October 16, 2002

The BuzzFlash Mailbag

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The BuzzFlash Mailbag is updated on an ongoing basis, with the newest material and comments on top. Again, we can only post a small percentage of what is sent to us. The opinions expressed in the Mailbag are the not necessarily those of BuzzFlash. Thanks again for your email and your patience.

Dear BuzzFlash,

I sent emails to my Senators, Clinton & Schumer, to express my disappointment at their votes for Bush's eternal war. I had contacted them before the vote, and the follow-up was just to make them understand that far from being a fringe sentiment, the anti-war movement is supported by every New York voter I know.

Also, I sent this correction to my favorite magazine, "The New Yorker":

Knowing how careful your magazine is with the facts, I thought I'd take a minute to point out an error in William Finnegan's profile of Otto Reich ("Castro's Shadow"). He writes "After the frantically close election that George W. Bush had just won in Florida..." But many Americans still remember that Bush won in the Supreme Court, not in Florida. Despite the "Jeb Crow" disenfranchisement of over 50,000 eligible (and presumably Democratic) voters, Gore still got more votes by any legal standard. If Finnegan had not covered up that fact, he would have had the perfect set-up for one administration official's revealing response when Chavez resumed power: "He was democratically elected. Legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters, however."

Peace,

Judson

Subj: Latest GOP Hijinks in Tennessee

Hey Buzzers!

More election shenanigans in the great state of Tennessee.

This time, we have our own Watergate scandal as GOP spies stole 2 computers from the campaign office of Phil Bredesen, the Dem candidate for governor. This was reported in today's "Tennessean" so please post this link on BuzzFlash.

http://tennessean.com/government/archives
/02/10/23804779.shtml?Element_ID=23804779

And just a reminder, back on Oct. 3, the state GOP chair, who is also an elected official, sent fraudulent voter registration forms with Bush's picture and a "message" on them to people (not just Republicans) who haven't voted in a midterm in several years. The state election commission admonished the GOP, but allowed the fraudulent voter registration forms.

http://www.tennessean.com/government/archives/
02/10/23221739.shtml?Element_ID=23221739

And of course, there are cases pending in state court regarding black voters being disenfranchised in the Memphis area on Election eve, 2000, that cost Al Gore his home state.

New state motto: "Tennessee -- We're no Florida, but we're givin' it our bestest!"

Mark Naccarato
Nashville, Tennessee

Subj: Ari Fleischer

Dear BuzzFlash,

When asked about implementing new laws to prevent shootings such as the sniper attacks of recent weeks, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said "New laws don't stop people like this. What we must do is ... enforce the laws we have so that people who commit crimes, especially crimes with guns, will be fully prosecuted and serve time."

Hmm... it appears that his faith in preemptive action against criminals is not as strong as he originally thought.

Robert Hanson

Subj: Don't Give Up

My dear fellow BuzzFlash readers,

Like all of you, I was total despair after last week's horrendous vote for the WAR, DEATH and DESTRUCTION Resolution. That one of California's Senators, Dianne Feinstein, voted FOR the resolution, (despite stating on national TV that she had heard from thousands of constituents who were AGAINST the resolution) was a betrayal that I felt deeply and personally. It hit me like a ton of bricks that although she DID hear our voices of protest, she CHOSE not to LISTEN. She had her own agenda, and the millions of us Californians who were counting on her were not nearly as important as whatever bargain with the devil she made. So be it. This is HER failure, not ours, and believe me, if I know the Bay Area community, she will suffer a devastating backlash for her vote. Maybe not now, but someday, when she asks us to give her our trust so she can be re-elected, we will have found someone better to replace her.

But we can't let Senators like her DEFEAT OUR DEMOCRACY. We must focus on those who DID represent us, who DO continue to fight against the raging war machine that the Dictator has let loose. We must show them our continued support, and spur them on to keep speaking out and to REPRESENT ALL of us, not just their constituents. Because this war will effect the entire COUNTRY, and WE, the PEOPLE, make up this Democracy. And WE the PEOPLE can still prevent this war.

Just look at how, in a few short weeks, sites like BuzzFlash and ANSWER and Democracy.com and all the others helped to gather thousands of us together in peaceful protest. Imagine the millions of worried, frightened and angry individuals like you and me, sitting, alone at their computers, reading the internet call to fight for our Democracy, and then sending off an email or picking up the phone to call their Congressperson or Senator. WE did that. We did our part, WE MADE A BIG NOISE in a short time....and they know we are here. We can't give up now. We have more work to do.

We have to fight THEM even harder. And by THEM, I mean the illegal administration that has consistently tried to demoralize us since the Dictator's selection, and the media who have abandoned Truth and the religious fanatics in our own country who fan the flames of hatred. WE must MAKE THEM LISTEN TO US, and we can only do that in large numbers. We can't afford to lose a single person in this fight. THEY have tried to subjugate us to the point that we want to GIVE UP. But we CAN NOT DO THAT.

Please....even if your Senator voted for war, if he or she is a Democrat, hold your nose and vote for them this November. (Think of it this way: Bill Simon or Gray Davis. Now Choose. You would just HAVE to choose Davis. No other choice, as unpleasant as that is.) The alternative is that the Grand Hypocrisy party will gain control of everything and the evildoers (Bush, Cheney, et al) will destroy our very planet.

It lifts me up and gives me hope to share the BuzzFlash space with all of you; you are all so brilliant, articulate, witty and perceptive. THE DEMOCRATS NEED US!! Don't give in to the despair....I did, and look what happened next: Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize!!! It felt like WE had won it!! So...good things do happen. All is not lost.

OK, there ends my cheerleading session. March for Peace on October 26 or any other time you can, and keep up the faith....DON'T GIVE UP, and of course, VOTE ON NOVEMBER 5.

elaine from Petaluma
A Proud Member of the BuzzFlash Democratic Peace Force

PS Judith Foster from Berkeley, your letters are so inspiring. Thank you!

Subj: What in the f***K?

Dear BuzzFlash,

Has Jerry Falwell went off the deep end with this letter about training court attorneys?

Oh geez, I have heard it all from these freaks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE NEED GORE IN 04'

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subj: Hold your head up high and vote for the Democrats!!

Dear Fellow BuzzFlash readers,

Of course many of them don't deserve it, but it is imperative that we show up at the voting booth and vote for the Democrats on November 5th! If we do not, I fear that we will be playing straight into the hands of GW Bush. Dividing the Democrats over this vote on Iraq may very well have been his devious intentions all along! Funny, GW Bush hasn't said a word about Iraq since the vote! Please don't let him get away with it!

Just the thought of a Repuglican controlled Senate sends chills down my spine! We are only one vote away from the packing of our courts, including the already extreme Supreme Court, with Right Wing Nut justices! And then watch out! Everything from Roe VS Wade to the separation of church and state will be turned on its nose!

And war, all there will be is war! Repuglican war and GW Bush's permanent tax cut along with his permanent bear market! No jobs, no money, no health care, no education, just God in schools and a Constitutional ban on abortion!

I understand everyone's anger at the Democrats, I am angry too! But I am MORE angry with the Repuglicans! And after about a second of thinking about Repuglicans in control of all three branches of MY government, I got over it--fast!

Please, go to the voting booth on November 5th, hold your head up high, stick your nose in the air and vote for the Democrats! If you can't do it for yourself, do it for the innocent people who will die in GW Bush's war or for our children in the military! We CAN stop Bush!

VOTE DEMOCRATIC! THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN!

Nancy Lynn Nagy (TN)

Subj: Eisenhower: "humanity hanging on a cross of iron"

Hi BuzzFlash:

The letter from Alan Balch with the warning from Dwight D. Eisenhower reminded me of another, wonderfully descriptive, quote of his from 1953.

"Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold, and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children....This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

Connie

Subj: The Once and Future Cause

Dear Buzz,

Having come of age in the '60's, I've occasionally sensed a kind of wistfulness in people who are members of Generation X, Y and Z, when I speak of the adventure, camaraderie and sense of purpose felt by the Anti-Vietnam War protesters of that era.

And while there are those who still obstinately cling to a certainty that we were doing what had to be done to prevent the spread of godless communism, most people would say that the cultural aftershocks of that war to America, as well as the near devastation of the Vietnamese land and its people, were unnecessary and preventable. But a few men near the top of power from the Eisenhower through Kennedy then Johnson and finally Nixon Administrations felt they knew what was best for the nation and the world.

Today we have an installed Presidency which harbors these same kind of men and women. There is an additional factor in place, however. God has been added to the argument, just as God has been added to virtually every social and political question before government today. In our foreign policy, the concept of Manifest Destiny has been revised for the 21st Century.

And while this no doubt gives comfort to the religious conservatives who believe deeply that God must be a part of everyday life, it frankly scares the Bejeezus out of me!

How far must we look to find the fatal flaw in this idea? Perhaps the brief but turbulent history of the Taliban in Afghanistan should be considered. God was certainly a part of Afghani everyday life... to the detriment of anyone who didn't believe 100% in the Taliban's fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran.

But on the other hand, something seems to have awoken that has been slumbering in America for thirty years now.. The proximity of war has given voice to an increasing number of people who refuse to blindly or cynically respond in favor of Bush's call to arms.

And so, in the San Francisco Bay Area, that bastion of leftists, iconoclasts and malcontents, the spirit of protest has taken hold. Their immediate purpose is to let America know that they will not be silent for any kind of first-strike, unilateral action against Iraq. But the larger purpose, I would argue, is to begin to change the consciousness of America.

The effect a mass-movement has on Americans is subtle yet powerful. We saw that in the 60's. Since it's apparent that a great many people have no deeply held beliefs about how our country should behave, many of these people will slide toward the most "popular". Conservatism today is popular...and to call oneself conservative is no bold move. Liberalism was maligned and castrated when Reagan was elected because by then the energy of the antiwar movement had dissipated and many other important progressive causes just didn't (and still don't) have the emotional impact that the Vietnam War did. If anything, progressive causes have the opposite affect; that of inflaming the basest prejudices and behaviors of mankind.

But sometimes unforeseen and unexpected things happen in this world. Don't be surprised if President Cowpoke and his posse of misfits and sociopaths spark a new consciousness throughout the world that forces their desperately wrong-minded ideas to be relegated to that dark place in our collective psyches that is now reserved for aberrations like slavery and human sacrifice!

Michael LaMartina
http://mauiloa.blogspot.com

Subj: Belafonte

Dear Buzz,

I overcame my considerable disdain for Larry King last night to watch his interview with Harry Belafonte, and it was worth every second of it.

I felt as if Mr. Belafonte took the words right out of my mouth and spoke for millions of Americans last night. He explained his views so well that hopefully those viewers who have been asleep for the last two years will finally wake up. Mr. Belafonte told the world that the emperor has no clothes! He even used the word "bully" which I haven't seen anyone outside of the internet sites like BuzzFlash and the mailbaggers use.

He unequivocally took Colin Powell and Condi Rice to task, not for being black, but for selling out to the Administration. As far as I'm concerned he can say the same thing about most of Congress and the Senate no matter what race or gender they are.

There is a spiritual/philosophical saying that says you can't serve two masters at once. All of us must eventually choose which master we will serve. I believe Harry Belafonte is saying exactly that.

So who says we don't have any heroes left? Last night I heard words come out of one man's mouth that were the unvarnished truth. Words that are the stark, totally honest, accurate, heartfelt truth. It made me almost weep in gratitude.

Judith Foster,
Berkeley

Subj: Those who don't learn from history...

...are doomed to repeat it.

The ultra-conservative John Birch Society, about as far from liberal as you can get and still be on this planet, had this to say in a piece entitled "Bush's 'Enabling Act,'" by William Norman Grigg, Senior Editor of the Birch-affiliated The New American magazine:

"On March 23, 1933, about two months after terrorists committed an arson attack against the German Reichstag Building, the German Parliament passed a measure bearing the innocuous title 'Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich.' Its five brief paragraphs took the power of legislation, including control of the Reich budget, approval of treaties with foreign states and the initiating of constitutional amendments, away from Parliament and handed it over to the Reich cabinet for a period of four years,' wrote historian William Shirer in his study 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.' While the Enabling Act explicitly permitted the Reich cabinet to enact laws that 'might deviate from the constitution,' it also specified that the powers of Parliament would be protected.

"...Shocking as it may seem, the powers given to President Bush by Congress last Fall are even more expansive than those Hitler received through the Enabling Act. The September 14th [2001] joint resolution supposedly authorized the president to 'use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.' This open-ended resolution has already been used to justify the military campaign in Afghanistan, as well as the administration's announced policy of 'preemptive' war, under which the president claims the right to attack any nation he designates an enemy in the war on terrorism."

To read the full article, go to:

http://www.jbs.org/reviewonline/020825_transcript.htm

Steve Warren
San Marcos TX

[BuzzFlash Note: We tried to use the link (which matches the naming protocol for current transcripts), but the page appears to have been removed. However, thanks to Google caching technology, you can read it here or in this PDF of the Google page.]

Subj: Drudge Report Headline About Wellstone Is FALSE

Dear BuzzFlash,

On the Drudge Report today is this headline:

"Socialists Sending People to MN to illegally vote for Wellstone..."

But the item it refers to says this: http://www.dsausa.org/news/minnesota.html

"DSA's national electoral project this year is the Minnesota Senate Election. Together with YDS, DSA's Youth Section, we are mobilizing to bring young people to Minnesota. Minnesota is one of the few states that allow same day voter registration. We will therefore focus our energy on registering young Minnesotans."

In other words, it's about VOTER REGISTRATION, not about illegal voting.

A BuzzFlash Reader