Hi. I'm having a sense of lots of chickens coming home and the sane section of the undecided and unfirm will make the right choice this weekend. The Bin Ladin video tops it off 14 ways, but the sheer instability of the Bush forces and what they've wrought has to be seriously affecting the non-fanatic. I think they'll take a chance even with the semi-unknown, Kerry. It couldn't get any worse. Ed
NY Times OP-Ed Columnist: White House of Horrors October 28, 2004 By MAUREEN DOWD Dick Cheney peaked too soon. We've still got a few days left until Halloween. It was scary enough when we thought the vice president had created his own reality for spin purposes. But if he actually believes that Iraq is "a remarkable success story,'' it's downright spooky. He's already got his persona for Sunday: he's the mad scientist in the haunted mansion, fiddling with test tubes to force the world to conform to his twisted vision. After 9/11, Mr. Cheney swirled his big black cape and hunkered down in his undisclosed dungeon, reading books about smallpox and plague and worst-case terrorist scenarios. His ghoulish imagination ran wild, and he dragged the untested president and jittery country into his house of horrors, painting a gory picture of how Iraq could let fearsome munitions fall into the hands of evildoers. He yanked America into war to preclude that chilling bloodbath. But in a spine-tingling switch, the administration's misbegotten invasion of Iraq has let fearsome munitions fall into the hands of evildoers. It's also forged the links between Al Qaeda and the Sunni Baathists that Mr. Cheney and his crazy-eyed Igors at the Pentagon had fantasized about to justify their hunger to remake the Middle East. It's often seen in scary movies: you play God to create something in your own image, and the monster you make ends up coming after you. Determined to throw a good scare into the Arab world, the vice president ended up scaring up the swarm of jihadist evil spirits he had conjured, like the overreaching sorcerer in "Fantasia." The Pentagon bungled the occupation so badly, it caused the insurgency to grow like the Blob. Just as Catherine Deneuve had bizarre hallucinations in the horror classic "Repulsion,'' Mr. Cheney and the neocons were in a deranged ideological psychosis, obsessing about imaginary weapons while allowing enemies to spirit the real ones away. The officials charged with protecting us set off so many false alarms that they ignored all the real ones. President Bush is like one of the blissfully ignorant teenagers in "Friday the 13th'' movies, spouting slogans like "Freedom is on the march'' while Freddy Krueger is in the closet, ready to claw his skin off. Mr. Bush ignored his own experts' warnings that Osama bin Laden planned to attack inside the U.S., that an invasion of Iraq could create a toxic partnership between outside terrorists and Baathists and create sympathy for them across the Islamic world, that Donald Rumsfeld was planning a war and occupation without enough troops, that Saddam's aluminum tubes were not for nuclear purposes, that U.S. troops should safeguard 380 tons of sealed explosives that could bring down planes and buildings, and that, after the invasion, Iraq could erupt into civil war. And, of course, the president ignored Colin Powell's Pottery Barn warning: if you break it, you own it. Their Iraqi puppet, Ayad Allawi, turned on Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush this week, in a scene right out of "Chucky.'' Mr. Allawi accused coalition forces of "major negligence'' for not protecting the unarmed Iraqi National Guard trainees who were slaughtered by insurgents wearing Iraqi police uniforms. Iraqi recruits are getting killed so fast we can't even pretend that we're going to turn the country over to them. If you really want to be chilled to the bone this Halloween, listen to what Peter W. Galbraith, a former diplomat who helped advance the case for an Iraq invasion at the request of Paul Wolfowitz, said in a column yesterday in The Boston Globe. He said he'd told Mr. Wolfowitz about "the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion, the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad, the devastation of Iraq's cultural heritage, the anger of ordinary Iraqis who couldn't understand why the world's only superpower was letting this happen.'' He told Mr. Wolfowitz that mobs were looting Iraqi labs of live H.I.V. and black fever viruses and making off with barrels of yellowcake. "Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites,'' he said. In his column, Mr. Galbraith said weapons looted from the arms site called Al Qaqaa might have wound up in Iran, which could obviously use them to pursue nuclear weapons. In April 2003 in Baghdad, he said, he told a young U.S. lieutenant stationed across the street that H.I.V. and black fever viruses had just been looted. The soldier had been devastated and said, "I hope I'm not responsible for Armageddon.'' Too bad that never occurred to Dr. Cheneystein. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/opinion/28dowd.html?ex=1100093582&ei=1&; en=fd643ff85e21db6a *** [To view the Mosh video online, go to the Guerrilla News Network site: http://www.gnn.tv/content/eminem_mosh.html -- moderator] Eminem, Anti-Hero By Davina Baum, AlterNet Posted on October 29, 2004, Printed on October 29, 2004 AlterNet <http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/20345/> There was merely a ripple in the cultural zeitgeist when Bruce Springsteen put aside his genial nonpartisan everyman stance and headlined the Vote for Change concerts, benefiting America Coming Together (ACT), and ultimately, John Kerry. No one blinked when Ani diFranco set off on her own tour, boldly titled Vote Dammit. Same with Moby, who has worn his politics on his sleeve from day one. And no eyebrows were raised when P. Diddy, in typical Diddy style, came out big and loud with his Vote or Die campaign ... which as usual seemed to be more about Diddy than anything else. But Eminem ... the man who George Bush once called "the most dangerous threat to American children since polio" .. could be the true October surprise. Eminem is one of the least likely artists to come out with an overtly political message and a rallying call to youth, yet eight days before the election Eminem released "Mosh," the second single from his forthcoming album "Encore," scheduled for release on Nov. 6. Solidly established as an anti-hero, reveling in the fact that his words and actions ... pulling a gun on his ex-wife's boyfriend, rapping about "fags" and then making nice with Elton John or mooning fans at the MTV Video Music Awards ... were not to be followed, analyzed, or mimicked, Eminem seemed content to remain the angry young man with a wicked flow, biting lyrics and astronomical record sales. Instead, he releases a rousing call to arms for the hip hop generation to take back the government that seeks to represent them. He even proclaims himself their leader. Surprise indeed. With "Mosh," Eminem ... the most polarizing musician of our times ... takes on the most polarizing election of our times. In the video, Eminem leads a mob fired up and politicized by four years of outrage and anger at the Bush administration. Clad in black hoodies, fists raised, the angry young men and women descend on a state building ... to vote. Chunky black-and-white illustrated figures on a moody, sepia-toned landscape play out the frustration and angst of a generation. One young Iraq veteran returns home, to be met by his wife and children and a notice of reassignment; "Fuck Bush" is the accompanying lyric he spits out. Then he dons a black hoodie and joins the mob. A single mother comes home, groceries in hand, and opens an eviction notice while news of a tax cut for the rich plays on the television ... she dons a black hoodie and joins the mob. Eminem leads the crowd, providing "spark" to the chorus: "Come along follow me as I lead through the darkness As I provide just enough spark that we need to proceed Carry on, give me hope, give me strength Come with me and I won't steer you wrong Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog To the light at the end of the tunnel We gonna fight, we gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march Through the swamp, we gonna mosh through the marsh Take us right through the doors (c'mon)" The video was produced, directed and edited by Ian Inaba of the Guerilla News Network, who didn't necessarily have Eminem in mind when he came up with the concept. Inaba, also a contributor to GNN's new book "True Lies" (The Penguin Group, 2004), concurs that the song and the video have altered the left's perception of one of its favorite whipping boys: "People who have been critical are now saying positive things about him," Inaba tells AlterNet. "I think he's matured a lot as an artist and he's a very hard working and intelligent artist. And I think this song and his effort is showing people that." This sea change in public perception occurred in less than five days. The video was finished on Monday, Oct. 25, and posted at gnn.tv on the same day. After rumors that MTV would refuse to air it, the video appeared on Total Request Live on Tuesday; it's currently No. 1 on the charts. So Inaba and Eminem were a fortuitous pairing. The video was first a concept in search of a song, but when Inaba, who had worked with Eminem on his last album, heard the song, he felt it was the perfect fit. "I wanted to do a voting video," he says. "[We were] trying to come out with it right before the election ... hopefully a little earlier than we ultimately did." Inaba shopped it around to record labels, landing at Interscope, looking to see who among the label's artists would be releasing an album near the election. "The video's content was pretty well established in my head when I went to his management so we were both kind of surprised when I heard the song. You know it couldn't have been a better song," says Inaba. "Mosh" couldn't have fit better with the concept, and Inaba considers Eminem's nation of listeners a powerful bloc who otherwise wouldn't have heard the message: "We heard the song, we knew it was gonna have the reach, you know we could have gone with other artists, but he's got reach into swing states, into middle America, and that's, you know, a powerful thing." Think of it as the Michael Moore effect on an Xbox. Indeed, in a nation where undecided-voter frenzy has reached a fever pitch, the hip hop generation has been a favorite target. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 26.7 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 24, and only 8.6 million of them ... about 32 percent ... voted in the 2000 presidential elections, meaning two of every three did not vote. Reactions to the video have been dramatic. Moby, whose history with Eminem is stained with vitriol, has been effusive: "Wow, you know that Eminem and I have had our differences in the past, but this video is the best thing that I've seen all year. It's an amazing song and an even more amazing video. Please go watch." The "differences" that Moby blithely refers to include a call-out in Eminem's 2002 release "Without Me": "You 36- year-old boy fag, blow me/ You don't know me, you're too old, let go/ It's over, nobody listens to techno." Inaba thinks the response has been amazing ... and if the goal is getting out the vote, he believes that the video is a success: "We've gotten a lot of responses on message boards, on blog sites, things like that; kids saying, 'I wasn't gonna vote and I saw this video and it's really transformative and I'm now gonna go out and vote.'" Naturally, the hip hop generation is watching, and talking. On MTV.com's "You Tell Us" feature, reactions are strong. Kyle, a 22-year-old from Ithaca, N.Y. says: "Not since Chuck D has a hip hop artist spoken so eloquently of the power in numbers. If we stand up as a bloc and vote, both the president and the senator will have no choice but to listen." Nineteen-year-old Kelley from Apple Valley, Minn. has a different take: "I am completely appalled by Eminem's 'Mosh' video. He may have his own opinions about our president, but there should be no reason that he has to come out with this Bush-bashing video a week before the election. I am a huge Eminem fan, but this is extremely upsetting. I am also afraid that people will watch this video and be corrupted by what he is portraying, and that is a false image of President Bush." Eminem, not surprisingly, disagrees. In an advance report of a poorly timed interview in Rolling Stone (appearing in the Nov. 5 issue), he is quoted as saying: "[Bush] has been painted to be this hero, and he's got our troops over there dying for no reason ... I think he started a mess ... He jumped the gun, and he fucked up so bad he doesn't know what to do right now ... We got young people over there dyin', kids in their teens, early 20s that should have futures ahead of them. And for what? It seems like a Vietnam 2. bin Laden attacked us, and we attacked Saddam. Explain why that is. Give us some answers." According to the article, Eminem won't endorse a candidate: "'Whatever my decision is, I would like to see Bush out of office,' Eminem says. 'I don't wanna see my little brother get drafted ... he just turned eighteen. People think their votes don't count, but people need to get out and vote. Every motherfuckin' vote counts.'" If the video augurs anything, those votes will be legion. Eminem ends the song as a line of voters stretches out into the distance: "As we set aside our differences And assemble our own army To disarm this weapon of mass destruction That we call our president, for the present And mosh for the future of our next generation To speak and be heard Mr. President, Mr. Senator Do you guys hear us?" Well, do you? (c) 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. *** [To see the digitally enhanced photos of George Bush during Debate I, go to the article at: http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/29/bulge/index.html -- moderator] NASA photo analyst: Bush wore a device during debate Physicist says imaging techniques prove the president's bulge was not caused by wrinkled clothing. By Kevin Berger Oct. 29, 2004 George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt." Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons. For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt." Nelson and a scientific colleague produced the photos from a videotape, recorded by the colleague, who has chosen to remain anonymous, of the first debate. The images provide the most vivid details yet of the bulge beneath the president's suit. Amateurs have certainly had their turn at examining the bulge, but no professional with a résumé as impressive as Nelson's has ventured into public with an informed opinion. In fact, no one to date has enhanced photos of Bush's jacket to this degree of precision, and revealed what appears to be some kind of mechanical device with a wire snaking up the president's shoulder toward his neck and down his back to his waist. Nelson stresses that he's not certain what lies beneath the president's jacket. He offers, though, "that it could be some type of electronic device -- it's consistent with the appearance of an electronic device worn in that manner." The image of lines coursing up and down the president's back, Nelson adds, is "consistent with a wire or a tube." Nelson used the computer software program Photoshop to enhance the texture in Bush's jacket. The process in no way alters the image but sharpens its edges and accents the creases and wrinkles. You've seen the process performed a hundred times on "CSI": pixelated images are magnified to reveal a clear definition of their shape. Bruce Hapke, professor emeritus of planetary science in the department of geology and planetary science at the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed the Bush images employed by Nelson, whom he calls "a very highly respected scientist in his field." Hapke says Nelson's process of analyzing the images are the "exact same methods we use to analyze images taken by spacecraft of planetary surfaces. It does not introduce any artifacts into the picture in any way." How can Nelson be certain there's some kind of mechanical device beneath Bush's jacket? It's all about light and shadows, he says. The angles at which the light in the studio hit Bush's jacket expose contours that fit no one's picture of human anatomy and wrinkled shirts. And Nelson compared the images to anatomy texts. He also experimented with wrinkling shirts in various configurations, wore them under his jacket under his bathroom light, and couldn't produce anything close to the Bush bulge. In the enhanced photo of the first debate, Nelson says, look at the horizontal white line in middle of the president's back. You'll see a shadow. "That's telling me there's definitely a bulge," he says. "In fact, it's how we measure the depths of the craters on the moon or on Mars. We look at the angle of the light and the length of shadow they leave. In this case, that's clearly a crater that's under the horizontal line -- it's clearly a rim of a bulge protruding upward, one due to forces pushing it up from beneath." Hapke, too, agrees that the bulge is neither anatomy nor a wrinkled shirt. "I would think it's very hard to avoid the conclusion that there's something underneath his jacket," he says. "It would certainly be consistent with some kind of radio receiver and a wire." Nelson admits that he's a Democrat and plans to vote for John Kerry. But he takes umbrage at being accused of partisanship. "Everyone wants to think my colleague and I are just a bunch of dope-crazed ravaged Democrats who are looking to insult the president at the last minute," he says. "And that's not what this is about. This is scientific analysis. If the bulge were on Bill Clinton's back and he was lying about it, I'd have to say the same thing." "Look, he says, "I'm putting myself at risk for exposing this. But this is too important. It's not about my reputation. If they force me into an early retirement, it'll be worth it if the public knows about this. It's outrageous statements that I read that the president is wearing nothing under there. There's clearly something there." To subscribe: http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. 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