Summer Lightning
Michael Moore and the Revolution
June 18, 2004
Right wing groups working hard to suppress "Fahrenheit 911" -- Alternet But so far it only helps to hype the film for Moore. CNN June 24, 2004
Cultural Revolution in Full Swing
After beating WABC right-wing-Limbaugh-Disney radio in the New York market in its first month of Arbitron ratings, Air America is starting to see a new wave of advertisers. It started with ads for nasal decongestants, diet pills, it sounded like about any stray advertiser they could manage to scrounge up. Now big companies are starting to make an appearance. Sam's Club, owned by Walmart is now advertising, in spite of the fact that Al Franken recently ran a merciless exposé of the company. Home Depot is also now present on the station. That means only one thing. They now have the data to establish that these corporations can reach the consumers they are looking for on those stations. That means Air America is on its way. Its days of struggling at the bottom of the startup pit are probably soon going to be left behind.The level of discourse on Air America now is something virtually unheard of in American media. Pacifica still occupies a space all its own, but Air America is now penetrating the heart of America with a message of intelligence and good sense that Americans haven't heard for a generation. When you put that together with all the new films and books that tear into the Bush-Cheney corporate takeover, you see a cultural revolution, a wave of new cultural messages that will overthrow this regime and possibly rebuild a new democratic base in America.
We are seeing real democracy in action, from the ground up. When the corporate aristocracy has undermined the democratic process in the government, essentially bought off Congress and taken over the Judicial and Executive branches, there are virtually no avenues left for democratic action within the government system. But now we are seeing a reaction to the takeover that is growing up from the grassroots. Besides all the books and movies, we see actions from every corner. The diplomats and generals who wrote a letter saying Bush must go. The whistleblowers in the military, the government and corporations are tearing at the foundations of the corporate dictatorship.
All of these voices are reshaping the cultural dialogue, which has been controlled by the right wing through its media takeover. Now only about six corporations own virtually all the establishment media, and they screen out the truth to such a degree that they have become increasingly out of touch with reality and irrelevant to their audiences, who are increasingly turning to alternatives.
With an election on the horizon, the wave is gaining power daily and could grow to massive proportions. It's a natural wonder, a sight to behold.
June 25, 2004
Al Gore: What a trip! He has nothing to lose. What can they do to him now? He can throw caution to the wind and say what needs to be said, but what most are too timid to utter. In a speech in Georgetown, Gore said, "If George Washington could see the current state of his generation's handiwork and assess the quality of our generation's stewardship at the beginning of this twenty-first century, what do you suppose he would think about the proposition that our current president claims the unilateral right to arrest and imprison American citizens indefinitely without giving them the right to see a lawyer or inform their families of their whereabouts, and without the necessity of even charging them with any crime. All that is necessary, according to our new president is that he - the president - label any citizen an "unlawful enemy combatant," and that will be sufficient to justify taking away that citizen's liberty - even for the rest of his life, if the president so chooses. And there is no appeal." This is a brilliant, succinct piece. Check it out. Truthout Bush's Reality Is Coming Apart -- Sidney Blumenthal Bush was questioned in relation to the inquiry into who gave away the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. New York Times Congressional Whores Pass $447 Billion "Defense" Bill. Wistv.com Clinton's book breaks first day sales records for nonfiction and adult audiobook "The book is No. 1 at Amazon.com in the United States, England, France and Japan, according to Knopf. It is also No. 1 at Barnesandnoble.com, which also reported increased interest in Hillary Rodham Clinton's paperback "Living History," at No. 5 yesterday." Newsday This is Huge. The US dropped its bid for an extension of war crimes immunity with the UN and the World Court. The US was pushing to extend it forever, but wanted at least a one-year extension. The rest of the Security Council isn't buying it. It was always an absurd assertion, that the US should be immune from war crimes. It was based on the flimsy notion that it was necessary to prevent "politically motivated attacks" on US soldiers. What is that? We've seen that to Bush, everything that opposes him is "a politically motivated attack." Christian Science Monitor Supreme Buddies -- The Supreme Court declined to order Cheney to release the energy task force records. The clowns sent the case back to a lower court. According to the 1972 open government law, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, government panels must conduct their business in public, unless all members are government officials. Two groups sued Cheney to force him to comply with the law and reveal the records of meetings he had with energy industry titan-mega thief Ken Lay in which it has been said Lay essentially dictated the energy policy of the United States. While this case is being deliberated, one of the so-called justices of the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, the supreme defiler of American justice, went on a cozy little duck hunting excursion with greasy Dick Cheney. Some suggested it was improper to Scalia to be vacationing with Cheney under the circumstances and the intimate relationship might make it inappropriate for Scalia to be judging a major case in which Cheney is involved. "Scalia defiantly refused to recuse himself from the case, rejecting arguments by critics who said his impartiality was brought into question because of a hunting vacation that he took with Cheney while the court was considering the vice president's appeal." Why should that be a problem? Doesn't every judge vacation with the defendants of cases he is trying? How ludicrous to think his integrity could be swayed! Scalia said, "If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined." Indeed. Associated Press The Associated Press is suing to see Bush's military records, which have not been fully revealed and the only way the AP could hope to see them was to file suit. Editor & Publisher
June 26, 2004
Summer Lightning
The Michael Moore phenomenon is amazing. Here is one big fat fearless and very smart man who shows you can take on the whole corporate military establishment with ideas. The explosion surrounding this movie is massive. The right wants to stop it, but good luck. They are wishing they'd shot Moore down on the Academy stage when he won his Oscar for Bowling for Columbine. But it's too late now. It's too late to suppress it.And one thing, monumental as it is, as massive a tidal wave it is launching through the culture at this very moment, it is only one part of a massive movement that is building inexorably, bursting out of the earth like summer lightning.
I predicted that there would be a rising democratic movement against the Bush cabal many times back in 2002, but sometimes things looked so bleak then it was hard even for me to believe it. Even now, always the future is remains unknown, unmanifest. A desperate, defiant Cheney could still pull a trick out of the bag few would believe even after seeing from their actions that they have absolutely no moral restraint. The specific kind of action I allude to is something the right wing military establishment has referred to explicitly many times. If Bush's old family friend Osama bin Laden decided to unleash a nuclear bomb on New York to help keep his best recruiting tool in office, who's to stop him?
General Tommy Franks has talked about how another big attack on the homeland would cause Americans to scrap the Constitution and set up a military state. A number of Republican voices have carried on about another attack would rally Americans behind "The President." And obviously that is their heart felt wish, but even if said attack does occur, I'm not sure at this point it will have the desired result for the Bush cabal. Especially after a few more million people see Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
Once the picture of the real events starts to become clear to Americans, they will know better than to rally around a president who failed so miserably to protect them, "failed" even to the extent that normal defense protocols -- layer upon layer -- were somehow neutralized.
June 25, 2004, the night of general release of Fahrenheit 9/11. Those Republicans must be crying tonight. Either that or setting off their latest catastrophe as a distraction. They are running out of tricks.
Cheney exploded at cool, calm Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the Senate Chambers, told him to "fuck off" or some variation on the term. Leahy, unflappable, just said, "I think he was just having a bad day..." Bad day indeed. Bad days coming one after the other as the whole castle comes crumbling down.
My boy, Dick! You have to learn to control your temper, boy! This is hardly becoming for the vice president of the United States. What if Michael Powell hears about it? He may go after you like he did Bono for saying the same word a year or so earlier. Snarling Dick is beginning to show his real colors here. Things are just coming apart all over the place for these idiots. They are finally getting just a tiny taste of what they deserve. (See "Cheney curses senator over Halliburton criticism" on CNN, "Cheney vents F-fury at senator" in The Guardian.) Once the word was out, the spin doctors had to try to make it look cool, Cheney the tough guy, plain speaking like Harry Truman... Later he told Fox News, "I felt better after I said it. A lot of my colleagues felt what I said badly needed to be said." NewsMax. Presumably he means his colleagues at Halliburton. Why would anyone else mind if someone pointed out the obvious fact that Cheney was scoring massive contracts for his old company just because they are his company, not allowing anyone else to bid. And then Halliburton rips us all off for billions in the most absurd, arrogant ways imaginable, like abandoning trucks because they have a flat tire.
And furthermore... (I don't like your trousers... and your appalling taste in women...)
Dissident Film Explosion -- Re Moore's and other documentaries. "Popular culture is embracing politics in a way it hasn't since the 1960s," says Joel Bakan, co-writer of "The Corporation" and author of the Free Press book on which that movie is based... "The ownership of mass media by giant conglomerates makes independent film one of the few places where criticism of corporate chicanery can reach a large audience," says Kevin Lally, editor of Film Journal International... "Dissident documentary-film culture ... is kind of like Jello," [Achbar] says. "The more you try to suppress it and push it down ... the more it's gonna ooze out between your fingers. "There's no stopping it," he adds. "There's so little of this kind of analysis in the mainstream that when it does become available, people pounce on it." Cincinnati Post Fahrenheit could have its biggest effect on young voters -- SFGate The classroom photo tells it. Bush is just clueless. Rex Reed on Fahrenheit 9/11. "Mr. Moore, who has tackled corporate greed (Roger & Me) and gun control (Bowling for Columbine), now feels driven and obligated to strip the façade from a swaggering, bow-legged, grammatically challenged bully and a cabinet that is beginning to look more like the Third Reich every day." Reed is on fire in this piece. This is one of the best pieces written on Bush in any format. If this is an example of the wave of electricity that Moore is setting off in America, look out Bush. New York Observer William Rivers Pitt: Thank You Michael Moore. Truthout Gore: "They dare not admit the truth lest they look like complete fools for launching our country into a reckless, discretionary war against a nation that posed no immediate threat to us whatsoever." Discussion of Gore's speech at Georgetown. SFGate See the whole text of the speech at Truthout Beg for Forgiveness -- Tom Frame, Bishop to the Australian Defence Force, now says the unfolding events in Iraq over the past sixteen months have proved "I was wrong on Iraq ... As the only Anglican bishop to have publicly endorsed the Australian Government’s case for war, I now concede that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It did not pose a threat to either its nearer neighbours or the United States and its allies. It did not host or give material support to al-Qa’ida or other terrorist groups ... Looking back on the events of the last eighteen months I continue to seek God’s forgiveness for my complicity in creating a world in which this sort of action was ever considered by anyone to be necessary. Even so, come Lord Jesus. The Melbourne Anglican Jeb, the smarter brother, says he won't read Clinton's book. "947 pages. It's over my threshold." Naples News This Is How Sick It Gets -- Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the Washington Times and United Press International, head of a pseudo Christian cult, buddy and one-time employer of George H.W. Bush (see The Gadflyer, Consortium News archive "The Dark Side of Rev. Sun Myung Moon",) was crowned in the Senate office building. The 85-year-old fanatic said, "Emperors, kings and presidents ... have declared to all heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's saviour, messiah, returning Lord and true parent." According to The Guardian, Moon's Unification Church is "an idiosyncratic version of Christianity which rejects the use of the cross as a symbol and denounces homosexuals as 'dirty dung-eating dogs'". The rest of the world must think Americans are totally bonkers. (See also Common Dreams' Rev. Moon, the Bushes & Donald Rumsfeld .) Media Giants forced to refrain from devouring the rest of the media. "US court keeps stay on media rules," says a Reuters report. "A U.S. appeals court refused on Thursday to allow loosened federal media rules on media ownership to take effect, dealing a blow to large media companies like News Corp. that are hoping to expand." CNN, Democracy Now Missourians protest Cheney. "That's not my America." Springfield News Leader Ron Reagan on Bush -- "After a couple of days I started getting calls from people saying, boy you really stirred something up, didn't you? I thought, well, what? Well, you know, the stuff you said about Bush. I said, I didn't say anything about Bush, why would I mention George W. Bush in my father's eulogy? No, no, no, no, the stuff about the religion. I thought, ha, funny, everybody thought I was talking about George W. Bush... And then I began to think, maybe I was, I just didn't know it... When you hear somebody justifying a war by citing the almighty, God, I get a little worried, frankly. The other guys do that a lot. Osama bin Laden's always talking about Allah, what Allah wants, that he's on his side." Larry King: "Do you have thoughts on the war?" Reagan: "Sure, I have thoughts on the war... And I think we lied our way into the war." King: "You think it's a mistake?" Reagan: "Absolutely, a terrible mistake. Terrible foreign policy error. We didn't have to do it. It was optional. And we were lied to. The American public was lied to about WMD, the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam, which is virtually nonexistent except for fleeting contacts. But they're still trying to pull that one off now, Cheney and all are out there flogging that." King: "Can I gather from that, that you will not support this president?" Reagan: No, I won't... I just think it's a terrible mistake. Terrible mistake." CNN
June 27, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11: Film and Reaction
Finally saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" after what seemed like a long period of anticipation. After all the fuss, the vicious, hysterical reaction to the movie from the right, I was expecting something a lot more shocking. (See Analyzing Fahrenheit 9/11 for some of the reaction.) I loved the movie from its first moments, but at the end I found myself asking, "Is that it?"From the virulent reaction of those who want to prevent the movie's being shown at all, I expected to see much worse. And there is much worse going on, no doubt about it. And it's happening in such quantity that you could not capture even a fraction of it on film.
In fact I found the movie to be surprisingly gentle. And I see that as a strength. The material in the film in general will not be new to most who read beyond the mass market news. There are new elements, individual stories, closeup views of how the much-discussed policies play out in the lives of real Americans and Iraqis. But it doesn't introduce material that is not already well established, in most cases from mainstream sources.
The way he frames the story of George W. Bush, it's funny, in a very sardonic sense because it's hard to laugh at a situation that has brought so much tragedy to so many.
And the films surprising gentleness reflects extremely good judgment on the part of Moore, as well as compassion. He made this movie for mainstream America. Compared to mainstream media, it's a shocking story. And it's well crafted cinematically to create the desired effect, the punch. And most importantly, it will reach a broad segment of the public.
In today's matinee audience in Edgewater, New Jersey, the audience was a broad cross section of the public, from teenagers to white-haired seniors, a broad range of ethnic groups. Though I had heard of a lot of cheering and standing ovations in New York showings, my matinee group was pretty tame. There was a quiet thoughtfulness about them. There was an unspoken understanding as people left the theater that all present had shared an experience, and it was something outside of the mainstream media culture.
There will be those who will be surprised by the revelations of the movie. But for those for whom it's a confirmation, not a revelation, it still provides a new platform for discussion, a new medium through which people can get together to solve the problems pointed out by the film. It becomes a rallying point. And there is a flood of new, good material coming out from all over, reflecting and laying pieces of the groundwork for an alternative vision and a way to get rid of these sick bastards presently controlling the U.S. government.
Some of the anti-Moore activity right now seems really pathetic. Al Franken had Howard Kaloogian on his show this week. Kaloogian spearheaded the partisan campaign to quash a miniseries about Ronald Reagan, funded and masterminded the fight to recall California Gov. Gray Davis, and is now trying to stop Fahrenheit 9/11. Franken asked him why. He said, "Well, people don't need to see this movie. It's not a documentary. A documentary just gives you facts, and this -- Michael Moore even admits -- is an op ed piece...." Yeah. So? It uses the soldiers in the field for a political agenda, he says... Isn't that what George W. Bush is doing? In the end, he had nothing to say. It comes down to people having the right as consumers to call their theaters and tell them what they would rather see. Fine. And death threats, but that's unofficial. A few overzealous followers. Howard admits he hasn't seen the film. Apparently anyone on the right considers it a violation of their oath of loyalty to contaminate themselves with actually seeing the movie they are railing against. One Armond White wrote a very tragic and confused review of Fahrenheit for New York Press. This is a good example of how desperate the right is to neutralize the effects of this movie. Someone said to me the other day, "All they can say to discredit this film is that Moore is fat, or he's an egomaniac..." Then a few days later she brought me a copy of the New York Press, which shows just what the right has come up with to go beyond the other empty criticisms. White has coined a phrase, calling Moore a "Fascist Liberal". Though it's inherently a contradiction in terms, the author apparently liked the sound of it, wanted to scream it in the title.
His explanation for his use of the term is a particularly juicy piece of conservative whining. White refers to the film clip that shows Bush sitting staring into space for seven minutes without moving after being told a second plane had hit the World Trade Center and the country was under attack. You have to see this piece of footage. It's like the Zapruder film of 9/11. Once you see him sitting there at that moment, you can never see him the way Fox news presents him again. But White writes, "Clearly we're not watching Bush wallow in playtime or indecision. It's seven minutes of the most powerful man in the world suffering. He's miserably distracted. Moore's insensivitity -- certain to the point of hostility that he alone is right -- amounts to liberalism with a fascist voice."
Okay. The reason Moore is a "fascist liberal" is because of the "insensitivity" of the way he deals with Bush's "suffering" at that moment of inactivity. It was "not indecision", even though he did absolutely nothing, it was "suffering". Poor George. How could we be so insensitive at a moment like that when thousands of people are dying and George has the ultimate responsibility to protect them and is "miserably distracted"?
White objects to Moore's "corruption of documentary with entertainment". Some objected to the introduction of sound to movies. He goes on, "His best moment shows a phalanx of black fcongresspersons protesting the 2000 presidential election and being undermined by the Senate (Al Gore presiding). By targeting Bush, Moore absolves all those bad senators of their responsibilities."
There is nothing in Moore's film to indicate he absolves the senators of anything. That's only in White's imagination. Moore spends a good bit of time in the film letting the senators and congressmen show what bums they are.
White goes on and on about how Moore's film doesn't live up to a number of definitions he has placed on it. White criticizes the film for not being what White thinks it should be, but leaves untouched what the film really is. I think White should make his own film and he can make it the way he thinks it should be. Obviously he disagrees with the ideology of the filmmaker and is trying to justify it in terms of film criticism, but can't. He's afraid the truth about Bush and the cabal will get out.
Some links:
A Conservative Critique of Fahrenheit 9/11 -- "It will have a HUGE impact because Moore – his facile leftist economics notwithstanding – has nailed his case against the Bush regime flush to the plank. It will be all but impossible for anybody who sits still and watches this film to view Bush the Lesser as anything other than a petty, spiteful, dim-witted, bloody-handed little fool – and the figurehead of a murderous power elite." Lew Rockwell "The U.S. Has Lost Its Moral Authority", says Senator Ernst Hollings. Rare to hear a senator talking such plain truth. "In 1996, a task force was formed in Jerusalem including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. They submitted a plan for Israel to incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Clean Break. It proposed that negotiations with the Palestinians be cut off and, instead, the Mideast be made friendly to Israel by democratizing it. First Lebanon would be bombed, then Syria invaded on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. Afterward, Saddam Hussein was to be removed in Iraq and replaced with a Hashemite ruler favorable to Israel. The plan was rejected by Netanyahu, so Perle started working for a similar approach to the Mideast for the United States. Taking on the support of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Cambone, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld et al., he enlisted the support of the Project for the New American Century. The plan hit paydirt with the election of George W. Bush. Perle took on the Defense Policy Board. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith became one, two and three at the Defense Department, and Cheney as vice president took Scooter Libby and David Wurmser as his deputies. Clean Break was streamlined to go directly into Iraq. Iraq, as a threat to the United States, was all contrived. Richard Clarke stated in his book, Against All Enemies, with John McLaughlin of the CIA confirming, that there was no evidence or intelligence of "Iraqi support for terrorism against the United States" from 1993 until 2003 when we invaded. The State Department on 9/11 had a list of 45 countries wherein al Qaeda was operating. While the United States was listed, it didn't list the country of Iraq." Truthout A Little Like Fascism -- Norman Soloman. Judge Guido Calabresi of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, speaking to attorneys and law students at the American Constitution Society's annual convention on June 19, compared Bush's ascension to power with Mussolini's and Hitler's. The 71-year-old judge was born in Milan. His family left Italy in 1939. He's also a former dean of Yale Law School. "The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister," said Calabresi. "That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual." Truthout Battles in Iraq Reach New Intensity. "In dawn-to-dusk fighting, more than 100 armed insurgents overran neighborhoods and occupied downtown buildings, using techniques that U.S. commanders said resembled those once employed by the Iraqi army. Well-equipped and highly coordinated, the insurgents demonstrated a new level of strength and tactical skill that alarmed the soldiers facing them." From the Washington Post. See Truthout
June 29, 2004
Moore Than They Imagined
Attended a Michael Moore/Moveon.org party tonight, tuned in to a Web/phone broadcast. It was a rush. Amazing phenomenon.The most lingering memory of the day I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 is its gentleness, and the little old white-haired ladies in front of me at the theater. Moore knows the heartland. He's from Michigan. He's been filming, doing book tours, traveling across the country for the last few years and he knows the country. He knows that what is presented on corporate media is not the true picture of America. He has wagered on what he believes about the population and he has been proven right.
He knows the people of the heartland and he cares for them. He doesn't want to beat them over the head. He tells a very ugly story in a very gentle way. And when the people walked out of the theater, they did not look like they had been battered. They looked thoughtful, relieved. Serions, not really grim.
He has actually succeeded in making the sordid tale funny. His delivery is infused with good humor and hopefulness, which takes the edge off the extreme grimness of the facts it communicates. His achievement is incalculable, and still in process.
Fahrenheit breaks records, is the weekend's biggest movie, beats Spielberg's latest Tom Hanks movie. The business community had better take notice. The times they are a-changin'. London Times Telegraph Conversion at the Movie Theater -- No Lie -- "A sure-footed Republican and self-described 'ardent Bush-Cheney supporter,' Alan Wilenski found none of his other right-leaning friends and family willing to go along with his Sunday afternoon plans. But the Alan Wilenski who stepped out of the Farmingdale Multiplex Cinemas yesterday afternoon, after the 12:40 showing of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' was a different man. Hands in pockets, his expression contemplative, he left with more than a new perspective. He left with three more tickets to a later showing of Michael Moore's politically combustible documentary criticizing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. Newsday Fahrenheit is defying predictions from inside the box. "Until the marketing campaign began, Republicans had been dismissive of the film, arguing that it would have little effect on the election because its audience would consist mostly of people already planning to vote against Bush. But the advertising campaign has been a different story. "There's only a very small percentage of Americans that are going to go and see this movie," said David Bossie, head of Citizens United, a group that has run ads to promote Bush. "A much larger number are going to be bombarded by these political ads run by Michael Moore, all the way through the election." Times of India Business Community Take Notice -- According to SF Gate. "The film's unprecedented profits may change attitudes in Hollywood studios and among film distributors, which have traditionally shied away from political provocation, said UC Berkeley Professor Julia Bader, who lectures on British and American literature and film. 'This shows how Hollywood has misjudged the mood of America's film audience and that there is a demand for politically compelling movies. I expect that both the controversy and the profits from "Fahrenheit 9/11" will finally get their attention,' Bader said." Carlyle Group, the Bush-bin Laden-John Major-James Baker investment entity is buying Loews theaters, many of which just happen to be showing Fahrenheit 9/11 right now. Any ideas why? Washington Bizjournals Disney biting the hand -- "Why should he kick Mickey while he's down? While Fahrenheit 9/11 breaks box-office records, the Mouse House's latest offering, Around the World in Eighty Days, which only opened an abysmal ninth last week, dropped out of the top 10. Falling 44 percent to 11th place, the remake earned just $4.2 million from a $1,520 per-screen average to brings its current gross to a woeful $18.2 million. And it cost a reported $110 million to produce," says E Online.
July 2, 2004
Michael Moore's greatest achievement may be not that his film will change many minds, which it no doubt will, but that he has created a cultural reference point by which people can talk about alternative views that have been effectively eliminated in the corporate mass media. Moore may have done more to enable people to talk about views they already had than to change the minds of people who were supporters of Bush. As a catalyst, the movie will set off more genuine discussion in a chain reaction that will ultimately change more minds. What we have with Moore, Air America, many political books that have been published recently and several other political documentary movies, is a shift in the cultural landscape of America. It's a reclaiming of the culture by the people from the corporate elite, which has controlled the cultural climate with increasing effectiveness.Meanwhile:
Kerry blasted Bush for his call up of ready reserves. Boston Globe, New York Times Their Only Hope? The right wing continues to talk about canceling elections "if" there is a terrorist strike, which they are increasingly telling us is inevitable. This is an extremely serious matter. If there is one thing worse than having **ck Cheney running the shadow government, it's having an angry, desperate **ck Cheney running it. These people are desperate, vindictive, without moral restraint or pity. Vigilance is in order. The Bush mob tried to start war with Iran in 2003 -- Bloomberg More from Ron Reagan: " If you are going to call yourself a Christian -- and I don't -- then you have to ask yourself a fundamental question, and that is: Whom would Jesus torture? Whom would Jesus drag around on a dog's leash? How can Christians tolerate it? It is unconscionable." New York Times Michael Berg's father said the Iraq handover is a sham. According to the Sacramento Bee, Berg Senior "accused President Bush of causing immense pain to thousands of people by going to war. Michael Berg, whose 26-year-old son, Nicholas, was decapitated by militants, said at a news conference organized by the Stop the War Coalition that the transfer was 'nothing more than another nut-and-shell game.' 'We know that the Iraqi people have not had an election yet, so we do not have a democracy over there, we just have a dictatorship of Bush and (Prime Minister Tony) Blair,' he said. 'What kind of stability is there in Iraq when we have to sneak the transfer of power in two days ahead of time for who knows why?' 'People like George Bush and (Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld, they don't see the pain that people have to bear, they don't know what it feels like to have your guts ripped out, and there are so many people,' he said."