posted 03-28-2003 10:35 PM            

BushCo Wants You Stupefied
Please remain mesmerized by grainy live footage, ignore appalling larger schemes. Thank you

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

This is not the time to get complacent and lazy and reactionary and wallow in ennui and sadness and bourbon-fueled fatalism, the sense that all is hurling down the road to hell in a hot Republican-drenched handbasket. Tempting as that is.

This is not the time to be all shrugging and dismissive and think whelp, that's it then, nothing we can really do anymore, just sit back and watch the carnage I guess, the switch has been thrown and the snarling war machine is churning in high gear and the mass herd is mewling and subdued and misled and aggro and stupefied.

And therefore you can only sit there and guzzle your scotch and go numb and sigh, flip around to see which frantic network has the best video of windblown reporters riding high on U.S. tanks and yelling about food shortages and lack of sleep as they rumble nobly through the desert.

This is not the time to get thoughtless and simpleminded. The trigger has indeed been tripped and we are right this minute slaughtering thousands in Iraq and dozens of US soldiers are being killed by Bush's "peaceful" order and ooh look, stray bullets and raging dust storms and bedraggled reporters tagging along, all wide-eyed and chaotic and no one really having any idea what, exactly, is really happening.

Shock and awe it ain't. Grunt and bluster and confuse and choke on dust and realize, bitterly, sadly, holy Christ with a Koran and a $300 billion national budget deficit, this is gonna be ugly, and violent, and long, and fruitless, it most definitely is.

The idea is that you will be more sympathetic. The idea is that by allowing all those stunned reporters such unprecedented access, by embedding them right smack in the middle of the action, amidst select squads of equally wide-eyed, barely-old-enough-to-drink soldiers, the reporters won't be able to help but be more pro-military, and goodly Americans will feel sympathy and support the troops and, by extension, the entire insane and unnecessary war. Is it working?

And thus Rummy and Shrub can smirk and nod to each other and, quite literally, get away with murder, their PR coup working beautifully, so far, because you don't see the real action. You no longer see the big picture. You are no longer paying attention.

And they most definitely do not want you to see. No actual dead bodies, no gutted buildings, no burned and decapitated children, no blood, no true bleak horrors of war, just tired soldiers and water trucks and big U.S. tanks rumbling patriotically through the dust toward Baghdad. Go team!

As meanwhile, just outside the purview of the reporter's grainy video phones, just beyond the jerky shots of video-game night skies and soldiers milling about, military supply contractors are gloating like leeches, Dick Cheney's old cronies over at Halliburton are cheering like pirates, as they shamelessly snag the multimillion-dollar gov't contracts to build big tent-cities for our troops and to put out all those nasty oil well fires in Iraq, just like they did in Iraq War I. Oh yes they did. Did you miss that little detail?

Or how about Bush's corporate pals, literally lining up at the trough for their share of nearly a billion dollars in semi-secret contracts (and as much as $25-100 billion, eventually) to "rebuild" Iraq, which you can hereby translate to mean: install nice puppet government, build a few thousand oil rigs, refurbish a few nice palaces for the twins. To begin with.

Then there's all those pesky CIA analysts, still grumbling aloud about how ShrubCo has been twisting intelligence reports on Iraq to bolster the war. Did you miss that one?

About how they were particularly mortified when Junior publicly claimed that Iraq was restarting its nuke program, trying to buy uranium from Niger? Claims which were based on, ahem, painfully bogus documents? Whoops. Can't have that making too many headlines. Hey look! Dust storms and cool tracer bullets over Baghdad! Look! Please?

What about the much-bandied term "coalition forces"? The networks love that term, and Bush loves them using it. Reminder: There are no coalition forces. It is the U.S., Britain, a handful of Aussies. That's it. That is not a coalition, that's a rogue clump. The only true coalition is on the anti-war side. Shhh.

This is exactly the time to watch very, very carefully. This is exactly the time to discuss further and passionately, with everyone and anyone, what it is you are really seeing, what it might mean, and, more importantly, what they are omitting.

This is the time to protest harder, to write letters and journals, to think deeply and carefully, to donate to Oxfam and Truthout and FAIR and the like, to rethink what it really means to be an American in the new draconian, power-mad, kill-em-all preemtive-death Bush world order.

This is exactly the time to pay closer attention. To filter and stay infomed and get your info from more than, say, the uber-patriotic, holy @#%$ but we love our Shrubster Fox News. Look around. The perspective is there. Activate the filters. Read up.

This is the time to fully feel those karmic blows, the ethical sucker punches, as the ShrubCo doens't even bother to try and hide the obvious cronyism, the White House actually having the smirking gall to deny that Cheney's Halliburton connection -- and his lovely $1 mil per-annum stipend for simply being a former Iraq-loving oil exec of the company -- had any bearing on the aforementioned oil-fire contract. Right. Believe that one, do you? I've got some prime downtown Baghdad condos to sell you, cheap.

Feel the bludgeoning. Because they figure you won't even notice. Or care. Look honey, poor hardscrabble Iraqi children looking desperate, and goodly U.S. soldiers delivering fresh water to them. Isn't that patriotic? Tanking U.S. economy? Deep recession? Intense, almost universal anti-American rage roiling all over the world like a bitter virus? Pay no heed. Just look at the startling pictures. Be mezmerized. Don't you support our troops? Of course you do. Genius PR, is what it is. One big reality-TV recruitment video.

Remember, this is an administration who truly believes you are insanely stupid. A full week into the war, and still no sign of WMDs? No sign of SCUD missiles, nuclear weapons, biological weapons, or chemical weapons? Oh well.

This is why you cannot be overwhelmed by montage images. The shock and awe is not for Iraq. It's for you. The shock of all those dusty violent videophone images, awe at how you are seeing a mere raw sliver of the real-time action, live, straight from on the front lines. Are you stupefied yet? Are you waving your flag? ShrubCo certainly hopes so. Because if not, you might actually see what's really happening.

And god -- Bush's reborn righteous Christian God, that is -- knows, they can't have that.

posted 03-29-2003 08:54 AM            

Don't you dare criticize the Bush's war plans or be hostile to the interests of the NEW WORLD ORDER.

Never going to happen. Now more than ever is the time to SPEAK OUT.

GET LOUDER

AND LOUDER.

NO WAR IN IRAQ

NO MURDER FOR $$$$$$$$

NO NEW WORLD ORDER

posted 03-29-2003 09:28 AM            

RENSE.COM

Michael Moore Teams With
Mel Gibson For Next Documentary
By Michael Fleming
3-28-3

NEW YORK (Variety) - Michael Moore, who didn't endear himself to the Oscar audience last Sunday, will doubtless arouse further ire with his next documentary.

The project will depict the allegedly murky relationship between President Bush's father and the family of Osama bin Laden. And it will suggest that the bin Laden family was greatly enriched by that association.

Moore is making a deal with Mel Gibson's Icon Prods. to finance "Fahrenheit 911," a documentary that will trace why the U.S. has become a target for hatred and terrorism. It will also depict alleged dealings between two generations of the Bush and bin Laden clans that led to George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden becoming mortal enemies.

While the words "fevered auction" and "documentary" should never be used in the same sentence, they fit the post-Oscar bidding battle orchestrated by the Endeavor talent agency. Gibson and Bruce Davey's Icon won with a bid worth eight figures in upfront cash and potential backend profits.

The deal comes as Moore's Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" moves toward the $40 million worldwide gross mark. The $3 million film is one of the most successful documentaries ever.

"The primary thrust of the new film is what has happened to the country since Sept. 11, and how the Bush administration used this tragic event to push its agenda," Moore said. "It certainly does deal with the Bush and bin Laden ties. It asks a number of questions that I don't have the answers to yet, but which I intend to find out."

Moore has put a year's worth of research into the film. He'll finish it in time to be submitted for Cannes, 2004, and released in time for the presidential election that fall.

The Bush-bin Laden tie, if only circumstantial, begins with a business relationship between the former president and Mohammed bin Laden, the Yemeni-born father of Osama who was a Saudi construction magnate. He died and left his future terrorist son about $300 million that has been used to finance global violence. The young bin Laden was among the freedom fighters propped up by the CIA as they battled the Soviets in Afghanistan when the elder Bush headed that agency. And bin Laden's Al Qaeda campaign began after Bush put U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. A decade later, bin Laden's Twin Tower attacks made the battle against terrorism the prime focus of George W.'s presidency.

"The senior Bush kept his ties with the bin Laden family up until two months after Sept. 11," Moore said. "The bin Ladens invested heavily in the Carlyle Group, which has its hands in a number of pies and is the 11th largest defense contractor even though it mostly buys failing defense companies and sells them for profits."

The mood in Hollywood was mixed over whether Moore would be ridden out of town after his anti-war speech. He admitted his passion was partly fueled from the research he's done on the new movie and said public and industry reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

"I'd always watched and felt a little odd seeing actors win an Oscar and go off on some tangent cause. I'd just been given a standing ovation and an Oscar for a movie that deals not only with American gun violence, but how Bush manipulates the public with fear and how we are violent to people around the world. I expressed exactly what was in the film and instead of being blacklisted, I've not only gotten a deal to fund 'Fahrenheit 911' but offers on the film after. Presales on ("Columbine's") video release ran ahead of 'Chicago' this week, and my book is returning to the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list. It's because the majority of Americans agree with me see the economy in the toilet and didn't vote for George W. People are now realizing you can question your government while still caring about the soldiers. We are all still filled with rage over Sept. 11 and have every right to seek vengeance on the bad guy. But not any old bad guy."

Moore said he was mildly surprised by the speech reaction, since it was a carbon copy of what he said at the Spirit Awards the previous day: "I didn't write an Oscar speech because I never thought we'd win. The last documentary that was a box office success and won the Oscar was 'Woodstock,"' Moore said.

posted 03-29-2003 12:00 PM            

Don't touch that dial

Joan Ryan

GOOD MORNING. I'm Pat Riotic, your host on the Excess in Broadcasting network. Regular listeners know I am not an angry person. But this morning every red-blooded cell in my star-spangled body is trembling with indignation at what I've been hearing and seeing.

You know what I'm talking about, folks: the rightist, conservative traitors who pollute our public airwaves with un-American rhetoric.

Let's not mince words. Let's call these so-called talk-show hosts what they are: anti-American subversives. They are extremists who claim to love America but clearly hate it and all it stands for.

Have you listened to this claptrap? They insist everyone in America speak with one voice, and whoever doesn't fall in step with the government's version of things is disloyal.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are at war. This is no time to be undermining the ideals on which this country was founded and for which so much blood has been spilled. We should be demonstrating our support for democractic rights instead of spitting all over them. Yet these right-wing dolts keep spewing their misguided, anti-democratic garbage on radio and television shows, giving aid and sustenance to Saddam Hussein. What could please this tyrant more than seeing Americans demand that dissent be stifled -- thus making our country more like his?

On my way to the station today, I listened to an interview on ABC radio with a pilot from Sacramento named Lumpy. He and his crew risked their lives, quite literally, flying to safety 11 Iraqis who had been injured in battle. One was a baby whose right leg had been blown off. The crew was shot at as they carried the injured to the helicopter, and Lumpy managed to keep the helicopter airborne despite a blinding sandstorm and artillery fire. The incredible effort to save these poor victims of war brought tears to my eyes.

Then I switched to one of these nutso, right-wing shows. The host was saying, "Of course, everyone knows these Iraqis are savages." I wonder what that heroic pilot from Sacramento would think if he heard that Americans back home were saying he is risking his life to save and liberate people who are nothing more than "savages"?

Really, could these simpletons be more out of touch with American values? These are the same anti-democratic dimwits who cheered the rollback of civil liberties in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. If they like the suppression of fundamental American freedoms so much, why don't they go live in a country where such freedoms aren't allowed? Like the old bumper sticker said, "America:

Love it or leave it."

When anti-war protesters carried mock caskets during a recent demonstration,

one right-wing radio host said if the protesters were in Iraq, they'd be in the caskets, so how can they be protesting against our government? This is the twisted logic: The protesters should be so appreciative of their right to free speech that, well, they shouldn't exercise it.

Our men and women in uniform are fighting and dying to bring democracy to Iraq. They are fighting and dying to preserve what America stands for. Contrary to what the rightist media tell you, it is not anti-American to voice dissent; it is anti-American to suppress it.

That said, I won't be calling for a boycott of these extremist broadcasters and their sponsors. I won't be organizing a public burning of their hate- filled books and tapes. As odious as these right-wing dunces are, as offensive as it is to loyal Americans to hear these people openly denounce the very values we are fighting to preserve, they deserve our tolerance, if not acceptance.

Yes, I am angry that they're trying to undermine my country's most cherished ideals. But I also understand that every minute they use the public airwaves to spew their idiocy only shows how seriously this country embraces freedom of speech. Even half-wits in headsets get to enjoy its protection.

E-mail Joan Ryan at joanryan@sfchronicle.com.

posted 03-29-2003 12:50 PM            

So....WHO owns the media anyway?

posted 03-29-2003 07:37 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by theseeker:
BushCo Wants You Stupefied

your already there chief

---

posted 03-30-2003 10:47 AM            

Bottom line this war is to oust a regime that has terrorized Iraqi people long enough.
Seems like people are not listening to the reports coming from Arab news agencies. Yes the people are saying that they hate Americans on camera, but as soon as the camera is turned off, they say they hate the regime and only said what they did to protect themselves in case saddam somehow remains in control.

posted 03-30-2003 10:50 AM            

#2. No WMD have been found in Iraq since the war started.

#3. This war is about elitist control of the middle east and big money acounts for those same elites. If you want to live off their scraps...be my guest PV.

posted 03-30-2003 12:32 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Proud Veteran:
The push to Bagdad isn't over yet and I believe this despirate regime will resort to chemical attacks yet as forces move closer. If they do I hope we pull back and turn that part of Iraq into glass.

---

And the rest of thw world will just sit back and watch? Just as we Constitutionalists shove you Neo-Con Fascist low-lifes back, so will the rest of the world with this criminal administration, shove them back. Countries are converting to the Euro, from Mexico to Russia to China. The proverbial "End is Near", will come true, if we don't smarten up as a nation.

What do you little Hitlers intend on doing to the 80% of the world's population that opposes Bush and his minions? Oh, and don't count the entire population of this ridiculous "Coalition of the Threatened" if ass-wipes like Blair or John Howard goes along with it. Is that what these FEMA camps are for. The "Non-Believers?"

posted 03-30-2003 05:05 PM            

I think you better back that up fat boy...

let's see a linky (reputable) that shows this 80%...

I say your lying through your green teeth !

(just like throat has for the last 4 years)

posted 03-30-2003 10:10 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by increase 1776:
Hell be nice if we could get a regime change ,we've been terrorized by the same regime since Nov 1963. Time for a change.

---

I'll even go back further Increase, to 1947, with Operation Paperclip.

http://www.mt.net/~watcher/nwonazi.html

posted 05-03-2003 11:41 AM            

Do not, EVER, pay any interest. I mean bank interest, credit card interest, mortgages.

Do not take pharmaceuticals - use street drugs if you need to, but so not support this uglyness and poisen industry that uses more oil than France does.

We CAN drag down the larger institutions that support the NWO. I would even suggest not paying taxes, but the way it is seet up, with payroll taxes, it is hard not to do.

And one more thing - ask for a restriction is horsepower in vehicles. This simple saftey measure should be implemented, it will save lives and would meet the KYOTO goals [weather or not America is signed on].
But thats purely wishfull thinking I guess.

posted 05-03-2003 04:46 PM            

It's still a good place to voice your opinion.

No one can completely divorce themselves from the NWO "Beast system" unless you are as politically correct as the Unibomber.

He paid quite a price for his art statement.

The more people wake up and understand history and the NWO...the closer we will be to turning things around.

posted 05-03-2003 08:13 PM            

The big bad men can never get you behind the white walls.

I kid, I kid. Mech, nobody takes your cut and paste arguments seriously, they are down right annoying- And so are you, atleast i've gotten used to ignoring crazy larry.

Nobody said speaking out was wrong, nobody said freedom of speech was wrong. But just because you use your rights to speak out, doesn't make your argument right. We have the luxary of a freedom of speech, it is a great thing. It is NOT being oppressed. No matter how much Mech would like to make it look like things are going horribly wrong in this country- it just isn't happening.

Calling anyone who disagrees with you a neo-nazi is the most idiotic thing I've seen here.

What is wrong with questioning your chemtrail beliefs? Anyone who does you yell at and they are "not willing" to consider the truth. I really think, looking over so many posts, you guys have to take your own advice.

Say NO to uninformed uneducated banter.

posted 05-03-2003 08:59 PM            

Typical.

Just another uninformed citizen.

SEE PATRIOT ACT

SEE HOMELAND SECURITY

SEE TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS

SEE DARPA

SEE OPERATION NORTHWOODS

SEE COINTELPRO

Is that "Paranoid" enough for you?

By the way.. BUSH SR.Ex Prez and Former CIA director is a MAJOR stockholder in Eli Lily..Maker of most Psychiatric drugs.

posted 05-03-2003 10:32 PM            

You've never done that Mech

It's only important if the attacks are against you, right? You and the other 'theorists' calling people who disagree with them Nazis, really, is not a personal attack.

Back to reality:

Mech, I said I was kidding IN THE POST! The whole "Oh, personal attacks" is right up there with grammar correction for white flags.

If anyone is spouting garbage instead of refuting what someone has said- it's you, Mech.

posted 05-03-2003 11:24 PM            

I never called anyone a Nazi exept Bu$h..so don't convieniently lump me in with everyone else.That tag is deserved. After all Prescott Bu$h FUNDED them for pete sake.

posted 05-04-2003 12:06 AM            

Also.. Don't punish GWB for his grand daddy's mistakes.