Voices of Reason

Voices of reason speak out.

On leadership...

Never before in our country's history have both the president and Congress been so out of touch with most Americans. Never before have so few of our elected officials and corporate leaders been less willing to commit to the national interest. And never before has our nation's largest constituent group -- some 200 million middle-class Americans -- been without representation in our nation's capital.
Lou Dobbs, CNN

On Iraq...

The [Iraq] war, and the failure to establish order that led to the barbarism that's driving Iraqis away, can't be laid solely on the neocons' doorstep, of course. These second-generation neos needed a trio of arrogant, onetime CEOs -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld -- to actualize their vision. But actualize it they did, and the ideologues whose forebears once argued that the drugged-out Bronx was a monument to liberal folly have now made blood-drenched and depopulating Baghdad the monument to their own neocon obsessions.
Harold Meyerson, Washington Post

On the media...

More important than profit is the mainstream media ownership's interest in preserving the dominance of the corporation over the individual. Starting in the 1950's, post World War II America entered into a period of mass consumption and consumerism that has moved us into a dark period of unparallelled avarice and obsession with materialism. The corporate owners of mass media utilize both mainstream news, and its accompanying advertising, to entice Americans to buy things they do not need and to create an image of who a person "should be" if they want to attain success (i.e. thin, straight, tough, beautiful, young, wealthy). Through the medium of television, corporations have a captive audience to mass market their goods and services to people who neither want or need them, but buy them because they are psychologically manipulated into doing so (think Saturday morning cartoons and toy commercials). Reaching millions of receptive minds at once, the corporate puppeteers have learned to perpetuate the paradigm of white male patriarchy and blind patriotism. The power of television, print and advertising enables the wealthy elite to perpetually employ a variety of propaganda tactics to maintain their hold on most of the wealth and power in our society.
Jason Miller, ZNet

An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy — or worse.
Bill Moyers, Free Press

On energy...

If we want to do something about gas prices, we should demand greatly reduced welfare and military spending, a balanced budget, and fewer regulations that interfere with the market development of alternative fuels. All subsidies and special benefits to energy companies should be ended. We also should demand a return to a sound commodity monetary system.
Ron Paul, Congressman, US Representative

On CIA war crimes...

European Parliament investigator Giovanni Fava and his committee come to Washington this month. He has some additional questions for Bush administration officials, members of Congress, and human rights groups here about the renditions around Europe. Also among those inquiries are other possible CIA crimes, including torture, in the CIA's secret prisons.

My suggestion to Tim Russert of Meet the Press and others who preside over Sunday morning programs that profess to get inside the news is that they invite Giovanni Fava—either in person or from wherever he is in Europe—to present his documented evidence on CIA renditions in a debate with obstructionist senator Pat Roberts, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who keeps blocking any investigations of those who have been tortured with the complicity of the CIA and, at the top of the command, the president.
Nat Hentoff, Village Voice

On Zionism and the danger to Israel...

The ugly reality is that 'Jewish lobby groups' are much more accurately described as 'Zionist lobby groups', and Zionism today poses the biggest existential threat to Jews since Nazi Germany.
...
The really alarming aspect all of this is that these 'Zionists' seem to realize, but not care, that needlessly igniting a war with 80 million Iranians and hundreds of millions more sympathetic Arabs in the Middle East is very obviously the real existential threat to Jews in Israel. All of which leads us inexorably to the conclusion that Zionist collaboration with the Nazis during WW II was the first phase of a decades-long two-part plan to shepherd the Jewish people into a position where Hitler's final solution could finally be accomplished. If Zionist entities masquerading as Jewish groups are permitted to continue to spread lies and propaganda that seem destined to turn the Middle East into a glass parking lot, while at the same time urging the world's Jews to migrate to Israel, the day of the "final solution to the Jewish problem" will continue to draw ominously every closer.
Joe Quinn, Sign of the Times

Tagged: Current Affairs, News, News and Politics, Opinion, Politics.

Missing Pentagon Video

Found at last!

This is what the missing Pentagon video footage should have looked like...

Tagged: Current Affairs, News, News and Politics, Opinion, Politics.

Pentagon Video Silence

The request from Judicial Watch for release of additional footage of Flight 77's crash into the Pentagon was finally fulfilled. And, much to my dismay, was met with ... silence.

Does anyone else think it odd the revelation of this long-withheld video segment would be met with no media attention? There is nothing to be found on any of the major news web sites: CNN, Fox News, Washington Post, New York Times, MSNBC, or Wall Street Journal.

One would think the smoking gun would be blatantly obvious since the video has been kept out of public reach for over four years. But, neither a smoking gun nor obvious it is.

What has become obvious is the lack of proof that what hit the Pentagon was a commercial airliner!

There is nothing resembling a large, commercial airplane anywhere in the few frames of significance. Although, a huge clue surfaces when one freezes the frame where the white object begins to come into view....

Whatever the object is, it is coming in very low and fast. So low, in fact, that if it were a Boeing 757, one would expect such a large, unmaneuverable plane to smash into the ground before hitting the Pentagon.

Perhaps this is the video they are looking for????

One of the Signs of the Times editors, Joe Quinn, sums it up ...

At this stage, absent any new future video from the DOD, the U.S. government's "evidence" that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon consists of:

the "nose cone" frame

the white smoke trail or "blob" frame

the explosion at the Pentagon frames.

Convincing stuff, eh? This evidence is all the more suspect given the fact that the FBI confiscated tapes from at least two other video cameras in the area that would surely provide a more complete picture, but they refuse to release them.

The release of the DOD video footage comes at a very interesting time. Some readers may be aware that the pre-eminent Cannes film festival is just starting. Fewer however will be aware that the "Pentagon Strike" Flash animation is being shown at this year's festival. While we are not paranoid per se, we couldn't help but feel it was a little strange that the DOD would release their videos on the very day that our team set off to Cannes to promote the Pentagon strike flash. If we were "paranoid", we might say that the release of these videos is an attempt at pre-emptive damage control over potential exposure at Cannes. Of course, it will also simply help to raise the profile of all things 'Pentagonian', which can only help our team in Cannes.

Too bad anyone questioning the veracity of the Flight77-hitting-the-Pentagon theory, since that is what it is pending conclusive proof, will likely be labeled a conspiracy theorist. Another attempt to sweep under the rug the demands from those with very valid doubt of what is offered as proof, similarly to how those disputing the lone gunman theory of the John F Kennedy assassination were/are treated.

Today's conspiracies will become tomorrow's (hopefully) revelations.

Tagged: Current Affairs, News, News and Politics, Opinion, Politics.

Lob the Lobbying Bill Out the Window

Today's Washington Post editorial is dead on. The lobbying reform bill about to be brought before the House today is nothing but a joke. It is a feeble attempt to disguise inaction and, thanks to parenthood, I have my share of experiences with feeble attempts at deception from which to draw my conclusion.

House members should reject the diluted snake oil that Mr. Dreier and the GOP leadership are peddling as bold reform. Their bill, which is expected to come before the House for a vote today, is an insult to voters who the GOP apparently believes are dumb enough to be snookered by this feint. The procedures under which it is to be debated, allowing only meaningless amendments to be considered, are an insult also -- to the democratic process.
Source: Washington Post

Here's a catch to the above, to be insulted one has to be aware of the what is happening, to be paying attention. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans are not paying attention due to decades of dumbing down.

Democrats tempted to vote for this sham because they're scared of 30-second ads that accuse them of opposing lobbying reform ought to ask themselves whether they really think so little of their constituents. As for Republicans willing to settle for this legislative fig leaf, they ought to listen to Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.). "I happen to believe we are losing our moral authority to lead this place," Mr. Shays said on the House floor last week. He was generous not to have put that in the past tense.
Source: Washington Post

Generous indeed. If there is any moral authority remaining in Congress, it is well-concealed. Very few members of Congress speak openly of the sad state of our country and, when they do, know well the high political price they will pay. These same individuals who speak at their own political peril should be concerned about the successful abuse of their position on these 30-second negative ads. Americans nowadays can't handle more than a few seconds of information, the ads making the most appearances will likely be the ones whose messages will be taken as fact.

Yesterday, the CNN Politics page carried a piece by Molly Ivins which made me chuckle. I like Molly. She is down-to-earth and smart. Here's the opening...

Either the so-called "lobby reform bill" is the contemptible, cheesy, shoddy piece of hypocrisy it appears to be ... or the Republicans have a sense of humor.

The "lobby reform" bill does show, one could argue, a sort of cheerful, defiant, flipping-the-bird-at-the-public attitude that could pass for humor. You have to admit that calling this an "ethics bill' requires brass bravura.
Molly Ivins

and here's getting to the heart of the matter...

Come on, people, get mad. You deserve to be treated with contempt if you let them get away with this.

I'm sorry that all these procedural votes seem so picayune, and I know the cost of gas and health insurance are more immediate worries. But it is precisely the corruption of Congress by big money that allows the oil and insurance industries to get away with these fantastic rip-offs.

And therein lies the problem. Nobody seems to give a flip.

Why is no one screaming to get all these other issues under control. The same issues costing the average American additional hard-earned dollars.

Alright, so someone wants to focus on lobby reform as a start. Ladies and gentlemen of the United States Congress, you want to tackle lobby reform? Start with a committee to investigate the Israel lobby.

Tagged: Current Affairs, News, News and Politics, Opinion, Politics.