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Author
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Topic: Speech by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson
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BlueRoamer
Knowflake Posts: 95
From:
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 13, 2007 04:43 PM
  
Address by Mayor Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson
October 27, 2007
City & County Building
Salt Lake City, Utah
Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our
voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other
members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of
Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of
the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it
any more.”
“While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been
pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to
a moral, military, and national security abyss.”
“You have breached trust with the American people in the most
egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs.
You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most
fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.”
“You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of
the sort never before countenanced in our nation’s history as a matter of
official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be
killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without
competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental
blunder.”
“We are here to tell you: We won’t take it any more!”
“You have acted in direct contravention of values that we, as
Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the
most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the
undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the
three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our
nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation’s
treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of
law.”
“Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false ‘patriotism,’ our
world is far more dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and the threat
of terrorism is far greater than ever before.
It has been absolutely astounding how you have committed the most
horrendous acts, causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of
people, yet you wear your so-called religion on your sleeves, asserting your
God-is-on-my-side nonsense – when what you have done flies in the face of
any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your hypocrisy is mind-boggling –
and disgraceful. What part of “Thou shalt not kill” do you not understand?
What part of the “Golden rule” do you not understand? What part of “be
honest,” “be responsible,” and “be accountable” don’t you understand?
What part of “Blessed are the peacekeepers” do you not understand?
Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed,
many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries, and
millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our nation, for
the sake of our children, and for the sake of our brothers and sisters around
the world, we are morally compelled to say, as loudly as we can, ‘We won’t
take it any more!’ ”
“As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings
around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find what
you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name and
reputation of the United States, so appalling, so unconscionable, and so
outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and allow other
men and women who are competent, true to our nation’s values, and with
high moral principles to stand in your places – for the good of our nation, for
the good of our children, and for the good of our world.”
In the case of the President and Vice President, this means
impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a
complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares
more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our
Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability.
It means the election of people as President and Vice President who,
unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not
aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating
invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as
President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the
moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings.
In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who
are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National
Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to
Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress’s sole
prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women
who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank
checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting
warrantless wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for
dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl-
Lieberman amendment.
We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President
Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people who
have wronged our country – and the world. They were enabled by members
of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream
news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American
people – 40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind
the 9/11 attacks – a people who know and care more about baseball statistics
and which drunken starlets are wearing underwear than they know and care
about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a
government for which we need to take responsibility.
As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship -- as
veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and women, as
students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public servants, as retirees,
as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations, and faiths --
we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress,
and to the mainstream media: “You have violated your solemn
responsibilities. You have undermined our democracy, spat upon our
Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought
our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense,
tragic, unprecedented proportions.”
“But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and
sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the
United States government, and as moral actors who must take a stand: And
we will, and must, mean it when we say ‘We won’t take it any more.’”
If we want principled, courageous elected officials, we need to be
principled, courageous, and tenacious ourselves. History has demonstrated
that our elected officials are not the leaders – the leadership has to come
from us. If we don’t insist, if we don’t persist, then we are not living up to
our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy – and our responsibilities as
moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the
Bush administration – and to candidates running for office – and to the
world – that we support the status quo.
Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what’s right and never
letting down can we say we are doing our part.
Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was
entirely fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no
danger to the United States. Our government, acting in our name, has
caused immense, unjustified death and destruction.
It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people,
been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once in a while at
demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney, about Congress, and
about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most
people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later.
How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time
learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they
have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past
five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have
indeed become the opiate of the masses.
Why is this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is
happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and
international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put
an end to this madness?
We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising
hell on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible
that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don’t cut it
when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George
Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack
and occupy Iraq.
Let’s awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now
to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the
country, as we ask others to join us: “We won’t take it any more!”
I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral
breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say “No
more” and mean it?
I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I
cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has voted to fund the
atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who will not
commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from Iraq. I cannot,
and will not, support any candidate who has supported legislation that takes
us one step closer to attacking Iran. I cannot, and will not, support any
candidate who has not fought to stop the kidnapping, disappearances, and
torture being carried on in our name.
If we expect our nation’s elected officials to take us seriously, let us
send a powerful message they cannot misunderstand. Let them know we
really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have drawn a
bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for granted – that,
regardless of their party and regardless of other political considerations, they
will not have our support if they cannot provide, and have not provided,
principled leadership.
The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years,
but let us pledge that we won’t let it go on one more day – that we will do all
we can to put an end to the illegalities, the moral degradation, and the
disintegration of our nation’s reputation in the world.
Let us be unified in drawing the line – in declaring that we do have a
moral breaking point. Let us insist, together, in supporting our troops and in
gratitude for the freedoms for which our veterans gave so much, that we
bring our troops home from Iraq, that we return our government to a
constitutional democracy, and that we commit to honoring the fundamental
principles of human rights.
In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense of
our shared values as Americans – and as moral human beings – we declare
today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the insanity, stop the
continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop the moral depravity reflected
by the kidnapping, disappearing, and torture of people around the world.
http://www.slcgov.com/mayor/
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yourfriendinspirit
unregistered
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posted November 14, 2007 03:02 AM
I am SOoooooooooooooooooo flippin' blown away!!! Wow! This is the most beautiful, positively sane thing I've heard in many, many years!!! I am so proud of him! The ending here would clearly be... to have introduced a Mr. Ron Paul   IP: Logged |
jwhop
Knowflake Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 14, 2007 11:56 AM
A blithering, blathering, bombastic, bloviating moron. And that's putting it more nicely than this bonehead deserves."Today...we come together..." as in..this bloviating moron and the rest of his leftist fringe radical halfwit friends. Birds of a feather...and all that.  IP: Logged |
BlueRoamer
Knowflake Posts: 95
From:
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 14, 2007 12:13 PM
I know YFIS.....wasn't it an amazing speech?He said what everyone else is thinking in a very eloquent way. We need change in this country, desperately. IP: Logged |
jwhop
Knowflake Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 14, 2007 12:28 PM
"he said what everyone else is thinking"More blithering, blathering, bombastic bloviating. Surely Blue, there must be at least one person in America who disagrees with this moron. 
IP: Logged |
goatgirl
unregistered
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posted November 14, 2007 01:04 PM
I'm adding a speech by Doris "Granny D" Haddock to this post.Doris "Granny D" Haddock spoke this past week at Wartburg College in Iowa. Thank you. It's wonderful to be here today at Wartburg, which I have long admired as one of America's great liberal arts colleges. I would like to underline that word liberal in the context of liberal arts. It does not, of course, refer to big government, or to left-of-center politics. No, as I'm sure you know, it refers to the art of thinking freely , training the mind to think for itself, free of the lies and fantasies and prejudices that wrap around us from an early age. In this time, the very idea of human life on the planet is at stake. War and violence have taken new and decidedly more dangerous turns. So you are doing well to be freeing your minds right now. That is a difficult task, as there are so many forces around you, telling you what and how to think, and selling you incredible lies. The War on Terrorism is a good example. It is a term used to keep you from thinking freely and from actually solving the world's problems relating to poverty and freedom. If you solved those problems you would severely damage the profits of the elite. The very idea that you can have war on terror is as silly as the idea that you can have war on anger. War itself is insane anger. As the world's resources become stressed by global warming and overpopulation, do we really think we can kill all the angry people? Can we calm them down by dropping bombs on their villages and spraying their families with machine gun bullets? Isn't that rather like dropping gasoline and crumpled newspaper on forest fires instead of water? Do you think anyone really thinks it will work? They don't even want it to work. War is too profitable. It is profitable for those who finance the careers of our politicians. Islamo-fascism, as a label, is yet another fraud used to keep you from thinking freely. Some people in the world are so desperate and angry that they will blow themselves up just to hurt us, that is true. But it has to do with the conditions of their lives, not with religion. Religion is always the excuse for murder, but rarely the motive. If I tell you that God wants us all to clean up the dining rooms tonight, to scrub every seat and scrape-off every blob of gum, you will thank me for my opinion and you will back out of the room en masse. If, however, I tell you that God wants us all to storm the administration building tonight and change our grades to straight A's, then how many of you will answer God's call? In war, religion is a cover and an organizing convenience. That's all it has ever been, going back to the Crusades, which were all about treasure and rape. The "War on Terrorism," has very little to do with anyone's religious beliefs. Terrorism, historically, is a term used to describe what governments do to rule through fear to overrule the rule of law. The term originated after the French Revolution as a tool for suppressing dissent. If we are to truly prosecute a War on Terrorism, it would inclue preventing governments from using fear to shred the democratic rule of law. If you want to stop insane anger in the world, you have to get at world poverty and the injustices that people suffer as nations ruthlessly jockey for resources. We don't negotiate with terrorists. Anytime you hear tough language like that, you will do well to assume it means the opposite. If we actually don't negotiate with terrorists, you would have heard the President make a speech proclaiming that: "Nothing our enemies do will persuade us in the least to give up on our principles. We will hold fast to our Bill of Rights and to the cherished Geneva Convention. All suspects will be afforded a lawyer and a trial and humane treatment, no matter what. We will not run like cowards away from the Constitution and the human values that our people have fought and died to protect and improve. We will not give any of that up to the terrorists in exchange for some hope of extra safety. We will not negotiate." THAT would be refusing to negotiate with terrorists. But that is not what this government has done. In terms of giving up on things of value, this government has knelt down and emptied its pockets after the first punch. It was profitable for some people for this to happen. Not only has our so-called government given away our basic human rights turned them over to the terrorists in exchange for worthless hopes of safety but they have subjected you and me to endless little indignities unbecoming American citizens. Why do they harass you at the airports, refusing to let you stop your car for a moment at the curb to pick-up your friends? Do they think that, by harassing you in this way, that they are in any way preventing a truck from driving up and exploding? They of course know better. It is not about that. it is about keeping you fearful, and reminding us that We the People no longer have the power. Speak up at the airport and you will be whisked away. What a wonderful place an airport is to teach us all about the new country we are living in. So you take off your shoes because one madman had an exploding shoe some years ago. I'm not sure which is worse: one possible tragedy like that, or the smell of a hundred million feet thereafter. The point of this airport ceremony is to physically humiliate you into subservience to the new state. Get used to it, because it is just getting started--if you will let it. Any politician you hear talking seriously about the War on Terror or about Islamo-Fascism is lying to you and trying to prevent you from thinking freely. Call them on it. Tell them you think those terms are really just a lot of BS meant to deflect attention from the real issues of world poverty, the unsustainable exploitation of resources and other issues that we, in fact, could address seriously with a fraction of what we spend on counterproductive warfare though we understand it is highly profitable for some. If you are a psych major or have taken some psych courses, you understand that we often transfer to others the things we fear most within ourselves. When some leaders label others with words like terrorist, let them look first to what they are themselves doing in the world. Are they upholding the human rights encoded in the U.S. Constitution, and in the Geneva Convention, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? If they are not, then they have forfeited their right to label other people in any disparaging way. Do they understand that 90% of the people who die in war are civilians, and that any pre-emptive, meaning non-provoked war, is by definition an act of terrorism? In the term "Islamo-fascist, let's look a little closer. The term "fascist" was popularized by Mussolini to describe how corporate interests could be combined with an authoritarian government. If some American leader has assumed dictatorial powers by claiming the ability to disregard laws, and if he has given no-bid contracts with billions of dollars to friendly corporations that he has an actual family interest in, then he may indeed want to transfer the word Fascist as far away from himself as possible, but we see through this with our free minds. The historical shoe fits. The fact of our condition is that we have two governments. We have a faceless government that has secret prisons, its own rules, a suspension of all our rights, and its own armies and budgets. It laughs at us when we think we can tell it what to do. It has been around for some time certainly since the early 60s when we started losing the leaders who actually represented our values. We do have another government. It is the one where we have debates, campaigns, elections (more or less), and where the winners play at a Congress. This government has fallen in power as the other has risen. I have lived long enough to see the dimming of lights in the Capitol building. These people no longer much represent you and me. The mainstream news keeps us from seeing the truth of this. We are expected to be happy with our wonderful cars and your wonderful music players and our fancy phones that can message back and forth. But we have been left without anything of our own to say that is not a rewrite of a commercial. If you are not hearing the truth from the mainstream media, it is because there is a game here, and one of the main rules of the game is that you have to pretend we are still a government of, by and for its people. If you cannot live in that fantasy, you will be ostracized as a nut case, a fanatic, a fringe element. That is part of the control mechanism that you have to understand if you would be free to think for yourself. If, to create an absurd example, the family of George Bush were investors together in oil partnerships with the Bin Laden family, or if George Bush Senior were a part of a company like the Carlyle Group that has profited greatly from the Iraq War, would those stories be all over CNN and in the front pages of newspapers, or would those stories violate the fantasy and therefore be ignored? Well, those stories happen to be true, so judge for yourself if we have a problem with the news media. How, indeed, do we bring order into the chaos of our lives once we reject the lies around us? What is the thing that is not a lie? Where is a fixed star by which we can navigate our lives through the ever-warming waters ahead?
Somewhere, perhaps less than a mile from here, there is someone who didn't come to this lecture. This person took time out of his or her day to go tutor a kid or help an older person maybe to help someone learn a needed language. There is the star. That person out there has more to tell you than I do, for Love is the only truth that can save us from lies and from anger and sad living. The real division of politics in the world is between truth and love on one hand, which call for the happy development of every human's highest potential, and the politics of fear and hate on the other hand, which are known by exploitation and oppression. You know which kind of politics is at the helm today. Maybe an election or two can make some improvements. But, even so, we still have this little problem with the other government, the one that thinks it is really in charge of our lives and our world--the one the world knows very well. When the storm destroyed New Orleans, the wealthy neighborhoods suddenly had armed Blackwater guards at their gates. These machine-gun toting men were from other nations and had no familiarity with our Bill of Rights. They would have followed any order. In that storm, we saw the future, if we will allow it. Race is more important in organizing political differences than economic class. So now we see a rise in racial conflict in America, even in places where we wouldn't have imagined it a few years ago. The uneasy peace between the races in America made possible by the post World War II boom is now moving into difficult times. It is aggravated by the immigration issue. Can you see these issues freely? You read the newspapers and the internet news sites, and you watch the Daily Show, so you know just about everything. Or do you? The U.S. Farm program, voted for by our elected representatives, subsidizes the corn industry so heavily that American corporations sell corn in Mexico for half of what Mexico's family farmers can sell it for. So half the farms in Mexico have gone out of business. Farm families have migrated to Mexico's big cities, where there is so much poverty that all one can do is plan to sneak into America for decent wages. They die on our desert borders. If it were easy to come and go, how could we oppress them so easily? We have come to rely upon this oppression for the smooth operation of our communities. But you will not hear about this story on the TV news, will you? It is outside the accepted fantasy. The lies that surround us drive emotions and they drive unkindness and cruelty, which are the signposts of misinformation and misunderstanding. People who are not free of mind are not kindly of mind. Kindness is freedom's truest indicator. If you cannot stop to help someone who clearly needs your help, you are not a free man or woman. Your chains may have the glamorous attachments of Blackberries and credit cards, but you are not free if your time is not your own to follow your heart. If you are looking for a strategy to improve relations between the races, between straight and gay people, between religions, you must understand that such peace is most achievable when there is sufficient truth and prosperity to go around, and when there is the kindness that is the product of those two. To preserve prosperity in the world, agriculture and nature must be saved. The coal plants must be shut down--all of them--within the next few years. Gasoline-powered automobiles must be phased-out in the next ten years. International trade must be largely curtailed in favor of local production. These are the issues of a politics of love, and they cannot go forward without some free thinking and some knocking-down of immense lies now in place. Free thinking, prosperity and kindness, so intertwined, make cooperative living easier to achieve, and push intolerance away. We have a lot of work to do, but, can you see it? Do you have a glimpse of it? Can you stand the idea of Google-ing a little more Noam Chomsky and a little less USA Today? That would be a good beginning. Churchill was correct when he said the empires of the future are the empires of the mind. The big battle for the future is being fought right now in your mind. Your freedoms are closing-in around you. Our present circumstances seem to necessitate a new and democratic international compact between those of you who are willing to do what is necessary to be free people living sustainably, and to withdraw our support from systems outside the compact. The compact can be first between individuals, and then communities. It can later include regions and nations. How will this be brought forth? Will it be enough? I don't know, but it's all we can do. Certainly the Internet, for as long as we can keep it, can get us started. But don't rely on it entirely, for it is no longer ours to trust. You have the power to save your freedoms and your natural world. Truth and Love, Courage and Energy, and a good organizing plan for cooperative action are your great powers. Don't look for leaders to do it for you, unless you are standing before a mirror. I'm 97, soon 98, so saying "good luck" is about all I have left. I have filled my life with adventures and good causes. They have not been enough for the world, and they have not even been enough for me. But I shudder to think of how bare my life would have been had I not answered the call to action that you must now be feeling somewhere in your hearts, as you have it felt before. Thank you all very much. And good luck. ------------------
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good. ~ Bertrand Russell IP: Logged |
BlueRoamer
Knowflake Posts: 95
From:
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 14, 2007 02:31 PM
WOW....
GG thanks for much for posting that, brilliant and wise, insightful....yet sad at the same time. Will people wake up or will big brother become a reality? Are we going to continue lining the pockets of the rich elite on the backs of the poor and the environment, or will we got towards the paradise that the earth was intended to be?
It really starts one person at a time. I am dedicating my life to peace, and improving conditions for the poor and suffering. I refuse violence and hateful speech in all its forms. It has to start with one person. Generosity. Giving a dollar to a homeless person, giving directions to a lost person, holding the door open for someone.
I think the change has to come in the mass consciousness of the average person. Charismatic leaders are effective, but continuing to strive for peace and equality has to infect the mass consciousness, and this is hard considering the hold that TV and mainstream media has on people. It fills us with dread and fear of things that don't exist yet. It keeps us from living our lives fully. I say we must keep an eye on the wolf that is on our property, no the one that may or may not be unseen in the woods. One step at a time. Giving. Kindness. It's not about leaders, its about the common person doing what they can. Giving a small donation to chartiy, supporting birth control to help control the world population, supporting alternative energy sources to free us from oil dependence. We can do it!! IP: Logged |
goatgirl
unregistered
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posted November 14, 2007 02:44 PM
 You're a treasure BR. Thanks for being here.Peace and Hugs,
GG ------------------
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good. ~ Bertrand Russell IP: Logged |
BlueRoamer
Knowflake Posts: 95
From:
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 14, 2007 02:45 PM
IP: Logged | |
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