The Dem Diatribe Project

Funny as hell, and right on the mark: By ROBERT FRIEDMAN, Perspective Editor, St. Petersburg Times Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here's what mine says: * In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me. * I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts. * I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life. * I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to the...

Propaganda and Arrogance Despite the laws passed by congress regarding the prohibition on “covert propaganda” by US government agencies, the Bush Administration seems to “think” that it is not guilty of any crimes. I say “think” because they are well aware of what they are doing, they just believe that they are above the law. And with a few notable exceptions, the press (and most definitely the Democratic Party) has let these crimes slide. Perhaps this is not an impeachable offense, but it seems that at some point, the American public would get tired of being lied to and manipulated. Have we all become so used to taking the medication we are fed that we just lap up the latest lies and beg for more? Several months ago, I got into a discussion with a friend about how the Bush administration lied about his reasons for waging war on Iraq. I was outraged at how we were lied to about WMDs, about how we were told that the US would be “welcomed as liberators”, that Iraqi oil would pay for th...

Frank Rich rocks! No one provides a more keen observation of politics and culture and today's NYT piece is right on the money. From The new York Times, March 27, 2005: The God Racket, From DeMille to DeLay Read More ...

“ Freedom is a dangerous thing, and you might be exposed to things you don’t want to hear.” --Dennis Baxley, Florida Legistaor, Republican, Ocala. I think that this pretty much sums up the religious right/Republican agenda not just in Florida but the entire country and by extension, the world. The statement was in reference to the latest atrocity pushed by Republican legislators in Florida regarding academic freedom. It seems, in their view, going to college should NOT be about broadening one’s knowledge of the world but rather reaffirming religious beliefs. The bill would give students the right to sue professors for putting forth views that run counter to what the student believes; A rather chilling prospect for free thought. If one is so shaky in their own religious beliefs, perhaps one should attend Bob Jones University or one of the thousands of other religious affiliated schools and leave the pursuit of truth and knowledge to real universities. Instead the power elit...

From the Democratic Underground: March 25, 2005 By Carolyn Winter and Roger Bybee What better moment to appease the fundamentalist Right than a miraculous midnight maneuver by Congress and President Bush on Palm Sunday to resurrect Terri Schiavo? The timing could not have been more melodramatic, but the cynical spectacular produced by "Culture of Life" high priests Tom DeLay and George W. Bush is not getting the raves that were anticipated. Polling by Pew Research shows Americans opposed to the Congressional incursion on the courts by a 2-1 margin, hardly the result sought by the Right. Tom DeLay literally saw the Schiavo case as a gift from God just at a moment when the backlash against DeLay's ethical lapses and heavy-handed domination of the House is growing. "One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay informed a Family Research Council event. "This is ...

A couple of weeks ago a right-wing front group called "USA Next" made national news when it started its anti-Social Security campaign with a bigoted, hateful ad. Immediately, tens of thousands of DFA grassroots supporters created a backlash so strong that USA Next spent the next few weeks licking its wounds. But now they're back. USA Next is set to go on the air with its political hate speech in the next two weeks. Please act now -- petition media outlets to keep bigotry and distortions off the air . Remember -- the USA Next ads come from the same Republican operatives who unleashed the swift boat attacks. And USA Next isn't the only player -- it is just one of dozens of entities that funnel money from corporations and right-wing billionaires into our political process. They have pledged to spend whatever it takes to dismantle Social Security. Their latest project: producing distorted polls to generate news coverage and "evidence" of support for ...

From Hullabaloo Blog: One of the things that we need to help America understand is that there is a big difference between the way the two parties perceive the role of government in its citizens personal lives. Democrats want the government to collect money from all its citizens in order to deliver services to the people. The Republicans want the government to collect money from working people in order to dictate individual citizen's personal decisions. You tell me which is the bigger intrusion into the average American's liberty? ---- By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old ma...

From Barbara Boxer: Today, my heart is heavy. By just two votes, we came up short in our effort to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to over 150 wildlife species. In the end, over 90% of Senate Democrats voted to stop this madness -- we just didn't have the votes to overcome the Republican majority in the Senate. But I want you to know that I won't give up in our fight to stop the drilling. And neither should you. I'm going to use every legislative tool at my disposal to reverse this vote and prevent this terrible policy from going into effect. But we can do more -- today. I'm planning to organize a consumer boycott of any oil company that decides to drill in this pristine Alaskan wilderness area. If, through our pocketbooks, we can convince these companies to do the right thing, we can still save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the destruction that would be wrought by the oil drilling rigs. Send an email to th...

For me, Fafblog is well worth a read anytime!

S o the analogy section will be missing from the new SAT. Aside from drastic analogies made by the media and politicians such as comparing things to tsunamis, nuclear bombs or the holocaust, here is a more subtle and poetic analogy that rings as true today as when Pete Seeger penned it in 1967: WAIST DEEP IN THE BIG MUDDY It was back in nineteen forty-two, I was a member of a good platoon. We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna, One night by the light of the moon. The captain told us to ford a river, That's how it all begun. We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy, But the big fool said to push on. The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure, This is the best way back to the base?" "Sergeant, go on! I forded this river 'Bout a mile above this place. It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging. We'll soon be on dry ground." We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy And the big fool said to push on. The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment No man wil...

By US Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts Note: MR Markley introduced Bill HR 952 to eliminate the practice of ''outsourcing torture" on Feb. 17. Right now the bill has fifty-two co-sponsors. No Republicans have signed onto it so far and Dennis Hastert says he's opposed to it. ---- AN UNMARKED PLANE arrives in the middle of the night carrying men who aren't wearing uniforms but have on black hoods. The men grab prisoners out of the hands of government officials, cut off their clothes, drug them on the spot, shackle them, force the prisoners onto the plane and take off into the night. When the ''torture" plane disappears, no one knows where and when the captives will appear and what will happen to them: electrocution, beatings, sexual abuse? At first guess, you might imagine that this terrible operation is the work of a drug cartel or a rogue member of the ''axis of evil," but the scene described invo...

All I can say is it is about friggin' time. NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A Halliburton Co. unit is facing new questions from Pentagon auditors about bills for supplying fuel to the U.S. military in Iraq as part of a no-bid contract to rebuild the country's oil infrastructure, according to a Wall Street Journal report Tuesday. The newspaper reports that this new scrutiny comes after other inquiries about the billions the company has billed the military for services rendered in Iraq. A Justice Department probe is examining if the government showed favoritism when awarding the company the oilfield contracts. ...

Last year the Swedish Social Ministry launched a web, print and video campaign called Flicka (girl) that attacks the moral of mass media. A survey shows that every 4th girl feel under pressure by the media's beauty ideals, and the aim of the public campaign is to educate young girls about the techniques and effects of advertising and thus help them to think critically. One of the campaign's video ads is shaped as a sexist music video featuring semi-nude women washing a car. Suddenly, one of them confronts the camera and asks "what is this, why do most videos look this way?". The viewers are then invited to pick up the phone and call the CEO of Universal Music in Sweden and ask him the question. His name and phone numer is shown on the screen. The local commercial broadcast stations TV3 and TV4 have refused to air this and another similar video. Additionally, a recent interactive web ad illustrates the other (real) side of magazine-covers. The front side of a ...

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. -- Abraham Lincoln There are two issues we cannot afford to be silent about, one local and one global, and on Saturday you can take a stand on both issues. The local issue is Ohio House Bill 1, the sweeping election law changes, passed in a special December session of the Ohio Legislature, that diminishes the rights of working families and dramatically expands the influence of big corporations and wealthy individuals. The global issue is the War in Iraq. Remembering the anniversary of the Iraq War is about keeping in our thoughts the families of the more than one thousand five hundred service personnel who have lost their lives, the thousands who have been injured or maimed, and the loved ones of the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties. On Saturday, March 19, you can refuse to be silent about both of these issues. A growing list of sponsors, including the UC Antiwar-Coa...

(Originally posted inthe Sunday New York Times.) Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production. This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more perv...

The bankruptcy bill before the Congress is bad law, bad practice, and an example of bad faith with the common people whom elected officials presumably serve. When it passes -- and it will -- it will be thanks purely to the Republican Party. -From: www.redstate.org he point here is fairly simple: The bill is basically a gift to corporate lenders that tightens requirements on consumers while paradoxically loosening restrictions on credit card companies. The argument for the bill goes something like this: The record number of bankruptcies in America is indicative of a lack of personal responsibility made possible through too-lax bankruptcy laws; these bankruptcies in turn force up costs and interest rates for responsible consumers; ergo, if we tighten bankruptcy requirements, American consumers and the credit industry will be better off. This argument is almost wholly false for several reasons: It's already plenty difficult to declare bankruptcy for the average consumer. I know becau...

Lawsuit Holds Rumsfeld Accountable The ACLU and Human Rights First last week filed a lawsuit charging that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody. This is the first federal court lawsuit to name a top U.S. official in the ongoing torture scandal in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Secretary Rumsfeld bears direct and ultimate responsibility for this descent into horror by personally authorizing unlawful interrogation techniques and by abdicating his legal duty to stop torture," said Lucas Guttentag, lead counsel in the lawsuit and director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "He gives lip service to being responsible but has not been held accountable for his actions. This lawsuit puts the blame where it belongs, on the Secretary of Defense." The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Illinois on behalf of eight men who were subject to torture and abuse at the hands of ...

The Frank Luntz Republican Playbook is now readable online!! This is great news for those millions of us who can’t (or don’t want to) download the massive PDF image file. It is also an invaluable asset to bloggers, site proprietors, writers, and other researchers who wish to search the text. They are putting out a section per day (The Playbook is 10 sections) and are currently up to section VI. Every knowledgeable and responsible progressive should read and understand this material. And besides, it is IMMENSELY ENTERTAINING!!! Read it now!

Believe me, we Americans - at least half of our population, and, in the post-election period, probably more - understand why you in Europe are so upset. We have to live each day with these guys, their bullyboy tactics, their mendacity, and the ramifications of their reckless policies. By Bernard Weiner ... From Democratic Underground