New CD takes on some important issues
by Steve Earle
May, 2004

Excerpt from the liner notes of Steve Earle's new record due out August 24th on Artemis Records. It's called "The Revolution Starts...Now.

Bush Plans To Slash Popular Programs After Election
by Stewart Nusbaumer, editor of Intervention Magazine
Intervention Magazine
May 31, 2004

"A leaked White House memo shows that if George Bush is re-elected, he will make large cuts in many government programs, including both homeland security and veterans programs, while again cutting the taxes of the wealthy."

Paulie puts on the heat And let the chips fall where they May
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Zepps Commentaries
May 31, 2004

"In some parts of the northern hemisphere, April temperatures in the fifties with rain wouldn't be considered unusual. But here, Spring was at least three months off, and summer a half hour after that. Then we could expect to see fifties and rain. This weather went against nature."

P-I Focus: While we're off fighting terror, the planet's crumbling
by PROFESSOR RICHARD STEINER
seattlepi.nwsource.com
May 30, 2004

"History has shown that human societies often misjudge risk, and that is the case today. With world attention focused almost exclusively on terrorism and Iraq, another, even more serious security threat deepens -- the global environmental/humanitarian crisis."

A Really Open Election
by Clive Thompson
The New York Tmes
May 30, 2004

"This fall, as many as 20 percent of American voters will be able to cast their ballots on A.T.M.-style electronic voting machines. But to put it mildly, these machines -- where you simply touch a screen and a computer registers your vote -- have not inspired much confidence lately."

Paying the Price...
by E. J. Dionne
Washington Post
May 30, 2004

"President Bush took his big chance in Iraq without buying himself an insurance policy. He could have patiently built a coalition of the many -- not only abroad, but also at home -- rather than slapping together a coalition of the few, including the not-entirely-willing. He could have made clear, as his father did a decade earlier, that a decision to go to war is so momentous that Congress should consider the matter under circumstances that would encourage genuine deliberation."

The Trail of Torture
The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech
by Robert Fiske
The Independent
as appearing on counterpunch.org
May 26, 2004

"The re-writing of Iraqi history is now going on at supersonic speed. Weapons of mass destruction? Forget it. Links between Saddam and al-Qa'ida? Forget it. Liberating the Iraqis from Saddam's Abu Ghraib life of torture? Forget it. Wedding party slaughtered? Forget it."

Al Gore Address on Iraq Policy - May 26, 2004
by Al Gore
May 26, 2004

"George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world."

COLD TURKEY
by Kurt Vonnegut
inthesetimes.com

"But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America's becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

No Security, No Democracy
by Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
May 24, 2004 edition

"Diamond has become increasingly gloomy about the situation in Iraq, and a meeting in April with a women's group there crystallized his feelings."

VOTE FOR A MAN, NOT A PUPPET
by Charley Reese
King-online
May 21, 2004

"Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers."

The other prisoners
by Luke Harding
The Guardian - UK
May 20, 2004

"The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe."

Hawks Eating Crow
by Eric Alterman
The Nation
May 20, 2004

"In other words, yes, while it might have been nice to liberate Iraq from Saddam's clutches, it was a lot more likely that under Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Co., we would end up arresting innocent people, holding them without trial and systematically torturing and sexually humiliating them; all the while saying, as the Daily Show's Rob Corddry so brilliantly put it, 'Remember, it's not important that we did torture these people. What's important is that we are not the kind of people who would torture these people.'"

Order to Torture
The Nation Editorial
The Nation
May 20, 2004

"The Abu Ghraib prison scandal now implicates the highest levels of the Bush Administration in violating federal law and in war crimes. In barely two weeks, the story has shifted from horrific photographs of prisoners to intimations of homicide; from prison mismanagement blamed on the fog of war to the cool clarity of deliberate White House designs to protect torturers from prosecution; from 'the six morons who lost the war' to the Defense Secretary, the White House Counsel and the President himself."

Impeach the SOB Damn the Republicans-Full Speed Ahead!
by Daniel Patrick Welch
May 20, 2004

"It's time to stop beating around this Bush and start beating up on him--but good. There is no set of humanitarian or democratic principles by which this administration would not have been removed in any sane society."

An Interview with Noam Chomsky
BBC
May 20, 2004

"If George Bush were to be judged by the standards of the Nuremberg Tribunals, he'd be hanged. So too, mind you, would every single American President since the end of the second world war, including Jimmy Carter."

Brutal interrogation in Iraq Five detainees' deaths probed
by Miles Moffeit Denver Post Staff Writer
Denver Post
May 19, 2004

"Brutal interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel are being investigated in connection with the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in war-zone detention camps, Pentagon documents obtained by The Denver Post show."

BUSH PRETENDS HE NEVER GAVE SECRET PRISON ORDER
from Daily Mislead
May 19, 2004

"A new investigation by Newsweek 'shows that President Bush, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods' of abuse and torture as documented at Abu Ghraib."

Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings
by Michael Isikoff
MSNBS News
May 19, 2004

"The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue."

The Bushes And The Bin Ladens Passionate Anti-War Film A Tale Of Two Families
by Peter Bradshaw
The Guardian
appearing on rense.com
May 18, 2004

"It was strident, passionate, sometimes outrageously manipulative and often bafflingly selective in its material, but Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was a barnstorming anti-war/anti-Bush polemic tossed like an incendiary device into the crowded Cannes festival."

To be a Republican in 2004
author unknown

"To be a Republican in 2004 somehow, you have to believe that..."

VANISHING VOTES
by Greg Palast
The Nation
May 17, 2004 edition

"If you're black, voting in America is a game of chance. First, there's the chance your registration card will simply be thrown out. Millions of minority citizens registered to vote using what are called motor-voter forms. And Republicans know it. You would not be surprised to learn that the Commission on Civil Rights found widespread failures to add these voters to the registers. My sources report piles of dust-covered applications stacked up in election offices."

Who dun it? The mysterious case of Nicholas Berg
by Jane Stillwater
May 17, 2004

"I love murder mysteries! And as the Agatha Christie of Berkeley, CA, I am here to help find out who killed Nicholas Berg. My heart bleeds for his parents. It is the least I can do."

The Picture the World Sees
by Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
May 17, 2003

"Someday, when Iraq is peaceful again (and that day will come), tourists will want to see the square where the Saddam statue toppled, the spider hole he hid in and, of course, Abu Ghraib Prison."

Show & Tell in Abu Ghraib
by Katha Pollitt
The Nation
May 17, 2003

"What are the thousand words, I wonder, that are worth the pictures of grinning US soldiers sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison?"

A Sorry Bunch: No Apology Necessary--Off to the Hague!
by Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde and Daniel Patrick Welch
May 16, 2004

"As we watch the horror unfolding before our eyes like a giant time-delayed broadcast, a deeper horror should also be setting in. The entire discussion surrounding the 'revelations' of mistreatment of Iraqis by the US (does bombing water purification plants count as mistreatment?) has taken on a sickening, surreal turn."

Atrocities in Iraq: 'I Killed Innocent People for Our Government'
by Paul Rockwell
Sacramento Bee
May 16, 2004

"The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C."

Taking pride in denouncing bad behavior
by Mitch Albom
Detroit Free Press
May 16, 2004

"Now, I guess I'm a little confused. I thought we, as Americans, were proud to be do-gooders. I thought we took pride in not sinking to the level of the people who hate us. I thought we felt good about offering an example to the world of how a civilized country can and should look."

The Moral Case Against the Iraq War
by Paul Savoy
The Nation
May 13, 2003

"The problem opponents of the war have had in responding to President Bush's claim of moral legitimacy, as University of California linguistics professor George Lakoff suggests, is that they have addressed the moral issue in the terms the President has framed it rather than reframing the issue in their own moral terms. Talking about the world, or at least Iraq, being 'better off' avoids confronting the civilian carnage caused by the war."

Army video game breeds violence with tax money
by Brad Bushman
Detroit News
May 9, 2004

"Although people who play 'America's Army' learn about the history of the Army, they do not learn about the horrors of war. The graphics look realistic, but the violent consequences are glazed over."

Mickey Mouse Freedom Crackers, the Corporate Crime-Fighting Chicken, meets Donald Duck
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Zepps Commentaries
May 9, 2004

"Moore wasn't about to answer even that short list in just two hours, but his documentary probably has the sort of impact needed to rouse Americans from their lethargy and to start demanding answers."

If the World has called it curtains and your torturers are hurtin' Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal!
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Zepps Commentaries
May 8, 2004

"If there is one thing about the horrific stories coming out of Iraq that might possibly result in benefit to America, it's the fact that the American right -- sleazy, cold, amoral and vicious -- have been exposed for what they are."

An Illegal and Immoral War Betrayed by Images of Our Own Racism
by Robert Fisk
Counterpunch.org
May 7, 2004

"First, our enemies created the suicide bomber. Now, we have our own digital suicide bomber, the camera. Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image."

UnAmerican? I Wish That It Were So
by Ron Jacobs
Counterpunch.org
May 7, 2004

"Un-American? I can't help but smirk every time I see this quote from Mr. Rumsfeld describing the abuse and murder of Iraqi prisoners in US-run prisons throughout Iraq."

The System Was Lacking
by E. J. Dionne, Jr.
Washington Post
May 7, 2003

"So we have come to this: The secretary of defense cannot address the "t" word because it all depends on what the meaning of 'torture' is."

THE NEO-CONSERVATIVE AGENDA: HUMANISM VS IMPERIALISM
by Rodrigue Tremblay, professor emeritus of economics University of Montreal
Being presented at: 63rd Annual Conference of the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
May 7-9, 2004 Las Vegas, Nevada

"My second observation is that the ideology behind this fundamental shift to the right is more and more antagonistic to humanist values."

Speaking Bush's mind
by John Young
Waco Tribune-Herald
May 6, 2003

"For one who ran as a uniter from Texas, a presumed centrist, Bush has trended like a political snowplow at just about every turn."

Who Should Have Known?
by Richard Cohen
Washington Post
May 6, 2003

"This week the United States Army did the oddest thing in this Age of Bush: It reprimanded six soldiers in connection with the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal -- not for what they did but for not knowing what others were doing. An Army spokesman put it this way: 'They should have known. . . .' If that's the standard, then half the Bush administration will soon be gone."

STOP THE PRESSES
by Eric Alterman
The Nation
May 6, 2003

"The Sinclair Broadcast Group, a Maryland-based media company whose holdings include sixty-two TV stations, did the country a favor when it refused to air the April 30 special edition of Nightline in which Ted Koppel read the names and showed the faces of the 721 US soldiers who had died in Iraq to that point."

RESIGN, RUMSFELD
from The Economist
May 6, 2004

"The Geneva conventions that have governed the treatment of prisoners of war for decades were waved aside. And the argument used to justify America's rejection of the new International Criminal Court--that its soldiers would be vulnerable to unreasonable persecution, with necessary military actions defined as crimes--looked ever more hollow. Thanks to Guantanamo, critics could argue that America really does need the check of the ICC, and that its claim that abuses would readily be dealt with in domestic courts was also hollow."

WHITE HOUSE MISLED AMERICA ABOUT COST OF WAR
from Daily Mislead
May 6, 2004

In a transparent effort to mask the true costs of war and reduce the size of the mounting budget deficit the White House left funding for Iraq and Afghanistan out of the 2005 budget it submitted on February 2."

ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS KNEW OF ABU GHRAIB REPORT
from Daily Mislead
May 5, 2004

"Since late February, the Pentagon has been in possession of a report produced by Major General Antonio M. Taguba that details the abuse of Iraqis incarcerated in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. Months later, despite knowing of the 53-page report's existence, top administration officials responsible for the military still have not read the document."

Governing made easy
by Tom Teepen
Cox News Service
May 4, 2003

"The United States has finked out on its 30-year tradition of support for the Global Health Council. The Department of Health and Human Services has withdrawn U.S. funding for the group's June conference."

BUSH ADMINISTRATION MISLEADING ON PRISONER ABUSE
from Daily Mislead
Cox News Service
May 4, 2003

"Specifically, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delivered a confidential report to the White House earlier this year which 'concluded that abuse of prisoners in Iraq in custody of U.S. military intelligence was widespread and in some cases 'tantamount to torture'."

MEDICARE DRUG CARDS A RAW DEAL FOR SENIORS
from Daily Mislead
May 4, 2004

"But a new study by the House Government Reform Committee reveals that McClellan's claim is not true - in fact, many seniors would pay more for drugs using the 'discount' cards (which cost up to $30 a year) than they would paying retail."

Let's hear more about those Bush/Cheney Medals!
from a viewer who calls him/herself: A member of Americans For B.U.S.H. (Bush Undergoing a Swift Heave)
May 4, 2004

"I am sick and tired of hearing Bush and Cheney criticize Kerry's military record and the medals he earned for bravery. Here is my description of the medals earned by Bush and Cheney during the Vietnam war."

Yes, We Can Handle the Truth
by Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
May 3, 2003

"Somewhere at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, a public-affairs officer is awaiting his fate. This still-unnamed but totally clueless representative of the Air Force Air Mobility Command apparently never got the memo saying that the Pentagon and White House wanted No Pictures (Got that? No Pictures!) of flag-draped caskets arriving at Dover Air Force Base from Iraq."

Americans can handle the real truth
by Mitch Albom
The Detroit Free Press
May 2, 2004

"Today, for most of us, war is indeed, 'over there.' It arrives only in green-screen TV reports and controlled press briefings and presidential photo ops that say 'Mission Accomplished.' Some of us would like to keep it that way."

Cognitive Dissonance Folks will see it when they believe it
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Zepps Commentaries
May 2, 2004

"The Republican Rapture Right has created a nation that is suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, and they couldn't be happier."

U.S., U.K. Waged War on Iraq Because of Oil, Blair Adviser Says
from Bloomberg.com
May 1, 2004

"Sir Jonathan Porritt, head of the Sustainable Development Commission, which advises Blair's government on ecological issues, said the prospect of winning access to Iraqi oil was 'a very large factor' in the allies' decision to attack Iraq in March."