I would say it is used so that people will always remember that Jesus died for us. What better reminder than the cross itself.

therefore they want to be able to reap the benefits that the rich do today. I don't quite understand the mentality that causes people to believe they will be rich. Some think that if they work hard, they will be justly rewarded. Others are sure they're going to hit the lottery. They don't seem to realize how unlikely and unrealistic it is. I also once saw a survey that showed that many people think they're richer than they are. I don't remember the exact details, but it was something like 10% of people thinking they are among the top 1%, and maybe 25% thinking they are among the top 10%, so some think they are already being helped by policies that only benefit those at the very top. (Figures are inexact, but show the tenor of the thinking.)

This was at the Watertown Democratic Town Committee meeting. You probably already know that Kelley dropped out of the race. The remaining three candidates each had a half hour during which they gave a speech and then took questions from the crowd. I went in to the event not knowing anything about the candidates and left liking all three of them. They were all talking about having to grow the economy in Massachusetts, doing things the government can do to facilitate job growth, good-paying jobs. They talked about the problem of people leaving the state, because of not enough jobs or affordable housing.

Their backgrounds were interesting. Andrea Silbert calls herself an entrepreneur and talked about a group she started that helped women to bring their ideas to fruition by getting financing. She named several companies that were started by these women, including Zipcar. Deb Goldberg talked about how she grew up working in her family business, Stop & Shop supermarkets. She said that the company had unionized employees from a long time ago, and provided health insurance and pensions for all employees, including part-timers. Tim Murray talked about his accomplishments as the mayor of Worcester, where he set up partnerships between colleges and the city to get things done. He mentioned a school in the poorest area of the city that sent all its students to college; he also mentioned cleaning up of brownfields. All of the candidates spoke of how their experience would enable them to know how to grow the economy in Massachusetts.

I believe I could be happy with any of the candidates, unless of course I later learn some negatives about any of them.

His school actually recruits kids (who look promising) out of high school for the debate team. There, they can train the kids in debating in favor of the right-wing talking points, preparing them to be the talking heads/pundits/op-ed writers inundating our media, and our society, with these right wing points--which sadly have come to frame the debate and make it harder for progressives to get their points out to the people.

It was at the JFK Library, sponsored by the National Archives and all the Presidential libraries. I found the entire conference quite interesting.

Yesterday, there were two panels, mainly of academics, and a keynote address by David Halberstam. The latter had an interesting point in his address about the "lying machine" that started back in the Cold War days (by republicans) and continues to this day, as we all know.

Today, Caroline Kennedy welcomed us. Brian Williams was the moderator, and the day opened with a taped interview Williams did with Jimmy Carter, who was quite critical of bush. The first panel included Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, Theodore Sorensen, and Jack Valenti. The first two are still serious war hawks. People in the audience could submit questions, and someone asked Kissinger if there's anything he'd like to apologize for. He said this was not an appropriate time for a question like that.

The next panel was about the Media, with Dan Rather, Steve Bell, and Frances Fitzgerald. Rather talked about how, during Vietnam, the reporting was from the bottom up, with the reporter deciding what story to cover. The reporters also had freedom to travel wherever they wanted to in the country. With technological advances bringing the editors and reporters closer, as well as the consolidation of the media, now the reporting goes from the top down, with story decisions made higher up, as well as the instant nature of technology now used giving the reporter less time and freedom to do the reporting they used to be able to do. And there is greater control of reporters in Iraq.

There was an appearance by the New York Times war reporter just back from Iraq; I apologize that I can't remember his name at this moment. I was disappointed to hear him say that, from the beginning, he thought they should take out Saddam, the second most brutal dictator in the world. No shit!

The third panel was composed of veterans: Wes Clark, Senator Chuck Hagel, NYT columnist Bob Herbert, and Pete Peterson, a POW for 5 1/2 years who later became the first ambassador to Iraq. Another interesting panel. I loved it when Clark said, "Presidents should avoid going to war. It's a last, last, last resort" and "Vietnam was an elective war. So was Iraq."

Those of us in the audience could submit questions, and of course the ones I submitted were not used. My question for Dan Rather was: Why is the current media so complicit in 'the lying machine'? I didn't think they'd use that one. LOL

Were any other DUers at the conference?

It was a 2-day conference held at the JFK Library and sponsored by the National Archives and all of the Presidential libraries.

Wes was on today's final panel, "Lessons Learned," along with fellow veterans, Senator Chuck Hagel, columnist Bob Herbert from the New York Times, and Pete Peterson, who was a POW for 5 1/2 years and later was appointed the first ambassador to Vietnam. Brian Williams was the moderator, and he was pretty good. The whole conference was interesting, but as you might guess, I was particularly looking forward to this panel, and it didn't disappoint. Wes was terrific, as always. I took a few notes, though not as much as I'd have liked to. Here is some of what he said, as best as I could scribble it down.

"Presidents should avoid going to war. It's a last, last, last resort...Wars are extremely ugly and...and painful..Don't go to war unless you absolutely must...Vietnam was an elective war. So was Iraq.

"The administration from 9/11 was leaning toward getting into war with Iraq...I was told by my friends in the Pentagon 10 days after 9/11 that we were going to go into Iraq...The decision was made that we'd go to war.

"We do have to have checks and balances, And this country's freedom isn't being well-preserved."

This is just a sampling; I wish I could have gotten more down. It's all stuff we Clarkies have heard from him before, but I'm sure many of the people at the conference had not. My friend, who had been for Dean, was very impressed with Wes; she gets more impressed every time she hears him.

Williams asked Hagel if he's going to run for president, and he tried to deflect the question toward Clark. When Clark was asked, he talked about how the important thing now is the 2006 elections and that he's working to get a lot of the Dems, the veterans, elected.

Those of us in the audience could submit questions. Of course I submitted one, and of course they didn't use it. My question was "When we went into Iraq, we obviously hadn't heeded the lessons of Vietnam. What can we do now to extricate ourselves from the situation?" A perfect question to get Clark's views out, but perhaps it was too obviously partisan for them to use. lol

I was among the volunteers rallying for Clark outside the MTV Rock the Vote debate at Fanueil Hall in Boston. We set ourselves up to greet him as he came into the area, and I was fortunate to be among those in the front row who got to shake his hand. After the debate, he came to the bar at which we were gathered and gave a great speech. (I was also impressed because he made a point of greeting and shaking hands with the bartenders/employees on his way in.)

I was at the NH rally at which Michael Moore appeared and heard the speeches but had no personal encounters there.

The other two encounters were related to "Hardball." When they were doing the show at Harvard, I was volunteering. I did not get tix to the show, but another woman and I were standing on the sidewalk holding up signs. He passed by us on the way to the show and thanked us (for what we were doing) as he passed by.
The best one of all was during the Democratic Convention, when they were doing "Hardball" under an open tent outside Fanueil Hall. I had been campaigning for Kerry in that area all day, and I knew from a Clark email that he was going to be on the show, so I stuck around. When he was heading toward the tent for the show, he shook hands with people on the way in, and I had managed to get in the front row again so I shook his hand. Then, Tweety asked him to walk into the show shaking hands with the camera on him. I was still standing in the front row and he was standing not too far in front of us waiting for his cue. I was able to make a couple of comments to him--told him I had volunteered for his campaign. Then because of where I was standing, I happened to be the first person he shook hands with on camera. That was the greatest moment for me in the convention week! Funny thing is, my cousin saw me on TV and called my mother up. I have the video on my computer; my friend was trying to capture a still picture for me, but I guess the quality of the picture wasn't good enough to do so.

So though I had some good encounters with Clark, I do wish I had the opportunity to really meet and talk to him.

That is the way of the neocons/repugs/fundies.

It was great! The place was packed. We waited in line close to 2 hours before we got in because it was taking forever for everyone to go through the metal detectors. But we did get there before Kerry's speech, though not by much. I don't know who was playing (music) or who else might have spoken before I got inside. Stansfield Turner was speaking when I got in. Theo Epstein and I think someone else from the Red Sox spoke. Kerry's speech was terrific. Large crowd, but I have no idea how many; I'm short and can't get a good panoramic view of the crowd. Heck, I only got a glimpse or two of Kerry, when I had the opportunity to stand on the bottom bar of a fence. There were people of all ages, from elderly to children. A few dogs wearing Kerry signs. Kerry had the crowd roaring with applause.

I was with some folks from the Catholics for Kerry group, and their signs got a good response from a lot of people. Unfortunately, down the street there were a bunch of bush supporters sporting signs and a nasty attitude, as they always do. One of the bushies spit on one of my friends, who was handing out Catholics for Kerry literature outside. These folks who scream that we're killing babies don't exactly show a Christian attitude with all the venom they spew.

All in all, it was a great day and we saw a lot of support for Kerry in NH.

He was on for a good length of time, and he talked about the things bush has been doing wrong. He said something about having been taught about specific mistakes that should not be made in a leadership position (I forget how many there were), and he said bush has made every one of them. He also talked about the decision-making styles of bush, Kerry, and Clinton. (He had personally been involved in these situations with the latter two, and other people he knew had been involved in them with bush and had related the circumstances to him.) He said both Kerry and Clinton make very careful decisions, getting all the information, listening to others, etc. before coming to the decision. But with bush, bush says he 'just knows' what the right thing is, and that is his decision--no collection of information, no listening to others. And of course, bush's way is not the right way to do it.

He had a lot of great stuff to say about bush and Kerry, about the war in Iraq and the (wrong) way it's been conducted...

The way he lies so easily caused me to wonder if he even always knows that he is lying. I thought perhaps he's lied so much that he even believes his lies; the kind of person who can pass a polygraph test while lying their butt off. I've known a couple of people who were pathological liars/compulsive liars (whatever the correct term is), and I was thinking bush might be the same type of person.

I thought sociopaths were intelligent, but I'm not sure if that's correct or not. But as was just said, the idiocy may not be the truth.

For the two questions about jobs (and the lack thereof), bush just went straight to the topic of education, talking about how important it is for kids to learn, for people to learn skills, yada, yada, yada. It gave the impression that he thinks that the only people who don't have jobs are those who are uneducated and have no skills. Doesn't this moran realize that a large number of unemployed are both intelligent, educated, skilled individuals, many with advanced degrees. These are people who do have skills and intelligence. Not only is it extremely difficult for these people to find a job, if they do find one the pay is generally abysmal. I should know; I'm one of them.

One other comment came to me while listening to bush speak: what a lying sack of shit!

when the other person asked bush to name three mistakes he's made. The asshat, of course, wouldn't admit to any mistakes. To err is human, so WTF is he?

have been doing it more recently. They talked to undecided voters, perhaps leaning towards Kerry, and after their conversation, they said they will vote for Kerry.

Yes, you are having an effect. At the very least, you are getting some information useful to the campaign. They will know about the two pro-Kerry women you saw and call them on election day to make sure they get to the polls. It sounds like you had a tough area, just the terrain alone. And I think that a lot of the folks in rural areas in NH live in those areas partly because they don't want to be bothered by anyone--that's probably what you were facing. When my friend and I were canvassing, we had a main street for which we could only do two houses at a time, then get back in the car and drive to the next house. And there weren't exactly prominent numbers on the houses either.

I'm hoping to get up to NH again, because I do feel that in as close an election as this is, that every single vote we get is important. If you can get up there again, please do, and good luck--perhaps you'll get a better area next time.

Jennings really pissed me off at that debate too. I can still remember Moore saying that Clark was a gift to the Democratic party and he hoped they would recognize that. Unfortunately, the party didn't.