Beyond the “Vietnam Syndrome”

“The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula,” President George H. W. Bush said of the Gulf War victory in early 1991. He told a gathering of state legislators, “It's a proud day for America -- and, by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”

Often discussed by news media, the “Vietnam syndrome” usually has a negative connotation, implying knee-jerk opposition to military involvement. Yet public backing for a war has much to do with duration and justification. A year after the invasion of Iraq began, Noam Chomsky observed: “Polls have demonstrated time and time again that Americans are willing to accept a high death toll -- although they don't like it, they're willing to accept it -- if they think it's a just cause. There's never been anything like the so-called Vietnam syndrome: it's mostly a fabrication. And in this case too if they thought it was a just cause, the 500 or so [American] deaths would be mourned, but not considered a dominant reason for not continuing. No, the problem is the justice of the cause.”

Rev. Jackson Recommends a 21st Century Marshall Plan That Reinvests in the Gulf Coast

CHICAGO – The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, issued the following statement regarding President Bush’s Recovery Plan for the Gulf Coast region:

The Bush Administration, Homeland Security and FEMA failed to provide the people of the Gulf Coast with needed rescue, evacuation and relief. As confidence in his administration fades and his poll ratings sink to record depths, the promises of his recovery plan are contradicted by his policies and practice.

The residents, communities and businesses deserve a Marshall Plan for the Gulf Coast that rebuilds industry, revitalizes farmland, repairs infrastructure, relocates residents, retrains and re-employs the victims of the hurricane. The disaster victims from the region deserve priority in the reconstruction effort, incentives to return home, and priority in the allocation of contracts and jobs so they can rebuild their lives and communities as they work to revitalize the Gulf Coast region.

Bring back New Orleans: the politics of disaster

NEW ORLEANS -- At a press conference yesterday afternoon, Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans announced that the reentry initiated this morning would be suspended and the city was going to be re-evacuated by Wednesday.

Nagin cites approaching Hurricane Rita as the reason for the evacuation; Rita is expected to reach at least Category 4 status by the time it makes landfall Thursday afternoon, with gale force winds whipping the Delta as early as Wednesday night.

Mayor Nagin stated that it would take only a mere nine inches of precipitation to compromise the levees, flooding New Orleans again for the second time in three weeks. When asked whether the temporary repairs made to the levees were expected to hold, he said that he “did not have that expectation”; adding that the pumps were “not yet operating at full capacity.”

“I am urging and encouraging you to call anyone you know in the city, both in Algiers and the East Bank, and tell them to leave.” Mayor Nagin seemed reluctant to identify how much force would be used by police and

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Don't Let Congress Use the Carter-Baker Report to Make Vote Verification Meaningless

The Report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, published this morning and available for download at http://programs.online.american.edu/, is a significant tome at over 100 pages, and its 87 recommendations cover a wide range of issues of concern to election activists. The section dealing with voting technology is of particular interest to those concerned about the accuracy and security of elections in that it explicitly recommends  a requirement for a voter verifiable paper trail on all voting systems.

The Commission’s report very correctly recognizes the need to ensure voter confidence in the election process through a verification process. However, the report specifically recommends that the status of the voter verified record should be left to the states. This is unacceptable. It is fundamental to the integrity of the democratic process that it is the voters and not the machines that ultimately confirm the accuracy of their votes.

A Fraction of Democracy

Anyone who’s taken fractions in school knows that 5/3 is greater than 3/5. This is true in mathematics. It’s also true in democracy.

On Friday, September 9, the Camp Casey bus tour came to Cleveland, Ohio. The bus tour is an outgrowth of the encampment of Cindy Sheehan, mother of a killed US solider in the Iraq war, who attempted to meet personally with President George Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas in August.

Composed of family members of killed and current US troops in Iraq, among others, the Bring Them Home Now bus tour is making its way across the country calling attention to the human costs of the war and occupation. At every stop, they try to share their stories and perspectives with US Representatives or Senators. If they can’t, then with their aides. That was the case in Cleveland.

On September 9 a delegation of tour participants, along with local peace and anti-war activists, planned to meet with an aide to Ohio Senator George Voinovich. They would follow this visit with leaving material at the office (all aides were to be away for part of the afternoon) of Ohio Senator Mike DeWine.

Some obvious answers to great problems!!

Hurricane Katrina and the accompanying floods which destroy New Orleans and other towns in Mississippi and Alabama provided the opportunity for the Bush team to executed it’s basic objective, that of profiting off of any discrepant event which includes both that caused by nature and by man made was done exceedingly well in the case of Katrina. The Rove standard plan is to rush into any situation provide misinformation, arrange for the distribution of any profitable contracts, and get any positive credit for solutions!!.  (NBC News, September, 2005).

Some of the important the important issuers and facts may be given as follows:

Immediately during, not after, the tragedy Bush announced that oil prices would have to go up at the gas pumps (CBS News, September 2005)

Carter/Baker Report can't face how the GOP stole America's 2004 election & is rigging 2008

The stolen elections of 2000, 2002 and 2004 are nowhere to be found in the milquetoast Carter-Baker Report now passing for wisdom on America's broken electoral system.

And unless the public is ready to face the reality that we no longer live in a nation with credible elections, the 2008 balloting is all but over.

As investigative reporters and registered voters living in central Ohio, we witnessed firsthand the outright theft of the 2004 election. We also endured the unwillingness of the Democratic Party to face up to a carefully choreographed "do everything" strategy that gave the presidency to George W. Bush for a second time, and which could make all elections to come virtually moot.

The just-issued report of a special commission headed by former President Jimmy Carter and Bush family consigliore Jim Baker is of little real value.

Dodging the Costs of the Warfare State

The New York Times began a new week with an editorial that typifies the media mind-set of the warfare state.

The Sept. 19 editorial warns of dire consequences from a growing deficit that has been boosted by tax cuts -- in combination with “the pre-Katrina priorities laid down by Mr. Bush.” Those priorities include a U.S. military budget that has reached half a trillion dollars per year. But the Times editorial does not devote a single word to military spending or the Iraq war.

Why not mention the option of an American pullout from Iraq, where the U.S. war effort has already drained $200 billion from taxpayers? Well, those who determine editorial positions at the New York Times -- and the other major newspapers in the country -- cannot bring themselves to call for a quick end to the U.S. military role in Iraq.

Fierce criticism of White House policies is routinely compatible with support for militarism. When the Times condemned the Bush administration’s handling of hurricane relief in a Sept. 2 editorial, the final paragraph included this unequivocal sentence: “America clearly needs a larger active-duty Army.”

Project Censored 2006

AUSTIN, Texas -- What we need in this country -- along with a disaster relief agency -- is a Media Accountability Day. One precious day out of the entire year when everyone in the news media stops reporting on what's wrong with everyone else and devotes a complete 24-hour news cycle to looking at our own failures. How's that for a great idea?

My colleagues, of course, are persuaded that every day is Pick on the Media Day. Every day, the right wing accuses us of liberal bias and the liberals accuse us of right-wing or corporate bias -- so who needs more of this?

I have long been persuaded that the news media collectively will be sent to hell not for our sins of commission, but our sins of omission. The real scandal in the media is not bias, it is laziness. Laziness and bad news judgment. Our failure is what we miss, what we fail to cover, what we let slip by, what we don't give enough attention to -- because, after all, we have to cover Jennifer and Brad, and Scott and Laci, and Whosit who disappeared in Aruba without whom the world can scarce carry on.

What's next in Ohio? Outlawing Abortion?

This past spring anti-choice representatives in the Ohio House introduced a bill that would completely outlaw abortion in Ohio without exception: not to save a woman's life, not for victims of rape or incest.  It would even put someone in jail for 15 years for driving a woman to another state to get an abortion.  When he introduced the bill, Rep. Brinkman announced that his plan was to get the bill passed and then take it to the Supreme Court and use it to overturn Roe.  Initially this looked like a far-fetched dream, but now with the dual vacancy on the Court, and John Roberts as the nominee for Chief Justice this dream may quickly turn into a reality and a nightmare for women in Ohio.

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