Thanks Again, Harry Taylor

"In my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of my leadership in Washington. And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and grace to be ashamed of yourself."

- Harry Taylor, April, 2006



When I saw Harry Taylor at an art gallery in the NoDa district of Charlotte, N.C. last weekend, I recognized him immediately. For those of you who may not remember, Harry is the gentleman who stood up at a town hall meeting with President Bush less than a year ago and asked him a question so honest and forthright that no one could believe he was able to do so - to "get away with it" - at a town hall meeting. "Getting away with it" shouldn't be the way an honest and forthright question successfully asked of a President should be seen, but at the point in time when Harry Taylor stood up, citizens were discriminated against at these so-called "open" Bush town hall meetings (and it's likely they still would be).

At the time he'd done it, I thought that Harry Taylor looked "solid American" - the kind of face you'd see in a Norman Rockwell portrait. In the portrait called Free Speech by Rockwell, the expression on the faces of the citizens who look up to a man willing to stand up and speak says it all. You can imagine they're thinking, "Good for you. I'm glad you did that. Amen, brother." That wasn't the reception Harry got last April. He was booed by fellow citizens, much to the disgust of the millions of us who watched the clip repeated on CNN and the evening news. Oh, how we cheered Harry Taylor for his courage and honesty that day. That sentiment is precisely what I hoped I conveyed when trying to tell Harry how I'd felt when he stood up and questioned President Bush about last April.





"You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you’d like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf."

- More of Harry Taylor's comments to President Bush last April




I found Harry to be a humble man. I told him that I held him in the highest esteem for the courage to have stood up and face the "boos" of those fellow citizens who'd been cowed by one another into eerie quiet and acceptance of things too many of us knew were wrong. In a free country, we have taken the right to free speech for granted. Harry showed us, after a long and bitter season of the kind of silence that comes from intimidation and discrimination, that democratic leadership can only come from the hearts of the people and that the health of that democracy depends on the courage of those who are willing to stand up and demand to be heard. A lot of people consider him to be a hero, but Harry would rather be seen as a citizen-leader just doing what should be expected of any person who cares deeply about participating in democratic goverment. He continues writing letters to the editor of his community newspaper and asking tough questions of his government representatives. He remains an Independent voter today.


It seems almost unbelievable that the tipping point, created by Harry Taylor himself, occurred only 11 months ago. We have to ask ourselves how the mainstream media could have slept through the "season of silence" for so long. Harry did their job for them when he stood up. A lot of "doubting Thomases" had epressed their fear that Harry was just another Jeff Gannon - an "intentional guest" at that infamous Bush town hall meeting. Meeting Harry, I can tell you that that belief is beyond the realm of possibility. As of last April (and, in large part, still today), Moveon.org was still being talked about by the MSM as if it was some wild-eyed leftist group and it just isn't true. Harry agreed with me that his standing up was a Malcolm Gladwell moment - a tipping point for a still-rapidly flowing waterfall of public honesty about the empty suit that our President has been all long. One short year ago, the media was all too willing to fill that empty suit with the Rovian illusions created by the designed absence of diversity of opinion at the Bush town hall gatherings. MSM seldom mentioned that it was a completely stifled reality.

Since his "15 minutes of international fame," Harry has taken the opportunity to participate in DFA grassroots training and MoveOn.org activities. Calling him liberal would be a stretch. Calling him a "small 'd' democrat" and a caring patriot would be far more accurate.

I really liked him.

Harry spoke for all of us almost a year ago. So much has changed since then. It was hard for me to find the right words to thank him, but I know he understood.

I'm just wild about Harry.

Last April at the John Edwards blog, David K. Beckwith [the blogger known as Anonymoses] wrote about what Harry did and why it was important. He said:

It was a moment to go down in history. A man, a North Carolinian, broke free of the groupthink silence and told the President the truth. On April 6, 2006, at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina, Mr. Harry Taylor stood before a crowd of Bush supporters and Mister Bush himself, and said what many have wanted to say, but were either silenced, timid or a human chicken.

It is weird to think that one act of defiance can win someone a place in the history books, but it just reflects the times we are in, and what is wrong with current "leadership".

My hat is off to the new American Hero, Harry Taylor.

Here were some of the many replies from fellow citizens:

Harry Taylor joined the ranks of "one who dared", which reminds me of the lone figure standing in front of the tank in Tianamen Square. That man and that tank are metaphors for the equally deadly machine operating out of the White House and one heroic figure with the courage to face up to that machine and publicly expose it for what it is. Mr. Taylor is a hero, purely and simply.

- Mardee

GWB what needed to be said as to how he felt. I think the man showed much character and he made me proud just to listen. In spite of the boos, he maintained his honor by speaking his thoughts.

- Im4jre

I was in shock when Harry started talking. I could not believe he got in the door AND they allowed him to speak.

- NCDem

Most times the truth hurts. It's about time someone had the courage to stand up and speak a truth that has been missing from so many of the mainstream "media" outlets and polls that are supposed to reflect public opinion. Mr. Taylor spoke the truth and there can be nothing wrong with that. If someone thinks otherwise they might want to check out a little document called the Constitution. They might find it's first amendment very enlightening.

- Cate-Iowa

Reminds me of a Steven Van Zandt song, "I Am a Patriot" -

And the river opens for the righteous, someday

I was walking with my brother
And he wondered what was on my mind
I said what I believe in my soul
It ain't what I see with my eyes
And we can't turn our backs this time

I am a patriot and I love my country
Because my country is all I know
I want to be with my family
With people who understand me
I got nowhere else to go
I am a patriot

- Benny

Abraham Lincoln portrayed ours as a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” This hardly describes what we have today. The only way to change that is to demand that our elected representatives in Washington, including the President, listen to us.

What can each of us do? Have conversations with others. Learn to be great listeners. Read… and not just material that favors your position. Develop healthy skepticism — make the facts prove themselves. Insist that your elected representatives respond, and support those who really do listen to us, the people. See the links to several November Congressional races to be fought against weak GOP incumbents. Please consider making a contribution.

I truly believe Americans are more alike than different; that we can find common ground that works for everyone; that we can have a genuinely representative government with compassionate leaders. We owe it to ourselves, and more especially to our children and grandchildren, to make this effort.

Know that courage is contagious. Together we do have the ability to win back our government and country.


- Harry Taylor, ThankYouHarryTaylor.com

* credit for the Rockwell/Taylor art: Cronus Protagonist, courtesy of the DU.

* credit for the art with the title The man who dared to tell the President what America thinks goes to Anonymoses [David K. Beckwith], who not only alerted me to Harry's presence at the NoDa gallery, but also took the photo of me with him above. Thanks, David.

Thoughts on IWR and NIE

The Democratic message has been winning in 2007, but it was weak in 2002.

Allow me to give you an example of my ongoing argument with some other stubborn Democrats who bash John Edwards for his IWR vote and for not reading the classified NIE that nearly always ends with my having the last word.

There was a complete failure on George Tenet's part to allow even a shadow of doubt about the strength of the CIA's WMD evidence to come through in the infamous and incredibly misleading White Paper (declassified 28-page report for Senators outside the Intel Committee).

Democrats didn't stand a political chance against this kind of public misleading regardless of what the classified NIE had to say. Because the White Paper would not publically confirm any of George Tenet's shaky reservations which he'd expressed in private, a Democrat's political achilles heel during such a time as 2002 would have been fully exposed by this damnation of truth known as the White Paper. I see that White Paper as the final nail in the coffin of truth.

Could or should John Edwards have gone with his gut and voted NO (as one-time advisor Bob Shrum admits Edwards wanted to do?) Obviously, Edwards feels, in retrospect, that he should have gone with "NO". But his journey to YES is clearly understandable and, as we've already witnessed by public response, FORGIVEABLE.

Some may tell you that they forgive Edwards, but they now don't trust him. I tell them that I will vote for Edwards not because he's asked for forgiveness, but because of what I believe he will do from this moment on - with the wisdom that has come from hard lessons learned along the way.. I have no doubt that his instinct was right all along, even if his vote wasn't.

Why do you think John Edwards is so careful and determined to call the War on Terror a political "bumper sticker" tool now? I think it's because he was burned, in a political sense, by those war-marketers who used such tools to publically strong-arm Democrats in 2002.


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About the White Paper:


FROM DANA PRIEST:
Report Says CIA Distorted Iraq Data

The White Paper, released Oct. 4, 2002, and based on a classified assessment given to Congress, was the public's only look at the intelligence that policymakers used to decide whether Iraq posed enough of a threat to warrant immediate military action.
Yet the 28-page public document turned estimates into facts, left out or watered down the dissent within the government about key weapons programs, and exaggerated Iraq's ability to strike the United States, the investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found.
The heavily redacted White Paper section of the Senate report amounts to a pointed critique of the CIA's willingness to present an unbiased and objective account of the Iraqi threat to the American public.
It also raises questions about the CIA's selective declassification of material, a critique that was made by last year's joint Sept. 11 congressional inquiry and by the subsequent independent Sept. 11 commission.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



I think that the NIE was hastily prepared and just another "cheap tool" used to market a liar's war. John Edwards could have read every word and memorized every little punctuation mark a thousand times and it wouldn't have changed a thing.

Our Democrats on the Senate Intel Committee were WORKING IN THE DARK and politically vulnerable.


Senator Bob Graham had this to say about Tenet and the White Paper:

What I Knew Before the Invasion by Sen Bob Graham

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.
Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein's capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.
There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.
Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.
The American people needed to know these reservations, and I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. Its conclusions, such as "If Baghdad acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year," underscored the White House's claim that exactly such material was being provided from Africa to Iraq.

Unrestrained Globalization Ends Camillus Cutlery

Speaking to a local news channel, Camillus Cutlery historian Tom Williams commented about how unfortunate it is today with the competition that globlization has brought to the small American community's doorstep. He underscored the closing of the 131-year-old company with the fact that all American knife companies are having a very hard time competing today. The costs of doing business in what author Thomas Friedman calls the new "flat earth" have revealed a reality in the way business operates today, independently and together with governmental leadership that has made it incredibly easy for certain businesses to thrive and have made it utterly disastrous for others, especially U.S. manufacturers. Personally, I think it's a shame. I live in the village of Camillus and I have long understood that the Cutlery and its products were once a great a source of American pride and community pride.



Camillus Cutlery labor strike, photo taken August, 2006

For the past year, I would see the pain of the striking workers firsthand, their hopes raised when a labor contract was approved in November, and their sadness and disappointment the very next day when a majority of them were laid off. I saw the writing on the wall, understanding the realities of trying to keep your head above water as a business person in today's dog-eat-workingman atmosphere. I support a more progressive policy that incorporates fairness for all men and women - worker and businessowner alike.

U.S. trade policy should be structured to both promote U.S. competitiveness and to also benefit workers at home in our communties and abroad. Many of you might say , "So the cutlery finally closed. Oh well, that's just the way it is." Many of you are not the workers who took great pride in producing a product that was proudly U.S.-made by a prominent manufacturer in their small community for well over a century. With a realisitically fair U.S. trade policy, Camillus Cutlery wouldn't have had to have come to an end in this manner.

Ironically, U.S. manufacturing unexpectedly rose in February. There is no joy in the village of Camillus today about the news.

The Camwell Doctrine

My Exit Plan:
Congress should limit funding levels to force
redeployment from Iraq
Sent via Democracy For America today.

It's high time for Congress to to attack the funding levels for the Iraq war surge. This week, U.S. intelligence chief Admiral Mike McConnell pointed to the February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque as the place in time when everything changed, and was more than likely a point of no return in the Iraq civil war - unless the current surge is successful by miraculous circumstance. And no one other than BushCheneyCo actually believes it will be. We are well past the turning point - the point that revealed utter faiure of the Bush foreign poicy in Iraq.

There is every good and clear reason for our elected representatives to repeal the President's 2002 authority and to cut funding for any request that would make this surge easy for a dangerous executive administration that is virtually promising to ignore the will of Congress on the matter regardless of what foreign policy disaster they try to avert.

An Iraq that is likely to emerge, at long last, through the crusher of the bitter civil war that is now and will be for a long time hence, will owe its final level of stability to a regional need for security and stability. It will never be due to some "gift of liberty" given by God or Bush. Iraq's new democracy, as it is desired by those who live there, will emerge because Bush will have FINALLY left it alone, and not because of his efforts at playing puppetmaster to the entire region.

Kirkuk is about to explode.

The time for Congress to act decisively is now.

Jude Nagurney Camwell
http://iddybud.blogspot.com

* In other words, Congress - get off your meek, mild horses and do what you're responsible for doing. The nation is watching you for moral leadership and acts of good conscience. No more games.

Seen in Charlotte N.C.

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Regional Conference w/Iran: Please Don't Let it Be Bolton

Two points taken from today's guest blogpost at Informed Comment by Gerald B. Helman, who was United States Ambassador to the European Office of the United Nations from 1979 through 1981. The first is included in the content above the fold and is in regard to the upcoming regional conference with Iran and it underscores what many of us - sadly - have already come to realize about the Bush administration.

"The Conference may also offer the US an opportunity over the longer run to establish and institutionalize a more stable security environment in the region, with the US and its forces a continuing and accepted element. The Administration could make preparation of positions for the conference a truely bipartisan effort and even propose some level of Congressional participation. Regretably, this Administration lacks the imagination, courage and time to bring that about."

The second is a rumor from below the fold. A commenter asks if there's any truth to the rumor that former UN Ambassador John Bolton will be appointed the American representative for this regional conference. If it's true, I believe it would be an accurate predictor of the expected (non) results of the regionl conference as made in the first point by Dr. Helman above.

In a recent National Interest article [subsc req] titled UN, Rediscovered, Derek Chollet makes the astute observation:

In many ways personnel is destiny, and the new faces could move the relationship from an era of bitterness, suspicion and isolation to one of sustained, positive engagement and realistic expectations.

If personnel is destiny and Bolton is put in charge, I don't think I'd have to spell out the end of the story for you. After too many years of Bolton's stormy history, you're smart enough to figure it out for yourself.

No Free Pass for the Politics of Religious Sloganeering

In an outstanding post by Lydia Cornell titled No Human Power, she speaks about the travesty and the danger of mixing religion with politics.

"To me the worst thing Bush did was proclaim himself a Christian without having an inkling of what the Great Peacemaker stood for."

This reminds me of something I read from Obery Hendricks. He'd written these words just before the 2006 elections:

The Gospel of Luke tells us that in his inaugural sermon Jesus announced the purpose of his earthly ministry with these words, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." Throughout the Gospels Jesus makes it clear that care of the poor and vulnerable is one of his deepest concerns, so much so that he gave this as the primary yardstick of faith in him: "As you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me." In other words, the Jesus that George Bush claims as his Lord not only taught that we can meet our neighbors' needs if we have the will; he also taught that we must have the will.

In the coming election season, President Bush and politicians aligned with him who also trumpet their Christian faith will try to trade on that faith to garner votes. They will try to hide their abandonment of America's most vulnerable citizens behind distracting religious sloganeering and hot-button issues like gay marriage. But we must not allow it. We must remind Bush and his congressional cohorts that the Christian faith they profess calls for them to make alleviation of the suffering of the Gulf Coast poor - indeed, of all America's poor - this nation's immediate domestic priority.

In Mark's Gospel Jesus asks, "Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?" That is the question we must ask President Bush and those politicians who strut their Christian faith while ignoring the care for the needy that their faith demands: "How can you call Jesus ‘Lord,' and not do what he says?"

We must not allow it.

UN Human Rights Chief Blasts U.S.

JTW News:

"I hope that we will see the American judicial system rise to its long-standing reputation as a guardian of fundamental human rights and civil liberties and provide the protection to all that are under the authority, control, and therefore in my view jurisdiction of the United States," Louise Arbour said on Wednesday.

The UN high commissioner for human rights was referring to the Military Commissions Act approved by the US Congress last year and last month's federal appeals court ruling that Guantanamo Bay detainees cannot use the US court system to challenge their detention. The case is likely to go to the Supreme Court.

I can hardly believe that it's my country that Ms. Arbour is talking about when she says:

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, the U.S.-led "war on terror" has undermined the global ban on torture, this weakening American moral authority on human rights, worldwide. "The principle once believed to be unassailable -- the inherent right to physical integrity and dignity of the person -- is becoming a casualty of the so-called War on Terror," Arbour said in a statement on Human Rights Day.

Arbour is also a former Canadian Supreme Court justice and a chief prosecutor for the U.N. war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia. She praised past U.S. leadership on expanding political and civil rights, because it allowed the Americans "to lecture others about their performances." "To the extent that there's a perception that there is a withdrawal from the high-water mark of commitment to civil and political liberties, I think it makes it a lot more difficult for the United States to exercise that kind of moral leadership on all human rights issues," Arbour said.

The UN Commissioner of Human Rights "decried two practices in particular: holding prisoners in secret detention centers, which she said was a form of torture, and rendering suspects to third countries outside normal extradition procedures, that is, without independent oversight." Arbour said "There are a lot of human rights that can be set aside in cases of emergency, lots of them, but not the right to life and not the protection against torture." The United States has denied practicing torture but it has avoided denying or confirming a Washington Post report that the CIA runs secret centres in Eastern Europe to interrogate terrorism suspects."

The United States has also come under heavy criticism for prisoner abuse and torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The heavy loss of civilian life and the conduct of U.S. troops have been heavily criticized in the on going occupation of Iraq. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair has admitted, "Iraq is a disaster."