"Has this administration no shame?"

[rocketmaster]

Read the the acceptance speech below of a one Mrs. Barbra Streisand upon her
receipt of the prestigious "Humanitarian Award" from The Human Rights
Campaign on March 6th, 2004.

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I have been fortunate to receive a few awards in my lifetime, and I always
appreciate them, but I must say that this is a very special one because the
gay community has supported me from the very beginning. I know that this is
a challenging moment in your history. So I am very proud to accept this
award from the Human Rights Campaign at this time. You are on the frontlines
in the struggle for equal rights, even as continued prejudice stands in the
way.

The American Constitution is a magical document that has evolved over 200
plus years. While we revere it, it did not start out as a perfect document.
This Republic was founded with a Constitution that counted slaves as
three-fifths human. It took decades and a Civil War, the deadliest in U.S.
history, to erase that stain upon our country. It took over 100 years to
bring women into the political system by giving them the right to vote.
Interracial marriage was illegal in some states until 1967. Now the Bush
Administration wants to change the positive inclusive direction of our
Constitution by calling for an amendment that authorizes discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation.

Well, I say, no way. Dr. Martin Luther King taught us that the arc of
history is long, but it bends towards justice. We must always go forward,
towards greater liberty and greater equality, not backward.

You know, for me, the realization that two people should have the right to
form a sacred union regardless of their gender was strengthened when I saw a
performance of the play The Normal Heart in 1985. After feeling the love
those two men had for each other, I dare anybody not to want them to get
married by the end.

The law cannot dictate matters of the heart. When two people form a deep
bond, there is usually a soul connection, and the soul has no gender. Life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental rights in this country.
Happiness can be many things - a good meal, a good friend, a warm puppy, and
certainly...love. How can anyone legislate who you can love? That is a human
right, the right to love and be loved.

And when you love someone, whether you're in a heterosexual or same-gender
relationship, shouldn't you be able to visit them in the hospital when
they're sick or dying? Shouldn't everyone have the right to enter into a
loving, legally binding, committed relationship that takes on special
responsibilities and obligations?

Current civil union legislation doesn't go far enough in protecting equal
rights. We must not deny gay families many of the benefits that help keep
families strong...social security, pensions, veteran's support, inheritance,
the right to take unpaid leave to care for a spouse...the list goes on and
on.

Instead of helping families, this president wants to spend a billion and a
half dollars to bolster marriage. Turning government into a marriage
counselor is a joke...a waste of time and money. It's not a policy; it's a
diversion.

But this administration regularly uses the politics of diversion to their
advantage. They cleverly use divisive cultural issues to avoid talking about
other serious problems, such as unemployment and healthcare. They go after
Saddam because they can't find bin Ladin ... They want to send missions to
Mars instead of protecting the Earth... Tax cuts for the wealthy instead of
assisting the poor...

You have to look at what Bush does, not what he says. Talk is cheap. He
expresses empathy for military families and then cuts their benefits...He
names a proposal "The Clear Skies Initiative" that pollutes the planet...He
says he'll be a uniter and then drives us apart...He steals the slogan "No
Child Left Behind" and then breaks his promise to fund his reforms.

Truly, I stand here flabbergasted at what is going on in today's world.
Never in my life have I witnessed a president and an administration that is
so out of step with the needs of the country, so threatening to our future
and so abusive in its use of power.

The Clinton administration left this country with a budget surplus, and
also a surplus in the goodwill we shared with our allies. Now we have a
deficit in both.

Before the war in Iraq, I went to hear Scott Ritter speak - he had been a
weapons inspector for seven years. He told us there was no imminent threat
to the United States, that the program to develop nuclear weapons had been
dormant since 1998. There was no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda (one
is a secular society and the other fundamentalist), that chemical weapons
have a short shelf life and wouldn't be usable today...in short, everything
Scott Ritter told us has turned out to be the truth.

But this president (the only one to cut taxes during a war) made terrorism
a partisan cause. He charged Democrats with being soft on terror, a lie. He
appointed John Ashcroft to trample our civil liberties as Attorney General,
and, from a human rights point of view, his use of Guantanamo Bay has roused
international protest.

Now as the president gears up for his re-election campaign, the right wing
propaganda machine is ready to take the skin off of John Kerry, the
Democratic Party's nominee. I've never seen anything as ruthless or as
relentless as this. They can take a slur hatched at the Republican National
Committee or a lie huckstered by the Heritage Foundation, repeat it on Fox,
hit it on Limbaugh, print it in the Wall Street Journal, until it's coming
out of every media outlet imaginable. Repeating lies over and over doesn't
make them any more true. But it does make people believe the lies a little
more until finally they stop demanding the truth.

I've seen their ferocity up close, as I witnessed the astounding assault
on the CBS movie about Ronald Reagan, in which my husband starred and Craig
and Neil produced. They attacked that movie and drove it off network
television before any of them had ever seen it.

The Right Wing is very well-organized. They fight dirty. They project
their own nastiness onto their opposition. Remember how they accused the
Democrats of stealing the election in Florida, while they themselves were
doing just that!

We're now in a period that whenever you say something that's critical of
the government, you are accused of being unpatriotic. Bush even lent himself
to an utterly despicable campaign in Georgia that impugned the patriotism of
Senator Max Cleland, who had sacrificed three limbs in the same Vietnam War
that the president ducked. Talking about patriotism, let's never forget
Bush's fellow Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, who in 1918 said, "To announce
that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by
the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is
morally treasonable to the American public."

Indeed, this country now faces a fundamental choice. Multilateral security
or pre-emptive wars. Closing or widening the gaps between the haves and the
have nots. Facing the truth or accepting the lies. The public taking an
interest or tuning out. Extending our rights or turning them back.

Mr. Bush will dress himself up as a compassionate conservative once more
for the election, but he has embraced a remarkably radical policy, which I
pray the public finally sees. The mishandling of national and economic
security. The shameless politics of special interests and crony capitalists.
(And when you talk about special interests it's important to differentiate
between public interests that benefit the larger good of the people, like
protecting the environment or finding a cure for cancer, versus the special
interests that are limited to a particular industry or corporation, like
Enron or Halliburton).

Bush recently pushed through a prescription drug bill that actually gives
a better deal to the drug companies than to the seniors who need the drugs.
And what about the new energy plan that actually increases our dependence on
Persian Gulf oil (even though he recently said just the opposite in his
State of the Union speech).

The Republicans will try to win the election by convincing the American
public that they are the father figures who can keep us safe. But the facts
contradict the myth. Two and a half years after the largest attack on
American soil, our borders remain easily penetrable. We have the capacity to
inspect only 2% of cargo containers coming into our country. Local law
enforcement has been weakened by spending cuts, and our intelligence lacks
manpower and updated technology. And which party's budget provides the most
for homeland security? The Democrats!

This president is so transparent. The only way he would agree to
investigations of the mishandling of intelligence leading up to the Iraqi
war, is if we wait until after the election to get the reports. Has this
administration no shame? What job are we not doing that has allowed them to
pull the wool over the eyes of the American people?

But...there is hope. It's starting to turn. I can feel it. The media is
finally asking the president and his staff the tougher questions, and
looking into the issues that should have been investigated years ago. The
people are speaking out at all levels from the grassroots to Washington. All
of the good work so many people are doing is finally making a dent. We won't
be scared into submission.

What should scare us is that we have no checks and balances on this
administration. They control the White House, the Senate, the House of
Representatives and the Supreme Court. All we have is each other. So each of
us must do what we can to create positive change in November. I know the
Human Rights Campaign will be at the center of the struggle for equality.
And let's be smart...Let's be pragmatic...Let's not allow the Republicans to
use gay marriage as a political tool in this election year. Truth and
justice eventually wins out.

I am proud to stand with you tonight as the recipient of this prestigious
award. Together we can and we will win the fight.

[Tard]

Don't tell me...hands placed on magic crystal ball...Libertarian!

[Edwardt]

Very eloquent and true, Ms. Streisand. Compassionate conservative? That's as oxymoronic as they come. I guess I'm a cynic at heart. Based on my reading of America's history, there have really only been 2 progressive periods in our history- the 1930's, when the economy was near collapse, and the 1960's, when a great many heretefore subjugated groups of people stood up and demanded to be treated with dignity and equality.
Were there excesses during these periods? Sure, but that spirit is sorely missed now, I think. Reagan made a religion of greed and complacency and I think Bush is just the most recent and egregious example of this. I fear that the monumental blunders and screw-ups he and the people pulling his strings have made will plague us for years to come, if not generations. Compared to Bush, Reagan seems a model of competence. I think there's a good chance Bush will get voted out come election time- people are being hit and hit hard in their pocketbooks and wallets, and economic hardship always has a way of shocking people out of their lethargy. Obviously, my politics are left-wing, but I know a surprisingly large number of conservatives who aren't voting for Bush. One lifelong Republican I know said she isn't going to vote for him because of his "arrogance." As good a reason as any, I guess. The trepidation I feel is because my instincts are that Bush is really nothing more than a figurehead, an empty, robotic balloon spouting hot Texas air in service to his Masters (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Halliburton, Oil interests, et al), and the political forces that got him into office in the first place are dangerously systemic and entrenched. And anti-American, I might add.

[theDarklamb]

That was really L o n g, but really good.

[DAVID HESS]

Way to go Rocketmaster,
Barbra should be eloquent, she's an actress and a performer, but that doesn't resonate unless what she's saying rings in the truth. And the truth is that our civil, moral and ethical liberties are being undermined at every turn. What weapons of mass distruction? The minds of the self serving multinationals, that's what! Chief Inspector Kaye, once a gung ho Bushite, washed his hands of the whole Iraqi subtrifuge when he found nothing to corroborate the so called findings outlined in Powell's speach to the U.N. And what of the european countries who knew better, through better intellegence that kept out of the war...You can't play in my sandbox say's Bush unless you lend me your shovel and pail...What utter crapola! Scott Ritter knew what he was talking about...He was there for christ's sake. And the total contradictory statements of Rumsfeld...taped on tv, I might add, just amplify the lie. Halleburton in all it's petro glory is not going to go away unless we free ourselves from the strangle hold of black gold. We are, after all not just dependent on energy, we are energy itself. And there are many ways to tap into this primal source, not the least of which is water/wind/sun power. Taking our nation back is one thing, taking ourselves back is quite another story. How can we hope to accomplish this daunting task when we wallow in self pity and low self esteem. The gay/black/racist/fundamentalist problem goes away when we begin to see us as all coming from the same source. What? The Republicans are dumb? I think not, but they are arrogant to think that they are the first to coin the phrase, 'divide and conquer'. I think Ceasar mention that about 2000 years ago. We are a divided nation and on the brink of being conquered by a hostile world unless we get our act together. Three cheers for Barbra for not ducking the issues. Never too late to start the reformation. And a Reformation is what we need. All one has to do to realize this is to compare the Constitution of 1776 with our present day amended piece of special interest garbage.
David

[avantodd]

Very well spoken David. The bottom line is we need to get Bush out of there in November before more damage to our international reputation is done. It's gotten to the point where I'm honestly embarrassed to be an American. The whole world is looking down on us now, and who can blame them?

Everyone should have a look at these links if they haven't already:

http://www.ericblumrich.com/gta.html

http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

<font color="#007FFF" size="1">[ March 20, 2004 08:59 PM: Message edited by: avantodd ]</font>

[Edwardt]

The "Divide and Conquer" thing reminds me of books I read by black activist George Jackson, who was killed while trying to break out of San Quentin in, I believe, 1971. The 2 books are "Soledad Brother" and "Blood in my Eye." To some, Jackson was a sociopathic murderer, but he wrote about societal issues that are as germane today as they were back then with great clarity and insight. To Jackson, prison represented a microcosm of the larger American society. Historically, prison officials have encouraged the "Divide and Conquer" philosophy to maintain order among the inmates. Jackson's contention was that if the inmates ever united, they would be an unstoppable force. Hence, the prison authorities encouraged racial divisions and animosities, as well as the formation of prison gangs- black, mexican, and white- to prevent that from ever happening. As David has said, I think this same thing is being played out now in the political arena. Obviously, it's an old game, but the Republicans have appropriated a Populist image and made it their own. I don't know whether this has been an act of genius or just pure cynicism. In the old days of this century, populist politicians stood up for the underdog, the econmically and socially oppressed immigrants who made up their voter base. In the 60's, George Wallace added a new twist to this. He told poor, economically-deprived whites that blacks and the Government officials who pandered to them were responsible for their travails. In fact, if it weren't for his bigotry, Wallace might be remembered as a great politician today. His message was appropriated initially by Nixon, and then later by Reagan and all those who have followed in his footsteps. They were able to equate the Democratic Party with blacks and minorities and were able to convince angry, undereducated whites that the Republican party was the only one that spoke to their needs and issues. Not to sound like a Marxist, but the idea that we're a classless society is largely an illusion and the realization that we're all pretty much in the same shitty boat is masked with a perpetuation of racial animosities and non-issues. Hence, people seem more invigorated discussing gay marriage or Janet Jackson's bare tit than they do over what's been happening in Iraq or America's foreign policy or the gangsters running America's corporations. The Democratic party has weakened itself over the years to a pathetic extent by trying to come across as a more moderate version of Republicans in reaction to this. Maybe all this will change, but I won't hold my breath waiting. Don't mean to go off on a rant here, but if you contemplate everything that's going on in the Middle East, or Iraq, or in America itself, it's enough to drive you nearly crazy.

[rocketmaster]

It's wonderfully refreshing to finally be hearing informed outrage, rather than the blithering twaddle that's been forced down our throats by the fundamentalist right wing over the past few years... under the preposterous banner of "patriotism", no less.

Rant away friends, and spread the word.


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