Poor Richard's Anorak

Miami Herald

I couldn't get e-mail addresses for Dave Barry or Carl Hiaasen, but I did send e-mails to the state news desk and to Leonard Pitts, their excellent news reporter. I don't have a response yet, but I didn't really expect one until the work week begins tomorrow.

The Tampa Tribune carried an article today about the massive voter registration drive the Bush Team is putting on. They are pumping an enormous amount of money into registering Republican voters. I think the Democrats should also do a massive registration drive, in spite of the huge disparity in the campaign chests. This election is a do-or-die landmark, and it will be tragic if we have another four years of this adminstration. Mr. Bush can be defeated, but it will be a huge task.

I'm praying that katherine Harris will run for Sen. Graham's seat. She would assure a massive turnout of Democrats who haven't forgotten the 2001 theft. Gov. Bush is apparently very cool to the idea of her running, and hasn't been very forthcoming about Mel Martinez either. There are two Republicans from the Florida Legislature who are already running, and he can't afford to alienate them by supporting a seeming opportunist who didn't jump into the race until Sen. Graham announced that he would not run.

Former University Of South Florida President Betty Castor is apparently the current Democratic favorite to take Sen. Graham's seat. She has a lot of name recognition in Central Florida and is generally highly respected. She has government experience.

Another Post From Miami

Here is a post from The Canadian Union Of Public Employees, who were in Miami for the FTAA protests last week:CUPE. It is important to note the similarity of the report to that written by Naomi Klein.

An Accurate Appraisal Of Mr Cheney

Here is the Richard Cohen article that was referred to in Altercation:
Apologize?

Mooned Over Miami

Thanks to Eric Alterman at Altercation, quoted in my last post, for this link to Naomi Klein in The Guardian. This is more or less a rehash of what I wrote about last week, but she has more facts and names to detail. Eric said that her article was either alarmist, or we should be alarmed. I don't think there is much question that she is not an alarmist, but rather than being alarmed we should be aware and motivated to defend our civil liberties. I think every member of congress should be confronted with these abuses and asked to do something about it.

I'm also going to write to Dave Barry and Carl Hiassen to ask what they think of their paper's behavior in this shameful episode.

Eric Alterman: Altercation

TRUTH AND AMERICA
       
       I lost my New Yorker for a week and I didn’t finish my friend George Packer’s long article from Iraq until last night. I admit I was worried about George. He was very squishy about the war in a Remnickian sort of way. And when he got back from Iraq, we talked for a long time, outside Giants’ Stadium, and I worried some more. But I was wrong to worry. (Eds: But Eric, it says about you in today’s Times, “He’s right”. Don’t they mean “always” and “about everything?” It sure read that way to us.) Anyway, this is kind of useless because the article’s not online and you can’t buy it on the newsstand anymore unless you live in Booneyville somewhere, but it really is a brilliantly written and reported piece in which Packer allows the evidence to speak for itself and take him where it needs to go.
       
       Seriously, I really do wish I had been wrong about Iraq and Wolfowitz had been right, but alas, I’ve never been so right about anything in my life. And as Richard Cohen, another wishy-washy war supporter admits today, it may be one of the worst offenses ever committed against this nation by any American president, including the elected ones.
       
       Quote of the day: “I love my country and I love the truth and I always thought the best thing about being an American is that you don’t have to choose.” Richard Cohen, see above.

Eric is usually right, and in this instance he certainly is.

Miami Repression With Iraq Reconstruction Money

It now seems clear that the Miami Police perpetrated a planned military action during the protests at the FTAA meetings in Miami last week which resulted in false arrests, violence, and deliberate entrapment of demonstrators. It also seems that 8 1/2 Million dollars out of the 87 Billion designated for Iraq reconstruction was given to Miami to crush the protests. How did they get that money?

The demonstrators were obviously used as victims in this charade. There are many accounts of people who were arrested for doing nothing more than standing in the street. A 70-year-old retired airline pilot was arrested, handcuffed for seven hours, and he had done nothing more than to attempt to attend an AFL rally which had been permitted.

Jeb Bush wants the FTAA ministerial in Miami. How did they justify using the 8 1/2 million dollars? They knew they had to arrest some people to demonstrate that the money was justified. The demonstrators were the victims of planned altercations from the police. Chief Timoney, formerly of Philadelphia, is going to become a controversial figure, as he obviously orchestrated this nasty business for the powers behind the money.

The United Steel Workers Of America are demanding an investigation from Congress. They are also calling for the firing of Timoney.

When the full story of this debacle is uncovered I think we will see that that Gov. Bush worked in collusion with the Feds to crush the demonstrators as an example and a justification. The demonstrators did not provoke the police. The police attacked the demonstrators. Keep an eye on this repression of first amendment rights with your tax money.

The Miami Herald has some explaining to do about the embedded reporters wearing police T-shirts, helmets, and riding police bicycles with Timoney during the charade. Is this a free country or is this an occupied country? Embedded reporters, Iraq reconstruction money, gubernatorial and federal pressure to crush deonstrations all adds up to stinking police state repression, pure and simple.

Sad Days Remembered

Forty years ago today I was enjoying a day with friends at Florida State University in Tallahassee. I had several hours free between classes with no obligations. We had been for a drive after lunch, stopping for a while to watch a baseball game near Florida A & M University.

I had returned to the university and was on the top floor of the music building when someone rushed in and told us that the president had been shot. I had a lesson just after that, and I recall my teacher bemoaning that "this is what you get when you don't have capital punishment." Even at the time it seemed a superficial, irrelevant reaction to the event.

It was announced that President Kennedy had died. A pianist friend from Atlanta who was the accompanist for the mens's glee club asked me to turn pages during a dress rehearsal in the recital hall. The members of the chorus did not know President Kennedy had died, as the information broke after the rehearsal began. I was on the verge of tears as the choir began to sing The Song Of Democracy by Howard Hanson, set to text of Walt Whitman: "Sail! Sail on, ship of democracy. Of value is your freight." That is one of the strong musical associations I have with that awful day and that sad event. I still get goose bumps when I hear that piece performed.

Later that week the Choral Union performed the Mozart Requiem, but the musical associations which haunt me the most are the Brahms Requiem, which was played on television almost constantly, the slow drum cadence of the Army Band marching to Arlington Cemetery, and The Navy Hymn (Eternal Father, Strong To Save), played at graveside, and Army Band bugler Keith Clark playing taps.

A couple of years later, during my first year in the Army Band, I had the privilege of meeting Keith Clark who was one of the nicest, most dignified men I have met. It was also in that year that I performed early on a rainy day in Arlington Cemetery what was essentially a second funeral for President Kennedy. We stood in front of the Custis Lee Mansion, overlooking the site of what had become the final resting place of the president and the eternal flame. The president's casket had been moved during the night from the original burial site around the hill to the the memorial site. That had taken place under the strictest secrecy.

I had known that President Johnson was travelling to Hawaii to meet with Premier Ky of Viet Nam, and when we were instructed to report to the bandroom at 0500 hours and not to tell anyone I assumed we were to play a departure ceremony for President Johnson, but we were told of the ceremony in the cemetery when we arrived at the bandroom at 5:00 am. Two hours later at graveside below us, dressed all in black, were the entire Kennedy Family, Dean Rusk, Cardinal Cushing, Speaker of The House Robert McCormack, and several close friends of the Kennedy family. We waited for about half an hour in the rain, and finally President Johnson and Mrs. Johnson arrived.

I knew that Bobby Kennedy and President Johnson had clashed at the White House recently, as it had been recounted in Time Magazine. Reportedly President Johnson had said to Kennedy, "Get off my back about this Viet Nam thing or I'll ruin you politically."

Kennedy was said to have stood up to walk out, and replied, "I don't have to sit here and take this kind of shit from you."

It was with that knowledge that I observed President Johnson joining Bobby Kennedy at the foot of the grave, where the two of them stood together. Bobby had been pacing alone next to the grave, bareheaded and without umbrella while waiting for the president. The president gave Jackie a kiss on the cheek, which I know was not welcome. The personal dynamics of the occasion were complex, but the deep meaning of the ceremony was simple and profound.

The ceremony began and we played The Boys Of Wexford, an Irish traditional tune associated with Kennedy's Irish heritage, and The Navy Hymn. I was deeply moved, and the image of that graveside ceremony that dark morning in Arlington remains engraved in my memory. I had loved President Kennedy, and his assasination had shaken me deeply. In a small way that day helped me make peace with the heart break.

Various

The state visit of Mr. Bush to England is in progress, and he is getting the protests which he so richly deserves. I keep telling myself that the protestors are not really anit-US, but anti-Mr. Bush, and most polls there bear that out. Of course, the British fear the excessive power of the US across the world just as the French and most Europeans, but I think they still see the US as a force for good in the world. As for Mr. Bush--that is another story altogether.

I lay the blame for the lack of knowledge in this country of the corruption in this administration at the feet of the major media, who have gone completely asleep since crucifying Mr. Clinton. The contrast in the aggressiveness and determination of the media during the two adminstrations is sickening. Anyone who defended the concentration of media into fewer corporate hands has to be ashamed of themselves.

A good example is the corrupt Cheney/Bush energy bill which is being pushed through Congress right now. It is a bill handwritten by people such as Ken Lay, but it will pass because of bribes to farmers, and other pork giveaways to sweeten the big crime. Does the public know what is in the bill? No. Whose responsibility is it to inform the public of the content of such criminal legislation? We know more about Britney and Ben than we do about the most important legislation. We have been neutered by trivia and glitter.

The Medicare legislation is yet another step in the dismantling of The New Deal, but it is being done in stealth fashion and won't be obvious until it is too late. The devil is in the details down the road a year or two. Are those details even mentioned in the major media? No. So, when Ted Kennedy opposes the legislation the public doesn't know WHY!

Mr. Jeb Bush and his handpicked Council Of One Hundred are quietly working away to arrange things so they can steal water from North Florida and send it to all their developer buddies in South Florida. Keep an eye on this one, as it is a bellweather for water rights nationwide. I don't think the communities and counties in North Florida are going to cave in to the developers and give away their water. It will have to be stolen from them, and that is what the Council Of One Hundred is all about--shades of Chinatown, but worse because of the scale of the theft.

As expected, Mr. Romney is trying to make political hay out of the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that overturned the ban on gay marriage rights. The Republicans will try to use this against Mr. Dean as well, as he signed the domestic partner legislation in Vermont.

On The Charlie Rose Show last night Gore Vidal was pretty amazing. He reined in some of his contentiousness, but retained his scathing opinions and descriptions of the corruption and venality of the current administration. Rose was a bit taken aback at the description of how many of Mr. Bush's chief advisors and cabinet members are former oil company exectutives. He said he would have to take Vidal's word for the fact that Ms. Rice is a former Texaco board member. Mr. Vidal's description of Mr. Bush and Father is somewhat like that of Jim Hightower's, which is that they are nothing but affable front men for the thieves.

London Calling

Tomorrow's state visit by Mr. Bush to London will be most interesting to watch. It seems that the expectations are so low that almost anything positive to come of the visit will be viewed as a success.

I am still amazed by how few Americans have any idea of the way our country is perceived in Europe. The perception of this president is abysmal across most of Europe, and he hasn't done much lately to alleviate that impression. It isn't just the war, but the Kyoto Accords, steel tariffs, environmental policies, etc.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair will have to walk a tightwire to avoid stepping wrong this week. Mr. Blair can't afford to be seen as Mr. Bush's poodle, and Mr. Bush can't afford to make any of his notoriously awkward comments. Londoners are already miffed over the demands of Mr. Bush's handlers that the underground not run while he is nearby, and that the protestors be kept at a far remove from the routes of travel. Not surprisingly, there will be no address to Parliament! After the heckling in Australia, that was ruled out.

I will be checking the BBC News service tonight, as I don't expect the networks here to cover this visit in an informative or honest way.