A WW2 poster warned:
"When you ride ALONE, you ride with Hitler!"
Do you suppose we could update that to encourage car-pooling and discourage gas wasting one-person-per-car travel?
Maybe: "When you ride ALONE, you ride with a terrorist!"
Nah, that would just encourage Bush's misnamed War on Terror [it's actually a War of Terror, with Americans cheerfully accepting the role of terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan for the good cause of 'promoting democracy.']
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When I was a wire editor of the Miami News, the New York Times news service sent a daily listing of the paper's front page stories.
Not very subtle. Clearly you were intended to judge your news judgment against the great NYT. After a few years of this, I got annoyed.
I collected a week's worth of front page listings and I graded them. "C+, B, C-, B, C," with a note explaining my grades –- "too many local stories," "you underplayed ...." "too much attention to...." I sent my listing to a senior editor. He never replied, natch.
That comes to mind today because the New York Times has just run an editorial calling for an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. Since the New York Times, along with its cronies in the corporate press, were a major factor in making that war possible, it's a major step, though too late for thousands of American dead and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead.
The New York Times has always considered itself the best newspaper in the world. It wasn't true when I was grading their front page; it's not true now that they have made it possible for our politicians to get us involved in an outrageous ugly war.
I'm glad that they are finally admitting that the war was wrong. But I won't hold my breath waiting until they admit they were simpering, sycophantic, ignorant, and immoral fools to back it in the first place.
One of the groups I get e-mail from urged me to mail my Washington state congressman demanding the impeachment of Cheney. They had their own letter they wanted me to sign, but of course I edited it to the point where there is only a line or two of the original letter left. Here's mine.
Rep. Rick Larsen:
I have been demanding impeachment since Bush lied us into war, but you and your colleagues have been too gutless and too contemptuous of the Constitution to do anything about it.
But if you don't have guts enough to go after President Bush, at least work up the courage to go after his puppetmaster, Vice President Dick Cheney.
There are numerous things he could be impeached for, but let's start with the testimony from the Scooter Libby trial which has made it clear that Libby did not act on his own in "outing" Valerie Plame, but acted on the orders of his boss, Cheney.
Since disclosing a CIA agent's identity -- or directing others to do so -- is a crime of treason, Vice President Cheney must be impeached and removed from office immediately.
Get some backbone and join your colleagues in co-sponsoring H.Res. 333, Articles of Impeachment Against Dick Cheney.
Sincerely...
CCs went to my senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell
It won't do any good, of course, but what the hell, you have to try.
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"...he chose to place himself above the law....he has undermined the truth-finding function of the judiciary, at great harm to that branch of our government..." Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS)
"I hold the President to a higher standard because he is the chief law enforcement official of the nation. If he is above the law, then we have a double standard; one for the powerful, and one for the rest. The sworn oath is central not only to our Constitution, but also to the administration of justice. Our legal system would not function without it." Wayne Allard (R-CO)
"All of my life, I have been instructed never to swear an oath to my country in vain. In my former profession, those who violated their sworn oath were punished severely and considered outcasts from our society. I do not hold the President to the same standard that I hold military officers to. I hold him to a higher standard." John McCain (R-AZ)
"....the laws of our Country are applicable to us all, including the President, and they must be obeyed. The concept of equal justice under law and the importance of absolute truth in legal proceedings is the foundation of our justice system in the courts." Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
Powerful statements in light of the president's giving Scooter Libby a free pass.
Oh, wait. They weren't talking about Bush; they were talking about President Clinton during his impeachment proceedings in 1999 on essentially identical charges.
What they said about Bush and Libby was...
Well, nothing.
Bob Geiger explores this at
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8530
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Amy Goodman recounts that Mahalia Jackson once insisted that Studs Terkel be hired as a host for her show on CBS. When Studs balked at signing the loyalty oath that CBS demanded, Mahalia told them, "Look, if you fire Studs, find another Mahalia Jackson." CBS backed off.
The lesson, the 95 year old Terkel said in a recent interview, "...is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong."
It took me awhile to learn that lesson.
The Loyalty Oath fetish was in full glory when I started college. The mandatory Reserve Officers' Training Corps, ROTC, demanded it. I, and a few other students, refused to sign. We were called into an office where an Army officer told us solemnly that if we didn't sign, we couldn't take ROTC. And if we didn't take ROTC, we couldn't graduate.
I don't know if all the others signed, but I chickened out and did. I've been ashamed of my cowardice ever since.