Scott Ritter in Austin Saturday 2/25

[sonias]

A citizen response to lying, spying and dying for the "war on terror"

U.S. Tour of Duty's Real Intelligence Project
presents
Scott Ridder

Former UN Weapons Inspector

An emergency public discussion about Iraq, Iran
and America's constitutional crisis

Moderated by Jack Blood (host of "Deadline Live")

Saturday, February 25 * 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
St Andrew's Presbyterian Church
14311 Wells Port Drive, Austin, TX

Come early for pre-event live music
Co-sponsored by MonkeyWrench Books and
Light in the Darkness Publications

A book sale and signing (the Neo-CONNED! set) will follow the event

Doors open at 6:00 PM
Seating is first-come, first-served.

Suggested donation $10 (nobody turned away for lack of funds)

For more infor call 512.407.6925 or visit www.neoconned.info
www.ustourofduty.org and www.monkeywrenchbooks.org

[WestHoustonDem]

1. He'll be in Houston Sunday 2/26

[sonias]

2. Excellent!

Glad to see the tour getting the word out.

Sonia

[PDittie]

3. Kicking eom

[PDittie]

4. Hump Day kick

[sonias]

5. I need my coffee

I read you headline as "hump day dick" and thought why the heck is PDittie talking cheney trash on this thread for.

Oh kick, not dick. Uh, Nevermind!
(Emily Latella reference for you old SNL viewers)

Sonia

[WestHoustonDem]

6. Nevermind!! ROFLMAO

I guess that dates all of us!

[sonias]

7. Friday morning kick for this weekend

Sonia

[sonias]

8. Don't get neo-Conned again!!

Sonia

[derby378]

9. Oh, you guys are gonna love Scott...

Here's a picture from 2004 when Scott Ritter visited Dallas and met ginbarn:

[sonias]

10. Thanks for the kick derby378

This is going to be good. Here in Austin tonight and out in Houston tomorrow.

Sonia

[sonias]

11. I just noticed that I misspelled his name in the flyer portion

My apologies to Scott Ritter. Hey I got it right on the headline. That's what happens when people send you pdf files and you can't copy from them.
It's Ritter not Ridder!

Sonia

[sonias]

12. I totally recommend this discussion Houston

This was a wonderful event here in Austin. We had great music, a 45 interview with Scott Ritter by Jack Blood and then a 45 minute Q&A. Scott was extremely knowledgeable, spoke convincingly about the threat of war in Iran. Gives a lot of the history and background story of the turmoil in middle east. He says America is not only addicted to oil, we're addicted to war and violence. We have to admit that first.

This is the thing I respect about him the most, he's a republican and he's telling the crowd that the most important thing we can do to stop this war with Iran is for the Democrats to regain control of the House. And he says it with authority. He says he isn't a Democrat, but that there are no checks and balances on this administration since they control every branch of government. And he says we the American people are to blame. He didn't go easy on us. Our democracy depends on the participation of it's citizens and we have been AWOL. When only an anemic 35% of the registered voters bothers to vote, and the presidency is determined by 17.6% of that number, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

He was very powerful speaker.
Real :patriot: :applause: :applause: :applause:

Sonia

[WestHoustonDem]

13. Excellent! I can't wait! n/t

[sonias]

14. I wish I could see him again, he was so good WestHoustonDem

I'll post some pictures later.

And let me explain the neo-Conned book set. There are two books being put out by the punisher, Light Darkness Publications, which are a collection of essays from both sides as separate books against the neo-cons. The neo-Conned I is the conservative side with Pat Buchanan, Joe Sobran, Samuel Francis, Charley Reese. People I couldn't stand to read. But it would make a good gift for the conservatives in your family if they can be open-minded. I didn't buy that one.

The second book was the neo-Conned II with the left side Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Robert Fisk, Alexander Cockburn & Jerry St. Clair and many many more. I bought this one.

http://www.neoconned.com/

Sonia

[WestHoustonDem]

15. You still have time to get to Houston Sonia!

He speaks at 5!

As flawed as my family is, we only harbor one conservative, and he's not really conservative, just thinks he is. I will be working the DFH table today and suggest that to anyone I see with conservative family members.

[sonias]

16. Sweetie if we were talking one hour, I would be there

But 2 1/2 hours one way and another 2 1/2 back, is a killer. Unfortunately I also have a lot of work to do too. You enjoy seeing and listening to him, and we'll both be happy we did.

Sonia

[WestHoustonDem]

17. I know. It just would have been so great to see you.

I guess we'll have to wait until next Saturday. I'll be driving Mrs. Dittie and some others to Austin for the filibuster Saturday morning.

[Lithos]

18. Actually not quite

The first involves people who are ostensibly religious/morality (or those who use religious words/themes quite frequently in their commentaries), the second is more truly politically/subject-matter-expert based. Each volume spans the political spectrum from left/right though the first volume is almost uniformly RW and bigoted.

I was there too (seated at the end of a row a couple down from where that jerk who was attacking the host church over abortion was standing when he asked his question.) Ritter was good. My favorite takeaway from the meeting was the question asked about our addiction to the military/industrial complex. I've thought this sometime, but it hadn't dawned on me to phrase it using Bush's own words like that questioner did last night.

Yes, we are addicted to oil, but it is indeed lost upon people that we're even more addicted to the military solution. Companies like Halliburton, Boeing, SAIC, Raytheon, etc. all are directly involved in the military trade. Many other companies depend fully upon our military to insure their access to resources they would otherwise be locked out of. The military is how the US has learned to speak to the world. We were incapable of dealing with Iraq (and continuing on with Iran) on anything but a military level. It's the basis behind the Dubai Ports scandal (we have to let them have this because they might throw a fit and not buy US arms and/or they could take away access for our fleet to their ports) and is the corner piece of the PNAC documentation. If you are not more or less an equal, the US's first inclination has never been to talk, but to bully. We did this in Somalia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, etc. No wonder we're looked down upon by the world.

Also, I think some of the barbs against Clinton were a bit unfounded as I don't think people realize that he was a minority president suffering at the whims of a Republican Congress who would have tore him up if he'd started moving differently on this issue. Not to say he was perfect on his foreign policy, but the comment by one of the organizers who said he was a buddy of the Bushes (and the RW) because of the ties to cocaine smuggling at Mena (which is a RW hoax long since disproven) was extremely ignorant and non-constructive.

L-

[sonias]

19. Well some of the crowd was the infowars crowd

But you know what they say, the enemy of my enemy, is my friend. The fact that we had only one wacko was actually a good thing. Most of the questions were good, and Scott did a good job of answering them well. The d.u. question (depleted uranium) for example made me very uncomfortable, but he's a soldier and his explanation goes with his training. He's not stupid, he's not a pacifist, and he understands the high cost of war. That's why he closed that question with, "if you don't want this to happen, sure that you never send us off to war".

I think Scott made it very clear that our economy is based on war and the military industrial complex, and their need huge amounts of oil as well. We're the largest weapons seller in the world as well as the largest consumer. It is totally ingrained in our society. For example his point about how small towns and communities will line the streets, waving their flags to send their local town men and women off to war. "We are celebrating their march to war when we should be grieving and crying for the horror".

We don't have to agree with their positions on hating Clinton too, but I don't have a problem holding liars accountable either. Scott's point was that the atrocities in the middle east and Iraq are the equal responsibility of both parties. And if you want to hold G.H and G.W. accountable you have to go all the way back to Clinton as well. There is truth to that. I don't buy the Mena cocaine crap, but Madeline Albright was our policy person on Iraq. They knew what was going on and they proceeded to let it go on. All so we could get Sadamn one day.

Here is part of the interview Leslie Stahl did with Albright in 1996
Stahl: The question is, are they missing the mark?... We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, this is more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?’

Albright: "This is a very hard choice, but the price….we think the price is worth it."

I think the point is we have to look at ourselves too. We're not perfect and our party is not perfect and we have to hold our side accountable too. Being less corrupt than the other side isn't good enough.

Sonia

[Lithos]

21. Yeah

I forget Infowars and JackBlood are pretty much locally based. Unfortunately, I'm personally not as keen on allies of convenience as they usually come back to bite you and thus cost more than if you didn't have them. Quite a bit of th baggage turns off main stream America, the same people we're trying to wake up to fix things like the Patriot Act, Iran and a few hundred million other injustices.

Your comments are very good, I appreciate what you said as this represents much of the good content he brought up. I wish he had his own book there as I would have liked to have him sign it as opposed to the NeoCon Again book.

L-

[sonias]

20. Some pictures

Sonia

[WestHoustonDem]

22. Scott Rocked! I only got one good pic...

Oh. And then I had dinner with Scott Ritter and Jeff Norman among others.

[sonias]

23. Great going WestHoustonDem!

Did you talk war at the dinner table?

Sonia

[WestHoustonDem]

24. war, politics, religion, ex-spouses, kids, pets, gay rights

the constitution, and more. He grew up very close to where I grew up and he's now a firefighter in the town where my ex-husband is living with his mother and current spouse.