TomPaine.com - Journalism Under Fire
Bill Moyers explains what's wrong with the direction we've taken under the leadership of our esteemed Shrub and his toolbox full of hammers, screwdrivers, pliers and duct tape. Here's just a piece:

This “zeal for secrecy” I am talking about—and I have barely touched the surface—adds up to a victory for the terrorists.  When they plunged those hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon three years ago this morning, they were out to hijack our Gross National Psychology.  If they could fill our psyche with fear—as if the imagination of each one of us were Afghanistan and they were the Taliban—they could deprive us of the trust and confidence required for a free society to work. They could prevent us from ever again believing in a safe, decent or just world and from working to bring it about.  By pillaging and plundering our peace of mind they could panic us into abandoning those unique freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of the press—that constitute the ability of democracy to self-correct and turn the ship of state before it hits the iceberg.

Read the whole thing: Journalism under Fire at TomPaine.com

- posted by Chris @ 11:50 AM

 
Fog and Friction
I spent quite a bit of time in my college career studying war. Being a girl, though, I knew I was never going to experience combat duty, and there were always aspects of war memoirs I just didn't get ... the male bonding, the coarse jokes and black humor, the essential loneliness of being a warrior.

I did understand, and am grateful for the education, that war is "fog and friction" ... motives and intentions can become obscured easily, the path to victory is often hard to find, strange partnerships are created, and friendships fractured. It is a crucible, a testing, a trial.

Where are we going to come out of the war we are in now? If we allow the fear-mongering of both presidential campaigns to saturate our decision-making process, we will not be a country of freedom and prosperity on the other side of this conflict. We will instead be a shadow of the ideals of liberty, having sacrificed our most precious commodity for the illusion of transient security.

It's time for both candidates to stop shaking their manhoods at the war on terrorism. This is not the time for a pissing contest of military records (or non-records, as the case may be).

Let's move onto tougher subjects: How do you promote the general welfare, providing increased health benefits for more Americans, without increasing government revenues? How do you secure the blessings of liberty to a population under increasing scrutiny and control by its own government? How do you ensure domestic tranquility when the chasms of culture, education, and financial class grow wider every year?

I want to hear more specifics from both candidates. More truth, too. How can we be expected to make good decisions if we are voting for an image created by skilled media manipulators? We need to expect more from our candidates, and from ourselves.
- posted by Chris @ 8:54 AM

 
Choosing ... Disappointment?
I really really want to be able to vote with a clear conscience this November. I think it's important to care about the state of the community, the country, the world. But when local politics are about who knows whom and who has money, and national politics are about fear, and the world is just a crazy place, it makes me want to run away and hide (with a large stash of dark chocolate).

Okay ... that's said. Now. I AM going to vote in November. I will not vote for George W Bush. Not because I think he's evil, personally, just surrounded by people I wouldn't trust with my car, much less my freedom or my life. That means I'm making an anti-choice, though. I really want to be able to vote FOR John Kerry, but he's making a mess of his non-campaign. It's not about Vietnam anymore. This is the homestretch, dammit. Talk about specifics, and don't candy-coat the facts.

It's time we faced up to some hard truths: everything we want government to do for us costs money. Wanting the government to stop doing something has consequences. We can't have everything we want. We have to make better choices. We need to expect our candidates to talk to us honestly, and educate ourselves so our choices really matter.
- posted by Chris @ 5:05 PM

 
Democracy Matters

No democracy can flourish against the corruptions of plutocratic, imperial forces—or withstand the temptations of militarism in the face of terrorist hate—without a citizenry girded by these three moral pillars of Socratic questioning, prophetic witness, and tragicomic hope.

Our enemy is ourself, the battle is engaged ... Read the whole thing:http://www.logosjournal.com/west.htm
- posted by Chris @ 3:10 PM