A call to help

The Bendermans need our help!
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
- Jack Dalton
http://jack-dalton.blogspot.com/2005/11/bendermans-need-our-help.html

I need some folks to dig into their pockets. Here is what this is about and why. Kevin and Monica Benderman need our help. Monica has not asked me to do this; this I do on my own just becase it needs to be done. Here is what I am talking about:Kevin is in jail because, as a matter of conscience, he knew he could not participate in an on-going war crime—Iraq’s invasion and occupation. (See the Benderman Timeline for full details) The Army, when it sent Kevin to jail, sent him 3,000 miles away from the jail at his base in Georgia. The only way Kevin and Monica can talk is by phone. That is a $25 per 20 min call. 3 calls a week is over $300 a month. Add a couple of emergency calls and now its up to about $500 per month. They don’t have the money, period.For the past 4 months I have been paying their house note; I will not sit by and watch Kevin come out of jail to a repossed house! They have zero income right now and nothing at all, other than what I am sending, coming in. The only jobs available to Monica are minimun wage jobs that would throw them even further behind; plus it would eliminate Monica’s ability to keep up the fight to free Kevin…

(read more)

Ridin’ the Bus With Deborah

by Doris Colmes, MSW
11/29/05

When Deborah Davis hit the news, I got hit as well – right in the pit of my stomach where terror hides, and panic lurks.. “Oh God, I mumbled, “It’s happening again”

And just exactly what had Deborah done to get this emotionally detached old lady into such a replay of emotions left over from 1938 Nazi Germany? It was the gut-wrenching realization that the Nazi Police State in which I was raised has come back to roost – in the United States.

Deborah, who commutes by bus in Denver, Colorado, had been asked to present her I.D. to a man in uniform. If she didn’t, she was told, it would mean walking several miles to her job. So, she complied, but, it rankled. Deborah knew that, unless she was being a danger to self or others, behaving irrationally, or drunk and disorderly, no one had the right to ask for her identification. As long as she was sitting quietly in her seat, she could not be arbitrarily asked for ID. (She’d learned that in her 8th grade Civics class, where she had also been taught about police states, and how casually they usurped the rights of their citizenry.)

And so it went. For several weeks, when asked to show ID, Deborah refused, and, when asked if she were getting off at the Denver Federal Center she said, “no” was left in peace, completing her bus trips right on schedule.

And then it happened: On September 26, 2005, when the bus reached its stop at the Federal Center, a guard got on the bus and confronted her. When Deborah insisted that she was under no obligation to show any ID whatsoever, the bus was halted, a supervisor climbed on, and demanded ID. This time, when she refused, a second cop arrived, and, when Deborah stuck to her guns, she was suddenly arrested.

And it was not a gentle arrest. As she relates on her website http://www.papersplease.org/davis/facts.html
" 'Grab her' was the shout, and with the police wrenching her arms behind her back, she was jerked out of her seat, handcuffed, thrown into a police cruiser, rushed off to the police station inside the Center, where cops had a bit of difficulty deciding with what to charge her. So they wrote up a couple of tickets (contents unknown) took off her cuffs, and told her that if she ever entered that Center again, she’d go to jail." No more bus commutes for Deborah!

Reading this, took me straight back to that living nightmare called Nazi Germany. There, if one didn’t show ID upon command, and/or if anything was even the slightest bit out of the ordinary on these papers, it was “Bye-Bye,” and – if one were a Jew, a Gypsy or seen as “gay” by the arresting officer – that was some long Goodbye, indeed (http://jack-dalton.blogspot.com/2005/05/papierebitte.html) Death camps were waiting, needing monthly quotas, and age was not an issue. Little kids zoomed off to extermination just as quickly as adults, and all for the sin of, perhaps, an inkblot on an identifying number, or the magic word “Jew” printed on the top.

And, now, it seems, we’ve come full circle. Not only do we now have the Patriot Act (a wonderfully modern up-date of Germany’s “Enabling Act,” (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info / http://jack-dalton.blogspot.com/2005/06/enabling-ptriot-act.html), right down to the last comma) but we also have a 82 billion dollar defense bill, which (with a vote of 100 to 0) had the Real ID Act hidden inside it. (S.1637, FSC-ETI. Passed May 11, 2004) This law allows a national identification process in which each and every person in the U.S.A. will be on computer. And, yes, you’d better show that ID upon command, or you’ll wind up like Deborah. And, as time goes by, much worse: Honorable, ethical, racially profiled, and dead.

Is this an exaggeration? Well, let’s look at the current administration expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon Agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago to protect military facilities from attack.. According to Washington Post writer Walter Pincus, (http://washingtoonnpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600857_pf.html ) a presidential commission will expand and transform the CIFA into an agency that has authority to investigate crimes within the USA, such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage. And would allow it to label – at will – any person or activity of which it did not approve under these headings.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about US citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence (See CIFA).

This, of course, in addition to the Patriot Act revisions which give unlimited power and access to any and all governmental agents to anyone or anything they choose, without warrant or even “reasonable cause” (whatever that now means)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote: “If the least important soldier in the German Army had chosen not to comply with orders to execute innocent people, others would have followed his lead, and there would not have been a Holocaust.” Those words still ring true, right along with the actions of Mohandas Gandhi and Rosa Parks, and, today, with the action of Deborah Davis.

Sure, lots of folks protest that they have had enough and that “someone” needs to take action and then – at least in my experience – they say, “Oh this is such a shame,” shrug their shoulders and start talking about the newest TV Reality Show.

In Deborah’s case, why are there not crowds holding signs, protesting, outside the Denver Federal Center? Could it be because of current media censorship? Diversionary news, such as Michael Jackson and/or Scott Peterson get major coverage – to the point of insanity – but persons like Deborah, or, just as currently José Padilla, are shuffled off to the side-lines. My hunch is, that although Deborah faces arraignment in Denver on December 9, 2005, hardly anyone in that town is even aware of what just happened. As for media censorship and how it works, that’s a whole other article.

It takes someone with not only the courage of her/his convictions, but also with a deep sense of urgency, to actually do something concrete that graphically shows the rest of us what is actually happening here. And that is what Ms. Davis has accomplished. The same steely resolve needed for anyone to say, “I have had enough, and my answer is NO” is reminiscent of Rosa Parks, also on a bus, a half-century ago..

I love this country. It literally saved my life at a time when I was pretty convinced that there was nowhere left to go, except, perhaps, to the nearest oven. And, through the years, I’ve witnessed all that is so dear, so valuable, so much the essence of my entire existence, dissipate. Dissipate into a haze of hidden agendas, corruption and increasingly self-serving administrations.

Of necessity, what happened to Deborah Davis must be compared to what happened to so many people at the start of the fascist regime in Germany, when “compliance” was the daily hymn, and acquiescence to the German “Enabling Act” (Bona fide ancestor of our “Patriot Act”) was so absolutely expected, that anyone who protested disappeared immediately and permanently.

I thank Deborah Davis not only for being a role model, but also for setting an example that I, for one, will unconditionally follow.

In conclusion, let us all memorize and act upon together, this poem, written by Pastor Martin Niemöller in Nazi Germany:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one leftto speak out for me.
- Pastor Martin Niemöller

Burdens of Proof

The bush administration lies. they've been lying from the moment bush took the Oath of office in January, 2001. We know they lie, because they've used lies on their people in the past.

Their lies have led to:
- the looting of the US Treasury;
- two wars where 100,000+ Afghans and Iraqis have been killed, and 2100+ American military have been killed;
- the rape of the Bill of Rights;
- false and illegal arrests and detention of American citizens;
- the destruction of the social safety net for American workers.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. It goes on and on. Now cheney's bitching because they're being called out for their lies. Well, that's too bad. His statements of innocence and outrage are just so much fluff. "They're lying. It's just false, not true, inaccurate and typical.", as rumsfeld has put it.

Well, to paraphrase cheney as he put it so elegantly regarding Saddam Hussein, "The burden of proof is entirely on the bush administration - not on the people of the United States or anyone else."

Show us the proof that you haven't been lying to us. If you can't, then, well....What can I say? We'll have to assume the worst, and we don't want the "smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud".

To be or not to be...

To be or not to be…

How are you doing? Ready for the holidays? It's that time of year again, when we reflect on our nuclear families and express our affections for same. It is also the time of year to reflect on the past, take a moral inventory and begin anew in the coming year. Consider this: Many thousands of earthquake victims in Pakistan and Kashmir continue to be left to die. The refugee camps in Darfur in the Sudan continue to be attacked as hopes for peace fade. Malaria continues to kill children all over the globe and scientists are warning of an impending viral pandemic. Environmental degradation is increasing at an accelerated pace. And, of course, the war of terror in Iraq continues to claim lives every day. The congress in Washington needs more money in order to continue the war so it is cutting spending on programs like food stamps for the poor. They hope to stimulate the economy by extending the tax breaks for the wealthy… Am I getting through? These are just the headlines; the stories present an even darker picture.

I assert that in the face of these conditions we are misusing our resources. On a local level construction is mainly oriented toward larger and larger individual homes and away from affordable housing. Community growth rarely centers on establishing public transportation but instead continues to center on the individual automobile model. Encroachment continues on our watersheds and woodlands. Is your town different from mine? The singular argument for the propagation of this 'business as usual' form of development is unfettered capitalism. Well folks, the market will not solve your problems. The one thing that is true of unfettered capitalism is that capital will be used as those with capital choose to use it and they are using it to increase their own wealth. The new gilded era is less ostentatious than the last but more insipid because it is much more widespread. This is not a model for economic growth-- it is a model for wealth enhancement; e.g. the average pay for a CEO is 500 times the wage of the average laborer. Economic growth requires that everyone benefits from development and I see the opposite happening on a local, national and global scale.

Is the capitalist economic model an absolute good and the communist model an absolute evil? Our current model says that this is true. With this view, the cold war will continue even beyond the destruction of its antithesis--just because it has become 'business as usual'. This motion will continue, as Newton pointed out, "…until it is acted upon by an outside force."

Here is the choice that we face in this holiday season. Shall we follow the leaderless model over a cliff like the lemmings or will we "Rage against the dying of the light," as Dylan Thomas put it. Before you choose I ask that you think (if I can save a lemming or two with these words I will be elated): Beyond good and evil is reason. Is it reasonable to assume that our current economic model is improving our lives? With all the talk of cataclysm and the apocalyptic predictions it is hard for me to believe that this is so. How are you doing?




P.S.: You might consider actually reading something by Karl Marx. If so I have included a brief link: The Civil War in the United States. You might also consider reading Adam Smith and how he fails to foresee the advent of the global corporate entity and how his descriptions of stores and factories are quite quaint in retrospect.

Riding in Redneck City

Let’s see:
I sponsor a race car.
My job deals with construction.
I live on a little street out in Redneck City,
with the wife and my dogs.
I shop-drop every place I go.
I write letters to the editor
to tell them they’re wrong.
And I take no guff,
when I strut my stuff.

You might want to use your rights while you still got ‘em.

Veterans Day 2005

Bush's War on Veterans
November 9, 2005
By Mary Shaw
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/11/09_veterans.html

On Friday, November 11, Americans will observe Veteran's Day. This is a day set aside to honor our war veterans. I cannot think of a more worthy purpose for a holiday.

Now let me guess: this Veteran's Day, George W. Bush will strut his way into a specially choreographed photo opportunity and smirk and say some carefully crafted yet predictable and hollow-sounding words about how the American people appreciate the sacrifices that our veterans have made in the noble quest to defend freedom and democracy.

And he will be right. We the people do appreciate the sacrifices that our veterans have made.

After all, our brave veterans made those sacrifices while Dubya's congressman dad pulled enough strings to get his boy out of harm's way and into the elite Texas Air National Guard to avoid Vietnam.

Our brave veterans made those sacrifices while Dick Cheney arranged for five separate deferrals because he had "other priorities."

Our brave veterans made those sacrifices while Congressman Tom DeLay managed to draw a high draft number and then orchestrate some convenient deferrals, while stating that he really wanted to serve, but that all the slots were taken by blacks and Hispanics.

Our brave veterans made those sacrifices while House Speaker Dennis Hastert avoided duty due to bad knees - the same knees that didn't stop his college wrestling career.

And so on.

Okay, so these guys don't have what it takes to earn the title of veteran. But they do seem to have what it takes to be hypocrites and punish those veterans who actually had the nerve to serve, while at the same time praising them for their selfless sacrifices.

Yes, these self-proclaimed "compassionate conservatives" are punishing our veterans.

Some examples:

Earlier this year, Republican leaders in Congress blocked $2 billion in emergency funding for veterans' health care from the $82 billion supplemental funding bill. They felt that the money would be better spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we're producing more and more injured soldiers for whom we cannot afford adequate medical care.

Then the Bush administration requested a mere 2.7 percent increase in Veterans Affairs (VA) spending, even though the VA's under-secretary testified last year that the VA health care system needs a 13 to 14 percent increase annually to maintain their current level of services.

Thousands of veterans of the first Gulf War are suffering the effects of exposure to depleted uranium, or have died from that exposure, yet the U.S. government denies the effects and continues to ship depleted uranium munitions for use in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some wounded U.S. soldiers have returned home from the current war in Iraq only to learn that they are being referred to credit agencies who want the soldiers to pay for equipment they lost when they were injured; or for charges for military housing.

And about one-fourth of all homeless Americans are veterans. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Two percent of them are female. Most of these cases are attributed to lingering effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse, compounded by a lack of family and social support networks.

This is how our government treats those who have so bravely fought for their country. It's no wonder that the military recruiters are finding it so difficult to meet their quotas, even in the "red states."

The Bush administration would be wise to consider the words of George Washington, our first Commander-in-Chief, who said: "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."

Happy Veteran's Day.

Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She currently serves as Philadelphia Area Coordinator for Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed in this article are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail mary@maryshawonline.com.

new evidence of the same old

Not that we really need anymore evidence of the criminality of the bush administration.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article325560.ece

Today's Independent (UK) reports on an Italian documentary about the atrocities committed by the US military in the Nov 2004 destruction of Fallujah. Many independent commentators and reporters at the time tried to bring this information to the American people, but, as usual, they were basically ignored by the CCMA*.

White phospherous bombs, and the new napalm (Mark 77), banned weapons by the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980, were used.

..."Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."...

Think about that. Picture that. FEEL that. Is that what you want done in your name? And do you really think it's confined to just Fallujah? And what makes it even worse, is that this obscene war is illegal in the first fucking place.

We have an idiot coke-brain pretending to be president, a vice-president who's trying to make torture legal while he makes a fortune off this war, a secretary of defense who can't even count and doesn't care, and a whole administration full of cronies and relatives, draining the US treasury.

I don't know what it's going to take for the American people to wake up.

Remember that asshole roberts ruled it's ok for the president to imprison US citizens indefinitely without charges, and strip them of their citizenship. And cheney wants to torture anyone who's not a citizen somewhere in some foreign land. You want to be next? That's what you are allowing.

As for the 'opposition party', it's time to get off your fucking asses. If this is what you want, tell us now, you bastards, so we can find someone else. And it's time for the American people to get off their asses, and start demanding, that's right, DEMANDING, that bush and his administration exit the government. NOW.

*Consolidated Corporate Media of America

Incident at the Pinellas Trail

Source of impeachment banner remains unknown
County officials don't know who hung a political banner on the Pinellas Trail overpass, but they took it down as soon as they heard about it.
By NICOLE JOHNSON
Published November 6, 2005
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/11/06/Northpinellas/Source_of_impeachment.shtml

PALM HARBOR - Motorists and pedestrians passing the Pinellas Trail overpass just north of Curlew Road one morning last week were asked to take on a hefty task.

"Impeach Bush Now!" read a large white banner hanging from the overpass.

And so it seemed, a particularly politically contentious week had spilled out onto the Pinellas Trail.

It's not clear who posted the 19-foot-long vinyl banner, but Pinellas County officials said it was not sanctioned. The sign was likely put up Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, said Paul Cozzie, county director of parks and recreation.

A local Democratic group denied responsibility for the message.

"That was not the work of the Democratic Party," said Carrie Wadlinger, chairwoman of the Pinellas County Democratic Executive Committee.

The overpass, on Alt. U.S. 19 just north of Curlew Road, is used by pedestrians and cyclists. It has also served as a community bulletin board of sorts for the past 10 years, said Monte Alfonso, county park program coordinator.

The space is reserved for banners and signs publicizing government entities or city sponsored events.

"It's to let people know about things going on in their parks or maybe a parade they want to publicize," Alfonso said.

There is no charge for posting on the overpass, but all signs must be approved by the county parks and recreation department. Signs can be no larger than 4 feet tall and 30 feet wide. The signs can be posted for only 30 days.

Currently, the Old Palm Harbor Main Street Association is using the overpass to publicize its weekly Sunset Bazaar and this year's Bike Fest.

"We're not an ad agency; we try to use those facilities to get out public messages," Alfonso said. "It's for government, not politics."

Around 8 a.m. Wednesday, park ranger Jerry Cumings' phone started ringing off the hook, he said. Numerous county employees on their way to work were calling to alert him of the large white banner.

The tarplike sign read: "America Can't Wait for 2008, Impeach Bush Now!" in red, black and yellow lettering.

An hour or so later, rangers removed the banner, Cumings said.

Renegade banners have found their way onto the overpass at least two other times, Alfonso said. Those were personal messages or advertisements for businesses.

"Three times in the last 10 years we've had them," Alfonso said. "I wouldn't consider that a big problem."

While Alfonso considers the sign an isolated incident, the head of the local Democratic Party says the banner is an indication that things in the traditionally Republican area may be changing.

"It sounds like we have some of the far left in north county," Wadlinger said.

Drifting towards a Police State

by Mike Whitney
November 04, 2005
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=43&ItemID=9048
Zmag.org

“Those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid the terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends” - Former Attorney General, John Ashcroft

Did you know that under the terms of the new Patriot Act prosecutors will be able to seek the death penalty in cases where “defendants gave financial support to umbrella organizations without realizing that some of its adherents might eventually commit violence”? (NY Times; editorial 10-30-05) So, if someone unknowingly gave money to a charity that was connected to a terrorist group, he could be executed.

Or, that the Senate Intelligence Committee is fine-tuning the details of a bill that will allow the FBI to secretly procure any of your personal records without “probable cause” or a court order giving them “unchecked authority to pry into personal and business matters”? (New York Times, “Republicans seek to widen FBI Powers, 10-19-05)

Or, that on June 29, President Bush put “a broad swath of the FBI” under his direct control by creating the National Security Service (aka; the “New SS”)? This is the first time we’ve had a “secret police” in our 200 year history. It will be run exclusively by the president and beyond the range of congressional oversight.

Or, that on October 27, 2005 president Bush created the National Clandestine Service, which will be headed by CIA Director Porter Goss and will “expand reporting of information and intelligence value from state, local and tribal law enforcement entities and private sector stakeholders"? This executive order gives the CIA the power to carry out covert operations, spying, propaganda, and “dirty tricks” within the United States and on the American public. (“The New National Intelligence Strategy of the US” by Larry Chin, Global Research)

Or, that Pentagon intelligence operatives are now permitted to collect information from US citizens without revealing their status as government spies? (“Bill would give Cover to Pentagon Spies”, Greg Miller, Times Staff writer, “The Nation”)

Or, that within 2 years every American license and passport will be made according to federal uniform standards including microchips (with biometric information) that will allow the government to trace every movement of its citizens?

Or, that recent rulings, the DC District Court unanimously decided in two different cases that foreign prisoners have no rights under international law to challenge their indefinite imprisonment by the United States and, (in Rumsfeld vs. Padilla) that the president can lock up an American citizen “without charges” if he believes he may be an “enemy combatant”? Both verdicts overturn the fundamental principles of “inalienable rights”, habeas corpus, and the presumption of innocence; replacing them with the arbitrary authority of the executive.

The American people have no idea of the amount of energy that has been devoted to stripping them of their constitutional protections and how stealthily that plan has been carried out. It has required the concerted efforts of the political establishment, the corporate elite, and the collaborative media. For all practical purposes, the government is no longer constrained in its conduct towards its citizens; it can do as it pleases.

The campaign to dismantle the Bill of Rights has focused primarily on the key amendments; the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th. These are the cornerstones of American liberty and they encompass everything from due process to equal protection to free speech to a ban on the “cruel and unusual” treatment of prisoners. Freedom has little tangible meaning apart from the safety provided by these amendments.

At present, there’s no reason for the administration to assert its new powers. That would only dispel the widely-held illusion of personal freedom. But, the existing climate of “well being” will not last forever. The poisonous effects of war, tax cuts, burgeoning budget deficits, and inflation indicate that darker days lie ahead. The middle class is stretched paper-thin and disaster could be as close as a hike in interest rates. The new repressive legislation anticipates the massive political unrest that naturally follows a tenuous and volatile economic situation.

Is this why Congress has rubber stamped so many of the administration’s autocratic laws, or does Bush simply “hate our freedoms”?

The members of America’s ruling elite carefully follow the shifting of policy in Washington. They have the power to access the mainstream media and dispute the changes in the law that they oppose. Regrettably, there’s been no sign of protest from the bastions of the corporate, financial and political oligarchy; just an ominous silence.

Does this mean that American Brahmins have abandoned their support for personal liberty and the rights of man?

America is undergoing its greatest metamorphosis. It has been severed from its constitutional moorings and is drifting towards a police state. If Samuel Alito is appointed to the Supreme Court then Bush will be able to solidify his “unchecked” power as executive and 50 years of progressive legislation will be up for review. Everything from abortion to Miranda will be reconsidered through the hard-right lens of the new majority.

Americans still seem blissfully unaware of the fundamental changes to the political system. The cloak of disinformation and diversion has successfully obscured the perils of our present course. Freedom is no longer guaranteed in Bush’s America nor is liberty everyman’s birthright. The rickety scaffolding that supports the rule of law has been replaced by the unbridled authority of the supreme presidency. The country is slipping inexorably towards the Orwellian nightmare; the National Security State.