A conspiracy of silence on the Afghan war at the Romney Convention, Eastwood rose above partisanship Re: Clint Eastwood refused to be scripted . . .

In article ,
bmoore@nyx.net wrote:
>On Sep 10, 6:37�pm, acous...@panix.com (lo yeeOn) wrote:
>> In article
><3e6a8605-bc1b-4bb7-b7d7-c0f386d8a...@ql4g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
>>
>> bmo...@nyx.net wrote:
>> >On Sep 10, 3:45�pm, acous...@panix.com (lo yeeOn) wrote:
>> >> Unlike Washington's politicians, Clint Eastwood refused to be
>> >> scripted.
>>
>> >Uh, he didn't "refuse to be scripted" so much as he simply decided to
>> >ad-lib.
>>
>> You're desperate, aren't you? �He was asked for "details about his
>> speech in advance". �But Eastwood told them: "You can't do that with
>> me, because ..." �Anyone who has any brains would know that nobody is
>> going to speak at such an important occasion without having thought
>> about what he's going to say. �Eastwood didn't have to bring a piece
>> of paper with him. �Nor did he need a tele-prompt and what not. �He
>> just had to have thought about what he was going to say and say it.
>>
>> � The Oscar-winning director said campaign aides had asked for details
>> � about his speech in advance. "But I told them, 'You can't do that
>> � with me, because I don't know what I'm going to say.'"
>>
>> Eastwood was speaking with tact.
>
>You're wrong.
>
>http://www.pineconearchive.com/120907-1.html
>
>It was only after a quick nap in his hotel room a few blocks from the
>convention site, Eastwood said, that he mapped out his remarks �
>starting with his observation about politics in Hollywood, then
>challenging the president about the failure of his economic policies,
>and wrapping up by telling the public �they don�t have to worship
>politicians, like they were royalty or something.�

Yeah, nice try from the spinmeisters. But no cigar, man! I can say
that because his speech is on tape. I have watched it and heard it.
I also posted a transcript of it earlier. [Please see below.]

Specifically about the war:

I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that's okay. But you
thought the war in Afghanistan was OK.

You know, I mean -- you thought that was something worth doing. We
didn't check with the Russians to see how did it -- they [were] there
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
for 10 years.
^^^^^^^^^^^^


(APPLAUSE)

But we did it, and it is something to be thought about, and I think
that, when we get to maybe -- I think you've mentioned something
about having a target date for bringing everybody home. You gave
that target date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only sensible
question, you know, he says, "Why are you giving the date out now?

Why don't you just bring them home tomorrow morning?"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And on Guantanamo prison,

Well, I know even people in your own party were very disappointed when
you didn't close Gitmo. And I thought, well closing Gitmo -- why
close that, we spent so much money on it.

He did not talk about Obama's economic policies as you claimed, except
that about the fact that now is more than 20 million unemployed.

That's the criticism that is more devastating than for him to talking
about in what way Obama's economic policies have failed.

Let's just recall that during the Vietnam war, the number of
unemployed was only two or three millions.

Of course, the war is directly the cause of our unemployment.

Where do we get the money to hire people when we are running a deficit
of 16 trillions?

We don't just have a down turn like the spinmeisters have been trying
to frame our economic condition as because a down turn implies that
the time function of the country's economic activity is going up and
down like a wave. What happened in the last decade shows a steady
secular downward moving trend. All the stimulus packages from the
federal government while the wars are still going on have amounted to
no more than injecting a pile of cash into the society for consumer to
spend.

That kind of consumption is clearly incapable of self-regenerating.

The band-aid solution does not and cannot solve the fundamental
problem of an economy which is fundamentally unproductive.

When we complain about cheap labor abroad, we are admitting that we do
not have ways to produce goods that are better that those produced by
cheap labor. It goes all the way to the root of our economic problem:
we do not have money to hire smart people who can be relied on to
improve productivity of our goods.

Besides the fact that the war is sucking us dry, the war also has the
extreme detrimental effect of distracting the people from their normal
activities their overall productivity depends upon.

And of course the priority of the government is all screwed up.

Uncle Sam, instead of spending money on hiring good people at the
energy and commerce departments, spends our money on hiring a lot of
State Department workers to do the kind of spinning you do regularly.

He spends our money hiring contractors to fight in Iraq (even today),
Afghanistan, and Syria.

Now that one of the most spectacular attacks of our consulate in
Benghazi, Libya has taken place, we'll have to hire a bunch more
security contractors to fight in Libya too.

So we are given the figure that nearly two thousand US soldiers have
been killed in Afghanistan, right?

What we are not hearing is the number of security contractors who have
been killed in Afghanistan also.

Another real casualty of the war is the energy that goes into spinning
the war and lying about every setback that takes place.

When you have a war that has sucked out trillions of dollars and
driving the unemployment up to at least twenty millions or 10 percent
of the working population, then the war is a real problem. And that's
really what Clint Eastwood was trying to say.

Whatever you have posted here sounds so phony that you can fool a baby
or an Incumbent Party member, be it a Republican or Democrat.

But you can't convince a thinking person that Mr. Eastwood was just
ad-libbing or that he just came up with what he wanted to say after a
nap in a hotel but didn't give it a lot of thought beforehand. It is
a ludicrous proposition. It is spin, and nothing more.

lo yeeOn

Clinton Eastwood reassured us that our country has good Republicans,
Democrats, Libertarians.... Unfortunately, however, there are bad
guys at the top we need to get rid of.

And Romney could win the White House if he is bold enough to say no to
the neocons and promise to shut down our occupation of Afghanistan,
the minute he enters the White House. It has been done before:
Francois Hollande won the presidency of his country against the
war-lover Nicolas Sarkozy by promising his countrymen that he would
take the French troops home from Afghanistan right away and they liked
it.

lo yeeOn

1) Clint Eastwood's speech at the Romney Convention

EASTWOOD: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Save a
little for Mitt.

(APPLAUSE)

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what's a movie
tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left wingers out
there, left of Lenin. At least that is what people think. That is not
really the case. There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of
moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that
the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer
to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it.

(APPLAUSE)

So -- but they are there, believe me, they are there. I just think, in
fact, some of them around town, I saw John Voigt, a lot of people
around.

(APPLAUSE)

John's here, an academy award winner. A terrific guy. These people are
all like-minded, like all of us. So I -- so I've got Mr. Obama sitting
here. And he's -- I was going to ask him a couple of questions. But --
you know about -- I remember three and a half years ago, when
Mr. Obama won the election. And though I was not a big supporter, I
was watching that night when he was having that thing and they were
talking about hope and change and they were talking about, yes we can,
and it was dark outdoors, and it was nice, and people were lighting
candles.

They were saying, I just thought, this was great.

Everybody is trying, Oprah was crying.

(LAUGHTER)

EASTWOOD: I was even crying. And then finally -- and I haven't cried
that hard since I found out that there is 23 million unemployed people
in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

Now that is something to cry for because that is a disgrace, a
national disgrace, and we haven't done enough, obviously -- this
administration hasn't done enough to cure that. Whenever interest they
have is not strong enough, and I think possibly now it may be time for
somebody else to come along and solve the problem.

(APPLAUSE)

So, Mr. President, how do you handle promises that you have made when
you were running for election, and how do you handle them?

I mean, what do you say to people? Do you just -- you know -- I know
-- people were wondering -- you don't -- handle that OK.

Well, I know even people in your own party were very disappointed when
you didn't close Gitmo. And I thought, well closing Gitmo -- why close
that, we spent so much money on it. But, I thought maybe as an excuse
-- what do you mean shut up?

(LAUGHTER)

OK, I thought maybe it was just because somebody had the stupid idea
of trying terrorists in downtown New York City.

(APPLAUSE)

I've got to to hand it to you. I have to give credit where credit is
due. You did finally overrule that finally. And that's -- now we are
moving onward. I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that's
okay. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK.

You know, I mean -- you thought that was something worth doing. We
didn't check with the Russians to see how did it -- they did there for
10 years.

(APPLAUSE)

But we did it, and it is something to be thought about, and I think
that, when we get to maybe -- I think you've mentioned something about
having a target date for bringing everybody home. You gave that target
date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only sensible question, you
know, he says, "Why are you giving the date out now?

Why don't you just bring them home tomorrow morning?"

(APPLAUSE)

And I thought -- I thought, yeah -- I am not going to shut up, it is
my turn.

(LAUGHTER)

So anyway, we're going to have -- we're going to have to have a little
chat about that. And then, I just wondered, all these promises -- I
wondered about when the -- what do you want me to tell Romney? I can't
tell him to do that. I can't tell him to do that to himself.

(APPLAUSE)

You're crazy, you're absolutely crazy. You're getting as bad as Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

Of course we all now Biden is the intellect of the Democratic party.

(LAUGHTER)

Kind of a grin with a body behind it.

(LAUGHTER)

But I just think that there is so much to be done, and I think that
Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are two guys that can come along.

See, I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to the
president, anyway.

(APPLAUSE)

I think attorneys are so busy -- you know they're always taught to
argue everything, and always weight everything -- weigh both
sides. They are always devil's advocating this and bifurcating this
and bifurcating that. You know all that stuff.

But, I think it is maybe time -- what do you think -- for maybe a
businessman. How about that?

(APPLAUSE)

A stellar businessman. Quote, unquote, "a stellar businessman."

And I think it's that time. And I think if you just step aside and
Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still use a plane.

(APPLAUSE)

Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you are going
around to colleges and talking about student loans and stuff like
that.

(APPLAUSE)

You are an -- an ecological man. Why would you want to drive that
around?

OK, well anyway. All right, I'm sorry. I can't do that to myself
either.

(APPLAUSE)

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen.

Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we -- we
own this country.

(APPLAUSE)

We -- we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning
it. Politicians are employees of ours.

(APPLAUSE)

And -- so -- they are just going to come around and beg for votes
every few years. It is the same old deal. But I just think it is
important that you realize, that you're the best in the world.
Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian
or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And
when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

(APPLAUSE)

Okay, just remember that. And I'm speaking out for everybody out
there. It doesn't hurt, we don't have to be

(AUDIENCE MEMBER): (inaudible)

(LAUGHTER)

I do not say that word anymore. Well, maybe one last time.

(LAUGHTER)

We don't have to be -- what I'm saying, we do not have to be metal
(ph) masochists and vote for somebody that we don't really even want
in office just because they seem to be nice guys or maybe not so nice
guys, if you look at some of the recent ads going out there, I don't
know.

(APPLAUSE)

But OK. You want to make my day?

(APPLAUSE)

All right. I started, you finish it. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE: Make my day!

EASTWOOD: Thank you. Thank you very much.

END

2) NBC's Tom Brokaw found it "striking" that our perennial presence at
everybody's doorstep around the world was studiously smothered. But
Arianna Huffington tried to give Mitt Romney an incentive to do better
than Obama about shutting down the occupation in Afghanistan. Of
course, Huffington's one vote doesn't mean a whole lot. But many
minds could be changed the way Huffington's would be if Romney is bold
enough to say no to the neocons who would like America to keep the war
going for decades more.

Tom Brokaw: 'Striking' That There's Been 'No Mention Of Afghanistan
And Iraq' Wars at GOP Convention So Far.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/29/tom-brokaw-afghanistan-iraq-gop-convention_n_1839879.html?utm_hp_ref=media

Arianna Huffington plans to vote Obama, might switch if Romney
advocates Afghanistan pullout

Arianna Huffington currently plans to vote for President Barack Obama
in November. Huffington told The Daily Caller, however, that she has
been disappointed by Obama's first term and would consider voting for
Mitt Romney if the Republican candidate advocates an end to
U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. "My vote does not depend on
a particular party, like, I'm not reflexively voting a particular
party, but I will vote for Obama," Huffington told TheDC during a
sit-down interview following an event about American entrepreneurs and
job creators she hosted in Tampa on Wednesday.

Huffington reflected on her disappointment with Obama for campaigning
on "bold ideas", but instead governing as a "timid" president. And
despite pledging her support to the president, Huffington said she
wasnt't sure he would change for the better in a second term.

. . .

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/29/arianna-huffington-plans-to-vote-obama-might-switch-if-romney-advocates-afghanistan-pullout/

>But even then, with just an hour before he appeared on stage, it still
>hadn�t occurred to Eastwood to use an empty chair as a stand-in for
>the president.
>
>
>�I got to the convention site just 15 or 20 minutes before I was
>scheduled to go on,� he said. �That was fine, because
>everything was very well organized.�
>
>
>After a quick trip through airport-style security, he was taken to a
>Green Room, where Archbishop Dolan of New York sought him out to say
>hello. Then he was taken backstage to wait for his cue. And that was
>when inspiration struck.
>
>
>�There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I
>wanted to sit down,� Eastwood said. �When I saw the stool
>sitting there, it gave me the idea. I�ll just put the stool out
>there and I�ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn�t
>keep all of the promises he made to everybody.�
>
>
>He asked a stagehand to take it out to the lectern while he was being
>announced.
>
>
>�The guy said, �You mean you want it at the podium?� and I said, �No,
>just put it right there next to it.��
>
>
>
>
>
>> If you think you can score points
>> and defend your neocon masters, you're sadly mistaken.
>>
>> It doesn't require any spinning.
>
>Yet you did it. Just like you'll spin your next response.
>
>>�I was just impressed
>'
>It was an OK speech. I liked the demeanor but not the words.
>
>> and wanted to
>> point out the sleaziness of the pundits and Washington politicians.
>>
>> There was absolutely nothing out there about the damage the Incumbent
>> Party's wars have done to the American economy. �The Republicans
>> didn't even let the anti-war candidate Ron Paul give a speech. �Paul
>> would have talked about the undesirability of the multiple wars that
>> go on and their negative impact on our economy. �He would have told us
>> that our economic troubles are not just due to a downturn. �Rather he
>> would have said that it is a result of the wars.
>>
>> That would however go against the Incumbent Party's narrative. �And
>> so, Eastwood took it upon himself to talk about the war and Guantanamo
>> prison when nobody else had done so at the RNC.
>>
>> Of course, Eastwood wouldn't give the Incumbent Party's operatives any
>> idea what he was going to say. �If he did, he would have been asked to
>> change his speech or else been disinvited. �Eastwood is obviously
>> smart enough to know what he had to do if he wanted to bring up the
>> war before the American people. �And with tact and smartness, he did,
>> as a true patriot.
>>
>> Of course, the media made sure to shoot him down after having heard
>> the bomb shell from the man who refused to be scripted: 82 year old,
>> senile, awful, blah, blah, blah.
>>
>> And a shameless propaganda operative like you in these newsgroups is
>> trying to spin the same deal. �Shame on you!
>>
>> But if it is not clear enough that our "democracy" is fixed and our
>> government has been hijacked by the neocons, I want the readers to be
>> aware of their meddling in the choice of voters' representatives, such
>> as is the case with Berman v. Sherman.
>>
>> The neocons are confusing patriotism with what the Israeli government
>> wants. �What the Israel government wants is not even necessarily what
>> many of Israelis want. �Everyday, these neocons are getting America
>> into more and more military adventures and deeper and deeper economic
>> troubles. �That is the state of our country today: the war-loving
>> neocons have hijacked the government and the election process to serve
>> their own selfish agenda. �Read my original post re-attached below for
>> more elaboration.
>>
>> lo yeeOn
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Unlike Washington's politicians, Clint Eastwood refused to be
>> scripted.
>>
>> You see, the "democracy" of the United States today has been reduced
>> to a perfunctory going-to-the-polls-once-every-four-years event to
>> vote for a president who will then have the power to assassinate
>> people around the world, including American citizens. �That president
>> is supported by a bunch of senators and "representatives" in
>> Washington who occupy the same seats for decades and are always urging
>> him to commit violence around the world. �Those senators always get US
>> security mixed up with Israel's "security", which is always a huge
>> exaggeration when it comes to Israel's willy-nilly Arab neighbors.
>>
>> And the reason why they are always mixed up is because they would have
>> never gotten elected in the first place if they haven't been fully
>> vetted by the Washington insiders first.
>>
>> And that's why we only have an Incumbent Party, regardless of what the
>> "elected" officials call themselves. �And the Incumbent Party has the
>> same set of advisors who make sure that the principals act the same
>> way, follow the same rule, and continue to sacrifice American blood to
>> perpetuate the neocons' interest.
>>
>> And these advisors always want to make sure they know these principal
>> actors-spokespeople's thinking before they let them speak before the
>> American public.
>>
>> So when they had someone like Clint Eastwood to give a little speech
>> at the RNC, they showed the same reflexive distrust over what he might
>> say.
>>
>> They worried that he was going to say that America didn't need the
>> stinking Afghan war and demand that the president end it tomorrow.
>>
>> They worried that he was going to complain that Obama didn't keep his
>> promise about ending the wars and about closing the Guantanamo prison.
>>
>> And they worried that he was going to mention the term "war crimes".
>>
>> They were right. �Eastwood was damned unhappy about those things and
>> they were secretly only too happy that he didn't mention war crimes,
>> which the "Incumbent party" has committed plenty of since the days of
>> Bill Clinton's White House.
>>
>> So, the mainstream media felt compelled to scramble the electronic
>> airwaves to try to shoot down Clint Eastwood's terrorist attacks on
>> Washington politics.
>>
>> � �The Oscar-winning director said campaign aides had asked for
>> � �details about his speech in advance. "But I [Eastwood] told them,
>> � �'You can't do that with me, because I don't know what I'm going to
>> � �say.'
>>
>> � �According to the New York Times, even Republican Party advisers
>> � �called the 12-minute address "strange" and "weird".
>>
>> Of course, Eastwood was right. �That kind of criticism came "from the
>> left", which is the ideology of the United States' Incumbent Party
>> today.
>>
>> To see how the Incumbent Party is trying to affect the representation
>> politics of the American people, see what America's three stooges said
>> about how the Californian people should choose: your representative
>> should be someone Israel is happy with, which is Berman, not Sherman!
>>
>> � "Howard Berman is a man of determination and honor," McCain said in
>> � �a statement. "He works to keep America safe, and our country is
>> � �stronger with him in Congress."
>>
>> � Graham praised the 15-term Democrat for his bipartisanship, his
>> � work to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and his efforts to stop
>> � arms sales to nations that back terrorism.
>>
>> � Lieberman said that when Israel's leadership "needs a friend in
>> � Congress, that ally is Howard Berman."
>>
>> McCain made it sound like Sherman is less a patriot than Berman. �But
>> in fact, when you put McCain's statement and Lieberman's together, you
>> get the feeling that Berman would be weaker on America's security
>> simply because his loyalty is necessarily divided. �And that question
>> lends itself more credence when we ask:
>>
>> � Since when did Israel come to America's defense?
>>
>> To that question, I can say that I cannot recall even one incident!
>>
>> Israel did not go to the Korea war with us, which our president at the
>> time told the country it was fought to keep America safe.
>>
>> Israel did not go to the Vietnam war with us, which our president at
>> the time told the country it was fought to keep America safe.
>>
>> Israel did not go to the first Gulf war against Iraq, which our
>> president at the time told the country it was fought to keep our way
>> of life and to keep America safe.
>>
>> Israel did not go to war with us to dismantle Yugoslavia, which our
>> president at the time told the country it was fought to keep America
>> safe and to liberate a bunch of Muslims who had sided with the Nazi
>> who slaughtered the Jews in WWII.
>>
>> Israel did not go to war with us in Afghanistan in 2011, after we had
>> suffered the traumatic 9/11 attacks - a war we still haven't won and,
>> with all likelihood, never will!
>>
>> Israel did not go to war with us in Iraq in 2003, which the president
>> at the time told us it was a war against the "Axis of evil" and was a
>> war vital to America's safety.
>>
>> Israel, in fact, did not do anything to defend us even after we were
>> attacked in 9/11/2001. �To the contrary, dozens of Israelis or people
>> with dual American-Israeli citizenship were arrested by the FBI and
>> other police units in the New York/New Jersey area under the suspicion
>> of terrorist activities.
>>
>> And there were several high profile military espionage cases involving
>> people with loyalty to the State of Israel, like Kenneth Pollack,
>> Lawrence A. Franklin, Steve Rosen, Keith Weissman, etc.
>>
>> So, how can Berman who, by Lieberman's account, has so much loyalty to
>> Israel be also working to defend American security as the other put
>> it?
>>
>> Precisely because the United States has been killing the American
>> people, figuratively and literally, to keep the neocons happy with
>> their war agenda, the voters should think about Berman's conflict of
>> interest in his capacity as a US representative, appropriating money
>> for the war machine and disappropraiting money for education, health
>> care, and infrastructure projects that would help revive the economy.
>>
>> lo yeeOn
>>
>> 1) By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, September 10, 11:15 AM
>>
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2-republican-senators-endorse-...
>>
>> WASHINGTON - A longtime House Democrat locked in a close race with
>> another Democrat in California picked up a surprising endorsement
>> Monday: the backing of two ...
>>
>> read more
>