In My Not So Humble Opinion - The Blog

1984?

War is Peace.
Love is Hate.
1984's not fiction
It's just 20 years late.

I have a personal feeling about the attack on our country on September 11 of 2001. September 11 is my birthday, not a particularly happy day in my life, as it just means that I am a bit older. But now it seems to mean that the people of my beloved country have not become even a bit wiser.

Am I the only person who sees a slight resemblance of our world today to that of the world in a book most of us had to read in school? I feel that the neo-cons in Washington studied that book even more carefully, and saw their big opening to use ?1984? as a textbook for their takeover of the world. Oh, they had had plenty of practice with Newspeak (all those damned initials that are now ?words?) and had built up a grand media alliance to lull us, and to get their lies and fables our to all.

But now I, at least, am beginning to recognize the way they are cutting off personal freedom, basic human rights and privacy rights. Big Brother (be he any one of the axis of evil in Washington: Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, whomever) has changed the laws so that he can now listen in on my phone calls, check out my bank account, read my email, search my home, check on my library borrowings, whatever. The boys in Washington are slowly eroding our laws of privacy and using their technology and their congress to nip into political opposition and individual privacy.

Ah, yes, and what a wonderful way to confuse, by starting a war...first a ?just? war against the attacking ?terrorists? we ?knew.? Go after Bin Lauden in Afghanistan. Raise lots of money for that one. Then, through brave and loud speeches, get people to understand that there were other ?terrorists? who ?might? attack us, and get the word out on what ?could? happen. Into another war. Keep the people busy ?supporting our brave troops.? Remember how in ?1984? A was at war with B, then suddenly A was at war with C, not B, and it always been thus. The masters of doublespeak at work again.

Perhaps we could find out who the girl with the hammer was in the Apple Computer ad that ran during the half time of the Super Bowl in 1984. Do you suppose she could put that hammer through the Fox News screen now? Or perhaps in a White House window? Then, as the dulcet tones of the voice in the background said, ?Now, 1984 won?t be 1984 again!?
Peg

Can we make a hyperlink to Reuters

Let's hear it for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare that isn't quite what it was cracked up to be. Check out the confusion at The Department of Health and Human Services Website , and then blog with gusto.

Have you listened to Forum today? Michael Krasney did an entire show on writer's block. Have a look at what was said

Blissful Times

Opinion/event log


Thursday, April 15, 2004

Where were you and what were your thoughts at the time of the Pearl harbor investigations after World War II? Remember Admiral Kimmel and General Short; the communications "mix up"; wondrous FDR and his bumbling State department?
Empathy for ALL of us. The intense scrutiny and media blitz of the past week reporting the 9/11 Commision and the President Bush press conference have been overwhelming and sobering. The answer to the question "What did he know and when did he know it," has been revealed, but not acknowledged by our President. Similar questions were posed in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor----remember?
The appalling inadequacies of our intelligence services are now apparent. Near the zenith of the dot.com boom, fueled by intelligence technology, our FBI and CIA were not able to uncover the 9/11 plot in timely fashion; when they finally had relevant information, they were not able effectively to connect the dots or communicate with each other; or more importantly, promptly and effectively to the President. This is a tragic, sobering, infuriating, and ironic disclosure. If the major role of the federal government is first and foremost to protect its citizenry and borders from harm, 9/11 represent the classic blunder. WRONG STUFF---failed execution!!
And when finally there was information in the first nine months of the Bush presidency, especially in April and May, 2001, according the George Tenet, CIA Director, "the system was blinking red." He reported that in addition the the now infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Bulletin, Bush, Cheney and the top Security Team were made aware of the stream of alarming reports on Al Qaeda intentions.
In his press conference on April l3, President Bush again indicated that he was blameless---but the evidence indicates that he and his staff had been informed of the clear terrorist danger---and unforgivably were inattentive and inactive during the critical period when the 9/11 catastrophe might have been thwarted.
Perhaps , in retrospect, we can see our mistakes from Pearl Harbor to 9/11----but when will we learn from them?
Mort
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/SH.html
(Pearl Harbor)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086197/
(The Right Stuff)
// posted by Morton @ 7:25 PM


Tuesday, April 13, 2004
This is my new blog site---created on April 13, '04
Blissful
// posted by Morton @ 9:39 AM



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04/01/2004 - 04/30/2004

We're praying.

Wow! Do you suppose that Powell was really lying in what he said yesterday?

John Ashcroft may be a finger pointer, but Colin Powell seems to take the prize for moral cowardice. If Bob Woodward's new book is accurate (and Powell was presumably a major source for it) then the Secretary of State's willingness to play along with a war decision he opposed is stunning. If he was as frozen out of decisionmaking as he now claims to be, what possible justification did he have for staying on in the Administration? Had he resigned, or at very least refused to make that Weapons of Mass Destruction speech to the UN, he might have kept his country out of war. For Evan Thomas's summary of the Woodward book click here Watch this space for polling links.

Congratulations to those of you who are posting. I'll do a couple over the weekend to bring you up to date on the latest polling and to show you a couple of tricks for style. The learning curve is a little steep at the very beginning, but I think it's more a psychological block than anything to do with skill. Send electronic hugs to Scott for tending the technology and remember it's still the beauty of the written word that counts.

Try to catch John Kerry on Meet The Press (NBC) Sunday morning and start thinking about which three topics we want to blog about next week. I'm swimming in November ballot initiatives at the moment because I have to talk about them on television tonight. There are a couple of doosies we may want to investigate.