America Right Or Wrong: An Anatomy Of American Nationalism

"On the Middle East, both of the American parties are, frankly, crippled above all by their inability to confront the question of America's relationship with Israel. Indeed not just to confront it, but even to mention it, as we saw in the presidential debate." - Anatol Lieven see Interview with AsiaSource. Mr Lieven addresses the urgent foreign policy issues confronting the United States

American lives have been lost for this shit: Israel 'To Build More Than 6,000 West Bank Homes' (and we will lose more American lives because of this extremist agenda)
Israel planinng more than 6,000 new homes in West Bank

"The Israeli government is planning to build more than 6,000 new homes in the West Bank this year, and to legitimize some 120 illegal outposts, the Yediot Ahronot daily reported Friday, citing the Israel Land Administration's 2005 working plan." -AP

Note that the AP takes the Israeli viewpoint! The fact that Israel's actions are illegal is not reported. You may argue that the news doesn't report on whether something is illegal or not. But this is not the case! Look at the story, it mentions "120 illegal outpost." The article says "illegal" but "illegal" according to who? Illegal according to the Israeli government which likes to determine what settlements can be set up in the West Bank and those not authorized by the Israeli government are "illegal" according to Israel. But the fact is ALL the settlements are illegal according to International Law, regardless of if Israel "legitimizes" them or not. The AP article omits this fact and distorts what is legal and illegal. The AP article is written conforming to an Israeli government agenda. The settlements are illegal regardless of what the Israeli government says.

does the President support efforts to rebuild the temple on the Temple Mount?

White House Press Briefing with Scott McClellan
Tuesday, February 1, 2005 12:15 PM
Mokhiber: Scott, on the Middle East - many evangelical Christians in the United States are supporting right-wing Jews in Israel who want to rebuild the temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They (Evangelical Christians) believe this is a prerequisite for Christ's return to earth.

They believe that when Christ returns to earth - they call this the rapture - he will take back with him the true believers. And the rest - the non believers - Jews, Muslims - will be left behind to face a violent death here on earth.

My question is, as a born again Christian, does the President support efforts to rebuild the temple on the Temple Mount?

Scott McLellan: Russ, we can sit here and talk about religious issues. I will be glad to take your question, and if there is more, I will get back to you on that.

Mokhiber: Is he a born again Christian?

Scott McLellan: Thank you. (McLellan abruptly ends the press briefing and walks out.)
http://www.commondreams.org/scottie/120604.htm

You wrote, "I respectfully disagree with you based on historical precedent and common sense. Whenever anyone has ever capitulated to terrorist demands, the terrorist demands *increase*."

WHAT "historical precedent"?!? The facts of history prove that when legitimate grievances are addressed that the terrorist violence stops. Look at South Africa. THe US called Mendela and his group terrorists.

The bottom line is that wrongs must be stopped. Two wrongs don't make a right. What the terrorists did on 9/11 was wrong but that doesn't make what the US has been doing right!!

Terrorists like Nat Turner attacked and killed whites, that didn't make slavery OK. Can you get that? And ending slavery DID end that terrorism.

the bottom line is you are trying to shield specific foreign policies form being debated and changed.

Our lives are not only on the line, the ugly fact is our lives are on the line for horrible and unjust and immoral policies. That really makes it doubly horrifically sad. Stop trying to dupe the victims and targets of terrorism into risking their lives further over policies that are wrong.

What you are doing is devious and wrong. We Americans do not deserve to be treated the way you are treating us. http://www.representativepress.org/whylie.html

Z Magazine

If you are interested in examples of censorship regarding Israel, the following books are recommended. See this page:
Killed, Censored 2005, Tell Me Lies

You wrote, " NO.. I want to save my own money. I want out of the system. I will take responsibility for my own future, thank you.
Why can't I have it? And why should my taxes go up to fund it? Screw everyone, it is my money and I want to do with it what I want, whether bonds or stocks or widget futures. Cut me off now. They did it in a town in Texas and it works. They did it in Chile and it works. Now do it here. "

look you selfish creep, we have a society and we intend on having a decent and just society. We are not going to dismantle society because you are greedy (one of the seven deadly sins but that is forgotten by many.). Seems many of the loudest mouths talking about "morals" have a "screw everyone" attitude. Truly disgusting and anti-social. You have problems.

The bottom line is a human society should consist of people participating decently and morally. As a good people we want a fair society that isn't callous and shitty. "Screw everyone" is an extremely ugly attitude.
"They did it in Chile and it works." What the hell is wrong with you?

BUSINESS/FINANCIAL DESK | January 27, 2005, Thursday

Chile's Retirees Find Shortfall In Private Plan

By LARRY ROHTER (NYT) 2142 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 1 , Column 2

"Chileans find that pension privatization plan launched 25 years ago, which Pres Bush has cited as model for his plans to overhaul Social Security, is falling far short of what was originally advertised under authoritarian government of Gen Augusto Pinochet; under program, millions of people have been paying 10 percent of their salaries to private investment accounts that they control; many lower-paid workers' contributions were not large enough to ensure even minimum pension of $140 a month; others--those working in underground economy, self-employed or working only seasonally--remain outside system altogether; even middle-class workers who contributed regularly are finding that their private accounts--burdened with hidden fees that may have soaked up as much as third of their original investment--are failing to deliver as much in benefits as they would have received under old system; government continues to direct billions of dollars to safety net for those whose pensions are below minimum" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60A13FC3C5F0C748EDDA80894DD404482

It is only our "democracy"

Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies by uscountvotes.org
February 01, 2005

http://www.uscountvotes.org

Press Release:

Monday, January 31, 2005

Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies in New Edison/Mitofsky Report and Urge Investigation of U.S. Presidential Election Results


President Bush won November's election by 2.5% yet exit polls showed Kerry leading by 3%. Which was correct?


"There are statistical indications that a systematic, nationwide shift of 5.5% of the vote may have occurred, and that we'll never get to the bottom of this, unless we gather the data we need for mathematical analysis and open, robust scientific debate.", says Bruce O'Dell, USCountVotes' Vice President.


The study, "Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report," was co-authored by a diverse group of professors and academicians specializing in statistics and mathematics affiliated with University of Notre Dame, Unversity of Pennsylvania, University of Utah, Cornell University, University of Wisconsin, Southern Methodist University, Case Western Reserve University and Temple University. Their study does not support claims made by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International that exit poll errors were to blame for the unprecedented 5.5% discrepancy between exit polls and official 2004 election results.


According to this analysis by a group of senior statisticians, the new data just released by the exit-pollsters shows that the possibility that the overall vote count was substantially corrupted must be taken seriously. "Now we have statistical evidence that these reports were the tip of a national iceberg. The hypothesis that the discrepancy between the exit polls and election results is due to errors in the official election tally is a coherent theory that must be explored," said statistician Josh Mitteldorf.


Their paper titled "Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report" notes that the Edison/Mitofsky report offers no evidence to support their conclusion that Kerry voters "participated in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters". In fact, the data provided in the Edison/Mitofsky report suggests that the opposite may have been true: Bush strongholds had slightly higher response rates than Kerry strongholds.


The statisticians go on to note that precincts with hand-counted paper ballots showed no statistical discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results, but for other voting technologies, the overall discrepancy was far larger than the polls' margin of error. The pollsters at Edison/Mitofsky agreed that their 2004 exit polls, for


whatever reason, had the poorest accuracy in at least twenty years.


USCountVotes, a nonprofit, non-partisan Utah corporation was founded in December 2004. Its mission is to create and analyze a database containing precinct-level election results for the entire United States; to do a thorough mathematical analysis of the 2004 election results; and to fully investigate the 2004 Presidential election results.


USCountVotes actively seeks volunteers and accepts donations to help make this unprecedented civic project a reality – visit uscountvotes.org

Who replaces FCC's Powell? It's up to

Michael Powell is quitting. Good riddance. I just sent a letter to President Bush, asking him to appoint a new chairperson who will represent the public interest, not just corporate moguls. It only takes a few minutes. You should send one, too. Go to newFCCchair
Add this to your email:
Please add a fee based on revenue to broadcast licences. Please shut down VOA and use the money towards a Fair Media. http://www.FairMedia.org

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Too Late for Regrets

Rice Lies

Rice is at it again. She lied about the insurgents' motives. Keerry pointed out that the US hasn't paid the former employees of the Iraqi government and that they are angry and part of the insurgenscy. Rice lied when she claimed that the insurgesnts are not attacking because they didn't get the money ( money that the US had promised to give)

A few web pages have been updated:
The promotional Items now have their own graphic and it is not linked to the Representative Press Cafe Press Shop Promote the Truth
Get the word out to your fellow citizens.
This is one of the pages that has been updated: Bush Lied to the American People about 9/11 Terrorists' Motives Why Lie

Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq by David Miller (Editor) Contributors include John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Edward Herman, Mark Thomas, Mark Steel, Phillip Knightley, Tim Llewelyn (BBC Middle East Correspondent), Abdul Hadi Jiad (Iraqi journalist sacked by the BBC before the war), David Cromwell and David Edwards (Media Lens), Mark Curtis, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton (PR Watch, and co-authors of Weapons of Mass Deception and Toxic Sludge is Good For You), Pat Holland, Norman Solomon (columnist and director of the Institute for Public Accuracy), Nancy Snow (California State University, Fullerton, author of Propaganda Inc. and Information War), Doug Kellner (UCLA), Julian Petley, Yvonne Ridley (Aljazeera.net and author of In the Hands of the Taliban), Tim Gopsill (Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom), Faisal Bodi (UK Guardian, Aljazeera.net), Alistair Alexander (Stop the War Coalition), Greg Philo (Glasgow University Media Group), Steve Dorrill, Andy Rowell, Granville Williams and cartoonists Steve Bell, Steve Caplin and Polyp.

Rich writes, "but I can't help but wonder who the ACLU would have sided with had the Tshirt said "I'm Christian and I'm proud.""

For God sakes Rich, could you make an effort to examine your assumptions?

It literally took me 5 seconds to find this: After ACLU Intervention on Behalf of Christian Valedictorian, Michigan High School Agrees to Stop Censoring Religious Yearbook Entries

Why in the world would you have something against a group that fights for citizens' civil rights?

The Smoke Eater asks, "How is is possible that if ALL LIFE came from the same single celled organism, and started at the same time, that humans have evolved so far and dogs haven't? "

Evolution doesn't actually mean that things get "more advanced", it really means that things change. Changes that increase the likelihood that a living thing will survive to create another generation is what evolution is about. Dogs can have puppies, they aren't going to just disappear automatically. If a particular dog gains a characteristic, it doesn't automatically mean that other dogs suddenly die out or even slowly die out. The others will live as long as they are able to survive and have offspring.

"Biological evolution refers to the cumulative changes that occur in a population over time. These changes are produced at the genetic level as organisms' genes mutate and/or recombine in different ways during reproduction and are passed on to future generations. Sometimes, individuals inherit new characteristics that give them a survival and reproductive advantage in their local environments; these characteristics tend to increase in frequency in the population, while those that are disadvantageous decrease in frequency." What is evolution?

The media didn't make this clear although the AP sent it out: "No Alabama Air National Guard records have surfaced showing Bush did any duty there. Former commanders and other members of the 187th in 1972 and 1973 say they don't remember ever seeing Bush there"

Didn't you notice the supposedly "liberal" media didn't make this clear to the public? As far as the memos, the content did check out. Many of the claims about why the memoes were fake turned out to be wrong, including claims that the "th" superscript did not exist. The bottom line was Bush didn't show up when he did and others confirm that the content of the memoes is acurate.

You seem to think the media is "liberal". Here are two examples that should make you rethink your simplistic world view.

The "liberal" media Violating International Law refused to report the war was illegal nd they no fly zones played along with the "no fly zones" there-is-big-problem don't assume the media "would tell you" about things like this CBS Bush documents Media Should Have Probed Bigger Questions About Bush's Record

This link goes into detail: mediamatters.org "Media Matters has extensively documented the substantial and uncontested evidence that Bush didn't show up for duty when he was supposed to, that he skipped a required physical for as-yet-unexplained reasons, that he was grounded from flying, and that he mysteriously received an honorable discharge anyway."

Rich,
Are you ever going to get around to addressing the serious points that I raised? Anyone can cover their ears and scream or run away when confronted with facts they don't like, it takes character to question what you assume and to examine what you think you know. Instead of running off on a new topic, why not at least try to understand the issues already raised? Issues that are a matter of life and death. comments

As far as evolution, I think you have fallen for the theory vs fact canard. Creationists play upon a vernacular misunderstanding of the word "theory".

"...evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered." Evolution as Fact and Theory

Anonymous libels, "Tom your anti-semitism is showing."

Typical tactic directed at those pointing out the truth. You should be ashamed at yourself.

Anonymous plays games and asks, "What exactly does Israel have to do with ..."

Who the hell mentioned most of the things you listed?

Anonymous claims, "in Laden in his 98 Fatwa ... LIED. And said that Clinton supported the Serbians in killing Muslims."

No he didn't, you are the liar. Readers here can ascertain for themselves who the liar is by checking the source. Check the 1998 Fatwa and see if "Anonymous" is lying or telling the truth. (he is lying but check for yourself)
Readers may be shocked that people like "Anonymous" have the chutzpah to lie as they do but sadly this is how it is. As the Israeli Professor Tanya Reinhart has written, “It is still difficult for many to believe that a deception of such magnitude is possible. Deceptions and false declarations have been the standard in the politics of the powerful, and certainly are in Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians from the start.”

As far as the ugly tactic of libeling people "anti-Semitic" who tell the truth about issues related to Israel, I point to Shulamit Aloni, former Knesset member to explain what that tactic is about: "well it is a trick, we always use it"

And Anonymous' claim that the US has "pushed for peace between the Palestinians and Israel" is disgusting. The US has blocked peace and has vetoed peace agreements for decades. I can see why many readers would find this difficult to believe because these facts get suppressed in the US. To give one example, the 1976 peace offer, backed by virtually the entire world and accepted by the Palestinians. "It was opposed by Israel and vetoed by the US, thereby vetoing it from history." Powerful interests can suppress major facts in order to distort the history.

MEMRI is a Zionist front group. For example it pushed a bullshit translation of one of bin Laden's latest speeches in order to serve their agenda. (MEMRI wanted you to believe that bin Laden was talking about individual states of the United States!! Come on!)newshoundss-article

What Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atta, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others want has been made crystal clear. Don't give me this bullshit about what they say in private. The US has supported outrageous crimes against the people in the Middle East. Bush and others are lying about why we were attacked. When Tenet and others quote the 1998 Fatwa they omit the key part in order to suppress the motives" THIS PART: "in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim." That is the motives OK? NOT "in order to establish an "Islamic world"". LOOK at the fact that US officials omit the part of the sentence that mentions motives, they are manipulating the American public because they serve agendas that don't want to change the policies in the Middle East. What do Jihadists say to recruit others? They don't say "do you want to set up an "Islamic world?"" what they say is "do you want to do something about the injustices that America has caused?" Look:

A former member of an extremist Islamic organization which is part of al-Qaeda explained how the organization's recruiters operate on susceptible young men. "Someone approached me in the mosque as I was praying, and started to talk to me about injustice in the Middle East, the poverty, our impotence in the face of Israel. He made me want to listen to him - to find a solution. At first these people don't talk about violence. They concentrate on how much injustice America has caused in the world and how to get rid of this unfairness. They mention Palestine, they call on you to uphold your national dignity, to defend people, and suggest for that you must sacrifice yourself. Then your people will live after you and will always remember you." The young man, himself an Egyptian, speaking in the privacy of a quite courtyard in Cairo, believed this was the way Mohamed Atta was approached. "Al-Qaeda" by Jane Corbin p125