"I deplore brutality," he said. "It's not efficient. On the other hand, prolonged mistreatment, short of physical violence, gives rise, when skillfully applied, to anxiety and a special feeling of guilt. A few rules or rather guiding principles are to be borne in mind. The subject must not realize that the mistreatment is a deliberate attack of an anti-human enemy on his personal identity. He must be made to feel that he deserves any treatment he receives because there is something (never specified) horribly wrong with him. The naked need of the control addicts must be decently covered by an arbitrary and intricate bureaucracy so that the subject cannot contact his enemy direct."
The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission.
Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.
Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush. Soaries said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns.
"I am still awaiting their response," he said. "Thus far we have not begun any meaningful discussion." Spokesmen for Rice and Ridge did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Soaries noted that Sept. 11, 2001, fell on Election Day in New York City - and he said officials there had no rules to follow in making the decision to cancel the election and hold it later.
Events in Spain, where a terrorist attack shortly before the March election possibly influenced its outcome, show the need for a process to deal with terrorists threatening or interrupting the Nov. 2 presidential election in America, he said.
"Look at the possibilities. If the federal government were to cancel an election or suspend an election, it has tremendous political implications. If the federal government chose not to suspend an election it has political implications," said Soaries, a Republican and former secretary of state of New Jersey.
"Who makes the call, under what circumstances is the call made, what are the constitutional implications?" he said. "I think we have to err on the side of transparency to protect the voting rights of the country." [more]
If you ever get depressed, if you ever start to feel hopeless, just remember: The United States is just 4 percent of the world's population. I know we have all those guns and nuclear weapons and all those cell phones. But the truth is that the power of the people when it is organized overcomes whatever concentrations of money and military might there are.
We have seen this in history again and again, where governments that seemed all powerful, untouchable, that seemed to have total control of the country, suddenly you wake up one morning and the head of the government is on a plane fleeing the country, fleeing the Philippines with shoes. I admit it, every once in a while I have this fantasy. . . . I'm willing to chip in for the airfare.
There are wonderful signs of resistance all over the world, resistance to authority, resistance to governments, resistance to war. It makes me feel good when I pick up the paper and I see that seventeen Israeli pilots are refusing to fly missions any more.
You forget what power people have. Did you see that picture of that woman from Nigeria who was going to be stoned to death because of a sexual escapade? There was a worldwide protest against that, and the Nigerian government had to back down. People forget how powerful protest is, and how actually vulnerable these presumably powerful entities really are when people get together. We've seen this happen again and again in places where the all-powerful government wakes up in the morning and there are a million people in the streets, and that's it. [more]
Storm: "So this is satire and not documentary? We shouldn’t see this as..."
Moore: "It’s a satirical documentary."
Storm: "Some have said propaganda, do you buy that? Op-ed?"
Moore: "No, I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda. What I do is..."
Storm: "We’ll move beyond on that."
Moore: "Why? Let’s not move beyond that. Seriously."
Storm: "No, let’s talk about your movie."
Moore: "But why don’t we talk about the Evening News on this network and the other networks that didn’t do the job they should have done at the beginning of this war?"
Storm: "You know what?"
Moore: "Demanded the evidence, ask the hard questions-"
Storm: "Okay."
Moore: "-we may not of even gone into this war had these networks done their job. I mean, it was a great disservice to the American people because we depend on people who work here and the other networks to go after those in power and say 'Hey, wait a minute. You want to send our kids off to war, we want to know where those weapons of mass destruction are. Let’s see the proof. Let’s see the proof that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.’"
Storm: "But-"
Moore: "There was no proof and everybody just got embedded and everybody rolled over and everybody knows that now."
Storm: "Michael, the one thing that journalists try to do is to present both sides of the story. And it could be argued that you did not do that in this movie."
Moore: "I certainly didn’t. I presented my side..."
Storm: "You presented your side of the story."
Moore: "Because my side, that’s the side of millions of Americans, (the majority) rarely gets told. This is just a humble plea on my behalf and not to you personally, Hannah. But I’m just saying to journalists in general that instead of working so hard to tell both sides of the story, why don’t you just tell that one side, which is the administration, why don’t you ask them the hard questions-"
Storm: "Which I think is something that we all try to do."
Moore: "Well, I think it was a lot of cheerleading going on at the beginning of this war-"
Storm: "Alright."
Moore: "A lot of cheerleading and it didn’t do the public any good to have journalists standing in front of the camera going 'whoop-dee-do, let’s all go to war’. And, and it’s not their kids going to war. It’s not the children of the news executives going to war-"
Storm: "Michael, why don’t you do you next movie about networks news, okay? Because this movie..."
Moore: "I know, I think I should do that movie."
Storm: "...because this movie is an attack on the president and his policies."
Moore: "Well, and it also points out how the networks failed us at the beginning of this war and didn’t do their job."
. . . I can't believe I haven't linked this before--Philip and RU are two of my favorite brains. Make sure to check out Philip's 3 River Tech Review--his major personal hub on the net from which he routinely jets out to leave his idiosyncratic compassionate-cerebral graff on a wide array of nearby orbitals, including Better Humans, Changesurfer Radio, Warblogger Watch and our very own AmSam.org, among many more.
"Ye fucking gods!! Are you nuts!? Those Jesuit bastards will eat you alive!" --Hunter S. Thompson, to me, circa '93
"Man oh man, 'Dr. Menlo.' Now there's an alternative blog. Kindness to animals, Seattle anarchists, nudism galore, SubGenius, anti-Bush black propaganda, jeez louise, Doc, that thing sure is happenin'." --Bruce Sterling, Schism Matrix
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Dr. Menlo: censored by China, Blogsnob and "The Lefty Directory"
