Sunday, January 29, 2006

Molly Ivans, Hillary Clinton and the Karl Rovian F-E-A-R mongers


Picture by: Ali Ali/European Pressphoto Agency and published in the NYTimes 1/28/06

My friend Bill sent me this article by Molly Ivan that explains why she is NOT going to support Hillary Clinton. (see comments for article.)

My husband, who I would describe as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative is anti-Hillary as well. I'm an undecided. I have ambivalent feelings about the war in Iraq. I think we were lied to and that we still don't know the real reason for this war. I think the public was manipulated. I also believe that there is a connection to this NSA spying revelation and the Valarie Plame CIA leak that is so obvious that it stands out like a wart on someone's nose and yet, the media draws no correlation between two. How else would Scooter Libby's attorneys know to subpoena journalist’s notes if they weren't eaves dropping? The press and the current administration think we are asleep at the wheel.


It is so obvious that the leaked pictures of Jack A. Abramoff with GW Bush was a warning to the White House that if they don't back off and play by Abramhoff's rules, they are going to get slammed publicly and that he will take them down with him. It is so obvious he has the goods on them.

If you throw in the Able Danger cover-up and all the emerging 9-11 conspiracies that are starting to gel and resonate with each other, doesn’t that smell a little like a "smoking gun." Come on guys and girls, do they really believe that we are that dumb and that we can't see it?

Anyone wonder why John Perkins’ book, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," stays on the International Best Seller's List but hasn’t been reviewed?

Karl Rove says, the Republican mantra for the 2006 election is ". . . f e a r . . . . " Fear the terrorists!

Anyone ever wonder how, whenever the neocons need terrorist picture in the news, and almost on que, Haamas or the Fatah or some other terrorist group delivers a “Just-in-time” photo-op for the morning news.

Bush’s people say, see F-E-A-R the terrorists, vote for us.


Ok, in truth, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I’m sorry, the mainstream media is a corporation and part of the Corporatocracy that really governs our country. Is that good or bad, there are two sides of that argument. But who holds them accountable? Why would they want us to know the truth? The truth would put people in jail, and hurt the status quo. It would hlep the competition and impact earnings, people would lose jobs, right?

If people really paid attention, it would be so apparent that our opinions are being messaged into compliance. Maybe that's another reason people don't want to support Hillary. Maybe she is too much a part of the Corpratocracy that is stealing our future, over-exploiting our natural resources in the name of corporate profits, leaving the elderly to fend for themselves, so Bill Frist can lie on Meet the Press and say, Democrats want to raise taxes on the American People instead of "Democrats want to rasie taxes on 1% of the American People, the wealthiest who won't even notice the money is gone." I don't know, you decide ...

2 comments:

Green said...

Posted on Sun, Jan. 22, 2006

Star-Telegram

It's time for Democrats to put up or shut up

By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate

AUSTIN - I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. The senator is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times when a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing President Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich.

The majority (77 percent) think we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) think big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

I listen to people like Rep. Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the polls?

Here's a prize example by columnist Barry Casselman: "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party now under way, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008."

This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad news from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," vs. those pragmatic folk like Rep. Steny Hoyer, Emmanuel and Sens. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.

Oh, come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine that you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to own the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, and so does everyone else who's ever studied this. Embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Own this issue or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The minute that someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means.

That, or you could just blow them off elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending that the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.


Molly Ivins, based in Austin, writes for Creators Syndicate. 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045

Anonymous said...

Tess Gerritsen's protagonists are a woman detective and a medical examiner, based in Boston. What I found interesting about VANISh was that teh author directly addressed the idea of the administration--supposedly a fictional administration--using fear of terrorists to justify their crimes.

Gerritsen doesn't preach, of ocurse, but this ovel would certainly be susggestive to persons who otherwise are inattentive to the threat that this administration presents to us, to the world. for those of us already hyperalert, it opens new possibliites for bad beahvior being hidden by the idea of "national security." (OF COURSE, I think, that along with the misuses of power would be a misuse of women and girls for sexual power....)

An easy and relaxing read, written with intelligence. Reading your blog, "Where are the Democrats," brought it to mind.

My point is: I'm glad to seepopular fiction writers fighting back, in the way writers fight. I think James Lee Burke, a native of Louisiana whose fictional place is New Orleans and around, is also fighting back. I look forward to the book he writes post-Katrina.

I'm going to try to make the Unitarian church this afternoon and will unless other demands prevent me.

Thanks for your work, Martie..

Barbara