editors of they really want to sway the way people think. Also there was
more rhetoric than fact in there. Even a few things that I applaud.
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: Doug White [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 10:25 PM
To: CF-Community
Subject: Updated Talking Points
Found circulating around the net.
Dear Anti-War, Anti-Bush, Pro-Democracy Activists,
We need your help expanding and perfecting the following Talking Points
for
Democrats (Fact Sheets).
Talking Points (Fact Sheets) for Democrats:
Sources: Each of the Talking Points was widely reported
inthe
American press,
and none of them has been successfully disputed by any
member
of the Bush II
administration.
The Bush II Success Story: A Global Tragedy in the Making
1. Successfully enriched heavily bankrolled special interest
groups and giant multinational corporations while working against the
interests of working Americans, retirees, and destroying the environment.
2. Successfully squandered the entire stock of global
empathy
and goodwill that accrued to America following 9/11 by invading Iraq under
false pretenses, in violation of international law, and without the
approval
of the United Nations.
3. Successfully, and without provocation, preemptively
invaded Iraq without any exit strategy, a catastrophic planning blunder
that
is now costing hundreds of American lives, thousands of American
casualties,
thousands of Iraqi lives, and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.
4. Successfully created near total chaos in Afghanistan by
installing a puppet regime whose authority is limited to Kabul (the
capitol
city), allowing the rest of the country to fall into violent anarchy and
become the world�s # 1 supplier of heroin and safe haven of choice for
terrorists.
5. Successfully handed global terrorism victories by failing
to destroy al Qaeda, by launching elective wars that unnecessarily place
our
troops in harms way and are bankrupting our country, by spreading fear and
loathing, and by rescinding our cherished civil rightsMeanwhile, Al Qaeda
has regrouped; it is deploying more terrorists and launching more
terrorist
attacks than ever; and it is poised to topple Bush II installed puppet
government in Afghanistan.
6. Successfully slashed funds for veterans� health care and
raised the eligibility requirements for active duty soldiers and their
families to receive benefits.
7. Successfully launched his 2004 campaign with a doctored
TV
ad that portrays him as the nations� protector against terrorism when, in
fact, it was his inept leadership that led the war on terror. With real
leadership, 9/11 would have been prevented.
8. Successfully told all other nations �you are either with
us
or against us,� thus reducing the art of American diplomacy to the
language
and tactics of schoolyard bullies.
9. Successfully avoided his military obligation by deserting
from the U. S. Air Force, and then used his father�s connections to avoid
prosecution and cover-up.
10. Successfully took more vacation time than any other
president
in U.S. history, including most of the summer or 2001, thus overlooking
key
information about terrorist activity that could have been used to prevent
9/11.
11. Successfully attended over 40 political fundraisers in
2003,
but did not attend any of the funerals for the hundreds of U.S. soldiers
who
lost their lives fighting elective wars. Bush II intends to raise
$200-$300
million in campaign funds to finance the cover-up of his failed
presidency.
Real presidents run on their records.
12. Successfully rammed a prescription drug program through
Congress that will destroy Medicare by providing windfall profits to drug
companies, HMOs, and insurance companies, and provide only minimal
benefits
for most seniors.
13. Successfully presided over more executions than any
governor
in America�s history, and more bankruptcies than any president in U. S.
history.
14. Successfully avoided prosecution for participating in the
removal of thousands of likely Gore voters from Florida�s voter rolls, a
crime that enabled him to win Florida and steal the 2000 presidential
election
15. Successfully sneaked into Baghdad Airport for a
Thanksgiving
meal with our troops who were ordered off limits to the press. He spent 2
�
hours transmitting TV images of this pre-election propaganda stunt and
then
sneaked back to America without even a glance at the devastations his
elective war has wrought on the Iraqi people.
16. Successfully rammed the USA Patriot Act through a 9/11
numbed
Congress, thus dealing the greatest blow to civil and human rights ever
experienced in America, including domestic spying, warrantless searches
and
seizures, and long-term detention without being charged with a crime or
the
right to counsel.
17. Successfully expanded the role of the U.S. military to spy
on
Americans, a mission unprecedented in American history.
18. Successfully avoided commenting on the statement of General
Tommy Franks, the man appointed by Bush II to plan and execute the
disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq, that any future terrorist attacks on the
U.S. would lead to the suspension of our Constitution and military rule.
19. Successfully used the USA Patriot Act to chill dissent and
the right to freely assemble by directing the FBI to investigate
individuals
and groups who oppose military adventurism, the doctrine of preemption,
and
elective wars.
20. Successfully smears all those who disagree with his new
pre-emptive American militarism as unpatriotic.
21. Successfully ordered American reserve units into action in
Iraq without upgrading their equipment to the level of protection afforded
regular Army units.
22. Successfully parades as a deeply religious Christian, yet
he
daily ignores Jesus as he pursues war instead of peace.
23. Successfully looted the U.S. Treasury of $3 trillion to
provide political payoffs to wealthy special interest groups.
24. Successfully labeled his looting of the U.S. Treasury as
tax
cuts for everyone. Actually, the zero to $200 in tax relief that average
Americans did receive was more than offset by increases in their local
property and state taxes, tuition hikes, and increased energy costs, all
made necessary to offset Bush II treasury looting and military
adventurism.
Meanwhile, the average millionaire (Bush II campaign contributors)
received
payoffs averaging over $90,000.
25. Successfully transfigured the huge federal budget surplus
created by Democrats into an endless sea of Republican red ink (deficits),
thus saddling us and future generations, with new debt of $125,000 to
$250,000 a person that could easily rise to $500,000 a person by 2015.
26. Successfully cut federal funding for the delivery of vital
state and local services to disadvantaged and needy people, deviously
labeling the cuts as necessary to reduce the Republican-created deficit.
27. Successfully installed the wealthiest cabinet in U.S.
history
and his top national security advisor has a Chevron oil tanker named after
her.
28. Successfully ignored intelligence reports warning that a
9/11-type attack was imminent, and refuses to cooperate with legally
constituted commissions that are investigating what really happened on and
before 9/11.
29. Successfully avoided responding to the inquiries of the
families of the 9/11 victims, calling their unanswered questions
unimportant
and unnecessary. By and large the mass media, with only rare exceptions,
ignores the unanswered questions.
30. Successfully leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent (a
felony) to the press, and has refused to cooperate in the continuing
criminal investigation of White House personnel to find the leaker.
31. Successfully expanded weapons spending (including vast new
funding for the research and development of new nuclear weapons) beyond
anything needed for real national security for the sole purpose on
enriching
family and friends.
32. Successfully ignored the needs of 45 million Americans,
mostly women and children, who cannot afford health insurance and presided
over more foreclosures than any other president in U.S. history.
33. Successfully staged a chauffeured landing on an aircraft
carrier to announce victory in Iraq, thus falsely portraying himself as a
hero when in fact no such victory had obtained.
34. Successfully promised to find bin Laden, Saddam Hussein,
and
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but failed to deliver on the
promises.
35. Successfully protected approximately 20 members of the bin
Laden family by secretly spiriting them out of the U.S. the day after
9/11,
a day all U.S. commercial aircraft were grounded.
36. Successfully stalled an investigation into whether or not
NORAD received orders to stand down on or before 9/11.
37. Successfully drafted a Roadmap for Peace in the Middle
East,
but has instead pursued a policy of war, war, and more war.
38. Successfully told hundreds of lies to the American people,
more than all other American presidents combined. See NOW website for a
comprehensive list of these lies.
39. Successfully aided and abetted the consolidation of the
mass
media so that a few billionaires now control what is euphemistically
called
America�s free press. Recently, a Washington Post reporter confessed to
being duped into believing that Bush�s invasion of Iraq had anything to do
with protecting our national security.
40. Successfully and substantially heightened global
instability
and insecurity by withdrawing America from important longstanding treaty
obligations, far more than any other president in U.S. history.
41. Successfully encouraged anti-democratic campaign
fund-raising
and special interest lobbying practices, practices that are really nothing
but flagrant bribery by special interest groups.
42. Successfully waged a continuing war on women by
aggressively
appointing judges who seek to overturn Roe vs. Wade and by supporting
legislation that would narrow a woman�s right to choose.
43. Successfully waged war on the environment by dismantling
sections of landmark environmental legislation including the Clean Air and
Clean Water Acts and supporting the development of American wilderness
areas.
44. Successfully waged a continuing war on working Americans by
promoting the export of their jobs overseas and hindering the rights of
workers to form unions and receive overtime pay.
45. Successfully waged a continuing war on the elderly and on
future generations of Americans with efforts to cripple Medicare and
Social
Security, and failed to do anything protect employee pension plans from
unscrupulous employers.
46. Successfully waged a continuing war against the bedrock
American principles that separate church from state by attempting to
transform our public schools into houses of worship and funding
faith-based
organizations with taxpayer dollars.
47. Successfully curtailed the development of cures for major
diseases by overly restricting stem cell research.
48. Successfully violated two international laws (The Hague
Regulations of 1907 and the Geneva Convention of 1949 and the US Army code
of
war) by ignoring
the Iraqi Constitution which forbids the privatization of key state assets
and
bars foreigners from owning Iraqi firms.
49. Successfully aided and abetted the expansion of the
anti-democratic powers of giant multinational corporations, and failed to
prosecute gross corporate criminality.
50. Successfully created the largest governmental bureaucracy
in
U.S. history, the Department of Homeland Security, and then denied the
department the funds necessary to do their job.
51. Successfully created an energy plan that entirely fails to
address America�s strategic need to become energy independent, while
providing substantial tax relief to the full array of Republican-run
energy
companies. Fortunately, the plan failed to win Congressional approval.
Successfully aided and abetted the recall of Governor Gray Davis for the
purpose of delivering California in 2004 presidential election.
52. Successfully elevated the sophistication of political
rhetoric by calling environmentalists �green, green, lima beans.�
53. Successfully portrays himself as a Texas rancher when even
his wife refers to him as a �windshield cowboy.�
54. Successfully promotes himself as a self-made rugged
individualist when, in fact, his entire education and career was built on
the use of his father�s name to gain entry into Harvard and Yale and to
attract large sums of investment capital.
55. Successfully promised to leave no child behind
(educationally
speaking), and then delivered nothing but an unfunded mandate that thwarts
all efforts to level America�s educational playing field.
56. Successfully destroyed the infrastructure of Iraq and then
committed hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to rebuilding it;
meanwhile, the rebuilding of America�s crumbling infrastructure is all but
ignored.
57. Successfully created numerous opportunities for
Republican-run companies to profit from his disastrous pre-emptive war
policy (the invasion of Iraq was based on pre-emption even though Bush
knew
Iraq posed no threat to the U.S. or its neighbors). An example of
Republican
war profiteering is Halliburton (Cheney�s old company), which charges the
U.S. Army in Iraq nearly $2.00 a gallon for gas that they could purchase
from Iraqis for five to ten cents a gallon.
58. Successfully but unnecessarily put our troops in harms way
in
Iraq, and ordered them to pursue the unmerciful murder of thousands of
innocent people, mostly women and children.
59. Successfully announced a series of false terrorist threats
that unnecessarily spread fear and loathing throughout America for the
sole
purpose of promoting Bush�s elective wars and fooling the Americans into
thinking their government was hard at work protecting them.
60. Successfully transformed the executive branch of government
into an operation more secretive than the CIA and far more threatening
than
organized crime or any terrorist organization ever could be.
A continuing public interest project initiated by Bob Zimmerman, author of
The
American Challenge
Twenty-One Winning Strategies for the 21st Century
<http://www.theamericanchallenge.com/> ,
.
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