Duty to Warn

As I was walking across Memorial Bridge a young man I know ran up to me. He's a veteran of this war and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. After saying hello and a few words, he burst into tears. He said he had just been spat on, and it had just hit him what that meant. The people who spat on him were part of a relatively tiny group of pro-war demonstrators. The young man I was talking to did not spit back at them. He joined a group of other vets for peace and led the march to the Pentagon nonviolently.

The leaders of the marches for peace care what the war supporters think of them. The reverse is also true. The pro-war demonstrators were not executives of weapons and oil companies cynically promoting their own profits. Many of them were aging veterans of a previous war that had sent them into the horrors of death and violence for previous power and profit motives that they do not want to think about.

The Supplemental spending bill proposed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi funds the war.  It gives Cheney and Bush roughly another $100 billion.  And you can be quite sure they will spend it as they choose, which may include attacking Iran.  In fact, a measure in the bill requiring Bush to get Congress's approval before attacking Iran (an attack that would violate the US Constitution and the UN charter) has been removed. 

The bill also requires Iraq to turn much of its oil profits over to foreign corporations.  This illegally rewards the Bush and Cheney gang for their illegal war.

Beyond that, the bill does a number of things to nudge Bush in the direction of limiting the war, but most of them are for show. 

Pick almost any date on the calendar, and it'll turn out that the United States either started a war, ended a war, perpetrated a massacre or sent its U.N. ambassador into the Security Council to issue an ultimatum. It's like driving across the American West. "Historic marker, 1 mile," the sign says. A minute later, you pull over and find yourself standing on dead Indians. "On this spot, in 1879, Major T and a troop of U.S. cavalry beat off … "

            Last Sunday, I was in a used paperback store in a mall in Olympia, Wash., flicking through Tina Turner's side of the story on life with Ike. It was 3 in the afternoon, March 18, one day short of the anniversary of U.S. planes embarking on an aerial hunt of Pancho Villa in 1916; of the day the U.S. Senate rejected (for the second time) the Treaty of Versailles in 1920; of the end of the active phase of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2002; of the 10 p.m. broadcast March 19, 2003, by President G.W. Bush announcing that aerial operations against Iraq had commenced.

In a bold move "to restore trust to elections in Ohio," Ohio's newly-elected Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has requested the resignation of all four members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The two Democrats and two Republicans were formally asked to resign by the close of business on March 21. Cuyahoga County includes the heavily Democratic city of Cleveland. Brunner is a Democrat who was elected to be Ohio's Secretary of State in November, 2006.

Felony convictions have also resulted in 18-month prison sentences for two employees of the Cuyahoga BOE as a result of what the county prosecutor in the case calls the "rigging" of the outcome in the recount following the 2004 presidential election. Further problems surfaced in the conduct of Cuyahoga County's May, 2006 primary, in the wake of which Michel Vu, Executive Director of the county's Board of Elections recently resigned.

In tandem, the shake-up in Ohio's biggest county reflects a widening storm surrounding the outcome of the 2004 presidential election and the conduct of elections overall in the nation's most pivotal state.

The national distraction known as March Madness is upon us and not a minute too soon for President Bush. Currently the Bush administration is embroiled in an unpopular illegal war started on the false pretense of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, his attorney general Alberto Gonzales, who was previously best known for supporting the torture of prisoners of war, is under fire for sacking eight federal prosecutors for allegedly political purposes. Bush’s political advisor Karl Rove has also been linked to the scandal as has Bush’s former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. Democrats have asked that Rove, Miers and other White House officials appear before Congress for questioning and are considering subpoenas if they refuse to.

Add to all of that drama the conditions of the Walter Reed Medical facility, alleged DC-madam Deborah Pelfrey turning over the names of up to fifteen thousand DC-based high profile johns, and the conviction of Scooter Libby and you have an administration that is almost as rife with scandal as it is incompetence, but forget about that.

They just wanted to protect the sanctity of the vote. That’s the administration’s pious explanation for why they fired eight U.S. Attorneys who were Republican enough for Bush to have appointed them in the first place.

"The president recalls hearing complaints about election fraud not being vigorously prosecuted and believes he may have informally mentioned it to the attorney general,” explained White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

How could you question such a laudable goal?

Of course the justifications keep shifting, as with the Iraqi war. First it was the general performance of the prosecutors. Then a preference for specific replacements.  Now it’s concern for the democratic process.

I spent the final paces of my walk back to the hotel with my head in the clouds, in awe of the city. I had gotten it. My spirit connected with the city and I found out on a very personal and internal level what makes this city important and great. It’s the people and the palpable spirit you feel here that makes this place like no other. The soul of New Orleans is absolutely enchanted. Imagine a modern day Stonehenge. The Druids and other mystical folk of yesteryear aren’t readily apparent on these streets, but behind the plain clothes of today’s average citizen the spiritual DNA is very close to those sages of times past, of that I have no doubt.

"Revolution is the Solution"

For several days I had been bedeviled by the recurring memory of a jingle from an out-dated television commercial. My recollection of the product they were promoting lay tantalizingly close to the edge of my consciousness, but remained stubbornly out of my reach.

So my "mind's ear" was left listening to, "It's time for a new beginning." ad nauseam with no tangible context. (If I had had that, I would at least have known which company to despise for etching such an inane little tune into my brain).

"Beautifully harmonized" by a group of sickeningly enthusiastic twenty somethings accompanied by music undoubtedly composed during the "Age of Aquarius", this little ditty molested my mind with more frequency than I care to recall.

The Democrats in Congress are doing less to oppose the war now that they have the majority than they did in the minority.  While in the minority, Democrats in a sizable and growing number voted against funding more war.  While in the minority, Democrats pushed hard for Resolutions of Inquiry into the lies that launched the war.  While in the minority, Democrats in significant numbers signed onto a bill to create a preliminary investigation into grounds for impeachment.  While in the minority, Democrats raised hell about the Republicans' failures to investigate or to stop the war, and Democrats campaigned for reelection and election of a majority, claiming they would have the powers to subpoena, to place under oath, and to end the war.

They just wanted to protect the sanctity of the vote. That’s the administration’s pious explanation for why they fired eight U.S. Attorneys who were Republican enough for Bush to have appointed them in the first place. "The president recalls hearing complaints about election fraud not being vigorously prosecuted and believes he may have informally mentioned it to the attorney general,” explained White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. How could you question such a laudable goal?

Of course the justifications keep shifting, as with the Iraqi war. First it was the general performance of the prosecutors. Then a preference for specific replacements..  Now it’s concern for the democratic process.