denbushi | blog

Being here in Japan and disconnected from the US media (due to a lack of CNN or television access to other US news sources) I have seen little video of any of the candidates for President and instead mostly ingest news from print and online sources. So while I often read about Obama’s exceptional oratorical ability, aside from the occasional brief snippet, I’ve not actually watched him speak. Until today.

Popurls tipped me to the buzz surrounding his recent speech on race, and so I tracked down a complete online version on Obama’s YouTube page. I watched it and was floored. Now I understand my so many writers use the word presidential when referring to him. Everything about the speech was fantastic–the delivery, content, message, timing, everything. A cogent speech delivering a powerful message, in well-crafted prose spoken with exquisite finesse. What’s more is that he apparently wrote the thing himself. How refreshing after years of watching the speech-impaired, semi-literate Bush clumsily try to string more than a few words together without looking at his notes.

Obama is the first presidential candidate in 40 years to match the authoritative presence and oratorical power of John F. Kennedy, and the similarities don’t end there. His populist message of unity and an unflinching willingness to take the issue of race head-on has earned him the respect of pundits and politicos on both sides of the political divide. For once it seems as though we might have someone who can actually redraw the lines of our cultural debate, and take us from the endlessly divisive left-right debate to a more meaningful and important discussion of class, economic division, and income inequality.

In other words, Obama just might be the one who can train the spotlight on the issues that really matter to most Americans: jobs, health care, education, fairness and equality for all, and a bright future for our children. He might be the one that can return the focus to those things we all share, instead of those which divide us. He might just be the one who can restore the the dignity of the United States and our respect abroad after two terms of Dubya and the catastrophic damage the current administration has done to both. He might just be the one after all. After listening to him speak today, I think he might.

Obama, you’ve got my vote. Godspeed.

I’m kind of moved into the new place now, and my body is one big, throbbing ache. I still live among The Boxes and am progressing through them in a methodical, if not breathtakingly fast, fashion. Oh, and now I have WiFi. Yay!

I promise to blog the new digs, but for now you can have this instead. It’s freedom, baby, yeah!

I searched Google for “microbiologist rod barton” after reading a piece in the Japan Times about him, only to find that the majority of sites carrying the story were outside the US. Little surprise, I suppose.

Anyway, the gist of the story is this:

An Australian scientist involved in the search for WMD claims US spy chiefs censored his report to suggest the lethal weapons existed.

Rod Barton, a microbiologist who worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, also said Washington and London wanted elements inserted in the Iraq Survey Group’s (ISG) report “to make it sexier”.

Basically, this non-US intelligence operative was instructed to research the WMD threat in Iraq prior to our invasion of that country and report on his findings. When his findings concluded no real threat existed, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), now headed by Bush-appointee Charles Duelfer, told him to remove some bits to make it more ambiguous and add others to imply a threat.

He complained, of course, but his report was censored anyway and ultimately submitted with all fixes and revisions intact, providing another link in the long chain of fabrications and outright lies used to justify the war in Iraq, which, just in case you weren’t paying attention, has cost US taxpayers over 300 billion dollars and stands to cost a whole lot more.

Come to think of it, I thought Republicans were supposed to be the fiscally conservative half of our little binary “democracy.” Small government, run like a business, that sort of thing. Certainly a far cry from the “tax and spend” Democrats we all know and love to hate, eh?

Frankly, I much prefer the “borrow and spend the country into the biggest debt in recorded history” model of the current administration. I mean, as long as we ensure our safety and lower taxes through a delicate mix of disinformation, torture, law-breaking, corruption and unbridled military spending, I’m pretty happy with the status quo. You?

The latest example of Bush-style diplomacy–bullying and arm-twisting–was published in today’s Washington Post.

It seems that the Bush Administration had a problem with IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei’s reluctance to play ball and support the US by parroting their hardline stance regarding Iran’s recent interest in nuclear energy. (He also didn’t make any friends in Washington by exposing the grossly inflated nuclear “threat” fabricated by the Bush team and used as justification to attack and subjugate that country two years ago.)

So, what do you do with a UN official who doesn’t get with the program and follow orders from the West Wing? Why, tap his phone and look for dirt, that’s what. Which is just what Bush and Co. did.

Too bad for them they couldn’t find any, and so instead they went around to the rest of the Freedom Posse to drum up support for blocking his assumption of the post for another five-year term. Unfortunately it seems that the only people who have a problem with him are in the US. Japan, Canada, even Britain all think he’s doing a good job, and, well, refused. From the Post:

“It’s on hold right now,” said one U.S. policymaker who was involved in lobbying against ElBaradei. “Everyone turned us down, even the Brits.”

Some people think there’s no limit to the hubris of Bush and his goons, but you know what? We may have just seen it.

[Recommended reading, reprinted in it’s entirety here or available elsewhere online.]

From Hitler To Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden - Insider Connections and the Bush Family’s Partnership with Killers of Americans
Brown Brothers, Harriman - BNL- and the Carlyle Group

By
Michael C. Ruppert

[© Copyright 2001. All Rights Reserved, Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. May be reprinted or distributed for non-profit purposes only.]

FTW, Oct. 9, 2001 - Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, major media powerhouses and the increasingly influential alternative media alike have begun to focus attention on Bush family connections and a long history of arming and financing America’s attackers in the months and years prior to the outbreak of war. Recent stories in the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 27 & 28, 2001), ABC News (Oct. 1, 2001), as well as a host of reports from so-called alternative news sources have begun to focus attention on the Bush family’s profit-making role in creating and arming our enemies.

The following is a more comprehensive look at the documented history of these relationships that will also open some new avenues of inquiry for the press, Congress and the American people.

In a world now filled with biowarfare agents, backpack nuclear devices, and chemical weapons like Sarin gas — where there are people in many countries with reasons to oppose the United States — the Bush Administration is following predictable strategies in a way that redefines the concept of brinksmanship. Human survival may depend upon the will and the ability of both the Congress and the press to focus on these relationships and to take appropriate action. Moreover - and I am not the first to say this - if a national security priority is to seize the financial assets of those who support terrorists, then perhaps we should start right here at home.

—

Adolph Hitler

Meticulous research, including U.S. government records from the era, along with contemporaneous news stories from the New York Times and other papers is presented in the 1992 book entitled, “George Bush, The Unauthorized Biography” by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Published by The Executive Intelligence Review and located at http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm. The following is sourced entirely from Chapter II of this essential work. [Note: Although FTW does not always agree with conclusions reached by the Executive Intelligence Review, or its founder Lyndon La Rouche, we have never found a single flaw in any of their factual research. History is history, no matter who presents it. And this history is essential to understanding our era.]

George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, was the Managing Director of the investment bank Brown Brothers, Harriman from the 1920s through the 1940s. It was Brown Brothers, in conjunction with Averell Harriman, the Rockefeller family, Standard Oil, the DuPonts, the Morgans and the Fords who served as the principal funding arm in helping to finance Adolph Hitler’s rise to power starting in 1923. This included direct funding for the SS and SA channeled through a variety of German firms. Prescott Bush, through associations with the Hamburg-Amerika Steamship line, Nazi banker Fritz Thyssen (pronounced Tee-sen), Standard Oil of Germany, The German Steel Trust (founded by Dillon Read founder, Clarence Dillon), and I.G. Farben, used the Union Bank Corporation to funnel vast quantities of money to the Nazis and to manage their American interests. The profits from those investments came back to Bush allies on Wall Street. Thyssen is universally regarded as having been Hitler’s private banker and ultimate owner of the Union Bank Corporation.

Early support for Hitler came from Prescott Bush through the Hamburg-Amerika Steamship line — also funded by Brown Bothers — that funneled large sums of money and weapons to Hitler’s storm troopers in the 1920s.

According to Tarpley and Chaitkin, “In May 1933, just after the Hitler regime was consolidated, an agreement was reached in Berlin for the coordination of all Nazi commerce with the U.S.A. The Harriman International Company… was to head a syndicate of 150 firms and individuals, to conduct all exports from Hitler Germany to the United States.”

Furthermore, a 1942 U.S. government investigative report that surfaced during 1945 Senate hearings found that the Union Bank, with Prescott Bush on the board, was an “interlocking concern” with the German Steel Trust that had produced:

- 50.8% of Nazi Germany’s pig iron

- 41.4% of Nazi Germany’s universal plate

- 36% of Nazi Germany’s heavy plate

- 38.5% of Nazi Germany’s galvanized sheet

- 45.5% of Nazi Germany’s pipes and tubes

- 22.1% of Nazi Germany’s wire

- 35% of Nazi Germany’s explosives

The business relationships established by Bush in 1923 continued even after the war started until they became so offensive and overt as to warrant seizure by the U.S. government under the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1942.

In 1942, “Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.’s stock shares…

“… all of which shares are held for the benefit of… members of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals… of a designated enemy country.”

“On October 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.”

“Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father in law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942…” These seizures of Bush businesses were reported in a number of American papers including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Prescott Bush went on to become an influential Republican Senator from Connecticut who went on to be a regular golfing partner of President Dwight Eisenhower. His attorneys were the lawyers John Foster and Allen Dulles, the later became the CIA Director under Eisenhower.

Saddam Hussein

After becoming President in January 1989, Prescott Bush’s son, George Herbert Walker Bush - father of our current President - authorized a series of programs that not only armed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein but also provided him with technology that assisted in his development of chemical weapons like Sarin gas, and biological weapons, which he still possesses. Apologists for Bush (the elder) say that, after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s left the region unstable, he was just trying to establish a new balance of power. Not so. Bush directives and policies, including relationships with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) were directly and deliberately responsible for creating the army the U.S. fought in 1991.

A story by Russ W. Baker, in the March/April issue the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), provided the most compelling overview of Iraqgate that I have seen.

“ABC News Nightline opened last June 9 with words to make the heart stop ÔIt is becoming increasingly clear,’ said a grave Ted Koppel, Ôthat George Bush, operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam’s Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy…

“Why, then, have some of our top papers provided so little coverage?” Baker poignantly asks.

” The result: readers who neither grasp nor care about the facts behind facile imagery like The Butcher of Baghdad and Operation Desert Storm. In particular, readers who do not follow the story of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, which apparently served as a paymaster for Saddam’s arms buildup, and thus became a player in the largest bank-fraud case in U.S. history.

“Complex, challenging, mind-boggling stories (from Iran-Contra to the S&L crisis to BCCI) increasingly define our times: yet we don’t appear to be getting any better at telling them…

“Much of what Saddam received from the West was not arms per se, but so-called dual-use technology — ultra sophisticated computers, armored ambulances, helicopters, chemicals, and the like, with potential civilian uses as well as military applications. We’ve learned that a vast network of companies, based in the U.S. and abroad, eagerly fed the Iraqi war machine right up until August 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

“And we’ve learned that the obscure Atlanta Branch of Italy’s largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, relying partly on U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans, funneled $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989. Some government-backed loans were supposed to be for agricultural purposes, but were used to facilitate the purchase of stronger stuff than wheat. Federal Reserve and Agriculture department memos warned of suspected abuses by Iraq, which apparently took advantage of the loans to free up funds for munitions. U.S. taxpayers have been left holding the bag for what looks like $2 billion in defaulted loans to Iraq.

“… In fact, we now know that in February 1990, then Attorney General Dick Thornburgh [appointed by George H.W. Bush] blocked U.S. investigators from traveling to Rome and Istanbul to pursue the case…

“… As New York Times columnist William Safire argued last December 7, ÔIraqgate is uniquely horrendous: a scandal about the Systematic abuse of power by misguided leaders of three democratic nations [The U.S., Britain, and Italy] to secretly finance the arms buildup of a dictator.”

While Democrat Henry Gonzales, Chairman of the House Banking Committee during the period, stood as the lone voice from the wilderness in raising alarms about Bush’s obvious corruption, the rest of the Congress sheepishly ignored all the signs demanding immediate action. Gonzales’ voice reportedly fell silent after his empty car was machine-gunned in a Washington suburb in what passed for a drive-by shooting.

The CJR continues: “Meanwhile, The Village Voice published a major investigation by free-lancer Murray Waas in its December 18, 1990 issue… “That American troops could be killed or maimed because of a covert decision to arm Iraq,’ Waas wrote, “is the most serious consequence of a U.S. foreign policy formulated and executed in secret, without the advice and consent of the American public…”

The L.A. Times, on Feb 23, 1992, dug deep enough to find secret National Security Decision Directives by the Bush Administration in 1989 ordering closer ties with Baghdad and paving the way for $1 billion in new aid. The Times’ series, co-authored with Waas, emphasized that, “buried deep in a 1991 Washington Press piece - that Secretary of State James Baker, after meeting with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz in October 1989, intervened personally to support U.S. government loans guarantees to Iraq.”

Baker’s CJR report also noted, “On October 3, the [Wall Street] Journal reported [BNL official Christopher] Drogoul’s assertion that the director general of Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Production had told him, ÔWe are all in this together. The intelligence service of the U.S. government works very closely with the intelligence service of the Iraqi government.’ Three weeks later, the Journal reported that [Henry] Gonzales Ôproduced a phone-book-sized packet of documents’ showing the involvement of U.S. exporting firms… The documents mentioned one… which designed parts for Iraq’s howitzers and was financed through BNL…”

In the wake of highly suspicious anthrax outbreaks in Florida, just miles from where several of the WTC suicides pilots trained, we add one final note. In his 1998 book “Bringing the War Home” author William Thomas writes, ” Under that same [weapons transfer] program, 19 containers of Anthrax bacteria were supplied to Iraq in 1988 by the American Type Culture Collection company, located near Fort Detrick, MD, the site of the US Army’s high security germ warfare labs.”

The Carlyle Group, the Bushes and bin Laden

The warnings about the Carlyle Group, the nation’s 11th largest defense contractor, and the Bushes came long before the World Trade Center attacks. The Carlyle Group is a closely held corporation, exempt, for that reason, from reporting its affairs to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Little is known of what it actually does except that it buys and sells defense contractors. As of October 4, 2001, it has removed its corporate web site from the World Wide Web making further investigation through that channel impossible. Its Directors include Frank Carlucci, former Reagan Secretary of Defense; James Baker, former Bush Secretary of State; and Richard Darman, a former White House aide to Ronald Reagan and Republican Party operative.

On March 3, 2001, just weeks after George W Bush’s inauguration, the conservative Washington lobbying group Judicial Watch issued a press release. It said:

“(Washington, D.C.) Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government abuse and corruption, called on former President George Herbert Walker Bush to resign immediately from the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm, while his son President George W. Bush is in office. Today’s New York Times reported that the elder Bush is an “ambassador” for the $12 billion private investment firm and last year traveled to the Middle East on its behalf. The former president also helped the firm in South Korea.

“The New York Times reported that as compensation, the elder Bush is allowed to buy a stake in the Carlyle Group’s investments, which include ownership in at least 164 companies throughout the world (thereby by giving the current president an indirect benefit). James Baker, the former Secretary of State who served as President George W. Bush’s point man in Florida’s election dispute, is a partner in the firm. The firm also gave George W. Bush help in the early 1990’s when it placed him on one of its subsidiary’s board of directors.

“This is simply inappropriate. Former President Bush should immediately resign from the Carlyle Group because it is an obvious conflict of interest. Any foreign government or foreign investor trying to curry favor with the current Bush Administration is sure to throw business to the Carlyle Group. And with the former President Bush promoting the firm’s investments abroad, foreign nationals could understandably confuse the Carlyle Group’s interests with the interests of the United States government,” stated Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel.

“Questions are now bound to be raised if the recent Bush Administration change in policy towards Iraq has the fingerprints of the Carlyle Group, which is trying to gain investments from other Arab countries who [sic] would presumably benefit from the new policy,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.”

Judicial Watch noted that “even the Clinton Administration called on the Rodham brothers to stop their business dealings in [The former Soviet Republic of] Georgia because those dealings started to destabilize that country.”

Since the WTC attacks the Wall Street Journal has reported (Sept. 28, 2001) that, “George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm.” The senior Bush had met with the bin Laden family at least twice in the last three years - 1998 and 2000 — as a representative of Carlyle, seeking to expand business dealings with one of the wealthiest Saudi families, which some experts argue, has never fully severed its ties with black sheep Osama in spite of current reports in a mainstream press that is afraid of offending the current administration.

The Nation, on March 27, 2000 - in a story co-authored by David Corn and Paul Lashmar - wrote, “In January former President George Bush and former British Prime Minister John Major paid a social call on Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah…” This story confirms at least one meeting between the elder Bush and Saudi leaders, including the bin Ladens. That the bin Ladens attended this meeting was confirmed in a subsequent September 27, 2001 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) story. The January 2000 meeting with the bin Ladens was also later confirmed by Bush (the elder’s) Chief of Staff Jean Becker, only after the WSJ presented her with a thank you note sent by Bush to the bin Ladens after that meeting.

James Baker visited the bin Ladens in 1998 and 1999 with Carlyle CEO Frank Carlucci.

The WSJ story went on to note, “A Carlyle executive said that the bin Laden family committed $2 million through a London investment arm in 1995 in Carlyle Partners II Fund, which raised $1.3 billion overall. The fund has purchased several aerospace companies among 29 deals. So far, the family has received $1.3 million back in completed investments and should ultimately realize a 40% annualized rate of return, the Carlyle executive said.

“But a foreign financier with ties to the bin Laden family says the family’s overall investment with Carlyle is considerably larger…”

In other words, Osama bin Laden’s attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, with the resulting massive increase in the U.S. defense budget have just made his family a great big pile of money.

More Bush connections appear in relation to the bin Ladens. The WSJ story also notes that, “During the past several years, the [bin Laden] family’s close ties to the Saudi royal family prompted executives and staff from closely held New York publisher Forbes, Inc. to make two trips to the family headquarters, according to Forbes Chairman Caspar Weinberger, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration. ÔWe would call on them to get their view of the country and what would be of interest to investors.’”

President G.H.W. Bush pardoned Weinberger for his criminal conduct in the Iran-Contra scandal in 1989.

Our current President, George W. Bush has also had — at minimum — indirect dealings with Carlyle and the bin Ladens. In 1976 his firm Arbusto Energy was funded with $50,000 from Texas investment banker James R. Bath who was also the U.S. investment counselor for the bin Laden family. In his watershed 1992 book, “The Mafia, The CIA and George Bush,” award winning Texas investigative journalist Pete Brewton dug deeply into Bath’s background, revealing connections with the CIA and major fraudulent activities connected with the Savings & Loan scandal that took $500 billion out of the pockets of American taxpayers. A long-time friend of George W. Bush, Bath was connected to a number of covert financing operations in the Iran-Contra scandal, which also linked to bin Laden friend Adnan Khashoggi. One of the richest men in the world, Khashoggi was the arms merchant at the center of the whole Iran-Contra scandal. Khashoggi, whose connections to the bin Ladens is more than superficial, got his first business break by acting as middle-man for a large truck purchase by Osama bin Laden’s older brother, Salem.

Another key player in the Bush Administration, Deputy Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, left his post as an Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration after a series of scandals connected to CIA operatives Ed Wilson, Ted Shackley, Richard Secord and Tom Clines placed him at the brink of criminal indictment and jail. Shackley and Secord are veterans of Vietnam operations and have long been linked to opium/heroin smuggling. The Armitage scandals all focused on the illegal provision of weapons and war materiel to potential or actual enemies of the U.S. and to the Contras in Central America.

Armitage, a former Navy SEAL, who reportedly enjoyed combat missions and killing during covert operations in Laos during the Vietnam War, has never been far from the Bush family’s side. Throughout his career, both in and out of government, he has been perpetually connected to CIA drug smuggling operations. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a 1995 Washington Post story, called Armitage, “my white son.” In 1990, then President Bush dispatched Armitage to Russia to aid in its “transition” to capitalism. Armitage’s Russian work for Bush has been frequently connected to the explosion of drug trafficking under the Russian Mafias, which became virtual rulers of the nation afterwards. In the early 1990s Armitage had extensive involvement in Albania at the same time that the Albanian ally, Kosovo Liberation Army was coming to power and consolidating its grip, according to The Christian Science Monitor, on 70% of the heroin entering western Europe. [See FTW Vol. II, No 2 - April 24, 1999]

Armitage and Carlucci are both Board Members of the influential Washington think tank, the Middle East Policy Council.

The connections continue with Vice President Dick Cheney. Amongst the multitude of oil pipeline construction running through the new war zone is one project - according to a Sept. 19, 2001 Wall Street Journal story - a joint venture in which the bin Laden family joined with the construction firm H.C. Price. A researcher named “Phoenix,” writing for the Internet news site Rumor Mills News Agency located at www.rumormillnews.com, reported that Price subsequently changed its name to Bredero Shaw, Inc. and is now owned by a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation, Dresser Industries. It was Dresser industries that gave George H.W. Bush his first post war job in 1948. A check of the relevant corporate web sites has confirmed this.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who served as Secretary of Defense during Desert Storm, directing the campaign against Saddam Hussein, was Halliburton’s CEO until last year’s election.

And, according to a 2000 story from Harper’s Magazine, in 1990 our current President, through a position as a corporate director of Caterair, owned by the Carlyle Group - at a time when the bin Laden’s were invested in Carlyle - had additional connections to the bin Laden family. In addition, on March 1, 1995, when George W. Bush was Texas governor and a senior Trustee of the university, the University of Texas Endowment voted to place $10 million in investments with the Carlyle Group. As to how much of that money went to the bin Ladens we can only guess. But we do know that there is a long tradition in the Bush family of giving money to those who kill Americans.

Now, as the people of America are beginning to awaken to what is really being unleashed upon them, as a few brave souls are asking who’s going to get all the money the Bush Administration is “borrowing” from government coffers and who’s going to pay for it - the above history is more than ominous.

Considering that during the 1980s, under the pretext of fighting a Sandinista regime in Nicaragua that never once launched an attack on the U.S., these same people oversaw an explosion in U.S. cocaine consumption that went from 80 metric tons in 1979 to 600 metric tons in 1989 - considering that the CIA trained and equipped death squads that tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of people from Guatemala to Panama - considering that these same people have brutalized Iraq, leaving portions of it radioactively contaminated by depleted uranium for the next 4 billion years and causing a fivefold increase in the number of childhood leukemia cases amidst a starving population, one can only wonder what they will produce for the world now given the context of the World Trade Center attacks.

…seems to be a hot topic these days, at least on the many of the Progressive blogs I read. Two recent studies, one statistical analysis from UC Berkely and another report from Steven Freeman, point to clear irregularities in voter turnout in counties where electronic voting machines were used. Hardly surprising is that the use of such machines, such as those designed and manufactured by Diebold, a firm run by a staunch Bush supporter, led without exception to favorable results for the incumbant.

As anyone who has even a passing familiarity with computers and software knows, manipulating the tally of an electronic voting machine is an extremely simple affair, particularly when no auditing features or paper trail exist. As far as I’m concerned it’s almost a foregone conclusion that the 2004 election was stolen by Bush and a handful of well-placed (and government funded) supporters. Problem is, there’s no way we’ll ever know for sure, barring the testimony of one of the conspiritors–a highly unlikely prospect at best.

I stumbled across this excellent post whilst hopping around the Japan Bloggers webring. I though I might simply re-post some of the better links, but decided that it should be read in it’s entirety. Great site design, too, don’t you think?

I’m of the opinion that it’s important to boldly display one’s political colors, particularly in a time of intense political crisis like today. That’s why this blog, typically reserved for mundane fodder like baby photos and noodle shop reviews, is increasingly filled with the kind of acerbic prose you find in recent entries regarding the election. I think it’s best to call a spade a spade, or in the this case to call a lying, incompetent, war-mongering criminal a lying, incompetent, war-mongering criminal .

But blogging politics is dicey business, as you run the risk of pissing people off, or at the very least hurting their feelings if they happen to stand on the opposite side of the political fence. I have, it seems, succeeded in doing just that. It wasn’t intentional. I don’t know anyone (or didn’t, until now) that supports Bush, and as most of my friends are proud, card-carrying liberals, the thought that some of my fauthful readers might actually belong to that 51% percent of America I’ve been calling dullards didn’t occur to me.

Sorry about that. I’ll tone down the vitriol a bit, now that I know that some of you, for whatever misguided and logic-defying reasons, actually signed up for four more years of Bush/Cheney.

And to those who would say I don’t have the right to “bitch about America” because I don’t live there, I think you’ve got it backwards. The correct admonition is, “If you don’t like it you can just leave!”. Which I did, and that actually ENTITLES me to join the rest of the free world in bitching about America.

Not only that, but I’m also more qualified to bitch about America than you folks back home. Being outside of America gives one a valuable opportunity to see beyond the domestic whitewash of patriotism, goodwill, and love for democracy with an objectivity clearly missing in the US media. You get to see America as the world sees it, not as Karl Rove and his cabal would like you to.

The “international” America is waging an unjust, unlitateral war on Iraq that has killed over 100,000 innocent civilians and is certain to unite our enemies against us and incite even more acts of terrorism on Americans at home and abroad. Even more egregious is that no one has bothered to mention this fact to the American people, who still think–even after Abu Ghraib and the murder of thousands of women and children–that what we’re doing there is somehow noble.

This America, the world’s leading producer of greenhouse gases, says NO to the Kyoto Protocol even when the evidence of global warming is alarmingly clear, presumably for the reason that US corporations might suffer. Meanwhile, the poles are melting and the waters are rising, and tropical storms churn the oceans like never before. I wonder how many Florida voters voted for that?

This America drops out of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty while “policing” the rest of the world for weapons of mass destruction with threats and outright aggression.

This America is waging war on its own citizens and incarcerating more all the time through the use of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and harsh “three strikes” laws that have been proven not to deter crime or minimize drug use.

This America is extremely well-armed and poorly educated, a combination that frightens everyone. It doesn’t understand its place in the global community or the community itself. Increasingly insular, myopic, and self-centered, this America looks more and more like its Commander-in-Chief, an oversized 6-year old wandering around the playground with a big club, bored and looking for something to whack.

This, like it or not, is the America the rest of us see. And while everyone recognizes America’s unique role as the world’s sole superpower and sees her as a long-standing symbol of freedom and democracy, we nonetheless feel growing shock and dismay at the country’s dangerous new direction and arrogant unilateralism.

You should, too.

Just like that, it’s over. Amazing outcome, eh? Everyone I talk to here can’t believe how braindead Americans have become over the years. People look at me incredulously, asking things like, “Do they have different news there or something?” and “What, are they just incredibly stupid?”

Four years of watching George Bush heartily shout FUCK YOU to the world community, the environment, half of America, and they still want more. Boggles the mind, it does. I can’t wait for the book burnings and re-education camps, er, retreats to begin.

Thank god the Faithful have finally wrested power from the Liberal Elite, those power brokers pulling the strings behind the scenes in America and pushing their sinister agenda of gay marriage, compulsory abortion, and “higher” education. Finally power is in the hands of The People! (”Damn, now who’s gonna hold the remote control?”)

I, for one, feel much safer knowing that we’re building a safer, well-armed and incarceration-loving society. Because you know what? It all comes down to this: who do you trust? Y’know? It’s about who ya trust. And while Dubya may not be smart, or eloquent, or literate, or diplomatic, or capable, or rational, or competent, or possess leadership qualities or, well, ANYTHING we thought Presidents should up until now, I think he’ll do just what he says. Or tries to say. He’s a good ol’ boy, you see, and, well, I trust him.

As if.

Chin up, people, and get busy.

The erection (as we call it here in Japan) concerns and mystifies me. As I watch state after state go red on my (elitist, liberal) NPR election map, I have to ask myself: how can the entire rest of the planet (yes, the entire world!) see Bush for the inept and misquided cretin that he is, as well as the huge negative impact he is having on America and the world at large, yet the Americans themselves just don’t get it? I mean, how many episodes of Cops and Fox News and Rush Limbaugh does it take to produce an electorate that could actually RE-ELECT this prick?

Make no mistake about it: Bush is NOT making the world safer for Americans, unless you consider his idea of Fortress America (One Bible and one gun for every man, woman and child, hallelujah!) a step in the right direction. You thought the extremists were pissed off before? That was nothing compared to what’s coming next. Let’s see what Joe Fucking America has to say about the war on terror once the body bags start stacking up. All the patriotic, Hollywood-fueled goo-gah freedom bullshit they’ve been shoving down your throats is going to start tasting a lot less sweet, friends.

C’mon, Ohio. Work with me, baby…

An article published in yesterday’s Japan Times made me think about the current state of affairs in the US, and the (for me) inexplicable rift that has developed between not just the two main polital parties there, but between “cultures” as well.

Writer Ronald Bernstein sheds some light on why we find ourselves so deeply divided today, placing much of the responsibility for the current mess on Bush and his advisors. The Bush presidency has never been about broadening his support among moderates and progressives, but has instead focused on solidifying his support among the right-wing conservative and fundamentalist blocks, as well as with his “base” of corporate interests and the wealthiest two percent of Americans.

This strategy–a gamble that Karl Rove and his cronies may shortly regret–is yet another reason to hate George W. Bush. It proves yet again that Dubya has never had the best interests of America in mind while governing the nation, and invariably seeks to further his own political and economic interests and those of his “base,” and the rest of us be damned.

All of the things that matter to us all, regardless of political stripe–jobs, the economy, the environment, education, our children’s future and our own well-being–have all been pushed off the radar completely while Bush and Co sequester us further and further into divided, fearful and disinformed camps of Culture War conscriptees. I’m extremely happy NOT to live in that America.

Anyway, it’s time to check the news. Click the link below to read the piece.

Why ‘This Is About Bush’

By Ronald Brownstein
The Los Angeles Times

Sunday 31 October 2004

Washington - More Americans than ever may participate in Tuesday’s presidential election - as volunteers and, on Tuesday, voters. But in its tone, its agenda and its fervor, the marathon race for the White House bears the unmistakable imprint of one man: President Bush.

As much through his unflinching style as his aggressive policies, Bush has powered a campaign that has engaged, motivated and divided Americans - and much of the world - like none in recent times.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry, has his admirers and his critics. But the unprecedented sums of money raised by both parties, the long lines of early voters already crowding polling places in many states and the anticipation of a sharply higher turnout Tuesday are all primarily reflections of the passions Bush has stirred in four turbulent years, especially by invading Iraq, analysts agree.

“This is about Bush,” said Andrew Kohut, executive director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Half a century ago, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously separated intellectuals and artists into two categories: the fox, who is clever, creative, committed to many goals; and the hedgehog, a creature driven by a single unwavering conviction. By Berlin’s standards, Bush has produced one of the purest examples of a hedgehog presidency.

With his repeated tax cuts, his support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and the war in Iraq, Bush has consistently pursued goals that generate strong support among Republicans and conservatives, but at the price of provoking antipathy among Democrats and liberals.

In his policies, Bush has sought to advance his ideas mainly by holding to sharply defined positions - and attempting to shift the debate in his direction almost by magnetic force.

In his political strategy, he has sought more to deepen his support among groups that lean in his direction than to broaden his appeal among groups that have resisted him.

Bush and his brain trust “have decided that rather than trying to expand their coalition and possibly water down their agenda, they would rather push for their agenda, even if it meant having to govern in a very partisan way,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Atlanta’s Emory University. “Bush’s strategy has focused primarily on energizing the Republican base rather than reaching out to swing voters.”

The culmination of this hedgehog presidency is a campaign that has become a crusade, both for Bush’s supporters and his opponents.

Massive advertising, voter registration efforts and get-out-the-vote campaigns from the left and right are crunching against each other like armies from the age of the sword and ax. Bush, Kerry and their allies have spent at least $1.2 billion on the presidential race, the most ever, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

“This is the most hard-fought and well-funded race that we have seen in modern history,” said Anthony Corrado, an expert on campaign finance at Colby College in Maine.

In the final 48 hours, a late surge might carry either Bush or Kerry to a relatively decisive victory. But most polls point toward a razor-thin race that threatens to leave America divided about as narrowly - and perhaps even more bitterly - than it was after Bush’s disputed victory over Democrat Al Gore in 2000.

“If Bush wins, he is going to be reviled by the left for another four years, and if Kerry wins it is going to be the same thing on the right,” said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee.

“It’s not like this election is going to resolve anything, because whoever wins is going to win by a percentage point or two and whoever loses is going to spend four years trying to destroy the other side. Don’t think this is over” Tuesday.

New Issues, Same Sides

Both sides enter the campaign’s final hours with more questions than answers - just as in 2000. The race has been so tight for so long that operatives on both sides believe it could be tipped by almost anything: a swell in turnout for either candidate that surprises pollsters; the weather in key states such as Florida, Ohio or Wisconsin; or the last-minute reaction among the few undecided voters to the public resurfacing Friday of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Many analysts have speculated that the Bin Laden videotape could benefit Bush by focusing more attention on the war against terrorism, the president’s strongest suit in polls. But of six national polls released Saturday, five showed Bush and Kerry within two percentage points of each other.

Only a Newsweek survey gave Bush a clear edge. In the ABC/Washington Post and Zogby/Reuters tracking polls released Saturday, Kerry’s position was slightly better than it had been before the Bin Laden tape surfaced; the TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics tracking poll showed an equally small tilt in Bush’s direction.

What’s terrifying about this race is a gust of wind could blow it one way or the other,” said Eli Pariser, executive director of the political action committee associated with the online liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org.

Bush’s on-the-edge position this close to the election is virtually unique for an incumbent.

History offers several examples of incumbents who lost substantial support over the course of their term and suffered resounding defeats in their reelection bid - from Herbert Hoover in 1932 to George H.W. Bush in 1992.

More common have been incumbents who broadened their support during their first term and significantly increased their margin of victory in winning reelection, from Thomas Jefferson in 1804 to Bill Clinton in 1996.

But unless opinion breaks decisively in the final two days, Bush won’t fit into either category. Current polls show Bush attracting about as much support - and largely from the same sources - as he did in 2000.

This sign of political stability is especially remarkable given the enormous change in the issue mix since 2000. Four years ago, domestic issues - taxes, education and prescription drugs for seniors - dominated the race. In this, the first election since the Sept. 11 attacks, terrorism and the war in Iraq have consumed by far the most attention.

Yet even on this radically different terrain, the basic boundaries that divided red (Republican) from blue (Democratic) America in 2000 remain largely in place.

The latest polls still show Kerry and Bush commanding mirror-image demographic and ideological coalitions defined more by cultural values than economic interests, just as in 2000. Bush dominates among rural voters and middle-income whites, especially those who are married and attend church regularly or own guns.

Kerry holds strong leads among urban voters, minorities, singles and those who don’t attend church regularly or own guns. He also runs competitively among lower-income whites open to his economic message and affluent white voters responsive to his views on social and foreign policy issues.

Independents and suburbanites, two classic groups of swing voters, remain closely split between Bush and Kerry in late surveys - just as they were four years ago.

A Polarizing Trend

Some shifts since 2000 are evident.

Bush is bidding strongly for Pennsylvania, and his campaign has made recent pushes to win Michigan and New Jersey - all states Gore carried comfortably four years ago. And Bush even dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney to mount a last-minute drive for traditionally Democratic Hawaii.

Kerry is fighting harder to win some Southwestern states, such as Nevada and Colorado, than the Democrats did in 2000.

But between them, Kerry and Bush are seriously contesting only a few states that the other party carried four years ago.

These trends underscore the extent to which Bush’s presidency has hardened, rather than realigned, the divisions that existed when he took office.

For instance, Bush’s approval rating among Republicans has routinely exceeded 90% in polls - higher numbers on a sustained basis than President Reagan recorded. But Bush’s approval from Democrats has often stood at 15% or less. That’s the largest partisan gap in a president’s job approval in the 50-year history of modern polling.

Karl Rove and Matthew Dowd, Bush’s top political strategists, have argued that the calcifying divisions in the country represent a long-term trend largely unrelated to Bush’s actions.

Dowd noted that the gap in the approval ratings presidents receive from voters in the two parties has steadily increased in recent decades and asserted that Bush was unlikely to significantly expand his support beyond his party base, no matter how he governed. Republicans also say that the bitterness over the 2000 result also created an environment inhospitable to attracting support from Democrats.

Most experts in both parties agree that the nation has grown more polarized over the last 25 years, limiting any president’s ability to expand his coalition. But many believe Bush’s governing choices have deepened the divisions.

Apart from his No Child Left Behind education plan, Bush has consistently offered initiatives aimed at his GOP base - such as his massive tax cuts and his early foreign policy moves, including abandoning the international negotiations on global warming.

After his firm response to the 9/11 attacks, Bush attracted enormous support from Democrats and Republicans. But polarization resurfaced over the following year as Bush offered initiatives on taxes, energy policy and homeland security that sharply divided the parties.

Bush’s approval rating among Democrats, which peaked at 84% in Gallup surveys after the 9/11 attacks, fell below 50% by the summer of 2002.

Unity Ends With War

The war in Iraq blew away the last fragments of post-9/11 unity. Indeed, in its political effect, the war has functioned like a social issue such as abortion. It has divided the country most profoundly along cultural, not economic, lines - thus reinforcing and even intensifying the divisions evident in 2000.

Support for the war has generally been greater among the same morally conservative, less affluent constituencies that have been drawn to the GOP over the last generation on social issues. Opposition has been most marked among upscale and socially moderate constituencies that moved toward the Democrats, largely on social concerns, in the 1990s.

Driven by that current, the most important changes in voting patterns this year are less likely to reverse the trends of 2000 than to push even further in the same direction - with Democrats increasingly relying on upscale and better-educated voters and Republicans gaining among downscale voters mostly on noneconomic issues such as national security.

Four years ago, Bush ran even among voters with a college education. But recent polls show him trailing with that group, largely because he has lost support among college-educated men, traditionally a Republican constituency.

Bush may offset those gains by expanding his support among married women without a college education, the so-called “waitress moms” responsive to both his socially conservative and peace-through-strength messages.

These patterns have persisted even though Kerry has centered his economic message on a promise to defend middle-class families and Bush has built his economic agenda around tax cuts that have provided most of their benefits to the most affluent. And the frame Bush has tried to impose on the 2004 election seems designed to accelerate the trends.

Whereas Kerry has generally sought to blur ideological distinctions, Bush has aggressively tried to sharpen them, presenting the election as a choice between a liberal and a conservative. Like most of his policy decisions, Bush’s campaign strategy appears to have been aimed more at broadening his support among conservative-leaning constituencies than expanding his reach to moderates.

“He makes very little effort to speak across the divides of the American people, to reassure people that he is interested in transcending those divisions,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank Bush praised in the 2000 campaign. “Somewhere along the way, he let himself get talked into running a campaign that is basically addressed to one half of America.”

Both Camps Energized

This polarizing approach has presented Bush with clear costs and benefits in this year’s contest.

The most obvious cost has been the fervor Bush has inspired among his opponents. From financier George Soros (who has donated about $24 million to anti-Bush groups this year) to rock icon Bruce Springsteen (who appeared with Kerry this week after spurning endorsement requests for 30 years), to the massive voter registration drives engineered by groups such as America Coming Together and the 531,000 people who have contributed since October to MoveOn.orgs political action committee, it is difficult to imagine how the left could do any more to beat Bush.

These efforts, said Pariser of the MoveOn PAC, stem from “a visceral feeling about where things are headed unless we change course.”

Bush’s strategy also has cost him some support in circles that usually lean Republican. Last summer, a group of former diplomats and military officers, many of whom held top positions for Republican presidents, called for his defeat. Forty-one newspapers that editorially endorsed Bush last time have revoked their support this year, according to Editor and Publisher, an industry magazine.

Diplomats and editorial writers may not move many votes. But their disenchantment symbolizes the class shift in American politics that Bush appears to be spurring.

The flip side is the enthusiasm Bush has inspired among conservatives. Last year, Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth, the group of Vietnam veterans criticizing Kerry’s record in the war, didn’t exist; today it has raised at least $23 million from more than 100,000 donors.

Established conservative groups like the National Rifle Assn. and the Club for Growth, which focuses on economic issues, are all mounting vast efforts for Bush.

“Everybody is digging as deep as they can,” says Moore.

The biggest test of Bush’s “hedgehog” strategy will come Tuesday.

Bush’s advisors are betting that his passionate attachment to conservative causes at home and abroad, his firm style of leadership and his ardent expressions of personal religious faith will inspire a huge turnout from the Republican base that will carry him to a second term. The risk is that he will inspire an equal or greater reaction from Democratic constituencies that will tilt the key states, and the race, to Kerry.

Over a grueling and historic term, Bush has riveted America. He has achieved more of his agenda than seemed possible after his narrow victory in 2000. But his presidency has carved deep lines of division through the country.

Bush is about to learn whether in drawing those lines, he is left with enough supporters to earn a second term.

…stands for My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable, but I’m not sure why. Maybe you can figure it out.

David Rees discusses the war in Iraq and other political Bushhaps in this syndicated comic strip.

I watched the presedent’s recent press conference on the web today, surprisingly intact and accompanied by a text transcript on the White House web site.

Living here in Japan I don’t have the same ready access to US media that I, er, enjoyed while living in the States, and it’s perhaps because of this that I’m so consistently shocked at the state of political leadership and discourse there today. I mean, is there anyone who watched that and didn’t think Bush is either blatantly evasive or just plain stupid? How on Earth can this halfwit be the leader of the free world? Unable to memorize even a single line of his pre-packaged speech, he speaks using a monotonous stream of five-second spurts punctuated with lengthy glances downward to read the next line. For God’s sake, the man is retarded. What kind of country could have this man as their leader and not feel anything but shame and overwhelming guilt and having put him in the White House in the first place?

Chances are I expect too much from today’s politicians. I look back at US leaders from years ago–Kennedy, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln–and marvel at their erudition and intellectual fortitude. Towering men, these, giants capable of moving mountains with little more than the conviction of their ideals and irresistable leadership abilities.

I have trouble finding a single US leader today (albeit through my narrow CNN media window) capable of mustering a grammatically correct sentence, must less the respect of thinking people at home and abroad. We’ve become the laughing stock of the world, a nation of bubbas driving pickup trucks with prominent gun racks, ready to stomp a mud whole in any ol’ peckerwood that wants a piece.

Just make it stop. Bush and Co. need to go, and the sooner the better for all of us. It’s clear we made a monstrous mistake putting them in power in the first place, so let’s can the bastards and move on.