I am forwarding this message in the hopes that you are in Albany or can forward to someone who is. In Glens Falls, election day will be a bad joke; two terrible machine candidates running against a fake independent and a real one with no chance. We obviously need to nurture and foster the growth of a progressive movement that will allow for a principled run like that of Alice Green (in Albany). It is unfortunate that we do not currently have a mayoral candidate worth voting for but lets all celebrate the fact that Albany does! Lets pass this message along and hope that they can succeed where we have failed.
There are many reasons to vote for Alice Green for Mayor on Tuesday. (Her name will be on the far right side of the ballot, Row 7, Column F).You can vote to send a message to Jerry Jennings. That you support Charter Reform to give the City Council and citizens more say in our local government. That you are tired of Jennings' autocratic style of government, where it is Jerry's way or the highway. That you are worried about the City's finances, a house of cards built on selling space at the city's landfill that is under a DEC order to close,В while playing games with the City's Water Authority to hide the city's growing deficit. That you are tired of Jennings breaking his promises to expand the Pine Bush preserve. That you oppose a Mayor who is so scared of public input and scrutiny that he refuses to participate in any debates.That you are tired of an Albany where many poor African-American neighborhoods are neglected by the Jennings administration, with hundreds of abandoned homes, where the police use racial profiling and over arrest young black males, where children suffer from poverty and neglect, where joblessness is endemic, where people are afraid to leave their homes at night.Best of all, you can vote for Alice because you want her to be the next mayor.You can vote for Alice on the Green Party line (7F) because you support Alice's program to put families first. That you support more emphasis on improving city services, not building more office space and a $200 million convention center for a downtown that is often a ghost town after work hours. That you want to "Green" the city of Albany, increasing open space and parks, a more aggressive program to remove lead paint from old homes, phase-out the use of pesticides,В to expand recycling and composting, and to take action to improve local air quality. That you want to improve mass transit and make it easier and safer to ride a bicycle.Vote for Alice because you want a Mayor who will work cooperatively with the School Board to improve the education of our children. Vote for Alice because you want a Mayor who will give neighborhood residents a seat at the table in developing city programs, and who supports community input and cooperation with our criminal justice system. Vote for Alice because she will work to get Albany its fair share of tax revenue from the 66,000 workers who come to Albany each day. You can vote for Alice since she was endorsed by NYS National Organization for Women, the civil rights group Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, and Metroland. Even the Times Union acknowledges that the only candidate in the Mayor's race that talked the truth about the problems facing the city and proposed comprehensive, creative solutions was Alice Green.You can see Alice Green's program at http://nys.greens.org/alicegreen.Please tell your friends, neighbors and co-workers to vote for Alice on the Green line, 7F, on the far right side of the ballot, this Tuesday. Please call 482-0952 if you need a ride to the polls.
Monday, November 7, 2005
Saturday, November 5, 2005
9/11 The Result of U.S. Government Conspiracy: Indie Press Says, "Well, Duh!"
Just another fifty years and the mainstream "press" will start to cover "loonies" like this David Griffin guy. He is saying what anyone who reads already knows; that 9-11 was staged and pre-planned and there was (at the very least) some U.S. governmental complicity.Its kind of similar to when the CIA made plans - almost fifty years ago - to start a war with Cuba by staging hijackings and then flying the planes into tall American buildings, the mainstream press said nothing about that in any paper! The Northwoods Project was just declassified several years back confirming this "conspiracy theory". Apparently, the mainstream press is so cool that they simply felt it beneath them to cover this tragic misdirection of funds and ideology (kind of like ... Iraq).Just remember this about the mainstream press; When it is no longer of any possible use to its readership, the truth will be printed on the front page in bold type.
9/11 Theologian Says Controlled Demolition of World Trade Center Is Now a Fact, Not a Theory
October 21, 2005 GlobalResearch.ca
In two speeches to overflow crowds in New York last weekend, notable theologian David Ray Griffin argued that recently revealed evidence seals the case that the Twin Towers and WTC-7 were destroyed by controlled demolition with explosives. Despite the many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. Griffin concluded, "It is already possible to know, beyond a reasonable doubt, one very important thing: the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job, orchestrated by terrorists within our own government."On Oct. 15th and 16th, New Yorkers filled two venues to hear the prominent theologian and author of two books on 9/11 give a presentation entitled "The Destruction of the Trade Towers: A Christian Theologian Speaks Out." Dr. Griffin has continued to blaze a trail of courage, leading where most media and elected officials have feared to tread. His presentation went straight to the core of one of the most powerful indictments of the official story, the collapse of the towers and WTC 7.Dr. Griffin included excerpts from the firemen's tapes which were recently released as a result of a prolonged court battle led by victim's families represented by attorney Norman Siegel and reported in the NY Times. He also included statements by many witnesses. These sources gave ample testimony giving evidence of explosions going off in the buildings. A 12 minute film was shown for the audiences, who saw for themselves the undeniable evidence for controlled demolition.Dr. Griffin listed ten characteristics of the collapses which all indicate that the buildings did not fall due to being struck by planes or the ensuing fires. He explained the buildings fell suddenly without any indication of collapse. They fell straight into their own footprint at free-fall speed, meeting virtually no resistance as they fell--a physical impossibility unless all vertical support was being progressively removed by explosives severing the core columns. The towers were built to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and 160 mile per hour winds, and nothing about the plane crashes or ensuing fires gave any indication of causing the kind of damage that would be necessary to trigger even a partial or progressive collapse, much less the shredding of the buildings into dust and fragments that could drop at free-fall speed. The massive core columns--the most significant structural feature of the buildings, whose very existence is denied in the official 9/11 Commission Report--were severed into uniform 30 foot sections, just right for the 30-foot trucks used to remove them quickly before a real investigation could transpire. There was a volcanic-like dust cloud from the concrete being pulverized, and no physical mechanism other than explosives can begin to explain how so much of the buildings' concrete was rendered into extremely fine dust. The debris was ejected horizontally several hundred feet in huge fan shaped plumes stretching in all directions, with telltale "squibs" following the path of the explosives downward. These are all facts that have been avoided by mainstream and even most of the alternative media. Again, these are characteristics of the kind of controlled demolitions that news people and firefighters were describing on the morning of 9/11. Those multiple first-person descriptions of controlled demolition were hidden away for almost four years by the City of New York until a lawsuit finally forced the city to release them. Dr. Griffin's study of these accounts has led him beyond his earlier questioning of the official story of the collapses, to his above-quoted conclusion: The destruction of the three WTC buildings with explosives by US government terrorists is no longer a hypothesis, but a fact that has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.It's important to note that Dr. Griffin is one of many prominent intellectuals -- including the likes of Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Peter Dale Scott, Richard Falk, Paul Craig Roberts, Morgan Reynolds and Peter Phillips--who have seen through the major discrepancies of the official explanation of 9/11 and have risen to challenge it. These brave individuals represent the tip of an ever-growing iceberg of discreet 9/11 skeptics. Indeed, 9/11 skepticism appears to be almost universal among intellectuals who have examined the evidence, since there hasnot yet been a single serious attempt to refute the case developed by Dr. Griffin and such like-minded thinkers as Nafeez Ahmed and Mike Ruppert. As for the general public, polls have shown that a strong majority of Canadians (63%, Toronto Star, May '04) and half of New Yorkers (Zogby, August 2004) agree that top US leaders conspired to murder nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11/01.How, then, can the mainstream US media continue to ignore the story of the century? Perhaps the best answer was given by Dr. Griffin himself in the conclusion of his talk, and is worth quoting at length:"The evidence for this conclusion (that 9/11 was an inside job) has thus far been largely ignored by the mainstream press, perhaps under the guise of obeying President Bush's advice not to tolerate "outrageous conspiracy theories." We have seen, however, that it is the Bush administration's conspiracy theory that is the outrageous one, because it is violently contradicted by numerous facts, including some basic laws of physics."There is, of course, another reason why the mainstream press has not pointed out these contradictions. As a recent letter to the Los Angeles Times said:'The number of contradictions in the official version of . . . 9/11 is so overwhelming that . . . it simply cannot be believed. Yet . . . the officialversion cannot be abandoned because the implication of rejecting it is far too disturbing: that we are subject to a government conspiracy of "X-Files" proportions and insidiousness.' "The implications are indeed disturbing. Many people who know or at least suspect the truth about 9/11 probably believe that revealing it would be so disturbing to the American psyche, the American form of government, and global stability that it is better to pretend to believe the official version. I would suggest, however, that any merit this argument may have had earlier has been overcome by more recent events and realizations. Far more devastating to the American psyche, the American form of government, and the world as a whole will be the continued rule of those who brought us 9/11, because the values reflected in that horrendous event have been reflected in the Bush administration's lies to justify the attack on Iraq, its disregard for environmental science and the Bill of Rights, its criminal negligence both before and after Katrina, and now its apparent plan not only to weaponize space but also to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike."In light of this situation and the facts discussed in this lecture---as well as dozens of more problems in the official account of 9/11 discussed elsewhere --- I call on the New York Times to take the lead in finally exposing to the American people and the world the truth about 9/11. Taking the lead on such a story will, of course, involve enormous risks. But if there is any news organization with the power, the prestige, and the credibility to break this story, it is the Times. It performed yeoman service in getting the 9/11 oral histories released. But now the welfare of our republic and perhaps even the survival of our civilization depend on getting the truth about 9/11 exposed. I am calling on the Times to rise to the occasion."
Dr. Griffin's speech given at the University of Wisconsin earlier this year, entitled "9/11 and the American Empire," was broadcast twice on C-SPAN. In late September Dr. Griffin was asked to give expert testimony at hearings sponsored by Cynthia McKinney and the Congressional Black Caucus investigating the 9/11 Commission Report. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Claremont at the Claremont School of Theology, California.This weekend's events were sponsored by NY911truth.org, WBAI and the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth: http://mujca.com. Kevin Barrett Coordinator, MUJCA-NET: http://mujca.com
9/11 Theologian Says Controlled Demolition of World Trade Center Is Now a Fact, Not a Theory
October 21, 2005 GlobalResearch.ca
In two speeches to overflow crowds in New York last weekend, notable theologian David Ray Griffin argued that recently revealed evidence seals the case that the Twin Towers and WTC-7 were destroyed by controlled demolition with explosives. Despite the many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. Griffin concluded, "It is already possible to know, beyond a reasonable doubt, one very important thing: the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job, orchestrated by terrorists within our own government."On Oct. 15th and 16th, New Yorkers filled two venues to hear the prominent theologian and author of two books on 9/11 give a presentation entitled "The Destruction of the Trade Towers: A Christian Theologian Speaks Out." Dr. Griffin has continued to blaze a trail of courage, leading where most media and elected officials have feared to tread. His presentation went straight to the core of one of the most powerful indictments of the official story, the collapse of the towers and WTC 7.Dr. Griffin included excerpts from the firemen's tapes which were recently released as a result of a prolonged court battle led by victim's families represented by attorney Norman Siegel and reported in the NY Times. He also included statements by many witnesses. These sources gave ample testimony giving evidence of explosions going off in the buildings. A 12 minute film was shown for the audiences, who saw for themselves the undeniable evidence for controlled demolition.Dr. Griffin listed ten characteristics of the collapses which all indicate that the buildings did not fall due to being struck by planes or the ensuing fires. He explained the buildings fell suddenly without any indication of collapse. They fell straight into their own footprint at free-fall speed, meeting virtually no resistance as they fell--a physical impossibility unless all vertical support was being progressively removed by explosives severing the core columns. The towers were built to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and 160 mile per hour winds, and nothing about the plane crashes or ensuing fires gave any indication of causing the kind of damage that would be necessary to trigger even a partial or progressive collapse, much less the shredding of the buildings into dust and fragments that could drop at free-fall speed. The massive core columns--the most significant structural feature of the buildings, whose very existence is denied in the official 9/11 Commission Report--were severed into uniform 30 foot sections, just right for the 30-foot trucks used to remove them quickly before a real investigation could transpire. There was a volcanic-like dust cloud from the concrete being pulverized, and no physical mechanism other than explosives can begin to explain how so much of the buildings' concrete was rendered into extremely fine dust. The debris was ejected horizontally several hundred feet in huge fan shaped plumes stretching in all directions, with telltale "squibs" following the path of the explosives downward. These are all facts that have been avoided by mainstream and even most of the alternative media. Again, these are characteristics of the kind of controlled demolitions that news people and firefighters were describing on the morning of 9/11. Those multiple first-person descriptions of controlled demolition were hidden away for almost four years by the City of New York until a lawsuit finally forced the city to release them. Dr. Griffin's study of these accounts has led him beyond his earlier questioning of the official story of the collapses, to his above-quoted conclusion: The destruction of the three WTC buildings with explosives by US government terrorists is no longer a hypothesis, but a fact that has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.It's important to note that Dr. Griffin is one of many prominent intellectuals -- including the likes of Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Peter Dale Scott, Richard Falk, Paul Craig Roberts, Morgan Reynolds and Peter Phillips--who have seen through the major discrepancies of the official explanation of 9/11 and have risen to challenge it. These brave individuals represent the tip of an ever-growing iceberg of discreet 9/11 skeptics. Indeed, 9/11 skepticism appears to be almost universal among intellectuals who have examined the evidence, since there hasnot yet been a single serious attempt to refute the case developed by Dr. Griffin and such like-minded thinkers as Nafeez Ahmed and Mike Ruppert. As for the general public, polls have shown that a strong majority of Canadians (63%, Toronto Star, May '04) and half of New Yorkers (Zogby, August 2004) agree that top US leaders conspired to murder nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11/01.How, then, can the mainstream US media continue to ignore the story of the century? Perhaps the best answer was given by Dr. Griffin himself in the conclusion of his talk, and is worth quoting at length:"The evidence for this conclusion (that 9/11 was an inside job) has thus far been largely ignored by the mainstream press, perhaps under the guise of obeying President Bush's advice not to tolerate "outrageous conspiracy theories." We have seen, however, that it is the Bush administration's conspiracy theory that is the outrageous one, because it is violently contradicted by numerous facts, including some basic laws of physics."There is, of course, another reason why the mainstream press has not pointed out these contradictions. As a recent letter to the Los Angeles Times said:'The number of contradictions in the official version of . . . 9/11 is so overwhelming that . . . it simply cannot be believed. Yet . . . the officialversion cannot be abandoned because the implication of rejecting it is far too disturbing: that we are subject to a government conspiracy of "X-Files" proportions and insidiousness.' "The implications are indeed disturbing. Many people who know or at least suspect the truth about 9/11 probably believe that revealing it would be so disturbing to the American psyche, the American form of government, and global stability that it is better to pretend to believe the official version. I would suggest, however, that any merit this argument may have had earlier has been overcome by more recent events and realizations. Far more devastating to the American psyche, the American form of government, and the world as a whole will be the continued rule of those who brought us 9/11, because the values reflected in that horrendous event have been reflected in the Bush administration's lies to justify the attack on Iraq, its disregard for environmental science and the Bill of Rights, its criminal negligence both before and after Katrina, and now its apparent plan not only to weaponize space but also to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike."In light of this situation and the facts discussed in this lecture---as well as dozens of more problems in the official account of 9/11 discussed elsewhere --- I call on the New York Times to take the lead in finally exposing to the American people and the world the truth about 9/11. Taking the lead on such a story will, of course, involve enormous risks. But if there is any news organization with the power, the prestige, and the credibility to break this story, it is the Times. It performed yeoman service in getting the 9/11 oral histories released. But now the welfare of our republic and perhaps even the survival of our civilization depend on getting the truth about 9/11 exposed. I am calling on the Times to rise to the occasion."
Dr. Griffin's speech given at the University of Wisconsin earlier this year, entitled "9/11 and the American Empire," was broadcast twice on C-SPAN. In late September Dr. Griffin was asked to give expert testimony at hearings sponsored by Cynthia McKinney and the Congressional Black Caucus investigating the 9/11 Commission Report. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Claremont at the Claremont School of Theology, California.This weekend's events were sponsored by NY911truth.org, WBAI and the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth: http://mujca.com. Kevin Barrett Coordinator, MUJCA-NET: http://mujca.com
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Naked Media Bias
These two pieces about local debates seem to speak for themselves. Here's some blatant media bias served up fresh at your table with a side order of lying, a lack of journalistic integrity for dessert with some good ole boyism and a total lack of imagination as an appetizer.The first piece is from the "Boos and Bravos" section of the Compost-Star and it gives a local candidate a hard time for not showing up at a public debate. To quote them, "Answering questions from the public about one's record and speaking about one's plans for the future should be seen as an opportunity to embrace, not a burden to avoid." Right! Exactly! So, why the next day the sudden change of tune?The second piece is their coverage of the only real and unmanipulated debate that will take place during this year's Glens Falls mayoral race. The two major party candidates were too frightened to show up and engage in discourse and gave feeble little "preparing for the primaries" excuses. Interestingly, the democrat is not facing any primary challenge whatsoever, and the republican machine candidate's only opponent was at the debate and he was the one with everything to lose.In my view it would be awfully hard to argue that a well-publicized debate, fully attended (and not virtually shut out by our fake local media) would have been a far more effective tool at getting the primary vote out than ducking organized labor in favor of knocking on a few doors. Take Quintal to task, and then beatify Bud Taylor for the same exact behavior? Why? This is corrupt and unprincipled behavior.The Post-Star then gives their hero (Bud Taylor) equal time even though he was not even there. It is their common practice to ignore all of those who do not attend functions, events and/or meetings. They also totally downplayed the two men in chicken outfits who represented Taylor and Akins at the debate. They didn't use one of the many photos taken. Why not? It would have been great front page! Then, the paper that always covers the power structure and hates real ideas and discourse, left early, running back to its little office so it could call its boss (Bud Taylor) to see what he thought about what was said during the debate and then report on that.Truly disgusting, partisan behavior, but what else can you expect from such a terrible rag? I for one, am finished with my campaign to help them be a better paper. I see that they don't want to be. They are perfectly content being tools of the establishment and, as such, have little or no regard for the truth. They are of no further use to me. My subscription is done. I could only stomach them when I thought there were a few people there actually trying to do their jobs. I can no longer even try to believe that. Bye-bye ComPost-Star. Please cancel my subscription. Its high time we start a new weekly and I'll be in touch soon about exactly that.
BOOS & BRAVOS
Published on 9/12/2005 Opinion THE POST-STAR
Boos to Warrensburg Town Supervisor Jerold Quintal for refusing to show up for a Republican party candidate forum to discuss his views with citizens. Mr. Quintal, who is facing a primary challenge tomorrow from former town Councilman Kevin Geraghty, was asked months ago to participate in the forum and speak about his administration's record. But he repeatedly refused to take up his own party chairman on the offer, and on Thursday, only his opponent was there to face the citizens' questions. Answering questions from the public about one's record and speaking about one's plans for the future should be seen as an opportunity to embrace, not a burden to avoid.
Candidates make final pitch
Glens Falls Trio of mayoral hopefuls come to final primary debate
By MAURY THOMPSON thompson@poststar.com Published on 9/13/2005
Local News THE POST-STAR
GLENS FALLS -- Instead of the Burger King restaurant, city officials may want to consider taking the nearby hydroelectric plant on the Hudson River by eminent domain, independent candidate Esmond Lyons said. The candidate’s suggestion came in response to a question in a mayoral debate asking what could be done locally to deal with the energy crisis. The hydroelectric plant, owned jointly by Finch, Pruyn & Co. and Boralex, could be used to generate electricity for city residents, Lyons said. This would be an example of using eminent domain for “public benefit instead of corporate benefit,” he said during a debate at the Charles R. Wood Theater sponsored by the Greater Glens Falls Central Labor Council and the publishers of The Informed Constituent, a monthly newspaper based in Albany.About 70 people attended the debate. Republican and Conservative candidate Peter McDevitt, who followed Lyons in responding, said that perhaps people would change their driving habits when gasoline prices reach $5 a gallon. “I guess when it hurts enough in our pocketbook, we will drive less,” he said. Any efforts to improve the environment locally must be matched with pressure to reduce pollution that blows into the region from Midwest states, said William Berg, another independent candidate. “There’s not so much we can do about that unless we can get them to start riding bicycles too,” he said.Republican, Conservative and Independence candidate Harold “Bud” Taylor and Democrat and Working Families candidate Leroy “Roy” Akins Jr. did not attend. Akins previously said he was not attending because he did not want to interfere with today’s Republican and Conservative primaries. Taylor said he would not attend because he had participated in two previous debates, and needed to spend the evening before the primary campaigning.Two activists dressed in chicken costumes greeted people at the theater entrance and passed out leaflets criticizing Akins and Taylor for not attending. McDevitt, who did attend, criticized Taylor for accepting a $1,000 campaign contribution from the engineering firm that is designing the roundabout, and a $200 contribution from city Controller Bruce Crouser. “Harold Taylor should give that money back. We need a mayor who will stand up against vested interests,” he said.Contacted after the debate, Taylor said that people who donate to his campaign know they will not receive special treatment. “That’s just a lot of nonsense,” Taylor said. “It points to the fact that he does not have any issues to talk about.”Lyons said that city residents should watch less television and that labor unions should encourage their members to adopt a healthy lifestyle. “Alcoholism and tobacco use are prevalent in union members. They need to wake up,” he said. Berg called for establishing a citywide organization similar to a labor union that would charge $5-per-week dues, the proceeds of which would be used for health care and to provide legal assistance to members.Responding to a question, Berg said it may be difficult to come up with a plan to raise the average household income in Glens Falls from $30,000 to the national average of $42,000. “Ah, good question,” he said. “I’d just like to give everybody the difference, but that doesn’t seem to be possible.”
BOOS & BRAVOS
Published on 9/12/2005 Opinion THE POST-STAR
Boos to Warrensburg Town Supervisor Jerold Quintal for refusing to show up for a Republican party candidate forum to discuss his views with citizens. Mr. Quintal, who is facing a primary challenge tomorrow from former town Councilman Kevin Geraghty, was asked months ago to participate in the forum and speak about his administration's record. But he repeatedly refused to take up his own party chairman on the offer, and on Thursday, only his opponent was there to face the citizens' questions. Answering questions from the public about one's record and speaking about one's plans for the future should be seen as an opportunity to embrace, not a burden to avoid.
Candidates make final pitch
Glens Falls Trio of mayoral hopefuls come to final primary debate
By MAURY THOMPSON thompson@poststar.com Published on 9/13/2005
Local News THE POST-STAR
GLENS FALLS -- Instead of the Burger King restaurant, city officials may want to consider taking the nearby hydroelectric plant on the Hudson River by eminent domain, independent candidate Esmond Lyons said. The candidate’s suggestion came in response to a question in a mayoral debate asking what could be done locally to deal with the energy crisis. The hydroelectric plant, owned jointly by Finch, Pruyn & Co. and Boralex, could be used to generate electricity for city residents, Lyons said. This would be an example of using eminent domain for “public benefit instead of corporate benefit,” he said during a debate at the Charles R. Wood Theater sponsored by the Greater Glens Falls Central Labor Council and the publishers of The Informed Constituent, a monthly newspaper based in Albany.About 70 people attended the debate. Republican and Conservative candidate Peter McDevitt, who followed Lyons in responding, said that perhaps people would change their driving habits when gasoline prices reach $5 a gallon. “I guess when it hurts enough in our pocketbook, we will drive less,” he said. Any efforts to improve the environment locally must be matched with pressure to reduce pollution that blows into the region from Midwest states, said William Berg, another independent candidate. “There’s not so much we can do about that unless we can get them to start riding bicycles too,” he said.Republican, Conservative and Independence candidate Harold “Bud” Taylor and Democrat and Working Families candidate Leroy “Roy” Akins Jr. did not attend. Akins previously said he was not attending because he did not want to interfere with today’s Republican and Conservative primaries. Taylor said he would not attend because he had participated in two previous debates, and needed to spend the evening before the primary campaigning.Two activists dressed in chicken costumes greeted people at the theater entrance and passed out leaflets criticizing Akins and Taylor for not attending. McDevitt, who did attend, criticized Taylor for accepting a $1,000 campaign contribution from the engineering firm that is designing the roundabout, and a $200 contribution from city Controller Bruce Crouser. “Harold Taylor should give that money back. We need a mayor who will stand up against vested interests,” he said.Contacted after the debate, Taylor said that people who donate to his campaign know they will not receive special treatment. “That’s just a lot of nonsense,” Taylor said. “It points to the fact that he does not have any issues to talk about.”Lyons said that city residents should watch less television and that labor unions should encourage their members to adopt a healthy lifestyle. “Alcoholism and tobacco use are prevalent in union members. They need to wake up,” he said. Berg called for establishing a citywide organization similar to a labor union that would charge $5-per-week dues, the proceeds of which would be used for health care and to provide legal assistance to members.Responding to a question, Berg said it may be difficult to come up with a plan to raise the average household income in Glens Falls from $30,000 to the national average of $42,000. “Ah, good question,” he said. “I’d just like to give everybody the difference, but that doesn’t seem to be possible.”
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Behan Requests Retraction
A message from Mark Behan of Behan Communications:
Hi, Matt: I enjoy your blog, but you're wrong about our work on the Bud Taylor brochure. Our folks wrote the copy and designed the piece in conjunction with Bud Taylor's team. They did not copy the brochure from a web site or any other source nor base it on a template. It's a simple, straight-forward piece that sets forth clearly what the voters should know about Bud Taylor. Another campaign decided to flatter us by copying the design and much of the content. I trust you'll retract your false statement.
Regards, Mark Behan
* my response *
Dear Mark,
My regards to your family. I am very surprised to hear that you are familiar with my blog. How did you first hear about it, if you don't mind my asking? Its always good to know who's out there promoting it. I like to give thanks where it is due. Please let me know. My blog is simply a place for me to vent about the substandard quality of the Post-Star. It is an archive of letters, more than anything else. It may be accessible by the public, but I honestly have done nothing to promote it, at all. In other words, it is not well-read or well-trafficked. In it, you'll have noticed that I focus primarily on issues the Post-Star is NOT covering (or, in other cases, just how badly they cover the issues they do see as important). In other words, like a letter to the editor, the blog primarily uses the Post-Star as its source (or its source of frustration). As such, if you read the Post-Star article on the "brochure plagiarism", as I did, looking for information about who is really responsible, they totally let the guilty party off the hook. They did very little follow-up. That, along with the waste of valuable space spent on substantive issues, and the further "McTaylorizing" of their audience angers me. As someone involved, I imagine that it angered you, too. Bud's message is lost in such trifling and he is done a great disservice when they cover him without covering his issues and his wonderful vision for "teamglensfalls". Peter McDevitt is a friend of mine but let me make this perfectly clear, if Peter or one of his more hapless subordinates did copy your brochure design, as you maintain, then the Post-Star should have figured this all out BEFORE they wasted valuable space in my Sunday paper on this "issue". That space would have been much better served by giving voice to parties other than just the one that Jim Marshall and Ken Tingley and Michael O'Connor belong to. Some reasonable amount of space should be devoted to the candidates that the huge majority of Glens Falls residents might actually vote for (61% of them are not enrolled Republican). You'd think the Post-Star would, at least, TRY to project an air of neutrality, wouldn't ya? (Its a rhetorical question.) ;-) I do apologize for "throwing you in" by daring to suggest that a template for the brochure might have come from a website or a cd or some other external source rather than from one of the creative minds at Behan Communications. I thought that possible because, the day of the article, I went online and looked at various "Running for Office" websites. One of many that I looked at had a template very similar, if not identical, to the one shown in the paper. When I wrote my blog later that day, I couldn't find the exact site, and so, I merely opined that this was what had happened (as opposed to posting the web address for all to see). I didn;t really have time to do the surfing to find it again (too many balls in the air, Mark). When I do have time to look again, I'll send you the address. That said, I would be happy (with your permission of course) to post your email to my blog. I would also be happy to print anything else you wish to write or post, anytime. Can I assume that that is all right?
Hi, Matt: I enjoy your blog, but you're wrong about our work on the Bud Taylor brochure. Our folks wrote the copy and designed the piece in conjunction with Bud Taylor's team. They did not copy the brochure from a web site or any other source nor base it on a template. It's a simple, straight-forward piece that sets forth clearly what the voters should know about Bud Taylor. Another campaign decided to flatter us by copying the design and much of the content. I trust you'll retract your false statement.
Regards, Mark Behan
* my response *
Dear Mark,
My regards to your family. I am very surprised to hear that you are familiar with my blog. How did you first hear about it, if you don't mind my asking? Its always good to know who's out there promoting it. I like to give thanks where it is due. Please let me know. My blog is simply a place for me to vent about the substandard quality of the Post-Star. It is an archive of letters, more than anything else. It may be accessible by the public, but I honestly have done nothing to promote it, at all. In other words, it is not well-read or well-trafficked. In it, you'll have noticed that I focus primarily on issues the Post-Star is NOT covering (or, in other cases, just how badly they cover the issues they do see as important). In other words, like a letter to the editor, the blog primarily uses the Post-Star as its source (or its source of frustration). As such, if you read the Post-Star article on the "brochure plagiarism", as I did, looking for information about who is really responsible, they totally let the guilty party off the hook. They did very little follow-up. That, along with the waste of valuable space spent on substantive issues, and the further "McTaylorizing" of their audience angers me. As someone involved, I imagine that it angered you, too. Bud's message is lost in such trifling and he is done a great disservice when they cover him without covering his issues and his wonderful vision for "teamglensfalls". Peter McDevitt is a friend of mine but let me make this perfectly clear, if Peter or one of his more hapless subordinates did copy your brochure design, as you maintain, then the Post-Star should have figured this all out BEFORE they wasted valuable space in my Sunday paper on this "issue". That space would have been much better served by giving voice to parties other than just the one that Jim Marshall and Ken Tingley and Michael O'Connor belong to. Some reasonable amount of space should be devoted to the candidates that the huge majority of Glens Falls residents might actually vote for (61% of them are not enrolled Republican). You'd think the Post-Star would, at least, TRY to project an air of neutrality, wouldn't ya? (Its a rhetorical question.) ;-) I do apologize for "throwing you in" by daring to suggest that a template for the brochure might have come from a website or a cd or some other external source rather than from one of the creative minds at Behan Communications. I thought that possible because, the day of the article, I went online and looked at various "Running for Office" websites. One of many that I looked at had a template very similar, if not identical, to the one shown in the paper. When I wrote my blog later that day, I couldn't find the exact site, and so, I merely opined that this was what had happened (as opposed to posting the web address for all to see). I didn;t really have time to do the surfing to find it again (too many balls in the air, Mark). When I do have time to look again, I'll send you the address. That said, I would be happy (with your permission of course) to post your email to my blog. I would also be happy to print anything else you wish to write or post, anytime. Can I assume that that is all right?
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Corporate Proles Censors Truth Yet Again
I sent a letter to the Post-Star about a week ago. The "powers that be" at our "hometown paper" just sent me back a form letter citing "factual errors" as the reason why they will not be printing my letter. They, in no way, would elaborate as to what the actual "errors" were, of course. The letter concerned the Post-Star's All-Republican Mayoral Debate and was intended to let the Post-Star's sleepy readership know about the REAL Mayoral debates sponsored and hosted by the Glens Falls Labor Council and the Informed Constituent to which ALL FIVE CANDIDATES have been invited (Sept. 12th - Wood Theater - Free - 7:00 pm). Please help me by seeing if you can find the "factual errors" in the letter below which caused the "good folk" at the Post-Star to engage in censorship. ;-) Good luck!
** the text in italics indicates sources and/or explanations which back up the parts that aren't merely my "opinion."
Dear Editor:
Our “hometown newspaper” is hosting what they call a “mayoral debate” on September 7th. Only two of the five candidates have been invited. (Post-Star article ID No. 183491 - "Mayoral debate planned" - see archives) When questioned about this un-American behavior (see a little thing called the Constitution of the United States for more information about democracy), they claimed that the event is really a “primary debate” (even though they call it a “mayoral debate”). They say that a “forum” may be held sometime in the future where other candidates “may” be “allowed to participate”. (The article made no promises about further debates, it only suggests that another event may take place. I also had quite a lengthy conversation with Maury Thompson about a week after the article was run and he valiantly defended this disgusting behavior on his paper's part.) Does the Post-Star really see the huge non-Republican majority of its Glens Falls readership (61%) as totally irrelevant? (There are 7993 voters registered in Glens Falls according to the Warren County Board of Elections. Only 3101 are Republicans. In case some help with this basic math is in order, 3101 is roughly 38.8% of 7993, meaning that more than 61% of enrolled GF voters are NOT enrolled as Republicans). They consistently withhold any substantive information about the Independent and Democratic candidates while dosing us daily with the squabbling between the two “conservative” camps. Esmond Lyons, Bill Berg and Leroy Akins have been virtually ignored. Why? (Less than a quarter of the Post-Star's stories on this mayoral race include the "other three" in any meaningful way. They just tag line Akins, Berg and Lyons at the end. Shameless pandering. Easily provable through their archives or by reading the dastardly rag daily, as I have.) If you’re a business owner or an artist, Esmond Lyons is you. If you are a worker or someone who chooses not to live off the backs of others, Esmond is you. If you enjoy walking or biking and you understand that our downtown needs to be preserved, not sold off to the highest bidder, your vote's wasted on anyone else. Esmond is with us on all these major issues and many others that the Post-Star can’t see as locally relevant, like the impending energy crisis and how it will affect us in “Hometown USA”. You can learn more at “esmondlyonsformayor.org”.If you want to see all five mayoral candidates in an un-manipulated setting, the Glens Falls Labor Council and The Informed Constituent (an independent news-monthly) are hosting a real debate at the Wood Theater on September 12th at 7:00 pm. Come hear all the candidates speak their minds and when you’ve heard all of them, I’m fairly confident that you’ll be voting for Esmond. That’s precisely why you haven’t heard much about him in our “hometown newspaper”. (These last two paragraphs may not be in agreement with the Post-Star's whole "Smash McDevitt and Kiss Taylor's Ass" agenda, but I would certainly love to hear directly from their mouths how any of these remarks have no basis in fact. Thats just completely asinine.)
Sincerely, Matt Funiciello (This is, in fact, my actual name) ;-)
** the text in italics indicates sources and/or explanations which back up the parts that aren't merely my "opinion."
Dear Editor:
Our “hometown newspaper” is hosting what they call a “mayoral debate” on September 7th. Only two of the five candidates have been invited. (Post-Star article ID No. 183491 - "Mayoral debate planned" - see archives) When questioned about this un-American behavior (see a little thing called the Constitution of the United States for more information about democracy), they claimed that the event is really a “primary debate” (even though they call it a “mayoral debate”). They say that a “forum” may be held sometime in the future where other candidates “may” be “allowed to participate”. (The article made no promises about further debates, it only suggests that another event may take place. I also had quite a lengthy conversation with Maury Thompson about a week after the article was run and he valiantly defended this disgusting behavior on his paper's part.) Does the Post-Star really see the huge non-Republican majority of its Glens Falls readership (61%) as totally irrelevant? (There are 7993 voters registered in Glens Falls according to the Warren County Board of Elections. Only 3101 are Republicans. In case some help with this basic math is in order, 3101 is roughly 38.8% of 7993, meaning that more than 61% of enrolled GF voters are NOT enrolled as Republicans). They consistently withhold any substantive information about the Independent and Democratic candidates while dosing us daily with the squabbling between the two “conservative” camps. Esmond Lyons, Bill Berg and Leroy Akins have been virtually ignored. Why? (Less than a quarter of the Post-Star's stories on this mayoral race include the "other three" in any meaningful way. They just tag line Akins, Berg and Lyons at the end. Shameless pandering. Easily provable through their archives or by reading the dastardly rag daily, as I have.) If you’re a business owner or an artist, Esmond Lyons is you. If you are a worker or someone who chooses not to live off the backs of others, Esmond is you. If you enjoy walking or biking and you understand that our downtown needs to be preserved, not sold off to the highest bidder, your vote's wasted on anyone else. Esmond is with us on all these major issues and many others that the Post-Star can’t see as locally relevant, like the impending energy crisis and how it will affect us in “Hometown USA”. You can learn more at “esmondlyonsformayor.org”.If you want to see all five mayoral candidates in an un-manipulated setting, the Glens Falls Labor Council and The Informed Constituent (an independent news-monthly) are hosting a real debate at the Wood Theater on September 12th at 7:00 pm. Come hear all the candidates speak their minds and when you’ve heard all of them, I’m fairly confident that you’ll be voting for Esmond. That’s precisely why you haven’t heard much about him in our “hometown newspaper”. (These last two paragraphs may not be in agreement with the Post-Star's whole "Smash McDevitt and Kiss Taylor's Ass" agenda, but I would certainly love to hear directly from their mouths how any of these remarks have no basis in fact. Thats just completely asinine.)
Sincerely, Matt Funiciello (This is, in fact, my actual name) ;-)
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Patriotic Behavior - Threatening Grieving Mothers and Ignoring the Truth?
The post I have copied below is from First Sergeant Perry Jeffries (an Iraqi War veteran and a member of Operation Truth). The letter is addressed to the "patriot" who ran over all the crosses placed at Camp Casey honoring our fallen soldiers. Its well worth a read as Jeffries fought alongside and knew many of the soldiers those crosses represented. In fact, he placed the crosses there, himself, to honor those men.On a similar note (false patriots dishonoring those who serve), there are those who have suggested that many soldiers who are mortally wounded in Iraq are shipped elsewhere to die (Germany, Afghanistan, back in the U.S.). Then, the Department of Defense doesn't need to count them as casualties of the "Iraq War". This was standard practice in Vietnam (ask any Vietnam vet).While I can understand the DoD's self-interested reasoning for perpetrating such vicious, dishonorable lies, I cannot understand why our media has no interest in covering this story. The DoD has to downplay the real costs of the war to the American public or they don't get to "play" anymore. Do the media also seek to "downplay the real costs of the war to the American public"? Rest assured - this is a rhetorical question.Local soldier, Steven Z. Madison, died at Fort Hood, Kansas on June 26, 2005. , from complications resulting from severe burns suffered in a recently-repaired shower while he was stationed in Iraq. Can anyone say Depleted Uranium? The official DoD website charged with recording these deaths is: http://www.defendamerica.mil/fallen/oif/oif-army.html#m . Check the site out. See if you can find Steven's name on it. I sure can't. I wonder how many "Steven's" there are all across this country that the press and the DoD don't want us to know about?Our local press should investigate this, shouldn't they? I've sent them two emails over the past few months asking them to do so. I will forward this one to them. They have not, as of yet, responded. You'd think the Post-Star would jump on this! A local story with truly international implications. I'm not sure which is worse, starting a war against a civilian population, dishonoring those who died or covering up the truth of it. Has this behavior replaced real patriotism?As Thomas Paine wrote, "It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government." Where are the true patriots?
OperationTruth.com
Mr. Northern: I am a Veteran of the Iraq war, having served with the 4th Infantry Division on the initial invasion with Force Package One.While I was in Iraq, a very good friend of mine, Christopher Cutchall, was killed in an unarmored HMMWV outside of Baghdad. He was a cavalry scout serving with the 3d ID. Once he had declined the award of a medal because Soldiers assigned to him did not receive similar awards that he had recommended.He left two sons and a wonderful wife.On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West.One of my Soldiers in Iraq was Roger Turner.We gave him a hard time because he always wore all of his protective equipment, including three pairs of glasses or goggles. He did this because he wanted to make sure that he returned home to his family. He rode a bicycle to work every day to make sure that he was able to save enough money on his Army salary to send his son to college. At Camp Anaconda, where the squadron briefly stayed, a rocket landed inside a tent, sending a piece of debris or fragment into him and killed him. On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West. One of my Soldiers was Henry Bacon. He was one of the finest men I ever met. He was in perfect shape for a man over forty, working hard at night. He told me that he did that because he didn't have much money to buy nice things for his wife, who he loved so much, so he had to be in good shape for her. He was like a father to many young men in his section of maintenance mechanics. They fixed our vehicles with almost no support and fabricated parts and made repairs that kept our squadron rolling on the longest, fastest armor advance ever made under fire. He was so very proud of his son-in-law that married the beautiful daughter so well raised by Henry. His son-in-law was a helicopter pilot with the 1st Cavalry Division, who died last year. Henry stopped to rescue a vehicle belonging to another unit on what was to be his last day in Iraq. He could have kept rolling - he was headed to Kuwait after a year's tour. But he stopped. He could have sent others to do the work, but he was on the ground, leading by example, when he was killed. On Monday night, August 16, you took it upon yourself to go out in the country, where a peaceful group was exercising their constitutional rights, and harming no one, and you ran down the memorial cross erected for Henry and for his son-in-law by Arlington West.Mr. Northern - I know little about Cindy Sheehan except that she is a grieving mother, a gentle soul, and wants to bring harm to no one. I know little about you except that you found your way to Crawford on Monday night in August with chains and a pipe attached to your truck for the sole purpose of dishonoring a memorial erected for my friends and lost Soldiers and hundreds of others that served this nation when they were called. I find it disheartening that good men like these have died so that people like you can threaten a mother who lost a child with your actions. I hope that you are ashamed of yourself.
Perry Jefferies, First Sergeant, USA (retired)
OperationTruth.com
Mr. Northern: I am a Veteran of the Iraq war, having served with the 4th Infantry Division on the initial invasion with Force Package One.While I was in Iraq, a very good friend of mine, Christopher Cutchall, was killed in an unarmored HMMWV outside of Baghdad. He was a cavalry scout serving with the 3d ID. Once he had declined the award of a medal because Soldiers assigned to him did not receive similar awards that he had recommended.He left two sons and a wonderful wife.On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West.One of my Soldiers in Iraq was Roger Turner.We gave him a hard time because he always wore all of his protective equipment, including three pairs of glasses or goggles. He did this because he wanted to make sure that he returned home to his family. He rode a bicycle to work every day to make sure that he was able to save enough money on his Army salary to send his son to college. At Camp Anaconda, where the squadron briefly stayed, a rocket landed inside a tent, sending a piece of debris or fragment into him and killed him. On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West. One of my Soldiers was Henry Bacon. He was one of the finest men I ever met. He was in perfect shape for a man over forty, working hard at night. He told me that he did that because he didn't have much money to buy nice things for his wife, who he loved so much, so he had to be in good shape for her. He was like a father to many young men in his section of maintenance mechanics. They fixed our vehicles with almost no support and fabricated parts and made repairs that kept our squadron rolling on the longest, fastest armor advance ever made under fire. He was so very proud of his son-in-law that married the beautiful daughter so well raised by Henry. His son-in-law was a helicopter pilot with the 1st Cavalry Division, who died last year. Henry stopped to rescue a vehicle belonging to another unit on what was to be his last day in Iraq. He could have kept rolling - he was headed to Kuwait after a year's tour. But he stopped. He could have sent others to do the work, but he was on the ground, leading by example, when he was killed. On Monday night, August 16, you took it upon yourself to go out in the country, where a peaceful group was exercising their constitutional rights, and harming no one, and you ran down the memorial cross erected for Henry and for his son-in-law by Arlington West.Mr. Northern - I know little about Cindy Sheehan except that she is a grieving mother, a gentle soul, and wants to bring harm to no one. I know little about you except that you found your way to Crawford on Monday night in August with chains and a pipe attached to your truck for the sole purpose of dishonoring a memorial erected for my friends and lost Soldiers and hundreds of others that served this nation when they were called. I find it disheartening that good men like these have died so that people like you can threaten a mother who lost a child with your actions. I hope that you are ashamed of yourself.
Perry Jefferies, First Sergeant, USA (retired)
Friday, August 12, 2005
James Kuntsler at Rock Hill
Today, the Post Star published the story (copied below) covering James Kuntsler's visit to Rock Hill, this past Tuesday. Although, I think that Maury Thompson, as always, did a pretty good job of relaying the pertinent information, I also think that the things left out (or, more likely, edited out) of the story show the full spectrum of the Post Star's political agenda. We all know there is a mayoral race on. Five candidates are running. The Post Star has already made it their job to serve as a free advertising venue for Peter McDevitt and Bud Taylor, the two Republican candidates. However, Leroy Akins, the Democratic candidate (and arguable front-runner) is being totally ignored. Esmond Lyons and Bill Berg (both running as independents) might just as well be running for Dogcatcher based on the insanely small proportion of newsprint the Post Star gives either of them. We're all used to reading the huge front page Sunday stories that chronicle the latest Peter & Bud story and then attach the tagline: "Leroy Akins, William Berg and Esmond Lyons are also running". Thats hardly balanced coverage of the race, folks! For those who don't know who Kunstler is and who didn't attend, he is an author well-known for his criticism of the car culture and the ensuing suburban sprawl and destruction of traditional and meaningful architecture in many of our nation's historic down towns("Geography of Nowhere"). Since the "Compost-Star" refuses to talk to Esmond's campaign about development issues but is quick to give Bud Taylor whatever time he deems necessary to defend his son-in-law's Sheridan Avenue "plastic housing nightmare"; Since the Post Star refused to print Esmond's letter to the editor on the subject; Since the Post Star refuses to see Peak Oil and urban planning as key issues in this campaign (when they may, in fact, be the ONLY meaningful issues); since they consistently steer the public away from any other truly substantive issues in this race, it seemed that it was time to force their hand. We decided to invite Jim to come and speak. If they won't cover Esmond, maybe they'll cover Jim, we thought and they are saying many of the same things. It'll be good food for thought. The attendance (not including employees or Jim or myself) was just about 70 people. It was standing room only and there were some people who didn't stay because they couldn't get a seat. I can only say that, given that level of interest, if the Post Star wishes to ignoring and downplaying the growth of a progressive community in Glens Falls, we will only be that much more successful at recruiting more people and at starting a new paper to compete with them out of spite. Not really a very smart way to look at things if you ask me .... but I guess they're not asking me, are they? Here's what they left out of their story. It's very telling what they saw as fit to print and what they didn't. Aaron Civic, an 11 year old fellow Green and singer/songwriter, played guitar and sang for about an hour. Although Aaron is too young to vote, I collected signatures with him last summer (so I think he's politically-engaged enough to be considered a Green). He sang covers of CCR and Dylan and the Rolling Stones (Sympathy for the Devil). He sang a wonderful tune that he himself wrote called "Driving in Circles" about how the American suburban landscape is so dreadfully uniform that it makes you think you are "driving in circles". Bravo, Aaron! Thanks for your performance. You were great! I'm just sorry the Post Star didn't have enough space to even mention your name, even in passing. Very strange and disappointing behavior on their part. The Adirondack Progressives hosted this event. They are not even mentioned in this article, once ... anywhere. Thank you fellow members, for your endless support and hard work. I, and many other members of your community recognize your efforts and love you for it even if the Post Star is too short-sighted (or mean-spirited) to value it as well. You are all great people and good friends. Just remember, they did exactly the same thing when we hosted Ralph Nader's visit to Glens Falls and when we put on a fantastic Martin Luther King Day Celebration. They literally pretended that these events happened all by themselves with no one orchestrating or planning them at all! Thank goodness for the Chronicle and its far more honest reporting of what went on at both events. If it had been anyone else doing all this work to strengthen our community, our democracy and the progressive spirit,the Post Star might have declared a day in their honor. We are destined to be ignored (by them) because we won't stand for their bias and we have "the nerve" to regularly ask them to cover things in a "fair and balanced" manner. That makes us "enemies" in their eyes, I guess, and singles us out for negative treatment. The article made absolutely no mention of the fact that Jim had eaten dinner with Esmond Lyons and his wife, Danielle, just before arriving. Jim mentioned this while onstage and then proceeded to invite Esmond to come up and share the stage with him for Q & A since development issues are such an important part of this upcoming race and of Esmond's campaign. We did not pre-arrange this. Jim generously offered this from the stage and we honestly had no idea that he was going to. I thought that Esmond was great, but, then again, I'm admittedly biased in favor of intelligent and visionary mayoral candidates over insurance and real estate salespeople every time. ;-) They also failed to mention Walter Combs who is running for his ward's city council seat and who also said some great things about development issues being ignored in this race by the media. Not to say that I care much about the Post Star giving Rock Hill free press (in fact, I refuse to post their glowing review of my cafe because the byline is "E.D. Gourmet", a non-existent "person"). We are, in actuality, one of the few food businesses downtown (like Glen Street Bistro) that doesn't seem to have to kiss-up to the Post Star to be filled right up every lunch-time. I never look to them for free publicity in any way. The community has been overwhelmingly supportive of our cafe and I thank each and every one of you for that. As a business owner, though, I just have to wonder if its really fair that if you join their business club (one I obviously don't belong to), you get a front page story with pictures in it every time you blow your nose (see: the embarrassingly boring story about coffee shops and massage last weekend or the congratulatory story about AngioDynamics dipping into our pockets by "securing" a $100,000 dollar "grant" - you would think they weren't just another corporate welfare recipient to hear Scott Donnelly tell the story). For me, their stalwart critic (or much-needed unofficial ombudsman), there is no picture, no mention, no interview. They placed a bat-eradication story on today's front page instead of Cindy Sheehan's picture to represent her brave, motherly stakeout at Bush's Crawford Ranch. There's no figuring how they determine what is actually newsworthy and what is fluff. I'm still trying to figure that out but the preferential treatment of other GF businesses is kind of obvious to me and it is not fair. Expected, but never accepted. Lastly, they left out the fact that Esmond Lyons was the only mayoral candidate to attend the event. NOT A SINGLE OTHER candidate showed up. Interesting, but again, NOT newsworthy. I would think that in a race where future development is the ONLY real issue (one that effects everything else exponentially), it is very telling that the Post Star does not want to give voice to those who wish to talk about it. Its also interesting that they don't want you to know that while one of the nation's premiere development critics was right here in downtown Glens Falls, Esmond was the only mayoral candidate who bothered to show up at all. I bet he was also the only one who actually knows who James Kunstler is. Why don't they ask all the mayoral candidates what they know about development and development issues and let them speak. Wouldn't that be informative? I'm sure when they have their little "bi-polar mayoral debate" in September (its just between the two Republican candidates), completely excluding all the others in the running, they'll ask Bud and Peter what they think. And ... won't that be enlightening?
Author offers views on Glens Falls’ future
Kunstler believes it has ‘basic armature’ of a futuristic city
By MAURY THOMPSON thompson@poststar.com
Published on 8/12/2005
GLENS FALLS -- Historic architecture, access to water, tree-lined streets and recreational trails that could be converted back to use as railroads: Glens Falls already has many of the features in author James Kunstler’s vision of a futuristic city. “The basic armature of the city is here,” he said in a talk Tuesday evening at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe. But the city is not without its defects, the most notable of which are the two office buildings at Civic Center Plaza on Warren Street, said Kunstler of Saratoga Springs, who writes books about urban planning and the environment.Downtown buildings built in Glens Falls and other cities in the 1970s and ’80s don’t fit in, he said. “They land like UFOs, but they don’t go away,” he said. The building on Warren Street that previously housed Trustco Bank is built with the first floor above ground level, requiring the use of an ugly concrete handicapped access ramp that would be unnecessary if the first floor were at the ground level, he said. Having the first floor at ground level puts shops and restaurant at eye-level with pedestrians, and entices them to come in, he said.Kunstler said that the ideal downtown building would have up to six stories, with retail on the ground floor and apartments and offices above. “Not all of the waitresses of the world are looking for single-family homes, despite what you hear on (Internet mortgage company) Ditech commercials,” he said. Kunstler also said the park at Civic Center Plaza should be planted with trees instead of “cartoon” plants. “Liking plants is not going to be enough of a solution to rescue your towns,” he said. Tree-lined streets expose neighborhoods to natural lighting when branches shed their leaves in the winter months, he said. Instead of closing Hudson Avenue, as Mayor Robert Regan and others suggested several years ago, city officials should seek to redevelop some buildings and ban some features such as chain link fences, he said. “Very bad idea,” he said, referring to closing the street that feeds the five-way intersection at Bank Square. “What the street needs is to be civilized.”More than 75 people packed into the cafe to hear Kunstler talk about his latest book, “The Long Emergency.” The book talks about changing trends that will be influenced by high oil and gas prices. “The 21st century is going to be very much more about staying where you are, not motoring about,” he said. Kunstler predicted that people will move from suburbs back into cities and small towns. “Queensbury is going to be just as troubled as the major cities nearly 40 years ago,” he said. People who live in small towns will be isolated and work on small farms, he said, with centralized school systems replaced by neighborhood schools. “We will probably be lucky 30 years from now if kids get an eighth-grade education,” he said. The Internet won’t be the economic panacea it’s cracked up to be, he predicted, because of exorbitant shipping costs and electricity shortages.Glens Falls may fare better than some cities because it has waterfalls that can generate electric power, he said. Communities along the Hudson River and state canal system may be attractive to people who travel by boat, he said. “Even places like Fort Edward and Hudson Falls will be more inhabitable,” he said. Instead of studying the feasibility of establishing high-speed rail service, government officials should be focussed on restoring conventional rail service, he said. “We have a rail system that the Bulgarian government would be ashamed of,” he said.Kunstler said that Saratoga Springs “is creeping” into the future, but that chain hotels built in recent years don’t look much different from senior citizen apartment complexes. “They both look basically like pathology labs,” he said. He praised the Saratoga Springs city Planning Board for making developers redesign a proposed Hampton Inns & Suites at the corner of Lake and High Rock avenues. “The Planning Board, for once, said, “That’s not good enough; go back to the drawing board,’” he said.Kunstler said he disagreed with some Saratoga Springs residents who are opposed to having rows of buildings on both sides of streets because it blocks scenic views. “It’s not about having a view; it’s about living on a great street,” he said.
Author offers views on Glens Falls’ future
Kunstler believes it has ‘basic armature’ of a futuristic city
By MAURY THOMPSON thompson@poststar.com
Published on 8/12/2005
GLENS FALLS -- Historic architecture, access to water, tree-lined streets and recreational trails that could be converted back to use as railroads: Glens Falls already has many of the features in author James Kunstler’s vision of a futuristic city. “The basic armature of the city is here,” he said in a talk Tuesday evening at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe. But the city is not without its defects, the most notable of which are the two office buildings at Civic Center Plaza on Warren Street, said Kunstler of Saratoga Springs, who writes books about urban planning and the environment.Downtown buildings built in Glens Falls and other cities in the 1970s and ’80s don’t fit in, he said. “They land like UFOs, but they don’t go away,” he said. The building on Warren Street that previously housed Trustco Bank is built with the first floor above ground level, requiring the use of an ugly concrete handicapped access ramp that would be unnecessary if the first floor were at the ground level, he said. Having the first floor at ground level puts shops and restaurant at eye-level with pedestrians, and entices them to come in, he said.Kunstler said that the ideal downtown building would have up to six stories, with retail on the ground floor and apartments and offices above. “Not all of the waitresses of the world are looking for single-family homes, despite what you hear on (Internet mortgage company) Ditech commercials,” he said. Kunstler also said the park at Civic Center Plaza should be planted with trees instead of “cartoon” plants. “Liking plants is not going to be enough of a solution to rescue your towns,” he said. Tree-lined streets expose neighborhoods to natural lighting when branches shed their leaves in the winter months, he said. Instead of closing Hudson Avenue, as Mayor Robert Regan and others suggested several years ago, city officials should seek to redevelop some buildings and ban some features such as chain link fences, he said. “Very bad idea,” he said, referring to closing the street that feeds the five-way intersection at Bank Square. “What the street needs is to be civilized.”More than 75 people packed into the cafe to hear Kunstler talk about his latest book, “The Long Emergency.” The book talks about changing trends that will be influenced by high oil and gas prices. “The 21st century is going to be very much more about staying where you are, not motoring about,” he said. Kunstler predicted that people will move from suburbs back into cities and small towns. “Queensbury is going to be just as troubled as the major cities nearly 40 years ago,” he said. People who live in small towns will be isolated and work on small farms, he said, with centralized school systems replaced by neighborhood schools. “We will probably be lucky 30 years from now if kids get an eighth-grade education,” he said. The Internet won’t be the economic panacea it’s cracked up to be, he predicted, because of exorbitant shipping costs and electricity shortages.Glens Falls may fare better than some cities because it has waterfalls that can generate electric power, he said. Communities along the Hudson River and state canal system may be attractive to people who travel by boat, he said. “Even places like Fort Edward and Hudson Falls will be more inhabitable,” he said. Instead of studying the feasibility of establishing high-speed rail service, government officials should be focussed on restoring conventional rail service, he said. “We have a rail system that the Bulgarian government would be ashamed of,” he said.Kunstler said that Saratoga Springs “is creeping” into the future, but that chain hotels built in recent years don’t look much different from senior citizen apartment complexes. “They both look basically like pathology labs,” he said. He praised the Saratoga Springs city Planning Board for making developers redesign a proposed Hampton Inns & Suites at the corner of Lake and High Rock avenues. “The Planning Board, for once, said, “That’s not good enough; go back to the drawing board,’” he said.Kunstler said he disagreed with some Saratoga Springs residents who are opposed to having rows of buildings on both sides of streets because it blocks scenic views. “It’s not about having a view; it’s about living on a great street,” he said.
Monday, August 8, 2005
Candidate McTaylor - The Only Mayoral Candidate in Town
The Glens Falls Post Star has once again outdone itself. This is the third weekend in a row in which they have unabashedly given huge coverage to their two favorite candidates for mayor and all but ignored the other three candidates. These two “rivals” must be paying someone “beaucoup bucks” to get this kind of placement almost daily in Metroland Magazine’s “Best daily Newspaper of 2005”!The story (posted below) is about the brochures designed by the two Republicans’ campaigns and how they are almost identical (suggesting plagiarism by one from the other). I would say the real story here is that they each hired someone else to design their brochure. One or both of the companies in question went online, found a simple template with built in rhetoric and ran with it. Undoubtedly, they then charged the campaign about 30 times what it was worth to do the work, I’m sure.Maybe the real question that the brave and intrepid Post Star should be asking is do we want people so unimaginative and visionless and wasteful to be in charge of spending our tax money when they’re elected in the fall? Does this behavior represent anything concrete besides a shared stupidity?The Post Star usually runs a story on Bud Taylor and Peter McDevitt. Then, halfway through, they run a quick sentence which goes something like this, “Esmond Lyons, William Berg and Roy Akins are also running for mayor”. Maybe, if the Post Star got its head unstuck from deep within its own posterior and actually covered the other three candidates (even a little bit), it wouldn't be a foregone conclusion that the next mayor will be yet another unimaginative, uninformed, two-party type with deep development connections and a love of the franchise and big-box concepts. Unfortunately, their heads do seem stuck pretty far up in there!
WHO'S WHO? Similar fliers by two GOP candidates make for a confusing campaign
By MAURY THOMPSON thompson@poststar.com
Published on 8/7/2005 Local News THE POST-STAR
GLENS FALLS -- Mark Behan did a double take when he saw the back of a brochure that Republican mayoral candidate Peter McDevitt began distributing last week. It looked "strikingly similar" to a brochure his staff designed in January for McDevitt's Republican opponent, Harold "Bud" Taylor, said Behan, president of Behan Communications, a local public relations firm. The layout and the graphics of the two, in fact, are almost identical, and many of the headings are the same. Even the wording under the heading "Open Government" is identical, with the exception of three words. Taylor's card reads, "Provide 24-hour response time to all inquiries and be available to residents by appointment." McDevitt's card reads, "Provide 24-hour response time to all inquires and be readily available to all residents." "It should raise questions in the mind of voters," said Behan, a consultant on Taylor's campaign. Taylor and McDevitt will face each other in a Republican primary in September. Taylor is also running a write-in campain for the conservative line against McDevitt, the Conservative Party's endorsed candidate. McDevitt, contacted Saturday, acknowledged the design of his card may have been partially based on that of Taylor's but said it was not a direct copy. He took a half-dozen different campaign brochures, including Taylor's, to a printer and asked him to come up with a design. Some were from current and some from past elections, he said. "This is what this professional came up with, and we ran with it," McDevitt said. He would not identify the printer. Obviously, some aspects in a campaign platform are going to be the same, McDevitt said. "I think we all agree on open government. That's motherhood and the flag," he said. Democratic candidate Leroy "Roy" Akins Jr.'s brochure has a similar heading, "Open Door Policy," with a photograph of him holding open the front door of City Hall. Independent candidates William Berg and Esmond Lyons also are running for mayor. Despite any similarities in appearance, there are some clear distinctions between his and Taylor's brochures, McDevitt said. His stance that the Henry Hudson Town Houses complex should be relocated and that Earth Tech Inc., the private firm that operates the city's Water and Sewer Department, should be replaced are among them."I see nothing on Bud's palm card suggesting how he's going to hold the line on taxes," McDevitt said. His brochure specifically calls for regionalizing the Glens Falls Civic Center, while Taylor's does not. McDevitt said he was the first candidate to publicly call for regionalizing the Civic Center. Taylor would not respond to McDevitt's criticism. "What he's (McDevitt) trying to do is distract from the fact that he did, indeed, copy the card," Taylor said. Behan said he was actually flattered that McDevitt liked the design his staff created. "In politics, one candidate poaching another candidate's ideas is a tradition. ... This seems to rise to a different level," he said. Victor Mallison, a former political consultant on regional and statewide elections, said he had never heard of a case where one candidate complained that another candidate co-opted campaign literature. "I'm not so sure that's even a good idea," he said. "You want to make sure there's a difference between you." Saratoga Democratic Chairman Larry Bulman also said he had never heard of a controversy over the design of brochures. Sometimes, he said, a candidate will copy a logo or design element from a previous election, but not from a direct competitor. "The only thing that I usually see that are the same is that they both have a union label," he said. In this case, of the three major party candidates, only Akins' brochure sports a union label.
WHO'S WHO? Similar fliers by two GOP candidates make for a confusing campaign
By MAURY THOMPSON thompson@poststar.com
Published on 8/7/2005 Local News THE POST-STAR
GLENS FALLS -- Mark Behan did a double take when he saw the back of a brochure that Republican mayoral candidate Peter McDevitt began distributing last week. It looked "strikingly similar" to a brochure his staff designed in January for McDevitt's Republican opponent, Harold "Bud" Taylor, said Behan, president of Behan Communications, a local public relations firm. The layout and the graphics of the two, in fact, are almost identical, and many of the headings are the same. Even the wording under the heading "Open Government" is identical, with the exception of three words. Taylor's card reads, "Provide 24-hour response time to all inquiries and be available to residents by appointment." McDevitt's card reads, "Provide 24-hour response time to all inquires and be readily available to all residents." "It should raise questions in the mind of voters," said Behan, a consultant on Taylor's campaign. Taylor and McDevitt will face each other in a Republican primary in September. Taylor is also running a write-in campain for the conservative line against McDevitt, the Conservative Party's endorsed candidate. McDevitt, contacted Saturday, acknowledged the design of his card may have been partially based on that of Taylor's but said it was not a direct copy. He took a half-dozen different campaign brochures, including Taylor's, to a printer and asked him to come up with a design. Some were from current and some from past elections, he said. "This is what this professional came up with, and we ran with it," McDevitt said. He would not identify the printer. Obviously, some aspects in a campaign platform are going to be the same, McDevitt said. "I think we all agree on open government. That's motherhood and the flag," he said. Democratic candidate Leroy "Roy" Akins Jr.'s brochure has a similar heading, "Open Door Policy," with a photograph of him holding open the front door of City Hall. Independent candidates William Berg and Esmond Lyons also are running for mayor. Despite any similarities in appearance, there are some clear distinctions between his and Taylor's brochures, McDevitt said. His stance that the Henry Hudson Town Houses complex should be relocated and that Earth Tech Inc., the private firm that operates the city's Water and Sewer Department, should be replaced are among them."I see nothing on Bud's palm card suggesting how he's going to hold the line on taxes," McDevitt said. His brochure specifically calls for regionalizing the Glens Falls Civic Center, while Taylor's does not. McDevitt said he was the first candidate to publicly call for regionalizing the Civic Center. Taylor would not respond to McDevitt's criticism. "What he's (McDevitt) trying to do is distract from the fact that he did, indeed, copy the card," Taylor said. Behan said he was actually flattered that McDevitt liked the design his staff created. "In politics, one candidate poaching another candidate's ideas is a tradition. ... This seems to rise to a different level," he said. Victor Mallison, a former political consultant on regional and statewide elections, said he had never heard of a case where one candidate complained that another candidate co-opted campaign literature. "I'm not so sure that's even a good idea," he said. "You want to make sure there's a difference between you." Saratoga Democratic Chairman Larry Bulman also said he had never heard of a controversy over the design of brochures. Sometimes, he said, a candidate will copy a logo or design element from a previous election, but not from a direct competitor. "The only thing that I usually see that are the same is that they both have a union label," he said. In this case, of the three major party candidates, only Akins' brochure sports a union label.
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Post-Star to Hold One Party Mayoral Debates
I know what you're going to say after you read the article I've posted below."What else do you expect, Matt? You were thinking maybe that a mayoral debate organized by the Post-Star would have ALL FIVE mayoral candidates in it? Come on, man! Get real! The Post-Star isn't going to go through all that work to set up a 'debate' and then give ALL of the candidates exposure. You're not really that naive, are you?"Well, when you're done with your imaginary little rant, I will defend my friends at the Post Star and their terrible and exclusionary behavior. I know many of the fine people who work at our daily paper and I am very upset at what you say about my friends there. I don't agree that they are all failed, miserable, low-down, dirty, egg-sucking dog types as you make them out to be (despite all of the completely solid evidence to the contrary). I believe that many of our friends at the paper are doing their best to work within the confines established by the paper's management and by the same token, it is obvious that Post-Star management thinks that only "Bud" Taylor and Peter McDevitt are running for mayor in our sleepy little burg.If this is our "hometown paper's" idea of a MAYORAL debate, its no wonder that many people are canceling subscriptions and talking about the need for a new paper. I talked to the reporter who wrote this and was told that he was, in essence, writing about a "primary" debate, the purpose of which is to better inform Republican (and Conservative) party voters about their choice in the September primary between "Bud" and Peter. I asked Maury why they were calling it a "MAYORAL" debate then and not a "PRIMARY" debate, instead. I also asked him why the remaining "debates" being sponsored by the PS were referred to as "forums". Are Bud and Peter scared of a real debate? Duuuhhh. You bet your a--! Of course they are! Frightened to death. Maury stuck to his guns. The "real debates" will come later, he said, after the two Republicans fight out there primary. Its truly a sad world we live in when people without any journalistic integrity (editors) make decisions for us about what they will ALLOW us to see and what they will report on. Guys! If its news, report it. Don't make up rationales and excuses for behavior that is, at best, insane and, at worst, undemocratic and unAmerican. Most of us who read the paper every day are well aware of your corporate, right-wing bias. Why be so freakin' obvious about it to boot?* As an important side note, since May 1st , the number of stories in the Post-Star per candidate is as follows;
Bud Taylor 68
Pete McDevitt 39
Esmond Lyons 22
William Berg 20
Leroy Akins 20
This is the number of stories published since May 1st in which the candidate in question is mentioned (not to be confused withe being written about or covered). It should be noted that the Democrat and the two independents running are mentioned less than a third as often as Bud Taylor and half as often as his UNI-PARTY "opponent(s)". The truth, in total, is that most stories that mention Bud or Peter are actually ABOUT them, primarily. The mention of the
other three candidates is usually just a tag which mentions that they're running tacked on to the end of the story. They are denied voice and are often neither quoted nor consulted. Enjoy your distorted, unfair, "Metroland's Best Daily Newspaper of 2005". Its great!
Mayoral Debate Planned
By MAURY THOMPSON thompson@poststar.com Published on 8/3/2005
GLENS FALLS -- The Post-Star announced Tuesday that it will sponsor a debate between mayoral candidates Harold "Bud" Taylor and Peter McDevitt from 7 to 8 p.m. Sept. 7 in the Common Council Chambers at City Hall. The two candidates will face off in a Republican Party primary on Sept. 13. Taylor also is waging a write-in challenge against McDevitt for the Conservative Party line, also on Sept. 13. The Post-Star will conduct at least one forum with all mayoral candidates sometime in October. McDevitt said Tuesday that he is pleased to debate, and suggested the candidates meet in a series of debates prior to the primary. Taylor said he would agree to up to two debates, provided they are organized by media or other neutral organizations. Under the format of the Sept. 7 Post-Star forum, candidates will answer questions prepared by Post-Star editors, as well as written questions submitted by the audience. Each candidate also will be permitted to ask the other candidate a question, and make opening and closing statements. The forum will be covered and televised by WNCE-TV8, station co-owner Jesse Jackson said Tuesday. TV8 just opened a new studio on Glen Street in downtown Glens Falls. Over the last several years, The Post-Star has hosted similar candidate forums in key area elections, including for federal, state and local offices. The newspaper plans several more candidate forums before the general election in November, including at least one for the Glens Falls mayor's race. "We think the voters benefit greatly from seeing their candidates for elected office in a public setting, answering questions and debating one another on the issues," said Mark Mahoney, The Post-Star's editorial page editor and coordinator of the newspaper's political forums. "We hope voters will turn out in large numbers, or watch the telecasts on TV8, to learn more about their candidates." During the general election mayoral candidates' forum, all candidates for mayor will be invited to participate and given an equal opportunity to answer questions. The other candidates for mayor are Leroy "Roy" Akins Jr., Democrat and Working Families; William Berg, independent; and Esmond Lyons, independent. Voters who wish to submit questions for the candidates for the Sept. 7 forum are encouraged to e-mail them to Mahoney at mahoney@poststar.com by Friday, Sept. 2. Editors will consider the submissions when preparing questions for the candidates.
Bud Taylor 68
Pete McDevitt 39
Esmond Lyons 22
William Berg 20
Leroy Akins 20
This is the number of stories published since May 1st in which the candidate in question is mentioned (not to be confused withe being written about or covered). It should be noted that the Democrat and the two independents running are mentioned less than a third as often as Bud Taylor and half as often as his UNI-PARTY "opponent(s)". The truth, in total, is that most stories that mention Bud or Peter are actually ABOUT them, primarily. The mention of the
other three candidates is usually just a tag which mentions that they're running tacked on to the end of the story. They are denied voice and are often neither quoted nor consulted. Enjoy your distorted, unfair, "Metroland's Best Daily Newspaper of 2005". Its great!
Mayoral Debate Planned
By MAURY THOMPSON thompson@poststar.com Published on 8/3/2005
GLENS FALLS -- The Post-Star announced Tuesday that it will sponsor a debate between mayoral candidates Harold "Bud" Taylor and Peter McDevitt from 7 to 8 p.m. Sept. 7 in the Common Council Chambers at City Hall. The two candidates will face off in a Republican Party primary on Sept. 13. Taylor also is waging a write-in challenge against McDevitt for the Conservative Party line, also on Sept. 13. The Post-Star will conduct at least one forum with all mayoral candidates sometime in October. McDevitt said Tuesday that he is pleased to debate, and suggested the candidates meet in a series of debates prior to the primary. Taylor said he would agree to up to two debates, provided they are organized by media or other neutral organizations. Under the format of the Sept. 7 Post-Star forum, candidates will answer questions prepared by Post-Star editors, as well as written questions submitted by the audience. Each candidate also will be permitted to ask the other candidate a question, and make opening and closing statements. The forum will be covered and televised by WNCE-TV8, station co-owner Jesse Jackson said Tuesday. TV8 just opened a new studio on Glen Street in downtown Glens Falls. Over the last several years, The Post-Star has hosted similar candidate forums in key area elections, including for federal, state and local offices. The newspaper plans several more candidate forums before the general election in November, including at least one for the Glens Falls mayor's race. "We think the voters benefit greatly from seeing their candidates for elected office in a public setting, answering questions and debating one another on the issues," said Mark Mahoney, The Post-Star's editorial page editor and coordinator of the newspaper's political forums. "We hope voters will turn out in large numbers, or watch the telecasts on TV8, to learn more about their candidates." During the general election mayoral candidates' forum, all candidates for mayor will be invited to participate and given an equal opportunity to answer questions. The other candidates for mayor are Leroy "Roy" Akins Jr., Democrat and Working Families; William Berg, independent; and Esmond Lyons, independent. Voters who wish to submit questions for the candidates for the Sept. 7 forum are encouraged to e-mail them to Mahoney at mahoney@poststar.com by Friday, Sept. 2. Editors will consider the submissions when preparing questions for the candidates.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Metroland Chooses .... The Morally Bankrupt Post-Star!
While I can't argue that the local and arts sections of our local paper can be quite good, I can certainly take great exception with Metroland staffers for voting the Glens Falls Post-Star "Best daily Newspaper of 2005" !!!!!!I'm a Post-Star subscriber, so I see the "paper", in total, every day. Unfortunately, the Post Star is not just the work of the handful of people Metroland is celebrating (arts and local).I have to wonder if this award is just some kind of kiss-ass attempt to make up with Ken Tingley because Metroland had the nerve to cover our "Molly Ivins Read-In" last year protesting Ken's overt display of Republican bias, canceling Ivins' column right smack in the middle of election season!It should also be noted that the "Best Daily Newspaper of 2005"cheerleaded the occupation of Iraq (and still does), reduced space for letters to the editor by almost 30% over last year and makes it a practice of shutting independent political candidates out of its news coverage.Which part of this did the Capital District's "progressive" news magazine think made the Post-Star the "Best"?Its strange, because Rock Hill was voted Best Bread Bakery (or Best European Bread Bakery) each year that we advertised in Metroland. We stopped advertising with them when they fired our longtime sales rep. I asked why they had fired this longtime employee and friend of ours and they never even gave me the courtesy of a response so I cancelled our advertising with them. The next year we apparently weren't even in the running for "Best of" anymore. Strange, huh? We still make the bread exactly the same way we did before ..... ;-)I can only wonder what kind of crack those wacky loonies are smoking down there now to choose such a mainstream corporate paper as their favorite? I guess the Daily Gazette doesn't advertise with them anymore, either .... (ha ha ha)* Here's the actual piece *The following "Best Of" selection was made by Metroland staff members.Best Daily Newspaper - The Post-Star (Glens Falls)The first thing you notice about The Post Star is what an appealing-looking newspaper it is, with its nice newsprint, clear, easy-to-read typeface and first-rate layout. (Hey, aesthetics are important.) Happily, The Post Star has the substance to match the packaging. They have solid coverage of local news such as the dam break in Fort Ann, and their features, like the recent series on domestic abuse, are well-researched and written. And they’re hip enough to run album reviews of stuff like Sleater-Kinney and Yo La Tengo in the arts section. A pleasure to read.
* The following letter to the editors at Metroland was written by my friend who used to work for the Post-Star, Rob Barendse.
editors-your choice of the post star as best daily newspaper is astounding. it is among among the worst rags in the country. you may like the "looks" of this rag but beauty is only skin deep. the paper is almost unamimously despised by the residents in its area for its mean-spirited, opportunistic, and close-minded coverage. with steadily dropping circulation numbers your favorite paper will eventually bury itself. big on self-congratulations and narcissism, they have cut the available space for letters, supported and continue to support the illegal war in iraq, don't give fair play or coverage to third party political candidates, print without questioning every lie this government feeds them, and routinely ignore any opposition viewpoints. i couldn't imagine a worse choice. that they may print the occasional "in-depth" series stems not from an altruistic desire to expose truth but from an opportunistic and capitalist bent to exploit whatever seems popular at the moment. they use a dart board approach in choosing their stories. i know. i used to work there. rob barendse
* The following letter to the editors at Metroland was written by my friend who used to work for the Post-Star, Rob Barendse.
editors-your choice of the post star as best daily newspaper is astounding. it is among among the worst rags in the country. you may like the "looks" of this rag but beauty is only skin deep. the paper is almost unamimously despised by the residents in its area for its mean-spirited, opportunistic, and close-minded coverage. with steadily dropping circulation numbers your favorite paper will eventually bury itself. big on self-congratulations and narcissism, they have cut the available space for letters, supported and continue to support the illegal war in iraq, don't give fair play or coverage to third party political candidates, print without questioning every lie this government feeds them, and routinely ignore any opposition viewpoints. i couldn't imagine a worse choice. that they may print the occasional "in-depth" series stems not from an altruistic desire to expose truth but from an opportunistic and capitalist bent to exploit whatever seems popular at the moment. they use a dart board approach in choosing their stories. i know. i used to work there. rob barendse
Monday, July 25, 2005
"God" of the Free Marketers, Adam Smith
Many modern "conservatives" and economists are prone to tout Adam Smith as the "God of the Free Market" especially when it comes to discussion of American capitalism and globalization. This great letter to the editor (copied below) was recently published in the Times Union and was obviously written by someone who values the REAL and COMPLETE works of Adam Smith. In many instances, Smith's works have been excerpted (or boiled-down) to help rationalize the greed and stupidity that have become almost synonymous with globalization and the unconscious investment that have become so pervasive in our society. The letter is well worth a read.These "specialists" regularly refer to Smith as a defender of the new breed of laissez-faire capitalism in which they indulge and apparently have little or no idea of what he actually espoused, as this letter clarifies. Their propagandistic and extremely limited view of Smith and his work reminds me of how we, as Americans, often treat the legacy of Martin Luther King. Doctor King understood (and had become quite active against) both poverty and the Vietnam War and all those who profited form both. He understood the connection and in his speech, "Beyond Vietnam", he helped many others to see the structural and class ills that were the primary cause of war and poverty. Then he was murdered. His legacy in the mainstream media (and in many peoples' minds) has become that of the "slain, civil rights leader". We never hear about his very clear and outspoken efforts to alert our populace to the dangers of war and systemic poverty and the interconnections he so clearly saw. I feel that this widespread "dumbing-down" of his message is akin to spitting in his face. To misrepresent his legacy by glossing over those parts that might not be as "marketable or tidy" as they deem the struggle for civil rights to have been is a travesty and those who engage in this "half-celebration" are using Martin's legacy without any real respect for the man or his work.Many "Smith-appreciators" buy and sell air for a living and exploit third-world and American workers while pretending that they serve some useful function within our society. They think that the vast accumulation and concentration of wealth which their behavior facilitates is somehow in keeping with strengthening the market in keeping with their hero's beliefs and theories. They would do well to study the REAL and COMPLETE works of Adam Smith and maybe they wouldn't be so quick to "fly the Smith flag" as they learn that he was categorically and absolutely against the concentration of wealth. I have included an excerpt from the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which, mainstream as it is, seems to encapsulate Smith's convictions in a much more honest manner than most economists and Wall Street types seem to.Enjoy the letter. Then send to your favorite "faux conservative" or "socially-unconscious" investor who will enjoy it immensely, I'm certain. ;-)
(Letter To The Editor from the Times Union)
In U.S., concentration of wealth is the enemyFirst published: Friday, July 22, 2005The dangerous concentration of wealth, the growing poverty and the erosion of our middle class are disturbing.Adam Smith's development of the theory of the free market is what is needed. He was born in a time of feudalism when the top 5 percent owned everything. He said:1. The Free Market requires that money is circulating so all members of society can have the necessities of life.2. The enemy of the Free Market is the concentration of wealth. If you have the Free Market, you can't have the concentration of wealth, it must be in circulation. They are mutually exclusive.3. He gave the Deity the name of the Invisible Hand "without which neither morality nor social order is possible."The Invisible Hand is the moral potential within each person. When that is developed, those planning the economy will not be greedy. "In this way the unsocial actions of acquisitiveness, undertaken solely for private gain, are transmitted into the social act of creating wealth that will benefit all."You can find this in the book "The Essential Adam Smith" by Robert Heilbroner. We need Adam Smith's Free Market to stop the greed, exploitation and worshipping of wealth running our country.
THE REV. DR. WALTER E. TAYLOR Saratoga Springs
(excerpted from Wikipedia)
One of the main points of The Wealth of Nations is that the free market, while appearing chaotic and unrestrained, is actually guided to produce the right amount and variety of goods by a so-called "invisible hand". If a product shortage occurs, for instance, its price rises, creating incentive for its production, and eventually curing the shortage. The increased competition among manufacturers and increased supply would also lower the price of the product to its production cost, the "natural price". Smith believed that while human motives are often selfish and greedy, the competition in the free market would tend to benefit society as a whole anyway. Nevertheless, he was wary of businessmen and argued against the formation of monopolies.Smith vigourously attacked the antiquated government restrictions which he thought were hindering industrial expansion. In fact, he attacked most forms of government interference in the economic process, including tariffs, arguing that this creates inefficiency and high prices in the long run. This theory, now referred to as "laissez-faire", influenced government legislation in later years, especially during the 19th century. However, Smith criticised a number of practices that later became associated with laissez-faire capitalism, such as the power and influence of Big Business and the emphasis on capital at the expense of labour.
(Letter To The Editor from the Times Union)
In U.S., concentration of wealth is the enemyFirst published: Friday, July 22, 2005The dangerous concentration of wealth, the growing poverty and the erosion of our middle class are disturbing.Adam Smith's development of the theory of the free market is what is needed. He was born in a time of feudalism when the top 5 percent owned everything. He said:1. The Free Market requires that money is circulating so all members of society can have the necessities of life.2. The enemy of the Free Market is the concentration of wealth. If you have the Free Market, you can't have the concentration of wealth, it must be in circulation. They are mutually exclusive.3. He gave the Deity the name of the Invisible Hand "without which neither morality nor social order is possible."The Invisible Hand is the moral potential within each person. When that is developed, those planning the economy will not be greedy. "In this way the unsocial actions of acquisitiveness, undertaken solely for private gain, are transmitted into the social act of creating wealth that will benefit all."You can find this in the book "The Essential Adam Smith" by Robert Heilbroner. We need Adam Smith's Free Market to stop the greed, exploitation and worshipping of wealth running our country.
THE REV. DR. WALTER E. TAYLOR Saratoga Springs
(excerpted from Wikipedia)
One of the main points of The Wealth of Nations is that the free market, while appearing chaotic and unrestrained, is actually guided to produce the right amount and variety of goods by a so-called "invisible hand". If a product shortage occurs, for instance, its price rises, creating incentive for its production, and eventually curing the shortage. The increased competition among manufacturers and increased supply would also lower the price of the product to its production cost, the "natural price". Smith believed that while human motives are often selfish and greedy, the competition in the free market would tend to benefit society as a whole anyway. Nevertheless, he was wary of businessmen and argued against the formation of monopolies.Smith vigourously attacked the antiquated government restrictions which he thought were hindering industrial expansion. In fact, he attacked most forms of government interference in the economic process, including tariffs, arguing that this creates inefficiency and high prices in the long run. This theory, now referred to as "laissez-faire", influenced government legislation in later years, especially during the 19th century. However, Smith criticised a number of practices that later became associated with laissez-faire capitalism, such as the power and influence of Big Business and the emphasis on capital at the expense of labour.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Local Soldier's Death Goes Unrecorded
Last week, I sent out a piece from a website called tbrnews.org.A reporter from that site claims to be in possession of a leaked Department of Defense document showing that the DoD has been under-reporting U.S. casualties and deaths. The report claims that the DoD doesn't count deaths that occur while fatally wounded soldiers are in transit to Germany (because they didn't actually die IN Iraq). It says that they are only counting deaths that occur on the ground IN Iraq. The report supposedly shows that real DoD's figures for U.S. fatalities in the Iraq theater are between 7 and 9,000 soldiers, thus far.As an example of what the author is talking about, I have posted a copy of the Post-Star's story about a local soldier, Stephen Z. Madison, below. Army Specialist First Class Madison died at Fort Riley, Kansas on June 26, 2005 from complications he suffered from severe burns received while showering IN Iraq while posted there last year. After reading the Post-Star's story, check the official website of fallen soldiers listed from the occupation of Iraq (the address is posted directly below this missive). Can you find Stephen's name? He is NOT listed. Why not?National press have done absolutely nothing to investigate this apparent under-reporting and many are already seeking to discredit the author who wrote the initial piece. Interestingly, a Vietnam vet who is a good friend of mine says that this happened all the time in Vietnam, as well. It is all very hard to prove but what better place to start than an absolutely provable example like this one? Do you think that the LOCAL press will pick this LOCAL story up? Ever wonder who's pulling the media's strings?
http://www.defendamerica.mil/fallen/oif/oif-army.html#m
Soldier’s widow says military is to blameCorinth Family seeking answers in bizarre death
By MATT LEON mleon@poststar.com
Published on 7/7/2005 Local News THE POST-STAR
The widow of Army Spc. Stephen Z. Madison, a Corinth native who was badly burned in Iraq last year, is faulting the military for her husband’s death on a Kansas Army post last week. According to Mary Madison, her husband was treated at the post hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday for an apparent bad reaction to new medicine he was given to ease the pain of the burns. Both days he was released from the hospital, and he died later on Wednesday, according to Madison, a Corinth native who was formerly Mary Walsh. She said she found her husband unconscious when she tried to wake him for dinner on Wednesday evening, and emergency responders were unable to revive him. She said she doesn’t understand why he was released from the hospital. “I blame (the military) very much because the next day, he died,” Mary Madison said in a phone interview from Fort Riley, Kan., late Tuesday evening. “If he was under observation, they would have seen something happen to his body.”Fort Riley has released no information about his death, except that foul play is not suspected. Nothing further will be released until an investigation into the matter is complete, according to post spokesman Jeffrey Coverdale. According to family members, Stephen Madison suffered third-degree burns to his torso and upper legs while showering at the base in Balad, Iraq, last September. Jamie Wooten, a close friend to Stephen and Mary Madison at Fort Riley, said it was her understanding that the showers in Iraq were spraying only cold water no matter how hot they were set, which caused soldiers to set them as hot as possible. She said Madison was unaware they had been fixed on the day he was injured, and he passed out in the shower and was scalded.Madison was on his second tour in Iraq as a helicopter mechanic with the 82nd Medical Company of the 541st Maintenance Battalion at the time. Coverdale and officials at the U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of combat forces deployed overseas, were not able to provide any official version of Madison’s Iraq injury on Wednesday. Coverdale said some information in media outlets was inaccurate, but would not be specific. The lack of information from the military has been criticized by Madison’s parents, Debra and Stephen R. Madison, who welcomed local media outlets into the family’s White Street home in Corinth on Tuesday. Mary Madison said she’s even having trouble getting answers on the post. Madison’s family said they view him as a casualty of the war in Iraq. That makes the circumstances and the lack of information surrounding his death more frustrating, according to Mary Madison. “If he died in Iraq, it would be handled a lot differently,” she said. “Because he died in his house, they’re not taking it as seriously.”A service at Fort Riley was scheduled for Wednesday. Services were also scheduled for Friday at the Densmore Funeral Home on Sherman Avenue in Corinth, and at the Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in Schuylerville on Saturday. Madison will be cremated, according to his wife. She said she and her husband were just embarking on a life together, and they planned to someday move to Boston and for him to become a forest ranger. “He is like the sweetest man ever,” Mary Madison said. “I want him to be remembered more than just being an Army guy — he had plans for the future.” She said her nights in the last week have been mostly sleepless, and expected her husband’s death would really sink in at Wednesday’s service. “I’ll be really good during the day, and then, during the night, something will click and I’ll just lose it,” she said. “Once it starts, it will be real.”
http://www.defendamerica.mil/fallen/oif/oif-army.html#m
Soldier’s widow says military is to blameCorinth Family seeking answers in bizarre death
By MATT LEON mleon@poststar.com
Published on 7/7/2005 Local News THE POST-STAR
The widow of Army Spc. Stephen Z. Madison, a Corinth native who was badly burned in Iraq last year, is faulting the military for her husband’s death on a Kansas Army post last week. According to Mary Madison, her husband was treated at the post hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday for an apparent bad reaction to new medicine he was given to ease the pain of the burns. Both days he was released from the hospital, and he died later on Wednesday, according to Madison, a Corinth native who was formerly Mary Walsh. She said she found her husband unconscious when she tried to wake him for dinner on Wednesday evening, and emergency responders were unable to revive him. She said she doesn’t understand why he was released from the hospital. “I blame (the military) very much because the next day, he died,” Mary Madison said in a phone interview from Fort Riley, Kan., late Tuesday evening. “If he was under observation, they would have seen something happen to his body.”Fort Riley has released no information about his death, except that foul play is not suspected. Nothing further will be released until an investigation into the matter is complete, according to post spokesman Jeffrey Coverdale. According to family members, Stephen Madison suffered third-degree burns to his torso and upper legs while showering at the base in Balad, Iraq, last September. Jamie Wooten, a close friend to Stephen and Mary Madison at Fort Riley, said it was her understanding that the showers in Iraq were spraying only cold water no matter how hot they were set, which caused soldiers to set them as hot as possible. She said Madison was unaware they had been fixed on the day he was injured, and he passed out in the shower and was scalded.Madison was on his second tour in Iraq as a helicopter mechanic with the 82nd Medical Company of the 541st Maintenance Battalion at the time. Coverdale and officials at the U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of combat forces deployed overseas, were not able to provide any official version of Madison’s Iraq injury on Wednesday. Coverdale said some information in media outlets was inaccurate, but would not be specific. The lack of information from the military has been criticized by Madison’s parents, Debra and Stephen R. Madison, who welcomed local media outlets into the family’s White Street home in Corinth on Tuesday. Mary Madison said she’s even having trouble getting answers on the post. Madison’s family said they view him as a casualty of the war in Iraq. That makes the circumstances and the lack of information surrounding his death more frustrating, according to Mary Madison. “If he died in Iraq, it would be handled a lot differently,” she said. “Because he died in his house, they’re not taking it as seriously.”A service at Fort Riley was scheduled for Wednesday. Services were also scheduled for Friday at the Densmore Funeral Home on Sherman Avenue in Corinth, and at the Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in Schuylerville on Saturday. Madison will be cremated, according to his wife. She said she and her husband were just embarking on a life together, and they planned to someday move to Boston and for him to become a forest ranger. “He is like the sweetest man ever,” Mary Madison said. “I want him to be remembered more than just being an Army guy — he had plans for the future.” She said her nights in the last week have been mostly sleepless, and expected her husband’s death would really sink in at Wednesday’s service. “I’ll be really good during the day, and then, during the night, something will click and I’ll just lose it,” she said. “Once it starts, it will be real.”
Thursday, July 7, 2005
Support Local Business
Dear Editor:
Yesterday, my ten year-old son needed a new bat. Unfortunately, Dick’s was the only place that had the correct size. The $80 (!) bat dented twice during its first use. The ball was regulation and I’m pretty sure that John’s not on steroids!I brought the bat and receipt back to Dick’s. The clerk said he couldn’t refund my money but would be happy to help me contact the manufacturer. “The manufacturer didn’t sell me the bat, your store did,” I said. He said, “It’s not my policy. It’s Dick’s.”I am a local businessman. I have coached both baseball and hockey. You can be sure that any future players of mine will hear the “Dick’s bat” story and get a list of all locally-owned, responsible, sports retailers from which they should buy their equipment.This experience reminds me of why it is so important to vote November 8th for a mayor who actually understands the value of keeping things local! I hope that you will all consider voting for my good friend, Esmond Lyons, the only mayoral candidate who supports small local businesses and farmers as an integral part of his platform.
Yesterday, my ten year-old son needed a new bat. Unfortunately, Dick’s was the only place that had the correct size. The $80 (!) bat dented twice during its first use. The ball was regulation and I’m pretty sure that John’s not on steroids!I brought the bat and receipt back to Dick’s. The clerk said he couldn’t refund my money but would be happy to help me contact the manufacturer. “The manufacturer didn’t sell me the bat, your store did,” I said. He said, “It’s not my policy. It’s Dick’s.”I am a local businessman. I have coached both baseball and hockey. You can be sure that any future players of mine will hear the “Dick’s bat” story and get a list of all locally-owned, responsible, sports retailers from which they should buy their equipment.This experience reminds me of why it is so important to vote November 8th for a mayor who actually understands the value of keeping things local! I hope that you will all consider voting for my good friend, Esmond Lyons, the only mayoral candidate who supports small local businesses and farmers as an integral part of his platform.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
The Casualties Of War
I'm not "endorsing" the following web column. I'm just wondering about it. It follows up on a column I sent out last week that speaks about a Department of Defense report that an independent web columnist, Brian Harring, says was leaked to him. He says he's going to "leak" it to foreign media so that it can be legally published here later without legal recourse being taken against him for making it public. He claims that the report will show that the 900 page report will show that about 7,000 soldiershave been killed in Iraq and that the Pentagon is playing "card tricks" with the real numbers.I'm not saying that he's on the up and up. I'm not asking you to believe this any more than I would ask you to trust what you read in your daily newspaper (or in the New York Times, for that matter). I am simply asking why the mainstream media hasn't picked this issue up and why they are not questioning the government about it? When will they? Next month? After the report is released elsewhere? Just before our next oil war? Tomorrow? Never?Am I romanticizing the past to think that the American media of yesteryear would have been right on this, "dogging" the authorities, trying to find out the truth on behalf of the citizenry, our soldiers and their families? Probably. But, we know that this administration can not be trusted and that the media have worked with them, lying to us about pretty much every single issue surrounding this war, so far. Is it not entirely likely that they are also lying to us about American casualties, then? I haven't heard a peep from the mainstream media about this. Have you?Some in the media may defend their silence about the government's lies saying that this DOD report and these allegations are "unsubstantiated" and that this is why the story hasn't yet seen the light of day. I can only respond by saying that, on any given day, almost anything you read in the paper is based on unsubstantiated information fed to reporters by the PR agencies that represent our "public servants". Why should we feel that this information is any more credible than anyone else's? If anything, the government has far clearer motive to lie about this war than an independent web author who will likely bring down upon himself the wrath of the entire U.S. government for telling the public what he believes to be true. Who's more suspect in this scenario?Government sources are the very LAST people on earth that the media should trust. Yet, on a daily basis, these sources are frequently the only ones that they offer (especially when the advertisement (I mean journalistic piece) in question is being used to sell war to we, the masses.WMD's, Saddam/Bin Laden/Iraq/Al Quaeda connections, terrorist cells working aggressively within the U.S. to commit further acts of "terror"? Where are all these things that the media told us were true based on unsubstantiated government sources? Why should we believe that the very government that loves war would want us to know any piece of information that might "weaken our resolve"? They lie to us every day.Isn't it the press' job to dig out the truth and confront our government officials when it appears they have lied or that they are selling agenda based on false pretext? Isn't that what media is supposed to do? Whose side are they on, exactly?
Thats definitely a rhetorical question. ;-)
Although Pentagon denies under reporting deaths, independent researcher says more than 7,000 GI's may have died in Iraqi combat.June 26, 2005 By Greg SzymanskiSome war critics say trusting the military to report an accurate GI death toll in Iraqi is like asking a mafia boss how many people he "whacked’ this year. One number, however, not in dispute is that President Bush hasn’t attended a single military funeral, something even the most cold hearted street bosses do out of respect for the families.Of course no one really knows how many gangster "hits" end up in New York’s East River, but there is growing speculation that Pentagon brass are taking a page out The Godfather Trilogy, using it as a quick refresher course on how to hide the bodies.The Pentagon denies any foul play or under reporting, a military spokesman last week placing the GI death toll in Iraq at 1,725 and 193 in Afghanistan, a figure changing daily due to increased violence.In fact, rarely a day goes by when at least one soldier isn’t killed. But the question remains exactly how many?Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said "every single death" is reported in the official figure if it is deemed to occur "in the theatre" and of a "hostile" nature. He added 366 deaths have not been added to the official list since they were considered accidental or non-hostile."If a soldier dies in the theatre of action and it is deemed hostile, then his or her death is reported," said Maj. Shavers, adding accidental and non –hostile deaths are not counted only if totally unrelated to combat. "It should be noted that if an individual dies as a result of an injury in the theatre deemed hostile within 120 days after the injury occurred, the death is counted in the official totals no matter where he dies."This means if he dies on the transport airplane or in the hospital afterwards, he or she is counted in the official death toll."But Brian Harring, an independent researcher and author preparing a book on the subject, places the military’s figures and its method of tabulating deaths in serious question.For months, Harring has been putting together a painstaking and exhaustive research project, complete with secret Department of Defense (DOD) documents, claiming the Pentagon has been "drastically under reporting deaths, injuries and desertions" in order to dispel war criticism."I have put together a comprehensive analysis of the Iraqi War from the planning stages before the war and then have broken down the actions during the war month by month. I show a chronology supported with documents…the actual death tolls are far in excess of the official ones posted by the DOD," said Harring.Harring’s accusations starting circulating this week in an update of his work at tbrnews.org, claiming he has official DOD internal casualty lists not released which reveal the true number of Iraqi deaths, both military and civilian, as well as accurate casualty and desertion numbers.Taking his lawyer’s advice, considering the present political climate and the passage of the Patriot Act, Harring decided it was safer not to publish the list in the U.S., opting to first release the damaging DOD documents overseas."Be assured that the .pdf (DOD internal) document is real, exactly as reported, but it is a huge 900-page file. As soon as it appears in the public domain overseas beyond the reach of US law, we may then legally reproduce it here in this country, and we will not hesitate to do so," said Harring about the legal complications he is encountering."When it is published, it will have a devastating effect on the political scene and will certainly reveal the total lack of credibility of anyone connected with the Bush administration."Although his research is incomplete, Harring claims figures compiled to date reveal approximately 7,000 GI deaths, 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, 26,000 GI injuries and 5,500 desertions, all far in excess of official military reports released to the public."We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFB than are reported official," said Harring. "When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources."Harring is also soliciting public help for his project, asking families or friends who have lost loved ones in Iraq to check out tbrnews.org, a site that is also publishing the complete list of Iraqi dead as released by DOD." We have posted an official and alphabetized list of the official dead. We have asked readers to advise us of any names they might be aware of that are not on this list," added Harring."Since our first posting, we have received several such omitted names, seven in the first day, and to date, June 20, 2005, 38 total, and are compiling these, along with proofs of death from the DOD, which we will post when we collect a significant number - 100 or more - which cannot be dismissed by the DOD as an oversight."However, it appears Harring’s basis for accusing the military of under reporting, at least regarding GI deaths, is in direct conflict with the official military categorization of a hostile versus non-hostile and accidental death.Maj. Shavers said the military reports all deaths if they result from hostile injuries in the theatre if the death occurs within 120 days no matter if they die en route or in the hospital.Harring contends otherwise, writing:"There are many more deaths that have not appeared on the official lists because the DOD has taken to the tricky tactics of loading dying and probable fatalities onto aircraft and flying them out of Iraq to bases and hospitals outside of that country."So, if a GI is dying or has every expectation of dying, he or she is loaded on an aircraft and their subsequent deaths are not publicly reported as "combat deaths." Of course the families or survivors are certainly notified of the death but the public is not."
Thats definitely a rhetorical question. ;-)
Although Pentagon denies under reporting deaths, independent researcher says more than 7,000 GI's may have died in Iraqi combat.June 26, 2005 By Greg SzymanskiSome war critics say trusting the military to report an accurate GI death toll in Iraqi is like asking a mafia boss how many people he "whacked’ this year. One number, however, not in dispute is that President Bush hasn’t attended a single military funeral, something even the most cold hearted street bosses do out of respect for the families.Of course no one really knows how many gangster "hits" end up in New York’s East River, but there is growing speculation that Pentagon brass are taking a page out The Godfather Trilogy, using it as a quick refresher course on how to hide the bodies.The Pentagon denies any foul play or under reporting, a military spokesman last week placing the GI death toll in Iraq at 1,725 and 193 in Afghanistan, a figure changing daily due to increased violence.In fact, rarely a day goes by when at least one soldier isn’t killed. But the question remains exactly how many?Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said "every single death" is reported in the official figure if it is deemed to occur "in the theatre" and of a "hostile" nature. He added 366 deaths have not been added to the official list since they were considered accidental or non-hostile."If a soldier dies in the theatre of action and it is deemed hostile, then his or her death is reported," said Maj. Shavers, adding accidental and non –hostile deaths are not counted only if totally unrelated to combat. "It should be noted that if an individual dies as a result of an injury in the theatre deemed hostile within 120 days after the injury occurred, the death is counted in the official totals no matter where he dies."This means if he dies on the transport airplane or in the hospital afterwards, he or she is counted in the official death toll."But Brian Harring, an independent researcher and author preparing a book on the subject, places the military’s figures and its method of tabulating deaths in serious question.For months, Harring has been putting together a painstaking and exhaustive research project, complete with secret Department of Defense (DOD) documents, claiming the Pentagon has been "drastically under reporting deaths, injuries and desertions" in order to dispel war criticism."I have put together a comprehensive analysis of the Iraqi War from the planning stages before the war and then have broken down the actions during the war month by month. I show a chronology supported with documents…the actual death tolls are far in excess of the official ones posted by the DOD," said Harring.Harring’s accusations starting circulating this week in an update of his work at tbrnews.org, claiming he has official DOD internal casualty lists not released which reveal the true number of Iraqi deaths, both military and civilian, as well as accurate casualty and desertion numbers.Taking his lawyer’s advice, considering the present political climate and the passage of the Patriot Act, Harring decided it was safer not to publish the list in the U.S., opting to first release the damaging DOD documents overseas."Be assured that the .pdf (DOD internal) document is real, exactly as reported, but it is a huge 900-page file. As soon as it appears in the public domain overseas beyond the reach of US law, we may then legally reproduce it here in this country, and we will not hesitate to do so," said Harring about the legal complications he is encountering."When it is published, it will have a devastating effect on the political scene and will certainly reveal the total lack of credibility of anyone connected with the Bush administration."Although his research is incomplete, Harring claims figures compiled to date reveal approximately 7,000 GI deaths, 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, 26,000 GI injuries and 5,500 desertions, all far in excess of official military reports released to the public."We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFB than are reported official," said Harring. "When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources."Harring is also soliciting public help for his project, asking families or friends who have lost loved ones in Iraq to check out tbrnews.org, a site that is also publishing the complete list of Iraqi dead as released by DOD." We have posted an official and alphabetized list of the official dead. We have asked readers to advise us of any names they might be aware of that are not on this list," added Harring."Since our first posting, we have received several such omitted names, seven in the first day, and to date, June 20, 2005, 38 total, and are compiling these, along with proofs of death from the DOD, which we will post when we collect a significant number - 100 or more - which cannot be dismissed by the DOD as an oversight."However, it appears Harring’s basis for accusing the military of under reporting, at least regarding GI deaths, is in direct conflict with the official military categorization of a hostile versus non-hostile and accidental death.Maj. Shavers said the military reports all deaths if they result from hostile injuries in the theatre if the death occurs within 120 days no matter if they die en route or in the hospital.Harring contends otherwise, writing:"There are many more deaths that have not appeared on the official lists because the DOD has taken to the tricky tactics of loading dying and probable fatalities onto aircraft and flying them out of Iraq to bases and hospitals outside of that country."So, if a GI is dying or has every expectation of dying, he or she is loaded on an aircraft and their subsequent deaths are not publicly reported as "combat deaths." Of course the families or survivors are certainly notified of the death but the public is not."
Friday, June 24, 2005
The "Highest" Court
It used to be that if you had a problem with the government or criminals or business interests (or most frequently, all three working together), you could take your case to the highest court in the land and ... justice would probably be served (sometimes) (maybe) (sort of). That proud record of (almost) (kind of) serving a higher public calling totally collapsed yesterday as the Supreme Court removed yet another of our (sort of)precious civil rights.You may already be aware of this story. It regards the use of eminent domain to steal property from private landowners. If so, please disregard the Salon story I've posted below. We have a similar problem, locally. There is a Burger King "restaurant" right smack in the center of downtown Glens Falls that public officials, criminals and business interests would just love to see forced out so that they can develop a convention center and hotel in its place.Now, let me stress that I am no friend of Burger King. It is a terrible worthless blight on our landscape and an awful thing to have at the center of our downtown. Nonetheless, to paraphrase Nathan Hale, I would defend their right to own that land that they bought and pay taxes on even though I hate their business, do not patronize them and feel that they are major contributors in the dumbing-down of America's palate. The "highest" court in our land has now set us all on an unbelievably frightening path regarding eminent domain with this case they have just decided in Connecticut. Now, apparently, we are going to allow any land-grabbing scum or air-salesman to take over any property they see fit for their own profit! The original language mandating "public use" was already questionable, at best. If the Supreme Court was, in fact, "high", I think it likely they may have decided this case differently (certainly in a less fascist manner). Their newest decision means that from here on in, private interests can steal any property they want simply by taking over local government. Now, wait a minute .... aren't pretty much all small town governments already under the thumb of real estate developers? What do you think happens next? Do you own property? This is absolute proof that fascism is afoot in our nation, noble experiment aside. Please don't be the last person to wake to it.Peace,MattSupreme Court rules cities may seize homesby Hope YenJune 23, 2005 Washington -- A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.The 5-4 ruling -- assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America -- was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.The case was one of six resolved by justices on Thursday. Among those still pending for the court, which next meets on Monday, is one testing the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on government property.Writing for the court's majority in Thursday's ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens said local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community. States are within their rights to pass additional laws restricting condemnations if residents are overly burdened, he said."The city has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including -- but by no means limited to -- new jobs and increased tax revenue," Stevens wrote.Stevens was joined in his opinion by other members of the court's liberal wing -- David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. The bloc typically has favored greater deference to cities, which historically have used the takings power for urban renewal projects that benefit the lower and middle class.They were joined by Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy in rejecting the conservative principle of individual property rights. Critics had feared that would allow a small group of homeowners to stymie rebuilding efforts that benefit the city through added jobs and more tax revenue for social programs."It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area," Stevens wrote.O'Connor argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers."Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."Connecticut residents involved in the lawsuit expressed dismay and pledged to keep fighting."It's a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country," said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would refuse to leave his home, even if bulldozers showed up. "I won't be going anywhere. Not my house. This is definitely not the last word."Scott Bullock, an attorney for the Institute for Justice representing the families, added: "A narrow majority of the court simply got the law wrong today and our Constitution and country will suffer as a result."At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, D-New London, a former mayor and city council member who voted in favor of eminent domain, said the decision "means a lot for New London's future."The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.
The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.
The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Putting the "Con" back in Conservative
The other day, I had quite a lengthy conversation with an acquaintance of mine. A self-professed "conservative", he wanted to share his philosophy of life with me, I think to reinforce his own, rather bizarre, world view. I, rightly, assumed, that he'd read about my activism, political and otherwise, and found it curious that I "think" so differently than he does. He hoped to "straighten me out" a little and enlighten me.I could see through the course of our little "chat" that he's one of those not-so-rare conservatives for whom the word "Republican" actually means something. He honestly believes he is part of a team. His "team" values him as a player and is grateful for his meager input andsupport. This reminded me of a guy I used to work with who would wear New York Yankees paraphrenalia everywhere he went. When the "Millionaires" lost a game he would talk about how "we lost" the game. He would be genuinely depressed as if he was the one who had struck out or made the errors. Talk about delusional!Regardless, lets call the man I was talking with, "Con". Con drives an SUV with pro-war bumper stickers on it. He stops short of displaying"W" and "God Bless America" stickers, but he's got two "Support Our Troops" ribbons and one "Power of Pride" bumper sticker. If you showed Con a "Power of Propaganda" bumper sticker, I think he would scratch his head and wonder what it was supposed to mean, exactly.Con owns several pieces of real estate. He fixes them up and then rents out the apartments to tenants. Thats arguably good honest work. No harm done. Cleaning up, regentrifying, all that. Cool. I have no problem with people trying to make things better than they were before. He gets a gold star for that. However, he also jacks up the rent once the places are fixed up so as to maximize his profit and rid himself of "questionable" tenants. Of course, its those who complain about paying higher rents who are most often found to be "questionable".Con seemed overwhemingly concerned about abstract concepts like the "moral fabric" of our country. He claimed to believe in the good old-fashioned American work ethic. His version of that ethic is a little different than mine, to be sure, but there was a mutual awareness thatintense labor by both slaves and immigrants built our country. Conbasically opined that anyone who doesn't just put his or her head down and "scrape and paint and clean" is not really a productive soul. He talked about how, in his view, there are really only two types of people; Those who DO and Those who WHINE. I said I thought that he should add at least two more groups to this somewhat narrow view; Those who are MADE TO DO and Those who choose to DO for OTHERS.He couldn't see the margin in adding those other groups and continuedon about "survival of the fittest". I asked him if he thought that he, himself, could survive on the streets or in a desert or in a third-world country, if he had to. He said that our country was built specifically to prevent that from happening. It was built on the premise that if you work hard, you will be able to survive. Americans need deal with these extremes no longer. Con doesn't feel any need to worry about those in other countries. People who actually have to suffer through life in these extremes should get together to fight their plight but, either way, its simply not his concern. To think of our own homeless or those starving in the third world is an irrelevent thought to him. He simply can not empathize. "Survival of the fittest", he said again, as if to rationalize his lack of connectedness and intense callousness.I think that this is just self-delusional propaganda white men tell each other to assuage the guilt they feel at their own greed and stupidity. I can only say that people like Con seem bizarrely deluded. They actually think that the machine (which is God, in their minds) has singled them out so as to shower them with preferential treatment. Others, apparently, aren't worthy.Conservatives have conned themselves into believing that they "succeed" solely because they are worthy. They arrogantly believe that they are better and faster and stronger and smarter than the average human being. I, on the other hand, can make a list of all of the breaks I have had since day one. I know, in this era of globalization, that we are all two paychecks away from being totally destitute. I feel grateful for the luck and the blessings bestowed upon me and mine and feel it is my duty to share any "success" I may have had with those who have not been as blessed with luck, guidance, experience or opportunity. To me, financial success has little or nothing to do with worth or effort. I have known many workers who kill themselves just to survive. I have also known many in the "upper crust" who seem to spend an awful lot of time on the golf course for people so well-compensated for their meager efforts. I can only conclude form my life experience that worthiness rarely enters the equation.Con, and those who share his worldview, want to keep it all to themselves. they rationalize their greed and self-love by repeating the mantra to themselves, "I am especially worthy. I am especially worthy."No, you are not especially worthy. In fact, you are especially unworthy! You simply can not be a good human being and lack both compassion and humility. Its an unconscious and ignorant way to live. Jesus, Ghandi and Martin Luther King are examples of good human beings. They didn't live in bubbles of arrogance and self-delusion. The problem with their worldview, admittedly, is that people have to actually see the benefit in having all human beings actually caring about each other. Con, and his ilk, apparently can't see the margin in thinking like an altruist.I left our conversation wondering how such an empty, selfish man could possibly be satisfied to live such a small, meaningless life. Then, I looked around at the society that spawned him .... and it all made perfect sense.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Did Dean Pull the Wool Over Their Eyes?
The piece below was written by Harper's publisher. It is about Howard Dean's recent "conversion" from fake, anti-war activist and Kucinich-killer to Big Money Dem capitulator. The author says that the transition has been quite a sad one to watch in that it speaks volumes about how the Democratic Party functions and who its paymasters really are.I think perhaps the saddest thing about Dean's candidacy is how so many people were convinced by this carnival barker that he was the "real deal". They all had their time wasted and he, apparently, didn't even feel a twinge of remorse at betraying them all. They all got sucked into the vacuum he created (seemingly to destroy the anti-war movement, not to represent it). They were then, unwittingly made part of the force that allowed Bush to vanquish their party in an election they could have won handily. One would have to see Dean's strange rise to the top DNC position as quite suspect given his supposedly "anti-establishment, outside the party" status, unless you believe, as I do, that he made the DNC deal with the party establishment long before the electioneering process even began, way back when the DNC was more scared of the very real peace candidate, Denis Kucinich. They needed a way to derail Kucinich and his supporters so that they could throw up their surefire-loser, pre-Hillary, sacrificial lamb candidate (John Kerry). Howard Dean was there to do their bidding and he used many progressives and well-intended, anti-war activist Democrats to make it happen. Shameless.Dean is one of the main reasons why the Dems lost in this past election. He paved the way for total victory in the primaries by causing Kucinich to lose his base of support. I think we all knew that a phony establishment Dem like Kerry never stood a chance. To paraphrase Truman, "Run a fake Republican against a real Republican and the real Republican will win every time!" When Dean quit, under very bizarre, seemingly pre-planned circumstances, as well, he left the working class with no real choice. They took one look at John "Obviously Fake" Kerry and George "I'm Pretty Direct About My Imperialist Aspirations" Bush and decided to stick with the devil they knew. Given the "choice", I'm not sure I really blame them.I've recently been listening to all the "brave" interviews and rhetoric and stances being thrown about by Alan "Anti-Third Party" Chartok (WAMC Public Radio) now that the election is over. I find this new "progressive" activity on Alan's part very interesting. To extol the virtues of Howard Zinn and Bill Moyers and Jason West now that there's no election forthcoming is questionable bravery, at best. For three years, he backs third parties and independents and progressives and gives them voice and then, in an election year, he vilifies and ignores them so that the checks keep flowing to fund his very lucrative "apple cart". Chartok and Dean are guilty of using exactly the same technique as corporate media to manipulate the public and effect corporate agenda. Raise a big fuss and say loud, semi-truthful things when you have very little to lose by doing so. When the power base takes notice and gets scared, allow them to woo you. Fully capitulate to them and curry favor until you get paid off. Become part of their machine. Disgusting, sick and sad.Hopefully, the progressives and activists who fell prey to this simple con game last year will realize the full extent of Howard's betrayal and will work with alternative parties and independents in 2008. I won't hold out much hope as I think that only about seven people really get it (but without that hope where would any of us be?).The way the Post-Star behaved during this past election as a perfect example of this phenomenon, as well. They cancelled Molly Ivins, virtually ignored all independent and third-party candidates, reduced the space devoted to public voice by over 30%, glorified and marketed the war through pro-war wire stories, published lots of pictures of flags and weaponry and ribbons and "Support Our Troops" rallies while never once showing us pictures of dead Iraqi children or marines. They did these things EVERY day, establishing a PATTERN of irresponsible (but totally purposeful) behavior which cumulatively molds public perception. Then, a few weeks before the election, in a safe state the Dems were sure to win no matter what a small upstate newspaper said or did, the Post Star "bravely" ENDORSED John Kerry for president! Now, when anyone dares accuse them of being a conservative rag (which, truth be told, they are), they can honestly respond with great indignation, "A conservative rag?! Can you be serious? The Post-Star!? We endorsed John Kerry, for Chrissakes! What are you talking about?!"Dean manipulated his supporters and the anti-war movement on this same exact level. He completely betrayed all of his supporters. Ultimately, one can rightly accuse him of supporting the occupation of Iraq and the warmongers within the Democratic party. Dean will then look back at his campaign rhetoric with indignation and say, "CAPITULATE to the warmongers and the establishment!? I was the ANTI-WAR candidate for Chrissakes!" He can say it, but that doesn't make it true.If you're a Deaniac, you probably know that I've never trusted "The Doctor" or liked him. If you know something I don't that can explain his bizarre actions or his rhetoric, please pass it along and I'll send it out to this same list. Please try to help me not loathe him for lying to you all and vilifying my honorable candidate, to boot.
Dean's Democrats Remain Pathetic
By John R. MacArthur, AlterNet.
Posted June 10, 2005.
The only thing worse than Dean's prepared platitudes is his virtual silence on the war in Iraq and the big-money corruption of electoral politics and congressional legislation.Is there anything more depressing than watching the Democratic Party lie down in front of the Bush administration's public-relations and political steamroller? The latest cave-in -- giving Bush three far-right judges in exchange for the temporary preservation of the Senate's filibuster perogative -- was enough to make me violate Jefferson's dictum against despairing of the commonwealth.My question, unfortunately, is rhetorical, for I witnessed something even more dispiriting two weeks ago, at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser and pep rally in New York. It was the sight of Howard Dean, erstwhile Democratic reformer and truth talker, talking nonsense on behalf of a party leadership that hates reform and despises the truth.As chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the lapsed physician now carries the stretcher for a party too sick even to diagnose its own organizational self-interest, much less defend the social and constitutional principles now under siege by the White House. The only thing worse than Dean's prepared platitudes, sometimes shouted, is his virtual silence on the two great issues that Democrats work so hard not to confront: the hideous, mendacious war in Iraq and the big-money corruption of electoral politics and congressional legislation.Granted, the gathering at the Essex House ballroom, on Central Park South, wasn't an ordinary public event. The several hundred attendees were mostly hard-core party faithful, aparatchiks, office holders, and office seekers, led by New York State Chair Herman "Denny" Farrell and state Senate Minority Leader David Paterson. Nor was the Dean message for party regulars exactly the one he uses for a general audience, such as that of Meet the Press last month.But it's not that different, either. And that message -- which Dean recites with numbing consistency -- is all about image, and almost not at all about substance: in short, the kind of empty phrases that Dean so effectively ridiculed during his ill-fated presidential campaign.About all that remains of the old Dean is his "You have the power!" slogan, which sounded absurd in front of this crowd, partly made up of political hacks who already know they have the power -- the power, that is, to slate candidates selected from a pool of uncontroversial yes people, who have proven their loyalty to the Democratic Party. When Dean used to bellow his famous crowd pleaser, he meant quite specifically that his supporters had the power to reclaim the Democratic Party from the cynical Clinton-trained leadership that had voted for war in Iraq and is addicted to campaign cash from corporations, lobbyists, and plutocrats. For all Dean's up-from-the-bottom Internet rhetoric, in today's Democratic Party all cash is created equal, but some cash is still more equal than other cash.It's significant that Andrew Tobias, picked as DNC treasurer in 1999 by Bill Clinton and his hotel manager, former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, remains treasurer under Dean, and introduced his new boss at the Essex House. "The doctor is in!" whooped Tobias, and so was the cash register.The doctor followed with a jumble of self-contradicting phrases, amplified with the old Dean lung power: "We are really not in the wilderness," because 48 percent of the people voted for John Kerry. (Maybe I'm naive, but I thought the election was a disaster for the Dems, given their losses in the House and Senate -- even despite Bush's scandalous inattention before 9/11 and equally scandalous lies about Saddam Hussein's weapons. And didn't Dean once call Kerry "another special-interest clone in Washington"? )"People think we should have good jobs that stay in the U.S.," Dean declared. They disapprove of Bush's "borrow and spend" fiscal policy, and pine for the good old days of Clintonian fiduciary rectitude. (Didn't Clinton ram job-exporting and trade-deficit-ballooning NAFTA and China-trade normalization through Congress, over the objections of many in his party?)"Maybe we can't win the presidency in Mississippi, [but] we have a moral obligation to win the governorship in Mississippi." (What's that mean? Why not a moral obligation to win the presidency in Mississippi, and why couldn't they win both? Wasn't Dean the guy who said, astutely, that Democrats should appeal to working-class Southerners with Confederate flags in their pickup-truck windows?)But the most remarkable thing about Dean's speech was, literally, its thoughtlessness -- now a virtue in the Dean playbook. Democrats, he said, need to take seriously the fears of "moral Republicans," instead of saying "That's ridiculous" ("Clinton would have said, 'I feel your pain' "). Pointing to his head, Dean explained how to do it: "We have to stop talking from here anymore"; then, pointing to his heart, he said, "We have to speak to them from here."As for delivering this heartfelt message, Dean said, "When we're talking to the television, we'll say it in ten seconds or less," just like the "good politician" Bush. (Wasn't the very thoughtful Dean famous for turning his campaign rallies into town meetings, with extensive question-and-answer periods? Can't a redneck tell he's being talked down to just as quickly as a New York intellectual? Does Bush's lying in 10-second sound bites make him a tactical role model for the Democrats?)I could go on -- Dean did -- but it's too sad. I asked a prominent New York Democrat standing near me why DNC Chairman Dean never denounced the Iraq occupation/bloodbath, and the politician, an old acquaintance, seemed to flinch. I promised I wouldn't quote him by name, but his reaction was worth noting: "Maybe he [Dean] should talk about Iraq. Nine American soldiers died in Iraq in the last two days. If [Al] Gore were president, can you imagine the screams from the Republicans?"All I heard from Dean was a squeak; "the mess in Iraq" was as far as he would go. Anyway, he had already thrown in the Iraq towel in April, in a speech in front of the Minnesota ACLU: "Now that we're there... we can't get out.... I hope the president is incredibly successful with his policy now."Thus is the tribune of the anti-war movement reduced to realpolitik. Thus does the crusader from the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" do the bidding of his natural enemies, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Evan Bayh -- each one pro-war and each an expert practitioner of the old-school dollars-for-favors fundraising racket.I can't believe that Howard Dean feels very good about what he's doing. I can't believe that deep down he doesn't hear the hypocrisy when he exhorts his audience, "We've got to stop talking about programs and start talking about principles."If he really means to pursue this unprincipled strategy in the name of Democratic "victory," he'd do more good back in Burlington practicing medicine.John R. MacArthur is publisher of Harper's Magazine. This article previously appeared in the Rhode Island Providence Journal.
Dean's Democrats Remain Pathetic
By John R. MacArthur, AlterNet.
Posted June 10, 2005.
The only thing worse than Dean's prepared platitudes is his virtual silence on the war in Iraq and the big-money corruption of electoral politics and congressional legislation.Is there anything more depressing than watching the Democratic Party lie down in front of the Bush administration's public-relations and political steamroller? The latest cave-in -- giving Bush three far-right judges in exchange for the temporary preservation of the Senate's filibuster perogative -- was enough to make me violate Jefferson's dictum against despairing of the commonwealth.My question, unfortunately, is rhetorical, for I witnessed something even more dispiriting two weeks ago, at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser and pep rally in New York. It was the sight of Howard Dean, erstwhile Democratic reformer and truth talker, talking nonsense on behalf of a party leadership that hates reform and despises the truth.As chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the lapsed physician now carries the stretcher for a party too sick even to diagnose its own organizational self-interest, much less defend the social and constitutional principles now under siege by the White House. The only thing worse than Dean's prepared platitudes, sometimes shouted, is his virtual silence on the two great issues that Democrats work so hard not to confront: the hideous, mendacious war in Iraq and the big-money corruption of electoral politics and congressional legislation.Granted, the gathering at the Essex House ballroom, on Central Park South, wasn't an ordinary public event. The several hundred attendees were mostly hard-core party faithful, aparatchiks, office holders, and office seekers, led by New York State Chair Herman "Denny" Farrell and state Senate Minority Leader David Paterson. Nor was the Dean message for party regulars exactly the one he uses for a general audience, such as that of Meet the Press last month.But it's not that different, either. And that message -- which Dean recites with numbing consistency -- is all about image, and almost not at all about substance: in short, the kind of empty phrases that Dean so effectively ridiculed during his ill-fated presidential campaign.About all that remains of the old Dean is his "You have the power!" slogan, which sounded absurd in front of this crowd, partly made up of political hacks who already know they have the power -- the power, that is, to slate candidates selected from a pool of uncontroversial yes people, who have proven their loyalty to the Democratic Party. When Dean used to bellow his famous crowd pleaser, he meant quite specifically that his supporters had the power to reclaim the Democratic Party from the cynical Clinton-trained leadership that had voted for war in Iraq and is addicted to campaign cash from corporations, lobbyists, and plutocrats. For all Dean's up-from-the-bottom Internet rhetoric, in today's Democratic Party all cash is created equal, but some cash is still more equal than other cash.It's significant that Andrew Tobias, picked as DNC treasurer in 1999 by Bill Clinton and his hotel manager, former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, remains treasurer under Dean, and introduced his new boss at the Essex House. "The doctor is in!" whooped Tobias, and so was the cash register.The doctor followed with a jumble of self-contradicting phrases, amplified with the old Dean lung power: "We are really not in the wilderness," because 48 percent of the people voted for John Kerry. (Maybe I'm naive, but I thought the election was a disaster for the Dems, given their losses in the House and Senate -- even despite Bush's scandalous inattention before 9/11 and equally scandalous lies about Saddam Hussein's weapons. And didn't Dean once call Kerry "another special-interest clone in Washington"? )"People think we should have good jobs that stay in the U.S.," Dean declared. They disapprove of Bush's "borrow and spend" fiscal policy, and pine for the good old days of Clintonian fiduciary rectitude. (Didn't Clinton ram job-exporting and trade-deficit-ballooning NAFTA and China-trade normalization through Congress, over the objections of many in his party?)"Maybe we can't win the presidency in Mississippi, [but] we have a moral obligation to win the governorship in Mississippi." (What's that mean? Why not a moral obligation to win the presidency in Mississippi, and why couldn't they win both? Wasn't Dean the guy who said, astutely, that Democrats should appeal to working-class Southerners with Confederate flags in their pickup-truck windows?)But the most remarkable thing about Dean's speech was, literally, its thoughtlessness -- now a virtue in the Dean playbook. Democrats, he said, need to take seriously the fears of "moral Republicans," instead of saying "That's ridiculous" ("Clinton would have said, 'I feel your pain' "). Pointing to his head, Dean explained how to do it: "We have to stop talking from here anymore"; then, pointing to his heart, he said, "We have to speak to them from here."As for delivering this heartfelt message, Dean said, "When we're talking to the television, we'll say it in ten seconds or less," just like the "good politician" Bush. (Wasn't the very thoughtful Dean famous for turning his campaign rallies into town meetings, with extensive question-and-answer periods? Can't a redneck tell he's being talked down to just as quickly as a New York intellectual? Does Bush's lying in 10-second sound bites make him a tactical role model for the Democrats?)I could go on -- Dean did -- but it's too sad. I asked a prominent New York Democrat standing near me why DNC Chairman Dean never denounced the Iraq occupation/bloodbath, and the politician, an old acquaintance, seemed to flinch. I promised I wouldn't quote him by name, but his reaction was worth noting: "Maybe he [Dean] should talk about Iraq. Nine American soldiers died in Iraq in the last two days. If [Al] Gore were president, can you imagine the screams from the Republicans?"All I heard from Dean was a squeak; "the mess in Iraq" was as far as he would go. Anyway, he had already thrown in the Iraq towel in April, in a speech in front of the Minnesota ACLU: "Now that we're there... we can't get out.... I hope the president is incredibly successful with his policy now."Thus is the tribune of the anti-war movement reduced to realpolitik. Thus does the crusader from the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" do the bidding of his natural enemies, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Evan Bayh -- each one pro-war and each an expert practitioner of the old-school dollars-for-favors fundraising racket.I can't believe that Howard Dean feels very good about what he's doing. I can't believe that deep down he doesn't hear the hypocrisy when he exhorts his audience, "We've got to stop talking about programs and start talking about principles."If he really means to pursue this unprincipled strategy in the name of Democratic "victory," he'd do more good back in Burlington practicing medicine.John R. MacArthur is publisher of Harper's Magazine. This article previously appeared in the Rhode Island Providence Journal.
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