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November 12, 2003 |
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Re: Draft Article dear maureen, sam here. first keep up the good work. i love reading your comments. i would like to follow up on your article today about the reinstatement of the draft possibility. i was drafted 31 years ago and remained a draftee throughout my 2 year tour. i was lucky in the cards and did not have to go to nam. anyway, last week i found a site from the defense department that was requesting people to volunteer to serve on the selective service board in your area. i filled out the paper work on the site and received a packets that was very interesting. the site is:http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/sss092203.html when i received the packet, i wrote about it on democrat.com and urged anyone interested to write and receive the same. i have also written a few newspaper to encourage others to do the same. the purpose was to allow the young men and women who are drafted to have a review board that might allow them to receive deferments if they wish. if they wanted to serve they could but they could use the exemptions if they asked for a review from the board members. in short, i envision deferment zones in the country that could help these people. i was not afforded a chance to get a deferment as i was drafted in mississippi and the board members just laughed when i tried to get deferred. some of the interesting areas in the packet is that once reinstated, the draft will be able to call up 100,000 young men and women in 30 days. another 100,000 could be called up in the next thirty days and so on and so on. there are deferments such as school deferments (this is for the rich who can afford it), two for ministers (gotta keep the kids thinking they are dying for a reason, god and country), and conscientious objections (they want to review this one). anyway, on friday a strange thing happened. the site was removed and the phones at the selective service systems were shut down. i have tried to call the one in denver as well as arlington and both have been put out of order. i suspect because of sites like BuzzFlash and others that advertised the site resulted in a barrage of requests and the defense department shut it off. this may not be the reason but i am sure that the defense would not tell us the truth anyway. keep up the good work and hopefully we'll survive this bush also. peace, just sam rushing Subj: Join the Draft Board! Re: "Would a Second Bush Term Mean a Return to Conscription?" by Maureen Farrell Obviously we need to get Bush out and avoid a resumption of the draft. However, as the article mentioned, the government is already looking to recruit draft board members. You can join the draft board even if you are against the draft! Draft boards are made up of volunteers from the local community. Local draft boards have some power to make certain decisions on deferments and conscientious objectors. Also, as a draft board member, you can refer young people to any organizations that are trying to help those who would resist serving in any unjust and counter-productive military actions. Don't leave this important job to right-wing chickenhawks! Thank you, Maureen Farrell, and BuzzFlash for all of your great articles! Joseph Luna Subj: "Rancid Meat" Dear BuzzFlash: As a USAF vet (peacetime), I salute Sean Lewis for his brilliant essay, "Veterans Day 2003 and the Rancid Meat in the White House" -- especially after reading the below quote in a forum thread:
Puke. When someone is this dumb, there's no hope. In fact, that's become my own litmus test for determining just how intelligent someone is. When I hear someone thanking God for Bush, it's a foregone conclusion they are just dumb beyond the pale. Or a Fox News viewer -- oh, but that's the same thing, isn't it? Mr. Lewis's essay is the best and most succinct listing of Bush's egregious offenses against our military men, women and families I've ever seen. I also appreciate his expressing his thoughts in a voice which, though passionate, is not over-emotional, so that it serves as an even more powerful indictment of this "rancid", maniacal administration. To Mr. Lewis's observation, "This President is the only President to have never attended the funeral of a fallen soldier, nor personally met with the family to provide comfort and encouragement.," I would like to add this haiku I composed on the subject:
Twenty-one gun salute to you, Sean Lewis! (Run for office, please!) Sincerely, Bri Held Subj: Get[ting] pretty tough The New York Times reports that "The most important message is that we're going to get pretty tough," said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. Ah, yes..."massive retaliation"...where have I heard that before? Seems to me it didn't work so well. Mike Subj: Jessica Lynch I am using the "Creepy Crawly" background [BuzzFlash Note: Viewable in original email only.] because that is what is happening now to Jessica Lynch. Simply because she is not kowtowing to the Bushie Admin. The Creepy Crawlers are at it, this time on Jessica. Today is an off day from work and while in the car, my husband had Rupert's Clear Channel station on - 700 AM here in Cincinnati, OH. Lo and behold, good ole repuglican Willie Cunningham was on. Boy, o, Boy are they ripping Jessica alive. I hope she is strong because the right wingnuts are out to get her. They continue to harp on the photos of her being "whatever she is being." Supposedly without her clothes on. Big deal!! At least she is honest. Also, on 60 minutes, it was refreshing to see the truth about the young man who Jessica said was the real hero. Not a mention of his name coming from the Bushie Admin. group. Thanks to BuzzFlash, the truth is told. Sincerely, Dolores Dryden BuzzFlash, Here's a link to the interview with Powell. Here's Al Kamen's column from the Washington Post: [LINK] This is what Kamen wrote:
Really? Some folks across the river may conclude that explains a lot. A BuzzFlash Reader Subj: Soros! Ah, sweet irony! Another prime example of Republican hypocrisy. In their minds, it was (and still is) perfectly all right for a billionaire (the reclusive Richard Mellon Scaife) to fund their extreme right wing agenda. But now that another billionaire in the person of George Soros has stepped up to give the Democrats a much-needed shot in the arm, they are suddenly quite alarmed and will "be watching him very closely." I say watch all you want--he's doing nothing illegal, and if you don't like it, then stop the flow of money on your side too! I'll be they are getting really nervous. I'm going to make another contribution to MoveOn just to imagine Karl Rove sweating a little. David Schlomer Subj: Powell Says They're All on Dope posted by sheeptramp [LINK]
A BuzzFlash Reader Subj: Maureen Farrell Interesting op ed on the draft. However you've forgotten one very easy out, an out that will be taken by thousands of potential draftees. "Hey Mr. Recruiter you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell and I'm gay!" Back in the Viet Nam era guys used all sorts of strategies to get 4F status. I even knew a guy who cut off his "trigger" finger to avoid the draft! However, due to the stigma of homosexuality very few guys would risk having anyone think they were queer, so the gay option was rarely used. Thanks to these enlightened times, especially in the teen to 20 year olds, gayness isn't such a big deal. This potential for draft evasion is one of the reasons I could never get too excited about forcing the military to allow gays in uniform. It's a greater good issue. James Subj: OFFICERS, BUT NO GENTLEMEN! They line up like sheep to do the administration’s bidding. "Generals" Schwarzkopf, Shelton, Franks, and some other idiot whose name I can’t remember slice and dice Gen. Wesley Clark every chance they get and they come off as exactly what they are: errand boys for the White House and jealous as hell to boot. Would you want your child to serve in harm’s way under such nasty, catty old gossips? I’ve never heard of high ranking officers behaving like this in public and it just goes to show the extent of the degeneration of this country under this malevolent regime. It goes to show one other thing, too. Bush is scared to death of Gen. Clark and that's good enough for me. Remember, not one American casualty in Bosnia or Kosovo. It should make all of us think long and hard. I’ve heard Gen. Clark’s speeches on some of his positions and the way he handles these continuous juvenile attacks. We desperately need a "cerebral" president to get us out of this mess who can appeal across the board. I no longer listen to anything anybody connected with Washington says (especially the media). Common sense tells me that we would be lucky to get Gen. Clark. SOS A Response from the NY Times: Re: Correction needed on today's story on A18 Dear Mr. Whatley: I guess "take a drink" was not sufficiently precise, but it seems clear to me that Sanger was referring to alcohol. He didn't mean to say, obviously, that President Bush never consumes liquids at these occasions, only that he avoids alcohol. I think that is what "take a drink" means in this context. When you say of someone, "does he drink?," I think the unspoken word is (alcohol). In any case, thanks for writing and for holding us to a high standard. Best, Bill Borders, senior editor. At 10:40 AM 11/11/03, you wrote:
Subj: Just wondering Dear buzz, I was just reading in US New and World Report that Bush gets testy when he does not get to exercise. Then they described an apparatus that allowed him to "run" in a pool. This is the 'tough guy' who says 'we won't back down' and 'bring it on'!!!!! Another thought, is the high unemployment and hard times for the ordinary guy been planned to keep us poor enough so that we cannot donate to the democratic candidates?? Is that why the republicans are so against the lower income people?? A BuzzFlash Reader BuzzFlash, So, surrounded by a bunch of men whose lives and health will never be put at risk by pregnancy, Bush signs the new "partial-birth abortion" legislation, saying: "Every person, however frail or vulnerable, has a place and a purpose in this world. Every person has a special dignity. This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government, because it does not come from government, it comes from the Creator of life." (copied and pasted straight from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031105-1.html) Just wondering how that squares with all those Texas death row inmates whose lives were snuffed out on Bush's watch? Why do I even ask? A BuzzFlash Reader Subj: Bait & Switch - Step 1 & Step 2 WHY IS THIS STORY BEING RECYCLED? ANSWER: Classic propaganda technique - use the same or similar headlines but change the story each time, putting more emphasis on where you're headed to get the public adjusted to accept the new reality - in this case, the looming Draft. It works because people mostly just read the headlines and skim a paragraph or two. So when the "story" seems to change it still has a familiar ring, and the public is more compliant. Or so the Bush Administration hopes.
A BuzzFlash Reader Subj: Changing Voting Pattern Dear buzz, the wealthy republican ruling class has been able to fool a large number of middle and upper middle class working stiffs into believing its the unemployed, homeless and "lazy poor" that their tax money is going to, and that is why the middle and upper middle class aren't rich ...like they are. They want to keep you focused on the poor, while these corp. thieves make their money [robbing the corporations, you work for, of all it profits]. They write themselves huge bonuses from the profits YOU created. Of course they have no problem laying you off in order to justify their bonuses. THEY ARE THE REAL HARD WORKERS, THE BEST MINDS IN AMERICA THEY DESERVE THE LIONS SHARE OF THE PROFITS! after all they are BETTER than you are, if you were as good, YOU WOULD BE RICH!!!!! this is the only way they can get millions of wannabes to vote against their own best interest. Until the republican base wakes up, they will continue to empower these crooks and lose along with the rest of Americans. this party only works for 3%, the rest of the republican voters are premiere FOOLS. awake in Seattle Subj: Hold the Vitriol Regarding Kristof's NY Times column (at: LINK) chastising angry Liberals (excerpted below): Kristof's reasoning falls on it's own petard. He tells of a time, just one election ago, when the Conservatives were screaming "sociopath" [he forgot "scumbag", as DeLay so quaintly put it] at Clinton. And when Liberals were a civil group. He then turns on his own example, one in which, let's remember, the Republicans/Conservatives took over the Senate, gained seats in the House and took control of the White House. By using the fact that Conservatives, while being "uncivil", won more power, he can't then claim that if Liberals were to do the same they'd therefore lose. (Doesn't the success of right-wing radio also point to the flaw in Kristof's attempt to order Liberals into quiet "time out.") I'm not advocating that Liberal leaders emulate DeLay and his ilk. But I'm getting a little tired of the DLC and like minded columnists' telling me that I shouldn't be righteously angry at the Supreme Court coup that put the loser of the last election into the Presidency. I don't need the lower-case neo-conservative Dems telling me that 1) Howard Dean is a Liberal and 2) he's too far left for any Democrat to support. Bull! Howard Dean is a centrist, as Dean himself admits. He's not "too Liberal", he's just not part of the DLC controlled stable of hobbled ponies, like Kerry, Gephardt and, the Leader of the Dem Neo-Con laundromat, Lieberman. There are some Liberal/Progressives running for the Dem nomination, but the Media and the Dem establishment ignore them. But they realize that if the media needs "balance", there must be a "Liberal voice" present on the pundit shows, in order for there to be an excuse to let Coulter et al to spew their vitriolic blabbage. So, they've pushed the "Liberal" label on a candidate who decries it, and then they can have a Dean supporter play the dead weight on the other side of a Coulter see-saw. Kristof is just another voice telling Dems how to de-energize any base support they still have. If he succeeds, the Dems will again be whining when the Green party [or some other third party] garners the votes the Dems tossed away. If the actions of the Bush admin. don't get Democrat's blood boiling, from the invasion of Iraq, the abuse of our veterans, the assault on civil liberties, the decimation of environmental protections, the loss of long time international allies and the total ruin of the booming economy they inherited, then the Dems don't deserve election. Maybe, by 2008, the DLC will have ensured that the Dems will have EARNED the right to be listed as the third party. Jack Ballinger Sent to William Safire: Subj: Some Thoughts on "Never Love a Stranger" Dear Nattering Nabob of Neanderthalism, As a supporter of Howard Dean, I read your column with interest ("Never Love a Stranger" by William Safire, http://nytimes.com/2003/11/12/opinion/12SAFI.html). One never likes to hear one's candidate of choice taken apart by an acerbic and incisive wordsmith of the opposition, but fortunately I had nothing to worry about. First, you recycle the canard that Dean is "this generation's McGovern." George McGovern is one of my heroes, in war (he successfully flew many bombing missions during World War II, while your boy spent the Vietnam War getting bombed in frat houses in New Haven) and in peace, where he has been a courageous and principled liberal. Howard Dean, for all his virtues, is more of a centrist than McGovern. I wish he WERE more like McGovern, but I'm willing to accept half a loaf. I'm sure you don't need me to explain this, and that you're simply sticking to Republican Party talking points. You claim to be an expert on language, yet you use the word "liberation" to describe our illegal, unprovoked, un-Constitutional and fraudulently premised war against Iraq, which included, but was not limited to, blowing the place up, killing thousands of its citizens, and salting the landscape with depleted uranium. Some liberation. Did you have your tongue in cheek when you said it was "embarrassing" to denounce Bush's economic policy or that "prosperity continues to make its comeback"? Bush's economic policies are the domestic equivalent of what he's done to Iraq, which is to say, flattening the place. But you get excited because of a one-quarter hiccup which starts to move us back toward the prosperity this country enjoyed under Bill Clinton. Getting back to Howard Dean, you completely give the game away in your final paragraph: You hope the Democrats will nominate an old warhorse like Kerry or Gephardt, or the guy in the uniform. But if you want to see a Democratic debacle, shouldn't you implore the Gods to nominate Dean? But you don't, because you don't want to see another failed one-term Bush presidency. And mark my words, pal, if Dean is nominated, that's what you'll be mourning next November (unless "Tony the Fixer" Scalia has something to say about it, of course.) Jon Krampner Subj: The Names The Still Won't Mention I just opened the daily update from BuzzFlash and clicked on the Jimmy Breslin article. As I read, I couldn't hold back the tears for all the lives that are again being thrown away by greedy bastards who wrap themselves in faux patriotism and rake in the money and power. I served in southeast Asia during the Vietnam 'conflict' and when I read that article, it all came back. I wonder how many years and how many tears before there's a black wall for them. Perhaps we need to set up a memorial now in a very public place and put the name and picture of each of these victims out front and center, perhaps along with a description of how and where they died, and photos of the husbands and wives, mothers and fathers and children left behind. Let people bring flowers and mementoes and leave them to honor those whom our government is refusing to honor. And, maybe we should have a ceremony to add each name. Perhaps, just perhaps, doing so will serve to honor those who die - be it from a bullet wound or a blown out tire - and help to bring about an earlier end to this madness. If anyone had an idea of how to do this, I'll be glad to help. By the way, doesn't it seem that the troops in Iraq are dealing with a lot more malfunctioning and defective equipment that we did in SEA? Regards, Jeri Hammond Subj: Jessica Lynch Read your article on Ms Lynch and just heard on msnbc they had a story about here and its not about her Book or the the tv movie it was about risque photos of her guess her telling the truth about what really went on there going to slime her now this is disgusting keep up the fight. David McCamis BuzzFlash, There is something on the ny times site says bush and co are ready to map iraq strategy - a year after war started, and don't believe for a moment that will work any better than all the rest of the crap they did. One thing about the neo cons, they are so arrogant they just don't get that their intellectual visions have nothing to do with real people and real situations. The Italians are going to have a fit, before the war a million marched against it, now that 22 of their boys died in one day, Berlusconi is going to find himself on the way to the door. A BuzzFlash Reader Subj: "The Great Post-9/11 Divide" Dear Buzz, I was reading this very interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor, "The Great Post-9/11 Divide," which I think I got to just by googling: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1111/dailyUpdate.html It had a link to a very interesting series of articles in the Economist online about the "two nations"--the great cultural divide between the red states and the blue states--that now make up the United States: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=2172130 There are a lot of related articles that you can reach by scrolling down and clicking on any one of them in the list to the right:
These articles confirm many of my own observations about the great cultural divide in this country. Personally, I find it alarming that there is a very large sector of the population that is anti-intellectual, and unsure of the benefits of science and reason. When I was younger, I believed implicitly in the liberal idea of progress. Although I have not yet completely lost hope, I'm not as optimistic as I used to be. As a nation, we are not going to be able to compete in the world if we go backwards intellectually. The United States used to be so vigorous intellectually, precisely because there was a great deal of intellectual freedom most of the time. A BuzzFlash Reader |
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