11 December 2005 (# 6)
In October, 2005,
Tomdispatch author and Associate Editor, Nick Turse began erecting a verbal ‘wall’ to honor those who have resigned or otherwise departed their varied roles as valued public servants because to continue would mean that they condoned Bush’s neoconster regime. In typically eloquent fashion, Nick Turse wrote:
The Fallen Legion: Casualties of the Bush Administration
By Nick Turse In late August 2005, after twenty years of service in the field of military procurement, Bunnatine ("Bunny") Greenhouse, the top official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of awarding government contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, was demoted. For years, Greenhouse
received stellar evaluations from superiors -- until she raised objections about secret, no-bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) --
a subsidiary of Halliburton, the mega-corporation Vice President Dick Cheney once presided over. After telling congress that one Halliburton deal was
"the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career," she was reassigned from
"the elite Senior Executive Service... to a lesser job in the civil works division of the corps."
When Greenhouse was busted down, she became just another of the
casualties of the Bush administration -- not the countless (or rather uncounted) Iraqis, or the ever-growing list of American troops, killed, maimed, or mutilated in the administration's war of convenience -- but the seemingly endless and ever-growing list of beleaguered administrators, managers, and career civil servants who quit their posts in protest or were defamed, threatened, fired, forced out, demoted, or driven to retire by Bush administration strong-arming. Often, this has been due to revulsion at the President's policies -- from the invasion of Iraq and negotiations with North Korea to the flattening of FEMA and the slashing of environmental standards -- which these women and men found to be beyond the pale.
Since almost the day he assumed power, George W. Bush has left a trail of broken careers in his wake. Below is a listing of but a handful of the most familiar names on the rolls of the fallen:
Link: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=28817 I urge you to read that list of 42 because the individuals are truly remarkable and, as I will propose, essential to bringing an important message to all our fellow citizens -- more on that in a moment.
Subsequent to the October, 2005,
The Fallen Legion article, Nick Turse authored an article that expands the list of casualties in Bush’s blight on America’s treasured expert civil servants. It begins:
Bush's Burgeoning Body Count: Fallen Legion II
By Nick Turse About six weeks ago, at the urging of fellow
TomDispatch author Rebecca Solnit, I undertook the beginnings of an on-line memorial to the Fallen Legion of the Bush administration. It was, in effect, a proposal for
a virtual "wall" made up of the seemingly endless and ever-growing list of top officials as well as beleaguered administrators, managers, and career civil servants who had quit their government posts in protest or were defamed, threatened, fired, forced out, demoted, or driven to retire by administration strong-arm tactics, cronyism, and disastrous policies. As a start, I offered 42 prospective names for a Fallen Legion (and brief descriptions of their fates). These ranged from well-known figures like the President's former chief adviser on terrorism on the National Security Council, Richard Clarke, former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to the archivist of the United States, the state director of the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho, and three members of the White House Cultural Property Advisory Committee (who resigned over the looting of Iraq after Baghdad fell to U.S. troops). I also called upon readers to aid my future efforts and to send suggestions to:
fallenlegionwall^at^yahoo dot com. (And I renew that call in this piece.)
The response has been, in a word, overwhelming. Hundreds of letters poured in -- from readers who took me to task for the omission of their own personal picks for such a
"Wall" to notes of encouragement from courageous former officials already included in my listing (like Teresa Chambers, the U.S. Park Police Chief who was fired for speaking out and now has a website (
http://www.honestchief.com) documenting her long struggle). Some of the fallen whose stories, sad to say, I hadn't even heard of, wrote in as well.
Here, then, is the second installment in what is by now an ongoing series at
Tomdispatch dedicated to continuing to build the
Fallen Legion Wall, "brick" by "brick." Included in this installment is one honorary legionnaire, former NFL football player Pat Tillman, and a consideration of some officials picked by readers for spots of honor whose departure from government service was less than clear cut. This new installment adds approximately 175 additional casualties to the rolls of "the Fallen."
But bear in mind that this list is not yet close to being finished. Many suggested
Fallen Legionnaires (even some who wrote in personally) do not appear below, but will take their bows in future follow-ups.
Link: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=39653 Tom Engelhardt, the Founder and Editor of
Tomdispatch, has written that he expects to post a further expansion of the Fall Legion list in January, 2006, and they may well have a “virtual wall” online. It is fitting to honor these individuals and wonderful that Tom Engelhardt, Nick Turse, and their colleagues are devoting considerable effort to do so.
However, as I’ve thought about Nick Turse’s two articles, and these Fallen Legionnaires, it seems to me that an opportunity for the DNC to do something unique and powerful exists – something that could transcend the political; something every citizen in our Nation needs desperately.
These are individuals whom not only spoke truth to power but placed their well-being on the line for the sake of every American citizen, and in some instances, for the sake of humanity. They are not merely Fallen Legionnaires, they are what I will call Mentors of the Republic. They have much to teach each of us and we need those lessons and homework, now.
What if the DNC sponsored a gathering of those brave and distinguished citizens still with us, and had each of them present their experiences and their perspectives in video recorded format that could be made available for download as well as for broadcast on National TV.
Call upon all the influential and wealthy members of the film industry to both finance the endeavor and bring their professional expertise to the video recording of each lesson. Call upon those with wealth to underwrite a few hours of prime time broadcasts and support high-performance servers for download to schools, churches, clubs, and individuals.
We must bring the truth to our fellow citizens. As witnessed yet again, the Viveca Novak saga (
http://tinyurl.com/apjbc) demonstrates that accountable, diligently researched, truthful journalism is almost extinct in the Republic.
“We the People …” must do all we can to inform one another and who better to be the source of vital information about the comprehensive threat Bush’s neoconster regime is to our Constitution and humanity than those who witnessed it, up close and very personally.
Thank you for your continued leadership,
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
