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Articles
NOVEMBER
2003
Tales from the Primary Trail:
Dr. Dean's House Calls
November
26, 2003 · A year ago the notion of
a "Dean Juggernaut" would have been fantasy. Even
six months ago, the concept was a punch line in the making
but today with the New Hampshire primary fast approaching,
it's a sobering - no make that horrifying - fact for the rivals
of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. By Michael
McCord
Of Fowl and Phoenix
November
25, 2003 · Karl Rove and I have at least
one thing in common this week - we're back out on stage alone
once again, baring our souls for all to see. We've cast our
lot the only way we know how. One of us is embarking on a
remarkable comeback. The other has jumped the shark, and is
spiraling down to certain doom. Who can say which of us is
phoenix, and which of us is just the charred carcass of some
turkey not lucky enough to be pardoned by a merciful President?
By Raul
Groom
America: Land of the Free,
Home of the Chickenhawks
November
25, 2003 · Over 400 men and women of
the Armed Forces have been killed in Iraq. They served their
country with honor, not questioning their duties as soldiers.
These questions are left to those at home who have the courage
to ask questions and demand answers while proudly flying the
flag. By John
Cobarruvias
A Current Affairs Primer
November
21, 2003 · What's going on in Iraq?
Can Bush be defeated in 2004? And if so, how? Here's a handy
Q&A primer explaining everything you need to know about
the issues of today and their impact on the 2004 elections.
By Bernard
Weiner
Is Bush Finished?
November
21, 2003 · In a normal world, any President
heading into an election year with the three year old luggage
Bush is carrying, would be deader than the proverbial doorknob.
Yet if polls can be trusted, he's still riding around at a
50% approval rating. By Bernard
Weiner
Guess Who's Coming
To Dinner
November
20, 2003 · Hello? Is this really Queen
Elizabeth? Well, thanks, Your Royal Highness, for taking my
call. I know you're really really busy this week getting things
all spruced up for our Dear Leader Himself, so I probably
don't have to ask you to "guess who's coming to dinner,"
now, do I? Ha-ha-ha. By Sheila
Samples
Governor Arnold, the Car
Tax, and Pigs in the Road
November
19, 2003 · Gov. Schwarzenegger's first
official act was to sign an executive order repealing the
car registration fee that had been automatically hiked earlier
this year. That's good news for motorists - until they're
in need of emergency services. By Dan
Gougherty
We Are Being Held Hostage
by Apathy
November
19, 2003 · I have come to the opinion
that we are the most disengaged democracy on this planet.
That is because almost half of our country just does not care.
Some will even tell you with pride that they do not vote and
to me that is inexcusable. By Mary
MacElveen
Autumn Leaves and the Failed
Iraq Experiment
November
18, 2003 · Like autumn leaves, our soldiers
continue to fall and die, their bodies devoid of a life once
so full of energy. More than 400 have died so far, and the
number of injured is eight times that, conveniently hidden
from Americans' view, lest we see the horrors that our little
war for oil has spawned. By Manuel
Valenzuela
Tales from the Primary Trail:
Gen. Wesley Clark to the Rescue?
November
18, 2003 · Unlike any New Hampshire
primary since 1968, when the insurgent candidacy of Sen. Eugene
McCarthy caught fire following the Tet Offensive in Vietnam,
the issue of foreign affairs really matters. What happens
in Baghdad and Nasariya is shaping events on the primary ground
in Concord, Manchester, and Keene - which might play to the
strengths of Gen. Clark. By Michael
McCord
Thou Shall Question Authority
November
15, 2003 · Did you know that there was
an eleventh commandment? It got left off the tablet because
Moses broke the chisel and lost his spare and the closest
Home Depot was twelve miles away by donkey. When it comes
to professors, politicians, lawyers and doctors, Thou Shall
Question Authority. They can teach us, they can protect
us, they can lead us, they can even cure us. But they can't
save us. By Rev.
Marie D. Jones
Please Don't Write off
the Southern Centrists (We Do Still Exist)
November
15, 2003 · John Edwards can do what
probably only one other candidate can do: carry the South.
And please do not dismiss the South as unimportant. Florida
aside, the only other deep south states to vote Democratic
in the past three elections were Louisiana and Georgia. My
state of Texas has not voted Democratic since Johnson. And
this is wrong. Southerners have more to benefit than any other
region: health care, equality, education… the list goes on
and on into a heap of Republican fear-induced rhetoric. By Rush
Roberts
If It Burns, It Earns
November
15, 2003 · Watch a TV report of a distant
conflagration, and you will hear meaningless names of unfamiliar
places. Are the reports accurate? How would you know? Those
place names are just empty words to you. By Ernest
Partridge
Bye, Bye Miss American Pie
November
14, 2003 · Outsourcing is tantamount
to legalized slave labor. Of course, it's much more than that
to the American worker. Ask anyone who is out of work, out
of unemployment, on the verge of losing their home and all
that they worked for and thought was their American dream
come true. Their jobs by the multi-millions have left the
shores of the U.S. for greener, cheaper labor. Slave labor.
By Norma
Sherry
Song For Things That Never
Were - America 2003
November
14, 2003 · I live in a vortex of time
where persons on the political right act like terrorist hopefuls,
saying they would like to kill liberals and Democratic presidential
contenders. And this is a sivilized country, as Mark Twain
might say? By Michael
Arvey
Handicapping the 2004 Race:
Wazzup, Democrats?
November
13, 2003 · Twelve months from now,
the most important American presidential election since the
Depression will take place. It will determine whether the
country continues its imperial warring abroad and whether
domestically we will continue our quick slide away from Constitutional
protections into an even more militarist, police-state society.
The stakes are that high. By Bernard
Weiner
What's Worth It, and What
Isn't
November
12, 2003 · Anyone who has had a hand
in raising an infant to adulthood may know the feeling: you
watch the weekly casualty list from Iraq and you're hit hardest
by the ages of some of the soldiers. A nineteen year old,
another, and yet another. Dead at the age of nineteen. The
feeling I speak of is heartache. By Kurt
Kurowski
From Baghdad to Dover
November
12, 2003 · Some of us believe that
it is time for Americans to gather round and comfort our sons
and daughters who are wounded, and to grieve for those whose
lives were snuffed out before they had time to be lived. It's
time for a group hug - from Bahgdad to Dover. There's nothing
treasonous, or even unpatriotic, about reaching out to say
good-bye. By Sheila
Samples
Iraq: Just Like Germany?
November
11, 2003 · We need a plan for Iraq.
What we don't need are fairy tales about the similarities
between the occupations of Germany or Japan or the Philippines
or anywhere else. We don't need Team Bush to lapse into juvenile
namecalling whenever someone dares criticize the war or the
war/occupation. We don't need them to tell us we don't understand
what's at stake. This is Iraq, this is now, and we're in trouble.
By Weldon
Berger
The Bombshell That Bombed
November
11, 2003 · Last week Sean Hannity happened
across what he thought was a big story. Immediately the usual
suspects of the right wing joined in the task of trying to
make Hannity's memo soufflé rise. But Hannity's bombshell
was a dud. By Mike
McArdle
Book Learnin' Equals Hate
November
7, 2003 · Liberal authors are climbing
the bestseller lists, but evidently what's sauce for the goose
is just plain scandalous and dreadful when applied to the
gander. Conservatives are shocked - shocked! - to find that
after years of being brow-beaten, the Lefties in this country
might fire back with the same force and fervor. By Gil
Christner
Fair and Balanced? What a
Laugh!
November
7, 2003 · A very sophisticated propaganda
tool, Fox News' "fair and balanced" slogan is both an inside
joke and a colossal lie. Chosen with a certain cynicism, "fair
and balanced" has enabled Fox News to say just about
anything its owner or its chief executive want as long as
the network poses itself as the anti-liberal font of truth.
By Gerald
Plessner
Eveyone Will Be Disappointed
with "Saving Jessica Lynch" - Except the Audience
November
7, 2003 · Advertised by NBC as "based
on the true story behind the ambush of the 507th Maintenance
Company, and the dramatic rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch," "Saving
Jessica Lynch," written by veteran screenwriter John
Fasano, will certainly set off some sort of divisive political
debate. After all, it's about a divisive war. Or is it? By Steve
Jones
Free Speechified
November
5, 2003 · From the outset of the Iraq
war, the Bush administration has tried to freeze free speech.
But if impending war and post-war criticism aren't pressing
and appropriate times for a free allowance of speech, then
when and in what circumstance would it be? Should a citizenry
feign patriotic zeal and support a president and policies
that are clearly and disingenuously deceptive and wrong? By Michael
Arvey
Taking Our Country Forward
November
5, 2003 · Nobody in the establishment
wants to consider doing what it would take to get the people
who are most endangered by that violence onto the voter rolls
and into the polling booths. Because that would involve giving
them some kind of stake in the outcome; and that would involve
making changes to our society so that it no longer excludes,
deprives, and exploits them. By The
Plaid Adder
Justice Department Introduces
MOM AND APPLE PIE Act
November
5, 2003 · With the success of the PATRIOT
Act, the PROTECT Act, and the VICTORY Act, President Bush
and conservative lawmakers are hailing the introduction of
the Justice Department's MOM AND APPLE PIE Act of 2003. In
a statement to reporters Thursday, President Bush said, "MOM
AND APPLE PIE will serve to increase our nation's security
against terror, adequately fund our schools, and provide relief
from rising medical costs to seniors in their time of need."
Satire by Ian
Watson
Iraq Spinning Out Of Control
November
4, 2003 · If broken-hearted Americans
turned on Sunday to the administration or to its enabling
corporate media for comfort - for some viable explanation
that would justify the stuffing into body bags of yet 16 more
of our cherished husbands, sons and brothers - they were disappointed.
They were left to drown in their own tears; to be crushed
under the weight of their collective anguish. By Sheila
Samples
The Political Airbrush
November
4, 2003 · The effectiveness of this
administration's control on the national media is unprecedented
in its scope. In ways, large and small, the view that is seen
by most of the American population has been so controlled
and sanitized that it is unrecognizable as reality. By Bridget
Gibson
Republican Political Correctness
November
1, 2003 · Back in the 1990's, Republicans
were up in arms about something called Political Correctness,
or PC. The story back then was that women and people of color
could say or do whatever they wanted, while oppressed white
men had to constantly submit to absurd restrictions on their
language and behavior. Sometime in the early part of the Bush
presidency, the Republican Party kidnapped Political Correctness
outright. By Woody
Simi Valley Residents Detect
Gigantic Clinton Penis in Forest Fire Smoke Cloud
November
1, 2003 · Residents of this conservative
Los Angeles suburb, already stunned after a week of devastating
forest fires, are now trying to recover from yet another shock
- a huge smoke cloud hanging high above the blaze that scorched
their homes - an enormous, cylindrical cloud closely matching
descriptions of the penis of former president Bill Clinton.
Satire
by David Albrecht
Political Orientation and
Statistics 101
November
1, 2003 · The latest nasty name to call
someone is "centrist." It has joined "liberal" (from the Right
Wing Lexicon), and is defined as "a person or a philosophy
to be avoided; traitor, turncoat, fool." Statistically, this
is a terrible call. Because the political center outnumbers
us. Badly. By
Tyler Durden
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