Jafarzadeh and the Downing Street Dossier Redux
by Kurt nimmo
Global Research, January 30, 2007
kurtnimmo.com
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NIM20070130&articleId=4637
Is it possible we are stupid enough to fall for it again?
"US officials in Baghdad and Washington are expected to unveil a secret intelligence 'dossier' this week detailing evidence of Iran's alleged complicity in attacks on American troops in Iraq. The move, uncomfortably echoing Downing Street's dossier debacle in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, is one more sign that the Bush administration is building a case for war," reports the Guardian.
Not to worry, declares Nicholas Burns, the senior diplomat in charge of Iran policy and, hardly coincidentally, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Order of St. John, the latter run by the ruling houses of Europe, headed until his death by the former SS official, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.
The neocons are "not looking for a fight" with Iran (indeed, they don't want to fight the Iranians, simply shock and awe them into submission) and instead are eager to "push back," never mind there is no defensible reason to do so. "Primarily that means Tehran's perceived meddling in Iraq, where its influence with the Shia-led government and Shia majority population appears to be increasing as Washington's weakens," the Guardian would have us believe.
Once again, we are subjected to the discredited accusation "Iranians are smuggling into Iraq sophisticated explosive devices, mortars, and detailed plans to wipe out Sunni Arab neighborhoods," never mind that Pentagon has done a mighty fine job of accomplishing the latter without the help of Iran.
"But as was also the case in the days before Saddam Hussein fell, powerful external forces, ranging from exiled Iranian opposition groups to leading Israeli politicians, appear intent on stoking the fire—and winding up the White House," an unabashedly fair assessment, although it would help if the Guardian told us the rest of the story, namely the so-called "case" against Saddam Hussein consisted of a transparent passel of lies, fabrications, and fairy tales.
"The al-Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards is stepping up terrorism and encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq," Alireza Jafarzadeh—a US-based Iranian dissident who is linked to the Marxist cult Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), officially listed by the State Department as a terrorist group—told the Moonie, er Washington Times earlier this month. In essence, Jafarzadeh is but another Ahmed Chalabi, pedaling lies and exaggerations, the vile stuff of neocon pretext.
In the not too distant past, Jafarzadeh was happy to proffer scary stories about mullahs with nukes. Now, however, as a neocon team player, he has adopted the Iran meddling in Iraq theme, apparently the emerging rationale conjured up as a flimsy excuse to be used in the upcoming effort to shock and awe Iranian school children and grandmothers.
"There is a sharp surge in Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and sectarian violence in the past few months," Jafarzadeh told a conference organized by the Iran Policy Committee, an organization connected at the hip to the American Enterprise Institute, a criminal operation where Bush's get his psychopathic "minds."
According to Right Web, the "two leading figures at IPC are Raymond Tanter, who cofounded the organization in January 2006, and Clare Lopez, IPC's executive director. IPC members have close ties with the U.S. military, intelligence community, and high-tech military contractors," death merchants who stand to profit handsomely from any attack launched against Iran. It is hardly a surprise that Clare Lopez, an operations officer with the CIA for two decades, is an adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the AIPAC and Zionist created think tank.
"Israel is also pushing the intelligence case while upping the ante, claiming to have knowledge that Tehran is within a year or two of acquiring basic nuclear weapons-making capability," explains the Guardian, trotting out what should by now be a threadbare and thoroughly discredited lie. "In a BBC interview last week former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu compared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime to Hitler's Nazis. Speaking in Davos the deputy prime minister, Shimon Peres, demanded immediate regime change or failing that, military intervention."
Finally, the New York Times, responsible for eagerly disseminating war propaganda in the lead-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, tells us "Bush and his aides [read: criminal neocons] calibrate how directly to confront Iran, they are discovering that both their words and their strategy are haunted by the echoes of four years ago—when their warnings of terrorist activity and nuclear ambitions were clearly a prelude to war…. To many in Washington, especially Mr. Bush's Democratic critics, the new approach to Iran has all the hallmarks of an administration once again spoiling for a fight."
Of course, there will be no "fight," at least not in a traditional military sense, but rather a cowardly air bombardment, designed not only to take out Iran's fictional nuclear weapons labs but also decimate the country's civilian infrastructure, producing in essence a repeat of the situation in Iraq.
Although the perfidious neocons and their Fox News apologists and enablers tell us repeatedly they look forward to taking out Iran's supposed nuke capability—and, in the process, deposing the mullahs for the sake of the poor besieged Iranian people—last year Seymour Hersh revealed the "U.S. Air Force proposals for an air attack to destroy Iran's nuclear capacity [include] the option of intense bombing of civilian infrastructure targets inside Iran," as should be expected, as the attack Iran plan is simply another step in the Zionist and neocon agenda engineered to decimate Muslim and Arab society and culture.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
Nepotism
"My thought was nepotism," Fleischer said. "Somebody got a job because of a family member's position."
Fascinating, isn’t it? I guess little ari didn’t notice all the bush administration’s kids working for the government. powell’s kid, cheney’s kid, scalia’s kid, etc.
Fascinating, isn’t it? I guess little ari didn’t notice all the bush administration’s kids working for the government. powell’s kid, cheney’s kid, scalia’s kid, etc.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Untruth and Consequences:
The Reality Behind Iran War Rhetoric
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 29 January 2007
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1011&Itemid=135
Nuclear plans in chaos as Iran leader flounders (Observer)
Excerpts: Iran's efforts to produce highly enriched uranium, the material used to make nuclear bombs, are in chaos and the country is still years from mastering the required technology. Iran's uranium enrichment programme has been plagued by constant technical problems, lack of access to outside technology and knowhow, and a failure to master the complex production-engineering processes involved. The country denies developing weapons, saying its pursuit of uranium enrichment is for energy purposes.
Despite Iran being presented as an urgent threat to nuclear non-proliferation and regional and world peace - in particular by an increasingly bellicose Israel and its closest ally, the US - a number of Western diplomats and technical experts close to the Iranian programme have told The Observer it is archaic, prone to breakdown and lacks the materials for industrial-scale production.
This is the truth, but as we all know, the truth doesn't matter. Iran is nowhere near even having the capability to make a nuclear weapon – and there is still no serious or substantial proof that they even intend to make a nuclear bomb, with their supreme religious and political leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, having declared such a development to be sinful.
By the time Iran is capable of making a nuclear weapon, years down the road, a genuine diplomatic engagement with Tehran, coupled with increasing dissatisfaction among almost every sector of Iranian society, could have long defused the artificially created tension that poisons relations today – or even led to "regime change," from within, on terms created by the Iranian people themselves, not foisted on them at the point of a gun.
But again, none of this matters. Iran's "WMD programs," its political repression, its religious fanaticism, its "links to terrorists," even its "interference" in Iraq have absolutely nothing to do with why the Bush Faction and their Israeli outriders want to attack Iran. And no amount of reasonable argument – marshalling plain facts like those above to refute the Bushists' public justifications for conflict – will alter their course. Such arguments are premised on what is best for the common good, not only in the United States but around the world. But the gilded gangsters of the Bush Faction – as they have demonstrated in every possible way at every possible opportunity, over and over and over again for the past six years – are not interested in the common good. They are interested only in policies that they believe will enhance the power and privilege of their own elitist clique.
They have proven that they are more than willing – in fact, frothingly eager – to lie and cheat and manipulate intelligence in order to launch wars of aggression that serve the gang's interests. They have proven that they are willing to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people – to crush them like bugs under a bootheel – in order to serve the gang's interests. They have proven that they are willing to destabilize the entire world, squander the lives of their own soldiers, rob their own people blind and strip them of their ancient liberties in order to serve the gang's interest.
There is nothing – absolutely nothing – in their proven, copious, public record to indicate that they will not pursue an attack on Iran in order to serve the gang's interests. The hellstorm that will follow such a war crime – like the foreseen hellstorm that arose in the wake of the war crime in Iraq – is of no concern to them. Whatever the consequences, whatever the blowback, they will be protected from it – financially and personally, safe behind a phalanx of lifelong security, with public and private muscle at their command, and sustained by the mountains of blood money they and their corporate cohorts have mined from their wars and rumors of war.
This too is a plain fact: They will attack Iran – unless they are removed office, or else crippled by Congress and the courts, and by mass, sustained public resistance, to such an extent that they can no longer act freely. Neither of these scenarios seems likely at the moment – especially with Democrats falling all over themselves to prove they are more bellicose than the Bushists when it comes to Iran. Still, what else can we do but work to bring the truth to light and hope against hope that it will have some effect?
Postscript: Let's add another plain fact here, one which have noted before, but bears repeating: The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, does not control Iran's armed forces. He does not control Iran's nuclear program. To be sure, he is a prating, full-of-himself religious crank like George W. Bush, but no matter how inflammatory his rhetoric (some of which has been deliberately mistranslated), even if he picked up the phone tomorrow and ordered an all-out attack on Israel or a barrage of missile strikes on American forces in Iraq or the shut-down of the Straits of Hormuz – nothing would happen. Nothing. In the Iranian system of government, he does not have the power to make any of his rhetoric regarding military and foreign policy come true. (See also: Reality and Revisionism in Iran.)
The Bush Administration knows this. The Olmert government knows this. Yet at every turn, they inflate Ahmadinejad into yet another "new Hitler" and pretend that he has dictatorial powers in Iran. But just as his predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, could not make his heartfelt rhetoric about reforming Iran come true, neither can Ahmadinejad do anything at all to actualize whatever fantasies he may mouth.
It might be worth remembering this fact in the coming weeks, as the Bush gang heats up the war fever by waving the Ahmadinejad bogeyman at every opportunity.
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 29 January 2007
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1011&Itemid=135
Nuclear plans in chaos as Iran leader flounders (Observer)
Excerpts: Iran's efforts to produce highly enriched uranium, the material used to make nuclear bombs, are in chaos and the country is still years from mastering the required technology. Iran's uranium enrichment programme has been plagued by constant technical problems, lack of access to outside technology and knowhow, and a failure to master the complex production-engineering processes involved. The country denies developing weapons, saying its pursuit of uranium enrichment is for energy purposes.
Despite Iran being presented as an urgent threat to nuclear non-proliferation and regional and world peace - in particular by an increasingly bellicose Israel and its closest ally, the US - a number of Western diplomats and technical experts close to the Iranian programme have told The Observer it is archaic, prone to breakdown and lacks the materials for industrial-scale production.
This is the truth, but as we all know, the truth doesn't matter. Iran is nowhere near even having the capability to make a nuclear weapon – and there is still no serious or substantial proof that they even intend to make a nuclear bomb, with their supreme religious and political leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, having declared such a development to be sinful.
By the time Iran is capable of making a nuclear weapon, years down the road, a genuine diplomatic engagement with Tehran, coupled with increasing dissatisfaction among almost every sector of Iranian society, could have long defused the artificially created tension that poisons relations today – or even led to "regime change," from within, on terms created by the Iranian people themselves, not foisted on them at the point of a gun.
But again, none of this matters. Iran's "WMD programs," its political repression, its religious fanaticism, its "links to terrorists," even its "interference" in Iraq have absolutely nothing to do with why the Bush Faction and their Israeli outriders want to attack Iran. And no amount of reasonable argument – marshalling plain facts like those above to refute the Bushists' public justifications for conflict – will alter their course. Such arguments are premised on what is best for the common good, not only in the United States but around the world. But the gilded gangsters of the Bush Faction – as they have demonstrated in every possible way at every possible opportunity, over and over and over again for the past six years – are not interested in the common good. They are interested only in policies that they believe will enhance the power and privilege of their own elitist clique.
They have proven that they are more than willing – in fact, frothingly eager – to lie and cheat and manipulate intelligence in order to launch wars of aggression that serve the gang's interests. They have proven that they are willing to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people – to crush them like bugs under a bootheel – in order to serve the gang's interests. They have proven that they are willing to destabilize the entire world, squander the lives of their own soldiers, rob their own people blind and strip them of their ancient liberties in order to serve the gang's interest.
There is nothing – absolutely nothing – in their proven, copious, public record to indicate that they will not pursue an attack on Iran in order to serve the gang's interests. The hellstorm that will follow such a war crime – like the foreseen hellstorm that arose in the wake of the war crime in Iraq – is of no concern to them. Whatever the consequences, whatever the blowback, they will be protected from it – financially and personally, safe behind a phalanx of lifelong security, with public and private muscle at their command, and sustained by the mountains of blood money they and their corporate cohorts have mined from their wars and rumors of war.
This too is a plain fact: They will attack Iran – unless they are removed office, or else crippled by Congress and the courts, and by mass, sustained public resistance, to such an extent that they can no longer act freely. Neither of these scenarios seems likely at the moment – especially with Democrats falling all over themselves to prove they are more bellicose than the Bushists when it comes to Iran. Still, what else can we do but work to bring the truth to light and hope against hope that it will have some effect?
Postscript: Let's add another plain fact here, one which have noted before, but bears repeating: The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, does not control Iran's armed forces. He does not control Iran's nuclear program. To be sure, he is a prating, full-of-himself religious crank like George W. Bush, but no matter how inflammatory his rhetoric (some of which has been deliberately mistranslated), even if he picked up the phone tomorrow and ordered an all-out attack on Israel or a barrage of missile strikes on American forces in Iraq or the shut-down of the Straits of Hormuz – nothing would happen. Nothing. In the Iranian system of government, he does not have the power to make any of his rhetoric regarding military and foreign policy come true. (See also: Reality and Revisionism in Iran.)
The Bush Administration knows this. The Olmert government knows this. Yet at every turn, they inflate Ahmadinejad into yet another "new Hitler" and pretend that he has dictatorial powers in Iran. But just as his predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, could not make his heartfelt rhetoric about reforming Iran come true, neither can Ahmadinejad do anything at all to actualize whatever fantasies he may mouth.
It might be worth remembering this fact in the coming weeks, as the Bush gang heats up the war fever by waving the Ahmadinejad bogeyman at every opportunity.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Osama bin Warming
Climate change could lead to terrorism, security experts warn
Irony alert: as President Bush dwells on terrorism while barely acknowledging climate change, it turns out that climate change may lead to terrorism. The consequences of global warming could aggravate the already-ridiculous divide between the haves and have-nots, put 30 million people at risk of famine and disease, and create eco-refugees with a propensity for radical action, said experts attending a climate-change and security conference in London. "Those who are short of food, those who are short of water, those who can't move to countries where it looks as if everything is marvelous are going to be people who are going to adopt desperate measures to try and make their point," says former British U.N. Ambassador Sir Crispin Tickell, whose name knows no equal. Consider: the role of drought and scarce resources in the escalating violence in Rwanda and Darfur, and a 2002 "letter to the American people" in which Osama bin Laden villainized the U.S. for refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Gulp.
straight to the source: Scientific American, Reuters, Mark Trevelyan, 24 Jan 2007
straight to the source: Reuters, Tim Large, 24 Jan 2007
straight to the source: Financial Times, David Cameron, 24 Jan 2007
Grist Magazine.
from Brian
Irony alert: as President Bush dwells on terrorism while barely acknowledging climate change, it turns out that climate change may lead to terrorism. The consequences of global warming could aggravate the already-ridiculous divide between the haves and have-nots, put 30 million people at risk of famine and disease, and create eco-refugees with a propensity for radical action, said experts attending a climate-change and security conference in London. "Those who are short of food, those who are short of water, those who can't move to countries where it looks as if everything is marvelous are going to be people who are going to adopt desperate measures to try and make their point," says former British U.N. Ambassador Sir Crispin Tickell, whose name knows no equal. Consider: the role of drought and scarce resources in the escalating violence in Rwanda and Darfur, and a 2002 "letter to the American people" in which Osama bin Laden villainized the U.S. for refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Gulp.
straight to the source: Scientific American, Reuters, Mark Trevelyan, 24 Jan 2007
straight to the source: Reuters, Tim Large, 24 Jan 2007
straight to the source: Financial Times, David Cameron, 24 Jan 2007
Grist Magazine.
from Brian
Friday, January 26, 2007
old man bush
Bush's father complains of news media "hostility"
Fri Jan 26, 2007 5:37 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's father accused the news media of "personal animosity" toward his son and said he found the criticism so unrelenting he sometimes talked back to his television set.
"It's one thing to have an adversarial ... relationship -- hard-hitting journalism -- it's another when the journalists' rhetoric goes beyond skepticism and goes over the line into overt, unrelenting hostility and personal animosity," former President George Bush said.
The elder Bush, the 41st U.S. president, had a relatively collegial relationship with the press but things turned sour during his losing 1992 re-election campaign. He got so fed up with media coverage that supporters at the time circulated hats with the slogan "Annoy the Media -- Re-Elect Bush."
"I won't get too personal here -- but this antipathy got worse after the 43rd president took office," the former president said. He was speaking at a reception for a journalism scholarship awarded in honor of the late Hugh Sidey, White House correspondent for Time magazine….
Well, fuck you, old man. The fucking press ain’t falling all over themselves to kiss his asshole kid’s butt anymore, and his feelings get hurt. Oh, boo hoo. Where was he, by the way, when Clinton was president? He didn’t notice that the press was vilifying him?
Let me fill you in guy. Your kid is responsible for the deaths of well over a half-million people. I know, I know. That means nothing to you and your “beautiful mind” babs, but it sure means a hell of a lot to the people who live in the real world.
Fri Jan 26, 2007 5:37 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's father accused the news media of "personal animosity" toward his son and said he found the criticism so unrelenting he sometimes talked back to his television set.
"It's one thing to have an adversarial ... relationship -- hard-hitting journalism -- it's another when the journalists' rhetoric goes beyond skepticism and goes over the line into overt, unrelenting hostility and personal animosity," former President George Bush said.
The elder Bush, the 41st U.S. president, had a relatively collegial relationship with the press but things turned sour during his losing 1992 re-election campaign. He got so fed up with media coverage that supporters at the time circulated hats with the slogan "Annoy the Media -- Re-Elect Bush."
"I won't get too personal here -- but this antipathy got worse after the 43rd president took office," the former president said. He was speaking at a reception for a journalism scholarship awarded in honor of the late Hugh Sidey, White House correspondent for Time magazine….
Well, fuck you, old man. The fucking press ain’t falling all over themselves to kiss his asshole kid’s butt anymore, and his feelings get hurt. Oh, boo hoo. Where was he, by the way, when Clinton was president? He didn’t notice that the press was vilifying him?
Let me fill you in guy. Your kid is responsible for the deaths of well over a half-million people. I know, I know. That means nothing to you and your “beautiful mind” babs, but it sure means a hell of a lot to the people who live in the real world.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Venezuela's RCTV Acts of Sedition
by Stephen Lendman
On December 28, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias delivered his annual "greeting speech" to the National Armed Forces (FAN) and announced the operating license of TV station Radio Caracas Television (known as RCTV) broadcasting on VHF Channel 2 won't be renewed when it expires on May 27, 2007. The station played a leading role, along with the other four major commercial private television channels in the country controlling 90% of the TV market, in instigating and supporting the 2002 aborted two-day coup against President Chavez. Later in the year they acted together again in similar fashion as an active participant in the economically destructive 2002-03 main trade union confederation (CTV) - chamber of commerce (Fedecameras) lockout and industry-wide oil strike that included sabotage against the state oil company PDVSA costing it overall an estimated $14 billion in lost revenue and damage.
A collaborative alliance of the five media "majors" that include Globovision, Televen, CMT and Venevision (owned by billionaire strident anti-Chavista Gustavo Cisneros who's called the Rupert Murdoch of Latin America because of his vast media holdings) along with RCTV began their anti-Chavez campaign soon after Hugo Chavez assumed office in 1999. In addition, 9 of the 10 major national dailies were part of the joint corporate effort to harm Chavez's popular support and undermine his legitimacy even before he had a chance to implement his socially democratic agenda now flourishing under his Bolivarian Revolution. It included the country's new Constitution and all vital social missions it gave birth to and now deliver essential services to the people who never had them before including free health and dental care and education to the highest level - for everyone mandated by law.
[…]
How the Venezuelan Corporate Media Would Fare Under US Law
Fortunately for their owners and managers, the dominant Venezuelan broadcast and print corporate-controlled media don't operate under US laws. If they did, they'd be in very serious trouble with the likely suspension of their operating licenses the least of their woes.
If any part of the US media - corporate run, controlled or otherwise - reported the kind of strident anti-government propaganda intended to incite public hostility, violence and rebellion the way the Venezuelan dominant media do, they'd be subject to indictment on charges of sedition and possibly treason against the state - offenses far more serious than just the right to remain operating. During the 2002 April aborted coup and later anti-Chavez insurrection in the form of a general strike and management-imposed oil industry lockout, the Venezuelan corporate media acted in league with the oligarch opposition coup-plotters trying to overthrow democratically elected Hugo Chavez and his government.
In the US, this would be a violation of several laws at least including seditious conspiracy under Section 2384 of the US Code, Title 18 which states: "If two or more persons in any State or Territory (of the US)....conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the (elected) Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
[…]
full article
On December 28, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias delivered his annual "greeting speech" to the National Armed Forces (FAN) and announced the operating license of TV station Radio Caracas Television (known as RCTV) broadcasting on VHF Channel 2 won't be renewed when it expires on May 27, 2007. The station played a leading role, along with the other four major commercial private television channels in the country controlling 90% of the TV market, in instigating and supporting the 2002 aborted two-day coup against President Chavez. Later in the year they acted together again in similar fashion as an active participant in the economically destructive 2002-03 main trade union confederation (CTV) - chamber of commerce (Fedecameras) lockout and industry-wide oil strike that included sabotage against the state oil company PDVSA costing it overall an estimated $14 billion in lost revenue and damage.
A collaborative alliance of the five media "majors" that include Globovision, Televen, CMT and Venevision (owned by billionaire strident anti-Chavista Gustavo Cisneros who's called the Rupert Murdoch of Latin America because of his vast media holdings) along with RCTV began their anti-Chavez campaign soon after Hugo Chavez assumed office in 1999. In addition, 9 of the 10 major national dailies were part of the joint corporate effort to harm Chavez's popular support and undermine his legitimacy even before he had a chance to implement his socially democratic agenda now flourishing under his Bolivarian Revolution. It included the country's new Constitution and all vital social missions it gave birth to and now deliver essential services to the people who never had them before including free health and dental care and education to the highest level - for everyone mandated by law.
[…]
How the Venezuelan Corporate Media Would Fare Under US Law
Fortunately for their owners and managers, the dominant Venezuelan broadcast and print corporate-controlled media don't operate under US laws. If they did, they'd be in very serious trouble with the likely suspension of their operating licenses the least of their woes.
If any part of the US media - corporate run, controlled or otherwise - reported the kind of strident anti-government propaganda intended to incite public hostility, violence and rebellion the way the Venezuelan dominant media do, they'd be subject to indictment on charges of sedition and possibly treason against the state - offenses far more serious than just the right to remain operating. During the 2002 April aborted coup and later anti-Chavez insurrection in the form of a general strike and management-imposed oil industry lockout, the Venezuelan corporate media acted in league with the oligarch opposition coup-plotters trying to overthrow democratically elected Hugo Chavez and his government.
In the US, this would be a violation of several laws at least including seditious conspiracy under Section 2384 of the US Code, Title 18 which states: "If two or more persons in any State or Territory (of the US)....conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the (elected) Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
[…]
full article
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
speech highlights crisis of US ruling elite
Bush’s State of the Union speech highlights crisis of US ruling elite
By Bill Van Auken
24 January 2007
World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/unio-j24.shtml
President George W. Bush’s sixth State of the Union address was delivered Wednesday in an atmosphere of crisis and demoralization gripping not only his own Republican administration, but the entire American political establishment.
The media made much of Bush having for the first time to address a Democratic-led Congress, but the prevailing mood was not so much political confrontation as general bewilderment and apprehension, with the two parties confronting a military and political debacle in Iraq in which they are both fully implicated.
A president who, as multiple polls released this week have underscored, is the most despised occupant of the White House since Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate crisis, was treated to repeated standing ovations led by the new “Madam Speaker” of the House of Representatives, Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.
However, the applause, backslapping and bathos that have become the norm for this annual political ritual could not mask the fact that the US political establishment is torn by deep divisions and bitter recriminations, with some of the sharpest opposition to Bush’s policies coming not from the newly empowered Democrats, but from members of his own party.
There is a general recognition not only that the American colonial war in Iraq has failed, but that the six years of the Bush administration have produced a colossal decline in the world position of US imperialism.
The “new way forward” spelled out by Bush in his speech less than two weeks ago has provoked mounting fears that the military escalation in Iraq, combined with threats against Iran and Syria, will only deepen the disaster. Yet the reaction of Congress resembles the paralysis of passengers facing an impending train wreck: They know what is coming but can do nothing to avert it.
Fear of the consequences of Bush’s escalation is combined with even greater dread over the implications of US imperialism being dealt a decisive defeat in Iraq.
The general perplexity and desperation were reflected in the elements of unreality and absurdity in Bush’s speech. The “commander in chief” failed to even mention the war in Iraq—which everyone knew was the overriding issue facing the nation—until he was more than three-fifths through his remarks.
The most salient feature of the present “state of the union” is the unprecedented decision of a US president to escalate a war that was overwhelmingly rejected by the people in elections held just three months earlier. Yet this brazenly anti-democratic defiance of public opinion was never addressed.
Instead, Bush began his speech with a series of reactionary proposals on domestic issues. “Our job is to make life better for our fellow Americans, and help them to build a future of hope and opportunity—and this is the business before us tonight,” he proclaimed.
In fact, the “business” that night, as throughout the year, was upholding the interests of the banks and corporations that control both major parties, and Bush’s proposals all reflected this focus. They amounted to a series of coded messages to the major profit-making sectors—the energy conglomerates, the healthcare monopolies, agribusiness and Wall Street—that Bush would push new initiatives to boost their profits.
Thus, the president vowed to “balance the federal budget... without raising taxes,” that is, to defend his massive tax breaks for the rich while continuing to slash what remains of social programs for working people. He demanded that the government “take on the challenge of entitlements,” i.e., that it get down to the business of gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Bush promoted a thoroughly regressive plan ostensibly to aid the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance. His cure, however, was worse than the disease. It would turn health care benefits offered by employers into taxable income, meaning a further cut in income for some 30 million Americans. It would also introduce a universal tax deduction to encourage people to opt out of these plans, undermining health care coverage for some 160 million people.
Turning to the question of immigration, Bush vowed to advance legislation aimed at instituting a new version of the “bracero” program, guaranteeing agribusiness a reliable supply of oppressed, low-wage workers, while denying immigrants basic rights.
The president raised a series of proposals supposedly aimed at ending US dependence on foreign oil. All of these measures have been crafted to uphold the interests of energy conglomerates like Exxon Mobil and the Big Three automakers.
When he finally turned to Iraq, it was via the usual route of falsely casting the war of aggression long planned by Washington as a response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and as the key front in the “global war on terror.”
That millions of Americans have long since rejected the claim that the invasion of Iraq was a reaction to the 9/11 attacks found no reflection on the floor of the Congress.
Led by Pelosi, Democrats rose repeatedly in standing ovations for the so-called war on terror and those who are waging it. They stood and applauded for Bush when he declared that Washington’s mission was to “help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity.” This despite the fact that US policy has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and turned their country into a nightmare of death and destruction, while American imperialism continues to base its regional power on a Zionist regime that oppresses the Palestinians and on Arab despots who suppress their own people.
The perplexity of the Democrats found its consummate expression when they were brought to their feet with the following passage from Bush:
“We went into this largely united—in our assumptions, and in our convictions. And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq—and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the field—and those on the way.”
Here Bush’s speechwriters earned their pay. The passage made clear that the Democrats in Congress were Bush’s partners in crime, voting the White House a blank check to wage a war of aggression against Iraq. It also spelled out that Democrats and Republicans alike reflected the consensus position within America’s ruling elite that military force must be used to assert the interests of US capitalism worldwide, most decisively by seizing control of world energy supplies.
Failure of this strategy has, from the standpoint of the political establishment, vast and catastrophic consequences for US imperialist interests worldwide. That is why, under the cynical slogan of “support our troops,” the Democrats will continue to fund the war.
The political bankruptcy of the ostensible Democratic opposition to Bush’s war policy was underscored in the party’s official response, delivered by freshman Democratic Senator Jim Webb from Virginia, himself a Vietnam veteran and former Republican secretary of the navy.
After describing the war as “mismanaged,” Webb stumbled over his prepared remarks in a revealing way. “The majority of the nation no longer supports this war,” he began, and then corrected himself to say, “no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the military.”
The reality is that the overwhelming majority does indeed oppose the war. According to a poll released by NBC and the Wall Street Journal on the eve of the speech, 65 percent want all US troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. But the Democrats are committed to its continuation.
As Webb continued, “We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos.”
All the Democratic talk of “redeploying” US troops is merely an alternative strategy for continuing the occupation and the war against the Iraqi people, relying less on US combat infantry units and more on Iraqi surrogates backed by American “advisors,” rapid deployment forces and air power.
The much vaunted nonbinding Senate resolution opposing Bush’s “surge” states in its first sentence, “...the United States strategy and presence on the ground in Iraq can only be sustained with the support of the American people and bipartisan support from Congress.” It continues by declaring, “...maximizing our chances of success in Iraq should be our goal, and the best chances of success requires a change in current strategy.”
Bush’s speech amounted to a pleading appeal for this “bipartisan” support—for the Democrats and wavering members of his own party to give his intensified assault on the Iraqi people a chance. While the Democrats, as well as much of the Republican Party, fear the potentially disastrous consequences of this new tactic, they counterpose only another means of continuing the war.
The State of the Union address and the Democratic response have underscored the impossibility of waging a genuine struggle to end the war in Iraq outside of the fight to mobilize working people independently of and in opposition to both the Democratic and Republican parties, and the corporate ruling elite whose interests they serve.
By Bill Van Auken
24 January 2007
World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/unio-j24.shtml
President George W. Bush’s sixth State of the Union address was delivered Wednesday in an atmosphere of crisis and demoralization gripping not only his own Republican administration, but the entire American political establishment.
The media made much of Bush having for the first time to address a Democratic-led Congress, but the prevailing mood was not so much political confrontation as general bewilderment and apprehension, with the two parties confronting a military and political debacle in Iraq in which they are both fully implicated.
A president who, as multiple polls released this week have underscored, is the most despised occupant of the White House since Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate crisis, was treated to repeated standing ovations led by the new “Madam Speaker” of the House of Representatives, Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.
However, the applause, backslapping and bathos that have become the norm for this annual political ritual could not mask the fact that the US political establishment is torn by deep divisions and bitter recriminations, with some of the sharpest opposition to Bush’s policies coming not from the newly empowered Democrats, but from members of his own party.
There is a general recognition not only that the American colonial war in Iraq has failed, but that the six years of the Bush administration have produced a colossal decline in the world position of US imperialism.
The “new way forward” spelled out by Bush in his speech less than two weeks ago has provoked mounting fears that the military escalation in Iraq, combined with threats against Iran and Syria, will only deepen the disaster. Yet the reaction of Congress resembles the paralysis of passengers facing an impending train wreck: They know what is coming but can do nothing to avert it.
Fear of the consequences of Bush’s escalation is combined with even greater dread over the implications of US imperialism being dealt a decisive defeat in Iraq.
The general perplexity and desperation were reflected in the elements of unreality and absurdity in Bush’s speech. The “commander in chief” failed to even mention the war in Iraq—which everyone knew was the overriding issue facing the nation—until he was more than three-fifths through his remarks.
The most salient feature of the present “state of the union” is the unprecedented decision of a US president to escalate a war that was overwhelmingly rejected by the people in elections held just three months earlier. Yet this brazenly anti-democratic defiance of public opinion was never addressed.
Instead, Bush began his speech with a series of reactionary proposals on domestic issues. “Our job is to make life better for our fellow Americans, and help them to build a future of hope and opportunity—and this is the business before us tonight,” he proclaimed.
In fact, the “business” that night, as throughout the year, was upholding the interests of the banks and corporations that control both major parties, and Bush’s proposals all reflected this focus. They amounted to a series of coded messages to the major profit-making sectors—the energy conglomerates, the healthcare monopolies, agribusiness and Wall Street—that Bush would push new initiatives to boost their profits.
Thus, the president vowed to “balance the federal budget... without raising taxes,” that is, to defend his massive tax breaks for the rich while continuing to slash what remains of social programs for working people. He demanded that the government “take on the challenge of entitlements,” i.e., that it get down to the business of gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Bush promoted a thoroughly regressive plan ostensibly to aid the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance. His cure, however, was worse than the disease. It would turn health care benefits offered by employers into taxable income, meaning a further cut in income for some 30 million Americans. It would also introduce a universal tax deduction to encourage people to opt out of these plans, undermining health care coverage for some 160 million people.
Turning to the question of immigration, Bush vowed to advance legislation aimed at instituting a new version of the “bracero” program, guaranteeing agribusiness a reliable supply of oppressed, low-wage workers, while denying immigrants basic rights.
The president raised a series of proposals supposedly aimed at ending US dependence on foreign oil. All of these measures have been crafted to uphold the interests of energy conglomerates like Exxon Mobil and the Big Three automakers.
When he finally turned to Iraq, it was via the usual route of falsely casting the war of aggression long planned by Washington as a response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and as the key front in the “global war on terror.”
That millions of Americans have long since rejected the claim that the invasion of Iraq was a reaction to the 9/11 attacks found no reflection on the floor of the Congress.
Led by Pelosi, Democrats rose repeatedly in standing ovations for the so-called war on terror and those who are waging it. They stood and applauded for Bush when he declared that Washington’s mission was to “help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity.” This despite the fact that US policy has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and turned their country into a nightmare of death and destruction, while American imperialism continues to base its regional power on a Zionist regime that oppresses the Palestinians and on Arab despots who suppress their own people.
The perplexity of the Democrats found its consummate expression when they were brought to their feet with the following passage from Bush:
“We went into this largely united—in our assumptions, and in our convictions. And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq—and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the field—and those on the way.”
Here Bush’s speechwriters earned their pay. The passage made clear that the Democrats in Congress were Bush’s partners in crime, voting the White House a blank check to wage a war of aggression against Iraq. It also spelled out that Democrats and Republicans alike reflected the consensus position within America’s ruling elite that military force must be used to assert the interests of US capitalism worldwide, most decisively by seizing control of world energy supplies.
Failure of this strategy has, from the standpoint of the political establishment, vast and catastrophic consequences for US imperialist interests worldwide. That is why, under the cynical slogan of “support our troops,” the Democrats will continue to fund the war.
The political bankruptcy of the ostensible Democratic opposition to Bush’s war policy was underscored in the party’s official response, delivered by freshman Democratic Senator Jim Webb from Virginia, himself a Vietnam veteran and former Republican secretary of the navy.
After describing the war as “mismanaged,” Webb stumbled over his prepared remarks in a revealing way. “The majority of the nation no longer supports this war,” he began, and then corrected himself to say, “no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the military.”
The reality is that the overwhelming majority does indeed oppose the war. According to a poll released by NBC and the Wall Street Journal on the eve of the speech, 65 percent want all US troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. But the Democrats are committed to its continuation.
As Webb continued, “We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos.”
All the Democratic talk of “redeploying” US troops is merely an alternative strategy for continuing the occupation and the war against the Iraqi people, relying less on US combat infantry units and more on Iraqi surrogates backed by American “advisors,” rapid deployment forces and air power.
The much vaunted nonbinding Senate resolution opposing Bush’s “surge” states in its first sentence, “...the United States strategy and presence on the ground in Iraq can only be sustained with the support of the American people and bipartisan support from Congress.” It continues by declaring, “...maximizing our chances of success in Iraq should be our goal, and the best chances of success requires a change in current strategy.”
Bush’s speech amounted to a pleading appeal for this “bipartisan” support—for the Democrats and wavering members of his own party to give his intensified assault on the Iraqi people a chance. While the Democrats, as well as much of the Republican Party, fear the potentially disastrous consequences of this new tactic, they counterpose only another means of continuing the war.
The State of the Union address and the Democratic response have underscored the impossibility of waging a genuine struggle to end the war in Iraq outside of the fight to mobilize working people independently of and in opposition to both the Democratic and Republican parties, and the corporate ruling elite whose interests they serve.
Poor Johnny One-Note
by Mary Pitt
1/24/06
Does anyone else even remember the little ditty about the poor guy who could blow only one note on his musical instrument? I was reminded of it when I heard the President making his suggestion about his "solution" to the problem of health care in America. He recommended providing tax cuts so that people could privately buy the exhorbitant product that is offered by the insurance corporations! That would cure all our problems, right? Wrong! If the average American worker were to find it possible to keep the premiums flowing all year, they would already be doing it! The prospect of being able to deduct it once a year and reduce their tax bill by, perhaps, twenty per cent, would be tantamount to trying to save a dehydrating steer with a cup of water and an eye-dropper.
This is the one note that the Republicans know how to blow. Got a problem? Tax cuts will fix it! When Health Care Savings Accounts were established, allowing people to "set aside" funds for future health care, it was found that only the wealthy were availing thenselves of the privilege, and they are using it as a tax shelter, not for the purpose for which it was intended. The reason is simple. If working families had the money to stick into a savings account for future health care, they would be spending it to cover the health care the lack of which they are suffering today! But we have been there before, haven't we? For a good many years, the American taxpayer was allowed to deduct the expense of health insurance from their income as a part of medical care expenses, but this practice was ended some time ago and, if my memory serves correctly, it was done as a matter of "tax reform" by that Great Guru of Republicanism, Ronald Reagan.
We saw the effects of tax deductions and tax credits in the Clinton welfare "reform". Single parents needed help in providing care for their children on a daily basis, not pie in the sky that would be delivered at the end of the year. People who were receiving supplemental aid from welfare were sometimes able to obtain child care through a direct-pay program provided by a state, but that was limited and the parent was still responsible for finding a person who would give reliable care to the child. The reason? The network of Federally-subsidized child-care centers ( to provide jobs for the previously welfare mothers with no other job skills) which was envisioned as an adjunct to the tax credit could not get to the floor of the Republican legislature. It was a job half-done and so was a failure.
Seeing that this effort was a miserable debacle, the politicians decided to to make the credits refundable. Those who owed no tax would receive this credit as a cash grant at the end of the year. The result was the same. The children still went home from school to empty houses and no supervision all year. The major effect of this measure was to move Christmas from December 31 to Tax Refund Day! Never heard of it? Then you don't have very many working poor in your neighborhood. Tax Refund Day is that glorious day in the early spring when the working poor get their child care tax credits. The check is more likely to be taken directly from the offices of H&R Block or another tax preparer, (with a slight deduction for interest on the "advance") than delivered by the postman, but it is eagerly awaited and desperately needed. A better car or new tires or repair for the old one, a nice toy and some new clothes for each child, a catch-up payment on delinquent rent, or even giving the utilities company enough of a payment to get the heat turned back on; any of the dire needs and strongest desires of the recipient family point forward to Tax Refund Day. But, does it solve the problem for which it was intended?
The same will be true of any Johnny One-Note solution to the health care crisis. Do they really believe that a parent with a take-home income of, perhaps, $1500 per month will run out and commit themselves to payments of $1000 a month to an insurance company just because "it is deductible"? Not likely! And it begs the question that any thinking person would likely ask: Would not health care costs be cut if only we could cut out the exhorbitant profits of the insurance companies? Some day, someone with more time than I have will compute the amounts of profits declared by health insurance companies in the United States, subtract that amount from that spent in total for health care in our country and find how much is actually spent for medical care. I am sure that it will amount to much less per capita than is represented by the current figures.
This adminstration has, from day one, operated from the corporatist position that we should cut taxes for the rich and leave the financial support of the government on the backs of the poor and middle-class. Then, when a problem arises, they can just throw them a bone of a small tax deductibility and make it all better. After all, we are boasting of a "robust economy" where the rich are totally convinced that everything is beautiful and the poor are nothing but a bunch of whining, lib-lefty, do-nothing moochers. It is up to us to remind them that some of those whining, lib-lefty, do-nothing moochers may even vote! Not only that , but they also have the temerity to believe that their vote counts equally with those of the rich. Furthermore, they are becoming very tired of the neglect of their urgent problems in favor of the present concentration upon world conquest and aggrandizement of public officials. For the sad result of the continuation of this condition, perhaps our President should consult our former friends, the French.
I don't know about you, but I intend to bring my knitting!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
1/24/06
Does anyone else even remember the little ditty about the poor guy who could blow only one note on his musical instrument? I was reminded of it when I heard the President making his suggestion about his "solution" to the problem of health care in America. He recommended providing tax cuts so that people could privately buy the exhorbitant product that is offered by the insurance corporations! That would cure all our problems, right? Wrong! If the average American worker were to find it possible to keep the premiums flowing all year, they would already be doing it! The prospect of being able to deduct it once a year and reduce their tax bill by, perhaps, twenty per cent, would be tantamount to trying to save a dehydrating steer with a cup of water and an eye-dropper.
This is the one note that the Republicans know how to blow. Got a problem? Tax cuts will fix it! When Health Care Savings Accounts were established, allowing people to "set aside" funds for future health care, it was found that only the wealthy were availing thenselves of the privilege, and they are using it as a tax shelter, not for the purpose for which it was intended. The reason is simple. If working families had the money to stick into a savings account for future health care, they would be spending it to cover the health care the lack of which they are suffering today! But we have been there before, haven't we? For a good many years, the American taxpayer was allowed to deduct the expense of health insurance from their income as a part of medical care expenses, but this practice was ended some time ago and, if my memory serves correctly, it was done as a matter of "tax reform" by that Great Guru of Republicanism, Ronald Reagan.
We saw the effects of tax deductions and tax credits in the Clinton welfare "reform". Single parents needed help in providing care for their children on a daily basis, not pie in the sky that would be delivered at the end of the year. People who were receiving supplemental aid from welfare were sometimes able to obtain child care through a direct-pay program provided by a state, but that was limited and the parent was still responsible for finding a person who would give reliable care to the child. The reason? The network of Federally-subsidized child-care centers ( to provide jobs for the previously welfare mothers with no other job skills) which was envisioned as an adjunct to the tax credit could not get to the floor of the Republican legislature. It was a job half-done and so was a failure.
Seeing that this effort was a miserable debacle, the politicians decided to to make the credits refundable. Those who owed no tax would receive this credit as a cash grant at the end of the year. The result was the same. The children still went home from school to empty houses and no supervision all year. The major effect of this measure was to move Christmas from December 31 to Tax Refund Day! Never heard of it? Then you don't have very many working poor in your neighborhood. Tax Refund Day is that glorious day in the early spring when the working poor get their child care tax credits. The check is more likely to be taken directly from the offices of H&R Block or another tax preparer, (with a slight deduction for interest on the "advance") than delivered by the postman, but it is eagerly awaited and desperately needed. A better car or new tires or repair for the old one, a nice toy and some new clothes for each child, a catch-up payment on delinquent rent, or even giving the utilities company enough of a payment to get the heat turned back on; any of the dire needs and strongest desires of the recipient family point forward to Tax Refund Day. But, does it solve the problem for which it was intended?
The same will be true of any Johnny One-Note solution to the health care crisis. Do they really believe that a parent with a take-home income of, perhaps, $1500 per month will run out and commit themselves to payments of $1000 a month to an insurance company just because "it is deductible"? Not likely! And it begs the question that any thinking person would likely ask: Would not health care costs be cut if only we could cut out the exhorbitant profits of the insurance companies? Some day, someone with more time than I have will compute the amounts of profits declared by health insurance companies in the United States, subtract that amount from that spent in total for health care in our country and find how much is actually spent for medical care. I am sure that it will amount to much less per capita than is represented by the current figures.
This adminstration has, from day one, operated from the corporatist position that we should cut taxes for the rich and leave the financial support of the government on the backs of the poor and middle-class. Then, when a problem arises, they can just throw them a bone of a small tax deductibility and make it all better. After all, we are boasting of a "robust economy" where the rich are totally convinced that everything is beautiful and the poor are nothing but a bunch of whining, lib-lefty, do-nothing moochers. It is up to us to remind them that some of those whining, lib-lefty, do-nothing moochers may even vote! Not only that , but they also have the temerity to believe that their vote counts equally with those of the rich. Furthermore, they are becoming very tired of the neglect of their urgent problems in favor of the present concentration upon world conquest and aggrandizement of public officials. For the sad result of the continuation of this condition, perhaps our President should consult our former friends, the French.
I don't know about you, but I intend to bring my knitting!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
No Way In - No Way Out
By Sheila Samples
1/23/06
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." -- Ayn Rand, The Nature of Government
I have no desire to get embroiled in the current tangled debate on immigration, either legal or illegal. However, I have watched with interest the intense campaign for President Bush first to intervene in the trial of two border patrol agents accused of shooting a suspected Mexican drug dealer as he fled, and then to pardon the agents for the crime after they were convicted.
CNN's Lou Dobbs has led the crusade against illegal immigration for the past several years, and seems to be in the camp that believes if you're an immigrant and you're illegal, the gloves come off. You deserve what you get. I agree with Dobbs that our borders must be secured and that Mexicans entering our country legally should be welcomed as they have been throughout our history. However, those like Osvaldo Aldrete Davila who slip across the border illegally should be stopped and sent back home -- not shot as they are trying to escape.
The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, entered prison last week amid shrieks of injustice, to begin serving sentences of 11 and 12 years. They were convicted not only of shooting Davila, who was unarmed and running away, but of destroying evidence, covering up a crime scene and filing false reports concerning the circumstances.
Right-wing pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle seeking political gain are clamoring for Bush to pardon Ramos and Compean for their "act of courage" and to ignore the laws they broke and the crimes they committed.. Although Congress has never bestowed a pardon on anyone convicted of a crime, in a ploy to get attention last week, presidential hopeful Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) introduced a bill demanding that Congress, rather than Bush, pardon them.
That's not likely to happen, so the pressure remains on Bush. In an interview in El Paso last Thursday, Bush was asked if he would consider pardoning the two agents. In classic Bush bumblespeech, he non-replied, “There are standards that need to be met in law enforcement, and according to a jury of their peers, these officers violated some standards.”
Bush then stammered, “On this case, people need to take a hard look at the facts, at the evidence that the jury looked at, as well as a judge. And that’s -- I will do the same thing. Now, there’s a process for pardons,” he continued. “I mean, it’s got to work its way through a system here in government. But I just want people to take a sober look at the reality. It’s a case, as you said, it’s got a lot of emotions.”
Upon hearing this, news sites such as NewsMax.com, jumped out with, "Bush Eyes Pardon for Border Patrolmen," and announced, "President Bush on Thursday said a pardon was possible for two Border Patrol agents serving prison sentences for shooting a Mexican drug dealer as he fled and then covering up the crime..."
For NewsMax to reach such a conclusion from Bush's twisted rhetoric is not only a stretch of the imagination, it's a classic example of wishful thinking. The "standards" that the two agents "violated" were laws they broke, for which they were convicted by a jury of their peers. Ramos and Compean are criminals. According to the Justice Department, the "process for pardons" that Bush says has to "work its way through a system here in government" is that once convicted, a criminal is not even eligible for consideration to be pardoned for a period of at least five years.
The bad news is that even if Bush, who is determined to work not above the law but outside the law, decides to "eye" pardons for the two agents, he will rely on the recommendation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Given the Bush-Gonzales history of compassion for their fellow human beings, it's a slam-dunk that Ramos and Compean will remain incarcerated. The good news is they were not sentenced to death...
The only coherent statement Bush made is that the border patrol case has "got a lot of emotions." I don't pretend to understand all I know about illegal immigration, but it seems likely those emotions will get uglier and more intense if this administration continues to nod and wink at securing the border between the United States and Mexico. If there is a policy other than to give no-bid contracts to Halliburton to build a network of detention camps where immigrants will be held indefinitely, I'm not aware of it. I find it difficult to believe that these camps are cheaper -- more humane -- than simply closing the border to illegal entry.
Those who cry that the border between Mexico and the United States stretches for 2,000 miles and is all but impossible to control apparently are unaware of the new passport requirements that go into effect on January 23. Air travelers going to or from the US, Canada, Mexico, the Carribbean and Bermuda must have passports.
Those who have no problem with them coming for air travelers should know that as early as January 2008, they're coming back for the rest of us. According to just the basics, "All persons -- including U.S. citizens -- traveling between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda by land or sea (including ferries), may be required to present a valid passport or other documents as determined by the Department of Homeland Security."
Americans who cherish freedom would do well to stop stumbling around in the trees and forests of the illegal immigration debate and see that the Bush administration is well on its way to closing the borders of the entire nation, not only to people trying to get in, but to citizens trying to get out. For the millions who don't travel, it's probably no big deal -- they long for the tranquility of servitude and do not recognize shouts coming from the rest of us as a desperate rattling of chains.
Unfortunately, securing the homeland is a two-edged sword that the Bush administration and military establishment profiteers are holding firmly over our heads. It's time Americans realized that we are in danger of being herded into a national detention camp in which there are no pardons, and from which there is no escape.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net
1/23/06
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." -- Ayn Rand, The Nature of Government
I have no desire to get embroiled in the current tangled debate on immigration, either legal or illegal. However, I have watched with interest the intense campaign for President Bush first to intervene in the trial of two border patrol agents accused of shooting a suspected Mexican drug dealer as he fled, and then to pardon the agents for the crime after they were convicted.
CNN's Lou Dobbs has led the crusade against illegal immigration for the past several years, and seems to be in the camp that believes if you're an immigrant and you're illegal, the gloves come off. You deserve what you get. I agree with Dobbs that our borders must be secured and that Mexicans entering our country legally should be welcomed as they have been throughout our history. However, those like Osvaldo Aldrete Davila who slip across the border illegally should be stopped and sent back home -- not shot as they are trying to escape.
The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, entered prison last week amid shrieks of injustice, to begin serving sentences of 11 and 12 years. They were convicted not only of shooting Davila, who was unarmed and running away, but of destroying evidence, covering up a crime scene and filing false reports concerning the circumstances.
Right-wing pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle seeking political gain are clamoring for Bush to pardon Ramos and Compean for their "act of courage" and to ignore the laws they broke and the crimes they committed.. Although Congress has never bestowed a pardon on anyone convicted of a crime, in a ploy to get attention last week, presidential hopeful Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) introduced a bill demanding that Congress, rather than Bush, pardon them.
That's not likely to happen, so the pressure remains on Bush. In an interview in El Paso last Thursday, Bush was asked if he would consider pardoning the two agents. In classic Bush bumblespeech, he non-replied, “There are standards that need to be met in law enforcement, and according to a jury of their peers, these officers violated some standards.”
Bush then stammered, “On this case, people need to take a hard look at the facts, at the evidence that the jury looked at, as well as a judge. And that’s -- I will do the same thing. Now, there’s a process for pardons,” he continued. “I mean, it’s got to work its way through a system here in government. But I just want people to take a sober look at the reality. It’s a case, as you said, it’s got a lot of emotions.”
Upon hearing this, news sites such as NewsMax.com, jumped out with, "Bush Eyes Pardon for Border Patrolmen," and announced, "President Bush on Thursday said a pardon was possible for two Border Patrol agents serving prison sentences for shooting a Mexican drug dealer as he fled and then covering up the crime..."
For NewsMax to reach such a conclusion from Bush's twisted rhetoric is not only a stretch of the imagination, it's a classic example of wishful thinking. The "standards" that the two agents "violated" were laws they broke, for which they were convicted by a jury of their peers. Ramos and Compean are criminals. According to the Justice Department, the "process for pardons" that Bush says has to "work its way through a system here in government" is that once convicted, a criminal is not even eligible for consideration to be pardoned for a period of at least five years.
The bad news is that even if Bush, who is determined to work not above the law but outside the law, decides to "eye" pardons for the two agents, he will rely on the recommendation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Given the Bush-Gonzales history of compassion for their fellow human beings, it's a slam-dunk that Ramos and Compean will remain incarcerated. The good news is they were not sentenced to death...
The only coherent statement Bush made is that the border patrol case has "got a lot of emotions." I don't pretend to understand all I know about illegal immigration, but it seems likely those emotions will get uglier and more intense if this administration continues to nod and wink at securing the border between the United States and Mexico. If there is a policy other than to give no-bid contracts to Halliburton to build a network of detention camps where immigrants will be held indefinitely, I'm not aware of it. I find it difficult to believe that these camps are cheaper -- more humane -- than simply closing the border to illegal entry.
Those who cry that the border between Mexico and the United States stretches for 2,000 miles and is all but impossible to control apparently are unaware of the new passport requirements that go into effect on January 23. Air travelers going to or from the US, Canada, Mexico, the Carribbean and Bermuda must have passports.
Those who have no problem with them coming for air travelers should know that as early as January 2008, they're coming back for the rest of us. According to just the basics, "All persons -- including U.S. citizens -- traveling between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda by land or sea (including ferries), may be required to present a valid passport or other documents as determined by the Department of Homeland Security."
Americans who cherish freedom would do well to stop stumbling around in the trees and forests of the illegal immigration debate and see that the Bush administration is well on its way to closing the borders of the entire nation, not only to people trying to get in, but to citizens trying to get out. For the millions who don't travel, it's probably no big deal -- they long for the tranquility of servitude and do not recognize shouts coming from the rest of us as a desperate rattling of chains.
Unfortunately, securing the homeland is a two-edged sword that the Bush administration and military establishment profiteers are holding firmly over our heads. It's time Americans realized that we are in danger of being herded into a national detention camp in which there are no pardons, and from which there is no escape.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net
Sunday, January 21, 2007
A Reckoning Deferred
by MERIP; Mid East Report; January 20, 2007
How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? That haunting question, posed by John Kerry to Congress when he was a discharged Navy lieutenant in 1971, helped to slow, and eventually stop, a pointless, unpopular war in Vietnam. That question, in part because Kerry declined to pose it anew when he was a presidential candidate in 2004, has yet to slow the unpopular war in Iraq, if anything a more massive US strategic blunder than the Southeast Asian venture. But the question unmistakably haunts the senators who shuffle before the cameras to defend or denounce the planned "surge" of 21,500 additional American soldiers into Iraq as part of the White House's latest ploy to postpone defeat. The only politician who can dodge the burdensome query is President George W. Bush himself, who effectively announced again on January 10 that his successor will be the one scrambling to answer -- and to ameliorate the anarchy the United States will probably leave behind in Iraq.
At first glance, and at second, the domestic politics of the Iraq war are a paradox. On the one hand, the mere fact of Bush's televised recital of yet another "new way forward," like the Iraq Study Group report now resting in the Oval Office's circular file, shows that the war will never again enjoy public support. A scant 36 percent of respondents to a Washington Post poll approve of Bush's escalation, and only 40 percent continue to believe the war is worth fighting at all. The Democrats, too, scuttled to rearrange the priorities for their first "100 hours" in control of Congress when they realized their constituents demand rapid attention to Iraq policy above all else.
Yet Bush rolled out the "surge" proposal anyway. Perhaps more perplexingly, most prominent Democrats are still hiding behind the moribund Iraq Study Group's recommendations and even pleas of Congressional impotence in order to avoid acting on the public's clear desire to de-escalate the war without delay. In the Senate, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts stands nearly alone in asserting that troop level increases require Congressional approval. Few senators in either party savor the "surge" -- conservative Christian standard-bearer Sam Brownback of Kansas spoke against it from Baghdad -- but most Democrats appear content to pass a non-binding disavowal of the president's plan. In the House of Representatives, whose members must keep their ears closer to the ground, Democrats are talking about attaching myriad strings to the funding for the troop increase, perhaps as a prelude to bolder stands. Still, only a vocal minority in Congress has wholeheartedly embraced their newfound power of the purse, for fear of being called miserly when baby-faced Marines in Baquba need body armor or, worse, being held accountable for the heightened violence that could very well afflict Iraq and its environs when the US departs at last. In their anxiousness to hang the Iraq albatross exclusively around Bush's neck, the Democrats resemble the president, whose determination not to withdraw before leaving office quite possibly presages the occasional swipe at the next commander-in-chief for failing to persevere until "victory." Partisan rivalry is trumping the bipartisan duty to end a disastrous war.
This pre-positioning for the "who lost Iraq?" debate, miserably, is only the surface of the sordid spectacle that is the Iraq war and its attendant discourse.
full article
The Look of a War against Islam
By Tom Engelhardt
January 18, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Just five days after the September 11th attacks in 2001, in a Q and A with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, a President with a new mission, a new cause, and a new purpose in life told the American people that, though they had to "go back to work tomorrow," they should now know that they were facing a "new kind of evil." He added, "And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."
This crusade, this war on terrorism. It had such a ring to it; in the Arab world, of course, it was a ring many centuries old and deeply disturbing. And it came so naturally, so easily off the President's tongue (though it took days of backtracking by his spokesmen and prominent presidential references to "the peaceful teachings of Islam" perverted by "a fringe form of Islamic extremism" to begin to make up for it). But that little "slip" of the tongue spoke volumes. It signaled that George W. Bush was already in his own heroic dream world and, only those few days after the 9/11 attacks, had both a "crusade" on the brain and "victory" in that crusade firmly in mind. As a result, he made this promise to the American people: "It is time for us to win the first war of the 21st century decisively, so that our children and our grandchildren can live peacefully into the 21st century."
Now, here we are, just over five years further into the 21st century, and the President, who only nine months ago was still proudly (if a little desperately) trumpeting his "strategy for victory" in Iraq, now speaks vaguely about "success," or about a "victory," no longer decisive, that "will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved… [with a] surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship." And when it comes to our "children and grandchildren living peacefully into the 21st century," tell that to the 21,500 Americans about to be "surged" into the murderous streets and alleys of Baghdad.
full article
How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? That haunting question, posed by John Kerry to Congress when he was a discharged Navy lieutenant in 1971, helped to slow, and eventually stop, a pointless, unpopular war in Vietnam. That question, in part because Kerry declined to pose it anew when he was a presidential candidate in 2004, has yet to slow the unpopular war in Iraq, if anything a more massive US strategic blunder than the Southeast Asian venture. But the question unmistakably haunts the senators who shuffle before the cameras to defend or denounce the planned "surge" of 21,500 additional American soldiers into Iraq as part of the White House's latest ploy to postpone defeat. The only politician who can dodge the burdensome query is President George W. Bush himself, who effectively announced again on January 10 that his successor will be the one scrambling to answer -- and to ameliorate the anarchy the United States will probably leave behind in Iraq.
At first glance, and at second, the domestic politics of the Iraq war are a paradox. On the one hand, the mere fact of Bush's televised recital of yet another "new way forward," like the Iraq Study Group report now resting in the Oval Office's circular file, shows that the war will never again enjoy public support. A scant 36 percent of respondents to a Washington Post poll approve of Bush's escalation, and only 40 percent continue to believe the war is worth fighting at all. The Democrats, too, scuttled to rearrange the priorities for their first "100 hours" in control of Congress when they realized their constituents demand rapid attention to Iraq policy above all else.
Yet Bush rolled out the "surge" proposal anyway. Perhaps more perplexingly, most prominent Democrats are still hiding behind the moribund Iraq Study Group's recommendations and even pleas of Congressional impotence in order to avoid acting on the public's clear desire to de-escalate the war without delay. In the Senate, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts stands nearly alone in asserting that troop level increases require Congressional approval. Few senators in either party savor the "surge" -- conservative Christian standard-bearer Sam Brownback of Kansas spoke against it from Baghdad -- but most Democrats appear content to pass a non-binding disavowal of the president's plan. In the House of Representatives, whose members must keep their ears closer to the ground, Democrats are talking about attaching myriad strings to the funding for the troop increase, perhaps as a prelude to bolder stands. Still, only a vocal minority in Congress has wholeheartedly embraced their newfound power of the purse, for fear of being called miserly when baby-faced Marines in Baquba need body armor or, worse, being held accountable for the heightened violence that could very well afflict Iraq and its environs when the US departs at last. In their anxiousness to hang the Iraq albatross exclusively around Bush's neck, the Democrats resemble the president, whose determination not to withdraw before leaving office quite possibly presages the occasional swipe at the next commander-in-chief for failing to persevere until "victory." Partisan rivalry is trumping the bipartisan duty to end a disastrous war.
This pre-positioning for the "who lost Iraq?" debate, miserably, is only the surface of the sordid spectacle that is the Iraq war and its attendant discourse.
full article
The Look of a War against Islam
By Tom Engelhardt
January 18, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Just five days after the September 11th attacks in 2001, in a Q and A with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, a President with a new mission, a new cause, and a new purpose in life told the American people that, though they had to "go back to work tomorrow," they should now know that they were facing a "new kind of evil." He added, "And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."
This crusade, this war on terrorism. It had such a ring to it; in the Arab world, of course, it was a ring many centuries old and deeply disturbing. And it came so naturally, so easily off the President's tongue (though it took days of backtracking by his spokesmen and prominent presidential references to "the peaceful teachings of Islam" perverted by "a fringe form of Islamic extremism" to begin to make up for it). But that little "slip" of the tongue spoke volumes. It signaled that George W. Bush was already in his own heroic dream world and, only those few days after the 9/11 attacks, had both a "crusade" on the brain and "victory" in that crusade firmly in mind. As a result, he made this promise to the American people: "It is time for us to win the first war of the 21st century decisively, so that our children and our grandchildren can live peacefully into the 21st century."
Now, here we are, just over five years further into the 21st century, and the President, who only nine months ago was still proudly (if a little desperately) trumpeting his "strategy for victory" in Iraq, now speaks vaguely about "success," or about a "victory," no longer decisive, that "will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved… [with a] surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship." And when it comes to our "children and grandchildren living peacefully into the 21st century," tell that to the 21,500 Americans about to be "surged" into the murderous streets and alleys of Baghdad.
full article
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Democrat Agenda Omissions
by Stephen Lendman
1/18/07
With all the customary pomp and pageantry accompanying the occasion, the 110th nominally (first time in 12 years) Democrat-led Congress convened on Capitol Hill on January 4. It was done much the same as in earlier years except for the first time ever a woman took the gavel after being elected Speaker of the House in a final vote known weeks in advance killing any suspense about its outcome.
New House Speaker California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi called it "an historic moment for the Congress" which it was but only with respect to the gender of the Speaker, not for what significant policies can be expected over the next two years as this writer explained in an earlier article on November 13 titled New Faces, Same Agenda. The article suggested the political firmament shook briefly on November 7 leading some in the country to hope a new day on Capitol Hill had arrived with the Democrats now in charge ready to bring with them some long-delayed substantive change voters demanded in the November 7 mid-term elections.
It didn't take long, for those paying attention, to realize how foolish that thinking was as the presumed new Democrat leadership at the time (now confirmed) made it clear in its barely disguised rhetoric it will be business as usual and one more betrayal of the public trust that sent a strong message of disgust in the mid-term elections demanding change it won't get.
full article
1/18/07
With all the customary pomp and pageantry accompanying the occasion, the 110th nominally (first time in 12 years) Democrat-led Congress convened on Capitol Hill on January 4. It was done much the same as in earlier years except for the first time ever a woman took the gavel after being elected Speaker of the House in a final vote known weeks in advance killing any suspense about its outcome.
New House Speaker California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi called it "an historic moment for the Congress" which it was but only with respect to the gender of the Speaker, not for what significant policies can be expected over the next two years as this writer explained in an earlier article on November 13 titled New Faces, Same Agenda. The article suggested the political firmament shook briefly on November 7 leading some in the country to hope a new day on Capitol Hill had arrived with the Democrats now in charge ready to bring with them some long-delayed substantive change voters demanded in the November 7 mid-term elections.
It didn't take long, for those paying attention, to realize how foolish that thinking was as the presumed new Democrat leadership at the time (now confirmed) made it clear in its barely disguised rhetoric it will be business as usual and one more betrayal of the public trust that sent a strong message of disgust in the mid-term elections demanding change it won't get.
full article
Give 'Em What They Want
by Mary Pitt
It's time to whip out the old show biz cliche and do what public figures have done for decades to satisfy the paying customers and confound the critics. The Republicans are holding their fat bellies as they chuckle and challenge the Democrats with such remarks as, "If you don't like the way the Iraq war is going, come up with a better plan," and, "The Democrats need to come up with a balanced budget." It seems that what is in order is a rompin' stompin' double feature that will simply blow them away.
We could start with the balanced budget. According to David C. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, if steps are not taken now, the taxation rate would have to double in order to balance in 2040. Now is not too soon. We could begin with the premature cancellation of the Bush tax cuts for the rich which are set to be discontinued in 2010 if nothing is done sooner. We are told that this would bring disaster to "the economy", but the economy stood up very well during the Clinton years and for many years before that. and even I could afford to give back the puny $30 "rebate" that Bush was so proud of giving. Never has a President reduced taxes during a war and this was obviously not a good time to start. I recall a maximum tax rate of 95% on adjusted gross income during the Eisenhower years and many millionaires were made despite it. It is a given that no Republican wants ever to pay any taxes and they would be delighted if all the other Federal programs for the public good were abandoned toward that goal. However, this is contrary to the wishes of the people and against the principles of the Democratic Party.
This would be amusing if it were not so serious as the pampered frat boy is required to put his little war into the budget and be required to put away his toy soldiers when he runs out of money. And he should be forewarned that there will be no advances on his allowance, no special supplemental appropriations should he decide to challenge the sovereignty of another nation or lob a few nukes across the bow of another recalcitrant dictator. Also, in light of the "pay as you go" taxation, he may lose much of his cheering section among the multi-national corpotations.
As for a plan to end the Iraq War, that is also relatively simple. With the reduction in the available funds for making war, there will be no alternative to ending it. A simple declaration of our intent to leave that troubled country on a date certain would go a long way to convince the Iraqis to decide whether they want to settle their differences and to live in peace with one another or to resume their traditional state of tribal warfare. We could offer financial incentives in the manner of the Marshall Plan should they choose the path to peace. The money to pay for this could be obtained by the reduction in the Pentagon budget.
Many Republicans have found themselves in the position of agreement with the Democrats in desiring an end to Bush's War and this, coupled with their avowed love for a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility, could swing enough votes in the House and Senate to over-ride the Presidential veto, should there be one. However, this would require an epidemic of common sense breaking out in Congress, on both sides of the aisle. Could it really happen? NAAAAW!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice.
Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
It's time to whip out the old show biz cliche and do what public figures have done for decades to satisfy the paying customers and confound the critics. The Republicans are holding their fat bellies as they chuckle and challenge the Democrats with such remarks as, "If you don't like the way the Iraq war is going, come up with a better plan," and, "The Democrats need to come up with a balanced budget." It seems that what is in order is a rompin' stompin' double feature that will simply blow them away.
We could start with the balanced budget. According to David C. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, if steps are not taken now, the taxation rate would have to double in order to balance in 2040. Now is not too soon. We could begin with the premature cancellation of the Bush tax cuts for the rich which are set to be discontinued in 2010 if nothing is done sooner. We are told that this would bring disaster to "the economy", but the economy stood up very well during the Clinton years and for many years before that. and even I could afford to give back the puny $30 "rebate" that Bush was so proud of giving. Never has a President reduced taxes during a war and this was obviously not a good time to start. I recall a maximum tax rate of 95% on adjusted gross income during the Eisenhower years and many millionaires were made despite it. It is a given that no Republican wants ever to pay any taxes and they would be delighted if all the other Federal programs for the public good were abandoned toward that goal. However, this is contrary to the wishes of the people and against the principles of the Democratic Party.
This would be amusing if it were not so serious as the pampered frat boy is required to put his little war into the budget and be required to put away his toy soldiers when he runs out of money. And he should be forewarned that there will be no advances on his allowance, no special supplemental appropriations should he decide to challenge the sovereignty of another nation or lob a few nukes across the bow of another recalcitrant dictator. Also, in light of the "pay as you go" taxation, he may lose much of his cheering section among the multi-national corpotations.
As for a plan to end the Iraq War, that is also relatively simple. With the reduction in the available funds for making war, there will be no alternative to ending it. A simple declaration of our intent to leave that troubled country on a date certain would go a long way to convince the Iraqis to decide whether they want to settle their differences and to live in peace with one another or to resume their traditional state of tribal warfare. We could offer financial incentives in the manner of the Marshall Plan should they choose the path to peace. The money to pay for this could be obtained by the reduction in the Pentagon budget.
Many Republicans have found themselves in the position of agreement with the Democrats in desiring an end to Bush's War and this, coupled with their avowed love for a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility, could swing enough votes in the House and Senate to over-ride the Presidential veto, should there be one. However, this would require an epidemic of common sense breaking out in Congress, on both sides of the aisle. Could it really happen? NAAAAW!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice.
Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
You Have the Right to Remain Silent
By Nancy Greggs
Sun Jan 14th 2007
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/150
Yes, elected Republicans, you have the right to remain silent. But at this juncture, I believe it is beyond a right – it is an obligation.
Within minutes of the Democrats assuming their role as the majority, the inevitable criticism of their every action, every word, every plan or idea began, delivered in the whining tone you are now famous for, and continues unabated.
Not only is this detrimental to the spirit of bipartisanship you became so enamored of in the wee hours of November 8th, it is childish, hypocritical and, more often than not, downright silly – but alas, completely expected. Such are the times we live in; such are the morals of your party.
One finds it hard to understand why you would have trouble reverting to your normal acquiescent silence, a state in which you have lived for years while allegedly performing the responsibilities of your office. You sat silent as the president’s reasons for invading Iraq became exposed, one after the other, as lies. You sat silent as this administration rode roughshod over the Constitution and the laws of our nation. You sat silent as the nation’s debt grew to unprecedented levels.
You asked no questions; you pursued no investigation into the facts underlying the conduct of the War in Iraq, or its inevitable consequences. You quietly accepted spying on American citizens, illegal wiretaps, illegal warrantless searches, rendition, secret prisons – and eventually sanctioned the use of torture.
In fact, the only time you opened your mouths was to stand and vote “yea” on every bill that stripped the citizenry of its fundamental rights, turned our country into what has become a democracy in name only, and to support every scatterbrained idea put forward by the oh-so-obviously incompetent idiot you elevated to the presidency.
And now, after years of sitting back and doing nothing to improve the country or the lives of its citizens, you have the unmitigated gall to criticize others as they strive to undo the damage you have done, as they attempt to put this nation back on-track, as they act upon the needs and wants of the constituents they were elected to serve.
Your feigned outrage is, of course, understandable. It’s not easy to sit on the sidelines and watch the party you have criticized for years take the reins of power, and actually accomplish the very things you ignored on behalf of the American people. A raise in the minimum wage, adopting the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, taking steps to ensure necessary oversight and ethical behavior – your rancor at seeing these things not just talked about but actually acted upon must stick in your craw like a rotten pretzel.
But the truth of the matter is simply this: You lost your right to criticize a long time ago, and it’s about time you woke up to that fact.
As the Democrats adopted the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, you said, “Where will the money come from?” Don’t you think that’s pretty rich coming from people who have sanctioned the expenditure of billions of dollars in Iraq, without even a modicum of fiscal oversight, and without a single positive thing to show for it?
Don’t you think that’s an almost humorous reaction from the same people who gave tax-cuts to billionaires, and corporations making record profits? Don’t you think that is an amusing retort from a party that exercised no oversight when it came to no-bid contracts to Halliburton and other administration-connected war-profiteers?
Don’t you think it is downright laughable that the same people who have plunged us into unprecedented debt, while screaming from the rooftops about their unique ability to safeguard the nation, now ask where the funds will come from to inspect cargo at our ports?
Let me break this to you gently: Nobody’s laughing, least of all the hard-working middle-class who, along with their children and their grandchildren, will be paying off the money you handed over to Big Oil and Big Pharma without so much as blinking an eye.
Some of you are still, and unbelievably so, persistent in reiterating the worn-out talking points that have already been proven to be as baseless as they are ridiculous.
You sit in your comfortable chairs on the TV talk shows and rail about the Democrats’ position on winding-down our military presence in Iraq as “not supporting the troops”. Yet again we hear the rusty rhetoric of the same people who voted for cutting the benefits and pensions of our men and women in uniform, the same people who sent them into combat without body or vehicle armor, the same people who agreed to stretch our military to the breaking point while their own children attended expensive private schools funded by the raises they voted for themselves time and again.
But we as a nation have sadly come to expect your hypocrisy in all matters. While you babbled incessantly about winning the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq, you appropriated billions to build an embassy in Baghdad, complete with generators and water-filtration systems, right in the middle of a populace that has to forage for clean drinking water on streets so wracked with violence, it is a task that may cost them their lives.
While you praised the Mission Accomplished of a delusional, incompetent Commander-in-Chief, suited-up in the military gear he eschewed when it was his time to serve, you looked the other way as “liberated” Iraqis were arrested without cause, detained without charge, and tortured. While American citizens in New Orleans were left to drown or die from lack of food and water, you extolled the virtues of a president who left the oversight of that disaster to the incompetent cronies he’d appointed, as he continued the vacation he’s been on since the day he took office.
To be perfectly blunt, the only explanation for your behavior while in office is the fact that the vast majority of you are blatantly stupid. Too stupid to know that voters would find a raise in the minimum wage more to their liking than the Bankruptcy Bill. Too stupid to comprehend that the outsourcing of jobs would not find its way into the hearts-and-minds of out-of-work Americans. Too stupid to realize that when you questioned the patriotism of those who oppose your policies, you just might be insulting the voters on whom your job depends. And way too stupid to have the foresight to know that the monster you have created, George W. Bush, would hang around your necks like an anchor as you struggled to keep afloat, totally uninterested in the political survival of yourselves or your party as he arrogantly played the role of omnipotent emperor – a title that you, yourselves, conferred.
So now as the Democrats do what you could have done but wouldn’t, and achieve what you should have achieved but didn’t, you sit and whine like shocked-and-awed school children, outraged as the teacher awards gold stars to the students who did their homework, while you are relegated to the back of the classroom, dismissed as too lazy and ignorant to deserve attention.
In view of all of the above, I would think it obvious that it is time for all Republicans to remain silent – except, of course, when it comes to praying, something you all allegedly do every day. When asking forgiveness of the Almighty for what you have done to your fellow citizens, your country, and the world at large, you might want to pray fervently and frequently – and by all means, do it loudly, because between you and me, I don’t think God is in a listening mood when it comes to people who wrapped themselves in Christianity as they sanctioned torture and the deaths of innocent women and children, while at the same time ignoring the plight of the homeless, the hungry, the sick and the dying.
You have the right to remain silent. It is a right you would be well advised to exercise in the coming months, along with an invocation of the Fifth Amendment as you are asked, under oath, to explain your complicity in crimes against the citizens of this country, and against the citizens of the world.
Or, to put it in terms even the dumbest Republican can understand, it’s time to shut the fuck up. And if you take umbrage at that expression, remember that you found that four-letter expletive perfectly acceptable when your vice president used it on the Senate floor.
Yes, shut the fuck up. It is an expression that is crude and distasteful, and denotes a total lack of respect for those who it is aimed at – and I cannot think of a more appropriate time to use it, nor a more deserving group of people to say it to.
Sun Jan 14th 2007
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/150
Yes, elected Republicans, you have the right to remain silent. But at this juncture, I believe it is beyond a right – it is an obligation.
Within minutes of the Democrats assuming their role as the majority, the inevitable criticism of their every action, every word, every plan or idea began, delivered in the whining tone you are now famous for, and continues unabated.
Not only is this detrimental to the spirit of bipartisanship you became so enamored of in the wee hours of November 8th, it is childish, hypocritical and, more often than not, downright silly – but alas, completely expected. Such are the times we live in; such are the morals of your party.
One finds it hard to understand why you would have trouble reverting to your normal acquiescent silence, a state in which you have lived for years while allegedly performing the responsibilities of your office. You sat silent as the president’s reasons for invading Iraq became exposed, one after the other, as lies. You sat silent as this administration rode roughshod over the Constitution and the laws of our nation. You sat silent as the nation’s debt grew to unprecedented levels.
You asked no questions; you pursued no investigation into the facts underlying the conduct of the War in Iraq, or its inevitable consequences. You quietly accepted spying on American citizens, illegal wiretaps, illegal warrantless searches, rendition, secret prisons – and eventually sanctioned the use of torture.
In fact, the only time you opened your mouths was to stand and vote “yea” on every bill that stripped the citizenry of its fundamental rights, turned our country into what has become a democracy in name only, and to support every scatterbrained idea put forward by the oh-so-obviously incompetent idiot you elevated to the presidency.
And now, after years of sitting back and doing nothing to improve the country or the lives of its citizens, you have the unmitigated gall to criticize others as they strive to undo the damage you have done, as they attempt to put this nation back on-track, as they act upon the needs and wants of the constituents they were elected to serve.
Your feigned outrage is, of course, understandable. It’s not easy to sit on the sidelines and watch the party you have criticized for years take the reins of power, and actually accomplish the very things you ignored on behalf of the American people. A raise in the minimum wage, adopting the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, taking steps to ensure necessary oversight and ethical behavior – your rancor at seeing these things not just talked about but actually acted upon must stick in your craw like a rotten pretzel.
But the truth of the matter is simply this: You lost your right to criticize a long time ago, and it’s about time you woke up to that fact.
As the Democrats adopted the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission, you said, “Where will the money come from?” Don’t you think that’s pretty rich coming from people who have sanctioned the expenditure of billions of dollars in Iraq, without even a modicum of fiscal oversight, and without a single positive thing to show for it?
Don’t you think that’s an almost humorous reaction from the same people who gave tax-cuts to billionaires, and corporations making record profits? Don’t you think that is an amusing retort from a party that exercised no oversight when it came to no-bid contracts to Halliburton and other administration-connected war-profiteers?
Don’t you think it is downright laughable that the same people who have plunged us into unprecedented debt, while screaming from the rooftops about their unique ability to safeguard the nation, now ask where the funds will come from to inspect cargo at our ports?
Let me break this to you gently: Nobody’s laughing, least of all the hard-working middle-class who, along with their children and their grandchildren, will be paying off the money you handed over to Big Oil and Big Pharma without so much as blinking an eye.
Some of you are still, and unbelievably so, persistent in reiterating the worn-out talking points that have already been proven to be as baseless as they are ridiculous.
You sit in your comfortable chairs on the TV talk shows and rail about the Democrats’ position on winding-down our military presence in Iraq as “not supporting the troops”. Yet again we hear the rusty rhetoric of the same people who voted for cutting the benefits and pensions of our men and women in uniform, the same people who sent them into combat without body or vehicle armor, the same people who agreed to stretch our military to the breaking point while their own children attended expensive private schools funded by the raises they voted for themselves time and again.
But we as a nation have sadly come to expect your hypocrisy in all matters. While you babbled incessantly about winning the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq, you appropriated billions to build an embassy in Baghdad, complete with generators and water-filtration systems, right in the middle of a populace that has to forage for clean drinking water on streets so wracked with violence, it is a task that may cost them their lives.
While you praised the Mission Accomplished of a delusional, incompetent Commander-in-Chief, suited-up in the military gear he eschewed when it was his time to serve, you looked the other way as “liberated” Iraqis were arrested without cause, detained without charge, and tortured. While American citizens in New Orleans were left to drown or die from lack of food and water, you extolled the virtues of a president who left the oversight of that disaster to the incompetent cronies he’d appointed, as he continued the vacation he’s been on since the day he took office.
To be perfectly blunt, the only explanation for your behavior while in office is the fact that the vast majority of you are blatantly stupid. Too stupid to know that voters would find a raise in the minimum wage more to their liking than the Bankruptcy Bill. Too stupid to comprehend that the outsourcing of jobs would not find its way into the hearts-and-minds of out-of-work Americans. Too stupid to realize that when you questioned the patriotism of those who oppose your policies, you just might be insulting the voters on whom your job depends. And way too stupid to have the foresight to know that the monster you have created, George W. Bush, would hang around your necks like an anchor as you struggled to keep afloat, totally uninterested in the political survival of yourselves or your party as he arrogantly played the role of omnipotent emperor – a title that you, yourselves, conferred.
So now as the Democrats do what you could have done but wouldn’t, and achieve what you should have achieved but didn’t, you sit and whine like shocked-and-awed school children, outraged as the teacher awards gold stars to the students who did their homework, while you are relegated to the back of the classroom, dismissed as too lazy and ignorant to deserve attention.
In view of all of the above, I would think it obvious that it is time for all Republicans to remain silent – except, of course, when it comes to praying, something you all allegedly do every day. When asking forgiveness of the Almighty for what you have done to your fellow citizens, your country, and the world at large, you might want to pray fervently and frequently – and by all means, do it loudly, because between you and me, I don’t think God is in a listening mood when it comes to people who wrapped themselves in Christianity as they sanctioned torture and the deaths of innocent women and children, while at the same time ignoring the plight of the homeless, the hungry, the sick and the dying.
You have the right to remain silent. It is a right you would be well advised to exercise in the coming months, along with an invocation of the Fifth Amendment as you are asked, under oath, to explain your complicity in crimes against the citizens of this country, and against the citizens of the world.
Or, to put it in terms even the dumbest Republican can understand, it’s time to shut the fuck up. And if you take umbrage at that expression, remember that you found that four-letter expletive perfectly acceptable when your vice president used it on the Senate floor.
Yes, shut the fuck up. It is an expression that is crude and distasteful, and denotes a total lack of respect for those who it is aimed at – and I cannot think of a more appropriate time to use it, nor a more deserving group of people to say it to.
We Are The News
by Chuck Wilson
1/16/07
How many times have we parked our butt in front of the tv to catch the news and heard these words? "We are the news!"
Think about it for a minute. "We are the news!"
Remember back say twenty years ago how they opened the show in the promo?
It was "here is today's news." "reporting the news."
" here's joe blow with today's news." "i'm joe blow reporting the news."
Never "we are the news!"
So what does this really mean "we are the news?"
We sit here day after day complaining how the mainstream media never reports the news. We sit here day after day searching the internet for our news. We search foreign newspapers and web sites to find the news.
But is it the news we're searching for? Could it be rather the truth we seek?
When I trace the ownership of the major media channels, and do a social diagram on the names, they all link back to a select group of people. The illuminati or those linked or serving the illuminati.
We talk of a nation of sheep, of a brain washed, mind control society. Yet it stares us in the face everyday! The subliminal phrases, overt repetition of the same statements by each media outlet, with the background of the sets all playing the patriot theme. All the news they feel fit to allow us to ingest, has just enough truth to it to hide all the lies and the propaganda, they are putting forth to keep us believing in, and loyal to our masters.
A true example of the Hegelian Principle.
Why then has the internet thru all the calls from our masters to impose restrictions and control it, allowed to continue? My guess is because they can read every key stroke, every web site visited, every email sent and received, thus giving them all the names and sources of dissent in this country. It enables them to plan on how many camps will be needed to rehabilitate those who may be turned. How many will be needed to be eradicated in the first sweep of the roundup. It will insure they have the names, addresses, habits and daily routines to pull us out individually without alarming our family, friends, and neighbors. We shall be on our way to the doctor, to the store, a trip or what ever and we shall just vanish off the face of the earth.
Most of us will be tortured, raped, and what ever else amuses them before we are killed in a most inhumane way.
We hear all the abuse coming out of our detention centers in Iraq and Gitmo. Yet we do nothing as we have been taught to believe by the "we are the news" they are the enemy. But in reality it is just a fine tuning of the methods that will be used on those of us who for some reason they haven't been able to mind control.
I look back at the Phoenix program put in place by Bill Colby in Vietnam, I have watched as it was perfected in Latin America, and now so well refined as to make to make the Sunni's and the Shiite's think they have been attacked by each other. The torture so refined, the mind control so perfected we are able to turn these captives in pulling off our black flag operations so as to make it appear that the enemy "we are the news" has instilled in us are behind all that is evil. They are now able by "we are the news" to instill a hate towards any race of people that they feel must be attacked, to keep the world in constant turmoil.
The Rothschild's and their intermarriage families have turned the world in to their personal game board, and we are the pawns in the game, used for their perverted pleasure and enjoyment before they decided it's time to pull the plug on us, and totally take over what's left of the world!
- CJW
1/16/07
How many times have we parked our butt in front of the tv to catch the news and heard these words? "We are the news!"
Think about it for a minute. "We are the news!"
Remember back say twenty years ago how they opened the show in the promo?
It was "here is today's news." "reporting the news."
" here's joe blow with today's news." "i'm joe blow reporting the news."
Never "we are the news!"
So what does this really mean "we are the news?"
We sit here day after day complaining how the mainstream media never reports the news. We sit here day after day searching the internet for our news. We search foreign newspapers and web sites to find the news.
But is it the news we're searching for? Could it be rather the truth we seek?
When I trace the ownership of the major media channels, and do a social diagram on the names, they all link back to a select group of people. The illuminati or those linked or serving the illuminati.
We talk of a nation of sheep, of a brain washed, mind control society. Yet it stares us in the face everyday! The subliminal phrases, overt repetition of the same statements by each media outlet, with the background of the sets all playing the patriot theme. All the news they feel fit to allow us to ingest, has just enough truth to it to hide all the lies and the propaganda, they are putting forth to keep us believing in, and loyal to our masters.
A true example of the Hegelian Principle.
Why then has the internet thru all the calls from our masters to impose restrictions and control it, allowed to continue? My guess is because they can read every key stroke, every web site visited, every email sent and received, thus giving them all the names and sources of dissent in this country. It enables them to plan on how many camps will be needed to rehabilitate those who may be turned. How many will be needed to be eradicated in the first sweep of the roundup. It will insure they have the names, addresses, habits and daily routines to pull us out individually without alarming our family, friends, and neighbors. We shall be on our way to the doctor, to the store, a trip or what ever and we shall just vanish off the face of the earth.
Most of us will be tortured, raped, and what ever else amuses them before we are killed in a most inhumane way.
We hear all the abuse coming out of our detention centers in Iraq and Gitmo. Yet we do nothing as we have been taught to believe by the "we are the news" they are the enemy. But in reality it is just a fine tuning of the methods that will be used on those of us who for some reason they haven't been able to mind control.
I look back at the Phoenix program put in place by Bill Colby in Vietnam, I have watched as it was perfected in Latin America, and now so well refined as to make to make the Sunni's and the Shiite's think they have been attacked by each other. The torture so refined, the mind control so perfected we are able to turn these captives in pulling off our black flag operations so as to make it appear that the enemy "we are the news" has instilled in us are behind all that is evil. They are now able by "we are the news" to instill a hate towards any race of people that they feel must be attacked, to keep the world in constant turmoil.
The Rothschild's and their intermarriage families have turned the world in to their personal game board, and we are the pawns in the game, used for their perverted pleasure and enjoyment before they decided it's time to pull the plug on us, and totally take over what's left of the world!
- CJW
Monday, January 15, 2007
now georgie wants gratitude
Let’s recap, shall we? The US has destroyed Iraq, it’s infrastructure, economy, environment, health system, educational system, government, and everything else we could get our hands on. And now georgie wants gratitude.
Yet when asked if he owes the Iraqi people an apology for botching the management of the war, he said, "Not at all.
"We liberated that country from a tyrant," Bush said. "I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude."
Journal-Advocate, Sterling, CO
Yeah, sure, georgie, they’re just brimming over. There’ll be a little something extra in your christmas card this year.
What an idiot.
Yet when asked if he owes the Iraqi people an apology for botching the management of the war, he said, "Not at all.
"We liberated that country from a tyrant," Bush said. "I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude."
Journal-Advocate, Sterling, CO
Yeah, sure, georgie, they’re just brimming over. There’ll be a little something extra in your christmas card this year.
What an idiot.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
He’s in the Bunker Now
by Frank Rich
Saturday, January 13, 2007
http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/01/frank-rich-hes-in-bunker-now.html
President Bush always had one asset he could fall back on: the self-confidence of a born salesman. Like Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” he knew how to roll out a new product, however deceptive or useless, with conviction and stagecraft. What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war. His flop sweat was palpable even if you turned down the sound to deflect despair-inducing phrases like “Prime Minister Maliki has pledged ...” and “Secretary Rice will leave for the region. ...”
Mr. Bush seemed to know his product was snake oil, and his White House handlers did too. In the past, they made a fetish of situating their star in telegenic settings, from aircraft carriers to Ellis Island. Or they placed him against Orwellian backdrops shrieking “Plan for Victory." But this time even the audio stuttered, as if in solidarity with Baghdad’s continuing electricity blackout, and the Oval Office was ditched, lest it summon up memories of all those past presidential sightings of light at the end of the Iraqi tunnel. Mr. Bush was banished to the White House library, where the backdrop was acres of books, to signify the studiousness of his rethinking of the “way forward.”
"I’m not going to be rushed," the president said a month ago when talking about his many policy consultations. He wasn’t kidding. His ostentatious deep thinking started after Election Day, once he realized that firing Donald Rumsfeld wouldn’t be enough to co-opt the Iraq Study Group. He was thinking so hard that he abandoned his initial plan to announce a strategy before Christmas.
The war, however, refused to take a timeout for the holiday festivities in Crawford. The American death toll in Iraq, which hovered around 2,840 on Election Day, was nearing 3,020 by Wednesday night.
And these additional lives were sacrificed to what end? All the reviews and thinking and postponing produced a policy that, as a former top Bush aide summed it up for The Daily News, is nothing more than "repackaged stay-the-course dressed up to make it look more palatable." The repackaging was half-hearted as well. Not for nothing did the “way forward,” a rubric the president used at least 27 times in December, end up on the cutting-room floor. The tossing of new American troops into Baghdad, a ploy that backfired in Operation Together Forward last year, is too transparently the way backward.
“Victory” also received short shrift, downsized by the president to the paltry goal of getting “closer to success.” The “benchmarks” he cited were so vague that they’d be a disgrace to No Child Left Behind. And no wonder: in November, Mr. Bush couldn’t even get our devoted ally, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to show up for dinner at their summit in Amman, let alone induce him to root out Shiite militias. The most muscle the former Mr. Bring-’Em-On could muster in Wednesday’s speech was this: “If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people.” Since that support vanished long ago, it’s hard to imagine an emptier threat or a more naked confession of American impotence, all the more pathetic in a speech rattling sabers against Syria and Iran.
Mr. Bush’s own support from the American people is not coming back. His “new” Iraq policy is also in defiance of Iraqi public opinion , the Joint Chiefs, the Baker-Hamilton grandees, and Mr. Maliki, who six weeks ago asked for a lower American profile in Iraq. Which leaves you wondering exactly who is still in the bunker with the president besides the first lady and Barney.
It’s a very short list led by John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and neo-conservative dead-enders like William Kristol and Frederick Kagan, who congregate at The Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington think tank. The one notable new recruit is Rudy Giuliani, who likened taming Baghdad to “reducing crime in New York” without noticing that even after the escalation there will be fewer American troops patrolling Baghdad than uniformed police officers in insurgency-free New York City.
Mr. Kagan, a military historian, was sent by the White House to sell its policy to Senate Republicans. It was he, Mr. Kristol and the retired Gen. Jack Keane who have most prominently pushed for this escalation and who published studies and editorials credited with defining it. Given that these unelected hawks are some of the same great thinkers who promoted the Iraq fiasco in the first place, it is hard to imagine why this White House continues to listen to them. Or maybe not that hard. In a typical op-ed article, headlined “Stay the Course, Mr. President!,” Mr. Kagan wrote in The Los Angeles Times in 2005: "Despite what you may have read, the military situation in Iraq today is positive."
Yet Mr. Bush doesn’t even have the courage of his own disastrous convictions: he’s not properly executing the policy these guys sold him. In The Washington Post on Dec. 27, Mr. Kagan and General Keane wrote that escalation could only succeed “with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops” — a figure that has also been cited by Mr. McCain. (Mr. Kagan put the figure at 50,000 to 80,000 in a Weekly Standard article three weeks earlier. Whatever.) By any of these neocons’ standards, the Bush escalation of some 20,000 is too little, not to mention way too late.
The discrepancy between the policy that Mr. Bush nominally endorses and the one he actually ordered up crystallizes the cynicism of this entire war. If you really believe, as the president continues to put it, that Iraq is the central front in “the decisive ideological struggle of our time,” then you should be in favor of having many more troops than we’ve ever had in Iraq. As T. X. Hammes, an insurgency expert and a former marine, told USA Today, that doesn’t now mean a “dribble” (as he ridicules the “surge”) but a total of 300,000 armed coalition forces over a minimum of four years.
But that would mean asking Americans for sacrifice, not giving us tax cuts. Mr. Bush has never asked for sacrifice and still doesn’t. If his words sound like bargain-basement Churchill, his actions have been cheaper still. The president’s resolutely undermanned war plan indicated from Day 1 that he knew in his heart of hearts that Iraq was not the central front in the war against 9/11 jihadism he had claimed it to be, only the reckless detour that it actually was. Yet the war’s cheerleaders, neocon and otherwise, disingenuously blamed our low troop strength almost exclusively on Mr. Rumsfeld.
Now that the defense secretary is gone, what are they to do? For whatever reason, you did not hear Mr. Kagan, General Keane or Mr. McCain speak out against Mr. Bush’s plan even though it’s insufficient by their own reckoning — just a repackaged continuance of the same “Whac-A-Mole” half-measures that Mr. McCain has long deplored. Surely the senator knows that, as his loosey-goosey endorsement attests. (On Friday, he called the Bush plan “the best chance of success” while simultaneously going on record that “a small, short surge would be the worst of all worlds.”)
The question now is how to minimize the damage before countless more Americans and Iraqis are slaughtered to serve the president’s endgame of passing his defeat on to the next president. The Democrats can have all the hearings they want, but they are unlikely to take draconian action (cutting off funding) that would make them, rather than Mr. Bush, politically vulnerable to blame for losing Iraq.
I have long felt that it will be up to Mr. Bush’s own party to ring down the curtain on his failed policy, and after the 2006 midterms, that is more true than ever. The lame-duck president, having lost both houses of Congress and at least one war (Afghanistan awaits), has nothing left to lose. That is far from true of his party.
Even conservatives like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota started backing away from Iraq last week. Mr. Brownback is running for president in 2008, and Mr. Coleman faces a tough re-election fight. But Republicans not in direct electoral jeopardy (George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are also starting to waver. It’s another Vietnam-Watergate era flashback. It wasn’t Democrats or the press that forced Richard Nixon’s abdication in 1974; it was dwindling Republican support. Though he had vowed to fight his way through a Senate trial, Nixon folded once he lost the patriarchal leader of his party’s right wing.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/01/frank-rich-hes-in-bunker-now.html
President Bush always had one asset he could fall back on: the self-confidence of a born salesman. Like Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” he knew how to roll out a new product, however deceptive or useless, with conviction and stagecraft. What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war. His flop sweat was palpable even if you turned down the sound to deflect despair-inducing phrases like “Prime Minister Maliki has pledged ...” and “Secretary Rice will leave for the region. ...”
Mr. Bush seemed to know his product was snake oil, and his White House handlers did too. In the past, they made a fetish of situating their star in telegenic settings, from aircraft carriers to Ellis Island. Or they placed him against Orwellian backdrops shrieking “Plan for Victory." But this time even the audio stuttered, as if in solidarity with Baghdad’s continuing electricity blackout, and the Oval Office was ditched, lest it summon up memories of all those past presidential sightings of light at the end of the Iraqi tunnel. Mr. Bush was banished to the White House library, where the backdrop was acres of books, to signify the studiousness of his rethinking of the “way forward.”
"I’m not going to be rushed," the president said a month ago when talking about his many policy consultations. He wasn’t kidding. His ostentatious deep thinking started after Election Day, once he realized that firing Donald Rumsfeld wouldn’t be enough to co-opt the Iraq Study Group. He was thinking so hard that he abandoned his initial plan to announce a strategy before Christmas.
The war, however, refused to take a timeout for the holiday festivities in Crawford. The American death toll in Iraq, which hovered around 2,840 on Election Day, was nearing 3,020 by Wednesday night.
And these additional lives were sacrificed to what end? All the reviews and thinking and postponing produced a policy that, as a former top Bush aide summed it up for The Daily News, is nothing more than "repackaged stay-the-course dressed up to make it look more palatable." The repackaging was half-hearted as well. Not for nothing did the “way forward,” a rubric the president used at least 27 times in December, end up on the cutting-room floor. The tossing of new American troops into Baghdad, a ploy that backfired in Operation Together Forward last year, is too transparently the way backward.
“Victory” also received short shrift, downsized by the president to the paltry goal of getting “closer to success.” The “benchmarks” he cited were so vague that they’d be a disgrace to No Child Left Behind. And no wonder: in November, Mr. Bush couldn’t even get our devoted ally, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to show up for dinner at their summit in Amman, let alone induce him to root out Shiite militias. The most muscle the former Mr. Bring-’Em-On could muster in Wednesday’s speech was this: “If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people.” Since that support vanished long ago, it’s hard to imagine an emptier threat or a more naked confession of American impotence, all the more pathetic in a speech rattling sabers against Syria and Iran.
Mr. Bush’s own support from the American people is not coming back. His “new” Iraq policy is also in defiance of Iraqi public opinion , the Joint Chiefs, the Baker-Hamilton grandees, and Mr. Maliki, who six weeks ago asked for a lower American profile in Iraq. Which leaves you wondering exactly who is still in the bunker with the president besides the first lady and Barney.
It’s a very short list led by John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and neo-conservative dead-enders like William Kristol and Frederick Kagan, who congregate at The Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington think tank. The one notable new recruit is Rudy Giuliani, who likened taming Baghdad to “reducing crime in New York” without noticing that even after the escalation there will be fewer American troops patrolling Baghdad than uniformed police officers in insurgency-free New York City.
Mr. Kagan, a military historian, was sent by the White House to sell its policy to Senate Republicans. It was he, Mr. Kristol and the retired Gen. Jack Keane who have most prominently pushed for this escalation and who published studies and editorials credited with defining it. Given that these unelected hawks are some of the same great thinkers who promoted the Iraq fiasco in the first place, it is hard to imagine why this White House continues to listen to them. Or maybe not that hard. In a typical op-ed article, headlined “Stay the Course, Mr. President!,” Mr. Kagan wrote in The Los Angeles Times in 2005: "Despite what you may have read, the military situation in Iraq today is positive."
Yet Mr. Bush doesn’t even have the courage of his own disastrous convictions: he’s not properly executing the policy these guys sold him. In The Washington Post on Dec. 27, Mr. Kagan and General Keane wrote that escalation could only succeed “with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops” — a figure that has also been cited by Mr. McCain. (Mr. Kagan put the figure at 50,000 to 80,000 in a Weekly Standard article three weeks earlier. Whatever.) By any of these neocons’ standards, the Bush escalation of some 20,000 is too little, not to mention way too late.
The discrepancy between the policy that Mr. Bush nominally endorses and the one he actually ordered up crystallizes the cynicism of this entire war. If you really believe, as the president continues to put it, that Iraq is the central front in “the decisive ideological struggle of our time,” then you should be in favor of having many more troops than we’ve ever had in Iraq. As T. X. Hammes, an insurgency expert and a former marine, told USA Today, that doesn’t now mean a “dribble” (as he ridicules the “surge”) but a total of 300,000 armed coalition forces over a minimum of four years.
But that would mean asking Americans for sacrifice, not giving us tax cuts. Mr. Bush has never asked for sacrifice and still doesn’t. If his words sound like bargain-basement Churchill, his actions have been cheaper still. The president’s resolutely undermanned war plan indicated from Day 1 that he knew in his heart of hearts that Iraq was not the central front in the war against 9/11 jihadism he had claimed it to be, only the reckless detour that it actually was. Yet the war’s cheerleaders, neocon and otherwise, disingenuously blamed our low troop strength almost exclusively on Mr. Rumsfeld.
Now that the defense secretary is gone, what are they to do? For whatever reason, you did not hear Mr. Kagan, General Keane or Mr. McCain speak out against Mr. Bush’s plan even though it’s insufficient by their own reckoning — just a repackaged continuance of the same “Whac-A-Mole” half-measures that Mr. McCain has long deplored. Surely the senator knows that, as his loosey-goosey endorsement attests. (On Friday, he called the Bush plan “the best chance of success” while simultaneously going on record that “a small, short surge would be the worst of all worlds.”)
The question now is how to minimize the damage before countless more Americans and Iraqis are slaughtered to serve the president’s endgame of passing his defeat on to the next president. The Democrats can have all the hearings they want, but they are unlikely to take draconian action (cutting off funding) that would make them, rather than Mr. Bush, politically vulnerable to blame for losing Iraq.
I have long felt that it will be up to Mr. Bush’s own party to ring down the curtain on his failed policy, and after the 2006 midterms, that is more true than ever. The lame-duck president, having lost both houses of Congress and at least one war (Afghanistan awaits), has nothing left to lose. That is far from true of his party.
Even conservatives like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota started backing away from Iraq last week. Mr. Brownback is running for president in 2008, and Mr. Coleman faces a tough re-election fight. But Republicans not in direct electoral jeopardy (George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are also starting to waver. It’s another Vietnam-Watergate era flashback. It wasn’t Democrats or the press that forced Richard Nixon’s abdication in 1974; it was dwindling Republican support. Though he had vowed to fight his way through a Senate trial, Nixon folded once he lost the patriarchal leader of his party’s right wing.
New and ominous threats
The Guerrilla Campaign is moving. While there is a slight delay, shall we say, in setting up the domain, you can access it here. Pay a visit, let me know. The newsfeeds alone make it worth visiting, and there’s a link to the old site that you all love or hate or are indifferent to, depending on your point of view.
I’ve been sick, and not only with a nasty cold. What I see happening is sickening. It’s becoming more obvious daily that the bush is going to attack Iran. The administration is tossing around “evidence” they can’t show anyone, just like before they attacked Iraq. A new carrier task force in the area. Now what good is that for a guerrilla war in the streets of Baghdad? An admiral in overall command. New, and ominous threats. Boys and girls, the signs really all point in one direction.
The bush boy’s “new way forward” appears to be through Tehran. All this is going on under the cover of the “surge” that has everyone talking. I think it’s another case of misdirection. Of course, the administration will claim a “provocation”, but let’s remember the Gulf of Tonkin, WMD’s, and little georgie’s plan to fly a U2 over Iraq in UN colors to see if that would provoke Saddam.
The plain and simple is this. The little puke ain’t got a plan for Iraq, but he sure as shit has one for Iran. And I think it’s going to happen soon. Sure, I said it would happen last Sept or Oct, I was wrong. But if georgie’s going to do it, it’s got to be soon, before Congress can put the hobbles on his plan.
I’ve been sick, and not only with a nasty cold. What I see happening is sickening. It’s becoming more obvious daily that the bush is going to attack Iran. The administration is tossing around “evidence” they can’t show anyone, just like before they attacked Iraq. A new carrier task force in the area. Now what good is that for a guerrilla war in the streets of Baghdad? An admiral in overall command. New, and ominous threats. Boys and girls, the signs really all point in one direction.
The bush boy’s “new way forward” appears to be through Tehran. All this is going on under the cover of the “surge” that has everyone talking. I think it’s another case of misdirection. Of course, the administration will claim a “provocation”, but let’s remember the Gulf of Tonkin, WMD’s, and little georgie’s plan to fly a U2 over Iraq in UN colors to see if that would provoke Saddam.
The plain and simple is this. The little puke ain’t got a plan for Iraq, but he sure as shit has one for Iran. And I think it’s going to happen soon. Sure, I said it would happen last Sept or Oct, I was wrong. But if georgie’s going to do it, it’s got to be soon, before Congress can put the hobbles on his plan.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Holiday Hypocrisy
by Stephen Lendman
Borrowing the line from Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore: "Things are seldom as they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream." It's as true here in the US today as it was in 19th century England, and its message explains how to understand and view our affairs of state and why the title of this essay was chosen - to reflect on our national federal holidays that, in fact, represent something much different than the stated reasons we commemorate them for. Eleven such holidays are reviewed below moving chronologically through the year post-New Year's Day discussed briefly at the end because it's part of the Christmas holiday season celebration.
read more
Borrowing the line from Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore: "Things are seldom as they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream." It's as true here in the US today as it was in 19th century England, and its message explains how to understand and view our affairs of state and why the title of this essay was chosen - to reflect on our national federal holidays that, in fact, represent something much different than the stated reasons we commemorate them for. Eleven such holidays are reviewed below moving chronologically through the year post-New Year's Day discussed briefly at the end because it's part of the Christmas holiday season celebration.
read more
The Last Big Bet
The spokespeople supporting the continuation and escalation of the war in Iraq are fewer and fewer. Now we are down to the few diehards from a few think tanks to cheer the continuing devastation. Most of them admit that this is the last opportunity to "win" the war. They seem to be more concerned with the consequences of losing. The fact is that we can learn from our mistakes only if we realize that we have made them. This particular foreign policy adventure was a gamble to begin with and is now simply on the last "all or nothing" bet.
Detaching myself, for the moment, from the reality of war I will try to look at the possibility of "winning". Can the military do it? They say they can only sustain an increase for about six months; beyond that time the Iraqi military will have to be prepared to sustain any advances in stability. The military can do that much and would deserve our fondest respect for the devotion and effort involved. A political solution is another matter; this too is possible but it may require accepting an Iraq that is not a democracy but an evolving theocracy. It may also mean that Iraqi oil will be going to China and probably not to the U.S. to the extent that we are not able to accept such outcomes we will be limiting the political options. If by winning we mean a stable Iraq then we must allow the Iraqis to form a government that works regardless of its shape or sympathies. This requires that we hold formal peace talks with Iran. Syria, Turkey and Iraq where we play a role of facilitator and not negotiator. The object is stability and peace not overt U. S. interests. If we can succeed in saying that we want the region to rule itself we will have won and having won we may yet have some small influence on the direction and outcome of future events. It is less than we went in with but it is more than we have right now. I am not as confident that the State Department is as capable of such focus. The military has more regard for human sacrifice.
Now let me return to reality. Everything the President said about the prospects of failure are accurate and he would do well to start forming a strategy for dealing with those outcomes now than by putting more troops in the line of fire. Some in Congress think that we should limit the Commander in Chief's ability to wage war by not funding for the additional troops. It matters little that this is probably unconstitutional what matters is that it will have no effect. They should be demanding from both sides of the isle that regional talks be initiated now. Secretary of State Rice should be presenting proposals now. The President should be proposing it now. Instead The Secretary appeared in Congress to hail the policy of escalation. Her response to the question of negotiations was that we have no leverage and that we would appear as a supplicant. It is time that you eat humble pie, Madame Secretary, than to uselessly sacrifice more American lives to the alter of winning. The unfeeling President has decided to move another carrier group into the gulf--the assumption is that he is planning to target nuclear facilities in Iran. Another unilateral attack on a Moslem nation will do more to advance the causes of terror than anything the terrorists could possibly dream up and it will be a perfect excuse for developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent and a defense against such aggression.
I am reminded of the "Where is F.E.M.A." signs of a year ago. Government is ugly when it fails and it is failing on a grand scale now. I'll tell you what approach the congress could take that is constitutional; they could impeach him for gross negligence of his responsibilities.
Detaching myself, for the moment, from the reality of war I will try to look at the possibility of "winning". Can the military do it? They say they can only sustain an increase for about six months; beyond that time the Iraqi military will have to be prepared to sustain any advances in stability. The military can do that much and would deserve our fondest respect for the devotion and effort involved. A political solution is another matter; this too is possible but it may require accepting an Iraq that is not a democracy but an evolving theocracy. It may also mean that Iraqi oil will be going to China and probably not to the U.S. to the extent that we are not able to accept such outcomes we will be limiting the political options. If by winning we mean a stable Iraq then we must allow the Iraqis to form a government that works regardless of its shape or sympathies. This requires that we hold formal peace talks with Iran. Syria, Turkey and Iraq where we play a role of facilitator and not negotiator. The object is stability and peace not overt U. S. interests. If we can succeed in saying that we want the region to rule itself we will have won and having won we may yet have some small influence on the direction and outcome of future events. It is less than we went in with but it is more than we have right now. I am not as confident that the State Department is as capable of such focus. The military has more regard for human sacrifice.
Now let me return to reality. Everything the President said about the prospects of failure are accurate and he would do well to start forming a strategy for dealing with those outcomes now than by putting more troops in the line of fire. Some in Congress think that we should limit the Commander in Chief's ability to wage war by not funding for the additional troops. It matters little that this is probably unconstitutional what matters is that it will have no effect. They should be demanding from both sides of the isle that regional talks be initiated now. Secretary of State Rice should be presenting proposals now. The President should be proposing it now. Instead The Secretary appeared in Congress to hail the policy of escalation. Her response to the question of negotiations was that we have no leverage and that we would appear as a supplicant. It is time that you eat humble pie, Madame Secretary, than to uselessly sacrifice more American lives to the alter of winning. The unfeeling President has decided to move another carrier group into the gulf--the assumption is that he is planning to target nuclear facilities in Iran. Another unilateral attack on a Moslem nation will do more to advance the causes of terror than anything the terrorists could possibly dream up and it will be a perfect excuse for developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent and a defense against such aggression.
I am reminded of the "Where is F.E.M.A." signs of a year ago. Government is ugly when it fails and it is failing on a grand scale now. I'll tell you what approach the congress could take that is constitutional; they could impeach him for gross negligence of his responsibilities.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
The Spirit of Tom Paine
by Stephen Lendman
We only know about Tom Paine because Thomas Edison discovered him in the 1920s. Edison believed he was our most important political thinker, and it was essential that his writings and ideas be taught in the nation's schools. It's no exaggeration that there might never have been an American Revolution without this man's writings that had such a profound influence on the nation's founders and masses of people he reached through one of the few "mainstream" means of communicating of that period.
Paine was an unlikely man to have had such influence. He was humbly born and raised in England, was largely self-educated and decided to come to the colonies in 1774 after meeting Benjamin Franklin in London who encouraged and sponsored him to do it. It was a decision that changed the world, but who could have imagined it at the time.
Paine only began writing two years earlier when he took up the cause of excise (or customs) officers arguing in a pamphlet he wrote they were unfairly paid and deserved more. When he came to the colonies he chose the right place settling in Philadelphia where he began writing for the Pennsylvania Magazine, later became its editor and began working on Common Sense in 1776 that he published anonymously. It became an instant best-seller in the colonies and in Europe, made Paine internationally famous and was the most influential piece of writing of the Revolution. It sold as many as 120,000 copies in a population of about four million (equivalent to a runaway 9 million copy best seller today) and convinced many in the colonies to seek independence from the Crown that happened shortly thereafter. He followed up with 16 more pamphlets under the title The Crisis, or American Crisis that were written throughout the war until it ended in April, 1783.
Paine was profoundly and progressively radical - way ahead of his time and what passes for "Western civilization" and mainstream thought today. He opposed slavery, promoted republicanism, abhored the monarchy, and in many ways was the founder of modern liberalism that Washington and Jefferson called that "liberal experiment, the United States of America." These were the kinds of men who founded the nation - skeptics of the institutions of power that included the "kingly oppressions" of monarchs, the church and the mercantilist corporatism of that time represented by the dominant predatory giant of its day - the British East India Company. Because of the unfair advantage it got from the Crown (a precursor to the kind of outrageous government subsidy and legislative help corporate giants now get), it gained a competitive edge over colonial merchants that led to the famous Boston Tea Party in 1773 that helped spark the Revolution.
Paine had a voice and made it heard in his writings that were disseminated in one of the mass media instruments of that era that consisted largely of pamphlets like his and colonial-era newspapers beginning with the first ever published called the Boston News-Letter debuting in April, 1704 before Paine was born and Ben Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette first published in 1728 that grew to have the largest circulation of the time and was considered the best newspaper in the colonies. Paine got mass exposure in a way that would be impossible today for his kind of writing - to promote his radically progressive views that would make a neocon cringe enough to see to it those kinds of ideas never saw the light of day in today's world run by the institutions of power Paine and the founders abhorred.
Think about it. This was a man who was an anti-neocon, anti-militarist, and anti-neoliberal predatory corporatist progressive thinker supporting the rights and needs of ordinary people. He developed a seminal compendium of liberal thinking against those notions of governance in his book The Rights of Man. He believed neither governments or corporations should have rights, only people. He thought inherited wealth would be exploited by those having it and would be used to corrupt governments and allow their heirs the ability to create dynasties that would result in a new feudalism. He promoted progressive taxation believing everyone should pay them acccording to their income. He supported enlightened anti-poverty social programs to provide food and housing assistance for the poor and retirement pensions for the elderly. He felt the best way to build a strong democracy was to provide financial aid to help young families raise their children. He was a strong anti-militarist and wanted all nations to reduce their armaments by 90% to ensure world peace.
He and the founders also wanted the new nation to have a middle class and understood no democracy can survive without one. These enlightened thinkers knew a viable middle class depends on a public that's educated, secure and well-informed and that the greatest danger to its survival is an empowered economic aristocracy that would polarize society and destroy the very democracy they were trying to create, imperfect as it was.
Imagine if those "radical" ideas were spread in today's mass media that sees to it the public never hears that kind of thinking. They did in Paine's day, and it led to a Revolution that freed us from monarchal rule and inspired the founders to create a great democratic experiment in America never tried before in the West outside Athens in ancient Greece that only lasted a few decades. From it we got a Constitution, Bill of Rights and a system of governance Lincoln said "was conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal (in a) government of the people, by the people, (and) for the people."
That could never happen today with the channels of communication Paine used to electrify and inspire a nation closed off to prevent their use against the kind of oppressive authority Paine opposed. It caused the founders' great democratic experiment to be lost because people no longer know how much the dominant political class is harming them by serving the interests of wealth and power and getting plenty of it for themselves in the process.
If Paine were here now, he'd lead the struggle against that kind of system the way he did in his day, but he'd get little space in the mainstream to help and would have to settle for smaller audiences available through the alternative ways to reach the public now. The free press of Paine's day is now open only to the interests of capital who can afford to own one. And those espousing "radical" views like Paine's are barred from being a part of it.
read more
We only know about Tom Paine because Thomas Edison discovered him in the 1920s. Edison believed he was our most important political thinker, and it was essential that his writings and ideas be taught in the nation's schools. It's no exaggeration that there might never have been an American Revolution without this man's writings that had such a profound influence on the nation's founders and masses of people he reached through one of the few "mainstream" means of communicating of that period.
Paine was an unlikely man to have had such influence. He was humbly born and raised in England, was largely self-educated and decided to come to the colonies in 1774 after meeting Benjamin Franklin in London who encouraged and sponsored him to do it. It was a decision that changed the world, but who could have imagined it at the time.
Paine only began writing two years earlier when he took up the cause of excise (or customs) officers arguing in a pamphlet he wrote they were unfairly paid and deserved more. When he came to the colonies he chose the right place settling in Philadelphia where he began writing for the Pennsylvania Magazine, later became its editor and began working on Common Sense in 1776 that he published anonymously. It became an instant best-seller in the colonies and in Europe, made Paine internationally famous and was the most influential piece of writing of the Revolution. It sold as many as 120,000 copies in a population of about four million (equivalent to a runaway 9 million copy best seller today) and convinced many in the colonies to seek independence from the Crown that happened shortly thereafter. He followed up with 16 more pamphlets under the title The Crisis, or American Crisis that were written throughout the war until it ended in April, 1783.
Paine was profoundly and progressively radical - way ahead of his time and what passes for "Western civilization" and mainstream thought today. He opposed slavery, promoted republicanism, abhored the monarchy, and in many ways was the founder of modern liberalism that Washington and Jefferson called that "liberal experiment, the United States of America." These were the kinds of men who founded the nation - skeptics of the institutions of power that included the "kingly oppressions" of monarchs, the church and the mercantilist corporatism of that time represented by the dominant predatory giant of its day - the British East India Company. Because of the unfair advantage it got from the Crown (a precursor to the kind of outrageous government subsidy and legislative help corporate giants now get), it gained a competitive edge over colonial merchants that led to the famous Boston Tea Party in 1773 that helped spark the Revolution.
Paine had a voice and made it heard in his writings that were disseminated in one of the mass media instruments of that era that consisted largely of pamphlets like his and colonial-era newspapers beginning with the first ever published called the Boston News-Letter debuting in April, 1704 before Paine was born and Ben Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette first published in 1728 that grew to have the largest circulation of the time and was considered the best newspaper in the colonies. Paine got mass exposure in a way that would be impossible today for his kind of writing - to promote his radically progressive views that would make a neocon cringe enough to see to it those kinds of ideas never saw the light of day in today's world run by the institutions of power Paine and the founders abhorred.
Think about it. This was a man who was an anti-neocon, anti-militarist, and anti-neoliberal predatory corporatist progressive thinker supporting the rights and needs of ordinary people. He developed a seminal compendium of liberal thinking against those notions of governance in his book The Rights of Man. He believed neither governments or corporations should have rights, only people. He thought inherited wealth would be exploited by those having it and would be used to corrupt governments and allow their heirs the ability to create dynasties that would result in a new feudalism. He promoted progressive taxation believing everyone should pay them acccording to their income. He supported enlightened anti-poverty social programs to provide food and housing assistance for the poor and retirement pensions for the elderly. He felt the best way to build a strong democracy was to provide financial aid to help young families raise their children. He was a strong anti-militarist and wanted all nations to reduce their armaments by 90% to ensure world peace.
He and the founders also wanted the new nation to have a middle class and understood no democracy can survive without one. These enlightened thinkers knew a viable middle class depends on a public that's educated, secure and well-informed and that the greatest danger to its survival is an empowered economic aristocracy that would polarize society and destroy the very democracy they were trying to create, imperfect as it was.
Imagine if those "radical" ideas were spread in today's mass media that sees to it the public never hears that kind of thinking. They did in Paine's day, and it led to a Revolution that freed us from monarchal rule and inspired the founders to create a great democratic experiment in America never tried before in the West outside Athens in ancient Greece that only lasted a few decades. From it we got a Constitution, Bill of Rights and a system of governance Lincoln said "was conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal (in a) government of the people, by the people, (and) for the people."
That could never happen today with the channels of communication Paine used to electrify and inspire a nation closed off to prevent their use against the kind of oppressive authority Paine opposed. It caused the founders' great democratic experiment to be lost because people no longer know how much the dominant political class is harming them by serving the interests of wealth and power and getting plenty of it for themselves in the process.
If Paine were here now, he'd lead the struggle against that kind of system the way he did in his day, but he'd get little space in the mainstream to help and would have to settle for smaller audiences available through the alternative ways to reach the public now. The free press of Paine's day is now open only to the interests of capital who can afford to own one. And those espousing "radical" views like Paine's are barred from being a part of it.
read more
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
more sacrifice
Get your fatted calves together, boys and girls. Little georgie's going to be asking for more sacrifice to his bush god.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
snuff film
TV plans tasteful coverage of Saddam execution
Friday December 29, 2:53 PM
Reuters
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061229/3/2v1kd.html
[…]
Several sources said Saddam's execution would be videotaped by the Iraqi government, though it wasn't clear whether it would be released to the public or broadcast.
"We will video everything," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouffak al Rubaie told CBS News.
Judging by the Iraqi government's release Tuesday of videotape of the hanging of 13 convicts, it could be a gruesome affair. Meetings were held Thursday in at least two network headquarters over how to handle the potentially graphic images.
[…]
Talking Points Memo
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011765.php
(January 02, 2007 -- 04:01 PM EST)
An investigation? Now the Maliki government is going to investigate the 'Moktada' chants at Saddam's execution and the leaking of the phone-cam snuff film?
First of all, wasn't it filmed? And wasn't it clear that the hooded guys were among the chanters and taunters? Does the Maliki government know who the guys in the masks were? Or were they on special detail from the Mahdi Army?
One question seems to be who got into the room with a cell phone that allowed the surreptitious recording ...
[…]
Of course the Iraqi puppet government filmed the death of Saddam. That was going to be little georgie’s private snuff film. Remember the stories of Hitler giggling while watching the films of the bomb in the bunker plotters while they hung from meathooks, dancing to their deaths? Same thing.
Of course the portions the public would see would have been well edited. This private recording put the squelch on that plan. And THAT is what maliki’s pissed about. The farce being public. Not the farce itself.
And our little georgie? Giggling and watching his snuff film, along with everyone else who is downloading it off the net.
Friday December 29, 2:53 PM
Reuters
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061229/3/2v1kd.html
[…]
Several sources said Saddam's execution would be videotaped by the Iraqi government, though it wasn't clear whether it would be released to the public or broadcast.
"We will video everything," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouffak al Rubaie told CBS News.
Judging by the Iraqi government's release Tuesday of videotape of the hanging of 13 convicts, it could be a gruesome affair. Meetings were held Thursday in at least two network headquarters over how to handle the potentially graphic images.
[…]
Talking Points Memo
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011765.php
(January 02, 2007 -- 04:01 PM EST)
An investigation? Now the Maliki government is going to investigate the 'Moktada' chants at Saddam's execution and the leaking of the phone-cam snuff film?
First of all, wasn't it filmed? And wasn't it clear that the hooded guys were among the chanters and taunters? Does the Maliki government know who the guys in the masks were? Or were they on special detail from the Mahdi Army?
One question seems to be who got into the room with a cell phone that allowed the surreptitious recording ...
[…]
Of course the Iraqi puppet government filmed the death of Saddam. That was going to be little georgie’s private snuff film. Remember the stories of Hitler giggling while watching the films of the bomb in the bunker plotters while they hung from meathooks, dancing to their deaths? Same thing.
Of course the portions the public would see would have been well edited. This private recording put the squelch on that plan. And THAT is what maliki’s pissed about. The farce being public. Not the farce itself.
And our little georgie? Giggling and watching his snuff film, along with everyone else who is downloading it off the net.
Monday, January 01, 2007
American Leaders Promise More Pain
Democrats, Republicans, CEOs, Generals United
By John Stanton
Global Research, January 1, 2007
www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=4269
Just 32 years ago in 1975, former US President Gerald Ford (unelected to both the vice presidency and the presidency) served as master of ceremonies for the close of the Vietnam War. There are two images that remain seared in the minds of many around the world from that terrible 10 year debacle and defeat. One is a photograph taken by Hubert van Es during the fall of Saigon depicting Vietnamese civilians climbing to the top of an apartment building frantically attempting to board a US helicopter. The other is a photograph taken by Nic Ut of a young Vietnamese girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, her flesh seared by napalm in a US aerial assault. She is running down a road, naked and screaming.
Thirty-two years later, as much of the world celebrated religious and cultural holidays, and prepared to greet the new year 2007, its newspapers and electronic media outlets depicted photographs and video of the hanging of former Iraq Dictator Saddam Hussein. The 21st Century and the freedom-loving US government approved a good old style 1800's hanging in Iraq. Hussein, guilty of mass murder, swinging from a rope in a stairwell somewhere in Baghdad. In 1975, Ford and Kissinger gave a green light to Indonesia's invasion of East Timor which left some 200,000 dead.
As an aside, perhaps Americans should be reminded of its history with hangings and what's likely to come from 21st Century military tribunals. According to Wikipedia, "the largest single execution in United States history was the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota people convicted of murder and rape in the Sioux Uprising. They were executed simultaneously on December 26, 1862 in Mankato, Minnesota. A single blow from an axe cut the rope that held the large four-sided platform, and the prisoners (except for one whose rope had broken, and who consequently had to be restrung) fell to their deaths.[7] The second largest mass execution in United States history was also a hanging: the execution of 13 African American soldiers for their parts in the Houston Riot. Notably, both incidents involved ethnic minority defendants, and military tribunal judgments in time of war."
Appetite for Destruction
The two images from the Vietnam War and the photo's and video of the hanging of Hussein capture in vivid detail the end results of strategies and tactics designed and executed by incompetent American leaders. Failure is everywhere in the stills and video. Failure to manage risk, failure to anticipate, failure to understand, failure to have compassion for human life, failure to accept change, failure to realize that perception is often not reality. Title, rank or advanced degree have never been a barrier to poor decision making or the maniacal drive for power to ensure a lasting place in world history. On what basis can one make such an outrageous claim?
What's the record of the US leaders since 1975? Some of the highlights include: Vietnam War; Cold War (post Cold War mis-management); Iranian Revolution/Hostage Crisis; Iran/Contra; HIV/AIDS (1980's); Grenada War; War on Drugs; Panama War; Iraq War I; Iraq War II; Afghanistan War I; Somalia I (think Blackhawk Down); Yugoslavia/Bosnia War; Ethiopia vs Somalia War (US now backing Ethiopia); War on Terror; Israel vs Lebanon/Hezbollah (US backing Israel); Lebanon Stability Operation (200 plus US Marines needlessly sacrificed); botched presidential election of 2000 decided by US Supreme Court; 911 attack on New York City, New York and Arlington, Virginia; military tribunals; income disparity (US middle class disappearing); tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans; health care cost increases; record foreclosures and bankruptcies in 2006; 2007 recession looming; sanctioned domestic electronic surveillance, refusal to honor international treaties, nuclear proliferation (Egypt and Saudi Arabia will now build nuclear reactors); global warming; over 3,000 Americans dead and many more thousands maimed in Iraq II and Afghanistan I; military families on food stamps; unprecedented national debt, unreliable infrastructure (electrical grids, for example); 911 Commission and Iraq Study Group; and now trial balloons being floated for a return to military conscription.
But the nail in the coffin, so to speak, is that "The Vote" does not matter one bit. The 2006 mid-term elections in the USA sent a clear signal to US leaders that the time had come to get out of Iraq. And yet as the new year enters, Democrats and Republicans, CEO's and Generals are united in their support for a troop "surge" in Iraq. Those in charge in America are creating the conditions which lead to open revolt. When votes do not matter, when draconian laws and regulations weigh on people, when employment is uncertain, and there is no longer any outlet for expression, frustration and anger set in. That leads to violence.
Operation Roadrunner
And what do the folks in charge offer as solutions? Catch phrases and information manipulation. Over at the Pentagon the thinking on Iraq II is something like this: go long, go short, maintain, get out, go left, go right, go, go down. Is this what $1 trillion a year buys. Meanwhile, the President, with his staff in tow, tells the American people. "...My heart breaks everyday for our dead soldiers and their families. Next question...Go shopping." Are you kidding?
What’s next!? Cartoon character Wylie Coyote briefs the Joint Chiefs, President Bush and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Speaking on guarantee of anonymity, a source who was at the briefing said that, "Mr Coyote provided some keen insights that are applicable to the Global War on Terror, The War on Terror, The Long War, The Asymmetrical War, The Irregular War, The Calling of Our Time War. The President and Joint Chiefs were receptive. The Pentagon feels that if Mr. Coyote had the space, sea and land assets that we now have, he would have caught that Roadrunner whom we see as an example of your basic modern day Al Qaeda/Anti-American terrorist. Mr. Coyote was far ahead of his time in the use of technology from defense contractor ACME and his understanding and application of psychological operations techniques. We appreciate his timely advice."
The world waits in horror for a congressionally mandated commission co-chaired by former President Bill Clinton and Former President George Bush II to study every commission created from 2001 to 2008. Why not Homer Simpson and Sponge-Bob Squarepants?
What more can be said about the down right crappy leadership that the American public and the world have endured for a little over three decades. Clinton promised "A Bridge to the 21st Century." That bridge needs to be demolished and a new one built. Unfortunately it is going to fall to the next three generations to fix it, if they can. It's time to listen to the words of Malcolm X, speaking at Oxford Union, UK in 1964.
"I read once, passingly, about a man named Shakespeare ,who wrote something that moved me. He put the words into a character named Hamlet who said, 'To be or not to be'. He had a doubt about something. 'To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' Compromise. 'Or to take up arms against a a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.' And I go for that. If you take up arms you'll end it. But if you sit around waiting for the ones in power to change things you'll be waiting a long time. In my opinion young people today, whites, blacks, browns whatever else there is, must realize that they live in a time of revolution, a time of change. Those in power have abused it and there has got to be change. A better world needs to be built and the only way it is going to get built is by extreme methods. I will stand with anyone, I don't care what color you are, as long as you want to change the miserable condition that exists on this earth."
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in political and national security matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com
By John Stanton
Global Research, January 1, 2007
www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=4269
Just 32 years ago in 1975, former US President Gerald Ford (unelected to both the vice presidency and the presidency) served as master of ceremonies for the close of the Vietnam War. There are two images that remain seared in the minds of many around the world from that terrible 10 year debacle and defeat. One is a photograph taken by Hubert van Es during the fall of Saigon depicting Vietnamese civilians climbing to the top of an apartment building frantically attempting to board a US helicopter. The other is a photograph taken by Nic Ut of a young Vietnamese girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, her flesh seared by napalm in a US aerial assault. She is running down a road, naked and screaming.
Thirty-two years later, as much of the world celebrated religious and cultural holidays, and prepared to greet the new year 2007, its newspapers and electronic media outlets depicted photographs and video of the hanging of former Iraq Dictator Saddam Hussein. The 21st Century and the freedom-loving US government approved a good old style 1800's hanging in Iraq. Hussein, guilty of mass murder, swinging from a rope in a stairwell somewhere in Baghdad. In 1975, Ford and Kissinger gave a green light to Indonesia's invasion of East Timor which left some 200,000 dead.
As an aside, perhaps Americans should be reminded of its history with hangings and what's likely to come from 21st Century military tribunals. According to Wikipedia, "the largest single execution in United States history was the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota people convicted of murder and rape in the Sioux Uprising. They were executed simultaneously on December 26, 1862 in Mankato, Minnesota. A single blow from an axe cut the rope that held the large four-sided platform, and the prisoners (except for one whose rope had broken, and who consequently had to be restrung) fell to their deaths.[7] The second largest mass execution in United States history was also a hanging: the execution of 13 African American soldiers for their parts in the Houston Riot. Notably, both incidents involved ethnic minority defendants, and military tribunal judgments in time of war."
Appetite for Destruction
The two images from the Vietnam War and the photo's and video of the hanging of Hussein capture in vivid detail the end results of strategies and tactics designed and executed by incompetent American leaders. Failure is everywhere in the stills and video. Failure to manage risk, failure to anticipate, failure to understand, failure to have compassion for human life, failure to accept change, failure to realize that perception is often not reality. Title, rank or advanced degree have never been a barrier to poor decision making or the maniacal drive for power to ensure a lasting place in world history. On what basis can one make such an outrageous claim?
What's the record of the US leaders since 1975? Some of the highlights include: Vietnam War; Cold War (post Cold War mis-management); Iranian Revolution/Hostage Crisis; Iran/Contra; HIV/AIDS (1980's); Grenada War; War on Drugs; Panama War; Iraq War I; Iraq War II; Afghanistan War I; Somalia I (think Blackhawk Down); Yugoslavia/Bosnia War; Ethiopia vs Somalia War (US now backing Ethiopia); War on Terror; Israel vs Lebanon/Hezbollah (US backing Israel); Lebanon Stability Operation (200 plus US Marines needlessly sacrificed); botched presidential election of 2000 decided by US Supreme Court; 911 attack on New York City, New York and Arlington, Virginia; military tribunals; income disparity (US middle class disappearing); tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans; health care cost increases; record foreclosures and bankruptcies in 2006; 2007 recession looming; sanctioned domestic electronic surveillance, refusal to honor international treaties, nuclear proliferation (Egypt and Saudi Arabia will now build nuclear reactors); global warming; over 3,000 Americans dead and many more thousands maimed in Iraq II and Afghanistan I; military families on food stamps; unprecedented national debt, unreliable infrastructure (electrical grids, for example); 911 Commission and Iraq Study Group; and now trial balloons being floated for a return to military conscription.
But the nail in the coffin, so to speak, is that "The Vote" does not matter one bit. The 2006 mid-term elections in the USA sent a clear signal to US leaders that the time had come to get out of Iraq. And yet as the new year enters, Democrats and Republicans, CEO's and Generals are united in their support for a troop "surge" in Iraq. Those in charge in America are creating the conditions which lead to open revolt. When votes do not matter, when draconian laws and regulations weigh on people, when employment is uncertain, and there is no longer any outlet for expression, frustration and anger set in. That leads to violence.
Operation Roadrunner
And what do the folks in charge offer as solutions? Catch phrases and information manipulation. Over at the Pentagon the thinking on Iraq II is something like this: go long, go short, maintain, get out, go left, go right, go, go down. Is this what $1 trillion a year buys. Meanwhile, the President, with his staff in tow, tells the American people. "...My heart breaks everyday for our dead soldiers and their families. Next question...Go shopping." Are you kidding?
What’s next!? Cartoon character Wylie Coyote briefs the Joint Chiefs, President Bush and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Speaking on guarantee of anonymity, a source who was at the briefing said that, "Mr Coyote provided some keen insights that are applicable to the Global War on Terror, The War on Terror, The Long War, The Asymmetrical War, The Irregular War, The Calling of Our Time War. The President and Joint Chiefs were receptive. The Pentagon feels that if Mr. Coyote had the space, sea and land assets that we now have, he would have caught that Roadrunner whom we see as an example of your basic modern day Al Qaeda/Anti-American terrorist. Mr. Coyote was far ahead of his time in the use of technology from defense contractor ACME and his understanding and application of psychological operations techniques. We appreciate his timely advice."
The world waits in horror for a congressionally mandated commission co-chaired by former President Bill Clinton and Former President George Bush II to study every commission created from 2001 to 2008. Why not Homer Simpson and Sponge-Bob Squarepants?
What more can be said about the down right crappy leadership that the American public and the world have endured for a little over three decades. Clinton promised "A Bridge to the 21st Century." That bridge needs to be demolished and a new one built. Unfortunately it is going to fall to the next three generations to fix it, if they can. It's time to listen to the words of Malcolm X, speaking at Oxford Union, UK in 1964.
"I read once, passingly, about a man named Shakespeare ,who wrote something that moved me. He put the words into a character named Hamlet who said, 'To be or not to be'. He had a doubt about something. 'To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' Compromise. 'Or to take up arms against a a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.' And I go for that. If you take up arms you'll end it. But if you sit around waiting for the ones in power to change things you'll be waiting a long time. In my opinion young people today, whites, blacks, browns whatever else there is, must realize that they live in a time of revolution, a time of change. Those in power have abused it and there has got to be change. A better world needs to be built and the only way it is going to get built is by extreme methods. I will stand with anyone, I don't care what color you are, as long as you want to change the miserable condition that exists on this earth."
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in political and national security matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com
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