage of their convictions.

But he did praise former Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee's new chairman, for being a straight shooter as well as an accomplished organizer and fund-raiser.

"I think that Howard will do a very good job."

"I am running the most powerful campaign I know how to stop poverty in this nation. ... That's the cause I'm focused on."

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

The Concord (NH) Monitor editorial staff is accusing certain Democrats of wanting to upset the status quo and take New Hampshire out of the top slot for the Presidential primary. The way they see it, certain Dems are blaming New Hampshire for past Democratic failures. As one could expect, the Concord Monitor folks don't appreciate this line of thinking and they want these Dems to stop tinkering with tradition. The way they see 2008 shaping up is:

Democrats will be looking hard for someone fresh.

On the Republican side, the first issue is who President Bush will want as a successor.

I would think he'd want Jeb as his successor. Don't you?

If it's not Jeb, I'll wager it'll be Bill Frist.

I think, in the end, New Hampshire will keep their favored spot in the primary, but 2008 will be all about southern strategy, southern strategy, and hmmm, let's see.....southern strategy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining,
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.

And such is the fate of our life's early promise,
So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known;
Each wave that we danced on at morning ebbs from us,
And leaves us, at eve, on the bleak shore alone.

Ne'er tell me of glories, serenely adorning
The close of our day, the calm eve of our night;
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning,
Her clouds and her tears are worth Evening's best light.



Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet, satirist, composer, and musician

Happy St. Patrick's Day

- Jude


Photo: travellerspoint.com

Lex and John Harness the Power of Democratic Journalism

Lex and John Harness the Power
of Democratic Journalism

Saw this at Ed Cone. At Editor and Publisher, Jesse Oxfeld tells Part 2 of the story of The Little Publisher Who Could.
And will.

Part one's here.

Arrivederci Roma

"Arrivederci
Roma"

NYT: Nagourney on John Edwards

NYT: Nagourney on John Edwards

I'm not the only Nagurney talking about John Edwards.
Adam is the Nagourney with the bigger megaphone.
He's expounding on the topic I mentioned a couple days ago, which is the buzz about John Edwards. In an article titled From Rivals to Running Mates to Rivals, John Edwards says that he will decide whether or not he is going to run again, based on how Elizabeth - and how his family - are doing, and where the country is at that time.
I'm glad to hear he's keeping his options open.

Frankly, I like John Kerry very much and I have the utmost respect for him. Yet, I sometimes wonder why he could not carry the last election at a time when G.W. Bush had done such an incredibly bad job in the White House and had alienated so many citizens. I had said, all along, that it was John Kerry's election to win or lose.

Well, he lost. To me, he is still a powerful political figure, as I had said just after he'd lost the election. I thought his campaign was dismal, though, and I don't think John Edwards should be held back or made to suffer for that dismal campaign.

This is an interesting topic, and Adam is stirring up a lot of buzz and tension with his NYT article, I'm sure.
The partisan GOP-hugging rag Newsmax is trying to frame this as a "catfight" in their reference to Nagourney's article. Newsmax, generally more reliable to wipe your tail-end clean than trust to be fair, focuses wrongly on the past instead of the future. It reminds me of what I like about John Edwards - that he'd like to see less partisanship and more "one America for all".

T.J. Reynolds of the Pennsylvania Democrats has said that the most common question he got during the course of the presidential campaign was, 'Where was John Edwards'?

I still like to keep track of where - and who - John Edwards is. The Kerry campaign seemed to have kept him fairly well hidden once he got onboard as VP candidate. The dynamics of the entire campaign seemed to be engineered to keep John Edwards in a limited role and the media certainly didn't give him ample coverage.

The question should be: 'Do we still want to know who John Edwards is?'

I think about how fellow candidate Dennis Kucinich relinquished his delegates in the Iowa caucus to the man he respected and liked - John Edwards.

I have a feeling that John Edwards has a great light yet to shine, and in talking with most moderate Democrats last fall, I heard this:
'I would rather have had John Edwards as the Presidential candidate. I really like him.'

I've heard it too many times to think it is not true. Edwards is quite popular where I live.

And I'm in New York state - home to Senator Clinton.

Cambridge Independent Podcast

Cambridge Independent Podcast

I am really enjoying the music offered on the Cambridge Independent Podcast. They are only in their second month and I wish Mike, Katie Taylor and the entire gang at CIP great success.

Episode #8 has a lovely cover of Oasis' Wonderwall by Mette Sutton. (*second song in). I think the featured group, Badwell Ash (student band- CRC), also has an impressive sound.

Cambridge Independent Podcast is featured this month at MacWorld magazine.

Cambride Uni Indie Soc

More Cambridge music at CUR 1350 - Listen Live

Bushisms at Press Conference

Bushisms at Press Conference

At his press conference today, President Bush said that he "likes the idea of people running for office."
A profound statement? No comment.

He says that most people don't want to vote for the guy who says he wants to "blow up America". They'd rather vote for the guy who'll fix your potholes and put bread on your table.
I would concur with him there...

...which is why I didn't vote for Bush last November.
He seems to be more fond of starting wars and blowing other places up than helping out the common man in his own country.

He said that "people need to understand that we're a compassionate nation".
The way I see it, most folks don't appreciate lip service. People live what they learn by experience, and many people around the world have learned something different, by effect of our policies, than what the info-jangle of the President's lip service would provide.

Wolfensohn to Wolfowitz - The Journey Down

Wolfensohn to Wolfowitz - The Journey Down

I've gotten a couple of e-mails asking me to comment on what I think about the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank.

My first reaction - Dear god, not him?! The chief architect of the highly unpopular elective American war in Iraq?

My second reaction - It figures. Why did I even remotely expect someone truly worthy of the task would be chosen by Bush?

My third reaction - I'll refer you to James D. Wolfensohn's words regarding the World Bank's place in the harmonization of agencies for poverty reduction at a path-breaking meeting which took place in Rome, Italy in 2003. Senior officials of over 20 multilateral and bilateral development organizations and about 50 countries spent two days discussing how they can improve the effectiveness of their work -how they can better fight poverty- by working more closely together.

James D. Wolfensohn:

"..we're getting stuck in these old historic perceptions about each other which are difficult to get through.

And so the first thing is to really say, Listen, guys, there's no way we can do it alone. Let's come together. And that means a big culture change for many of us, and central to that is harmonizing our efforts.

At my first meeting of the UNDP, the U.N. agency, I remember the then leader saying that he thought, after I'd been at the Bank and was saying this for a few months, that this was a very constructive thing, and they looked forward to coordinating the activities of the World Bank.

(said with laughter) I didn't say you could coordinate us. I said we'd cooperate.

And I guess all of us feel the same way, that none of us want to be coordinated. We all want to have our own independent views, but we must come together in a way that shows some consistency, shows some harmony and some sense of each other.

And so the first people to have to change is us, and that I guess is the purpose of this meeting; to try and see how we can change in order to make more effective the work of people like President Mkapa and his colleagues on the ground....

We look forward to contributing, we look forward to learning, and we look forward to coming out of this meeting with a final statement which will be a statement for action, and for cooperation and partnership."

With Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank, those "old historic perceptions" are going to be "perceived" once again. And rightly, to my way of thinking. The man has proven himself to be an ideologue of maximum neoconservative proportions.

Goodbye, perception of "harmony".
Goodbye, perception of "having a sense of one another".
In Wolfowitz's admitted ideological (Likudnik) view of the world, "harmonizing", "cooperation", and "partnership" will be given an entirely new meaning.

Knowing the value that the current adminstration places on wealth over all other values (proven by nearly every policy they promote), I am not encouraged by this appointment at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elsewhere:

Waveflux says: "This administration has gone completely through the looking glass."

Parker Web Developers at the forefront of small-business blogging.

Parker Web Developers

Darryl Parker, the entrepreneur and visionary who had the good sense to hire anonyMoses, and is a friend of Nonny and Iddy, (along with his lovely wife and child) has now decided to launch a foray into the new and exciting world of small-business blogging. Please stop by Parker Web Developers and say hello! And should you need help on your websites, they can probably help ya there too!
Also visit Dave and Darryl's business blog at Trade Street Journal.

News-Record: Future is now for open source journalism

Open Source Journalism:
The Future is Now at
the News-Record

Ed Cone reports that Lex and other online "power-users" are being trained at the News-Record in Greensboro. It's a matter of days - and they're going to learn a whole new publishing system. Well..Lex says "days" could range "from 2 to infinity"...but they're surely getting there. I'm excited for them and wish them the best of luck. You go, Greensboro!

S.U. Celebrates Daniel Patrick Moyniihan Institute

S.U. Celebrates Daniel Patrick Moyniihan Institute

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, served 24 years in the U.S. Senate before retiring early 2001. He taught at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, both before and after serving in the Senate.
(source: Syracuse Post Standard)


source: News 10 photo/story

Yesterday, Moynihan was remembered as a great thinker and a man of vision as Syracuse University held a daylong series of events to formally dedicate its Daniel Patrick Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs after him.
U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton reminisced about Moynihan and praised his legacy. Speakers included Social Security Trustee John Palmer and Washington Post columnist George Will. The day was to end with a tribute dinner hosted by Tim Russert, moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press."
(source: Newsday)

Gene R. Nichol Named William and Mary President

Gene R. Nichol Named William and Mary President



"I am delighted to be asked to serve as president of William and Mary, which I consider a national treasure. I have always believed that it is vital in a democracy that public universities—not just private universities—compete at the highest levels of the American academy, and that this engaged, ennobling, focused experience of a liberal arts education not be reserved for just the private sphere."

- Gene R. Nichol

By unanimous vote, the William and Mary Board of Visitors has named Gene R. Nichol the 26th president of the college. Currently the Dean and Burton Craige Professor of the Law School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Nichol will succeed Timothy J. Sullivan, who has served as president of William and Mary since 1992. The new president will take office on July 1, 2005.

Nichol's views on public higher education can be seen at The Nation (subsc req):

"State legislators must recall that even given budget difficulties we face, an economically polarized democracy can't afford to abandon public higher education. And the academy itself has to remember that professional education is a public good, not merely a private one. After all, educating for privilege is powerfully at odds with who we say we are."

Sept 25, 2003

Lebanon

Lebanon

Scores of Lebanese soldiers and riot police deployed around the U.S. embassy near Beirut on Tuesday ahead of a planned anti-American march called by pro-Syrian student groups.


The people make a stand over the lies of Lebanon

Now all await the United Nations’ detailed report on Hariri’s killing. Who did it? That was the question they were asking yesterday in their tens of thousands. And still Mr Lahoud remains silent.

"Syria, Out!" (Reuters photo)


UN finds evidence of official cover-up in Hariri assassination

What the Lebanese fear most is not Syria’s army but a power vacuum. Assad’s troops are pulling back, but who will replace them in Lebanon?

Inside Lebanon: Marc Cooper interviews Boston University Professor Augustus Richard Norton (AudioBlog) at The Nation.

Augustus Richard Norton also blogs at Speaking Truth to Power. He has recently showcased NPR's Changing Face of Lebanon.



The smartest thing Tom Friedman has said lately:

"If democracy in Lebanon is going to re-emerge in a reasonably stable way, Lebanese democratic forces have to constantly be inviting Hezbollah to join them. After all, Hezbollah represents an important and powerful trend among Lebanon’s Shiites, most of whom are patriots eager to see Lebanon independent and united.

At the same time, though, the Lebanese democrats need to constantly and loudly ask Hezbollah — and get the United Nations and the European Union to constantly and loudly ask Hezbollah — "Why are you waving the picture of the Syrian president? Whose side are you on?"

Bush should stay in the background and keep focused on defusing the Arab-Israeli conflict, which will deprive Hezbollah of all its excuses to remain armed. The impact on Hezbollah will be much more powerful if it’s the Lebanese democrats and the Saudis and the Europeans who ask Hezbollah over and over, "Do you have a real vision for a modern, progressive and pluralistic Lebanon? If so, why are you waving the picture of the Syrian president?"

If Hezbollah puts down Assad’s picture and comes up with an answer to that question, that would be a big deal. If not, it could spell big trouble..."

John Zogby says:

"...a Syrian withdrawal by itself doesn’t solve the Lebanon puzzle. Intense US pressure to implement the other half of 1559 may provoke counter demonstrations that fragile Lebanon may not be able to easily digest.

A cautionary note: before we begin celebrating falling dominos and claiming credit for them, it is important to know where they might fall and what might come after they land.."

Jimmy Massey-The Healing of One Man's Soul

Q: Your feelings changed during the invasion. What was your state of mind before the invasion?

A: I was like every other troop. My president told me they got weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam threatened the free world, that he had all this might and could reach us anywhere. I just bought into the whole thing.



Q: What changed you?

A: The civilian casualties taking place. That was what made the difference. That was when I changed.

Jimmy Massey
The Healing of One Man's Soul

Jimmy Massey is a young man of Irish-American heritage, tall, fit, and straight. His eyes are clear and his voice is strong. A proud son of the mountains of western North Carolina, his twelve years as a Marine are still apparent in his physical appearance.

...How do I show you a man who has found his conscience while, at the same time, is a walking casualty of the Iraq war?

When he tells you his story, you begin to understand that he is wounded in a way that your eyes could never readily detect.

You may have heard some of his story in other reports. He's been telling audiences about his experiences for a while now. I'd decided, out of curiosity, to attend the engagement showcasing Jimmy as the featured speaker, which was sponsored by the Syracuse Peace Council. As I sat in the audience of about forty concerned citizens on a frigid late winter's night at South Presbyterian Church in Syracuse, I asked myself what I could say that was different from the others who have told you about Jimmy.

How do I show you a man who has found his conscience while, at the same time, is a walking casualty of the Iraq war?

He'll tell you what he believes without hesitation. Jimmy believes that the Iraq war has amounted to little more than genocide. That's a strong statement in today's heavily-guarded, right-wing-sentried arena of public debate, and if that statement wouldn't raise a so-called patriotic activist's defensive feathers, I am not sure what would.



Sure enough, a very small gaggle of so-called patriotic geese holding signs with predictable "Benedict Arnold" slogans (four or five individuals) was standing outside the church as the crowd came in to hear what Jimmy actually had to say last Thursday night. Not a one of those "geese" ever flew south down the stairs to actually hear what Jimmy Massey had to say. I suppose they were merely hoping that a TV camera or newspaper photographer would happen by. To my knowledge, that did not happen.


Economic Conscript

Jimmy's father was a truck driver who was shot and killed during a confrontation with the Florida State Police when Jimmy was still in his early teens. Jimmy had been lying in the sleeping cab of the truck at the time it happened. Not long after his father's death, he moved with his mother to a suburb of Houston, Texas. There were times when there was very little money and even less to eat. His mother eventually remarried.

Jimmy joined the Marines when he was down and out. As far as he was concerned, he was little more than an economic conscript. A college education, the promise of the development of the intangible traits associated with being part of the Marine Corps - self-discipline, poise, self-reliance, and honor - all these were reasons that led Jimmy to enlist, much to his mother's chagrin. He'd already learned a lot about self-reliance from his mother, who was a prison-based detox nurse. Many were the nights she would tell her son how she'd been threatened within an inch of her life by an unsettled addict. A hard worker, it must have broken her heart to have to tell her son, when he was 19, that his stepfather had lost his job and that they could no longer promise Jimmy the college education they had wanted to provide for him. Jimmy's dreams of being a dairy farmer, like his grandfather, were dashed when the Biltmore in Asheville, NC went from dairy to winery interests and, unable to come up with the costs to update the farm to code, the farm was lost.

He'd been attending community college, but had to drop out. Jimmy could have languished in New Orleans, where he'd hurled himself after he'd gotten the bad news about his family's economic troubles. A proud young man, he had a not-so-chance meeting with a Marine recruiter at a Fat City gas station ( Jimmy wanted to beg a meal off of him for the trade-off of giving the recruiter a few moments to 'do his thing' ). The recruiter convinced him that the Marines was his best option. He eventually enlisted.


The Dark Side of Recruiting

His disillusionment with the military began while he was acting as a recruiter, where he learned about the darker side of the methods used by the Marines in preying on young people from economically depressed areas.

Jimmy has been quoted as saying, "A lot of the kids joining the military are from the ‘barrios’ and ‘hoods,’ or the poor parts of the Appalachian Mountains. Appalachia has some of the poorest counties in the country—so they’re sweeping them up."

...I thought to myself,This is no disloyal American...
this is a man who is powerfully connected to the hills that he calls his American home and the people who have shared it with him.

One of my strongest recollections about seeing Jimmy last Thursday night was seeing tears well up in his eyes when he spoke about how he believes, in many ways, that as a recruiter for the Marines, he betrayed his own Appalachian people...his own blood. I thought to myself: This is no disloyal American. To the contrary, this is a man who is powerfully connected to the hills that he calls his American home and the people who have shared it with him.

Jimmy will tell you that it’s very hard to break away from the "family" of the Corps and that you have to reach down deep in your soul for answers to questions that began to come up. He began to question the recruiting methods of the Marines. He got very vocal about it, and his life was "made a living hell" for it.

There was one account of a young man named Tim Queen, who Jimmy says that he deeply regrets having recruited under pressure. Tim Queen was a mentally and physically handicapped man from Murphy, NC. Ordered by his gunnery sergeant to recruit Queen, Jimmy talked him into enlisting and going to boot camp, knowing he'd never make it in the Marines. Tim Queen is reported to have said, "I told them I had a twitch but they said not to worry about it. I spent three or four days in boot camp but they decided to kick me out."

...He said that there had been something fraudulent on nearly every one of the enlistment forms he'd ever processed.

Tim shaved his eyebrows in boot camp after dreaming a drill instructor told him to do so. Jimmy was investigated after Tim Queen's family intervened, but was exonerated by both the Marine Corps and a congressional investigation. Queen was discharged for "fraudulent enlistment." Congressman Charles Taylor's [R-NC] press office said they had been "strictly advised not to make any comment on the case.

The memory of an e-mailed photo of Tim Queen with his missing eyebrows replaced by colored-in bandaids over his eyes, covering the heinous thing he'd dreamt that he'd been ordered to do was a memory that clearly raises a feeling of guilt in Jimmy to this day. He is also haunted by all the ways he manipulated recruitment forms to promote the enlistement of many other young men who he knew would otherwise be disqualified. He said that there had been something fraudulent on nearly every one of the enlistment forms he'd ever processed.

In January of 2003, Jimmy found himself in the desert of Kuwait, waiting to move into Iraq.


The Last Straw -
The End of a 12-year Relationship



Safwan

In the southern Iraq village of Safwan, just as U.S. troops had begun their march into Iraq, villagers would bring the 7th Marine Weapons Company food, tea, and flowers. Carefree children would run through fields of land mines, playfully swerving and weaving around them. A Lieutenant named Alba lost his leg in that field one day, and in doing so, gained the dubious honor of being the first casualty of the war.

...In the southern Iraq village of Safwan, just as U.S. troops had begun their march into Iraq, villagers would bring the 7th Marine Weapons Company food, tea, and flowers. Carefree children would run through fields of land mines, playfully swerving and weaving around them.

Jimmy only got shot at once. "Make no mistake," he said, "I saw my life flash before my eyes. Bullets were bouncing off the ground all around me." He was in the forward lines most of the time. His job was to scout out the enemy and provide security for the log train.

There were no actual "firefights", at least not the kind they show on cable news networks. Jimmy was shocked when he came home and saw the media's version of the so-called "firefights". It was more like "spray and pray" - if they took a shot from somewhere, they'd fire off all they could in every direction. (And when you do that, you kill innocent people, and in turn, get a lot more people angry with you.)

The Marines would give it all they had in firepower - and then would proceed to enter into an urban area, "guns-a-blazing" - like cowboys in a Western flick. Civilian cars were often targets hit by Marine air. Jimmy spoke of how, after he'd gotten back to the States, he'd heard about a recording of military pilots laughing while hitting a civilian target and it had struck a chord all too familiar in line with his own experiences.


Al-Rashid

Jimmy soon found himself at the Al-Rashid Military Complex, five miles from Baghdad's airport, where he one day observed a tank on the side of the road. About 200 meters down the road, he could see that there was a public demonstration in process. People were holding up signs and there was a presence of a Muslim cleric. They were chanting. There was no appearance of any weapons. He thought to himself, as long as they are not armed, they can say and do whatever they please. Suddenly, he heard a gunshot and does not know where it came from, but the next thing he knew all hell had broken loose. He picked up his gun and, along with other Marines, began to systematically put the demonstrators in his sights and he picked them off, one by one. He says he killed at least three of them in a matter of moments. He recalls their white jelibahs (traditonial robes) turning to blood-red.

On reconaissance, Jimmy approached the silent group of dead bodies, most of them piled on top of one another as if they had been shielding one another from the gunfire.

There were no weapons. Not one. They had killed a group of demonstrating civilians in cold blood. Most of the people were of the average age of 30, and one was a 6-year old girl.

...He is haunted to this day with the knowledge that he'd taken innocent lives.

In a previous interview, Jimmy had told a reporter that he'd noticed that there were some RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] about 200 metres away from the protestors - and that they might have come from the military compound. The demonstrators had had the ability to fire at them or at the tank, but they didn't. There was one survivor who was hiding behind a column about 150 metres away from them. Jimmy says he pointed at him and waved his weapon to tell him to get away. Half of his foot had been cut off. He went away dragging his foot. The soldeirs were all laughing and cheering.

He is haunted to this day with the knowledge that he'd taken innocent lives.


Checkpoint - The Road to Baghdad Stadium

Shortly after the al-Rashid incident, Jimmy was responsible for manning a checkpoint on the road to Baghdad stadium, where Red Zone meets Green. He knew the rules of engagement and followed them. There were hand signals given to drivers and drivers were expected to know and abide by the signals. If a driver failed to slow down, a bullet was put into the engine block to force the vehicle to stop. Jimmy recalls a red Kia Spectra with four Iraqis approaching the checkpoint.

What happened that day tortures Jimmy's conscience.

Jimmy explained that the Kia Spectra sped toward the checkpoint at about 45mph. They'd fired a warning volley above it but the car kept coming. Then they aimed at the car and fired with full force. The Kia came to a stop right in front of Jimmy, three of the four men fatally wounded and expiring rapidly, the fourth man was unscathed, but covered in blood.

The three fatally wounded men were only barely alive at the time the soldiers removed them from the Kia and placed their bodies alongside the road - without calling a medic to administer morphine for their final human pain. There were no weapons found in the Kia. Not one.

"...Why did you kill my brother?We are not terrorists. We did nothing to you.Why? Why did you kill him?"

The driver approached Jimmy. He was dressed in Western-style clothing. He had a fresh hair-cut and neatly trimmed beard. He asked Jimmy, "Why did you kill my brother? We are not terrorists. We did nothing to you. Why? Why did you kill him?" Jimmy observed the man returning to the brother he'd just lost. He saw him take his dying brother into his arms and rock him with pitiful cries of "Why? Why?"

This is the point where Jimmy says he "lost it.".

In six weeks, Jimmy had been a participant in what he classifies as his company's killing of at least 30 civilians.

Jimmy realized that, when he shot to kill most of the time, he was killing civilians. He says this knowledge is something he lives with every day.

Shortly after the checkpoint incident with the Red Kia, Jimmy was relieved of his command, slipped some Zoloft and Ambien, and was medevaced back to the U.S.

Having seven years to go before retirement with the Marine Corps, he was offered a stateside desk job. Jimmy says he didn't want their money anymore. His deep remorse had ended his days as an economic conscript.

The Marines sent him to a shrink and they tried to label him a conscientious objector. Jimmy asked them in wonder, "Conscientious objector?! Just what are you smoking?" He had been a Marine for 12 years. He had willingly gone to war for his country, no questions asked. He says that he'd supported his president, who'd told him that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the free world.

It was only when he voiced his concern that he no longer felt right about killing innocent civilians that they suddenly wished to label him as a "conscientious objector". Unwilling to accept the label, knowing it could have landed him in jail, Jimmy secured Gary Myers (of My Lai trial fame) as his attorney. Jimmy says the military quickly "changed their tune" when Myers came on board.

Jimmy was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress disorder (PTSD) and was given, by the VA, 100% disability with no retirement benefits.

Jimmy's writing a book, not for fame or fortune, but to simply document what he considers to be war crimes and to keep track of the places in Iraq that he knows had been directly affected by depleted uranium.

In conclusion, this is what I can tell you that may be different than some of the other stories you've read about Jimmy Massey:

Jimmy Massey believes that he sold his soul when he became an economic conscript, and now he wants his soul back. That soul has taken on the heavy-duty shrapnel of guilt and remorse. With every talk he gives to concerned Americans, Jimmy Massey says we help him to heal his soul..
bit by bit..
one day, one night at a time.


_________________________

On Line Reference:

Michele Mandel
Veterans For Peace
Natasha Sulnier
Information Clearinghouse