Posts Made By: Joe Lentz

Joseph, I think this shows that some people have WAY too much time on their hands.

This is from Jim Hightower as published in The Nation, so some of you might reject it at the source, but what he is talking about is factual and should arouse concern among all who believe that traditional values of freedom in this country are worth preserving. I urge you to take a minute or two of your valuable time and read it.

BTW, I understand some of this is going on at democratic gatherings too, although to a much lesser degree, afterall, they learn some of this stuff from the opposition. Sad eh?

Still, the Bushies have indeed perfected the "art". When you see news clips of any campaign stop where Bush is speaking, the crowds are almost without exception beaming with adoration and applause. Well, it's no accident, they have been carefully screened to prevent any of the "less than devoted" to attend.

This issue was discussed on NPR a few days ago by the way, and they were saying that Kerry has not adopted this type of distorted orchestration, which is to say, Republicans can still get into his gatherings, so I'm not sure to what extent it is being employed there.

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&s=hightower

And here are some excerpts:

Once ensconced in the White House, the Bushites institutionalized the art of dissing dissent, routinely dispatching the Secret Service to order local police to set up FSZs to quarantine protesters wherever Bush goes. The embedded media trooping dutifully behind him almost never cover this fascinating and truly newsworthy phenomenon, instead focusing almost entirely on spoon-fed sound bites from the President's press office.

The Bushites are using federal, state and local police to conduct an undeclared war against dissent, literally incarcerating Americans who publicly express their disagreements with him and his policies. The ACLU and others have now sued Bush's Secret Service for its ongoing pattern of repressing legitimate, made-in-America protest, citing cases in Arizona, California, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas - and coming soon to a theater near you!

The attitude of police authorities was summed up by Mike van Winkle, a spokesperson for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (another spin off of the Homeland Security Department - your tax dollars at work). After peaceful antiwar protesters in Oakland were gassed and shot by local police, van Winkle [Note: I do not make up these names] explained the prevailing thinking of America's new, vast network of antiterrorist forces:

"You can make an easy kind of link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act. I've heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact. Terrorism isn't just bombs going off and killing people."

Ahh... wouldn't the founding fathers be proud!

...I reckon I'm gonna go mow my lawn now... before I get myself into any more trouble.

All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.

- James Reston

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.

- Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

- Thomas Jefferson

Nice to see someone elected who actually advocates for the majority of the people:

http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=361

The gap between the haves and have-nots in Venezuela is unbelievable. The win by Chavez isn't appreciated by the Bushies, but it is by most of it's citizens.

BTW, 15% of US oil comes from Venezuela.

John Kerry was in combat.

Georgie was busy partying stateside, while quasi-serving in the national guard.

That's all the comparison I need on the service record thing.

Common sense ain't so common when it comes to politics is it.

That'an interesting little construct you've come up with Jim. I'm sure you're happy with it, but as you may suspect, it has a few problems We don't have to go 30 yrs into the past to discover ample reasons why GWB needs to be demoted. We only need to look at the last 3 1/2 yrs. You may have forgotten, GWB began laying the groundwork for his divisive reign before 9-11 even happened. His pledge that he was going to reach across the aisle and be a uniter not a divider was quickly seen to be lip-service only. That early lesson should have been a warning for everyone. Things went downhill from there. If anything, 9-11 worked in George's favor politically, since the country would have rallied behind ANY president at that point. If you think Bush didn't exploit that, then you aren't being honest. Prior to 9-11 national opinion was weighted against his performance. And since 9-11 we've been given ample opportunity to see how he and his crew are able to govern. Forget those other 30 yrs Jim, 3 1/2 yrs is all the time we need to see why he needs to go.

Wow!!! They're just figuring this out? Too bad they've done so many things to make their job twice as hard. I certainly agree with Ms. Rice on this, just think it's ironic..

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=05D1EBD5-5655-40B5-ACA3632737B5DA83

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says the United States needs to work harder at reaching out to Muslims if it is to win the war on terrorism. President Bush's top security adviser admitted Thursday that the United States has not done enough to counteract widespread anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world.

Depending on how much a person cares about environmental matters, a reminder of the differences in the records of Kerry and Bush may be in order.

In a nutshell, Bush has done more to reduce environmental protections than any other president in the last several decades. Here's a listing of records that illustrate this charge. The link is for the year 2004, but near the top of the page are links for 2003, 2002, and 2001. Each of the many issues listed within any given year is a link itself for more information:

http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/2004.asp

On the other hand, all the major environmental organizations have endorsed Kerry, and for the obvious reason: He understands the importance of, and cares about the environment. This is an area in which the two candidates are 180 degrees apart. It's pretty black and white for anyone who cares to look at the record.

For those who care about the environment, who think it is an important issue, and not just another political football, Bush's performance has to be a major disappointment.

I realize that the environment isn't high on the list of many people's reasons for voting, but as we continue crowding our country and our planet, it will be more and more in the forefront. Unfortunately, by the time widespread public concern is of a sufficiently high level to do something about it, it will be, in many cases, too late.

Nice to see another brave republican step up to the plate on this issue and condemn the attacks:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/aug04/252665.asp