TonyPalmeri.Com Update For May 30, 2005
Memorial Day greetings to all from TonyPalmeri.Com. On this memorial day I'll pass along a video made by the anti-war American Friends Service Committee. The AFSC is a Quaker organization founded in 1917 to assist WW I conscientious objectors. The organization was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1947. Here's the video: http://www.afsc.org/iraq/movie.htm
In 1947 Dr. Henry J. Cadbury delivered the Nobel acceptance speech on behalf of the AFSC. His words have great relevance for today:
"If any should question the appropriateness of bestowing the peace prize upon a group rather than upon an outstanding individual we may say this: THE COMMON PEOPLE OF ALL NATIONS WANT PEACE. In the presence of great impersonal forces they feel individually helpless to promote it. You are saying to them here today that common folk, not statesmen, nor generals nor great men of affairs, but just simple plain men and women like the few thousand Quakers and their friends, if they devote themselves to resolute insistence on goodwill in place of force, even in the face of great disaster past or threatened, can do something to build a better, peaceful world. The future hope of peace lies with such personal sacrificial service. To this ideal humble persons everywhere may contribute."
If you did not get a chance to check out the Valley Scene cover story for May ("Korea Remembered"), it's a great memoir of Korea written by Appleton veteran James Kuebler: http://www.tonypalmeri.com/cover.html
And Now On To The Update:
1. Jim Doyle's We Are The Lesser Evil Speech: The Wisconsin State Democratic Party has chosen Oshkosh as the site of its 2005 convention. Since the Democratic Party "leadership" has been so nice to me and others who choose to challenge the debilitating duopoly of the GOP and Dems, I felt obligated to write a speech for Governor Jim The New Democrat Doyle. Give 'em hell, Jim: http://www.tonypalmeri.com/mediarants38.htm
2. Internet Trolls Strike The Leach Amphitheater!: Good God, we now have the spectacle of Toilet Trolls in a Lavish Lavatory. http://www.tonypalmeri.com/trollpotties.htm
3. New Blog: This Week in Oshkosh. Gary from Oshkosh adds one more grassroots voice to the mix. http://www.garyfromoshkosh.blogspot.com/ Meanwhile Bill Kraus wonders what the blogger phenomenon is all about, Alfie: Here's Bill http://www.fightingbob.com/guestblog.cfm?PostID=1250
4. Radio Commentary Features Former Presidential Speechwriter Matthew Scully: Next Friday (June 4th) we'll have a must-listen to show on Radio Commentary. The guest is Matthew Scully, who until last fall served as special assistant and deputy director of speechwriting to President George W. Bush. Scully has written extensively on the torture inflicted on animals at factory farms, a topic I will be discussing with him at length: http://www.matthewscully.com/fear_factories.htm
Scully says, "I am asked sometimes how a conservative could possibly care about animal suffering in factory farms, but the question is premised on a liberal caricature of conservatism—the assumption that, for all of our fine talk about moral values, 'compassionate conservatism' and the like, everything we really care about can be counted in dollars. In the case of factory farming, and the conservative’s blithe tolerance of it, the caricature is too close to the truth." If you think Scully is exaggerating about the heinous crimes taking place on factory farms, check out this site: http://www.factoryfarming.com/gallery.htm
Radio Commentary can be heard on Friday from 6:20 - 7:00 p.m. on WRST-FM 90.3 in Oshkosh. Web streaming is available: http://www.uwosh.edu/wrst/ Radio Commentary is produced by Bob Knudsen (aka Bob Roberts of Wild-Eyed Radio Fame): http://www.uwosh.edu/wrst/Homepages/WildEyed%20Radio/index.php
5. Eye on Oshkosh Features Phil Levine, Bob Zaspel: Cheryl Hentz and I have some great shows coming up on Eye on Oshkosh. This coming week we've got Phil Levine, owner of the establishment Jeff's on Rugby, who provides his response to the recent reinstating of the restaurant smoking ban. Then the next week we have Bob Zaspel from the state's Consumer Affairs department, who talks about how to avoid a variety of scams. In the Oshkosh area, "Eye on Oshkosh" can be seen on Mondays at 7 p.m., Thursdays at 1 p.m. and Saturdays at 6 p.m. Check your local cable company for replay times in other outlying areas.
6. "Anonymous" Professor Libeled . . . : The Oshkosh Northwestern recently published a truly horrific editorial arguing that UW Oshkosh faculty should be teaching more classes in order to show "leadership" during the current budget crisis. Part of the editorial said this: "Any full-time UWO teacher who has the ability to teach, write, conduct research, host a radio program, participate in a weekly public affairs cable television show, support a Web site, be active in the community issues, work as a political activist and run for office almost certainly has time to teach another class." Gee, I wonder who they are talking about? Miles Maguire over at Oshkosh News chimed in with:
"You didn't’t name him (and I don’t understand why not since your paper seems to have a big problem with anonymity), but your editorial seems to refer to an individual professor, Tony Palmeri. It’s true that he does have a high profile in our community, but I think you should recognize that what he is doing is in keeping with the Wisconsin Idea—that the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state." http://www.oshkoshnews.org/blogs/oshblog/archives/2005/05/dear_mr_archiba.html
Other letters from professors appear on the Lake Winneblogo site (scroll down): http://winneblogo.blogspot.com/
For the record, I am on the maximum teaching load for Ph.D faculty in the UW system (4 classes per semester). No one, not even the biggest enemies of the UW System in the state legislature like Representative Steve N-ass, has argued that Ph.D faculty should be teaching more than 4 classes per semester. The editorial writers at the Northwestern clearly assumed that I am on a reduced teaching load, and their inference is that I am on a reduced load to support political work, which I see as borderline libelous (but two Journalism professors have told me that it is not borderline--it IS libel).
7. While the UW takes a beating . . . http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=41654&ntpid=3
8. And Student Activists rattle the Joint Finance Committee: http://www.tonypalmeri.com/healey.htm
9. Greens File Felony Complaint Against Gard, Schultz, Doyle: We've got some Republicrat logrolling going on down in Madison--the governor making a deal with the Republicans to screw local communities and prevent them from enacting their own minimum wage ordinances in return for a Department of Workforce Development agreement to raise the minimum wage statewide. As Dee Snider might say, we're not gonna take it: http://www.tonypalmeri.com/complaint.htm
10. First Green Grass Party: Everyone's invited to the first Green Grass Party at Jake Schneider's house in Menasha http://lwgp.wisconsingreenparty.org/Actions_events/green_grass.html
11. Graft Tax 2005: The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign once again shows the depths to which the executive and legislative branches in Madison have sunk in a morass of campaign contributions http://www.wisdc.org/sp052505.php
12. Fiore Figures Out Why They Hate Us: Remember after 9/11 were were deluged with "Why do they hate us?" screeds in academic workshops and TV news? Well, Mark Fiore has finally figured it out: http://www.markfiore.com/animation/why01.html
13. Media Blackout of Downing St. Memo: In what is kind of like a British version of the Pentagon Papers, the Downing St. Memo might be the "smoking gun" that provides evidence necessary to show that intelligence was fixed to justify a military invasion of Iraq
The American "liberal" media have been virtually silent on this memo, with little substantial reporting on it or further investigation. The Des Moines Register was the first American newspaper to editorialize about the memo (May 20th), and what they said is worth repeating here:
Is it the "smoking gun" that proves President Bush misled the nation into war?
Not quite. But it should be enough for Congress finally to see its duty and launch a formal, independent inquiry.
What's come to be called the Downing Street Memo seems to confirm what opponents of the Iraq invasion suspected all along: that the president decided early on to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, then tailored the intelligence to fit the preconceived course of action. The memo caused an uproar in Britain just before the recent election but has received little attention in the United States, except as a hot topic in the blogosphere.
The memo, published by the Times of London on May 1, consists of secret minutes of a British cabinet meeting in July 2002, eight months before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq. The minutes include a report on talks in Washington: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The memo said that "the case was thin" for military action in Iraq.
Two investigations in the United States concluded that the Bush administration did not pressure intelligence agents to change their assessments about Iraq to fit the administration's point of view. But both reports - one by the Senate Intelligence Committee, one by a presidential commission - ducked the next question: whether the administration exaggerated or made selective use of the available intelligence to justify an invasion decision that had already been made.
Perhaps it doesn't matter. The lack of uproar in this country over the Downing Street Memo suggests that the public is more interested in completing the mission successfully than in rehashing how it began. Indeed, that's where the focus should be.
Still, it's important to establish the truth of how the United States came to invade a country that posed no threat to us. It's important for the historical record and for better decision-making in the future. Congress, which authorized the invasion at the president's request, has an oversight responsibility to inquire and to report to the nation.
Here's the actual memo: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html
Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) and 88 additional members of Congress have sent a letter to president seeking answers and are now asking interested citizens to sign on to an additional letter: http://www.johnconyers.campaignoffice.com/index.asp?Type=SUPERFORMS&SEC={0F1B03E0-080B-4100-B143-36A5985EF1E3}
Many thanks to Tina H. and Bill W. for forwarding me information about Downing St.
14. From Freedom Fries To Withdrawal Vote: Lest you think it is only liberal Democrats like John Conyers who have had enough of the Iraq stonewalling, conservative North Carolina Republican Walter Jones recently joined 4 other Republicans in voting for an amendment (which lost) that would have asked the president to set a withdrawal date. Jones was the one who came up with "Freedom Fries" to take a stab at the French. He said he voted for the amendment because "When I voted two years ago to submit the troops, I was making my decisions on facts. Since that time, I've been very disappointed on what I've learned about the justification of going into Iraq. Afghanistan, absolutely, we should be there. We should have more troops, but we can't have more troops there when they're in Iraq." http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2005/0526withdrawal.htm
15. Gannett Closes The Green Bay News Chronicle: When Gannett purchased the Green Bay News Chronicle last July, I and many other predicted they would close the paper before long: http://www.tonypalmeri.com/mediamonopoly.htm
They finally did it: http://www.madison.com/tct/business//index.php?ntid=41535&ntpid=2
I'll be writing more about this at some point in the future.
16. Fifth Tuesday Forum: From Oshkosh News http://www.oshkoshnews.org/blogs/oshblog/archives/2005/05/fifth_tuesday_f.html
17. Winnebago Peace and Justice Center Presents the Super DOUBLE Duper Mega Rama Rummage Sale: Also from Oshkosh News: http://www.oshkoshnews.org/blogs/oshblog/archives/2005/05/winnebago_peace_1.html
Finally, don't forget to bookmark TonyPalmeri.Com
Peace, Tony