The Friends of California Libre...

13 February 2004

The Romantic Warmonger's Holiday Getaway

Greetings, friends,
First of all, if you're interested in going to see a good movie or a gig in LA, give me a call/e-mail...this coming week is HUGE. Too big even for dates and times, but the list includes (so far): "It" with Clara Bow, "Midnight Cowboy", Mort Sahl, "Far from the Madding Crowd", Tom Paxton, "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "West Side Story", "The Velvet Vampire" (a camp classic), "The Lady from Shanghai", Welles' "Othello", "Touch of Evil", "Slaughterhouse 5", Human Drama, a concert of Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev, "Blow Up", "Casablanca" (again), the Nortec Collective, Junior Brown, and one of my very favorite movies, Orson Welles' version of Kafka's "The Trial". That's between Friday and next Thursday. WOW!

When I was home sick a while back, I was laying out watching one of those corny old episodes of "Ironside". A very young Martin Sheen was playing a hit man posing as a draft dodger to escape a police dragnet and get to Canada. The cops (yeah, with the big boy in the wheelchair) actually went to the hippies running the "Underground Railroad" and convinced them to help the cops nail this murderer. Then at the end, the hippies offered to turn themselves in (since they refused to stop helping draft dodgers over the border) and the cops LET THEM GO. Now this show was thirty-four years old, but it really made me think. This was a primetime show back then...could any contemporary show have a similar plot? Cops tolerating such unpatriotic behavior? DRAFT DODGERS? They'd all have been imprisoned or shot dead by the Department of Homeland Security, and no lawyers for you, evildoers. Kerry's getting flak from Republicans because he was in a PHOTOGRAPH with Jane Fonda. Jesus, do I have to go back through all of my photos now? None of you out there is doing anything UNPATRIOTIC, are you? CUT IT OUT NOW.

Up in San Francisco and down in Haiti, people are standing up for their rights in different ways. With so many people jammed into the planet (and more coming) we're hard-pressed to just let people alone. We'd better get used to it and get all this sh*t under control, or our kids and our friend's kids are going to have one pissed off life. Hey, GO SAN FRANCISCO, man, that what I say. We beat Boston out again. I love a good wedding, so I say: do it now before the Governator makes a speech and says, "Gay marriage? That's FANTASTIC." (Notice he says that a lot.) That'll ruin it.

Get ready; it's Friday the 13th, Saint Valentine's Day and President's Day (Lincoln and Washington, two men that George Bush might have read about):
Bush Prepares His Electoral War Machine
By Philippe Gelie
Le Figaro
The President, showing his worst popularity rating since the outset of his term, is hoarding his resources for the final face-off
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/020604H.shtml

If you want to help KICK GEORGE BUSH'S ASS out of the White House in November, the Republicans already have you outspent by about 4 to 1. Even the score if you can...this address with be posted below my signature in every e-mail until then:
https://contribute.johnkerry.com/index.html?source_code=00012419

Yeah, I'm putting money where my mouth is this time. I was listening to John Kerry months ago, and he wasn't bitter. He was doing what Senators do, make speeches and make speeches about other speeches, and obviously having fun. We need a President who likes to talk. All my favorite Presidents (and I'm not being THAT sarcastic) have enjoyed talking intelligently.

They also can put up when they need to. Here's all I'm going to say, maybe, about this "who suffered more in the Seventies" stuff:
Brothers in Arms?
By Mother Jones
George W. Bush and John Kerry both spent their mid twenties in uniform. The similarities end there.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/021104D.shtml

Anyway, here's my Saint Valentine's Day gift to you,
Barbie and Ken 'Split' After 43 Years
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040212/ap_on_re_us/barbie_breakup
Boo hoo. Wait'll you see my President's Day gift on Monday.

And here's something I remember from 12 years ago (yep, that long) when I crashed the Democratic Party celebration for Bill Clinton at the Biltmore Hotel, and saw half the LA City Council drunk and dancing:
A United Democratic Party?
By Scott Galindez
t r u t h o u t Perspective
There is an old saying "I am not a member of an organized political party…I am a Democrat." In 2004, that no longer seems to be the case. The exit polls show a party united around beating George Bush, and a party willing to rally behind the eventual nominee.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/020504A.shtml
and:
Democrats See Unified Party for November
By Adam Nagourney
The New York Times
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/021004J.shtml

Yep, we've got a lot to be glad over and a lot to worry about, too; thanks for the enclosed picture to Mike (the doll) and Jacques (the sticker).

Here's what I mean, TALKING:
Kerry would seek direct talks with North Korea, Iran: adviser
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040205/pl_afp/us_vote_kerry_foreign_040205183125

Here's what we get now, SILENCE:
Iraq Activist Kathy Kelly Sentenced to Federal Prison - by Kathy Kelly*

The test run for November might be summer elections in our new Middle Eastern camp:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1126178,00.html
Why the US is running scared of elections in Iraq
Washington's plan to transfer power without a direct vote is a fraud
Jonathan Steele
Sunday January 18 2004
The Observer
The occupation of Iraq continues to get worse for George Bush and Tony Blair. The deaths of at least 20 people in a suicide bomb attack outside the coalition headquarters in Baghdad yesterday morning underlines the spiralling unrest in the country. The toll of US casualties since Saddam Hussein's capture is higher than in the same period before it. Angry protests over unemployment and petrol shortages have erupted in several cities in the south, in areas under British control.

Above all, Washington's plans for handing power to an unelected group of Iraqis is being strongly challenged by Iraq's majority Shia community. The occupiers who invaded Iraq in the name (partly) of bringing democracy are being accused of flouting democracy themselves.

Like the Haitians, the Iraqis are plucking courage from out of the air:
Iraqis Want Annan to Mediate With U.S., Ease Transition Pangs
By Maggie Farley
The Los Angeles Times
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/011104C.shtml

They know what could happen better than we; or is this just more bad information from the CIA?
Iraqi civil war looms, CIA warns Bush, aides
By Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/012404E.shtml

I mean, the whole Goddamn war is the CIA's fault, right?
Saddam's Ouster Planned In 2001?
By CBS News
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/011104A.shtml

Our President and his friends couldn't make such a mistake, right?
War College Study Calls Iraq a 'Detour'
By Chuck Neubauer and Ken Silverstein
The Los Angeles Times
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/011304D.shtml
and:
US army college attacks Bush terror policy
By Thomas Ricks
Washington
January 13, 2004
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/12/1073877760932.html

Our war hero...LIE to us?
Carnegie Group Says Bush Made Wrong Claims on WMD
By Julian Borger
The Guardian UK
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/010904B.shtml
and:
Ex-Arms Hunter Kay Says No WMD Stockpiles in Iraq
By Tabassum Zakaria
Reuters
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/012504C.shtml
and:
Tenet Says Analysts Never Painted Iraq as Imminent Threat
By David Stout
The New York Times
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/020604A.shtml

I mean, how could the CIA do all this? Look at how they're trying to find Iraqi terrorists...by ASKING! Oh please, don't turn me in to the Americans by FILLING IN A FORM ON THEIR WEBSITE??? Are these people going to SPAM the insurgents?
http://www.cia.gov/cia/english_rewards.htm

NOPE, their whole line was bullshit:
The Lie Factory
By Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest
Mother Jones
Only weeks after 9/11, the Bush administration set up a secret Pentagon unit to create the case for invading Iraq. Here is the inside story of how they pushed disinformation and bogus intelligence and led the nation to war.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/020804E.shtml

Lies:
Blix Says Bush, Blair Insincere Salesmen on Iraq
Reuters
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/021004A.shtml

Fibs:
Powell Voices Doubts About Iraqi Weapons
By Peter Slevin
The Washington Post
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/012604B.shtml

Half-truthes:
U.S. Withdraws a Team of Weapons Hunters From Iraq
By Douglas Jehl
The New York Times
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/010904J.shtml
and:
Skeptic May Take Over Iraq Arms Hunt
By Douglas Jehl
The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 ­ Charles A. Duelfer, the former No. 2 United Nations weapons inspector for Iraq, is likely to be named soon to succeed David Kay as the leader of the American team searching in that country for evidence of illicit weapons, according to senior American officials.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/012404D.shtml

Even the President's own party can't completely stomach it:
McCain Wants WMD Inquiry
By CBS News/Associated Press
Parting company with many of his fellow Republicans, Sen. John McCain said Thursday he wants an independent commission to take a sweeping look at recent intelligence failures.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/013104A.shtml

The excuses of unrepentant killers:
We Had Good Intel­The U.N.'s
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
The inspectors were 'HUMINT.' They were far more accurate, it turned out, than billions of dollars of satellites.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/020604I.shtml
and:
Not Everyone Got It Wrong on Iraqi WMDs
By Scott Ritter
Houston Chronicle
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/020804C.shtml

But it will all turn out all right in the end:
In Iraq, Pace of U.S. Casualties Has Accelerated
By Vernon Loeb
The Washington Post
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/122903E.shtml
and:
Army Stops Many Soldiers From Quitting
By Lee Hockstader
The Washington Post
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/123003E.shtml

Because George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, John Ashcroft, the whole lot of them are MEN OF GOD:
US Military 'Brutalised' Journalists
By Luke Harding
The Guardian UK
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/011404B.shtml
and:
Palestine Hotel: The U.S.A. is Responsible
By Le Nouvel Observateur
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/011604H.shtml

They'd never see anyone die for anything but liberty, freedom, democracy and family values:
Report: In Azerbaijan, U.S. Sacrifices Human Rights for Oil
By Human Rights Watch
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/012504D.shtml

Well, that's enough for now. I hope I didn't depress you too much, because I certainly enjoyed myself! The black night is cracking and light is shining in, yee haw. If any good comes out of this, I'll be glad to shine it up and hold it up. Here's some good, the new Afghan Constitution. I've read it in English and it's not bad. It looks great in Persian, which is how a slightly clueless gentleman sent it to me. But thanks anyway...have a good holiday. The only people I'd like to kiss, sadly, are far away as always.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/afghanistan/story/2003/11/031104_v-afghanconstitutiontext.shtml

Vive le vive, and vive le Screed!

Facebook Blog Networks

Valid Atom 1.0!
To subscribe via e-mail, fill out the form at www.joelrane.com ; for RSS readers, use the feed link at FeedBurner , or this drop-down menu: