Activist accuses Bush of betraying public (Will Pitt)

http://www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10522394&BRD=1170&PAG=461&dept_id=7021&rfi=6

Activists, organizers, union leaders, professors and students joined the general public and a mass of foreign musicians for a left-leaning conference examining the policies of the nation's sitting far-right leadership, military recruitment in high schools, war, race issues, the role of the media and civil disobedience in workshop discussions.

The event began with a keynote speech by civil rights leader Damu Smith and later featured another notable speaker, author and journalist William Rivers Pitt, a former teacher. Employed as a political analyst by the Institute for Public Accuracy, Pitt is a writer and editor for truthout.org and a frequent public speaker.
The speech, an indictment of the Bush administration, relied on straight-faced ridicule of their widening credibility gap. Pitt used his sense of humor and addiction to research to skewer the administration's policies and statements.

Pitt began by speaking of the two Blackhawk helicopters that crashed in Mosul earlier in the day - one, thought to be hit by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile, took evasive action upward and crashed into the second chopper. Both fell into a residential neighborhood, which caught fire.

According to the Associated Press, 17 soldiers were killed, bringing the death toll of American troops to 422. Five were wounded, bringing this count to over 5,000. There were no tallies of wounded civilians available Saturday. According to Pitt, all this sacrifice has been to no good end.

...more...

Go Will!!!!

Great job as always!

:loveya:

Will Pitt is the dog's bollox!

according to the article's account of his speech it was certainly well-deserved! But no pictures of him, though, SIGH.

Will should be proud.

from the article:

Pitt's message was that no matter what euphemisms are used - he offered three synonyms for "body bags," the latest term being "transfer tubes" - people die during wars and usually in horrific ways.

He essentially charged the Bush administration with sending scores of soldiers into war and soft-pedaling the resulting carnage, even blocking it from public view whenever possible by keeping soldiers killed in combat anonymous in order to thwart public opposition to the war.

The ongoing war in Iraq has not even followed military standard operating procedure, Pitt claimed, quoting a recently-retired Air Force lieutenant colonel whose analysis found "cooking the intelligence" led to the ongoing series of missteps "in the world's lousiest rat's nest."

"What these people are doing now makes Iran-Contra seem like amateur hour," he said, still quoting the Air Force analyst.

more...

Sounds as if it was a good evening and that things were said that needed to be said.

:kick:

Keep it up Will!

Way to Go!

:toast:

:beer:

Way to go, Will!

"This has been great today," Pitt said as he wound down. "But it doesn't mean a damned thing if you do nothing with it tomorrow.
"Now is the time for patriots. Decide to be one. Decide to scoff at fear. If you stand, you do not stand alone. There is an army behind you," he said as the audience rose for a standing ovation.

getting press in the 'real' world.

"left leaning" as opposed to "far right radical". The center being still malleable mush guarded by the failed media? I only wish this accurate naming of the sides would permeate the national discourse. it barely begins to correct the propaganda fog that is so obviously absurd in the light of mountains of bad results.

Where do you think you are, England?

:)

Keep fighting the fight.

Huzzah for Will!!!!