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Ken Burns' America Collection
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"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson
“There was a time when we Americans had justification to accept and support the policies of the government symbolized by the Flag of The United States, because the amount of good deeds of government outweighed the negative effect that government intrusions had upon ones everyday life. Those days are long gone and it's time we admit it and act upon the knowledge we have to correct the problem.”
"What is happening? What is happening to us?" - Our nation is in peril, he says, threatened not by foreigners but by the Bush administration, which he describes as warlike, arrogant and elitist -- "an administration of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy." - U.S. Senator and patriot, Robert C. Byrd
”Our government has declared a military victory in Iraq. As a patriot, I will not celebrate. I will mourn the dead--the American GIs, and also the Iraqi dead, of whom there have been many, many more.” - Howard Zinn - MUST READ!
Historian faults Bush on terrorism policies - In a speech at Swarthmore College, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. said that what he saw as the Bush administration's use of patriotism as a way to quell public debate was morally repugnant and undemocratic. - "Going to war does not abrogate our freedoms of conscience, speech and thought," - "We have no obligation to bow down before an imperial presidency,"
I was watching one of our fine young men in the military on one of the Television News Entertainment Networks the other day. He was partaking in an old tradition of scribbling a message on to one of the bombs being loaded onto a jet. Usually they write little messages to the enemy or they write tributes to the cause.
In this case the soldier was wrote something indicating revenge for the WTC attack. It is universally accepted by the worlds intelligence community that there are no links between 9/11 and Iraq.
It is my personal opinion that when a president lies to our fine dedicated troops about the reason we ask them to put their lives on the line, and about the reason we ask them to kill human beings, this is not patriotism. This is a crime against humanity.
What personal issues await these fine men and women when they come home, and in time perhaps they realize that they were not fighting for what they were told by their commander in chief? How will they deal with the guilt that might face them? Perhaps we can ask some of our fine veterans.
Now Bush/PNAC is out to raise $200 million for his campaign. All this while he cuts social services and carries out drastic cuts to the troops and veterans. Patriotism? No; it is greed.
House approves pay raise for lawmakers - The House members decided to allow themselves a fifth straight cost-of-living raise after rejecting them for several years during the 1990s. Their annual pay has risen from $136,700 in 1999 to about $158,000 in 2004, if the legislation clears Congress and is signed by the president. Their salary this year is $154,700. - TVNL Comment: This is outrageous. With every social service being cut or eliminated these greedy lawmakers pocket more of US taxpayer money! I hope the military families are aware of this! As their benefits are being eliminated they very people who are cutting their funding are giving themselves a raise! NOTE: Please note that there was a period during the record high prosperity of the Clinton era that they voted not to give themselves a raise but with all of the looting going on under the Bush/PNAC administration they want their share too! GREED! GOD DAMN GREED!
 The Troop Support Report - A Guide for the Military and Their Families - Compiled by TV News LiesThink Progress » As Crime Spikes, Bush Slashes Law Enforcement Funding - But new FBI statistics released Monday show that crime has actually jumped under the Bush administration. Violent crime in 2005 increased at 2.5 percent, the highest rate in 15 years for violent offenses. In his FY 2007 budget, however, Bush proposed cutting local law enforcement funding by a total of 52 percent. The roots of anti-Americanism - The growing anti-Americanism around the world can be explained by the special character of American nationalism. - Many admire its idealism, universalism and optimism... others reject American nationalism as merely the expression of an overbearing, self-righteous and misguided bully." Bush Plans $1.5 Billion Drive for Promotion of Marriage - Administration officials say they are planning an extensive election-year initiative to promote marriage, especially among low-income couples, and they are weighing whether President Bush should promote the plan next week in his State of the Union address. - TVNL Comment: They are cutting one social service after another, we have homeless people including homeless veterans all over our nation and this is how the Bush/PNAC administration is going to spend $1.5 billion? Will CNN point this out to its viewers?
Are These Actions Patriotic?
Bush Disregarding the Constitution:
Bush Patriotic to Veterans/Military Families:
Money for Brain Injury Treatment for Troops Slashed - The head of biggest combat veterans groups lambasted congressional action that cut in half federal funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by explosions, which one neurology expert has called the signature injury of the war in Iraq. Let them eat cake, that’s what they get for voting for Bush! But is is the “anti-American peace protesters” who do not support the troops, right? Veterans' care squeezed by VA - Many lose coverage under new policy - Hundreds of thousands of veterans of earlier U.S. military conflicts might also no longer qualify for VA health care or might be forced out by rules proposed by the Bush administration to relieve an overburdened system. - TVNL comments: But the rich needed a tax break so that they can get another yacht? Somebody explain this to me please! Honoring our nation's heroes all year - ‘the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that more than 275,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and at least 500,000 are homeless at some time during the year.’ - Retirees' appeal for health care rejected - A seven-year court challenge by elderly military retirees, who say the government reneged on promises of free lifetime health care, came to an end Monday, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal. Study: Pa. vets would lose benefits under Bush budget - As many as 80,000 Pennsylvania veterans will lose or be denied health benefits provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under the White House budget, according to a congressional study released Monday. Nothing but lip service - From the Army Times - In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap — and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately. GOP blocking abolishment of Disabled Veterans Tax - Many military retirees are, ironically, rock-ribbed conservative Republicans who are now shocked to find their president and their party standing in the doorway blocking the best chance in decades to abolish The Disabled Veterans Tax. Republicans Hate Soldiers and Veterans - The Republicans have had complete or total control of the federal government since 1994, holding the House of Representatives the entire time, the Senate all but a year and a half and the White House since 2001. During this time, the federal government had huge budget surpluses (on paper). This means that they could've easily gotten any programs to help veterans and soldiers passed. They could've increased funding for veteran's programs and they could've improved the quality of life for active soldiers who are in harm's way. Have they done so? Clearly not. Bush, Republicans losing support of retired veterans - "He pats us on the back with his speeches and stabs us in the back with his actions," said Charles A. Carter of Shawnee, Okla., a retired Navy senior chief petty officer. "I will vote non-Republican in a heart beat if it continues as is." Utah Marines denied full education benefits - Reservists in the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines, were told they qualified for the same educational benefits as active-duty military personnel because their boot-camp time and deployment added up to the requisite two years of duty. - "Then we were told that it had to be continuous -- not cumulative duty," said Cpl. Scott Lee of Ogden, who was wounded in a firefight in Baghdad. "Now we've been told that we only qualify for reserve benefits." - The difference is at least $500 per month. - Without the more generous benefits, Lance Cpl. John Garrard of Salt Lake City, will forego college. Sick Veteran Battles Bureaucracy Back Home - "Is this what our returning heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq can expect from their elected officials as they seek health care for their painful injuries sustained in the line of duty?" Veterans of Foreign Wars Commander Ray Sisk said. Troops in Iraq face pay cut - The Pentagon wants to cut the pay of its 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, who are already contending with guerrilla-style attacks, homesickness and 120-degree-plus heat. Coming Home: Disabled Soldier Faces Battle in Seeking Benefits - he Bush administration's 2004 proposed budget also calls for new premiums and higher fees. For certain categories of higher-income veterans, for example, the budget calls for increasing drug-prescription copayments to $15, from $7. The move is expected to dissuade about 1.3 million veterans from enrolling for VA services next year. Closing V.A. Hospitals Has Congress Squirming - Always available for a ribbon cutting, members of Congress have a pathological fear of seeing the doors shut to any federal facility back home, whether it be a military base, Social Security office, or in the relevant example, a veterans hospital. Bush Runs For Cover As Lawsuit Targets WMD Businesses - A lawsuit on behalf of over 100,000 Gulf War veterans text The class action suit names 11 companies and 33 banks alleged to have helped Iraq with its chemical weapons program in the 1980's, despite knowledge Saddam Hussein was actively using WMD against both Iranians and his own people. At Least 100 Bases Said to Be in Line for Closure - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is planning to close at least 100 of the nation's 425 military bases - more than in the four previous rounds of base closures combined - beginning in 2005, Pentagon insiders said Monday. Military families protest big jump in price of soldiers' calls from Iraq - Some American soldiers in Iraq have made heavy use of phones there to keep in touch with families back home. Now some military families say those calls have virtually stopped because of a hefty increase in phone charges. - "My husband said morale stinks," Edith Beach said. She said he and his comrades now were paying up to $2 a minute to call home. - "I'm outraged that they could treat the military like this," Edith Beach said. Ex-POW's Family Accuses Army Of Double Standard on Benefit - While Jessica Lynch was discharged as a private first class in August with an 80 percent disability benefit, Johnson, set to leave in the coming days, learned last week that she will receive a 30 percent disability benefit from the Army for her injuries. Democrats say Bush not backing U.S. Guard, Reserve - Democrats on Saturday criticized President George W. Bush for opposing expanded health care insurance for U.S. National Guard and Reserve troops as they are pressed into extended service in Iraq. - Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, giving the Democrats' weekly radio address, said the Bush administration wants $87 billion to rebuild Iraq and keep U.S. troops there but opposes a Senate-passed measure to guarantee health care coverage to all members of the Guard and Reserve. John Youmans: Active Duty and Veterans Not on America’s Priority List - The United States of America has certainly not been silent on how it feels about its active duty troops and veterans over the last few years and it appears compassion is no longer an accurate description of a supposedly grateful nation. - At a time the United States of America should be providing excellent healthcare and compensation to her brave warriors who defend her and become disabled, the Bush administration is adamant about cutting back on services to provide for their welfare and disability compensation. Does this sound like a compassionate nation? Troops suffer while Bush cronies make out like bandits - In the world of top dogs and underdogs, the Bush administration has made it clear that it stands with the ''haves and have mores'' that the president called ''my base.'' So we have ''trickle down'' tax cuts -- with millionaires pocketing tens of thousands of dollars every year while most taxpayers get less than $100. - That was, perhaps, to be expected. But amazingly, that same lack of concern about workaday people is at display in Iraq -- and the young men and women whose lives are on the line are paying the price. Sacrificing Our Troops To the Matrix - The UN and our allies are ready willing and able to help in Iraq. They won't move because the US (God I hate to think of Bush and his people as representing the US. They are such despicable embarassments) refuses to release its hold on Iraq. Kerry, Lieberman Fault Bush on Veterans - Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Joe Lieberman launched Veterans Day attacks on President Bush for his treatment of former service members and outlined their own plans for improving benefits U.S. Opposes Money for Troops Jailed in Iraq - The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the Persian Gulf war in 1991 from collecting any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets they won last summer in a federal court ruling against the government of Saddam Hussein. - TVNL Asks: How can the troops applaud George W. Bush? The only thing that the Bush/PNAC team has done for the troops is to let them kill a lot of people. That’s it. Cannon Fodder Day? - On government’s systematic abandonment of America’s veterans -- current and future - All in all, America's treatment of its veterans, current and future, is shameful. Fortunately, the steps needed to improve it are simple. Indignities Endured by U.S. Military: - How the Bush Cartel Disrespects and Short Sheets Our Soldiers - From ill-fitting uniforms to non-working equipment, young men and women from across the country, many of whom joined the military with dreams of college and a steady future, have been shortchanged by a government that pressed for war without full regard of the costs. Still Fighting - Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., challenges President Bush on 60 Minutes to intervene on behalf of former POWs from the first Gulf War who were awarded a large judgment against Iraq for brutality they suffered in captivity, but have been prevented from collecting it by the Bush administration. Clark To Bush: "Don't Do It" - Outrage At Rollback Of Vet Benefits - General Wes Clark is outraged that the Bush Administration is considering dramatically increasing the fees military retirees pay for prescription drugs. VA to Close 3 Hospitals Under the plan, the VA expects to reduce costs for maintaining vacant space from $3.4 billion to $750 million by 2022 but projects spending $6 billion on new construction during that time. - TVNL Comment: Republicans do not support the troops, they support the yellow ribbon and flag manufacturers. They think supporting war means supporting the troops. They are wrong.
He Can Send Others to Kill and to Die
George Jr sent out of Texas by father as a 'drunken liability' - The US president, George Bush, was transferred to the Alabama National Guard during the Vietnam war because his drunken behaviour was a political liability to his father in Texas, the wife of one of his father's former confidants revealed yesterday. - Linda Allison told the political website Salon.com that throughout the time Mr Bush was in Alabama she never saw him in uniform and had no idea he was supposed to be in the National Guard. - "Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston." Asked if she had ever seen him in uniform Mrs Allison said: "Good Lord, no. I had no idea the National Guard was involved in his life." Bush's Guard service: What the record shows - Bush's official record of service, which is supposed to contain an account of his duty attendance for each year of service, shows no such attendance after May 1972. In unit records, however, there are documents showing that Bush was ordered to a flurry of drills -- over 36 days -- in the late spring and summer of 1973. He was discharged Oct. 1, 1973, eight months before his six-year commitment ended. - TVNL Comment: The mainstream media should have addressed this 4 years ago, or at least questioned it while they were grilling Al Gore. George W. Bush, A.W.O.L - George W. Bush was missing for at least a 12 month period. That is an undisputed fact. If you or I did that, we would serve time. What did Dubya do in the war, daddy? - ‘His records show that for months at a time during the Vietnam War, Bush could be classified as, at best, "absent without leave" (AWOL) or, at worst, as an army deserter.’ -’This would be equivalent to the media withholding comment as former U.S. President Bill Clinton publicly espoused the virtues of marital fidelity.’ - ‘ the media all but ignored the story and continue to do so, even as Bush has turned himself into arguably the most hawkish president in U.S. history. ‘ I Am A Veteran! How Dare You! - How dare you accuse me of being a traitor while you support a selected commander-in-chief who was absent without leave during the last year of his military service? Dying for the Government - It Seems to Me - Howard Zinn - Our government has declared a military victory in Iraq. As a patriot, I will not celebrate. - We have not been given in the American media (we would need to read the foreign press) a full picture of the human suffering caused by our bombing. Bush Utters Taunt About Militants: 'Bring 'Em On' - "I am shaking my head in disbelief," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). "When I served in the Army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander -- let alone the commander in chief -- invite enemies to attack U.S. troops." - TVNL comment: Bush can say this but when people were protesting the illegal immoral invasion of Iraq they/we were accused of endangering the troops! U.S. Fights Verdict Backing Ex-P.O.W.'s - The Bush administration has expressed sympathy for the plaintiffs over what they endured but is fighting them about the money, saying it is urgently needed to rebuild Iraq. Saving face, losing a war - "Bring 'em on," the man said. He is not a brave man, but he plays one on television. - When it came his turn to fight in a war, he hid behind Daddy. Then he had another drink and hid from the National Guard. Then he had another drink. Stretched Thin, Lied to & Mistreated - On the ground with US troops in Iraq - The boys don't like Lynch and find the story of her rescue ridiculous. They'd been down the same road a day earlier and are unsympathetic. "We just feel that it's unfair and kind of distorted the way the whole Jessica, quote, 'rescue' thing got hyped," explains Staff Sgt. Kreed Howell. - "These guys shot at some of our guys, so we lit 'em up. Put two .50-cal rounds in their vehicle. One went through this dude's hip and into the other guy's head," explains Brunelle. The third man in the car lived. "His buddy was crying like a baby. Just sitting there bawling with his friend's brains and skull fragments all over his face. One of our guys came up to him and is like: 'Hey! No crying in baseball!'" - These guys are proud to be soldiers and don't want to come across as whiners, but they are furious about what they've been through. They hate having their lives disrupted and put at risk. They hate the military for its stupidity, its feckless lieutenants and blowhard brass living comfortably in Saddam's palaces. They hate Iraqis--or, as they say, "hajis"--for trying to kill them. They hate the country for its dust, heat and sewage-clogged streets. They hate having killed people. Some even hate the politics of the war. And because most of them are, ultimately, just regular well-intentioned guys, one senses the distinct fear that someday a few may hate themselves for what they have been forced to do here. - Added to such injury is insult: The military treats these soldiers like unwanted stepchildren. National Guard pay delayed, denied - GAO report: 94 percent of those in six units had pay problems - Soldiers with the National Guard are already under the gun in Iraq and Afghanistan. But now a new government report claims that while the troops are fighting far from home, red tape is preventing many of them from being paid. Bush administration mistreats military - The Bush administration is either incredibly out of touch with the medical care of America’s troops, or it knows about major problems but simply doesn’t care. Bush plan would kill overtime for many veterans - You’ve done your part – you’ve served your country and are proud to be a veteran of our armed services. You also work hard, using the training you’ve received in the military to advance yourself – and your company. - And the thanks you get from President George W. Bush? It’s the possible elimination of your overtime pay. Bush bio on Web inflates Guard service - Nonetheless, the biography of Bush on the US State Department's website credits him with almost six years in the F-102's cockpit -- two years on active duty flying the plane and nearly four more years of part-time service as an F-102 pilot. - The errant biography on the State Department website was called to the Globe's attention yesterday by Hugh E. Scott, a retired Continental Airlines captain and former Air Force pilot from Newbury Park, Calif. The Gall Of The Chickenhawks - What kind of absurd political twilight zone is it where George Bush and Dick Cheney can make John Kerry look like an unpatriotic chicken by focusing attention on his combat duty in Vietnam? - It's a doublethink world of issues-ephemera, spin, and manipulated perceptions that Bush's technicians have mastered and that we the media and we the people aid and abet: Campaign 2004, a truth odyssey. - The most forceful advocates for war in the administration had seen the least of it.
Bush Calls them Heroes and used them for PR!
Bush Patriotic to Labor and Working Families:
The outsourcing of America’s jobs - Indeed, it’s no accident that India, Pakistan and Turkey are among the countries that indicated a willingness to send troops to Iraq, provided the U.S. is able to gain UN approval. - According to Mr. Grigg, the planned globalization movement’s ultimate goal is the eradication of the American middle class. It is the middle class that poses the greatest threat to the corporate/government plan for ultimate control, as the existence of two classes—the rich and the poor—is conducive to a dictatorship. The American middle class must now reassess what it has in common with the lower-class masses. Bush tax package guts middle class - ‘ What Bush has done, Clinton could not have ever gotten away with: a tax on everything we buy – otherwise known as a Value Added Tax – for you and I.’ - ‘that will benefit those like Warren Buffet who calculated that he will save $300 million while his secretary's tax rate will increase.’ Wealthy dine on Bush's bread; working poor go hungry - President George W. Bush and Republican tax-cutters in Congress are frozen in the ice of their own indifference. Their hearts are cold, without the spirit of charity or even a sense of basic fairness. And they deserve to be judged harshly in the court of divine justice. The Poor Held Hostage for Tax Cuts - Millions of low-income families were cruelly denied child credits in the administration's latest detaxation victory. Now, with consummate arrogance, Republican leaders in Congress are threatening another irresponsible tax-cut bidding war as the price for repairing the damage Overtime Pay Under Attack - AFLCIO: Promoted by the Bush administration as “family-friendly” measures, changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act proposed by President George W. Bush, along with five Big Business-backed bills now in Congress, would take away working people’s hard-fought 40-hour workweek and overtime pay—with no meaningful increased flexibility to help workers balance demands of jobs and family. Very Richest's Share of Income Grew Even Bigger, Data Show - The data, in a report that the I.R.S. released last night, shows that the average income of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers was almost $174 million in 2000. That was nearly quadruple the $46.8 million average in 1992 - TVNL comment: After all that they needed tax breaks? Damn greed! No other words for it. Bush and PNAC are greedy bastards! Compassion and the Tax Cuts - Missing from the photo opportunity, unless the president plans something truly dramatic, will be any children from poor families left out of the child-credit boon while the Republican-controlled Congress continues to wrangle over this shameful omission. THE GRINCH THAT STOLE LABOR DAY - by Greg Palast - In celebration of the working person's holiday, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has announced the Bush Administration's plan to end the 60-year-old law which requires employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime. - My favorite of Chao's little amendments would re-classify as "exempt professionals" anyone who learned their skill in the military. In other words, thousands of veterans will now lose overtime pay. I just can't understand why Bush didn't announce that one when he landed on the aircraft carrier. In a Switch, House Rejects Bush Overtime Proposal - 7 in GOP Reverse Earlier Support of New Rules - In a sharp rebuff to the Bush administration, the House reversed course yesterday and voted to oppose the White House's efforts to rewrite overtime pay rules. The action marked a significant victory for Democrats and labor leaders, who contended the administration's plans would deny overtime benefits to millions of employees when they work more than 40 hours a week. - TVNL Comment: This is very good news. Class Warfare, Bush-Style - The administration's stealth attack on U.S. unions - While the nation's attention is riveted by the inexorable march to war against Iraq, the Bush administration has quietly opened a new front in the relentless, largely covert war it has been waging here at home against U.S. workers and their labor unions. Number of hungry families in U.S. rising - About 12 million American families last year worried that they couldn't afford to buy food, and 32 percent of them actually experienced someone going hungry at one time or another, the Agriculture Department said - Last year, 11 percent of 108 million families were in that situation. That's up 5 percent from 2001 and 8 percent from 2000. Big Labor Chief: Anybody But Bush - AFL-CIO President John Sweeney isn't saying which Democrat he thinks would be the toughest challenger to President Bush next year. - In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, Sweeney had harsh words for the Bush administration, saying it was "anti-worker, anti-union and anti-progress." Federal Workers Cry Foul … Again - Federal employees who lose their jobs through privatization lost a right to appeal outsourcing decisions because of last minute changes to a massive spending bill. - Beginning in 2001, the Bush administration has pushed to introduce more private competition for government work. Unions Rally to Protest Labor Policy - Thousands of union workers rallied at the Labor Department, marched on Wall Street and demonstrated in other cities on Wednesday to press their grievances against the Bush administration and U.S. business. - "More than 1 million (federal) employees had their civil service rights, individual rights and union rights simply blown away," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees. U.S. Offers Tips on Avoiding OT Pay -Labor Department Offers Employers Tips on Avoiding Overtime Pay Under New Rule - TVNL Comment: Sure, the Bush/PNAC administration cares about you! They are not trying to eliminate the middle class while they help the corporate giants! Don’t be silly! White House Is Trumpeting Programs It Tried to Cut - But in a twist this election season, many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply. - For example, Justice Department officials recently announced that they were awarding $47 million to scores of local law enforcement agencies for the hiring of police officers. Mr. Bush had just proposed cutting the budget for the program, known as Community Oriented Policing Services, by 87 percent, to $97 million next year, from $756 million. - The administration has been particularly energetic in publicizing health programs, even ones that had been scheduled for cuts or elimination. - TVNL Comment: The TV news media will never point this out, especially FOX News. FOX will promote this propaganda with verve. How India funds Bush's campaign - Bush's campaign funds while, until recently, there was a band of more than 100 dedicated call-center executives who were handling Bush's fundraising and vote-seeking campaign for the Republican Party from the outsourcing hubs of Noida and Gurgaon, which adjoin the national capital Delhi.
Bush/PNAC Patriotic to Students:
Bush's Education Reform Gets Poor Marks All Around - Conservatives and liberals, and even some school officials, say the plan is too bureaucratic and needs better funding. - Conservatives and some school officials around the country are upset about what they regard as a big-government, top-down approach to reforming education — one that has imposed strict testing standards on schools and threatens to tag many of them as failing.
Bush/PNAC Patriotic to the Sick:
Cancer Drugs Face Funds Cut in a Bush Plan - The Bush administration will soon propose significant cuts in Medicare payments for cancer drugs, based on new data suggesting that the government pays far more than the market price for such medicines, administration officials said today.
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