lonna_002

Discussion Forum

Headline Archive

Document Archive

POAC counter- spin

Daily Email Newsletter

Postal newsletter

Recommended Books

You can have POAC headlines emailed to you every day free of charge. Subscribe here

T.J. Templeton for Iowa State Representative

Paper or plastic? NO! Earth-friendly reinforced canvas grocery totes now available in the POAC store

If you are presently serving in the military or in the Delayed Enlistment Program and beginning to rethink your participation, here are resources to help you.

Your ad here: $50/week or $150/month Click for details

Contributing Columnists

Vincent L Guarisco

W. David Jenkins III

Dr. Steven Jonas

Lucinda Marshall

Reader Submissions

POAC merchandise:

T-shirts, fleece, tank-tops, prints, magnets and more...

Must-see Selections

14 points of fascism

Sept. 11: They Let it happen

A brief history of the PNAC: a refresher

Catapulting the propaganda: The Rendon group

The office of special plans

The Whitehouse Iraq Group

POAC ENDORSED: The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001 to 2022

F r o m t h e Archives

National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive makes Bush dictator in event of a terrorist attack or disaster

Former Reagan official says "something's in the works" to trigger a police state (Held over)

False flag reminders from the POAC forum

Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us: Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war, Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years, threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Must see: What happens at Facebook.com does not stay at Facebook.com

Dateline 2002: "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq..."

The Day I Met Amy Goodman

A Ramble about a Truck and a Book

By Lonna Gooden VanHorn

Some of you may have read about my truck. Some of you may even have seen it. After all, it recently made a trip from New Mexico to Minnesota and back. And then another trip from New Mexico to Austin, Texas, and back. It is covered from stem to stern with pages of quotes. Most of them by war heroes and most of them about the stupidity and futility of war. The majority of the quotes are
by Republicans.

	Many of you may have read about my mythical "book." Anyone who knows me has heard about my "book." Some have seen one incarnation or another of it.
	These are not normal times. This is not "business as usual" in America. The people in power now are destroying everything America has ever stood for.

And they are killing Iraqi children and our own children and bankrupting our country in doing it. Their arrogance and belligerence are making the word "America" a curse in the minds of billions of people. And, as Walter Cronkite said, 'the media is no longer giving the people the information they need to make informed decisions.' Because the media is not doing its job, as Ed Asner said, "It is up to us."

	I took him seriously. Getting information out there in these evil times has become my purpose in life. Which is why I began writing. And, which is why both my truck and my book have come into being.
	Stopped at a traffic light, people cannot help but read the tailgate of my truck. They don't have to agree with it. All I want to do is cause them to think. Three of the five things I have on the tail gate of my truck are by Ike.

One is by MacArthur -- men who knew a bit about war. Ike was Supreme Allied Commander of the European front in WWII as well as being a two term Republican president. MacArthur was a tough guy, and probably a Republican as well. On the tailgate I have in 72 or 48 font: "I have known war as few men now living know it. It's very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes."
- General Douglas MacArthur

truck-ca 008[1].jpg (75056 bytes)

"There is no way in which a country can satisfy the craving for absolute security, but it can bankrupt itself morally and economically in attempting to reach that illusory goal through arms alone."

-WWII Allied Commander, Gen. & Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence. by the military-industrial [HalliburtonCarlyle, Bechtel] complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist"

-President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

truck-ca 010[1].jpg (85116 bytes)

Next to that is:

"War time profits, the sky's the limit, Uncle Sam's got the money, let's go get it!" from General Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" speech. Under those words I have the Halliburton profits chart for the past few years. Profits went way up in 2003, of course.

In the middle of the tailgate I have:

"Count on it, Uncle Sam will soon want your kids."

by ret. Col. David Hackworth, echoed by Walter Cronkite.

truck-ca 011[1].jpg (86024 bytes)

truck-ca 012[1].jpg (84580 bytes)

How could anyone get upset by those quotes? But those quotes might make them think:
" Gee, Ike was Supreme Allied commander of the European Front in W.W.II. He thought a preventive war was impossible. So why does Bush, who has never been in a war think we must fight preventive wars?" Then they will see the Halliburton profits chart and read what Butler said. And many might become uneasy about what Hackworth said. War isn't personal for a lot of people unless someone they care about is at risk.

My book -- since it is something that is not published, but is just something I hand out for no money -- is not a book I have written, although increasingly it has more stuff I have written in it. It is a collection of articles I have read over the past two years or so that I believe to contain the most important information in its most understandable form on subjects vital to the American people and to the future of the nation. Information the average person does not know, but needs to. The title of my book is "A
Thumb Through Book of Things You Should Know, But You Don't Want to Know - Things That the Media, Particularly the Main Stream Broadcast Media, is Trying Very Hard NOT to Tell You." By "Just a Housewife."

truck-ca 013[1].jpg (80705 bytes)

My book has the best stuff I have read about a variety of subjects in it. Or rather it has the best of what I can find of what I have printed out at any given time. I have a lot of it on disk, but the "stuff" keeps changing.
And I don't always print stuff out or save it. I think I will do it "later." So, then if I remember I was impressed by something, I have to go "find" it on the net. If I do save stuff, I often don't remember what I have saved it as. And, I don't get rid of anything. Of course I had no idea when I began collecting stuff it would become a "book." If I had, my life would be a lot easier.

I don't remember what I write. Which is why I repeat myself. I was playing scrabble online with a friend of mine the other day who was agonizing over his taxes. I instant messaged him that under Ike the richest among us were
taxed at 90%. He said he knew that because I had sent him that message 384 times. I asked him how that could be since I almost never send him my stuff because I know he will not read it. "Even, so," he said "you have sent me
enough of it that I have read that particular piece of info 384 times."

My own stuff is not usually what I consider the best stuff on any subject, so most of it is not in my book. As would be no surprise to my children or anyone who knows me well, the stuff of mine that is in the book was not chosen because it is what of mine I think is best, but because it is what I could find that was already printed out. I keep giving away the best and most organized of what I have written, or collected and printed out. To make matters worse, I was having trouble with my printer at 2 A.M. Saturday morning, which was when I was, of course, trying to finish putting my book together. We left for Albuquerque about 7.

Some of the stuff on my truck is in the book as "title pages." The memo from Richard Clarke to Condi Rice on January 21, 2001, is in it in the 9/11 section of my book as well as being on my truck

The object of everything I am doing is just to get the information out there. I have faith that if the information were out there and accessed by enough people...

Last spring I presented an early incarnation of my book - a version probably containing even more pages than the current tome, and which had almost none of my own stuff in it -- to Tom Daschle. He said he would use it in his reelection campaign. He sent me a thank you note for it.

And look what happened to him!!

But then I am pretty sure he did not use it anyway. Which might explain why he lost. But, then again, maybe not.

My "book" has ruined my life. Because it is so overwhelming. For the reason a former Goldwater supporter, Hal Crowther wrote in his delightful (as far as anything associated with this tragedy can be considered delightful) "With Trembling Fingers."   If you have never read it: http://www.populist.com/04.10 .crowther.html It is one of my favorite things.

"One problem with this referendum is that the case against George Bush is much too strong. Just to spell it out is to sound like a bitter partisan. I sit here on the 67th birthday of Saddam Hussein facing a haystack of incriminating evidence that comes almost to my armpit. What matters most, what signifies? Journalists used to look for the smoking gun, but this time we have the cannons of Waterloo, we have Gettysburg and Sevastopol, we have enough gun smoke to cause asthma in heaven. I'm overwhelmed. Maybe I should light a match to this mountain of paper and immolate myself."

That is exactly how I have often felt.

He continues:

"But if this is not the worst year yet to be an American, it's the worst year by far to be one of those hag-ridden wretches who comment on the American scene. The columnist who trades in snide one-liners flounders like a stupid comic with a tired audience; TV comedians and talk-show hosts who try to treat 2004 like any zany election year have become grotesque, almost loathsome. Our most serious, responsible newspaper columnists are so stunned by the disaster in Iraq that they've begun to quote poetry by Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen. They lower their voices; they sound like Army chaplains delivering eulogies over ranks of flag-draped coffins, under a hard rain from an iron sky.

Yeats' "blood-dimmed tide is loosed." The war news has already deteriorated from bad to tragic to pre-apocalyptic, which leaves no suitable category for these excruciating reports on the sexual torture of Iraqi prisoners. Fingers, be still. In less than a year, the morale of the occupying forces has sunk so low that murder, suicide, rape and sexual harassment have become alarming statistics, and now the warriors of democracy -- the emissaries of civilization -- stand accused of every crime this side of cannibalism."

Yesterday I made the two hundred mile trip to Albuquerque in the hope that one of today's heroes, Amy Goodman, would see my truck. My dim, but fondest hope was that she would have a camera person with her, and my truck might get its picture taken. I even washed the truck for its possible pictorial debut. Not that that was much of a job. Very little of it is not covered with sheets of paper and thus very little of it is safely washable. Every inch of every sheet of paper is covered with sealing tape, but strips of two inch wide sealling tape banded together are not leak proof. On the bright side, since Joe was driving, I spent the last hundred miles of the trip to Albuquerque writing down the title of everything that was in the book I had put together. So now I can put it all on disk in that order, alter it as I see fit -- it was not, of course, the final or completed book -- any such entity is only a dream --but, it will make my life much easier. It did have a title page, a "How to read this book -- every word of this book is not meant to be read by busy people" page, and a table of contents.

Alas, I could not park the truck where there was any chance Amy would see it.

I went to Albuquerque in the hope that Amy might see my truck.

But, I had my book along just in case.

As I walked to the student union building at the University, I saw Amy outside by the entrance talking on the phone.

If you have ever seen Amy, you will not mistake her for anyone else. She is, thank you, God, probably the only journalist, male or female, whose primary obsession is neither $salary nor her hair, her wardrobe, or how she looks.

I, personally, am disappointed that in the past year or so she has added more items to her wardrobe. She used to wear the same clothes pretty often. Sometimes two days in a row. In this materialistic culture, so obsessed with appearance over substance, I was truly heartened by that fact. "Democracy Now" was primarily a radio broadcast. But, I suppose now that she is on two satellite tv networks, she knows more people see her and has upgraded her wardrobe accordingly.

Another thing about Amy is that she is always so polite to her studio guests. Unlike Bill O'Reiley, Sean Hannity, and Chris Matthews, to mention a few, she rarely interrupts her guests, and never ridicules or scream at them. She is polite to everyone. That is because, unlike the people I mentioned, she is not the star of her show, her guests are. She lets them
talk. These perfunctory journalists - ones who don't know nearly as much as she does - after all, she survived a massacre in East Timor and received an award for a documentary she made in Nigeria, places these high and mighty people would never go -- however, are almost always condescending to her. I have seen Ted Koppel talk to her. I saw the "Democracy Now" broadcast in which Aaron Brown was featured (she mentions it in her book.) After that show I e-mailed him and said I had never seen any news person be as rude and condescending as he was to Amy on that day. He sent me a pouty e-mail in response. But, at least he responded, which is more than most of the "big names" do.

I saw her interview delegates to the Republican convention. She was so kind to them when she had to have been wanting to scream "How can you be so stupid!" From watching those interviews, no one would know she was
vehemently opposed to their candidate. And, she always invites the opposition on her show, and is polite to them when they deign to show up.

She accidentally interviewed Bill Clinton He called in for what was supposed to be a two minute "get out the vote" voice on
election day, 2000. But, she grilled him for half an hour (no commercial interruptions.) He was upset because he thought she was disrespectful and combative. But I had a better opinion of what he was doing after that interview. He got to explain his actions, and I understood them better. Sound bites are one of the biggest impediments to getting information in
depth. Which is what one needs to understand anything.

One might think that if she does not like George Bush, she probably liked Bill Clinton, and would have "taken it easy" on him. But, she knows that is not the job of a real journalist. The job of a true journalist is to question those in the seats of power, and hold them accountable for their actions.   And she does that with all the people who hold "seats of power"
that she interviews, Democrats as well as Republicans. They are accustomed to more deferential interviews. Because while the big names are often rude and scornful to and about "regular" people, they are seldom tough on those in power. They move in the same circles.

I wish Amy could get Bush on for half an hour. Not only Bush, but even the tie (Rove?) he talks to would have a hard time keeping up with her!!

I waited 'til she was done talking on the phone. I shook her hand and said "Ms. Goodman, you have ruined my life." But I did not give her my book. I felt too stupid about it to do it. After all, She knows virtually everything of any importance that is in my "book." And a lot more. Some of what I have in it are transcripts of segments of Democracy Now.

She is so busy, it would not be worth her time to even look at it. She was, for instance, in Baltimore Friday night, Albuquerque at noon on Saturday, Sante Fe, Saturday evening, Taos Sunday and Las Vegas, Nevada, Sunday night.
And, doubtless, she will be back in New York doing "Democracy Now" on Monday.

Everyone she meets wants to be noticed by her. Who did I think I was? etc.

So, I went to the room in which Amy was to speak. I sat there a few minutes. I was disappointed that there were not many people there.   Then someone said Any was in the hall signing books, so, I went to the hall to buy an autographed book.

I never miss a second opportunity to do something stupid. I spent $13.82 and bought her book, and while she was signing it, I inflicted my book on Amy.

I told her I was giving her two years of research. She said "You don't want to give that to me." Which meant, I am sure, "I don't want you to give that to me," but I said, "Oh yes I do!" and I gave it to her. I gave her my poll. "For fun" I said. She
saw the "title" pages to a few sections. She saw "The God Factor" section with the actual pictures Bush posed for featuring halos around his head.

For all I know, my book never made it past the table where she was signing
books when I gave it to her at, but she did get it. And she knows she got
it. By now it could well be in the trash somewhere. But at least I did it.
One never knows in life which of ones actions might have an unexpected
effect.

As I said, most of my own stuff is not in the book I gave Amy. Some of the
short stuff I have done -- letters to the editor type stuff -- is. And, a
plus by any measure is that 4000 of the 100,000 pages I had cluttering my
desk, table, and everywhere else in my house are now gone.

I had Ron Paul's - honest Republican representative -- amazing latest
article in it.

She may not have read that yet. I remembered I had forgotten to put Cindy
Sheehan's "The Amazing Hypocrites" in it.

"With Trembling Fingers" is also in the book I gave Amy. The Goehring quote
he mentions is on my truck. Of course I had that before I read it in his
piece.

By the time the event started, the place was packed. She got a standing
ovation when she walked in, not to mention when she left. I was one of the
ones standing. There are not too many people I would stand for. I
certainly would not stand for the president.

Amy talked about two journalists during WWII. After the bombing of
Hiroshima, reporters were told to get out of Japan. But an Australian
journalist, Wilfred Burchett, did not.   He went to Hiroshima. He wrote
about the bomb sickness. The other reporter, William L. Laurence, who had
been on the payroll of the War Department for some time, as well as being on
the payroll of the New York Times, left the country, as he was told to do.
He did not go to Hiroshima. He wrote a serialized account. He wrote there
was no radiation sickness. He got the Pulitzer for not being there and for
writing what the government wanted him to write, even though he knew it was
not true.

Amy also spoke about a Japanese man, Fred Korematsu, who recently died at
the age of 86.   He had refused to be rounded up and interred during WWII.
His case against the legality of the interment of the Japanese during WWII
went all the way to the Supreme Court, and he lost. Until 1983.

A few years ago, President Clinton gave him the "Medal of Freedom" for
being a common person, who, like Rosa Parks, fought for what was right for
the people, and whose fight affected millions. Just a couple years ago this
man filed suit on behalf of the prisoners being interred at Guantanamo.

Before she came out to speak, they ran a bit of one of the videos in which
she was talking about the news. She showed the statue of Saddam being taken
down as it was shown on American television. Then she showed the statue of
Saddam being taken down as it was shown on CNN International. Not even a
foreign station. Just a station with a wider audience. On CNN
International, they showed the statue of Saddam falling. But, they showed
it as a split screen. On the other half of the screen they showed the
casualties. The horribly injured.

Why, you might ask yourself, did they not do that on American television?
The answer should be obvious. They would not and will not show on American
television what might make American policy less popular. But, I have a
friend whose wife is from South Africa. In South Africa they are incensed
even by CNN International's "tame" coverage of the news compared to other
(non-American) stations.

Of course on foreign stations they show all the carnage. The Baghdad Girl
Blogger recently wrote the same thing. She wrote American news is so
"clean."

Of course I have a lot of her blog in my book. 'Chaos? Civil war? We'll
take our chances. Just take your rapists, your sadistic torturers, your
smart bombs, your dumb politicians and GO!!' FYI, her blog is out in a book
now.

Amy said she was invited on one of the talk shows to talk about the Terry
Shiavo coverage. She said she told them she thought it should be an example
for coverage of all protests from now on.

She said she watches all televison network news broadcasts -- "it's a lousy
job, but someone's gotta do it." She said it was amazing. 80% of the
people, including the majority of the evangelicals thought the government
had no business interfering in the Terry Schiavo case. Yet the news
actually cut away to those protesters every time they spoke. Terry Shiavo.
One person. Compare that to the coverage of the 300,000 people protesting
against America in Iraq. And the hundreds of thousands if not millions
protesting on the anniversary of the war. Even thousands protesting at Fort
Bragg. Those millions were barely mentioned, and not shown.

Anyway, I did not accomplish what I hoped to accomplish, but I accomplished
something.

And, pretty much everyone who saw my truck at the University liked it.
Quite a few people read it. Which is its purpose.

Joe is even kinda getting into the truck thing. Formerly, he would not
drive it (after all, someone in this family has to be employable in
Roswell), but last week the white truck had a flat, so he had no choice but
to take my truck into town. Someone was reading it when he came out of the
Wells Fargo Bank. She said to him "You have something to say, don't you?"
He, of course, said "It is my wife."   Never mind that he has been
instrumental in my doing it.

Of course my truck is a work in progress. Eventually the truck bed will
probably be covered as well as the rest of it. The inside lining of the
truck bed already is covered. There is a little room left on the roof.
That is where I put the stuff that is most likely to get me shot. God knows
with the outrages of this administration, I will not run out of info to put
on it. To expose all the outrages of this administration, I would need a
truck the size of a semi. And then some.

I said to Amy yesterday as she was signing my book. "IF we don't get rid of
this bunch, what future president can ever be held accountable for
anything?"

After all, after spending $60 million dollars investigating Clinton, a
president, who in retrospect, looks pretty darned good, (that is one thing
that can be said for Bush. He makes virtually all ex-presidents look good
in contrast), for a land deal in which he lost $46,000, the special
prosecutor was basically told to just stay in there and keep on
investigating 'til he found something, anything.

Finally we impeached Clinton for lying under oath about private sins which
cost taxpayers nothing and were not responsible for anyone dying, But this
president has committed so many sins that have cost lives. Not to mention
he has bankrupted the country and made America hated world-wide.

Bush was involved in an unethical business deal (actually more than one --
unethical business deals appear to be the only kind he and his cohorts know)
in which he made an extra $500,000 he would not have made if he had not
engaged in insider trading. But that has not been seriously investigated,
nor will it be. And this president won't testify under oath. Why is that?
So he cannot later be charged as Clinton was with lying under oath?

And I was sure wishing I had a Roswell phone book in the truck on the way
home. Twenty miles this side of Vaughn I looked at the gas tank and I knew
I would never make it home. Going to Albuquerque and back on a full tank of
gas should not be a problem. It must have been the wind. Then I was
thinking. IF anyone stopped to help me when I ran out of gas, two out of
three people in this area would hate me because of my truck. Some of those
people might have a gun!! That is why I put the most incendiary stuff on
the truck roof. Only a really tall person or a truly dedicated reader would
climb into the truck bed to read what is on the roof.

However, I coasted into Price's. Put 15.2 gallons into a tank that usually
takes 13 gallons when it is empty. I was very lucky.

I wrote another letter to the editor today. And did a summary page for the
Iraq War - "The Big Lie." In response to Ann Coulter's picture being on the
cover of Time magazine, I wrote a letter to Time saying the only female
journalist, and nearly the only journalist who deserved to be on the cover
of Time magazine was Amy Goodman.

The battle rages on.

Lonna Gooden VanHorn writes for opednews,
http://www.opednews.com /archivesgoodenVanHornLonna .htm and has articles on
other sites on the net. Born and raised on a small farm in Minnesota, she
now lives in New Mexico with her husband, a veteran who spent 18 months in
Vietnam.

If you would like a transcript of what is on her truck, send an e-mail to
jvanhorn@peoplepc.com and she will send you the entire sixty odd pages as an
attachment. Feel free to use any of it as protest signs yourself.

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information please review Title 17, Sec. 107 of the U.S. Code. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

© 2002- 2008 OLDAmericanCentury.org and OLDAmericanCentury.com