Moyers tonight … on blocking the cyber-road where we meet

I don’t think I have to convince you how important Internet freedom is … the corporate and/or government takeover of the web would put an end to our conversation. Don’t think so? Check out the last couple of articles indicating Mr. Chertoff’s interest in our doings.

By the way, Chertoff is warning right now about possible terrorism at NFL stadiums — dirty bombs, evidently, to be set off this weekend. Threats were discovered on an Islamic website, I guess … with a title including the words Be Afraid. But both Homeland Security and NFL representatives are encouraging people to go on with their plans, that the threats aren’t credible. Soooooo — my question would be [duh, duh, duh!] WHY warn about them to begin with? [Be afraid? Be VERY afraid!!] In case you’re a ticket holder and worried — that’s Miami, New York, Houston, Oakland, Cleveland, Seattle and Atlanta. In interest to fairness, the pundits are saying that if anything DID happen and the public wasn’t warned, there would be finger pointing; on the other hand, thanks to corporate television, we’re getting pounded with Fear Messages over the airwaves … but no color alert. Funny how that’s all but disappeared, huh?!

I added a recent op/ed to the end … one I didn’t post yesterday in respect to the proposed spiritual aspects of the day … but one that you should read in case you think you might bypass Moyers on PBS, tonight — important viewing isn’t strong enough a word. If you can’t watch, you might want to set to record.

Jude

Against An Imperial Internet
Bill Moyers and Scott Fogdall
Tuesday, October 17, 2006 by TomPaine.com
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1017-28.htm

It was said that all roads led to Rome. However exaggerated, the image is imprinted in our imagination, reminding us of the relentless ingenuity of the ancient Romans and their will to control an empire.

For centuries Roman highways linked far-flung provinces with a centralized web of power. The might of the imperial legions was for naught without the means to transport them. The flow of trade—the bloodstream of the empire’s wealth—also depended on the integrity of the roadways. And because Roman citizens could pass everywhere, more or less unfettered on their travels, ideas and cultural elements circulated with the same fluidity as commerce.

Like the Romans, we Americans have used our technology to build a sprawling infrastructure of ports, railroads and interstates which serves the strength of our economy and the mobility of our society. Yet as significant as these have been, they pale beside the potential of the Internet.

Almost overnight, it has made sending and receiving information easier than ever. It has opened a vast new marketplace of ideas, and it is transforming commerce and culture.

It may also revitalize democracy.

“Wait a minute!” you say. “You can’t compare the Internet to the Roman empire. There’s no electronic Caesar, no center, controlling how the World Wide Web is used.”

Right you are—so far. The Internet is revolutionary because it is the most democratic of media. All you need to join the revolution is a computer and a connection. We don’t just watch; we participate, collaborate and create. Unlike television, radio and cable, whose hirelings create content aimed at us for their own reasons, with the Internet every citizen is potentially a producer. The conversation of democracy belongs to us.

That wide-open access is the founding principle of the Internet, but it may be slipping through our fingers. How ironic if it should pass irretrievably into history here, at the very dawn of the Internet Age.

The Internet has become the foremost testing ground where the forces of innovation, corporate power, the public interest and government regulation converge. Already, the notion of a level playing field—what’s called network neutrality—is under siege by powerful forces trying to tilt the field to their advantage. The Bush majority on the FCC has bowed to the interests of the big cable and telephone companies to strip away, or undo, the Internet’s basic DNA of openness and non-discrimination. When some members of Congress set out to restore network neutrality, they were thwarted by the industry’s high spending lobbyists. This happened according to the standard practices of a rented Congress—with little public awareness and scarce attention from the press. There had been a similar blackout 10 years ago, when, in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress carved up our media landscape. They drove a dagger in the heart of radio, triggered a wave of consolidation that let the big media companies get bigger, and gave away to rich corporations—for free—public airwaves worth billions.

This time, they couldn’t keep secret what they were doing. Word got around that without public participation these changes could lead to unsettling phenomenon—the rise of digital empires that limit, or even destroy, the capabilities of small Internet users. Organizations across the political spectrum—from the Christian Coalition to MoveOn.org —rallied in protest, flooding Congress with more than a million letters and petitions to restore network neutrality. Enough politicians have responded to keep the outcome in play.

At the core this is a struggle about the role and dimensions of human freedom and free speech. But it is also a contemporary clash of a centuries-old debate over free-market economics and governmental regulation, one that finds Adam Smith invoked both by advocates for government action to protect the average online wayfarer and by opponents of any regulation at all.

In The Wealth of Nations, Smith argued that only the unfettered dealings of merchants and customers could ensure economic prosperity. But he also warned against the formation of monopolies—mighty behemoths that face little or no competition. Our history brims with his legacy. Consider the explosion of industry and the reign of the robber barons during the first Gilded Age in the last decades of the 19th century. Settlements and cities began to fill the continent, spirited by a crucial technological advance: the railroad. As railroad companies sprang up, they merged into monopolies. Merchants and farmers were often charged outlandish freight prices—until the 1870s, when the Granger Laws and other forms of public regulation provided some protection to customers.

At about the same time, chemist Samuel Andrews—inventor of a new method for refining oil into kerosene—partnered with John D. Rockefeller to create the Standard Oil Company. By century’s end Standard Oil had forged a monopoly, controlling a network of pipelines and railways that spanned the country. Competition became practically impossible as the mammoth company manipulated prices and crushed rival after hapless rival. Only with the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 did the public have hope of recourse against the overwhelming might of concentrated economic and political power. But, less than a century later a relative handful of large companies would assemble monopolies over broadcasting, newspapers, cable and even the operating system of computers, and their rule would go essentially unchallenged by the U.S. government.

Now we have an Internet infrastructure that is rapidly evolving, in more ways than one. As often occurred on Rome’s ancient highways, cyber-sojourners could soon find themselves paying up in order to travel freely. Our new digital monopolists want to use their new power to reverse the way the Internet now works for us: allowing those with the largest bankrolls to route their content on fast lanes, while placing others in a congested thoroughfare. If they succeed in taking a medium that has an essential democratic nature and monetizing every aspect of it, America will divide further between the rich and poor and between those who have access to knowledge and those who do not.

The companies point out that there have been few Internet neutrality violations. Don’t mess with something that’s been working for everyone, they say; don’t add safeguards when none have so far been needed. But the emerging generation, which will inherit the results of this Washington battle, gets it. Writing in The Yale Daily News, Dariush Nothaft, a college junior, after hearing with respect the industry’s case, argues that: Nevertheless, the Internet’s power as a social force counters these arguments….A non-neutral Internet would discourage competition, thereby costing consumers money and diminishing the benefits of lower subscription prices for Internet access. More importantly, people today pay for Internet access with the understanding that they are accessing a wide, level field of sites where only their preferences will guide them.

Non-neutrality changes the very essence of the Internet, thereby making the product provided to users less valuable.

So the Internet is reaching a crucial crossroads in its astonishing evolution. Will we shape it to enlarge democracy in the digital era? Will we assure that commerce is not its only contribution to the American experience?

The monopolists tell us not to worry: They will take care of us, and see to it that the public interest is honored and democracy served by this most remarkable of technologies.

They said the same thing about radio.

And about television.

And about cable.

Will future historians speak of an Internet Golden Age that ended when the 21st century began? ++

Bill Moyers is host of “The Net At Risk,” a documentary special airing Wednesday, October 18 at 9 p.m. on PBS. Scott Fogdall is with Films Media Group.

Bill Moyers: The Net at Risk
Moyers on America
t r u t h o u t | Programming Note
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101706U.shtml

Airdate: Wednesday, October 18, 2006, at 9:00 p.m. on PBS. Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/moyers.

“The Net at Risk” reports on what could happen if a few mega-media corporations get their way in Washington.

The future of the Internet is up for grabs. Big corporations are lobbying Washington to turn the gateway to the Web into a toll road. Yet the public knows little about what’s happening behind closed doors where the future of democracy’s newest forum is being decided. If a few mega media giants own the content and control the delivery of radio, television, telephone services and the Internet, they’ll make a killing and citizens will pay for it. America’s ability to compete in the global marketplace, the unfettered exchange of ideas online, and broadband services that could improve quality of life for millions are at stake. Some say the very future of democracy itself may hang in the balance. In “The Net at Risk,” Bill Moyers and journalist Rick Karr report on the wannabe “lords of the Internet” and examine how promises by the big tel-co companies of a super-high speed Internet in return for deregulation and tax breaks have gone unfulfilled while the public has paid the price. After the documentary, Moyers leads a discussion on media reform to explore the real-world impact of deregulation on communities and citizen participation in democracy. ++

Marc Ash Interviews Bill Moyers - Part III:
“The Net@Risk”
10.16.06
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101606Q.shtml

Will Google Take the Internet Over the Cliff?
Jeffrey Chester, The Nation
October 14, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/42988/

The Google/YouTube merger is more than a big media deal: It’s the leading edge of a data-driven marketing system that will subvert the Internet as we know it.

Under the radar of all but the most savvy Internet users, powerful commercial forces are rapidly creating a digital media system for the United States that threatens to undermine our ability to create a civil and just society. The takeover of YouTube by Google announced October 9 and the 2005 buyout by Rupert Murdoch of MySpace are not just about mega-deals for new media. They are the leading edge of a powerful interactive system that is being designed to serve the interests of some of the wealthiest corporations on the planet.

Aware that social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube are attracting the key youth audience, and aiming to maintain their influence over future generations of consumers, marketers are aggressively seizing the initiative. Leveraging existing relationships with Yahoo!, Microsoft, the phone and cable companies, Google and the other large players, the advertising industry are developing an array of immersive online experiences–like MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach and Studio.com’s Go Deep–that seamlessly blend relationships with products and brands.

Advertisers are harnessing technology that targets and follows Internet users on their journeys through cyberspace, collecting data and tracking behavior. Virtual software marketing tools will be deployed across the digital landscape so that wherever we go, whatever we do do–e-mail, instant messaging, mobile communications or searches–we will be immersed in enticing content for the lifelong sell: Witness the work of Oddcast, a New York-based immersive media company, whose “conversational character products” represent a new medium for marketing to get inside consumers’ heads.

YouTube capitalizes on the growing proclivity of Internet users to be creators of information as well as consumers. And as the network television and cable audiences age, advertisers are increasingly aware that “user-created content”–be it a cute kitty video or clips from The Daily Show–are key to attracting young audiences. But as the Goo-Tube model develops, behind each video will be a powerful connection to an ad, targeted to the user’s online behavior, as well as the stealth collection of personal data. As Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive, noted about his company’s acquisition of MySpace, “the digital gold inside of MySpace wasn’t the number of users, but the information they’re providing.” [Google, it should be noted, now also represents the interests of Rupert Murdoch’s US empire. In August Google became Fox’s principal online advertising agent for MySpace, Fox TV and Fox Interactive.]

Given this emerging marketing model, the US broadband infrastructure may well become one giant “brandwashing” machine. The most powerful communications system ever developed by humans is increasingly being put in the service of selling, commercialization and commodification. And it will lead to an inherently conservative and narcissistic political culture, in which the interests of the self and the consumption of products are the primary, most visible, media messages. And unless we begin to challenge it now, the emerging digital culture will seriously challenge our ability to effectively communicate, inform and organize.

A handful of companies now dominate much of the US new-media market. Five corporations–Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon and Qwest–control the wires and cable lines delivering us broadband, digital TV and, soon, much wireless service. The viral “Singing Puppy” campaign from Nokia is an early warning that soon even our phone calls will become platforms for commercials. A few other major players–especially Google, News Corp., Viacom and Microsoft–have done the necessary deals to strategically grow their broadband content businesses (buying gaming sites and other programming to insure they ensnare the key youth market). Even if the pending update to the Communications Act of 1996 preserves the core principle of network neutrality, the voices of these most powerful media companies are likely to be the loudest.

More mergers in coming years will continue the consolidation of old media giants with the new. It’s only a matter of time before a handful of companies will own TV, radio and newspaper properties along with key online services. This further interferes with the ability of mainstream news media to serve as an effective watchdog on government and big business.

Though the Internet was originally envisioned to serve the public interest, there is no guarantee it will continue to do so. Like radio, broadcast TV and cable, it will continue to be shaped by politics, telecommunication policies and the market. Web activists envision a medium that will always support social change and can serve as a platform to distribute diverse points of view.

But if the economic relationships between the old and new media are allowed to dominate online culture, what guarantees do we have that the Internet will continue to be the “people’s” medium? Events are moving quickly; media and telecommunications giants already have a powerful hold on members of Congress; regardless of which party is in power, it is unlikely our elected officials will deliver a federal policy that that puts the needs of citizens ahead of corporations.

That’s why I suggest that progressives begin to get real–and get smart–about digital media. While we have a few reliable outlets–Democracy Now!, Alternet, Huffington Post and The Nation–the progressive community lacks a reliable well-connected broadband infrastructure that will deliver an array of news and cultural content to national and community audiences. I’m not talking about the wires and connections but about building a coalition of tech-savvy content providers that will deliver to PCs, TVs and cellphones a flow of alternative news and information challenging the status quo.

Imagine progressive organizations making smart deals with a variety of providers to carry this content deep in the heart of the digital distribution system. Imagine nimble, creative enterprises willing to experiment with new business models. Imagine having the courage to go beyond foundation grants and pledge drives and becoming adept at paying your own way. Imagine developing socially responsible advertising that respects personal privacy, is transparent about how data is collected and used, allows consumers to opt out of immersive experiences, fosters independent identity, builds community and supports social justice.

Foundations and the so-called Democracy Alliance have the potential to be the economic engines for such experiments and do the organizing necessary to patch together a content-challenge to the status quo.

As YouTube, Google, MySpace and immersive media marketing reshape the digital landscape, we need to be sure that public interest remains in the picture. And as tech-savvy progressive media find their place in that landscape, we must work together to build an online culture that not only pitches products but works for equity, social justice and the riches of a civil society. ++

Jeffrey Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy http://www.democraticmedia.org

~ from Wayne Madsen Report
October 18, 2006
http://waynemadsenreport.com/

America’s KGB chief derides the Internet as breeding ground for the development of radical ideologies. Speaking in Boston Monday before the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a longtime front for the CIA, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned about radicals using the Internet. Chertoff said, “We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet.”

It is clear that the Internet is the final target of the neocon fascists to seize total control over information dissemination here and abroad.

One of the first acts of a Democratic Congress should be to change the name of the fascist-sounding Department of Homeland Security to the Department of Civil Defense and Preparedness. ++

Web could be terror training camp: Chertoff
Raw Story
Tue Oct 17
http://tinyurl.com/ydra67

BOSTON (Reuters) - Disaffected people living in the United States may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills over the Internet and that could present the next major U.S. security threat, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff said on Monday.

“We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet,” Chertoff said on the sidelines of a meeting of International Association of the Chiefs of Police.

“They can train themselves over the Internet. They never have to necessarily go to the training camp or speak with anybody else and that diffusion of a combination of hatred and technical skills in things like bomb-making is a dangerous combination,” Chertoff said.

“Those are the kind of terrorists that we may not be able to detect with spies and satellites.”

Chertoff pointed to the July 7, 2005 attacks on London’s transit system, which killed 56 people, as an example a home-grown threat.

To help gather intelligence on possible home-grown attackers, Chertoff said Homeland Security would deploy 20 field agents this fiscal year into “intelligence fusion centers,” where they would work with local police agencies.

By the end of the next fiscal year, he said the department aims to up that to 35 staffers. ++

Fear of Tyranny Sweeping America
Sherwood Ross
Oct 16 2006
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/1774

Fear for an individual’s personal security common to a people whose leaders are taking their nation down the road to dictatorship has begun to grip America.

In church this Sunday one man said only half in jest, “When the arrests begin I will probably be the first one picked up.” He told of a woman he knew personally just released from a mental institution in Texas where, he said, the Federal government had locked her up for a year after she tried to show officials “proof” Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had no WMD.

I found this anecdote incredible until I recalled a recent reliable press account of a man arrested by the Secret Service merely for politely telling Vice President Cheney after hearing him speak that he disagreed with his policies.

Whether the story of the woman tossed into an asylum is factual, there are growing numbers of people who fear retribution for exercising their right of free speech. People warn their friends: Better not say that in public. Better not put that in writing.

After hearing the story of the woman’s arrest, a second congregation member stood up to warn dictatorships commit their dark deeds out of sight of the general public. He told of growing up in Argentina under the junta, oblivious to the fact the torture barracks was within blocks of his home. Life went on normally even as people were murdered, and he prayed America would not suffer a like fate.

After the service, another church-goer circulated a petition seeking signatures in opposition to the Administration’s Military Commissions Act that Amnesty International warned strips arrested captives of “any opportunity for meaningful judicial review.”
The petition reflects the palpable fear the misery President Bush has inflicted upon military detainees in Guantanamo and elsewhere may soon become the fate of Americans as well.

This fear is spurred by a growing mistrust of, and anger towards, government. A majority of Americans, polls now tell us, think President Bush knew Iraq had no WMD when he made the war. In short, they regard the man as deceitful. And when people do not trust their leaders, they fear them and what they fear they also hate.

Columnist Molly Ivins long ago wrote in The Progressive magazine why she felt justified in hating President Bush. That feeling is spreading. Automobile bumper strips declare “Enough Bushit.” People commonly refer to Bush in conversation as “King George.” One Website dubs him, “The Smirking Chimp.”

(During the Civil War, when anti-Administration newspapers compared President Lincoln to an ape it was based on their view he was a bungler rather than of any personal fear of the man.)

Among Democrats — as among some conservative Republicans who feel their principles have been betrayed — anger against the president is palpable. The New York Times reported Sunday, October 15th, “48 percent of Democrats say they are ‘more enthusiastic about voting than usual’” in the midterm elections. “Enthusiastic,” yes, as so many are actually furious. Much of what they write Congress is vitriolic.

Gays are among the more apprehensive. Their concern is heightened by GOP-sponsored referendums, such as the one on the Virginia ballot next month, prohibiting gay marriage. They worry about being officially stigmatized as second-class citizens. Liberals are also apprehensive. After all, right-wing radio talk personalities have long used the word “liberal” much as Hitler used the word “Jews.”

Fear is also spread by press reports of people being denied civil liberties, such as being kept from boarding an airliner without an explanation; of foreign scholars denied teaching opportunities here because of their views; of foreign students denied the right to study here by State Department officials who give no reason for refusing visas.

Fear also spreads when those in government positions who speak the truth are demoted or dismissed. Public confidence is shaken when a general who disagrees on tactics in Iraq is dismissed and a high Army Corps of Engineers official is demoted for charging contracts are being let without competitive bids. There is a growing conviction a vindictive Bush regime will punish anyone who opposes it. This has a chilling impact on free expression.

My recollection is fear of President Bush today is infinitely greater than fear of Senator Joe McCarthy back in the Fifties. McCarthy whipped anti-Communist sentiment to paranoid heights but he was only a Senator. He couldn’t start a war on his own or reach out and have people arrested under any Patriot Act.

Now there is a president wielding virtual dictatorial powers who has deceitfully invaded Iraq, where reportedly 650,000 civilians have been killed, has threatened the use of nuclear weapons, operates secret prisons around the world, and implies his critics are unpatriotic. What’s his next step?

Yes, it is happening before our eyes: the nation that gave the world the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Four Freedoms, and played an historic role in framing the UN Charter, is witnessing the evisceration of its civil liberties.

Administration officials beating the war drums about terrorism abroad are widely suspected of being capable of unleashing it at home.

Am I scared? You betcha. Gangrene spreads. ++

What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Add comment October 18th, 2006

Deep in the heart of [fill in the blank]

Texas? Delusion? Spin and Swiftboating? Computer hacking?

This is an election post — it comes on a day when even the Texans have recognized that the Pub’s are all hat and no cattle … when Uncle Dick’s credibility has gone from dark and creepy to drooling and senile by declaring the situation in Iraq as going “remarkably well” … when Rick Santorum is defending his lock-step on regime change by telling us that the clash in Iraq is akin to “Lord of the Rings” [see — I TOLD ya Dubby had the ring!] And the stock market has topped out today … which only means, to the Average Joe Six-Pack, that the rich are getting richer as the middle-class continues to spiral down.

Meanwhile, Pappy Bush’s Sec of State James Baker says that Iraq’s a “helluva a mess” — he’s leading a “bipartisan” review of the situation; and one we need to embrace very carefully, as Jim is the Bush family “fixer” … rather like the “cleaner” the Mafia calls in to take care of the bodies and remove all traces of murder.

I’ve played with the notion that the Dem’s would have to win in a landslide to get past the fixed Diebold machines … pull off a win so blatant that even with the lack of paper trail in some areas, it would create a public uproar. That may well happen. Even in Texas, where the gerrymandered map has created such a stonewall to party change that it looked unbreachable … it’s beginning to get that Alamo feel to it.

There’s still the October Surprise theory buzzing around — that Dubby will strike Iran, that Osama will be trotted out, that another attack on US soil will take place — whatever will take attention off their failures and bring us back to fear issues. But it’s interesting that the Pubs are as worried about October Surprise as are Dems … they evidently think the Dems are poised to give them grief of some sort. Full circle paranoia, sounds like, right out of their own playbook … and, I’ll add, the kind of thing Dems have neither the skill nor talent to produce well.

I don’t know what will happen next, but here’s what I think — whoever doesn’t win will challenge the vote. I think it will take a long time to actually get a final answer on who won what this year. And again — if you have any concerns about your vote being counted — you probably still have time to vote absentee … contact your state registrar for the details.

Here’s a big collection of articles about what’s happening today and the “what if’s” that may or may not put snippy little Nancy Pelosi in the Oval to duke it out with an irked and petulant George W. Bush.

It’s in our best interests, after playing these reign-deer games for three elections, to expect anything. And thats pragmatic advice on the day that Karl tells us that he’ll “deploy” one hundred MILLION bucks in the ‘06 War on Rationality — best to brace for some down and dirty campaigning full of lies and inuendo.

Jude

Discontent with GOP finds way into Texas
SUZANNE GAMBOA, AP
Tue Oct 17
http://tinyurl.com/y6qr3y

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas - The economy is strong and Rickye Lennon’s excavation business is thriving. Yet his son may soon go to war, government scandals are in the news, and Lennon, a Republican deep in the heart of Bush country, doesn’t think his party should remain in charge of Congress.

“I think we need a wake-up call,” said Lennon, 50, of Dripping Springs. “They need to be paying attention to the issues the people are concerned about and I think we need to become more moderate in our views.”

Three weeks to the midterm elections, GOP discontent is seeping into the home state of President Bush, where every statewide elected official is a Republican.

The state’s Republican House members were supposed to be protected from such voter mood swings by the 2003 redrawing of the state’s congressional districts, orchestrated by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

But largely because of DeLay, who resigned in June embroiled in scandal, Texas this year unexpectedly is one of the states that could help Democrats wrest control of the House from the GOP this November. Races for three of the state’s 32 congressional seats are considered competitive.

No Republican is listed on the ballot in the race for the seat once held by DeLay. That’s left Democrat Nick Lampson the favorite against write-in Republican candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.

Democrats hope the congressional page scandal will help push Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla (news, bio, voting record) into a runoff against one of his seven challengers for a district stretching from near El Paso to Laredo.

And voter unease also may thwart Republican efforts to seize the Central Texas district that is home to Bush’s ranch, a congressional seat now held by Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards.

There is disquiet in the state’s gubernatorial race, too, in which incumbent GOP Gov. Rick Perry is polling only in the high 30s against three challengers.

Walter Dean Burnham, a professor emeritus in the University of Texas at Austin government department, said that while “there certainly is some sign of discontent” in the state, he expected its impact in congressional races to be limited.

“I don’t see any good reason the love affair with the Republican Party has weakened all that much,” he said.

News that Republican Rep. Mark Foley sent illicit electronic messages to congressional pages was unfolding when Lennon stopped at the Dripping Springs post office recently. A cap embroidered with “Legends of Texas Swing Music Festival” shielded his eyes as he slapped dust from his jeans.

To Lennon, the handling of the Foley scandal and ethical problems involving other congressmen are examples of Republican hypocrisy.

“It’s cronyism,” he said. “There are a lot of people out there that will do anything they can to protect their party. That’s wrong. We have to do what’s right. We have laws that everyone has to follow and they are not above that law.”

He expects to vote for his Democratic congressman, Lloyd Doggett of Austin.

Others are ready to give the GOP another chance.

Sokhom Chum, who lives in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton, said there’s plenty he doesn’t like about Congress. The finger-pointing is wearing on him and he’d like to see more compromise on immigration.

But Chum, 46, said he is willing to give Republicans another year to resolve the Iraq war and do a better job of governing. “I’m a patient man. The economy seems to be doing fine,” he said.

Two years ago, Republicans took charge of the Texas congressional delegation, winning 22 of 32 House seats. The DeLay-led redistricting ensured few competitive races. Democrats produced some competition when they sued to keep Republicans from replacing DeLay on the ballot.

And while Republicans pledged to spend as much as a $4 million on the race, the money hasn’t materialized. Such spending has become less likely as the Foley scandal puts at risk more Republican seats around the country.

In Edwards’ district, Republican challenger Van Taylor has waged a blistering campaign that accuses the Democratic incumbent of being soft on illegal immigration.

But voters were more likely to mention Edwards’ work to keep open the local veterans hospital and snare a homeland security contract for one of the district’s largest employers.

“I generally vote Republican, but in Chet’s case … he is looking out for the people and his district,” said John Henry, 66, of Waco.

On Tuesday, Edwards’ campaign gleefully trumpeted reports that the national Republican committee had abandoned plans to spend $1.5 million on the race. Taylor’s campaign would not confirm the reports, but spokesman Mike Spellings said, “We were prepared from the very beginning to win this campaign on our own and Van has shown that he is adept at raising money.”

Bonilla found himself in an unexpected fight after the Supreme Court ruled that Hispanic voting strength had been diluted in his district and ordered it redrawn. Now that the district is more Hispanic, his Democratic challengers are hoping for a runoff, although Bonilla still is favored to win.

Bonilla acknowledged his party faces challenges, listing DeLay’s resignation and the Foley page scandal among others, but says the Democratic uproar is an “act of the devil” to distract voters.

“It’s like a family member, when somebody goes bad,” Bonilla said. “It makes it harder for the whole family to function.”

Alarm Bells for G.O.P. in Poll Results in Ohio
JOHN M. BRODER and MEGAN C. THEE
October 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/us/politics/18poll.html

The bellwether state of Ohio appears to have become hostile terrain for Republicans this year, with voters there overwhelmingly saying Democrats are more likely to help create jobs and concluding by a wide margin that Republicans in the state are more prone to political corruption than are Democrats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Ohio is home this year to closely watched races for governor, the United States Senate and a growing roster of competitive House seats, and the state has become one of the most contested battlegrounds of 2006 and one in which voters at this point are strongly favoring Democrats on many issues.

The Democratic candidates for governor and Senate hold commanding, double-digit leads over their Republican opponents in the poll and respondents said they intended to vote for the Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives in their district by a 50 to 32 percent margin.

The results raise alarm bells for President Bush and his party across the nation three weeks from Election Day.

The poll found a striking slippage in the president’s standing among white evangelical Christians, a constituency that has provided a strong vote cushion for Republican candidates in recent elections. In November 2004, 76 percent of white evangelical Christians in Ohio voted for Mr. Bush. When asked in this poll whether they approve or disapprove of the job Mr. Bush is doing as president, 49 percent approved while 45 percent disapproved.

Ohio is a Republican-leaning but heavily contested state that twice voted to elect Mr. Bush and gave him his Electoral College margin of victory in 2004. But it is not a perfect microcosm of the country, and in particular it has higher levels of economic anxiety, the poll found.

Sixty-five percent of those surveyed rated the state’s economy as bad; only 34 percent said it was good. In Ohio, 49 percent of respondents described the nation’s economy as good and 50 percent said it was bad. In a national Times/CBS News poll conducted earlier this month, 60 percent said the economy was good and only 39 percent said it was bad.

A plurality, 46 percent of Ohio voters, said the economy and jobs were the most important issues facing the state, while 17 percent cited health care, 15 percent said terrorism and 12 percent said the war in Iraq. Seventy percent said both Ohio and the nation are on the wrong track, a number that often spells doom for the party in power.

More than three-quarters of Ohioans in the poll said they strongly favored a ballot measure to increase the state minimum wage to $6.85 an hour from $5.15 an hour.

The ballot measure is backed by labor unions and other Democratic interests and is aimed in part at drawing Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day, just as measures to outlaw gay marriage propelled Republicans to vote in several states two years ago.

Only a third of Ohio voters approve of the job Mr. Bush is doing as president or the way he is handling the economy, and they seem poised to take it out on Republican candidates up and down the ballot. Republican officials at the national level said this week they had all but written off the Ohio Senate and governor’s races and were diverting resources to other states where they believed they had a better chance of winning.

“In Ohio we’ve seen nothing but our manufacturing jobs cease to exist,” said one poll respondent, David Stuck, 59, of Miami Township, Ohio, who said he voted twice for Mr. Bush. He blamed inaction at the federal level for the evaporation of jobs in Ohio and said he planned for vote for the Democratic candidate for United States Senate, Sherrod Brown, over the incumbent, Senator Mike DeWine, a Republican.

“Call it a protest,” Mr. Stuck, a Republican, said in a follow-up interview. “I haven’t seen anything done in the last six years. To be honest, I’m truly thinking about voting Democratic across the board because I’m tired of Bush.”

The statewide telephone poll was conducted Wednesday through Sunday with 1,164 adults, including 1,020 registered voters. The margin of sampling error for the entire group is plus or minus 3 percentage points, and it is the same for the registered voters.

More than half of the poll’s respondents said they believed corruption was widespread in Ohio and said, by a 3-to-1 margin, that the Republican Party had more corrupt politicians than the Democrats. Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican, pleaded no contest last year to ethics charges arising from dealings with a crooked investment manager.

Representative Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican, pleaded guilty to corruption charges last week arising from his association with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of an influence-selling scandal in Washington.

Doris Stucky, a 79-year-old retired nurse from New Philadelphia, Ohio, said she thought all politicians were corrupt. “I think they’re out to line their pocketbooks and get votes and they don’t care what they do or say to get them,” said Mrs. Stucky, a Republican, in a telephone interview after she participated in the poll.

“They came down on Bob Ney and I don’t think he’s any more guilty than the rest of them,” she said. “It’s the same in Ohio. I think politicians are all the same. I wish we could find some good honest Christian politicians but I don’t think there are any.” Mrs. Stucky said she was undecided about whom she will vote for.

By large margins, Ohio voters said they trusted Democrats over Republicans to handle government spending and create new jobs.

The sour mood in Ohio about the economy and the performance of incumbent politicians at all levels appears to be a motivating factor for voters who identify themselves as Democrats. Fifty-five percent of Democrats said they were more enthusiastic about voting than in previous elections for Congress, while only 30 percent of Republicans said they were.

The tide of dissatisfaction appears ready to wash out Mr. DeWine, who is trailing Mr. Brown by 34 percent to 48 percent, the poll found. The Democratic candidate for governor, Representative Ted Strickland, is leading the Republican nominee, J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state, by 53 percent to 29 percent.

The omens in the poll were almost uniformly grim for the president and his party. Six out of 10 respondents disapprove of the way Mr. Bush is handling the economy and Iraq, and a plurality of Ohioans (by 40 percent to 36 percent) disapprove of the way he is managing the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. The approval rating for the Republican-led Congress is a paltry 22 percent. Among adults nationwide, 27 percent approve of the way Congress is doing its job.

One bright spot for the president and Republicans was that while about 60 percent said they had made up their minds about this year’s elections, four in 10 said it was too early to say how they would vote.

Many Democrats in Ohio still harbor resentment about the 2004 contest between Mr. Bush and Senator John Kerry, which Mr. Bush officially won by about 120,000 votes out of 5.6 million cast in Ohio. Only 30 percent of Democratic poll respondents said they believed the 2004 vote count was fair and accurate, while 64 percent said it was not. (Many conspiracy-minded Democratic activists blamed Mr. Blackwell, who serves as statewide supervisor of elections, for manipulating voting technology to help Mr. Bush win.) Republicans, by 89 percent to 8 percent, said the voting was fair and balanced.

Twenty-eight percent of those polled said an adult in their household has been out of work and looking for a job in the past 12 months, and 44 percent of them said they were worried that someone in their family would be out of work in the coming year.

James Reed, 50, a self-described independent voter from Ashtabula, Ohio, said in a follow-up interview that Mr. Taft, who is not running for re-election, “has sold us down the road as far as jobs are concerned.” Mr. Reed, a disabled chemical plant worker, said trade restrictions were needed to prevent American jobs from being shipped overseas, a view shared by 69 percent of Ohioans surveyed.

Marjorie Connelly and Marina Stefan contributed reporting for this article.

GOP sources say party losing hope of victory
Brian Beutler, Raw Story
Tuesday October 17, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/yg9deb

Republican sources in high-ranking Congressional offices are quietly acknowledging that the party has largely lost hope of retaining control of the House this November, RAW STORY has learned.

Aides currently in the employ of two different House committee chairmen have expressed to RAW STORY that they believe their party will become the minority after next month’s elections.

“I’ll probably be working for the ranking member this winter,” noted one staffer. “It just doesn’t look like there’s anything that’s going to prevent it.”

One sign of an impending shift, said another, is that staff members for Democratic congressmen have assumed an unusually confident posture. “[Democratic staffers] don’t even joke about it with us anymore. They just know.”

One pointed to rumors on the Hill that there is the possibility of a Democratic October surprise. “[Former Congressman Mark] Foley wasn’t their surprise. That just kinda happened, but people are saying they do have one of their own.”

The Foley scandal has been the dominant political story—and perhaps the prime mover—this election season, fueling conflict within the Republican party, evoking strong criticism from Democrats, and even prompting some right-wing critics to lay the blame at the feet of liberal bogeymen. But that tactic doesn’t seem to have resonated in opinion polls.

Earlier in the month, conservative websites began posting stories pointing to an assurance from Karl Rove that a Republican October surprise would rescue their party, but so far none has manifested. One Republican staffer even doubted whether any political maneuver by Rove would be enough to allow the GOP to retain the House, saying “I’m not even sure that’d work at this point.”

October has always been a kinetic month in the election cycle, for observers and participants alike. But this October—marked by Republicans playing to their perceived advantage on national security and, perhaps more notably, by the page scandal and its extraordinary momentum—finds even veteran analysts exhausted by the twists and hesitant to make predictions. The election has at times even overwhelmed news coverage of important but unrelated events, including the war in Iraq and the apparent detonation of a nuclear weapon by North Korea.

Democrats, however, are playing down the perceived advantage. One veteran Democratic aide, responding to the Republican comments and encouraging polling, said, “When I see Republicans looking for jobs, then I’ll start believing the polls.”

Republican misdeeds have given us a clear choice
MARTIN SCHRAM
October 18, 2006
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/10/republican_misd.html

For once, voters have it easy on Election Day.

Usually, citizens must wade through the bombast and braunschweiger of political TV ads hoping to discover how a candidate might vote on all the big issues.
So many votes, so much braunschweiger, so little time.

But this year citizens only need to focus on the one key vote: The first vote each representative and senator casts in the new Congress will be by far the most important. It is the vote that determines who will be House speaker or Senate majority leader _ in short, who will be controlling Congress.

Luckily for voters, the party now in power in the House has made this year a no brainer for voters. Republicans, who have controlled the House with an iron fist, have made themselves into poster pols for greed and corruption. Now it is clear that conscientious voters of all ideologies must vote the no-longer Grand Old Party out of power. It is the only way House Republicans will clean up their act and regain their once enviable moral compass.

Idealistic conservatives in Washington who are not officeholders recognize this and have said so publicly. Opportunistic Democrats who are in office dream and scheme to make it happen, but haven’t demonstrated the vision that should be evident in advance of power. Still, Democrats have made a virtue out of powerlessness. They haven’t been caught splashing, Gene Kelly-like, in the gutters of corruption that line Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street. Maybe in this town that’s all the virtue we can expect.

For years, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay mastered the art of amassing money to gain and perpetuate power. DeLay made Dennis Hastert the House speaker; a grateful Hastert sought to protect DeLay, looking away as the House Ethics Committee withered. DeLay became the ignoble enabler of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who for years was Washington’s only kosher deli proprietor whose specialty was pork.

The owner of Stacks deli spread corruption like cream cheese, smearing it up and down congressional corridors of power and K Street; and tried mightily to do the same inside the Bush administration’s agencies.

For months, the Bush White House conned the media into conveying the impression that Abramoff had just a few contacts with White House aides; they pretended to be reluctant as they released a White House photo showing Bush with a native American and Abramoff as a distant flyspeck in the crowd. Now it turns out that Abramoff’s records and e-mails show a bit more than four or five contacts - 485 contacts between Abramoff’s firm and the White House, including key adviser Karl Rove.

In one, Rove OK’d an endorsement for Abramoff’s client in an obscure election in the Mariana Islands. Rove’s top assistant, Susan Ralston, e-mailed Abramoff: “You win.” (Did I mention that her previous job was as Abramoff’s assistant?) Now DeLay is gone. So is Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio, who admitted taking money for doing favors for Abramoff, and a number of tainted GOP aides. And so is Rep Randy Cunningham, R-Calif., who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from receiving $2.4 million in bribes.

Hastert and his Republican leaders retired the cup for hypocrisy. They courted voters who cherish family and Christian values. But faced with proof that a Florida Republican congressman was making improper overtures to boys who were House pages, they took no action that might jeopardize a safe GOP seat - just bowed their heads as Rep. Mark Foley preyed.

While House Republicans leaders have betrayed their public trust, over in the Senate, what is right is far less clear. Some senior Senate conservatives grasp the difference between wielding a gavel and a hammer, understanding that power and principle need not be mutually exclusive. Most recently, Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., had the guts to call for a new course in Iraq, even as his House counterparts did little more than act as a Bush-Cheney-Rummy rubber stamp. But the Senate’s nominally top Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada, casts no shadow as a newsmaker, except for a hugely profitable land deal, tarnished by slipshod documentation and maybe worse.

But voters face a clear call to duty when it comes to their House races. If your representative is a Republican who is one of the bad ones or a blind-to-morality follower, give your rep the hook. If your representative is solid and a hard worker but still determined to vote again to keep Hastert and his failed leaders in power, respectfully give your rep a gold watch that says it is time to retire.

Those House Republicans, by their own misdeeds, have relinquished the right to reign.

At The Edge Of Meltdown
Isaiah J. Poole
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/17/at_the_edge_of_meltdown.php

Democrats are poised for a sweep of Congress that has not been seen since the 1994 political tsunami that swept Republicans into the majority in the House, according to the latest series of surveys. But “poised” is the operative word.

Two items—a poll and a survey of congressional races by Congressional Quarterly —are particularly noteworthy. The Democracy Corps/Greenberg Quinlan Rosner survey of voters in Republican swing districts found Democrats leading in those districts by 4 percentage points. “The Democratic vote, stuck at 49 percent for months, suddenly jumped to 53 percent in the last two weeks,” pollsters Stan Greenberg and Ana Iparraguirre wrote in their report, called “Meltdown.”

“We do not often get to write such a report—changes so large over such a short period that they certainly portend a whole new playing field for the November election,” they wrote.

Their findings were echoed by the latest CQPolitics.com handicapping of the likely House and Senate lineup. (Disclosure: I used to write for Congressional Quarterly .)

Their painstakingly cautious assessment today has House Republicans getting 209 seats and Democrats 208, with 18 rated as “no clear favorite.” Either party needs 218 seats for control of the House. In the Senate, CQPollitics.com is giving 49 seats to the Republicans, 46 to the Democrats, with five in the “no clear favorite” category.

CQ also compares the potential “donkey stampede” to the “elephants storming up the steps of the Capitol” in 1994. “The momentum continues to clearly be on the Democrats’ side: The job approval ratings for President Bush’s Republican administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have plummeted deep into the danger zone,” CQPolitics editor Bob Benenson writes.

The Democracy Corps survey says that voters in the Republic swing districts rank the war in Iraq as the issue that concerns them most, followed closely by “jobs and the economy” and “terrorism and national security.” Medicare, health care and taxes also rank relatively high. And on every one of these issues except national security, the surveyed voters say Democrats will do a better job.

Still, Republicans have three weeks to catch up with millions of dollars poured strategically into districts to pay for take-no-prisoners campaign tactics. No doubt the saber-rattling in North Korea and even the continued unraveling of Iraq will be used by the Bush administration and the Republican political machine to sow doubt in the minds of wavering voters.

The other problem facing Democrats is that voters don’t like Congress, period: 67 percent of voters either somewhat or strongly disapprove of the job Congress is doing. Republicans get a a large share of the blame because they are in control. But, as a Washington Post story on the Connecticut Senate race shows, incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman is successfully playing to voter perceptions that extreme partisanship on both sides is the reason Congress is ineffective. That has put Democrat Ned Lamont behind despite his boost from progressive Democrats.

There is no dispute that voters are hungry for change and are ready to make a change. Greenberg calls it “an immense opportunity for Democrats to move strategically to consolidate gains at an unimagined level.” The only question remains is whether Democrats will seize it with bold ideas on getting out of Iraq and making our economy work for everyone.

Bush’s Foley
Will the Democrats Blow It?
SAUL LANDAU
October 18, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau10182006.html

Less than one month before the November congressional elections, the Great Scriptwriter in the Sky directed Republicans to stage a disruptive sex scandal–for the benefit of the Democrats.

Mark Foley, a Florida Republican stalwart sent lurid emails to underage pages. House Speaker Dennis Hastert apparently ignored warnings given to him in 2003 by Kirk Fordham, a senior aide. Fordham said he alerted Hastert’s office about “worrisome conduct by Rep. Mark Foley toward teenage pages long before officials have acknowledged becoming aware of the issue.” (AP Oct 4) Subsequently, Hastert got other warnings from House Republicans. This information conflicts with the Speaker’s “shocked” response when ABC first published evidence of Foley’s “classical” form of older man-young boy relationship.

As scandal news spread, Democrats called on Hastert to resign. A desperate Hastert turned to his trusted constituency. He made appearances on the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other right wing talk shows. The former wrestling coach, however, gave bad radio: one-word answers and unconvincing denials.

The Enquirer will feature salacious headline. Millions of supermarket customers will read them while waiting to have their groceries checked. Add to pedophilia on the internet, the less sexy bribery convictions of Republican Congressmen Randy “Duke” Cunningham ( of California) and Robert Ney (of Ohio). Spice the mix with Jack Abramoff’s offering dirty money to buy from Republicans sleazy favors for sleazy clients (ranging from gamblers to sweat shop owners). Hey, the Democrats have a good chance to win back the House!

Candidates in really close races could even refer to the Iraq War and Bush’s supposed war on terrorism as well. Bush has protected known terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch who co-authored the sabotage of a Cuban airliner blown up over Barbados in October 1976. Seventy-three passengers and crew members died. Bosch continues to plot terrorism in Cuba as he recently told a reporter–in between visits to his proctologist and gerontologist.

Posada, who also conspired to bomb Cuban tourists sites in the 1990s, one of which resulted in the killing of an Italian tourist, remains in a U.S. jail for “illegal entry”– not terrorism. The Justice Department has thus far not filed serous charges against him and has refused Venezuela’s extradition request.

In five years, Bush’s much trumpeted war on terrorism — can you picture terrorism surrendering? — has yet to result in the conviction of a Guantanamo inmate. Bush has, nevertheless, demanded and gotten congressional authorization to abandon Constitutional guarantees, including some that date back to the Magna Carta.

Congress also gave him permission to torture as well. None of this has helped him with his terrorist war, but he does label the Democrats who opposed these fascist measures “weak.”

Will congressional candidates also highlight Bush-Cheney lies and distortions about reasons for going to war and “staying the course?” Bob Woodward’s new book State of Denial presents a portrait of the White House top staff in a state of doubt and despair while the President paints himself publicly as steadfast and certain.

Democrats might point out similarities that Bush shares with Foley, whose House job was to protect children. The now ex Congressman who just admitted to being gay, reverted to ancient Greek forms of child “protection”–known as pederasty, Bush adapts a less ancient French practice called chicanery.

As the daily carnage in Iraq escalates–between October 1-4, 22 U.S. soldiers died and dozens more were wounded–Bush behaves as if he had a coherent victory strategy. Insurgent attacks have grown to some 800 a week, according to Woodward, but the increasingly huffy Bush, who ran away from even National Guard service, had the chutzpah to accuse his rivals of “cutting and running” instead of staying his disastrous course. (September 30 radio address)

Aspirant for an Illinois House seat Tammy Duckworth answered Bush’s “cut and run” speech on the Democrats’ radio response. The former helicopter pilot and army captain lost her legs in Iraq.

“I did not cut and run,” she replied to Bush. “Like so many others, I proudly fought and sacrificed.” Duckworth criticized Republicans in Congress for failing to hold the Bush administration accountable for his Iraq policy. “We need a Congress that will ask the tough questions, and work together for solutions, rather than attacking the patriotism of those who disagree,” she added.

After 9/11, Bush has repeatedly referred to himself as a war time president. He extolled sacrifice–for others. Bush should make the Guinness Record book for most vacationing president in history. In response to White House charges of their being weak, Democrats could show photos of Bush on holiday at his Crawford ranch for five days while bodies floated through the flooded streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck. Then cut to shots of Bush leisurely reading “My Pet Goat” for seven minutes to Florida second graders after an aide had informed him a hijacked jet hit the World Trade Center.

The Democrats have yet to rub Bush’s and Cheney’s faces in the panoply of public evidence of their deception; nor have they forced Republican candidates to confront the Party’s role in Jack Abramoff’s bribery schemes. Indeed, the President has set his theme — his reputed strength versus Democratic weakness — for the November congressional elections. Despite his low poll numbers, Bush confidently states that he and his Party stand for toughness against terrorism while his opponents are possibly traitors. He even had the cheek to try to sell the public on the idea that his critics are “buying into enemy propaganda.”

“You do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism,” Bush lectured the Reserve Officers Association in Washington. “If that ever becomes the mindset of the policymakers in Washington, it means we will go back to the old days of waiting to be attacked and then respond.” (Douglas Stanglin, USA Today, 9/29/06)

Bush, whose then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had ample warning about the 9/11 attack and did nothing to avert it, picked a military audience to deliver his severe warning. Don’t believe the critics, Bush demanded. He didn’t quite know how to explain a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) from his own Administration that concluded that fighting the war in Iraq has made America less safe. Someone leaked the NIE to the New York Times. Following that, Bush declassified portions of the report.

The idea that the Iraq War had served as a base for jihadists to recruit ever more members, he insisted, came from a misreading of the classified NIE on the war against terrorism. Pretending he had actually read the document, Bush claimed that “some of them selectively quoted from the document to make the case that by fighting terrorists, by fighting them in Iraq, we are making people less secure here at home.

This argument buys into the enemy’s propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we’re provoking them.”

“Their war against us,” Bush averred, “is because they hate the very thing that America stands for,” he said. “And we stand for freedom.” He repeats the word, but each “fighting terrorism” act strips away traditional freedoms. Bush can now order the indefinite detention of any U.S. citizen, resident alien or foreign national in a military prison either in the U.S. soil or abroad. Arrested persons have no recourse to the courts or lawyers. Torturers can descend on them as well, just because Bush or his underlings decided to arrest him. On this issue, the Democrats did not stand tall and filibuster in the Senate or demand extensive hearings. This is the real test of what Bush called the “ideological struggle of the 21st century.”

What does Bush mean by freedom, if it doesn’t include the most traditional rights? He has seriously reduced civil liberties at home and made hideous messes abroad. Bush claims it’s worth the blood and destruction because Iraq and Afghanistan have democracy now. In reality, other than thus far meaningless elections and a U.S.-guarded stock market, Iraq and Afghanistan have little to show for their freedom other than body counts, unemployment and non functional infrastructures.

Five years after the October 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban or rowdy war lords have recaptured much of the country. Newsweek labeled “Jihadistan,” the sanctuary that has emerged across thousands of miles of Afghan-Pakistan border land. This “autonomous quasi state of religious radicals, mostly belongs to Pashtun tribes who don’t recognize the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. [They] openly recruit young men to fight in Afghanistan, and they hold Islamic kangaroo courts that sometimes stage public executions.” (Newsweek, October 2, 2006)

Bush has no funds to invest for his promised Afghan reconstruction. He delivered “$67 a year per Afghan.” (Beth DeGrasse U.S. Institute of Peace)

Bush has given U.S. government wealth in the form of tax cuts to the already super wealthy. He refers to a nation sacrificing for war, while those who benefited from the war support his fiscal largesse. They make no sacrifices.

Bush the “uniter not divider” runs a nation more divided than at any time since the Civil War. Foley at least tried to unite his generation with the current crop of teens. But that’s not in the Democrats’ victory script, nor should it be.

In this “Whom do you believe” November congressional election campaign, the public must decide between the man God told to invade Iraq and the lying documents produced by his intelligence experts.

It’s Even Worse, and Better, Than We Thought: An Address to Democrats Abroad
Bernard Weiner
Oct 18 2006
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/1928

Author’s Note: The Democratic Party sponsors chapters around the world for ex-pat citizens working and living abroad; representatives of these Democrats Abroad chapters are entitled to attend the party’s conventions and help shape the platform.

Here is that address to Democrats Abroad (Munich), delivered 11 October, 2006:

Two years ago, when we last met in this same building shortly after the debacle of the 2004 election, the situation in the U.S. was really bad, but not yet desperate. The question then was “how bad would it get under CheneyBush?” The short answer to that question now is “Very VERY bad.” Consider:

* Today, things are so bad in the States for liberals, progressives, Democrats of all stripes that a kind of permanent political depression is the operative mode for so many of us laboring in the anti-Bush, pro-democracy fields.

* So bad that many of my friends and colleagues, depending on what happens November 7, are seriously thinking about getting out while the getting is good, like those who emigrated in fear from late-’30s Germany.

* So bad that one almost doesn’t want to open the newspaper in the morning or listen to the news at night, for the latest Bush&Co. atrocity or policy-disasters — and for how the mainstream, corporate media ignores them or takes the White House spin as its marching orders.

* So bad that, at least on the fringes — from the far Right and the far Left — there is starting to be talk about the possible need for some kind of revolution, even if undefined.

* So bad, that some liberals — yes, liberals! — are starting to float speculation about a military coup to overthrow the Bush Administration.

That’s how far we’ve come in two years.

ON THE OTHER HAND…
The short answer also is: Things are better than they were two years ago. Mainly because the extremism, incompetence and recklessness of the Bush Administration have finally led huge numbers of Americans, especially traditional Republican conservatives, to back away in revulsion from the greedy crooks and arrogant, war-mongering ideologues who rule the GOP these days.

This movement is most significant within the military and intelligence establishments, appalled at what they are being tasked to do; many of these true conservatives are making their views known, sometime openly as retired generals and colonels and CIA agents but also by currently employed operatives and military officers covertly leaking damaging plans and information to civilian spokesmen like Congressman Jack Murtha and reporters like Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker and to leading reporters for the New York Times and Washington Post.

In short, as the polls have been showing for some time, Bush, for the most part, is locked into firm support from only one sector of the populace: his fundamentalist base. His approval numbers have been fluctuating within a fairly narrow range for many months now — roughly mid/low 30s to low-40s.

On the Iraq War, the numbers are even worse; it’s clear that about 2/3 of the American people have come to a collective judgement that the war is a terrible mistake — started from the wrong premises, botched in execution, trapped in an unwinnable stalemate — and that it’s time to figure a way out.

As you can see, the bad news and good news create a kind of emotional roller-coaster ride for those of us politically active types in the States. What it’s like for you up to 6000 miles away, I have no idea, but I’d guess the roller-coaster analogy resonates with you as well. The Democrats cave on Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court and down you go, but Abramoff and Mark Folely explode into the headlines on another day and your mood shifts upwards.

VICTORY FOR DEMS, WITH A BIG “IF”
So, if you ask me what will happen on November 7, I’d have to give you answers from both camps.

My gut tells me that IF the election is an honest one, the Democrats have a good shot at taking back the House, and now they even have a possible shot at the Senate. (Today on the internet, I saw a story that indicated that Republican officials themselves are anticipating a loss in the House of between seven and 30; the Dems need 15 to retake that body.)

The desire for change is so wide-sweeping in the country (aside from that one-third base, who would stick with the Republicans even if photos surfaced of Bush servicing a sheep in the Oval Office), and the Democratic base so fired up, that a sea-change sweep could happen in the House, with a lot of votes coming from disenchanted Republicans across the country. A House victory would mean that starting in January, real investigations could begin, with the Democratic majority in charge of subpoenas, putting witnesses under oath and so on. Even an impeachment resolution is not outside the realm of possibility, though probably not likely, at least not immediately.

That’s my gut. My more realistic side reminds me that I thought much the same in November 2004, and even headed for dinner that evening convinced we’d done it, only to cotton to the theft of that election later that night. (And I, for one, will NEVER forgive Kerry for capitulating so quickly, especially after he promised that he’d fight to the end for a full and fair vote count.)

SLIME, SLEAZE & SUPPRESSION
I am cognizant that there are still several weeks to go before Election Day, and Karl Rove and his minions are out in full force trying, by hook or by crook (emphasis on that latter word), to organize vote totals that, at the least, will minimize the Dem victory to manageable proportions, and, at most, eke out slim victories in enough key districts to retain control of the House.

Democratic candidates are being slimed by Rove’s dirty-tricks folks and the 527 Swiftboat-like PACs. Poll taxes (under the guise of photo IDs) will be keeping many poor, minority and rural voters away from the election polls in many, mostly Southern states. Suppression of minority voting in urban inner-cities moves ahead, right on schedule. A massive get-out-the-vote campaign is being mounted by GOP-supporting churches. Etc. Etc.

And I haven’t even included discussion of possible October “suprises,” such as bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities because of some claimed “imminent” danger to U.S. interests, or announcing the death or capture of Osama bin Laden, or claiming to have averted a major terrorist attack inside the U.S. (None of those possibilities, of course, have to be true; merely asserting them, true or not, gets the job done for Rove&Co. prior to the election.)

MANIPULATING THE NUMBERS
Then there is computer-voting. We know, because it’s been demonstrated in public many times, how easy it is — taking less than a minute — to alter the software programs in computer-voting machines, and in vote-tabulating computers, producing just enough of a secret, undetectable tweak to ensure a 1 or 2% majority for enough Republican candidates to continue controlling the House. Sure it would look downright suspicious and prima facia proof of vote theft. But the key question for the Republicans would be: So what? What would Americans do about yet another election that clearly seems to have been stolen from the people? We know what the Ukranians did, and the Philippinos did, and so on, but Democrats tend to concede early, and tamp down the flames of angry protest.

Per usual, Democrats are a day late and a dollar short on the electoral-integrity issue. Since they didn’t put up much of a fight after 2000, 2002 in Georgia and elsewhere, and in 2004, their trying to play catch-up in the final weeks before the 2006 election could turn out to be a disaster. Only in the last days before Congress’ pre-election adjournment, for example, did a few Democratic senators try to get a national bill guaranteeing verified paper ballots as emergency back-ups for precincts that were having demonstrable problems with their machines. Late again.

If this stolen-election scenario were to play out, with Bush&Co. still in control of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government, along with the Fourth Estate, the mass media, what would America look like for the next two years of Bush’s term?

Short answer: Not good. Domestically, the slide to a native American fascism has been solidified with the recent vote by Congress authorizing torture as state policy, electronic eavesdropping as state policy, military tribunals for those suspe