Brie and Chablis for Armchair Warriors JOURNAL OF AN APOSTATE WHITE GUY: Kent Southard Some eyewitness observations from the protesters' side of the street from outside the luxury St. Regis resort hotel in Dana Point - famous for its brie and chablis: It was entertaining to witness the many 50 and 60-something white men, sans significant others, in their very expensive vehicles leaving the St. Regis, and while still under the protective wing of a few dozen cop cars, give us the finger as if it was something very special. This is something of a tradition in the GOP apparently, stretching back to George H.W. Bush, Nelson Rockefeller, and Spiro Agnew. To all of which, I say "Same to ya, buddy!" A few young men in the largest available pickups sped past shouting 'Strike Iraq!' and other such endearments. To which I say, "Sell your little toy and enlist, if you're so horny for it. It's a lot easier to just sit in your truck and listen to Rush all day. My sister's boy will be on the front lines, not you. Don't ask others to do what you're not willing to do yourself." Most of the response from passing traffic was very supportive of the protest. Those who weren't mostly to hurry past at a speed that wouldn't allow reading our messages, as if doing so might be dangerous to their willful ignorance. George W. Bush lives in a heavily tinted world, so I don't know if he saw my sign, but if he did he surely understood it - 'AWOL from the ANG.' Bush and I were both members of the Air National Guard (ANG), the difference being I can prove I pulled the whole six years - Bush can't. After a boost over a huge waiting list to enlist in the Air Guard, after the government spent a couple of million of the taxpayers' dollars teaching Bush to fly fighter jets, Bush says he 'quit flying.' He quit flying when the military started giving mandatory drug tests. This was during Bush's lurid partying days - Bush wouldn't take the required annual flight medical exam; instead he requested transfer to an Alabama postal unit. Anyone who's been in the Air Force knows that pilots who merely quit after the huge investment in them are the lowest of the low, doubly so for fighter pilots. But Bush didn't stop there - when his transfer request didn't work out, he simply stopped attending Guard meetings, for TWO YEARS. I can tell you that command gets upset when you miss a weekend; it was understood that anyone exhibiting this kind of behavior would be activated for regular duty. Yet George W. Bush walked away from his final two years of Air Guard commitment apparently without the slightest censure. Different rules for the 'fortunate sons' certainly, but the real danger is that this illuminating example of Bush's true character, as with so many others, is so little known by the public at large. As Bush's weak dissembling about Harken shows, he's still as irresponsible and deeply dishonest as ever. But our commercial media, owned by the same omnipotent corporations that love Bush so much, have colluded to create an Orwellian mindscape of lies that turns Bush's every leaden feature into its golden opposite. Under this cloud of deception and disinformation, the Bush administration's every effort has been to establish legal and policy precedents that are systematically destroying the very foundations of America's two and a quarter century experiment with democracy. If Jose Padilla turns out in fact to be just some punk with strange Internet search habits, the administration doesn't back down from proclaiming that American citizens will be deprived from all civil rights if named as 'enemy combatants.' If Bush and Ashcroft had other priorities pre-9/11 that had been made so clear to the FBI and NSA that terrorist investigations were neglected or repressed and Al Qaeda transmissions had no priority for translation, then after 9/11 the solution is to spy on American citizens without having to prove probable cause. If Al Gore looks to actually have the most votes, then Antonin Scalia will say from the bench, as he did, 'There's no such thing in the Constitution as the right to vote for president.' And if there isn't a shred of credible evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda, or much of anything else in current events, that's beside the point - the point of invading Iraq is to establish the precedent for the entire world that the Bush administration considers itself above any law or constraint, and will attack and destroy whomever it pleases. Sometimes it seems that the Bush administration has plans for nothing less than world empire - and feels so emboldened right now because it is succeeding so well, and so completely beneath the radar of American public awareness. They've taken Bill Clinton's plan for destroying Al Qaeda, and turned it into an instrument for establishing military control over the Caspian Sea oil reserves of Central Asia. No real assistance for Afghan nation building seems forthcoming, but military bases by the dozen are being built to guard oil and gas pipeline routes. This has been thoroughly, if gently, reported by some of our more responsible media sources, such as the LA Times and ABC's Nightline. This is without doubt the most dangerous moment in our nation's history. We stand on the precipice - on the cusp of what Churchill foresaw for the world under the heel of a different nation's fascism, 'A new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.' Think about that the next time you hear the Bush administration talk about its missile defense plan, for which there is next to no credible threat, and wonder about the real purpose of a globe-encircling network of space lasers able to destroy any possible target on the planet's surface, which is the plan's ultimate goal. Think about the world Bush is building, and ask yourself if living under a world dictator with unlimited military power is what you want. If not, maybe next time you'll join us on our side of the protest line. ----Original Message Follows---- From: Kent Southard To: Rebecca McCullough , Jerry Politex , CS Mon , ocreg , New York Times , latimes , hardball CC: will swaim , Terri Hudik , Harry Shearer , Debbie Putnam , derek , Dave Reese , commiegirl , Lisa Subject: Bush swills white wine and snarfs brie in Dana Point Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 11:20:21 -0700 Sirs, Some observations from the protesters' side of the street, outside the luxury St. Regis resort hotel in Dana Point (famous for its brie and white wine swilling): It was entertaining to witness the many 50 and 60-something white men, most often alone in their very expensive vehicles leaving the St. Regis, and while still under the protective wing of a few dozen cop cars, give us the finger as if it was something very special. This is something of a tradition in the GOP apparently, stretching back to George H.W. Bush, Nelson Rockefeller, and Spiro Agnew. To all of which, I say "Same to ya, buddy!" A few young men in the largest available pickups sped past shouting 'Strike Iraq!' and such. To which I say, "Sell your little toy and enlist, if you're so horny for it. It's a lot easier to just sit in your truck and listen to Rush all day. My sister's boy will be on the front lines, don't ask others to do what you're not willing to do yourself." Most of the response from passing traffic was very supportive of the protest, what wasn't seemed mostly to hurry past at a speed that wouldn't allow reading our messages, as if doing so might be dangerous to their willful ignorance. George W. Bush lives in a heavily tinted world, so I don't know if he saw my sign, but if he did he surely understood it - 'AWOL from the ANG.' Bush and I were both members of the Air National Guard (ANG), the difference being I can prove I pulled the whole six years - Bush can't. After being jumped over a huge waiting list to enlist in the Air Guard, after the government spent a couple of million of the taxpayers' dollars teaching Bush to fly fighter jets, Bush says he 'quit flying.' He quit flying when the military started giving mandatory drug tests, and this was during Bush's lurid partying days - Bush wouldn't take the required annual flight medical exam, and instead requested transfer to an Alabama postal unit. Anyone who's been in the Air Force knows that pilots who merely quit after the huge investment in them are the lowest of the low, doubly so for fighter pilots. But Bush didn't stop there - when his transfer request didn't work out, he simply stopped attending Guard meetings, for TWO YEARS. I can tell you that command gets upset when you miss a weekend, it was understood that anyone exhibiting this kind of behavior would be activated for regular duty. Yet George W. Bush walked away from his final two years of Air Guard commitment apparently without the slightest censure. Different rules for the 'fortunate sons' certainly, but the real danger is that this illuminating example of Bush's true character, as with so many others, is so little known to the public at large. As Bush's weak dissembling about Harken shows, he's still as irresponsible and deeply dishonest as ever. (My other sign: 'Birds of a Feather - Corp. Crooks - Bush and Simon.) But our commercial media, owned by the same omnipotent corporations that love Bush so much, has colluded to create an Orwellian mindscape of lies that turns Bush's every leaden feature into its golden opposite. Under this cloud of deception and disinformation, the Bush administration's every effort has been to establish legal and policy precedents that are systematically destroying the very foundations of America's two and a quarter century experiment with democracy. If Jose Padilla turns out in fact to be just some punk with strange Internet search habits, the administration doesn't back down from proclaiming that American citizens will be deprived from all civil rights if named as 'enemy combatants.' If Bush and Ashcroft had other priorities pre-9/11 that had been made so clear to the FBI and NSA that terrorist investigations were neglected or repressed and Al Qaeda transmissions had no priority for translation, then after 9/11 the solution is to spy on American citizens without having to prove probable cause. If Al Gore looks to actually have the most votes, then Antonin Scalia will say from the bench, as he did, 'There's no such thing in the Constitution as the right to vote for president.' And if there isn't a shred of credible evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda, or much of anything else in current events, that's beside the point - the point of invading Iraq is to establish the precedent for the entire world that the Bush administration considers itself above any law or constraint, and will attack and destroy whomever it pleases. The Bush administration has plans for nothing less than world empire - and feels so emboldened right now because it is succeeding so well, and so completely beneath the radar of American public awareness. They've taken Bill Clinton's plan for destroying Al Qaeda, and turned it into an instrument for establishing military control over the Caspian Sea oil reserves of Central Asia. No real assistance for Afghan nation building seems forthcoming, but military bases by the dozen are being built to guard oil and gas pipeline routes. This has been thoroughly, if gently, reported by some of our more responsible media sources, such as the LA Times and ABC's Nightline. This is without doubt the most dangerous moment in our nation's history. We stand on the precipice - on the cusp of what Churchill foresaw for the world under the heel of a different nation's fascism, 'A new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.' Think about that the next time you hear the Bush administration talk about its missile defense plan, for which there is next to no credible threat, and wonder about the real purpose of a globe-encircling network of space lasers able to destroy any possible target on the planet's surface, which is the plan's ultimate goal. Think about the world Bush is building, and ask yourself if living under a world dictator with unlimited military power is what you want. If not, maybe next time you'll join us on our side of the protest line.