Freedom and Democracy is Dying

Today I started vacation until the 21st. September is my favourite time of year, I love the cooler temperatures although the weather is still very nice.

Sometimes it's easy to focus on all of the problems of the world and feel that the world is going down the drain.

When this happens I look out over my computer and watch the sun setting, see the birds eating at the feeders outside my window, chow down on the tomatoes in my garden, watch the love they have for me in the eyes of my two cats.

Everyday I receive jokes from friends, some I haven't even met in person yet. It's great arrive home from work at 3am and have a good laugh at the latest emails, while the world sleeps.

The world needs to lighten up a bit and laugh at itself. Oh, BTW, your fly is down. ;-)

The George Bush White House has presided over three national debacles: 9/11, the war in Iraq, and now Katrina's destruction

By ERIC MARGOLIS

After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington four years ago today, U.S. President George Bush insisted "there was no way we knew they were coming." Just before the attacks, the White House cut spending on anti-terrorism.

Last week, Bush insisted, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breaching of the (New Orleans) levees." Last year, the administration cut spending on levee heightening.

Welcome to no-fault government.

We now know from administration insiders that the Bush White House and National Security Council received a stream of warnings of imminent al-Qaida attack but were asleep on guard duty. A "black" surveillance operation run by U.S. Army intelligence inside the U.S. reportedly identified 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta in early 2000 and warned he was plotting to use civilian aircraft in a massive terrorist attack.

But the Sept. 11 Congressional Commission -- a shameless political whitewash -- claimed there was no evidence of Atta or his plans. Not a single Bush administration official was held to account.

A federal commission warned flooding of New Orleans was the third gravest disaster facing America. But as Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, the White House remained fixated, as ever, on its faux war on terrorism. The main National Guard units of the three Gulf states were in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Compare the humiliating New Orleans hurricane fiasco with a powerful typhoon that lashed Japan last week. More than 300,000 people were efficiently evacuated by that government from coastal areas. There was no panic, disorder or looting.

The Bush administration has now presided over three national debacles: 9/11; the $6.5-billion-monthly, unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and now, strike three, New Orleans.

Yet the White House claims the right and duty to bring good government to benighted foreign nations. Nation-building begins at home. Better U.S. troops should bring clean water and food to the poor blacks of the American South.

The 9/11 attacks plunged normally decent, humane America into a period of temporary madness. Beating war drums allowed the White House to usurp national power, paralyzing the other two arms of government, Congress and the courts. America's democratic system stopped working.

Anyone who opposed the war or criticized its promoter, Bush, was branded a traitor. Mainstream media became a mouthpiece for the White House and war party. The Orwellian Patriot Act was enacted to curtail liberties and free speech.

National war fever and the lust for revenge that followed the 9/11 attacks allowed a small group of closet totalitarians, a cabal of neoconservatives and end-of-world religious fanatics to assume a dominant role in the Bush administration. They hijacked its foreign policy, and steadily pushed the U.S. into war.

We now know the Iraq invasion was based on lies. Those CIA veterans, regional experts and veteran journalists (like this writer) who dared oppose the Big Lie campaign were scourged and often silenced.

None of the media pundits who promoted the Iraq war and misled the public lost their jobs.

By next spring, Iraq and Afghanistan will have cost at least $260 billion (US). Add some $200 billion for 9/11; and now a $100-billion-plus cleanup bill for Katrina, and even the mighty America is staggering under huge financial blows. These, and Bush's reckless deficit spending, are producing an onrushing tsunami of inflation.

We may even be seeing the fulfillment of Osama bin Laden's oft-stated strategic plan, begun by the 9/11 attacks, of goading the U.S. into overseas wars that bleed it financially until it can no longer afford to deploy power across the globe. Bush swaggered right into this trap.

Final irony: Iraq's oil exports plummeted because of the U.S. invasion, contributing to today's shortages and high prices. Consider this when next refilling your car.

Beer, now there's a temporary solution!

Homer Simpson

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,

Michael Moore

www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

During sex my girlfriend always wants to talk to me.

Just the other night she called me from a hotel.

Rodney Dangerfield

Here is a link to an emotional interview with Charmaine Neville; Jazz singer and a member of the famous Neville family of New Orleans. After clicking on the link, go to the link on the page entitled, "Charmaine Neville - New Orleans Evacuee".

Charmaine Neville - New Orleans Evacuee

Washing Away the Conservative Movement

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Sept. 5, 2005

At a press conference this afternoon, President George H. W. Bush singled out the Walton Family for their generosity to Katrina relief efforts:

I don’t think anyone would mind if I singled out the chairman and CEO of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, who is right here. He told us that they gave the Bush-Clinton fund a total of $23 million…$15 million from the company and then $8 million more from the Walton family, the marvelous philanthropists that they are.

Let’s put that in perspective. The Walton family’s net worth is $90 billion. So $8 million dollars represents .009 percent of their total.

The average family’s net worth is $86,100. If an average family contributed at the same rate as the Waltons, they’d donate $7.74.

There are thousands of families all around country that are being far more generous to Katrina victims than the Waltons. Few of them will be personally thanked by a former President.

What would the child you once were... think of the adult you've become?"