BuzzFlash Mailbag for August 4, 2008

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Subject: David Zirin's Commentary On Jonah Goldberg Article

David Zirin's commentary on Jonah Goldberg's article was a real delight. I could almost smell the cigar smoke and stale coffee and hear an Underwood upright being pounded under a cheap pressroom desk lamp.

Dave Zirin: Why He Fears the Fist: A Response to Jonah Goldberg

Jesse Bustos-Nelson
Charleston, S.C.

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Subject: Media

Hey Buzzers,

Thomas Jefferson said that an informed citizenry will act responsibly. It shouldn't be our job to tell the news to the people. I suppose most people in the states of delusion will be perfectly happy to get a free ride to the gas chamber.

I have been using the alternate media not only to keep myself informed but also to try to do my part in the revolution. Apparently the forces that be have blocked many documentaries, so it breaks up feed, making it impossible to follow any logical points to a film. What if that happened on the cable news, do you think they would be able to stay in business?

We the people are being led by pathetic cowards. They can not stand for people to know what is really happening in the world, I feel like what's the point anymore, when most people feel absolved since they hear no evil and see no evil. MSM are culpable for murder and if not one atty gen stands up to protect the constitution. I believe we must make a decision to get out of the country and join forces with the rest of peace-loving World against more unprovoked attacks by the monsters that want to enslave all mankind. The ignorant deserve what they get.

Scott
AZ

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Subject: Dee Turner

Yes, Dee! Dobbs is starting to show his true colors. He is on a mission to help Faux and others, Beck, Savage, Limbaugh and O'Reilly, chop Obama down to size and at least get McCain close enough so the republican forces in crucial states can justify a McCain victory with voting roll purges and malfunctioning voting machines. They are going to pull out all stops! Count on it! We haven't seen the race card played yet! But come late September and all of October the "N" word will be on the lips of bigoted republicans and a great deal of Hillary's pissed off supporters. Speaking of which! Influential Hillary supporters are holding meetings and organizing to defeat Obama and recruit democrats for McCain. Kind of smacks of the Lieberman election in 2006! HUH?

Lawton
Springdale

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Subject: The Fake News For August 1st

Item: US Gov claims they have their (deceased) man, the Anthrax Killer. They are very sure to say in all MSM State Media broadcasts that No One else is a suspect and that the case is closed. Period. Hogwash. Military highest-grade anthrax was delivered to Democrats as the Patriot Act was thrown in front of them to sign. Not so subtle, but then, when have Cheney and his pet CIA goons shown us finesse? The Anthrax attacks were part of the 9-11 Psychological Operation. Cheney assured no US military interference on September 11th. He would be in the same position to order internal terror letters to Daschle and Brokaw to keep them in lock-step with the New Agenda.

Item: US Gov reports 4.7% unemployment and 50,000 jobs lost. Think again. The government doesn't count all those people who have dropped out of the job scene altogether. We've lost close to five million manufacturing jobs and countless IT and tech support jobs since the Kleptos seized power in 2000. Without a manufacturing sector, the service economy will implode as no one is actually making anything save hamburgers. Employers are slashing hours and reducing payrolls. There will be even less buying power for you and me. The actual rate of unemployment is closer to 18%, and the true rate of inflation is now rapidly changing as world banks and investors dump US currency. It is the same gallon of gas or gallon of milk, but now you are paying 40% more for it.

Item: State Media reports John McCain has 'gone' negative in his tantrums against Obama. Readers Correction: McCain's been negative for some decades now. McCain was born negative. McCain snickers and says, "We're having some fun." We know their kind of fun. Stripping Muslims of all their clothing, humiliating and beating them. Dropping white phosphor and depleted uranium on them in a Hitler-inspired blitzkrieg while watching it on CNN and sipping $600-a-bottle Vodka. Stripping Americans of all their civil rights AND their livelihoods, wealth and property within eight years. Yeah, we know what you're talking about, John. Except we're not laughing.

Amicusbriefs
USA

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Subject: McCain's Social Security

Why is John McCain receiving $1900.00 in Social Security monthly? What job did he ever have to warrant that much Soc. Sec? Also, doesn't he earn to much yearly to even receive Social Security payments? Is there a logical explanation for this?

Carol Siwinski
Crestwood, IL

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Subject: Sick Joke

This election campaign is turning into a sick joke. So many important issues that affect the whole world. So many critical issues affecting Americans. We are now witnessing the most juvenile, mindless sort of nonsense coming from the McCain campaign that I have ever seen. Britney and Paris in US political ads, what can you say? How unfortunate for everyone that this stupid comedy routine has replaced policy debate. How unfortunate that Obama will get dragged down with McCain.

It is unavoidable no matter how much he tries to stay above the fray, he is on board a sinking ship - Election '08 - the good ship is going down. She had a chance I thought this year, with two candidates who professed a desire to keep away from the petty politics that has plagued recent elections, to run a clean ship, to steer her through steady waters to a respectable port, alas she has lost her way. Off course and rudderless. Bush & Co made a mockery of the US electoral system, and the chance to clean it is being wrecked through McAngry. How frustrating, how disappointing. Barack Obama returns from a well received overseas tour, to the childish Britney and Paris comedy routine. How do you think it looks to those of us outside of the US? One minute we see Obama talking to enthusiastic Europeans about his vision for the future, the next minute he returns home and we see him in the Britney and Paris show.

What a joke. Sorry if I sound p****d off, I am.

D M Reid
NZ

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Subject: The Effects Of Hate

I have been absent from BuzzFlash for some time and as I read some of the letters tonight I notice that the hatred and divisiveness of the right wing seems to have penetrated the left. If this is allowed to go on and in fact is encouraged the victory will be hollow as has been evidenced by the failure of the right wing. Those who think they can build their choice up by tearing the opponent down with ugly words and thinking will end up in the same mire that the Bush bunch finds themselves in. Personifying hatred is the last example we should be setting for the young people. They are the future of the parties and the world.

We must not continue to set these ugly, greedy examples. Look around and see what greed and hatred have sown. For the first time in a long life I question if this country will survive the attacks from its own. The agenda to dumb down the people and create a third world nation has come to fruition and we are being led willingly to slaughter. Whats it going to be? Do we lay down and take it or do we stand for Principle? Do we lead by example? It starts with one person and one step. We get to choose the direction. What do you replace hatred with?

A BuzzFlash Reader

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When McCain got away with accusing Obama of being a traitor to our country (Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election), it was then that they knew they could get away with anything.

Sixty of us in FL

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Subject: Have you seen this?

June 30 McCain Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPARec32KMI

Why is McCain complaining about Obama using "race card" - Check out McCain video - you be the judge. Wonder why MSM not airing this.

Natalie

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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday pushed for a windfall profits tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs, a counter to Republican rival John McCain's call for more offshore drilling in coastal states like Florida.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080801/ap_on_el_pr/obama...

A BuzzFlash Reader

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Subject: No laughing matter

This sounds so outrageous, it seems like a joke or something out of "The Onion."

Attorney General Michael Mukasey is demanding that Congress issue a new declaration of war so that anyone that this president or the next one declares to be an "enemy combatant" can be held indefinitely without a trial.

The new declaration of war would make the entire globe - including the United States itself - a "battlefield" where the president decides who will be locked up forever.

With only four weeks left in the Congressional schedule and only six months left in the Bush presidency, Mukasey's ridiculous power grab should be laughed out of town. But given this Congress' track record, the Mukasey proposal is no laughing matter. Especially because it also includes a cover-up of the Bush administration's systemic torture and abuse of detainees.

We can't take for granted that Congress will reject this outrageous proposal. We have to meet it with an immediate wall of protest that says to Congress: "Don't you dare."

I just told my members of Congress to reject the dangerous Bush/Mukasey plan. You can do the same thing here:

http://action.aclu.org/mukasey

A BuzzFlash Reader

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Subject: $4.00 Dollar Gallon Gas Or An Alternative

I think one all too apparent result of the finding of additional oil to refine for more and cheaper gasoline can easily observed by anyone who has a tv. The next time Beijing is shown, just check out the smog that befouls the air. Then think what at least ten more years of continued use of fossil fuel energy will do to our air. These wasted years could make the difference between a livable planet or death of a planet.

Ed Cadigan
Yreka

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Subject: Happy Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO Our Presumptive President

---------BARACK OBAMA----------

Angela and Leonard
Philly

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Subject: Who Knew? 18 Years Since Bush The First Started Gulf War

The Rumsfeld - Glaspie - Powell - Bush Wars

Twenty-four years after Donald Rumsfeld helped arm Iraq with chemical weapons to attack Iran, we are still fighting Iraq.

Eighteen years after U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie gave Iraq's Saddam Hussein a bright green light to invade Iraq, our soldiers are bleeding and dying in Iraq.

Eighteen years after General Colin Powell misled America that Iraq was poised to invade Saudi Arabia, the U.S. remains mired in the Middle East sandbox. The facts show Iraq was not near the Saudi border, and Iraq had no plans to invade.

Not to be outdone, five years ago Secretary of State Colin Powell again misled the United Nations and America about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The facts show Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction since shortly after the Gulf War.

Now the Iraq War fiasco looms as the worst military and political defeat in U.S. history.

Seven years after President George W. Bush was briefed dozens of times about bin Laden's plans to attack the U.S., we are still mired in Afghanistan, with casualties escalating, drug production rising, and another military and political defeat looming on the horizon.

Due to the combined failures of Donald Rumsfeld, April Glaspie, Colin Powell, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, every month nearly 1,000 battlefield casualties come home from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The official battlefield casualty total for the two wars since 2001 is more than 77,000, a figure ignored by the press and Congress and virtually unknown to America.

Concealed from public view are our 324,000 wounded, injured, and ill combat survivors from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars receiving treatment at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals. These veterans and their families will suffer a lifetime of physical and mental anguish.

Today marks the 18th anniversary of when Iraq invaded Kuwait, sparking the Gulf War. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers died in that war, too. And countless hundreds of thousands remain ill from the impact of toxic soup. Our 1990 - 1991 Gulf War veterans were exposed to combat, depleted uranium, chemical warfare agents, massive oil well fire pollution, heat, experimental anthrax shots, experimental pyridostigmine pills, and more.

They are still waiting for answers as to why we are ill, and how we can recover. Learning the wrong lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon and VA failed to monitor the toxic exposures and the health of our soldiers, thus providing the government with and easy excuse to avoid the legal, moral, financial, and medical care liability that comes with sending 700,000 off to fight in Kuwait and Iraq.

Now, our Afghanistan War veterans and our Iraq War veterans are exposed to more intense, longer, and repeated combat deployments, experimental Lariam pills, heat, depleted uranium, stimulants to go on missions, and sleeping pills to rest. And there is no end in sight. They, too, lack answers about why the administration misled them and why they lack care for the physical and mental health consequences of repeated deployments.

Eighteen years later, the situation is worse for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans than for Gulf War veterans. In 2008, despite lawsuits, massive publicity, Congressional hearings, and promises from VA, our veterans are still denied essential emergency medical care at VA hospitals. A fatal example of VA's failure was revealed again by the tragic case of Lucas Senescall, a suicidal veteran refused emergency mental healthcare in Spokane, Washington.

In 2008, despite lawsuits, massive publicity, and Congressional pleas, VA issued a ban on voter registration and voting assistance for our nation's veterans in VA hospitals and VA nursing homes. This is important because if a veteran moves into a VA facility, they must change their address in order to vote again.

What a cruel irony, that the current administration is undermining both the lives and the liberties of our fellow citizens who defended our freedom.

And the Iraqis that both Presidents Bush allegedly wanted to save? In 1991, George H. W. Bush whipped up Iraqi civilians to overthrow Saddam Hussein, only to brutally betray them as U.S. forces stood idle while the Iraqi Republican Guard slaughtered innocent civilians.

From 2003 to 2008, George W. Bush performed at the same dismal level, with nearly one million dead Iraqis, two million internally displaced Iraqis, two million Iraqi international refugees, an economy in ruins, plus car bombs and roadside bombs exploding every day, maiming more of our service members. Yes, there are others who greased the way backward towards war, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rick, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, and more.

Remember the names Rumsfeld, Glaspie, Powell, and Bush, who started these wars. Today, August 2, 2008, please remember that it only took a small group of neo-conservative hawks one generation to lose two wars, crush our military, destroy our economy, and steal our liberties. We can either participate in our democracy by registering and voting, or we can continue on the path of war and destruction. The question is, can we save the planet from ourselves?

Governor Morris
Philadelphia, PA

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Subject: Wanted To Share This EMail I Received

The Mason Missile The e-newsletter of John Oliver Mason August 1, 2008 Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Greetings, patriots, and happy birthday to me! There was a point where I didn't think I'd make it this far, but here I am. I'm continuing to lose weight, and I feel stronger and better. The policy of Welfare for the Wealthy, Socialism for the Rich, is well under way. The Federal Reserve is about to spend BILLIONS of our taxpayer dollars to bail out the mortgage companies Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and Indy Mac. If you and I had trouble paying our mortgages, would the federal government come to bail us out? No way, we'd be told, "Stay at home and eat dog food, you lazy bastards, and get a second job!"

I had to go on welfare before getting my job with the City - Unemployment, Cash assistance, food stamps. I had to submit letters from my former employers stating that I did some work. I propose that if these corporations ask for taxpayers' money to bail them out, they should agree to be audited, to see that the money goes where it should, rather than lining the already bulging pockets of these executives who brought their corporations to this sorry state.

Forever we've been told that the corporations didn't need regulating, that the "free market" (whatever that is) would handle things by itself. We have also been told that these corporation heads are in some way superior, wiser than the rest of us, and we must leave things in their hands. Many of us have bought that idea, and now is the time to reconsider it.

When you are in a subordinate position to another, and they tell you how stupid and worthless you are, it seeps into your mind that what they tell you might be true - especially if there are no other sources of information. It holds true for a person, and it hold true for a class of people.

We are in an era where our affairs are obviously in the hands of not-very-bright rich people, from George W. Bush to Paris Hilton. John McCain would continue this tradition.

There has been controversy about Obama turning more to the "Center," or the "Right." This is part of the question of affecting social and political change - do you stick with street-level activism, or do you get some of your own people elected to office to pass appropriate bills?

This is a false dichotomy - one is not exclusive of the other. The elected officials maintain contact with the street activists, mutually supporting each other. The activists bolster the elected official's argument that "This thing I'm advocating is very popular," and the elected official lets the activists know that goes on in the capitol.

That brings me to my favorite story about Franklin D. Roosevelt. When a group came to his office and presented their argument to him, FDR said, "Okay, you convinced me. Now get out there and put pressure on me."

That's the approach we must take with Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party. Obama, having been a community activist in the Saul Alinsky mode, would appreciate that.

In the primaries, the news media portrayed Obama as the "elitist" candidate, while Hillary Clinton, who was raised in an affluent Chicago suburb and was on the board of WalMart, is the candidate of white working class folks. This reminds me of the talk in the early Seventies of the "Archie Bunker vote," the idea that working class folks are ignorant and bigoted - and all white, as if the struggles of working class people of all races is separate from the Civil Rights movement of African-Americans. Really, they are one and the same, and the corporate media act like they are miles apart.

We need to be more aware of the links between the struggles of all put-down groups, whether by class or race. We must never allow the rulers of our government or economy to divide us. In the words of Bob Marley in "Redemption Song," "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds."

Let us go on with the work of mental liberation, so that the rest of us can be free. Bye!

Richard F. Burger
Cotati CA

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Subject: There's More Than One Kind Of Rich

Hello Buzzers.

I'm sitting here listening to KPFK.org Listen Live. Lila Garrett of "Connect the Dots" is discussing Gov. Schwarzeneggar's "draconian" cuts to 200,000 state workers and programs for the elderly and poor. We should thank the governor for his remarkable and tremendous compliment to our ingenuity that he thinks we can live on 6.55 an hour in California's cost of living economy, and gas over 4.00 a gallon.

He stays at the Hyatt at over two hundred and ninety dollars a night (payed for by his rich buddies), he has created a yacht tax loophole for his rich buddies. It would take a state worker 45 hours of work to afford ONE night at the Hyatt Hotel.Thank God for State Controller John Chiang, who has said he will NOT comply with the Governor's executive order implementing these deep cuts.

But still and all, I have much to be grateful for. My freedom, family, breathtaking sunrises and sunsets. A warm cup of coffee. A long walk. Fellowship and passing the time with friends, a good book, etc. There's more than one kind of wealth.

I'm beginning to appreciate these things more and more. After work today, IF I have enough gas, I'm going to stop by Wal-Mart, and pass the time with my good friend Robbie, while he plays his guitar. He's a Vietnam vet turned devout Christian and ALWAYS has deep, thought-provoking things to talk about, from life, to philosophy, to religion, and the government. I ALWAYS feel more grounded and centered after I've talked to Robbie. He's got a great way of putting things in perspective. Maybe one of those people who stand down there next to him and try to sell their artwork will make a sale.

Blessings All, have a good day.

Dominie K. Robinson
Yucca Valley, CA

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Subject: Congressman Robert Wexler

This is a plea to all of you who earnestly want to keep the dream alive in the cesspool that is our congress. I hate asking people to contribute money to a member of congress who may or may not represent them and more important knowing how we are all suffering economic hardships brought about by the "corrupter in chief." I have not been asked by Congressman Wexler to raise money for him, however I feel that he really needs and deserves to be returned to congress.

He is, as I'm sure you know, one of the very few who is not afraid of the ***** Pelosi and her minions, and is one of the very few who is representing all of us in his attempt to remove this cancerous administration. The congressman is helping us, I think we need to help him!! In advance, thank you so much

Ruth Gottlieb
Laguna Woods, CA

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