Op-Ed

I spent the past couple of days hanging out with Vincent Bugliosi who wants Bush killed for his crimes, following a fair trial of course, and who openly pushes the supposed need for retribution while disclaiming much interest in deterrence or restoration. Then I watched Oliver Stone's new movie, "W," which depicts Bush as a poor, sad fool who's just been trying his hardest to please his daddy all these years. If I have to choose, I'm on Stone's side.

The three participants in the third U.S. presidential debate last week pretended Iraq didn't exist, but if you go to a rally of supporters for either candidate it's the top issue talked about. Baghdad, a city in ruins, divided into ethnically cleansed fiefdoms of rubble, rats, and open sewage, a place where one risks death by walking outside, is managing major rallies of tens of thousands of people in opposition to the treaty to extend the occupation for three more years (and beyond) that is being negotiated by Bush and Maliki. And yet, the U.S. peace movement is largely hibernating until the November 4th U.S. elections, and the U.S. Congress remains almost entirely comatose.

To a consumer of U.S. corporate media this makes some sense. The occupation is for the benefit of the people of Iraq and, with the help of "the surge", it is "succeeding." President Bush is actually working on an "agreement" to "end" the "war." Peace activists should be celebrating, right?

David W. Moore, who worked for Gallup for 13 years as managing editor and senior editor of the Gallup Poll, has a new book out denouncing most polls by Gallup or anyone else as useless, and explaining that this became obvious to him when he first began work at Gallup, raising the obvious question of why he stuck around for 13 years. The explanation seems to be that he was trying to fix the problem, and one of the motivations for the book seems to be that he believes he still can fix it.

The Wall Street bailout that was supposed to save the economy from collapse is a flop.

Only weeks ago, the media hype behind the $700 billion bailout was so intense that it sometimes verged on hysteria. More recent events should not be allowed to obscure the reality that the news media played a pivotal role in stampeding the country into a bailout that was unwise and unjust.

Exceptions in the news coverage underscore the fact that other perspectives were readily available when the Bush administration began pushing its bailout proposal in late September. "Many of the nation's brightest economic minds are warning that if the Wall Street bailout passes, it would be a dangerous rush job," McClatchy Newspapers reported on Sept. 26. For instance, economist James K. Galbraith called the warnings of economic disaster in the absence of a swift bailout "more hype than real risk." He added: "A nasty recession is possible, but the bailout will not cure that."

I get the impression that a great many people are upset by all the news about McCain-Palin supporters who believe Obama is an Arab, a Muslim, a terrorist, and a baby killer. I find it the most encouraging thing that's happened in eight years.

Why? Because these sorts of lies and fear-mongering are nothing new. What's new is that the U.S. corporate media is covering them. The most unaccountable, antidemocratic communications cartel outside of China has decided to cover in a major way a story it has brushed aside since September 12, 2001.

Of course, we understand why. The victim of these particular lies is a corporate-friendly senator who appears likely to be elected president of the United States. On top of that he isn't actually a Muslim or a foreigner, so you can still be bigoted and defend him on the basis of those boring old leftwing things: facts. But the media's willingness to cover the hate speech and to point out the connections between hateful speech and hateful actions makes Obama more likely to win the election and makes us all safer, wiser, and better informed.

According to an Associated Press story on Friday, more than a half-million people have toured the creationism museum in Kentucky since it opened in May 2007. However, at least one of those people was there to make fun of it with a video camera.

In fact, a lot of what Bill Maher's new film, "Religulous", does is make fun of people. But by no means does Maher single out fringe religious believers. He interviews one of the few top scientists in the world who believes, a priest at the Vatican who believes, and plenty of random typical believers in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Maher's conclusion: these people (including the vast majority of Americans) are all enablers of neurologically disordered killers who are going to destroy the planet.

ACORN has been through some scandals of its own making, but it is currently all over the news because of a pair of absolutely fraudulent and nationally coordinated attacks.

One of these attacks involves accusations of voter fraud. But, of course, "voter fraud" almost doesn't exist, and federal prosecutors have lost their jobs because they couldn't find evidence of its existence to satisfy the Bush White House. In fact, the accusations against ACORN are not about voting, but about voter registration.

1. WMD Lies

As you watch the presidential debates, here's a game to play that won't even get you drunk (unless you want to add tequila shots to it): every time you hear John McCain tell a lie write down $10 under the name Charlotte, and every time you hear Barack Obama agree with John McCain write down $10 under the name Cindy. You can also play this if you're broke by writing down 10 hours.

When you're done you can still plan to vote for Obama, with rapture or a clothespin or anything in between. You can still plan to do everything you can to deny Republicans as many seats as possible in both houses of Congress. But you can do something more as well. One thing you can do is send a powerful message to the woman who has managed the war funding, the Wall Street funding, the Bill of Rights shredding, and the elimination of the power of impeachment from our Constitution over the past two years.

CINDY:

It's the second week of October. When I was a kid it would sometimes snow and always be cold by now. I'm typing this on my laptop sitting outdoors in the warm sun with no sweater or jacket on the downtown mall, a pedestrian street in Charlottesville, Va. Flowers are blooming, and butterflies and hummingbirds are hanging out, several states out of their old territory. We haven't had the heat or the air conditioning on in our house for months. The weather is perfect and we're saving money. Global warming is making it easy for us to take steps to reverse global warming. So why does the perfect summer breeze on the back of my neck scare the hell out of me?