Silenced Majority Portal

Get Married Not Buried

Dick Cheney could have said the line “get married, not buried” because  marriage was one of the vice president’s  5 draft deferments.  Despite having what he says are “better things to do” during the Vietnam war than to join the military, he didn’t hesitate to send other people’s children to die in Iraq in a war which now more than 60% of Americans believe was a mistake.  As a consequence, recruiting numbers are way down and some prognosticators are starting to feel a draft.   

If a draft is implemented, I doubt if a traditional marriage deferment will exist.  That said, the Anti-war committee, a  Twin-Cities based group, has a new twist on the concept of a  marriage deferment.  The anti-war committee recently offered gay couples the opportunity to make a commitment to each other during the Pride festival in Minneapolis.  An ordained minister conducted the ceremonies.  Certificates of commitment were given out to participants as were “Same Sex Kissing Documents.” The same sex kissing documentation stated “At pride 2005 in Loring Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota _____________ witnessed  ___________ kissing a person of the same sex at the anti-war committee booth.  The kiss was an act of defiance against the Bush administration’s support for government sponsored homophobia and against the war on Iraq and the peoples of the world.  Not only was it a kiss, but he/she liked it."  The document also included: “ I _________, thereby do declare  _____________ is thereby certified NOT RECRUITABLE FOR THE US MILITARY!

____________________ Anti-war committee witness and date. “

Besides offering commitment ceromonies to gay persons and marriage ceremonies to straight persons who wanted to make an-anti-war statement, the AWC also participated in the Pride Parade.  Below are some photos from Loring Park ceremonies and the parade.  Click on the photos for a larger version. 

                         

After each ceremony, members of the Anti-war Committee, including the minister, blew bubbles on the celebrants.

Exchanging Rings

Ceremonies were next to a lake.

The Banner in the Pride Parade.

 

In the Pride Parade

Another photo from the parade.

Author: n

Bush asks US: stay with me on Iraq

I never thought I would see the day when BushCo, much less the boy king himself, who wears no clothes, would back into a corner and essentially admit 'total defeat' in Iraq.  I couldn't believe my eyes this morning as I read George Bush's words (in an International publication, of course):  "George W. Bush yesterday urged Americans to stay the course and insisted that he had a plan for eventual victory."

That, my friends, is an admission of defeat.  After all, had we not already reached the ultimate victory in Iraq  -- many times over -- according to this Administration?  Eventual Victory?  What in the world does that imply? 

All I know lately is that I can barely tune into the details of the Iraq quagmire.  I browse the news and all I see is 'suicide bomber', 'car bomber'' and number of fatalities posted.  Throughout each and everyday, I see story after story after story with the hourly report on which bomb and which body count, hold breath, shake my head, and sigh in abject horror.  And to think that just about ALL of the news from Iraq is under lock and key!  What don't we know?

But it seems the American public seems to indeed know what is going on in Iraq.  Bush would not stick his neck out on a chopping block with statements like he now makes if he wasn't under A LOT of public pressure.  Has the American public caught on?  Has shopping stopped numbing them to the realities of the violent mess that we have created in Iraq?  Do the summer tv re-runs give America a chance to stop and think?  Because something is up is this cabal is backing up, slowly, and uttering chilling Vietnam Redux nonsense like "Stay the Course" and "Resolve and Faith.'

To be clear, I am not 'happy' to see Bush in a corner in Iraq.  I wish he had created some incredible fuzzy warm magic solution for what was a non-problem in February 2003: the  Saddam problem. I wish I were eating crow.  But we all knew this is exactly where Bush was leading us.  Will our countrymen take that tyrant out of power? (Bush, that is).  I have hope that this IS the turning point.

Without further ado, here is the opinion piece from a treasured international publication:

Bush asks US: stay with me on Iraq    

As casualties and criticism mount, the President warns of more violence ahead and pleads for 'resolve and faith'

Paul Harris in Washington, and Peter Beaumont in Baghdad
Sunday    June      26, 2005

   In the face of mounting casualties and a growing threat of civil war in Iraq, George W. Bush yesterday urged Americans to stay the course and insisted that he had a plan for eventual victory.

In his weekly radio address, the President said: 'Our country has been tested before and we have a long history of resolve and faith in the cause of freedom. Now we will see that cause to victory in Iraq.'

His comments will do little to ease a growing sense of crisis in Washington as images from the carnage in Iraq continue to flood America's television screens and Bush's poll numbers on the war spiral down. American casualties have now risen above 1,700 in the conflict.

The latest casualties came as a suicide bomber in Falluja struck a vehicle carrying a number of US women soldiers, killing at least three female marines, and injuring a dozen more. The women's deaths marked the bloodiest day in Iraq so far for America's female soldiers and came amid further attacks on Iraqi security forces which left 10 policemen in Samarra and six bystanders dead in a suicide bombing at a police officer's home in Baghdad.

The seemingly endless flow of bad news has sparked deep unease among many Republicans with an eye on tough mid-term elections next year. It has also opened up an apparent gap between senior White House officials and the army. Both Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney made aggressive statements saying that the war was on track and the insurgency was being defeated. However, senior generals, including John P. Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Middle East, paint a much less rosy picture.

Such developments have emboldened Democrats to go on a fierce offensive. In a response to Bush's radio address, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser under Jimmy Carter, slammed the President for turning Iraq into a training ground for terrorists. He said the war had been conducted with 'tactical and strategic incompetence' and made the United States less safe.

'America finds itself more isolated than ever, the object of unprecedented interna tional mistrust,' Brzezinski said. 'We are not as safe as we should be here at home.'

He also used one of the most Vietnam-era words in American politics, when he said Iraq was threatening to become a 'quagmire'. 

But Bush's speech betrayed no sense of any shift in policy. It also probably presaged much of what he will say when he addresses the American people in a special prime-time speech on Tuesday that will focus on Iraq.

Bush insisted that Iraq had made 'dramatic progress' and praised elections held this year, but did admit that tough times lay ahead: 'We can expect more tough fighting ... yet I am confident in the outcome. A democratic Iraq will be a great triumph in the history of liberty.'

Bush said America remained fully committed to fighting the war and was pursuing a two-track military and political strategy to defeat the Iraqi insurgents.

'Our military strategy is clear. We will train Iraqi security forces so they can defend their freedom and protect their people, then our troops will return home with the honour they have earned. The political track of our strategy is to continue helping Iraqis build the institutions of a stable democracy.' That marks no change in direction in America's hopes to begin to withdraw only when Iraqi forces are seen as capable of replacing them. It also comes a day after Bush hosted Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and rejected any calls for a timetable for pulling out US troops.

Reaction among the American media was notably withering on Bush's performance with al-Jaafari and the President's insistence that America was making progress in Iraq. 'If the war is going according to plan, someone needs to rethink the plan,' said the New York Times.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1514987,00.html

Contraceptive Police

Last Saturday, my close friend from Seattle stopped by to visit with me on her way N. Dakota. She and I have been friends for a long time and we both share a concern about the direction of the country. We stay in touch on line. She sends me photos and stories from her activities in Seattle and I share mine from the Twin Cities with her. On this occasion, that won’t be necessary because we both participated in the same protest at Snyder Drugs in Richfield, a suburb of Minneapolis.

That day, a small group of people protested the actions of a pharmacy intern at Snyder Drugs in Richfield. The intern refused to fill a prescription for birth control pills for Adriane Gilbert, an undergraduate at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The intern reported that it was against his religious beliefs to fill that prescription. 

There are reports that pharmacists across the nation are becoming contraceptive police. The problem is serious. Recently, the American Medical Association is proposed a law that would require pharmacists to fill valid prescriptions written by physicians.

As usual, the Twin Cities is ahead of the curve. As seen in the photos, our young people are in the streets standing on the shoulders of their feminist sisters who paved the way for them in the 1970s.

See this link for interesting commentary:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week840/cover.html

Here is an article about the Minnesota incident at the Richfield Snyder Drugs:

http://www.womenspress.com/newspaper/2005/2027pill.html

 

Freedom Fries? Non, how about “W” Fries?

Representative Walter Jones, a North Carolina congressman, was livid when France refused to back the US in its war with Iraq. In a symbolic gesture, he proposed changing the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries on cafeteria menus on Capitol Hill.

Today, Rep. Jones has had a change of heart. “Since the main reason for going to war -- weapons of mass destruction -- has turned out to be false, Jones says it's time for the United States to withdraw.” "After 1,700 deaths, over 12,000 wounded and $200 billion spent, we believe it is time to have this debate.”

Rep. Jones should be commended for breaking with his party’s position of “staying the course.” The war was a mistake. Rep. Jones has egg on his face because he, like many, trusted the president’s judgment. At least now he has the courage to stand up for his beliefs and to promote democracy in a manner for which we all can be proud.

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As for the French Fries -- we know now, as does Rep Jones, that Bush's recipe was not  for freedom fries.  Instead, "W"  Fries are Bush's home-cooked concoction that are guaranteed to make a lot of people ill -- or worse.  Author: n

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/editorial/11920930.htm

What is an Obstructionist?

The Republicans, including President GW Bush, are constantly calling the democrats "obstructionists."  Just what does that term mean?

The photo on the poster is of a single Chinese protester standing in front of Tanks in Tiananmen Square during protests in 1989. He was an obstructionist and he's someone who stood up for his beliefs.

The woman carrying the sign in the photo attended a rally last week at the capitol in St Paul Minnesota to protest President Bush's plan to privatize social security.  Bush's plan, which would cost trillions, would place the risk of investment on individual investors.  But that's the Republican way.  They want to privatize profits while socializing corporate risks. She and several hundred others that showed up to protest Bush's visit to Minnesota last Saturday, want their lesgislators to be obstructionists and to stand up to corporate interests. 

Author: n

Joey Fatone says that we are not puppets and that the president should get NSync with the demands of the people. 

Is global warming real? Ask my cat!

I live in Minnesota, one of the coldest places in the United States. Yesterday, my cat burned its feet walking on the sun-heated concrete. That wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago and it wouldn’t happen today if global warming wasn’t real.

On a more serious note, the scientific evidence that global warming presents a significant problem for our world is overwhelming.  Why then is the Bush administration denying it?  Last week, news broke that Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, watered down reports that global warming is connected to greenhouse gas emissions, the ones that come out of automobile tailpipes. Cooney, who is a seasoned oil lobbyist with no scientific training, was caught “removing or adjusting language on climate research.” This is the guy the White House wanted for the job. This is the guy who was hired to work for the people – you and me. I should call Cooney the "former" chief of staff because two days after the report was published by the NY Times about Cooney's heavy hand in editing scientific reports, he resigned.  The adminsitration said he did a great job and that his resignation had nothing to do with recent news. I'm sure the news didn't hurt Mr. Cooney's reputation.  In fact, it probably helped him.  He already has been hired by Exxon, a company that "has long financed advertising and lobbying efforts that question whether warming caused by humans poses risks serious enough to justify curbing carbon dioxide." According to the NY Times, Exxon and Mr Cooney were either unavailable or unwilling to comment about the nature of Mr Cooney's new job. 

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Why do we put up with an administration that abuses the public trust? Hiring an oil lobbyist to protect and report on the environment is like placing a convicted child molester in charge of elementary school security.

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Where is the outrage?

Author: n

Stupidity Level Rises

This is SO embarrassing

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON (AP) - About 40 percent of Americans say they consider talk show host Bill O'Reilly a journalist - more than would define famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward the same way, according to a poll conducted this spring.

Only 30 percent said Woodward, who broke the Watergate story with Carl Bernstein, was a journalist. More than a quarter said talk show host Rush Limbaugh was one, while one in five said they considered newspaper columnist George Will to be a journalist.

Poll respondents were simply asked, ``Please tell me if you think (the individual named) is a journalist or not?'' The question made no specific reference to differences between reporters and commentators.
read the rest at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5072198,00.html

posted by Slugbug

I'm AntiWar - Don't Want to Die

from Honey Hole Bar

photo by Slugbug (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

Fabricating Republicans

The republicans love to beat up on Howard Dean. Could it be jealousy?  Ask Bret Schundler, a republican candidate for the governor of New Jersey. His campaign produced a poster made from a doctored photo of Howard Dean and his followers on the campaign trail by replacing Dean with his own mug. The photo is shown here on this blog and it’s clear that this is a case of digitally generated republicans.  Although Schundler claims he didn’t know about the photo in advance, someone on his campaign did and approved it. He didn't know, though, that the digital fans were HOWARD DEAN supporters. I guess it’s ok to have fake supporters in your campaign photo as long as they aren’t the bad guys.  What happened to ethics?  I guess what matters is the image of a candidate rather than the truth. We’ve been seeing a lot of that lately

Here is a link to an article about the Dean-Schundler fiasco:

http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MDcmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY3MDMxOTEmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXky

The same kind of photoshop magic was used by the Bush campaign in one of their ads when he was running for president this last time. The same soldiers appeared multiple times in the crowd to make it look bigger than it was.  See the DailyKos link below for the details:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/27/22442/878

Bush and his handlers did the same thing when they had Bush pose with those thousands of Iraqi forces that the US has supposedly trained to take over for the US troops. 

There is a clear pattern of dishonesty here.

author: n

More Potential for Cheating

One step forward, two steps back .. we just had a victory for democracy this week in Seattle as Dino Rossi had to step down in his ridiculous attempt to unseat Governor Gregoire. But then we had to hear that Cheney was in town, drumming up money already for the Repbublicans in 2006. Then Elizabeth, who attended the Voter Reform Conference recently in Memphis, had to send me this depressing bit (that we should know about, nevertheless)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8123391/
Officials envision 21st century elections

Below is off of www.bradblog.com

New Report on Election Reform Dead on Arrival
'Election Center' Becomes Latest Election Reform Group to Have Sold Their Souls to Diebold
Credibility Matters

Something stinks to high heaven about these people and their new report. And not simply because they're based in Houston, TX, (though it certainly doesn't help their case) but the fact that they are directly funded by Voting Machine companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia immediately destroys any credibility they might have otherwise had when it comes to making decisions about our Electoral System in desperate need of reform.

ElectionCenter.org claims to be a non-profit, non-partisan, professional organization of Elections Workers. Today, they have released a new report [large PDF] with recommendations on how to improve America's Electoral System.

The AP covered the new report in a story yesterday which shines a fairly positive light on it yet manages to include a couple of paragraphs which jump out as huge red flags. Here's a couple of them from the AP story [emphasis added]...

In a new, sweeping report, state and local officials focus much of their attention on voters and poll workers rather than voting machines — the subject of so much debate ever since the 2000 presidential stalemate in Florida.
...
The report also urges state legislators to consider an “independently verifiable” record of each voter’s ballot from ATM-style touchscreen voting machines that could be electronic, video or some other form — pointedly downplaying a widespread push for paper receipts from touchscreens.
...
The Election Center has come in for criticism after reports that the nonprofit, nonpartisan group accepts contributions from voting machine manufacturers. Two members of the task force are former local election administrators who’ve formed their own election-related businesses.

So here we have yet another "nonprofit, nonpartisan" organization dedicated to Election issues, who have a clear conflict of interest due to their financial alliance with the Voting Machine Companies instead of the American Citizens whose interests they claim to represent.

Unlike the now-discredited "American Center for Voting Rights" , a phony front group founded by GOP operatives as a smokescreen for real Election Reform issues, Election Center has been around for a number of years. But their claims that their mission is to "improve service to voters, the public, the taxpayers and to government" is completely belied by the companies they keep...or that keep them...

A few Googles of the various election officials associated with this organization and their new report should answer any other questions you may have. These people (folks like Palm Beach's Theresa LePore and Los Angeles' Conny McCormack to name just a few) are certainly not in the business of fighting for the voters' best interests.

Suffice to say, if Election Center expects any recognition for their recommendations for Electoral Reform from the Election Reform community, perhaps they should have thought of that before selling that option off to Diebold and friends.

Author: Slugbug