Month: January 2003

Author Kurt Vonnegut (whom I really need to go re-read, it’s been years) has some good comments on the current brouhaha in In These Times:

Based on what you’ve read and seen in the media, what is not being said in the mainstream press about President Bush’s policies and the impending war in Iraq?

That they are nonsense.

My feeling from talking to readers and friends is that many people are beginning to despair. Do you think that we’ve lost reason to hope?

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”

How have you gotten involved in the anti-war movement? And how would you compare the movement against a war in Iraq with the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era?

When it became obvious what a dumb and cruel and spiritually and financially and militarily ruinous mistake our war in Vietnam was, every artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against the thing. We formed what might be described as a laser beam of protest, with everybody aimed in the same direction, focused and intense. This weapon proved to have the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high.

And so it is with anti-war protests in the present day. Then as now, TV did not like anti-war protesters, nor any other sort of protesters, unless they rioted. Now, as then, on account of TV, the right of citizens to peaceably assemble, and petition their government for a redress of grievances, “ain’t worth a pitcher of warm spit,” as the saying goes.

(Via MeFi)

Looking one direction:

The US intends to shatter Iraq “physically, emotionally and psychologically” by raining down on its people as many as 800 cruise missiles in two days.

It is based on a strategy known as “Shock and Awe,” conceived at the National Defense University in Washington, in which between 300 and 400 cruise missiles would fall on Iraq each day for two consecutive days. It would be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 GulfWar.

“There will not be a safe place in Baghdad,” a Pentagon official told America’s CBS News after a briefing on the plan. “The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before.”

“You’re sitting in Baghdad and, all of a sudden, you’re the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out,” Mr Ullman said. “You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power and water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.”

And looking the other direction:

Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for 27 years, the US has this month turned to an unlikely source of help — Iraq.

Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state has doubled its exports of oil to America, helping US refineries cope with a debilitating strike in Venezuela.

The trade, though bizarre given current Pentagon plans to launch around 300 cruise missiles a day on Iraq, is legal under the terms of UN’s oil for food programme.

But for opponents of war, it shows the unspoken aim of military action in Iraq, which has the world’s second largest proven reserves – some 112 billion barrels, and at least another 100bn of unproven reserves, according to the US Department of Energy. Iraqi oil is comparatively simple to extract – less than \$1 per barrel, compared with \$6 a barrel in Russia. Soon, US and British forces could be securing the source of that oil as a priority in the war strategy. The Iraqi fields south of Basra produce prized ‘sweet crudes’ that are simpler to refine.

On Friday, Pentagon sources said US military planners ‘have crafted strategies that will allow us to secure and protect those fields as rapidly as possible in order to then preserve those prior to destruction’.

(Via Long Story, Short Pier)

Some good stuff is starting to pop up around the ‘net regarding Bush’s State of the Union address last night.

I’m referring, of course, to the claim — repeated yet again in the president’s speech — that his tax cut plan offers an “average” tax break of over \$1000. “Ninety-two million Americans,” Bush told us with a straight face, “will keep this year an average of almost \$1,100 more of their own money.”

This average is a convenient fiction; it’s a statistic that exists only because the enormous benefits accruing to the dividend-owning super-rich skew the “average” — and camouflage the fact that the cuts most middle class taxpayers will receive under Bush’s proposal are piddling. The few rich taxpayers with mega-breaks are statistical “outliers”; if you used a median rather than an average you’d end up with a far lower number — one much closer to what most of us would actually get under Bush’s plan.

I guess I shouldn’t be shocked at this late date that Bush and his administration would continue to use blatantly misleading “facts” to sell their policies; it’s been their economic approach from day one. Still, it’s appalling. And the very consistency of Bush’s willingness to twist simple facts in demonstrably manipulative and sometimes outright deceitful ways has a more pernicious effect than simply discrediting his policies: It leaves us with the sense that the man is deeply untrustworthy.

— Scott Rosenberg, You do the math (Via Robert Scoble)

What Bush said of Saddam’s disarmament record could equally be said of Bush’s domestic record. He has given no evidence of progress. He must have much to hide.

— William Saletan, A reveille, not a record (Via Tom Negrino)

President Bush did his best to scare the bejesus out of his audience Tuesday to make his case for war. And afterward, he was probably the only person to get a good night’s sleep.

— Salon’s wrapup: State of the Union: Frightened

My favorite so far: Microsoft Word’s automatic summary of the State of the Union address: “”Many hospitals tell people, ‘You’ve got AIDS America and the world will not be blackmailed if Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities.”” (Via d kitty)

What the White House thinks about you: You are simple. Parsing the speech reveals that in his 5,366-word speech, the average sentence was 18 words in length. Some might make the case that perhaps Bush isn’t good with long sentences, and we’ll admit the possibility. So you and the President are very simple people with limited attention spans.

— The Raven, Simple Minds (Via Scott Rosenberg)

Shelley Powers (Burningbird) also has a very good breakdown of the key issues, and touches on some of the issues I didn’t have much background information on, such as Bush’s health care plans:

Rather than extend Medicare and Medicaid with a prescription drug plan, the President instead wants to give seniors who need help with prescription drugs the opportunities to go into HMOs. I would suggest you find a senior and you ask them why they would prefer not to go into an HMO.

HMOs operate at a profit. To make this profit, they control costs in many ways, including restricting access to physicians and rewarding physicians for keeping costs down. These plans discourage long-term treatments, and categorize many procedures as ‘experimental’ and therefore not covered. In addition, its more cost effective to treat as many patients as possible with nurse practitioners rather than with doctors directly. NPs aren’t paid as much.

This works contrary to the needs of the elderly, who prefer and need to go to their own physicians, rather than being seen by a nurse practitioner or a different doctor on every visit. In addition, the elderly can require long-term expensive care as well as medical procedures that may be fairly new, or still undergoing research. Alzheimer’s treatments come to mind when I say the latter. HMOs work best with younger, relatively healthy families who suffer from the usual bumps and bruises, flus, and maybe an occasional heart attack or broken bone. HMOs do not work well with the elderly.

— Shelley Powers, Thoughts on the State of the Union

I didn’t get to listen in to the Bush’s State of the Union address tonight, as I was at work, but I just pulled down the CNN transcript to look over. Let’s see what we’ve got…

To protect our country, we reorganized our government and created the Department of Homeland Security, which is mobilizing against the threats of a new era.

Oh, that’s right. This is supposed to be a Good Thing. I keep forgetting that.

To bring our economy out of recession, we delivered the largest tax relief in a generation.

Well, now, that sure worked well, didn’t it? Let me tell you, I’m pretty damn happy that we’re not in a recession anymore. As are the 30,000+ Boeing employees that have been laid off in the past couple years. As are all the people out currently trying to find jobs. As are all the various business that have severely scaled back operations, or closed. As are all the business that have had to drastically slash prices in a desperate attempt to be seen as affordable, and then have to figure out how to meet their bottom lines and stay afloat. As are…as are…as are…

To insist on integrity in American business, we passed tough reforms, and we are holding corporate criminals to account.

We have? We are? I stopped hearing about anything along these lines just a few months after Enron stopped imploding.

This tax relief is for everyone who pays income taxes, and it will help our economy immediately. Ninety-two million Americans will keep this year an average of almost \$1,100 more of their own money. A family of four with an income of \$40,000 would see their federal income taxes fall from \$1,178 to \$45 per year.

I’m kicking myself for not linking/bookmarking this when I read it, but there was a report earlier this week showing how this statment is true — when you’re speaking in averages. Breaking down the numbers, it’s the same old story, where the biggest breaks are going to the people with the biggest wallets, and the working-class shmoes don’t really see much of this tax cut at all. Damn, but I wish I could find the source for that now, though.

Update: Thanks to Tom Tomorrow, I’ve found the article I was thinking of.

If you look at the average for all taxpayers, this is correct.

However, this average is derived from all income levels and all estimated savings. This skews the number upward.

According to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institute, 80 percent of all tax filers would receive less than the \$1,083 average the president mentioned.

Meanwhile, half of all tax filers would get less than \$100.

We asked the Treasury Department, which calculated the figure used by the president, to give us an estimate on the percentage of Americans receiving the \$1,083. A spokesperson said the department could only provide us with the average savings.

Lots more good number-crunching at that link. And now, back to Bush…

These problems will not be solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates coverage and rations care.

Antiwar protesters rallied at the Capitol prior to the State of the Union.

Instead, we must work toward a system in which all Americans have a good insurance policy, choose their own doctors, and seniors and low-income Americans receive the help they need.

This is just a question — did he really say something about anti-war protesters in the middle of talking about health care? Or is this a glitch in CNN’s transcript?

Anyway, I can’t say much about the health care stuff, that’s an issue that I really know little to nothing about.

I have sent you clear skies legislation that mandates a 70 percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years.

You also pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Accord on the basis that global warming really isn’t happening. Mixed message here?

I have sent you a healthy forest initiative to help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife and burn away millions of acres of treasured forests.

Is this the part where we start cutting down the forests so that they won’t burn down?

Tonight I’m proposing \$1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.

Wow. Okay, I’ve gotta admit, this I like. Did he know this was going to be in the speech when he took the stage?

I urge you to pass both my faith-based initiative and the Citizen Service Act to encourage acts of compassion that can transform America one heart and one soul at a time.

Admittedly, I haven’t read up on this “faith-based initiative” nearly as much as I should have, but what little is rattling around in my head about it sounds like it’s really toeing the line of seperation between Church and State. I have nothing against a President who is religious, or whose religious beliefs influence his decisions (to a point), but Bush’s repeated blurring of the line between the two really concerns me.

Tonight I ask Congress and the American people to focus the spirit of service and the resources of government on the needs of some of our most vulnerable citizens: boys and girls trying to grow up without guidance and attention, and children who have to go through a prison gate to be hugged by their mom or dad.

Wow — talking about taking a good hard yank on the old heartstrings there. All that needed as a good old-fashioned hamhanded Spielberg movie score to have us all in tears.

Our nation is blessed with recovery programs that do amazing work. One of them is found at the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A man in the program said, “God does miracles in people’s lives, and you never think it could be you.”

Tonight, let us bring to all Americans who struggle with drug addiction this message of hope: The miracle of recovery is possible, and it could be you.

Not-so-subtle message: Jesus Saves! There’s a good chunk of this country’s population that isn’t Christian, and might resent the implications here. Again, see my previous comments re: church vs. state. Focus on what the government is/can be/will be doing, not fundamentalist Bible-thumping (yes, I’m exaggerating here, and I’m quite cognizant of it).

By caring for children who need mentors, and for addicted men and women who need treatment, we are building a more welcoming society, a culture that values every life.

Here comes the anti-abortion bit…

And in this work we must not overlook the weakest among us. I ask you to protect infants at the very hour of their birth and end the practice of partial-birth abortion.

…and okay, it wasn’t as bad as it could be. He managed to avoid calling for an across-the-board end to abortion, and I can’t honestly say that I’d argue a ban on partial-birth abortions.

Update:

After thinking about this, though, it worries me a bit more than it did at first. Suppose Bush is able to put a couple more conservative judges into the Supreme Court. The suppose a carefully worded bill is passed — one that on presentation, is talked up as being a ban on partial-birth abortions, but that in a later case, could be interpreted to enforce a ban on abortion. If presented well, nobody would be likely to argue a ban on partial-birth (3^rd^ trimester) abortions, but would that be leading us into a legal trap at some point in the future? Definitely worth considering, and not a trap that I want to fall into.

And because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity and pass a law against all human cloning.

This, however, has me steamed again. There is a lot that can be done with cloning, that doesn’t involve starting or ending lives in experimentation! Medical technologies, the possibilities of being able to create replacement organs, many other things, and they don’t mean that we’re Xeroxing babies and then cutting them up, which seems to be the knee-jerk association with cloning.

Our founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity, the rights of every person and the possibilities of every life.

Exactly. Too bad the Bush administration has mangled the constitution to the point where they can entirely ignore individuals rights, hold them in prison without trial for indefinite periods of time, detain and harass people for no obvious reason and with no requirement to give a reason….

In Afghanistan, we helped to liberate an oppressed people, and we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society and educate all their children, boys and girls.

We will? Great! When do we start? ‘Cause things have been pretty shabby there ever since we packed up and moved out, leaving behind a lot of promises and not much else.

Across the Earth, America is feeding the hungry. More than 60 percent of international food aid comes as a gift from the people of the United States.

And I’m sure the throngs of homeless American citizens appreciate that as they try to find enough food for themselves to make it through day to day.

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries.

And many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.

My god — did he really say this? He is from Texas, isn’t he? Why didn’t he just drop the pretense and say that we dragged them out back, put a gun to their head, and scattered everything above the neck across the ground? The fact that he felt the need to say something like that at all sends chills up my spine. “Don’t worry son — they can’t hurt you if they’re not breathing! Har har har har…”

We’ve got the terrorists on the run. We’re keeping them on the run. One by one the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.

I’m not sure I want to know the meaning of “American justice” these days.

And this year, for the first time, we are beginning to field a defense to protect this nation against ballistic missiles.

Even though there are serious doubts as to whether the “anti-missile missiles” would be accurate or effective enough to make any real difference. Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!

Tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, the CIA, the Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location.

Why do I get the sick feeling that he just re-named the beleagured Total Information Awareness program?

Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power. …we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men…

If that’s true, why are we continually poking at the Middle East and preparing to go to war? I don’t see much will or perserverance there, and a lot of hopes riding on a “triumph of violence.”

Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Whether or not we can actually prove that they have these weapons.

These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.

This threat is new…

Funny, this threat wasn’t new when King George the First was the one giving and/or selling these weapons to Saddam so that Saddam could use them on his own people prior to Gulf War I.

Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world.

Kind of like when a political contender loses the popluar vote but is given control of the country anyway, then starts trying to dominate a former ally now deemed an enemy, intimidating much of the rest of the world in the process?

We are working with other governments to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union and to strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, here at home, we pull out of the nuclear disarmament treaty, telling the world that yeah, we’ve got nukes, and we’re keeping ’em, too! Nyeah-nyeah!

Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others.

Oh, damn, and for years I thought that as a voting citizen of the United States, I had some small say over the course of this nation. Guess we’ll just have to start re-writing that part of all those government classes.

In Iran we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror.

And in America, we have a government that represses its people (well, at least those that are below a certan income level, or have a heritage other than European), already has the weapons of mass destruction, and, well, I know I’m pretty damn terrified at where our government is taking us.

We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.

Which is why we’re going to war with Iraq.

On the Korean Peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that that regime was deceiving the world and developing those weapons all along.

And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions.

Which is why we’re going to war with Iraq.

Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq.

Okay — so Iraq isn’t a greater threat than North Korea yet? So why is North Korea being kept a diplomatic issue, while we’re constantly pouring more and more troops into the Middle East as we prepare to give Saddam a good old-fashioned Texas-style ass-whupping?

The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct — were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq’s regime is disarming.

Okay, so this is a cheap shot, but I’m surprised he made it this far into the speech before he stumbled.

It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

Maybe — just maybe — they don’t have the banned weapons!?! It’d make it pretty hard to show them off if they don’t exist! Yes, sure, I’ll grant that they might be there, but the possibility does exist that the reason we can’t find them, or any evidence of them, is because they’re not there! Admittedly, in the following few paragraphs, Bush does give a fairly frightening tally of what Iraq is believed to posess (Update: Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf isn’t convinced [via Tom Tomorrow]), and no, I definitely wouldn’t want to see any of that arsenal unleashed upon any portion of the world. But I still hear more sabre-rattling than rational thought.

The rest of the Iraq portion of the speech does present a pretty grim picture. Still, I hope that in this presentation of Colin Powell’s to the UN on Feb. 5^th^ more actual proof is presented than seems to have been shown so far. Too much of what we’ve heard seems to be operating on the conspiracy-theorists’ old standby of “Of course you can’t see it! That’s how we know that it’s there!” So far, the UN has seemed to be fairly resistant to Bush’s campaign, and I’m willing to accept that after all this, if the US can actually present a strong enough case to convince the UN, then the evidence is probably there.

That said, however, this…

We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

…seriously concerns me. More of the “damn the torpedos” mentality — it doesn’t matter whether anyone else thinks we should do this, we’re gonna do this, and the rest of y’all can go take a flying leap. Great. Just the kind of attitude we need in our President.

If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means, sparing, in every way we can, the innocent.

Forced upon us? Upon us? The only one I’ve seen chomping at the bit to go out in a blaze of glory has been Bush, with Tony Blair as a cheerleader. The great collective “us” of the people of the US and Britian have been getting more and more un-sure of this whole gambit the longer things go on — and I’m sure the common people of Iraq are just thrilled about what they may be facing in the months to come.

We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

A grand tradition, started, of course, by Columbus (as I’m sure the native peoples of the time would be sure to attest to), followed up by the pilgrims (just ask the Native Americans), the Founding Fathers (I’m sure their slaves would agree), the US Government as we expanded into the west (again, the Native Americans should be able to back me up on this)…anyway.

We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving god behind all of life and all of history.

May he guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

God, or Allah, or Buddha, or — oh, wait, what? Oh, nevermind.

Anyway, that’s it. I’m sure you can tell, I’m thrilled. Not much else to say right now, other than that this certainly didn’t give me any more confidence in our President or the directions he’s taking our country. On the bright side, the next election gets a little closer every day.

Here’s hoping that all this ends up far better than I’m afraid it’s going to.

Update:

Far, far better speech by Washington Governor Gary Locke giving the Democratic response to the State of the Union address.