[Vision2020] Text of Mayor Anderson's (Salt Lake City, Utah) Speech

[Linda Pall]

Bravo, Mayor Anderson (Go, Rocky!) and THANKS to Ralpf and to Tom.

Truth does matter and peace IS really worth it.

All the best,
Linda Pall


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 3:23 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Text of Mayor Anderson's (Salt Lake City, Utah) Speech


> >From the August 31, 2006 edition of the Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake
> City, Utah) with a special thanks to Ralph Nielsen -
>
> "Text of Mayor Anderson's speech"
> http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,645197552,00.html
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> Text of Mayor Anderson's speech
> Address by Mayor Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson
> Washington Square
>
> Salt Lake City, Utah
> August 30, 2006
>
> A patriot is a person who loves his or her country.
>
> Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to
> raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation - and our world?
>
> And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our
> nation's leaders tell us the truth?
>
> So let's hear it: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the
truth!
> Give us the truth! Give us the truth!" Because if we had had the truth, we
> wouldn't be here today.
>
> Let no one deny we are patriots. We support our nation's troops. Let's
hear
> it for our nation's troops! We have so many veterans here today. Let's
here
> it for the veterans! We are grateful to our veterans who have sacrificed
so
> much for our freedoms. We love our country, we hold dear the values upon
> which our nation was founded, and we are distressed at what our President,
> our administration, and our Congress are doing to, and in the name of, our
> nation.
>
> So to James Evans and these folks who financed this massive radio campaign
> these last few days, let them understand that blind faith in bad leaders
is
> not patriotism.
>
> A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their
> country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the
> name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish,
> blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering,
> human-rights-violating president.
>
> That is not a patriot. Rather, that person is a sycophant. That person is
a
> member of a frightening culture of obedience - a culture where falling in
> line with authority is more important than choosing what is right, even if
> it is not easy, safe, or popular. And, I suspect, that person is afraid
> -afraid we are right, afraid of the truth (even to the point of denying
it),
> afraid he or she has put in with an oppressive, inhumane, regime that does
> not respect the laws and traditions of our country, and that history will
> rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure.
>
> In response to those who believe we should blindly support this disastrous
> president, his administration, and the complacent, complicit Congress,
> listen to the words of Theodore Roosevelt, a great president and, I might
> remind everyone, a Republican, who said:
>
> "The President is merely the most important among a large number of public
> servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is
> warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or
inefficiency
> in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a
> whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full
> liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is
exactly
> necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does
> right."
>
> President Roosevelt continued: "Any other attitude in an American citizen
is
> both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the
> President,"-listen up Utah Republicans and James Evans, and all the good
> Republicans listening today-"or that we are to stand by the President,
right
> or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to
> the American public. Nothing"-President Roosevelt didn't stop there-"but
the
> truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more
> important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about
> any one else."
>
> Those were the words of Teddy Roosevelt, a great president who knew the
true
> meaning of patriotism.
>
> We are here today as truth-tellers.
>
> And we are here to demand: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us
> the truth! Give us the truth!"
>
> We are here today to insist that those who were elected to be our leaders
> must tell us the truth.
>
> We are here today to insist that our news media live up to its sacred
> responsibility to ascertain and report the truth, that our news media live
> up to its sacred responsibility to ascertain and report the truth rather
> than acting like nothing more than a bulletin board for the lies and
> propaganda of a manipulative, dishonest federal government.
>
> We have been getting just about everything but the truth on matters of
life
> and death, on matters upon which our nation's reputation hinges, on
matters
> that directly relate to our nation's most fundamental values, and on
matters
> relating to the survival of our planet.
>
> In the process, our nation has engaged in a tragic, unnecessary war, based
> upon categorically false justifications. More than a hundred thousand
people
> have been killed - and many more have been seriously maimed, brain
damaged,
> or rendered mentally ill. Our nation's reputation throughout much of the
> world has been destroyed. We have many more enemies bent on our
destruction
> than before our invasion of Iraq. And the hatred toward us has grown to
the
> point that it will take many years, perhaps generations, to overcome the
> loathing created by our unjustified, illegal invasion and occupation of a
> Muslim nation.
>
> What incredible ineptitude and callousness for our President to talk about
a
> Crusade while lying to us to make a case for the invasion and occupation
of
> a Muslim country!
>
> Our children and later generations will pay the price of the lies, the
> violence, the cruelty, the incompetence, and the inhumanity of the Bush
> administration and the lackey Congress that has so cowardly abrogated its
> responsibility and authority under our checks-and-balances system of
> government.
>
> We are here to say, "We will not stand for it any more. No more lies. No
> more pre-emptive, illegal war, based on false information. No more
> God-is-on-our-side religious nonsense to justify this immoral, illegal
war.
> We are here to say most fundamentally, no more inhumanity in the name of
our
> nation."
>
> Let's raise our voices, and demand to the administration and our news
media,
> "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"
> Let's consider some of the most monstrous lies - lies that have led us,
like
> a nation of sheep, to this tragic war.
>
> Following September 11, 2001, the world knew that Osama bin Laden and al
> Qaeda were responsible for the horrific attacks on our country. Our
> long-time allies were sympathetic and supportive. But our president
> transformed that support into international disdain for the United States,
> choosing to illegally invade and occupy Iraq, rather than focus on and
> capture the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
>
> Why invade and occupy Iraq when it was bin Laden and al Qaeda who attacked
> our country and still haven't been brought to justice? Vice President Dick
> Cheney and Condoleezza Rice represented to us, without qualification, that
> there were strong ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
>
> In September, 2002, President Bush made the incredible and absolutely
false
> claim that "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam."
>
> President Bush represented to Congress, without any factual basis
> whatsoever, that Iraq planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11
> attacks.
>
> Our President and Vice-President, along with an unquestioning news media,
> repeatedly led our nation to believe that there was a working relationship
> between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, a relationship that threatened
> the United States.
>
> Even last week, when I met with Thomas Bock, the National Commander of the
> American Legion, I asked him why we are engaged in the war in Iraq. Why
did
> we invade and occupy Iraq? He said, "Why, of course, because of the 9/11
> attacks on our country." I asked, "What did Iraq have to do with those
> attacks?" He looked puzzled, and said, "Well, the connection between al
> Qaeda and Iraq."
>
> I was shocked. I was stunned. Here is a man who has criticized us for
> opposing the war in Iraq - and he is so completely wrong about the
> underlying facts to justify this war.
>
> Not only has there never been any evidence of any involvement by Saddam or
> Iraq with the attacks on 9/11, but there has never been any evidence of
any
> operational connection whatsoever between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
>
> And Colin Powell finally conceded that there is, and these are his words,
no
> "concrete evidence about the connection." "The chairman of the monitoring
> group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track al Qaeda"
> disclosed that "his team had found no evidence linking al Qaeda to Saddam
> Hussein." And the top investigator for our European allies has said, 'If
> there were (any) such links, we would have found them. But we have found
no
> serious connections whatsoever.'"
>
> President Bush, by the way, finally admitted nine days ago on Aug. 21
during
> a press conference that there was no connection between the attacks on
9/11
> and Iraq. It's terrific that the President has now admitted what others
have
> known for so long - but where is the accountability for the tragic war we
> were led into on the basis of his earlier misrepresentations?
>
> Beside the fictions of Saddam Hussein somehow being linked to the 9/11
> attacks and his supposed connections with al Qaeda, what was the principal
> justification for forgoing additional weapons inspections, working with
our
> allies toward a solution, refraining from seeking additional resolutions
> from the United Nations consistent with international law, and hurrying to
> war - a so-called "pre-emptive" war - in which we would attack and occupy
a
> Muslim nation that posed no security risk to the United States, and cause
> the deaths of so many thousands of innocent men, women, and children - and
> the deaths and lifetime injuries to so many thousands of our own
servicemen
> and servicewomen?
>
> The principal claim was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction
> - biological and chemical weapons - and was seeking to build up a nuclear
> weapons capability. As we now know, there was nothing - no evidence
> whatsoever - to support those false claims.
>
> President Bush represented to us - and to people around the world - that
one
> of the reasons we needed to make war in Iraq - and to do it right away -
was
> because Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons. His
assertions
> about Saddam Hussein trying to purchase nuclear materials from an African
> nation and about Iraq seeking to obtain aluminum tubes for the enrichment
of
> uranium were challenged at the time by our own intelligence agency and by
> our own scientists, yet President Bush failed to tell us that!
>
> Ten days, 10 days, before the invasion of Iraq, it was proven that the
> documents upon which President Bush's claim about Saddam Hussein trying to
> obtain uranium was based were forgeries. That was found 10 days before we
> invaded Iraq. However, President Bush did not disclose that to the
American
> people. By that failure, he betrayed each of us, he betrayed our country,
> and he betrayed the cause of world peace.
>
> Neither did the vast majority of the news media in this country disclose
the
> forgeries - until it was far too late. It took our local newspapers here
in
> Salt Lake City four months - until after the war was commenced and until
> after President Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over - to
report
> the discovery that the documents were forgeries - and, therefore, that
there
> was no basis for the false claims about Saddam Hussein trying to build up
a
> nuclear capability. By its failure to promptly disclose those forgeries,
our
> news media betrayed us as well.
>
> Had the American people known we were being lied to - had President Bush
> informed us that the documents were forged and that he had no other basis
> for his claim - had our nation's media done its job, rather than slavishly
> repeating to us the lies being fed to it by the Bush administration - our
> nation very well may not have allowed the commencement of this outrageous,
> illegal, unjustified war.
>
> Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that high-strength
> aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq were "only really suited for nuclear
weapons
> programs," warning "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
> Undisclosed by President Bush or Condoleezza Rice was the fact that top
> nuclear scientists had informed the Administration that those tubes were
> "too narrow, too heavy, too long" to be useful in developing nuclear
weapons
> and could be used for other purposes. Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, director
> general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed.
>
> So, so much for the phony claims of Saddam Hussein building nuclear
weapons,
> which were the primary claims justifying the rush to war, without working
> with the United Nations, without working with our long-time allies,
without
> giving the weapons inspectors an opportunity to do their job, which if
they
> had that opportunity they would have disclosed what we know now - and that
> is there were no weapons of mass destruction.
>
> What were we told about chemical and biological weapons of mass
destruction?
> These claims were as baseless and fraudulent as the claims about nuclear
> weapons.
>
> President Bush told us in his January 2003 State of the Union address that
> Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard
> and VX nerve agent. Then, in May of 2003, he made the outlandish statement
> that, it turns out to be totally false, "We found the weapons of mass
> destruction. We found biological laboratories."
>
> Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the (same) secretary of defense who
> assured us that the war would take maybe six days, maybe six weeks, but he
> doubted as long as six months. He told us at that time, "We know where the
> weapons of mass destruction are." Vice President Cheney and then-Secretary
> of State Powell also joined in the chorus of lies and misinformation about
> weapons of mass destruction.
>
> Of course, no stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons were found.
Bush
> Administration Weapons Inspector David Kay, appointed by the Bush
> administration, noted that Iraq did not have an ongoing chemical weapons
> program after 1991 - a conclusion remarkably similar to statements made by
> Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice just months before the 9/11 attacks -
and
> before they sacrificed the truth in the service of promoting the Bush
> administration's case for war against Iraq.
>
> On February 24, 2001, less than 7 months before 9/11, Colin Powell said
that
> Saddam Hussein, and these were his words, "has not developed any
significant
> capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to
> project conventional power against his neighbors," said Colin Powell, some
> seven months before 9/11.
>
> And in July 2001, two months before 9/11, Condoleezza Rice said, and these
> were her words: "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military
forces
> have not been rebuilt." She told us two months before 9/11.
>
> It is astounding how they changed their claims after the President decided
> to make a case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq!
>
> To think that we could be lied to by so many members of the Bush
> administration with such impunity is frightening - chilling. Yet these
> imperious, arrogant, dishonest people think we should continue to just
fall
> in line with them and continue to take them at their word after we have
been
> lied to time after time after time by these people.
>
> The truth has been established. It is the established truth. Iraq had
> nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on the United States. There is no
> evidence of any operational ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. And there were
> no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
>
> What a tragedy, leading to greater tragedy. We are fed lie after lie, our
> media reinforces those lies, and we are a nation that has been led to a
> tragic, illegal, unprovoked war.
>
> We are here today because of our values. We love our country. We cherish
the
> freedoms and liberties of our country. We don't call those who speak out
> against our nation's leaders unpatriotic or un-American or appeasers of
> fascists, as we heard from our nation's secretary of defense yesterday. We
> have good, wholesome family values. In our families, we teach honesty, we
> teach kindness and compassion toward others, we teach that violence, if
ever
> justified, must be an absolutely last resort. In our families, we teach
that
> our nation's constitutional values are to be upheld, and that they are
worth
> standing up, as we are here today, and fighting for. Our family values
> promote respect and equal rights toward everyone, regardless of race,
> regardless of ethnic origin, and regardless of sexual orientation. In our
> families, we teach the value of hard work and competence - and we are left
> to wonder about a President who, after receiving an intelligence memo
about
> the threat posed by al Qaeda, decides to continue his month-long
vacation -
> just before the 9/11 attacks on our country.
>
> As we demand the truth from others, let us also face the truth. Our
> government all too often has not cared at all about the human rights of
> people in other nations - and it doesn't really care about democracy,
unless
> it leads to the election of those who will do our bidding.
>
> Consider the irony regarding the claims that Saddam had chemical weapons
> and, because of that, we needed to rush to war in Iraq. When Saddam
Hussein
> was using chemical weapons - first against Iranians, then against his own
> people, the Kurds - our country provided him with biological and chemical
> agents and equipment to make the weapons. Presidents Reagan and George
H.W.
> Bush refused even to support economic sanctions, let alone go to war
against
> him, against Hussein for his use of weapons of mass destruction. What did
> our nation do in response to Hussein's use of chemical weapons, killing
tens
> of thousand of people, when he actually had them and we knew that he had
> them? We befriended, coddled, and rewarded him - with
government-guaranteed
> loans totaling $5 billion since 1983, freeing up currency for Hussein to
> modernize his military assets.
>
> Perhaps those in the United States government who aided and abetted Saddam
> Hussein to further US business interests, while he was gassing the Kurds,
> should be sharing his courtroom dock as he is now being tried for crimes
> against humanity.
>
> No more lies, no more hiding of the truth - we can stand the truth - no
more
> wars that more than triple the value of stock in Dick Cheney's prior
> employer, Halliburton - and which, as of last September, has increased the
> value of the Halliburton CEO's stock by $78 million.
>
> We are patriots. We are deeply concerned. And we demand change, now.
> I want to hear from you.
>
> No more lies from Condoleezza Rice about whether she and President Bush
were
> advised before 9/11 of the possibility of planes being flown into
buildings
> by terrorists.
>
> No more.
>
> No more gross incompetence in the office of the Secretary of Defense.
>
> No more torture of human beings.
>
> No more disregard of the basic human rights enshrined in the Geneva
> Convention.
>
> No more kidnapping of people and sending them off to secret prisons in
> nations where they will be tortured.
>
> No more unconstitutional wiretapping of Americans.
>
> No more proposed amendments to the United States Constitution that would,
> for the first time in our nation's history, limit fundamental rights and
> liberties for entire classes of people simply on the basis of sexual
> orientation.
>
> No more federal land giveaways to developers.
>
> No more increases in mercury emissions from old, dirty, dangerous
> coalburning power plants.
>
> No more backroom deals that deprive protection for millions of acres of
wild
> lands in our nation.
>
> No more attacks on immigrants who work so hard to build better lives in
this
> nation.
>
> No more inaction by Congress on fixing our hypocritical and inconsistent
> immigration laws and practices.
>
> No more reliance on fiction rather than the science of global warming.
> No more manipulation of our media with false propaganda.
>
> No more disastrous cuts in funding for those most in need.
>
> No more federal cuts in community policing and local law enforcement grant
> programs for our cities.
>
> No more inaction on stopping the tragic genocide in the Darfur region of
> Sudan.
>
> No more of the Patriot Act.
>
> No more killing.
>
> No more supposedly pre-emptive wars.
>
> No more contempt for our long-time allies around the world.
>
> No more dependence on foreign oil.
>
> No more failure to impose increased fuel efficiency standards for
> automobiles manufactured in this country.
>
> No more energy policies developed in secret meetings between Dick Cheney
and
> his energy company cronies.
>
> No more excuses for failing to aggressively cut global warming pollutant
> emissions.
>
> No more tragically incompetent federal responses to natural disasters like
> Hurricane Katrina.
>
> No more tax cuts for the wealthiest, while the middle class and those who
> are economically-disadvantaged continue to struggle more and more each
year.
>
> No more reckless spending and massive tax cuts, resulting in historic
> deficits and historic accumulated national debt.
>
> No more purchasing of elections by the wealthiest corporations and
> individuals in our country.
>
> No more phony, ineffective, inhumane so-called war on drugs.
>
> No more failure to pass an increase in the minimum wage.
>
> No more silence by the American people.
>
> I we can do this in Salt Lake City, we can do this throughout the entire
> country, and the world is going to hear us.
>
> This is a new day. We will not be silent. We will continue to raise our
> voices. We will bring others with us. We will grow and grow, regardless of
> political party - unified in our insistence upon the truth, upon
> peace-making, upon more humane treatment of our brothers and sisters
around
> the world.
>
> We will be ever cognizant of our moral responsibility to speak up in the
> face of wrongdoing, and to work as we can for a better, safer, more just
> community, nation, and world.
>
> So we won't let down. We won't be quiet. We will continue to resist the
> lies, the deception, the outrages of the Bush administration and this
> complacent, complicit, go-along Congress. We will insist that peace be
> pursued, and that, as a nation, we help those in need. We must break the
> cycle of hatred, of intolerance, of exploitation. We must pursue peace as
> vigorously as the Bush administration has pursued war. It's up to every
> single one of us to do our part.
>
> Thank you everyone for lending your voices to this call for compassion,
for
> peace, for greater humanity. Let us keep in mind the injunction of Dr.
> Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
> about things that matter."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks again, Ralph.
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> ********************************************
>
> "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"
>
> - Thomas Jefferson
>
> ********************************************
>
>
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