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| December 9, 2005 |
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The BuzzFlash Mailbag The opinions expressed in the Mailbag are not necessarily those of BuzzFlash. Read the BuzzFlash FAQ for info on submitting to the Mailbag. THIS IS PART 2 OF THE DECEMBER 9, 2005 BUZZFLASH MAILBAG. CLICK HERE FOR PART 1 Subject: Air Marshal Killing Headline from the link (which is already posted on the Buzz), Bush administration won't second-guess air marshals. So how come I keep hearing they have been placed on administrative leave? Passengers Didn't Hear Alpizar Say 'Bomb' (AP/Yahoo) Pam Clifford Subject: Debating Liars and Fools How can you have any meaningful discourse with someone who never lets the truth get in the way of their arguments? Arguing with a liar or a fool is like trying to make a hat out of Jell-O; it will keep you occupied but accomplish nothing. There is no winning an argument with a liar. And no matter how big a lie they tell, there is a certain pinheaded portion of the public who will believe them. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire”, many will say sagely. This is the same bunch who believes that someone must be guilty when arrested because otherwise why would the police arrest them? Don’t try and make sense of the previous sentence it will only give you a headache. Unfortunately that statement was uttered by an acquaintance with deadpan sincerity. She gets one vote just like you do. She told me she always votes Republican because it is a family tradition. (Go take some aspirin, you’ll feel better soon.) The liars scream that anyone who disagrees with the administration hates America. The pinheaded portion of the public can now grab onto that lie. Damn liberal America haters! Do not try and point out that loathing the Bush administration is not the same thing as hating America. This is way beyond pinhead’s comprehension. Just be prepared for a barrage of hate directed at all those damn America hater’s who are undermining the country. This lie has been told so long and so often that a certain segment of the population will never believe anything else. They will go to their grave believing that dissent is hating America. The liars won that round.
Marjorie L. Swanson Subject: Lieberman Sec. Defense The GOP is looking to announce all its bad news on Lieberman's watch as Sec. of Defense to defeat a Dem nominee candidate in 2008, and if it doesn't go that far it is in the early stages of perception management - Lieberman is a piece of tissue paper for the other end of the GOP tactics. It is going to be knife in his back to put a knife in the back of the Dem 2008 presidential candidate. The financial frauds will be quietly pinned to him - betrayals are in the air ... who knows, they may even let another 9/11 happen, and the US is going to pay for Lieberman's blind ambition. Apparently Lieberman does not have a sense of smell.
Regards, Alex Subject: What does George Bush know? Dear BuzzFlash, The question of the day is, “What does George W. Bush know and when did he know it?” The answer is “Nothing, sir, he’s never learned a damned thing in his entire life.” Well, then, you might ask, “How did he get those degrees from Andover, Yale, and Harvard?” And the answer is: “The same way he got the honorary doctorate from LSU. George W. Bush is a dress-up talking Ken doll who can be bought, and so can his accoutrements.” A BuzzFlash Fan Subject: Bush Says Tax Cuts Are Growing the US Economy I believe that all the equipment needed to carry out his wars on terror is what "grows the economy," yet I never, never, never hear this mentioned. Do I have a point? I would appreciate clarification from those who understand and speak with clarity, objectivity, honesty. Pam Clifford Subject: FYI Just thought people might be interested to know the Democrats who helped the Republicans pass house bill 621, aka Tax Relief Extension Reconciliation Act. Welcome to the wonderful world of tax relief for the wealthy. This bill will also cost more (53 billion) than the tax cuts that take from Medicaid, Pell Grants and Food stamps (50 billion). Congressman John Barrow of Georgia’s 12th District Marjorie L. Swanson Subject: Reason for the 25 Minute DeLay in Saddam's Trial Coverage
A chronology of events can be had through the ... link ... if you care to get at the truth, or perhaps you'll continue as the writer continues ...
A BuzzFlash Reader Subject: Rice's "reassurance" about torture We hear that our European allies are reassured by Condi Rice's claims that US personnel (at least) don't "torture" suspects at home or abroad. Because she mentions the UN CAT, and its provisions against degrading treatment, the assumption is made that she is using "torture" as it is defined there. I think this is just inference the administration intends we should make. But remember that the administration has "clarified" the language of the CAT in the "Bybee Memo." Memorandum from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee to The White House Counsel on interrogation methods that do not violate prohibitions against torture. August 1, 2002 (Findlaw)The definition of torture that emerges there is the one Rice actually employs, that is, something is "torture" only if it specifically intends to inflict damage that rises "to the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function." The Language of the CAT, coupled with this idiosyncratic definition of torture, is perfectly consistent with, for example, the daily "F**king of PUCs" reported by TIME and others.
So her assurances are no assurance at all that we are not engaging in, or contracting non-Americans to engage in, the most brutal and barbaric interrogation practices. And when Bush squints into the camera, points an emphatic finger and says "the United States does not torture," remember he's using "torture" in a way that would allow someone to be beaten to death in an interrogation, so long as death was not "specifically intended" as the outcome. Albert Clark, NY Subject: A Predator by Any Other Name Is Still a Predator Yesterday's Mailbag carried letters by readers speaking out about the government going after seniors, and I believe they said disabled also to cut their benefits for old student loans. Admittedly, I have been busy and didn't get a chance to read for myself what they were talking about but I was shocked nonetheless. The day before yesterday, I read a headline that Condoleezza Rice was saying "torture saves lives." correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same woman who was buying shoes as babies drowned in the streets of New Orleans? Now Senate majority leader Bill Frist, who reportedly convinced animal shelters close to where he lived that he would provide loving homes for cats, and took those same cats home to provide vivisection, is quoted as saying, "Just as the Senate did four years ago, we should unite in a bipartisan way to support the Patriot Act to stand up for freedom and against terror." I am nauseated at the thought of millionaire congresspeople who I will NEVER meet passing unjust legislation and laws that will affect ALL of our lives in negative destructive, damaging ways. It literally sickens me to think of these hothead windbags who treat our tax dollars like Disneyland gift certificates for themselves. I don't want to hear ANOTHER Senator try to tell me how STRIPPING me of my CONSTITUTIONAL hard-fought for and hard-won rights will somehow magically protect me and is for my own good. Again, and again, and again those sitting in Congress and the Senate display their contempt for the American People and the world community at large. It is time for another TEA PARTY, and in attempting to correct the many and staggering insults to the American people, I propose that we push for new laws that state no person of wealth and means who has never worked an honest day in their lives EVER be allowed a seat on the floors that pass the laws. The second push should be to get the corporations completely OUT of the lawmaking process. The third push should be to bring the THOUSANDS of jobs back that have been sent overseas with just compensation to those who worked all those years faithfully in the plants that closed and outsourced. I just spoke to a volunteer at KPFK People's Free Speech radio station in Los Angeles. He stated that at age fifty six, he had never seen so many changes on the political and economic landscape. He said people all around him were losing jobs, houses, cars, and everything else they had worked all their lives for. He said he didn't even want to think about what the situation is going to look like ten to twenty years from now. The major push of the people should be to separate congress, politicians in general, and major corporations from all media outlets period. PUSH FOR A TRULY FREE AND INDEPENDENT PRESS. Remember the key to a healthy democracy is an informed (with the truth) and active citizenry. BuzzFlash, as times get darker, and as more unjust violating laws are passed, as the situation worsens and more and more of the nation's vulnerable are literally left out in the cold, I predict that you and the service you are providing will become ever more valuable and desperately needed. If and when enough Americans truly WAKE up and begin the long arduous task of taking back what is rightfully ours and has been criminally strong-armed from us, you, BuzzFlash, may very well go down in history as one of the news sources that contributed mightily to the end of the Bush empire/dictatorship and reign of terror and our collective nightmare in general. Again, I THANK you for being here for all of us and doing what you are doing. Dominie R. Subject: Rebuilding New Orleans I know it might be considered gauche to link to one's own blog, but I feel that it's important to call attention to two petitions that I included in my last post. Opening paragraph: Did Bush Decide to Take His Ball and Go Home? I just received my December issue of Harper's Magazine, yes mail service is still that far behind, at least in the parts of the city that get mail service. In his notebook, Lewis Lapham made the valid point that "attributions of competent criminal intelligence" toward the Bush administration miss the point. His comment that Bush and his friends more closely resemble spoiled trust funds kids or juvenile delinquents than Jesse James or Commodore Vanderbilt was penetrating, but it didn't go far enough; the behavior of the Bush Administration more closely resembles that of a bratty ten year old. Lapham couldn't foresee it, but when the "Category 5 deluge of fraud, graft, corrupt self-dealing, and outright theft," described in his essay, became threatened by serious calls for accountability and open bidding, the administration began to back away from its pledge to do "whatever it takes" to restore the region. In effect, upon being asked to play by the rules, the Republican leadership decided to take its ball and go home. Complete post: http://bayoustjohndavid.blogspot.com/2005/... Petitions: http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations... http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/545855994 Please sign the petitions and, if possible, take the time to write your representatives in congress. Thank you very much, A BuzzFlash Reader Subject: Word for the Day Do you wonder as I do how they decided to name the act of moving someone somewhere else to torture "rendition"? So do I. So, with alacrity, I sprang to my Merriam Webster and discovered "Rendition" ...
Hummph?! (Well, of course ...) Therefore, translated into Bush Bizzarospeak: "Rendition is the act of setting fire with a torch or other inflammatory device an "Evildoer" (tm.) in order to melt the fat off his legs or other extremities enabling the suspect to sing loudly like a canary." Which all goes to prove the point that the Bush administration does NOT torture but rewards certain lucky participants an all-expense-paid vacation to an undisclosed location in order to scientifically render their guest at a weight reduction spa. John F. Walsh Subject: GOP to Launch 'White Flag' Dem Attack Does anyone have any contacts or sway at DNC? please get them to act on this. THIS IS GETTING OUT OF HAND! YOU MUST, MUST, MUST get a TV ad out NOW!!!! Bush replied, "I don't think you can win it." On September 20, 2001, Bush called the war on terrorism "a task that does not end." A few days earlier, Cheney said, "There's not going to be an end date when we're going to say, 'There, it's all over with.''
David Porter Subject: 20 Years and Nothing Has Changed Occasionally it will occur to me as I ponder the state of the world and where it will eventually end up, how much things have changed and how much they remain the same. Stolen elections, senseless war and misery, decimation of populations in theft of their resources, manifest destiny or occupation in the name of freedom, only the calendar changes as we continue to struggle against the tyranny of the elite stealing from the common people. Bruce Cockburn wrote and published the following song in 1985: 20 years later its as true today as it was then. We can only hope and strive for real change to come before the calendar runs out of opportunity to see the world we know we can have.
Thank you, BuzzFlash, for all you do to get the wheel to turn, you are patriots and help shine light in these very dark times. A BuzzFlash Reader Subject: Outsourcing---Stop Blaming Mexico Clinton final Economic Report boasted of over 200 Trade Agreements. NAFTA was not one of biggies. NAFTA was a success until the PESO went South. They could not afford our goods. American firms had been opening plants on the Mexican border for decades. Mexico trade is no huge problem. It is China-India. How many goods do you find in Department Stores "MADE IN MEXICO"? I cannot find ONE. Find ONE. Just one. Trade deficit with Mexico is small when you remove what we pay them for OIL. Stop blaming MEXICO except for illegal immigrants (11 million estimated). My Florsheim shoes are made in INDIA, my shirt in CHINA , my hat in Bangladesh, my car in CANADA. I cannot locate in my home "Made in MEXICO." Clarence Swinney Subject: In This Our Darkest Hour ... We can all light candles, share with our fellow human beings in need, pray and meditate, sing, laugh, and dance! Let's celebrate our love of peace and freedom. It comes from our hearts, and it's who we truly are. Let's light up the world! A BuzzFlash Reader Subject: Julia Scheeres' Book Dear BuzzFlash: I read Ms. Scheeres' book "Jesus Land" after ordering it from your fine web site and I came away admiring the author for her willingness to share so many of her personal feelings and experiences in telling her story. It was appalling to read of how arrogant, abusive and just plain mentally sick her parents were (and presumably still are). This is how religion works: bombard its potential followers with trite cliches and threats to their eternal well-being while advancing usually nefarious agendas, like our moron-in-command George W. Bush. His version of Christianity provides him with all he needs: undying loyalty from gullible followers, and a "divine" excuse for everything he does. It's amazing how many of these fundamentalist wackos are so comfortable playing the role of God's press secretary and speaking on His behalf for any issue they see fit. For the average Christian fundamentalist or evangelist to paint a follower of Islam as a "radical" or an "extremist" is truly a case of throwing stones in glass houses. Only the foresight of men like Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton prevents zealots from forcing their religions down our throats and making it law. They certainly would use martial law to make us "believers" if they could. "Jesus Land" is only a glimmer into what can happen when people looking for spiritual guidance and inspiration end up getting it from the wrong people. I shudder to think of what other abuses out there have occurred and happen every day at the hands of Christian zealots. I hope others will come forward and tell their tales so the world will have to take notice before other lives are lost or ruined in the name of God. Scott Subject: Rice-A-Roni While reading the editorial in The Tufts Daily on Condoleezza Rice's very strange willingness to evidently contradict herself about the torture of prisoners, and at the same time be cement-brained about the obvious, it finally occurred to me that there is a reason why this administration condones and even encourages torture. It's all about using lies to substitute for the truth because it serves the raison d'etre of the Bush administration. In other words, if they can get the preferred confession through torture then they can use it to prop up their own lies. Our confusion comes from being puzzled as to why rational thinking and plain logic don't seem to penetrate into the psyche of the neo cons. I submit that we've been busy looking at the situation from the wrong point of view. The Bush administration tortures specifically to get lies, because it's the only way they can get the answers they want. Simple interrogation only elicits the truth, and the truth only hampers their drive to domination. The following saying applies: Don't confuse them with facts. They've already made up their minds. Judith Subject: Chris Matthews on the Today Show There is a huge difference between an actual terrorist and a suspected/detained terrorist. I would like to point out that in the case of the German we suspected - interrogated - rendered to another country - tortured, and then we let him go, that not everyone our paranoid leaders believe is a terrorist is one. After all, Chris, you have been accused of being a journalist, but we need a lot more evidence to prove you are one. I just loved the way you said if you ask Americans if they want terrorists tortured they will say YES. Ask them if they want a suspected terrorist tortured and you might get questions about what proof you have before you strip them and bring in the dogs? We do not, in this country, and in most countries outside this country believe you are a terrorist until you prove otherwise after being kidnapped off a street in Milan or elsewhere, denied an attorney in the country they take you to, and not even allowed to contact your family. We have to prove you are a terrorist or criminal before we do anything to you. Chris, I suspect that if we snatched you off a street in DC, flew you to an undisclosed location, didn't allow you to notify your family, your bosses, didn't let you have an attorney, stood you naked in 50 degrees, poured water on you every few minutes, you might think that torture, but then you wouldn't believe guilty until proven innocent. Watch dog of democracy, you are not. You are a lapdog and have been for a very long time. Speak up or they assume you agree!!! ABB Karen Webb Subject: What Was in the Kool Aid They Served at the Dinner?
A Buzzer, Incredulous Subject: BUSH'S SECRETARY OF DEFENSE? Dear Joe, The last time I checked, you were registered as a Democrat. I know you are loyal to your country, but what about to your party? Loyalty to country certainly comes before loyalty to party, but you're supporting a bloody, unnecessary, preemptive war against a foreign country and against a man, admittedly a bad man, a murderous dictator, but nevertheless a man who never for one moment posed an imminent threat to the United States or to the American people (unless you count the American oil companies -- many of whom are registered in foreign off-shore tax havens -- as people). Bush may name you Secretary of Defense and you may still believe this war was worth it to get rid of Saddam. You may also paint rosy pictures about what's going on there now and will in the future, but please don't think for a minute that what Bush did in Iraq was either patriotic or necessary for the security of the United States. Bush lied to get us into this war -- and you'd have to put on blinders and declare that Saddam was an evil, cartoon King Kong capable of hurling aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds across a vast ocean -- to think otherwise. Do what you want and what you believe is right for yourself and for America. Just don't expect me or other Americans to believe that what Bush tells us is the truth. If you were disappointed in President Clinton for lying to you and the American people about getting extramarital sexual favors in the Oval Office, why in hell are you supporting the major league lies Bush told you and "we the people" about why we are engaged in this bloody, expensive, and utterly incompetent war on Iraq? You may have your own reasons for wanting Saddam to be deposed (I heard your interview on Imus), but how can you possibly justify the lies that were told and the hundreds of billions of dollars that were spent to achieve that? And if we've already achieved the objective of overthrowing Saddam, why are we staying there? We sure as hell didn't advertise that we were going in for "freedom and democracy". It was all about WMDs and the spurious "9/11" al-Qaeda connection, now proven to be totally false and unfounded. So, why are you still supporting Bush in this disastrous (for America, for Iraq, and for the whole world) war? I know that you are a very moral person and that you were offended that Clinton lied to you (and others) about his sexual peccadillos, but hey, he was elected to be President, not chief Boy Scout. Bush, on the other hand, may be faithful to Laura (God bless him and all the Stepfords), but he has verifiably lied to all of America about his reasons for attacking Iraq and has caused the deaths and grievous injuries to thousands of American soldiers and to tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens as a direct result. So, where's the "moral" scale between Clinton and Bush? Finally, after 4 years of personal defiance against a questionable Supreme Court decision, I took off the Gore-Lieberman sticker on the back window of my classic old Citroen and replaced it with one that read -- NO ONE DIED WHEN CLINTON LIED. Can you honestly say the same thing about George W. Bush? Best, David Subject: Thoughts of the Past Week If Bush 43 is the worst President ever, that would put him beneath James Buchanan. From what I understand, that is a position that both would enjoy. Anagram: Bill O'Reilly = lill lie'r boy I’m always nice to my dog, just in case Moses was dyslexic. If Tom DeLay goes to prison, will he form his own FUDGE-PAC? The only honest news program these days, is on Comedy Central. A citizen was shot and killed because he had a fear of flying. Bush had a fear of flying in the early 70's and no one shot him. Anagram: Ann Coulter: = re: anol c*nt (var) Is it true that after all this time, the President's mother has finally had her fill of Dick? McMerica-1000 Executed and Still Serving John Lennon was right. Scott Eugene Subject: Memories! A by-product of old age (I am 89) is a long memory.The events of the last years remind me of similar events 70 years ago in Germany. After Hitler was elected, the Parliament in Berlin was burnt. The assembly gave Hitler extraordinary powers to combat "the Communist terrorists"! Camps were established, Communists and Socialists were arrested, homosexuals followed, then came the critics of the regime (Christian ministers and catholic students), Jews followed -- and no one in the Concentration Camps (as they were now called) had access to the courts. Lies about Poland ("they nailed Germans on the barn doors") were disseminated by the Goebbels press and justified the war. Now compare that with the events after 9/11! Makes you wonder! We remember the Nuremberg trials 60 years ago. The men were hanged for, among other crimes, "starting a war of aggression" and "torturing people." And the US prosecutor Jackson said this: "The laws first used by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg must be used in the future in all cases of aggressive actions by every nation." There were numerous "wars of aggression" in the last 60 years, among them Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, the British invasion of Egypt in 1956, the US invasions of Grenada, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Iraq ---but who was tried like Germany?----Oh, that long memory! Gustav A. Pohlig Subject: Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Speaks Out For 9/11 Truth! Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008, has gone on the record for 9/11 truth, voicing her lack of confidence in the 9/11 Commission Report and stating that we need to pursue the truth of 9/11 wherever it leads. Here is a summary (not an exact transcript) of her exchange with Kevin Barrett of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth: http://mujca.com. The conversation was broadcast on the Wisconsin Public Radio program "Conversations with Kathleen Dunn" and may be heard at [their web site]. The exchange occurred shortly after Boxer stated that her unhappiness with the 9/11 attacks and the Bush Administration in general had convinced her not to retire as planned, but to stay in the senate and fight. She then declared that the American people have lost confidence in their government, and that this confidence must be somehow restored. Barrett: Senator Boxer, I’d like to thank you and Senator Feingold for hanging in there after 9/11...(Boxer: “You’re welcome.”) Now as you may know, Congressman Kurt Weldon has been screaming from the rooftops that we need a new 9/11 Able Danger investigation focusing on what US intelligence agencies knew about Mohammad Atta and when they knew it. Newsweek and other mainstream publications have written that Mohammad Atta was trained at the Foreign Officer’s school Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. And Daniel Hopsicker’s book Welcome to Terrorland makes it clear that Hoffman Aviation in Venice Florida, where the so-called hijackers trained, was actually a CIA drug import facility—it was a flight school in name only. Now Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer has blown the whistle—he says he and his colleagues in military intelligence identified Atta as a terrorist in 2000, but they were gagged and ordered to “forget they had ever heard of Atta.” Are you among the 245 senators and representatives who have signed Congressman Weldon’s letter demanding a Congressional investigation into what US authorities knew about Atta prior to the 9/11 attacks? Senator Boxer: That isn’t what the 9/11 Commission Report said—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I haven’t seen Congressman Weldon’s letter yet, but...we need to pursue the truth about 9/11 wherever it leads. The truth should be the only priority. And we need the truth. My main focus now, though, is to end the war in Iraq. This exchange between a Muslim scholar and 9/11 activist and a Jewish senator exemplifies the mission of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth: Building bridges, in fearless pursuit of truth, in order to end the crusade-jihad instigated by the 9/11 attacks. Contrary to the belief of some Muslims and others that there is a “Jewish conspiracy” to suppress the truth of 9/11, it is a clear and unmistakable fact that three Jewish Senators—Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, and the late Paul Wellstone—have done more to defend the US Constitution, and to defend Muslims against the unconstitutional abuses that have been heaped upon them since 9/11, than most of their non-Jewish colleagues. And now Senator Boxer has bravely become the second senator, after Paul Wellstone, to speak out for 9/11 truth. Please let Senator Boxer know that you support her principled position on this gravely urgent matter. Email: http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm Kevin Barrett |
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