I Don't Like Where This is Going

By: Ryan Oddey

"Those who give up essential liberty, to preserve a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." These words were spoken by Benjamin Franklin prior to the Revolutionary War Although this statement was first uttered centuries ago, the message still stands true. The sentiment voiced by Franklin is something we should all remember when we take a look at the actions and nominations of President George W. Bush.

Mr. Bush has taken actions that may appear to preserve America?s safety through his appointments of hardliners to diplomatic positions, but this sense of security will not last as our nation goes down a long and lonely road towards isolationism. Although President Bush has claimed to be a uniter, and not a
divider, the truth is that he is the latter.

George W. Bush has divided this nation, and his recent nominations will divide the United States of America from the rest of the world. Bush is not a diplomat, Bush is not a great
leader; he is a radical right revolutionary who would rather lay the groundwork for a Republican dynasty within America instead of
rebuilding strong international ties in the hopes of a better tomorrow. The President says he is making America safer, but in the end the long term outlook of Bush international policy will raise hostility towards the United States.

The key evidence that points towards Bush?s position as a radical right revolutionary. as well as his international intentions, was most recently seen over the last few months in the form of nominations of persons for positions that they should not have. Furthermore, these nominations prove one of the most
despicable facts about President Bush, that he is a hypocrite.

On Tuesday, February 22, 2005, President Bush attended a NATO summit in Belgium where he declared a "new era of trans-Atlantic unity between the U.S. and Europe. " This sentiment was echoed by new Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in a trip she had made to Europe earlier that month. In spite of calling for stronger relations with Europe, President Bush has made policy moves that will continue to push away our neighbors around the globe.

The nomination of John Bolton to the United Nations is one glaring example of Bush?s ideology of undermining international organizations and alienating the United States from the rest of the world. John Bolton is on record saying the following: (courtesy of StopBolton.org
"[M]any Republicans in Congress--and perhaps a majority--not only do not care about losing the General Assembly vote but actually see it as a 'make my day' outcome. Indeed, once the vote is lost?? this will simply provide further evidence to why nothing more should be paid to the UN system."
The Washington Times 1998

"There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others
to go along."
1994 Global Structures Convocation, New York, NY.


"General Assembly Resolutions and international conference declarations, (such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Agenda 21, and the Millennium Declaration) are 'mind-numbing.'"
Policy Review. "Bring Back the Laxalt Doctrine," 2000.

"If I were redoing the Security Council today, I'd have one permanent member because that's the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world."
National Public Radio with Juan Williams, 2000.

"The Senate vote [on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty] is also an unmistakable signal that America rejects the illusionary protections of unenforceable treaties."
The Jerusalem Post, 1999.

"Renouncing the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was 'the happiest moment of my government service.'"
The Wall Street Journal, 2002.

"Support for the International Criminal Court concept is based largely on emotional appeals to an abstract ideal of an international judicial system."
Statement before the House International Relations Committee, 2000.

"We do not support the promotion of international advocacy activity by international or non-governmental organizations, particularly when those political or policy views advocated are not consistent with the views of all member states.?
Statement to the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, 9 July 2001. This stands in stark contrast to the official policy of the United States, which is to support and strengthen the involvement of non-governmental organizations in international processes.

The only explanation for promoting a man who has made these statements to a position of international diplomacy is to let every other nation in the world know that we are not interested in working with them. If they want to work FOR US, fine, otherwise, according to Bush, we don?t need you. Even worse,
President Bush believes that taking this approach towards the United Nations will make America safer. He could not be more wrong.

Former United States Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke was recently quoted as saying: "If we continue to under-fund, under-support, and undermine the U.N. system it will become progressively weaker and at the same time it will become
increasingly a center for hostility to the United States, a combination, a trifecta if you will, that will hurt American national security interests in many ways."

This statement is important when you consider that the deeper the wedge between the United States and the rest of the world, the less likely the rest of the world will be likely to help assist in different programs, such as the ones designed to take out terrorists and share crucial information. Thus hurting
our national security. Or perhaps we alienate enough nations to the point where they no longer want to participate in purchasing our bonds, thus harming our financial security.

America isn?t the only one that would suffer from alienating the United Nations. Holbrooke added: "A weaker U.N. is one where the human rights commission is dominated by such terrible violators as Cuba and Libya," he said. "In other words, what is wrong with the U.N. or the human rights commission, is not the core ideas that it stands for but the instances where due to lack of American engagement and leadership the institution was hijacked by states whose practices are anathema to all the U.N. stands for."

The opportunity is there for us to lead the world by means of working with every nation around the globe. Instead, President Bush has developed an agenda where the United States is trying to force the rest of the world to go yield to our will. It will not work and yet in spite of the fallacy of this plan, Bush continues to carry on with it.

The recent nomination of Under-Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz shows just how disinterested President Bush is in establishing ties with Europe. Wolfowitz gave testimony to congress prior to the war in Iraq and stated that Iraq was a nation that would be ready, willing, and able to rebuild in a short time following the war. Wolfowitz also added that Iraq would have its own funds to use for the rebuilding process. Obviously this was not true and Wolfowitz either lied to congress or was so far off in his assessment that he has no place heading the World Bank.

The war in Iraq is not the only red flag in the political history of Paul Wolfowitz. During the term of George H.W. Bush, Wolfowitz was the Under Secretary of Defense and in this position he outlined a policy that encouraged the United States to use pre-emptive force. Furthermore, he argued that the United States should act alone when necessary. How can a man with such an isolationist approach the world be tapped to lead an international organization? The bigger question, how can Bush keep thinking this approach is in the best interest of the United States?

Bush continues to follow these policies because he has surrounded himself with ex-Trotskyists, now known as the ?neocons.? These people, including Vice President Dick Cheney and World Bank Presidential Nominee Paul Wolfowitz, subscribe to the theory of permanent revolution. Although the permanent revolution theory was first developed for the Soviet Union, we can see how the Bush administration has adopted its ideals. Most notably, the concept that the United States needs to be involved in the revolution and rebuilding of other countries so that the newly rebuilt nations will match up ideologically.

Thus we see a domino theory. If we can force enough nations to adopt our ideals it will force other nations to either join in the permanent revolution or risk being left behind. It is a way to try and force the will of the rest of the world and by nature, it is a militaristic disposition. Thus we see how Cheney and Wolfowitz can be considered Trotskyists if we consider their political history, most recently, the war in Iraq.

The problem with the Trotsky approach to international relations is that it is such a huge gamble. The Soviet Union tried to force its will on other nations in the hopes that they would adopt Russian policy and it did not work. The end result was the implosion of the Soviet Union. I believe the United States could realistically face a similar outcome. For those of you who would suggest that the Soviet Union had the super power of the United States to contend with and thus conclude that since we are the lone super power left nothing should stand in our way I offer you this: China is fast becoming another super power, but I believe the continued development of the Europan Union could result in super power status. Add in the fact that the United
States continues to see its respect drop within the international community and suddenly you have a lot of countries who want nothing to do with American Policy.

This is not the fault of America, or American society, it is the sole responsibility of President Bush and his administration. They are trying to roll the dice with the rest of the world, and force them to conform to our ideals and our interests. The longer Bush tries to force his will on the rest of the world, the worse the fall out will be.

Considering what happened to the Soviet Union, it is not impossible to believe that if this policy continues for a long enough time, it could lead to revolution within the United States. Perhaps the blue states of the northeast will grow tired of being a part of a constant war machine and call for secession. It happened in the Soviet Union.

I will concede that the likelihood of secession is minute, but because it is not an impossible idea it helps illustrate just how damaging Bush policy is overseas and at home. Unfortunately, too many people see Bush as someone who went into Iraq with the sole agenda of regime change. The reality, is that Iraq was not the end of a regime, but the beginning phases of an idea destined to try and change the world and force every other nation on the planet to essentially bend to our will.

Bush does not care about the people of Iraq, he is more concerned with trying to recreate the world so that it fits his and other neoconservatives? ideals. Now that Iraq is taken care of, we are flirting back and forth with going to war with Syria or Iran. If Bush cared about the safety of the world, North Korea
would have been on the top of the list. Instead, Bush went into the Middle East, in the name of his own revolution, not freedom.

Wolfowitz, Bolton, and other American "diplomats" are just pieces in the puzzle that is beginning to take shape. The sooner we all wake up and realize exactly what is going on here, the sooner we will be to ending this madness. And believe me, we need to take care of this sooner rather than later, before the United States of America becomes the next evil empire.

Bush the Visionary?

By Scott Isebrand

A revisionist history of Bush the Visionary-a narrative in which he authored Middle East democracy over liberals' objections-is being written right across the slackened faces of Democratic Party leaders.

Max Boot in the L.A. Times wrote this past week, "In 2003I wrote that the forthcoming fall of Baghdad 'may turn out to be one of those hinge moments
in history.after which everything is different..' At the time, this kind of talk was dismissed.as neocon nuttiness. Well, who's the simpleton now? Those
who dreamed of spreading democracy to the Arabs or those who denied that it could ever happen?"

Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe notes, "The Axis of Weasel is crying uncle.." He quotes Richard Gwyn of the Toronto Star: "It is time to set down in type the most difficult sentence in the English language.. It is this: Bush was right." Jacoby continues: "Claus Christian Malzahn in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel: 'Could George W. be right?' And Guy Sorman in France's Le Figaro: 'And if Bush was right?' And NPR's Daniel Schorr in The Christian Science Monitor: 'The Iraq effect? Bush may have had it right.'
And London's Independent, in a Page 1 headline on Monday: 'Was Bush right after all?'"

The Visionary Bush is just a golden calf. Don't be misled by the rhetorical jabs-"Well, who's the simpleton now?" "Was Bush right after all?" They beg
more honest questions: Simplistic about what? Bush was right about what? Boot, Jacoby and other Bush hagiographers would have us believe that opposition to the invasion of Iraq was based on pessimism about democracy in the Middle East. That's unfair and false. Bush (and Tony Blair in Britain) peddled liberaion as a sorry second-choice excuse for invasion only after first insisting on a dubious al-Qaeda-Iraq link (quickly proved false and
doubted all along by the intelligence community) and the imminent use of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (months ago deemed non-existent by the
Administration's own inspectors).

David Brooks in The New York Times takes a different tact. Instead of Bush, he gives us Wolfowitz, "the man who's been vilified by Michael Moore and the
rest of the infantile left .." Brooks is right that Wolfowitz has been misunderstood by some commentators, mostly on the left. He's right that
Michael Moore vilified him. (So what? The Swift Boat Vets vilified John Kerry, too. The Swift Boat Liars for Bush weren't journalists striving for
objectivity; they're gross propagandists, and no one ever said Fahrenheit 9/11 was investigative journalism-it's polemic. Relax, Brooks. This is just
how the game's been played since the rightwing started pushing Clinton-killed-Vince-Foster "documentaries." They started it; now they need
to take it as well as they dish it out.)

But in the run-up to the invasion, Wolfowitz was seldom if ever cited for any grand ideals he had about democracy in the Middle East. He was cited by
invasion-backers largely for his preemptive strike doctrine. Again, it was the rationale of imminent attack and bran, crass, deceitful attempts to
link Iraq with 9/11 that were offered, not a great vision for spreading democracy at gunpoint.

THE MYTH AND REALITY OF ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER - TAKE 3: ARNOLD'S SCRIPT IS NOW MULTI-COLOR

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

In the movie business, once a script is put into production, additional rewrites are identified by having the changed pages printed on different color paper. The more "multi-hue" the script, the more rewrites there have been; lots of different colors generally denote a project that's in trouble, though no one will ever admit it until the movie tanks on opening weekend.

Right now, Arnold Schwarzenegger's script for turning California Republican has at least four different colors in it - a sign of trouble, whether Der Governator admits it or not.

The California Nurses Association, which took the lead in opposing Arnold over his refusal to enforce the law about nurse staffing levels, and has been Big Boy's most tenacious opponents, has now been joined by the rest of the "special interests" who are bringing a blend of demonstrations and legislative strategy, with the result that Big Boy now has to defend his agenda on multiple fronts.

The Nurses won a big victory in court this past Monday when a judge declared Arnold didn't have the power to set aside the staffing regulations adopted in the legislation. As Richard Holober, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of California put it, "The nurses have shown other unions and other opponents of the governor's policies that when he is wrong, you have to confront him and stick to the issue. And you can beat him."

Arnold's coast-to-coast tour through the checkbooks of the far right ended this past Wednesday night at the Century Plaza Hotel here in Los Angeles, where for $89,200 a couple, "the people of Kaleeforneeya" could obtain a private briefing on the issues from Der Governator himself. More than 1,000 demonstrators from The California Nurses Association, the teacher's unions and firefighters unions were outside on Century Boulevard, with protestors arriving in top hats and tiaras to point out who it was Arnold was meeting with on the inside.

In recent days, Schwarzenegger has been forced to mention the protestors in his speeches, while his audience has had to push past them to get in to see him.

Recent public opinion polls show a significant drop in public support for Schwarzenegger's proposed propositions when mention is made of the $70 million cost of the special election he is forcing through.

At the same time, Lance Olson, general counsel of the California Democratic Party, is representing the watchdog group TheRestofUs.org in a lawsuit to terminate the unlimited campaign contributions Arnold's been raising in contravention of state campaign financing law that decrees any campaign committee controlled by the governor is limited to a $22,300limit per donor. The committee - Citizens to Save California - claims independence, yet works closely with the governor and his staff. The chairman is long-time rightwing anti-tax activist Joel Fox.

In the meanwhile, legislative committees are holding hearings about the governor's "press releases" masquerading as TV news clips, a tactic he borrowed from the White House.

The same day, California Treasurer Phil Angelides launched his campaign for Governor, saying, "Governor Schwarzenegger and I have a different view of the world, two very different visions of what makes society strong." Angelides has already raised about $12.5 million for the effort. Unlike Arnold, who can read his lines with conviction whatever they say, Angelides actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to facing up to the fiscal problems confronting the state.

Schwarzenegger is no longer the only celebrity politician in the fight. In a speech last weekend to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (a meeting that only cost $350 per person), Warren Beatty put it perfectly when he said of Der Governator: "Arnold: be the action hero I know you can be. If you're looking for something to terminate, terminate your dinners with the brokers of Wall Street. Terminate your dinners with the lobbyists of K Street. Terminate collecting out-of-state right-wing money. Terminate the $70 million special election you want to hold to divert the public's attention away from the budget crisis."

The sad thing is, if Arnold Schwarzenegger had half the courage his action-hero characters have displayed on-screen, he had the political capital to come in and actually change things for the better. Instead, he has displayed the lack of courage one associates with a demagogue who knows his only power is the power to fool the public. He's raised more money in a year than "money machine" Grey Davis raised in three years, and changes his policies weekly depending on which group has contributed how much to his campaign, all the time proclaiming himself an "outsider" who will never be "a politician.

Arnold's about to learn that the Three Rules of Hollywood work in politics, too: Nobody. Knows. Anything. His popularity hasn't dropped yet into free-fall, but his opponents have slowed him down considerably while he scrambles to find the script rewrite that will solve his problems. That's something you're supposed to have accomplished before you greenlight the movie. As in the movie business, we'll all know the answer on Opening Weekend.

JOHN BOLTON'S NOT A LOCK FOR AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Progressives around the world were dismayed this past week when the president announced the appointment of John Bolton as United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, who had been Undersecretary of State for Arms Control during the president's first term in office - the man responsible for taking the United States out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and for making nonproliferation negotiations with North Korea and Iran more difficult with his hardline policies - had been thought to have lost out when Rice did not promote him to Deputy Secretary of State. There were even those who thought his "sidelining" might mean that the power of the neocons within the Bush Administration was on the wane. Thus, the sudden announcement - after several weeks of the President and his Secretaries of State and Defense having "played nice" with allies around the world - was definitely a bucket of cold water in the faces of those who thought George W. Bush might become more moderate in his dealing with the world.

As several writers have pointed out, Bolton has been a long-term foe of the United Nations, a perfect example of the old John Birch Society cry, "Get the U.S. out of the United Nations and the United Nations out of the U.S."

In the early 1990s, Bolton stated, "If I were redoing the security council today, I'd have one permanent member because that's the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world."

As Sidney Blumenthal pointed out in The Guardian, "Bolton is an extraordinary combination of political operator and ideologue. He began his career as a cog in the machine of Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina... Bolton is often called a neoconservative, but he is more their ally, implementer and agent. His roots are in Helms's Dixiecrat Republicanism, not the neocons' airy Trotskyism or Straussianism."

Harry Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson called the unilateralists and McCarthyites of the early Cold War "primitives." Bolton is the modern version of the "primitives," and he could be properly classified a "neoprimitive." He was Colin Powell's enemy within. In 2001, he forced the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, destroyed a protocol on enforcing the biological weapons convention, scuttled the nuclear test ban treaty and the UN conference on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons. And he was the leading force behind the renunciation of our signature to the 1998 Rome statute creating the International Criminal Court. He described sending his letter notifying the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, of American withdrawal from the treaty as "the happiest moment of my government service".

In 1999, at the outset of American involvement in Kosovo, Bolton managed to make even an idiot like Bill O'Reilly look like a thoughtful commentator when he visited the "The O'Reilly Factor":

O'REILLY: And I find it difficult to stand by and watch another Cambodia, another Rwanda, unfold. And I believe the United States has a responsibility here.

BOLTON: Let me ask you this, Mr. O'Reilly. How many dead Americans is it worth to you to stop the brutality?

O'REILLY: I don't think I would quantify that because...

BOLTON: I think you have to quantify it. I think if you don't answer that question...

O'REILLY: ... I think if you're going to be a superpower...

BOLTON: ... you're ducking the key point that the commander in chief has to decide upon before putting American troops into a combat situation. We are now at war with Serbia. And the president has to be able to justify to himself and to the American people that Americans are about to die, or may well die, for a certain specific American interest.

O'REILLY: ... I do not believe in standing by while people are slaughtered.

BOLTON: ... Our foreign policy should support American interests. Let the rest of the world support the rest of the world's interests.

As Steve Clemons, President of the New America Foundation put it, "This debate about John Bolton is not just about him, or the United Nations -- it is about restoring a sense of integrity and common purpose among the great nations of the world and restoring U.S. leadership after the debacle that preceded the Iraq War."

The Bush Administration knows that Bolton is controversial, to say the least. They moved this past week to try and get the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to fast-track the confirmation process for Bolton. This ran into a roadblock when Senator Richard D. Lugar, Chairman of the Committee, refused to allow the confirmation process to move forward this coming week. With the Senate and House set to go on a two week Spring Recess this coming Friday, March 18, it means the Bolton nomination hearings will not happen before the second week in April at the earliest.

This means there is still time to derail this terrible nomination. Phone calls from voters to the members of the Foreign Relations Committee this past week were responsible for derailing the fast-track strategy the White House was banking on.

Now we need to tell all the members of the Senate that we the people want someone at the United Nations who will actually take steps to improve our relations with the rest of the world, not make them worse. The President doesn't have to nominate a UN true believer. There are any number of Republicans with solid backgrounds who have some skepticism over the operations of the United Nations - and this is not a bad thing - who believe in the value of the organization and the possibilities of improving America's position in the world through our work with the UN.

Call your Senator! E-mail them at senator@yoursenatorsname.senate.gov - let them hear from you.

Call the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Majority Staff at 202-224-4651 and tell them you want to see another Republican nominated to this important position.

We can win this one. Bolton is so far out of the mainstream, so far to the radical right, that even Republicans are worried by this nomination.

Steve Clemons published a sample letter at his blog, The Washington Note which can give good guidance as to the tone to take and the points to make. I am quoting it here in full:

Dear Senator Lugar:

You are the kind of outstanding citizen committed to principled American leadership in the world that our Ambassador to the United Nations should also exemplify.

Many of your fans and those who feel that America must make some credible efforts at rebuilding bridges with parts of the world that have traditionally been friends and allies are hopeful that America will begin demonstrating fresh and revitalized, principled global leadership. President Bush's nomination of John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations inflames world opinion and may undermine America's efforts to constructively assist in UN reform efforts.

John Bolton has served in government a long time and deserves a fair hearing -- but that hearing must be fair for those who have serious questions and doubts about his candidacy.

Please do the right thing. The fair and balanced thing to do is give advocates and skeptics a reasonable amount of time to make their case or lodge their concerns.

Inspiration From a Real Hero

by
Ryan Oddey

Although this site is relatively new, my love of politics and country have been in existence for years. As I stated in bio piece in the "About Us" section, the events of September 11, 2001 had such an effect on me that I decided to go back to college, get my degree, and do what I could to try and make things better for as many people as I could.

My interest in 9-11 has caused me to read as much material as I can on the subject, and I recently read 102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. The purpose of this piece is not to review this book, although I highly recommend it. I would rather use this time to introduce America to a hero. All too often we throw the term hero around and its meaning can become somewhat diluted. When you hear the story of Frank De Martini you will full appreciate the definition of a hero.

In 102 Minutes there is a picture of Frank, and underneath it a bio. It reads "Frank De Martini, the Port Authority construction manager, worked on the 88th floor of the north tower. He loved the World Trade Center and all its gadgetry ever since he started work as a consultant following the 1993 bombings. After a 1994 project to overhaul the window-washing and maintenance rigs, he took an inspection ride along the side of the building, boarding at the roof, 1,350 feet above the street. On September 11, De Martini helped rescue people on his floor and then led a group that pried open doors on twelve floors along the boundary of the crash zone, rescuing dozens of others."

After the plane hit the north tower, while so many people fled for safety, Frank disregarded his own well-being, and worked his way around the crash area. Frank, along with the help of some others, was able to pry open doors and break through walls, which in the end would directly result in the safe exit for dozens of people who would have otherwise perished. Frank was a rare breed of person, because even as he saved one group, it was not enough. He would seek out other groups of people who were trapped and free them. With death staring down at him and countless others, Frank did not flinch, and through selfless actions he personally kept death at bay for numerous survivors.

In a perfect world, Frank's story would have ended with him escorting the final group of survivors out of the North Floor and he would be able to return home to his family after an unimaginable day. But, as September 11, 2001 showed us, we do not live in a perfect world. Frank De Martini died on 9-11, at the age of 49, when the North Tower collapsed. For those of you that have seen the History Channel's documentary on the World Trade Center, you may remember Frank stating his belief that he felt the towers could withstand the impact of an airliner. That sentiment stayed with Frank until the day he died, as he refused to exit the North Tower, confidant that it would remain standing. His faith in his building, coupled with his selfless behavior, fueled the rescue effort that he led. His mind set saved lives.

When I watched the towers fall on September 11, 2001 I had no idea who Frank De Martini was. All I knew is that people had died, families had been shattered, and a landmark that I had the pleasure of seeing grace the skyline of Manhattan was gone. Yet, when I read the story of Frank De Martini I was both devastated and inspired. I was devastated that a husband, a father, a son, had died in the attacks of September 11th 2001, and yet I was inspired that in his final moments on this planet, he spent his time saving lives. Unlike the firefighters, police officers, and port authority, Frank was not trained in any emergency rescue. Frank was not employed for his ability to save lives. Yet, with all of the people around him fleeing for safety, and all of the carnage in his building, Frank chose to stay and save lives. Frank chose to do what he could to make sure other people could get away from the crash site, and ultimately out of the building prior to its collapse.

There were many heroes on September 11, 2001, but for some reason the story of Frank De Martini seemed especially profound. I am sure we would all like to think that we would have done what Frank did if we ever faced the same horrific situation, and even though we say we would do what Frank did, most of us would not. Most of us would have rushed down those flights of stairs as fast as we could, bursting through the lobby and out on to the street, calling our loved ones as soon as we could just to let them know we made it. Frank De Martini never got to make that phone call, but through his actions, dozens of others were able to call a loved one that day and told them "I made it out." That is what makes Frank De Martini a hero.

Frank De Martini and thousands of other died on Tuesday September 11th. The events of that day changed the skyline of New York City and the fabric of our nation forever. The images of the Twin Towers on fire, and later collapsing will be forever etched in the memories of anyone who saw it unfold, either in person or on television. Yet for me, and others like me, September 11th 2001 was not just the end of thousands of lives, it was the beginning of the rest of my life. I will never cease to stop feeling grateful to be alive, and I will never cease to be inspired by the actions of heroes like Frank De Martini. Although their time on earth is over, we owe it to their memories to make the most out of our lives. Doing so, will forever ensure that heroes like Frank De Martini did not die in vein.

ARNOLD GETS HIS SCRIPT REWRITTEN

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Last week I commented about Der Governator, that he's only The Hero when the script is written that way. The news is out that there?s a new draft of the movie "Der Governator Reforms California."

This draft of the script has Der Governator's parties being crashed by opponents, forcing Ahnuld The Hero to alter his schedule and duck into his events through the back door, at locations from California to New York City to Washington D.C. He's getting testy with this opposition - A-listers like him aren't supposed to deal with the "below-the-line" folks. (For those not in the know, that?s a Hollywood term for those whose names appear in the credits "below the title", in other words, all the hard workers without whom the movie doesn't get made.)

When he appeared at "21" in New York to meet his $22,300-a-person out-of-state supporters for his "local" reforms here in Kahleeforneeah, Arnold found himself slipping inside through the service entrance while Governor Pataki went in through the front door, to avoid fire-fighters, policemen and nurses yelling "Screw Arnold!" outside.

Inside, San Jose firefighter Jeremy Ray, secretary of Santa Clara Firefighters Local 1171 had reserved a table for dinner. Once there, he slipped in to Big Boy's reception on the floor above and confronted Der Governator over his "reform" of the state retirement system, turning it into a Wall Street-run 401(k) system that the California Attorney General has said will deny pensions to the widows and children of firefighters and policemen who die in the line of duty. According to Ray, "He said 'I'm a friend of the firefighters and would never take anything away from them.' I said 'No, you're not a friend to us, sir. And what you're doing is wrong.'" The NYPD was called to remove the "unruly extra" from Arnold's set. As Ray remembered, "while I was being led away, one of the officers introduced himself and said 'God bless you, brother, we're on the same side. Thanks for doing what you did.'"

When Arnie showed up in Columbus Ohio over the weekend for his Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition, nurses from California marched outside, providing information to passers-by about Der Governator's move to sidestep a state law requiring sufficient hospital nurse staffing to provide proper care for patients.

Arnold isn't used to this. For the past thirty-odd years, he's basked in the adoration of the crowd, whether it was at a Mr. Universe competition, a Hollywood blockbuster opening, or his campaign for Governor in 2003. While speaking before groups who make five-figure individual contributions to sit in the same room with him, he calls the nurses, firefighters and policemen picketing outside "special interests."

Still, 75 of them were waiting for him outside the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., when he arrived for a "business roundtable" with national corporate donors for his "local" reforms. Der Governator's cavalcade drove up to the side of the building where he walked down a flight of stairs to an underground rear entrance. Still, he couldn?t avoid the demonstrators, who crowded around the stairwell chanting "Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Schwarzenegger's got to go!!"

Arnold Schwarzenegger is not a "new kind of Republican." He shills for the far right just like any other standard-issue Rightie. He's even been caught with his own "Karen Ryan" scandal. For those with short memories, "Karen Ryan" was the actress portraying a news reporter in the stealth campaign by the Department of Health and Human Services to promote Bush's Medicare prescription drug "reform" that was being hit in the "real" news. Here in California, Der Governator spent $1,262 of the taxpayers' money for a "video news release" that supports his proposal to wipe out mandatory meal breaks for hourly workers. An ex-reporter now working in Arnold's publicity office is heard over professionally-shot "B-roll" footage of men and women at work, saying "Many working Californians can benefit from the proposed regulations because the change provides real-life relief." With the text helpfully provided for the local anchor to open and close with, the unwary viewer might think they were watching an actual "news" report. This past Wednesday, it was revealed the Governor?s office has prepared other "video press releases" on the subject of nurse staffing ratios and public employee retirement. Unlike official press releases, however, neither of these have any statement on them that they come from the office of the Governor, either. What we have is more Republican lies, just like the President's.

The good news is, the California press is beginning to clear their heads of Der Governator's Cubano smokescreen and see him for the right-wing shill he is and always has been. The rest of the country needs to wake up to the truth of Arnold. Speaking to his corporate sponsors at "21", he said "As California goes, so goes the nation." He's right. George Bush?s campaign against Middle America?s greatest asset - Social Security - is only the first wave of a far right attempt to cosset the comfortable and roll back the rights won over the past 70 years by the rest of us who work for a living.

WARD CHURCHILL - THE FAR LEFT FRAUD AND CON ARTIST

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

The left needs to back off its knee-jerk defense of the fake 1st Amendment claims and see "Professor" Ward Churchill for the lying, cheating, thieving, morally-corrupt academic and political fraud that he is. This scumball is completely undeserving of the support he's been getting of late from people who should know better.

Let's start with the fact that Ward Churchill is about as much of a "Native American" as I am. Which is: Not Any At All. Churchill has been denounced as an impostor for close to 30 years now for his claim of being "Native American." He began by saying he was a Creek, but when the Creek Nation said they'd never heard of him, he changed that claim to being Keetoowah Cherokee. The Tribal Council of the Keetoowah Cherokee say none of the Cherokee ancestors he lists ever existed. Carol Standing Elk, head of the American Indian Movement of Northern California has said, "We have told the University of Colorado he is not an Indian and he should not be out there indicting Indian people."

That last point is a reference to Churchill's campaign against the "racist" tribal membership rules that prevent his making up his ethnic background without question. Churchill also finds it "racist" that a "Native American artist" has to be able to prove actual membership in a tribe in order to sell their work as Native American art, since he made a good living before that selling his "art." Nowadays, he just commits art fraud by passing off copies of the original work of artists like the late Thomas Mails as his own.

All this leads to the first point of Ward Churchill's career of continuing Academic Fraud.

Churchill has promulgated in his "writing" the lie that the "1/16 Rule" of tribal membership was forced on Native Americans by the U.S. Government when they passed the law breaking up tribal reservations into 160-acre individual parcels in 1887. In fact, there is nothing in the law that defines how one is to be defined as a tribal member, this rule being left to the individual tribes. The rules are "racist" because they prevent Churchill living out his fantasies.

Beyond playing fast and loose with historical fact on this point, Churchill has also promulgated the fraudulent "history" of the U.S. Army's "genocide of the Mandans" in 1837, in which he claims the Army provided blankets infected with smallpox, which he then claims killed a quarter-million Mandans in a government-planned act of genocide. Churchill's "academic citation" of these "facts" is the work of UCLA professor Russell Thornton (who really is a for-real Native American historian). Thornton's own account is completely different from Churchill's ravings and makes no mention of the Army whatsoever. When he was asked about this, Professor Thornton said "If Ward Churchill is citing my work as supporting his, then he has no support at all for what he says."

In other words, folks, Ward Churchill just makes this shit up as he goes along.

The fact Churchill has the position he does at the University of Colorado is further proof of the complete corruption of "the Academy" in the past 30 years. When he applied to CU in 1978 for a position tutoring minority students, he checked off "Native American" on his employment application and Federal affirmative action forms - something that was never verified, but with which he then managed to create an entire career. In 1991, he beat out several actual Native American applicants for a position at the university, teaching Native American Studies despite the fact that two of his competitors held Doctorates in the subject while his academic background is a Master’s Degree in "Communications."

Later that year, the faculty of the CU Communications Department was informed by their incoming chairman Michael Pacanowsky that Ward Churchill had been offered a full professorship at California State University Northridge and that they had to decide whether Churchill should receive tenure in the Communications Department after he was turned down by the Sociology and Political Science Departments. Pacanowsky said that hiring Churchill would be "making a contribution to increasing the cultural diversity on campus." Despite his lack of academic credentials, Churchill was given tenure in the name of academic political correctness.

In fact, no such offer had been made. John Chandler, spokesman for California State University Northridge, has stated "We have full records from that time and we cannot find any evidence of a hiring offer ever being made to Ward Churchill."

So, this scumball's a liar as well as an academic fraud from beginning to end.

He's also a liar and a fraud in the rest of his so-called "resume." What particularly pisses me off is his bullshit claim to be a "Vietnam combat veteran." If all those who claim this status really were, we’d likely have won that war. The truth is - of 1,500,000 who served in Vietnam - maybe 175,000 actually were "Vietnam combat veterans." That's because in the American armed forces at that time, for every grunt in the boonies there were nine others in "support." According to the US Army's records, PFC Churchill did his year in-country as a "light vehicle driver." In other words, he drove a jeep. Back in the rear, with the gear. There was a term for those guys back then: REMF - which stands for "Rear Echelon Mother F---er."

To me, what completely demonstrates his total unreliability is his claim to have come home from the war, become an organizer for Students for a Democratic Society, and to have joined The Weatherman Faction, who he taught to make bombs. I was in SDS back in the days of the scumbag Weathermen, a bunch of upper class radical-leftist morons who should have all died unlamented in the Townhouse explosion in 1970. I personally still hope that "Professor" Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn "get theirs" one of these days for their crimes against the antiwar movement and the left back then.

These people like Ward Churchill made our work harder back then, and they still do so. They weren't worthy of support 35 years ago, and they still aren't today. Unless you think a lying, conniving, thief and third-rate fraudulent con artist is someone you want on your side.

COME TOGETHER, RIGHT NOW, OVER THIS
by
Ryan Oddey

It is rare when a situation arises involving politics that people from both sides of the aisle agree on. In spite of that, I believe that the upcoming situation involving Election Law and how it relates to the Internet will be a cause in which many bloggers from all walks of life will find themselves on the same side. The reason for this rare showing of unity has less to do with politics and more to do with something we all cherish: Freedom.

A Recent Interview by Brad Smith has caused some in the Blogging world to become concerned about the future of the internet. Smith, who is one of the six commissioners on the Federal Elections Commission, has decided that a controversial court decision made in 2002 regarding campaign finance law should be applied to the internet.

The law that was adopted in 2002 pretty much put a limit on media (TV, Radio, Mailing Lists, etc) that is done in conjunction with Political Campaigns. At the time this law was adopted, the FEC voted to 4-2 to exclude the internet from this new form of regulation. However, last Fall U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kelley ruled that the FEC's decision to exclude the internet from these regulations severely undermines the intent of the campaign finance law.

So, now that Kollar-Kelley has made that ruling, lets examine some of the changes Brad Smith has talked about. Smith wants to assign a value to links on personal pages that direct someone towards a politician. He feels that this is important, because if an individual has already contributed the legal maximum amount to a campaign their website would be in violation of campaign finance law.

You may be wondering just how much a website is worth, well, Smith has a plan for calculating that too. Smith says "Design fees, that sort of thing." Granted, I can not totally critique Smith's plan because I do not know the specifics of "that sort of thing" but I do understand a thing about design fees. However, I pose this question, what if you designed your own site, or the site was designed for free?

As for the individual links that bring you to a politicians website, Smith plans on that being quite expensive when he uses the following logic. Consider this:

"Corporations aren't allowed to donate to campaigns. Suppose a corporation devotes 20 minutes of a secretary's time and $30 in postage to sending out letters for an executive. As a result, the campaign raises $35,000. Do we value the violation on the amount of corporate resources actually spent, maybe $40, or the $35,000 actually raised? The commission has usually taken the view that we value it by the amount raised. It's still going to be difficult to value the link, but the value of the link will go up very quickly."

Ok, so how about instead of using a link, we just post website addresses. Should the viewer of the website wish to view any of the web addresses posted, they will need to put the web address into their web browser on their own.

You see, Smith thinks that the judges decision means this:


"The judge's decision is in no way limited to ads. She says that any coordinated activity over the Internet would need to be regulated, as a minimum. The problem with coordinated activity over the Internet is that it will strike, as a minimum, Internet reporting services." So a fine start up website such as www.ThatsAnotherFineMess.com would fall under this category since we read the news and report what we feel is useful information.

We have hope, because the internet currently falls under the press exemption. However, the debate over whether or not the internet should fall under the press exemption is approaching the foreground of this debate.

I believe that the internet is the most open form of media. Average citizens, such as myself and countless others, do not have the pull to have our own section in a news paper or our own talk show on a cable news network. However, we do have the resources to go online and find a way to post our political opinions. Some of us own a website, some of us contribute to a website, while others find a forum where they can engage in political debate. The internet opens people up to a wide range of opinions that they would otherwise not hear. Why are people like Bradley Smith so intent on undoing a good thing?

Yes, both parties take advantage of the internet loophole, but if that is the worst thing that happens I think it should be allowed so average citizens continue to have access to view and voice different opinions. If Smith is able to regulate the internet he will silence countless voices that are a valuable part of the blogging community and the political scene at large.

It does not matter if you are a Democrat, a Republican, or anything else, limiting free speech on the internet, which is what Brad Smith is trying to do, is totally and completely nightmarish. We can't all own a newspaper company, we can't all own a television station, but so many of us own a computer. The internet gives us the forum to spout of our ideals and engage in the discussions that we so cherish. It must be protected.

Let us not forget that the United States does not own the internet. Yes, the government can monitor campaign donations from abroad, but how is someone like Brad Smith going to tell some person in France that they have to shut down their website because it is in violation of United States Election law simply because it has a link to a certain candidate? What is your plan to do when that person in France tells you to buzz off because you don't own the internet? Do you censor him? Do you block American access to all foreign based web sites that contain information about political candidates?

Hmmm, a country that censors all websites based in foreign nations that contain any political information...I've heard of this before.......oh yeah, China, Cuba, North Korea. We won the Cold War Mr. Smith, why must we follow the lead of Communist Nations?

This is a serious problem, and it is perhaps the one thing that most bloggers can agree on. It does not matter what side of the aisle you sit on, I am willing to bet you want to keep the internet free so we can all continue to post our rants, opinions, and any other important information we feel like sharing. With so many of us using the internet to raise public awareness about the issues and share our differing opinions I only have one final question for Brad Smith.

WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM?

SOCIAL SECURITY: THE DILEMMA OF THE WORKING MASSES

By: Dallas Foster


The President wants to change Social Security now while he is in the Oval Office so that he will not be considered a "lame duck" President like many others before him in history. President Bush wants this as his legacy as it was for Roosevelt's Presidency during the Great Depression. He feels that if he were to "fix" Social Security, he will go down in history as a great President and not the man who touched of a deadly war because of bad intelligence.

But what he is telling us is a lie or at least a half truth. He claims that "One way for a younger worker to come closer to what the government has promised is to be able to take a portion of the money and get a better rate of return on your own money than that which the Social Security system gets." But that's only true if you make more than a 3% return on your investment that you make with the 4 points that the President wants to give you. If you make lower than the 3% that Social Security makes, than you are worse off than if they just lowered your benefits in the first place. Also, he never explicitly says that there is a risk; he tells everyone to be conservative with their stocks and bonds and not to take their money to the track. But the fact is that all stocks experience a loss over a period of time, while Social Security does not experience a loss in value.

He also claims that "It's your money, and the interest off that money goes to supplement the Social Security check that you're going to get from the federal government. Personal accounts are an add-on to that which the government is going to pay you. It doesn't replace the Social Security system. It is a part of getting a better rate of return to come closer to the promises made." But this implies that the check you will receive under the new plan will be the same as it is with the current system and that the investment is an extra add-on to this money. But its not, it's a replacement for the money the government will need to keep the program up and running. So again, you could receive less than you would if we stay under the current plan and fixed it to work as needed.

Another false claim is that "You can pass that money [from a private account] to whomever you want." But again that is an untruth. What is really going to happen is this, under Bush's proposal a portion will be set aside by the government as an annuity and can only be paid to the tax payer it belongs to and can not be inherited by others. But the other portion is able to be given away as the taxpayer sees fit. So if this is our money why can't we give all of it away to our children or other loved ones when we pass? It is so that the government can use that unused part of your annuity to help Social Security to keep going. So again, not all the truth is coming out of our leader's mouth.

The next false statement about the new Social Security plan is that there is an $11 trillion dollar deficit. The President said: "If we don't act, we're looking at about an $11 trillion hole for the American taxpayer coming up. This is a big liability not for me or baby boomers ... but if you're a young worker, you've got a problem." The President incorrectly suggests that younger workers will have to deal with this shortfall if the program continues on its wayward course. This $11 trillion number according to the Board of Trustees report is over an "infinite" about a time not over the next 75 years that number is more like 3.75 trillion. So why all the lies about how much trouble Social Security is really in? Because the President is looking out for his own legacy and not what is good for the people that elected him.

So beware of all the false statements on Social Security and let's tell the President what we think of his cockamamie plan.

SAY GOOD-BYE TO YOUR DAY IN COURT - PART 2

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Note: You can read part 1 of Say Good-Bye to Your Day In Court By Clicking here.

Now that the Republicans have eviscerated your right to pursue a legal claim against a corporation for wrongdoing by use of class action lawsuits in state courts, the President is aiming his sights at curbing "frivolous" medical malpractice lawsuits.

I think the best overall comment on the President and the policies he announced in the State of the Union speech was made by Marshall Wittmann of the Democratic Leadership Council at his Bullmoose Blog
"Unfortunately, the President will offer a domestic program in his State of the Union address that will serve the narrow and partisan agenda of the Republican Party to comfort the comfortable and crush the domestic opposition. This President is completely incapable of a politics of national unity or greatness even amidst a long twilight struggle against our terrorist foes. The donor class must come first."

While many might think that the war in Iraq or the struggle over Social Security are the over-riding issues progressives need to take on, one that will have a far wider, far more thorough effect in changing life in America is what the President disingenuously calls "tort reform."

Bush is depending on the American people's general ignorance of what goes on in the public life of this country in order to bring this about - in the same way he depended on the general ignorance of foreign affairs by most Americans to turn the War On Terrorism into the War in Iraq. With all the anti-lawyer jokes that abound, and thirty years of right wing propaganda against "ambulance chasers," it just might work.

For the past fifty years, as the definition of actionable torts was reformed and expanded, the American civil justice system became the last and best line of defense for the average citizen against the abuse of corporate power and government policies that fail to protect the citizens they claim to be doing. When the courts began to allow class action lawsuits under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, more progress for society came into real day-to-day effect than had happened in the previous century.

Class action litigation forced the Veteran's Administration and the Congress to address the issue of the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam for veterans and their offspring suffering from the effects of dioxin exposure when the government claimed there was no such problem.

Class action litigation formed the basis of the civil rights movement that finally ended segregation and promoted the equal protection and treatment of women and minorities from their previous status as victims of allowable discrimination.

Class action litigation forced the American automobile industry to start producing safer cars.

Class action litigation brought the tobacco industry to its knees.

When one looks at that list, it's no wonder the Republican Party wanted to change the rules regarding class action lawsuits. Their "reform" - designed, they said, to prevent "frivolous lawsuits" from being instituted in jurisdictions that are "too friendly to plaintiffs" - was to federalize almost all class actions so that the already-overburdened federal courts would be the only forum.

It's no surprise that the interests supporting these "reforms" include the insurance industry.

I don't know about you, but my definition of "reform" doesn't include proposals that make things worse. I once endured five years of attempting to obtain redress from an insurance company that tried everything they could to destroy my credibility as to whether I had any injury to be compensated for, probably spending four times as much doing this as they would have paid out with just compensation for demonstrated losses, and finally made it clear they would never accept a final judgement within my lifetime, with the result they were able to settle for about ten cents on the dollar after they exhausted me.

The President is set to make his case to rein in "frivolous" medical malpractice lawsuits that result in millions of dollars of losses to doctors. As with his assertions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, this lie doesn't stand up under the light of day either.

There is no "malpractice crisis." The "crisis" the President is riding in to rescue is the crisis created by the pinstriped pimps of the insurance industry, whose brilliance and "business acumen" resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in investment losses on the stock market (that wonderful place he wants to have you play in to create your retirement "nest egg."

A friend of mine - a "good conservative" (lifetime NRA member) Republican lawyer with 20 years' experience in tort litigation - recently pointed out some home truths about the "malpractice crisis." As he said, "The claims from the insurance companies that the payments are killing them are FALSE. But many are willing to believe them without proof. The insurance companies complain they have to raise premiums due to the litigious nature of our society. I don't believe that is true. The last time we went through this, in the 80's, the insurance companies had taken a bath in the real estate market. We're going through it now because they took a bath recently in their stock investments. All you have to do is look at their payouts relative to their income. For 2003 - the last year numbers are available - claim payments of medical malpractice suits were 1.5 percent of their gross budgets. They publicize rare and unusual cases as the norm, and folks believe it's true. "

He went on to say, "I have not seen one shred of empirical evidence that supports the insurance companies' position that their recent punitive premium increases are due to monetary judgments. In fact, there is substantial evidence that the insurance companies scream this mantra when their investments go sour. The last time we heard the insurance companies claiming they had to raise premiums due to legal judgments was in the 1980's. After Congress researched the issue, they concluded that the insurance companies' real problem was they had lost a bundle of money in the real estate market. The insurance companies go berserk when their investments tank. And their favorite scapegoat is the courts. If you know anything about insurance companies then you know their accounting practices are nothing short of bizarre when compared to other businesses. It is the only industry I know of that can enjoy substantial growth and claim a loss."

President Bush has been called the most partisan President in recent history. I personally think he can win the title hands down for all 43 presidencies in the country?s history. As Thomas B. Edsall and John F. Harris pointed out in the Washington Post on January 30, "... a recurring theme of many items on Bush's second-term domestic agenda is that if enacted, they would weaken political and financial pillars that have propped up Democrats for years, political strategists from both parties say... legislation putting caps on civil damage awards, for instance, would choke income to trial lawyers, among the most generous contributors to the Democratic Party." They go on to say, "What is notable about the Bush White House, some analysts believe, is the extent to which its agenda is crafted with an eye toward the long-term partisan implications."

John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to President Clinton and is now President of the Center for American Progress, has said, "I think that most of their domestic agenda is driven and run by a political strategy as much as core fundamentals and belief. Why would you make this (a curb on lawsuits) the cause celebre? The notion that this is a key element of their economic program is laughable. It's important to them in both directions both in organizing core elements of their business and doctor communities, and at least undermining a financial base of the Democratic Party."

If you really want to know why George W. Bush is promoting the "legal crisis" the way he promoted the "Iraq WMD crisis," here is the reason: during the 2004 electoral cycle, lawyers gave Democrats $107.3 million according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and $39 million to Republicans. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America gave a total of $2.4 million, and 92 percent went to Democrats. Baron and Budd, a trial lawyer firm based in Dallas, gave 98 percent its $1.1 million in contributions to Democrats.

Looking at the President's campaigns for "domestic reform" - Social Security, class action lawsuits, medical malpractice claims - it's hard not to think of what H.L. Mencken had to say about American politics 80 years ago:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Bush crying "crisis" is like the little boy crying "wolf." There were no WMDs in Iraq, there is no Social Security crisis, and there is no medical malpractice crisis. All these "crises" are entirely of the President's own making.