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Vincent L. Guarisco - Those of us who feel we’re the lonely voices of logic are more important than we may ever realize, those not in-the-know will desperately need our knowledge and guidance to calm the obstinate cries of betrayal. We must be ready, and be there, for them in order to manifest and embolden a unified force that will eventually stop this tyranny. Did any of us really believe that simply understanding the matrix was enough? I certainly hope not! In fact—because we do understand the grand canard, it puts us in the point position of our pivotal platoon to act as a guiding compass to help our lost countrymen and women find their way. We must lead them off the media-induced, war-beaten, fear-mongering path propagated by the Bush regime, and steer them into safer territory, smoother waters—a “higher ground,” where trickery by fear has no magical behavior-modification power.
Sidney Blumenthal - Colin Powell’s final scene was a poignant but harsh exposure of his self-delusion and humiliation. The former general held in his head an idea of himself as sacrificing and disciplined. But the good soldier was dismissed at last by his commander-in-chief as a bad egg. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld regarded him either as a useful tool or a vain obstructionist. They deployed his reputation as the most popular man and the most credible face in the US for their own ends, and when he contributed an independent view he was isolated and undermined. As incompetent as his successor was at her actual job, she was agile at bureaucratic positioning. Early on, Condoleezza Rice figured out how to align with the neo-conservatives and to damage Powell. Her usurpation is a lesson to him in blind ambition and loyalty.
Ahmed Amr - To understand Dubya’s ‘landslide’ victory over JFK, one must be conversant with American moral values. After focusing so much attention on the quagmire in Iraq, the November surprise was that the Mess on Potamia didn’t matter. While the Democrats were busy criticizing Bush’s economic record, Karl Rove saved the day with a strategic assault by a ragtag army of evangelicals - driven by a missionary zeal to save America’s very soul. Nothing less than the moral health of the nation was at stake in this election. Domestic and foreign challenges took a back seat to a holy crusade. Concerns about wars abroad and budget deficits in Washington were just diversions to blind us from scrutinizing the devil’s work in our own back yards.
David R. Hoffman - Ladies and gentlemen, we gather here today to mourn the passing of the United States of America, a nation that once stood as a beacon light of hope for the world. America was betrayed and murdered on November 2, 2004. Also killed during this time of madness were the following virtues: truth, justice, integrity, freedom, compassion, brotherhood, tolerance, faith, hope, charity, peace, and respect for other cultures and nations. These virtues are survived by their antitheses--deceit, injustice, hypocrisy, fascism, selfishness, hatred, fear, hopelessness, greed, perpetual warfare and arrogant hegemony. As I will explain, also murdered were seven platitudes, which parents once used to convince their children that America was a rational and honorable nation.
Joseph Massad - The recent controversy elicited by the propaganda film ‘Columbia Unbecoming’ a film funded and produced by a Boston-based pro-Israel organization, is the latest salvo in a campaign of intimidation of Jewish and non-Jewish professors who criticize Israel. All those pro-Israeli propagandists who want to reduce the Jewish people to the State of Israel are the anti-Semites who want to eliminate the existing pluralism among Jews. The majority of Israel’s supporters in the United States are, in fact, not Jews but Christian fundamentalist anti-Semites who seek to convert Jews. They constitute a quarter of the American electorate and are the most powerful anti-Semitic group worldwide. The reason why the pro-Israel groups do not fight them is because these anti-Semites are pro-Israel. Therefore, it is not anti-Semitism that offends pro-Israel groups; what offends them is anti-Israel criticism.
Phil Rockstroh - As doomed as the drought-dessicated cornstalks, the lives of the sons and daughters of moonshine-makers are now decimated by crystal meth and crack cocaine. Dust squalls in the dry fields; the future burns to crack ash. The swamp has receded: Bear and bobcat are gone. Convenience stores, Wal*Mart superstores, strip malls and fast food joints choke the landscape where tenant farmers once struggled to survive. The surrounding swamplands were once astoundingly beautiful. Even strangling vines of wisteria draped their dying hosts in exquisite purple blossoms. But, in the eyes of the human inhabitants of land, the beauty was only incidental - superfluous - only a relentless drive to survive was needed. All else fell away.
David R. Hoffman - The Bill of Rights was designed by America’s founding fathers to serve as a “check-and-balance” between the government and the governed. Unfortunately, as prescient as these founders were, they resided in an agrarian culture and therefore did not foresee the impact that industrialization and the private economic sector would have on people’s ability to exercise their rights and freedoms. Fear of losing employment for advocating “unpopular” ideas, fear of censorship by a corporate-controlled media more devoted to enhancing their profits and promoting their agendas than serving the public interest, and fear of “civil law,” where monetary damages can be assessed against individuals or groups engaged in speech activities, have incessantly transformed the Bill of Rights into a litany of impotent platitudes.
Mark Curtis - The redeployment of British forces in Iraq to support a US assault on Falluja marks another stage in a creeping return to the colonial era, when popular revolts against occupation were routinely suppressed by overwhelming force. These past episodes, revealed in declassified British government files, provide numerous parallels with Iraq, and suggest a pattern of future blunders and atrocities. Those in Britain who like to regard more recent military interventions as humanitarian might dwell on those parallels as the latest phase of the Iraq war unfolds.
Russell M. Drake - Call him hypnotist-in-chief. He earned it. Among modern era statesmen, only Adolf Hitler comes close to George W. Bush’s skill level as operator of the public consciousness. Consider: After three years of terror and death at the hands of a terrorist band run by two guys hiding in caves, after a bloody, failed invasion of the wrong country in search of who knows what, after a jobs market crash matched only by the Herbert Hoover Administration, and after mismanaging huge national budget surpluses into over-the-cliff national deficits – all supported by the most outlandish lies – Bush still holds a firm grip on the minds of more than half of the people who say they’re going to vote.
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