List of Those Who Have Left the Bush Admin

Over the past few years we’ve all caught the news stories about high-level people leaving the Bush Administration. If you’re like me, you’ve wondered “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a list of all these people?”

Nick Turse, who works in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University and is the Associate Editor and Research Director at TomDispatch.com, has done it. He calls the list “The Fallen Legion.”

Fallen Legion LINK

I’ve suggested Nick consider Armando Falcon as a “fallen legion” candidate:

Falcon was director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which has oversight over the two giant housing-finance enterprises known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

On Feb. 4, 2003 the OFHEO released a report entitled, “Systemic Risk: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Role of OFHEO.” In a nut shell, OFHEO was concerned that Mae and Mac might become insolvent. OFHEO was exploring the possibility of obtaining legal (Congressional) authority to take over Mae & Mac in the event either collapsed. The concern was that these two institutions were so strongly coupled to the overall economy that their failure could result in a “systemic” economic failure.

For his service to the Nation, Falcon was asked by the Bush Administration to resign soon after the report was released.

You might not like the source, but you can verify the facts:
Article

Appeal for Hostage Release

(Originally Posted 12/09/05)

The deadline set for execution of the four Christian Peace activists taken hostage has arrived.  I add my small voice to those appealing for their release.

Many in the Iraqi resistance understand that these activists are not religious missionaries, and in fact spoke out in opposition before the US invasion.  They also rightly think that the killing of these people would undermine the legitimacy of the resistance.

Many appeals are being by iraqis on behalf of the hostages.  For example….

During prayers in the al-Imam al-Aadam mosque in Baghdad’s predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Azamiyah in north Baghdad, cleric Ahmed Hassan Taha demanded that the four charity workers be released.

“I stress on the necessity to release the four kidnapped foreigners who have helped the residents of Azamiyah,” he said. “We ask those who have authority and power to do their best to release the four European people who work in Christian peace organization, in fact those activists were the first who condemned the war on Iraq.”   (AP)

Freedom and Fear

Writer Alan Paton’s “Cry, The Beloved Country,” set in 1940s South Africa, includes a revealing passage that explores the fears whites had of the natives. In doing so, he touches on several forms of freedom and the conflicts between them: Freedom for the natives, freedom of white’s conscience, freedom from fear of the known and unknown. A similar situation exists between so-called “terrorists” and people who accept President George Bush’s framing of the World.

Yes, there are a hundred, and a thousand voices crying. But what does one do, when one cries for this thing, and one cries for another? Who knows how we shall fashion a land of peace where black outnumbers white so greatly? Some say that the earth has bounty enough for all, and that more for one does not mean less for another, that the advance of one does not mean the decline of another. They say that poor-paid labour means greater markets and greater scope for industry and manufacture. And others say that this is a danger, for better-paid labour will not only buy more but will also read more, think more, ask more, and will not be content to be forever voiceless and inferior.

Who knows how we shall fashion such a land? For we fear not only the loss of our possessions, but the loss of our superiority and the loss of our whiteness. Some say it is true that crime is bad, but would this not be worse? Is it not better to hold what we have, and to pay the price of it with fear? And others say, can such fear be endured? For is it not this fear that drives men to ponder these things at all?

We do not know, we do not know. We shall live from day to day, and put more locks on the doors, and get a fine fierce dog when the fine fierce bitch next door has pups, and hold on to our handbags more tenaciously; and the beauty of the trees by night, and the raptures of lovers under the stars, these things we shall forego. We shall forego the coming home drunken through the midnight streets, and the evening walk over the star-lit veld. We shall be careful, and knock this off, and knock that off our lives, and hedge ourselves about with safety and precaution. And our lives will shrink, but they shall be the lives of superior beings; and we shall live with fear, but at least it will not be a fear of the unknown. And the conscience shall be thrust down; the light of life shall not be extinguished, but be put under a bushel, to be preserved for a generation that will live by it again, in some day not yet come; and how it will come, and when it will come, we shall not think about at all.

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