Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Death Penalty Versus the Democratic Social Contract
by Richard L. Franklin
6/26/07
As of late, I've only rarely seen the death penalty discussed within the framework of traditional theories of democratic social contract. That topic is a book waiting to be written. After all, theories of social contract were discussed at length by the American founders, and the Bill of Rights was assembled with notions of a social contract hovering in the background. The Enlightenment was in full swing back in those times, and rational social contract theories were in the air. We are therefore long overdue in making use of this concept when it comes to discussing the death penalty in America.
When a state invests itself with the right to kill its own citizens, it has profound implications for any theory of democracy or the usual notions of a social contract underlying the so-called American 'democracy'. Before I get into the coupling of American theories of democracy and social contract, I hasten to say I see the notions of social contract as formed by thinkers such as Hobbes, Hume, Locke, and the more intellectual of the American founders as being heuristic devices or simple metaphors. After all, there never has existed an actual anarchic state of nature in which a war of man against man existed prior to the emergence of the modern state with its written constitutions. Tribes existed as organized societies as soon as humans walked the earth.
Let's just say the idea of anarchic warring humans in a primitive state eventually gathering together to form a social contract is a useful heuristic tool. If it aids our understanding of the American 'democracy' and its meaning, it surely is a tool we should not readily discard.
With that in mind, let's pause to consider what a sane person in a state of nature would agree to in a social contract. Would he agree to surrender to the government a right to take his life if he were to violate the laws that have been created under the umbrella of a social contract?
We need pause for a moment to offer a concrete example, so as to give measure to the full impact of what is involved here. During my lifetime, several states had a death penalty statute for the performance of oral sex or anal sex or sex with animals. These laws came under the umbrella known as sodomy. This meant de facto that an angry spouse could make a complaint against his or her spouse for performing oral sex, and he or she could theoretically end up being literally fried in the electric chair.
Does that sound outlandish? Not really. I have a clear memory of an angry Chicago wife signing a complaint complaint against her husband for violating the state sodomy law. When hauled in for questioning, the man quite readily admitted to having gone down on his wife, since it never occurred to him that his actions were criminal. He was forthwith convicted of a felony by his own words and sent to prison. That's pretty bad, but since Illinois once had a capital punishment law for sodomy, we might say he got off easy. It took the money and power of Hugh Hefner and Playboy Magazine plus years of litigation before this man was finally paroled.
Illinois has a long and colorful history regarding its capital laws and punishments. Quite recently, a bunch of law students proved that a majority of 25 prisoners on the Illinois state death row were innocent, thusly destroying for all time the absurd claim that no innocent person has ever been executed in America. It was only through a bizarre fluke that a bunch of students bared the truth about how capital laws are abused in this country and how innocent people are routinely killed by the state.
Getting back to the social contract, would a person in a state of nature sign onto a social contract that might entail his being executed for making love to his wife with oral sex? Of course not. No rational person in a state of nature would ever agree to giving that kind of power to the state. The fact is it's impossible to visualize a person in a state of nature ever agreeing to give to a proposed state the power to kill him if that state should arbitrarily decide to kill him as punishment for private acts he believed were wholly private and harmless.
The empirical reality is that there will always be new constituencies springing up to campaign for capital punishment laws for acts they especially abhor, often for all sorts of irrational reasons. There still is a huge constituency for executing Jane Fonda for visiting North Vietnam during the 60s. There also will always be politicians capitalizing on the proposal of and creation of new capital crimes. Bill Clinton ran amok signing a host of new capital laws into existence. Using the Oklahoma City false flag operation, he signed so many new federal capital crimes, it raised the number of capital Federal crimes to sixty. One of these laws made executions dependent on just how many ounces of pot or coke a person had in his or her possession, thusly making life or death dependent on the accuracy of a scale or on some kind of arbitrary judgment as to how much was 'too much' by the powers that be.
'Rex non potest peccare.'
Going one step further, would a person in a state of nature agree that the 'king can do no wrong'? It is quite clear that this doctrine was anathema to the American founders. This brings us to a conflict between the doctrines and the later workings of the American system. The great Declaration lists life as an inalienable right. This would seem to militate against any laws giving the state the right to kill its own citizens, i.e. those who have presumably signed onto the American social contract. Common law, on the other hand has always vouchsafed the right of the state to kill its own citizens, but common law has often endorsed obscene punishments for harmless actions.
Based on my own research, I estimate that at least 20% of executions in the US have been wrongful killings of innocent people, with a large percentage of these being poor blacks with incompetent court-appointed lawyers. The argument of pro-death-penalty agitators that this is a cost one has to pay for living in our wonderfully democratic America is sickening. Those who make this claim are unlikely to ever be framed for a murder and then killed by the state, nor is it likely any of their friends or relatives will be unjustly framed and executed. Common wisdom suggests that such folderol is easy for them to spout due to their race, economic class, and so on.
In summary, so long as capital punishment (and therefore the murdering of innocent persons by the state) continues in this country, it will be incorrect to call America a democracy in any deep sense. This sole fact militates against the longtime democratic social contract theory embraced by most democratic thinkers in the Western World. Despite this growing majority among other democracies, efforts to increase the right of the state to kill its own citizens has been a steady drumbeat among those of the American right. With a false flag operation once again being used by the American government to foment a constant state of anxiety among the American people, we are likely to see a will to expand the number of capital crimes.
First came Oklahoma City and Clinton's waiting-in-the-wings huge increase in federal capital crimes. Then came 9/11 and a steady drumbeat to allow torture, disappearing of prisoners, and arbitrary executions. The inability of Americans to realistically appraise the realities of Empire America has led us down a precipitous path toward neofascism, with state executions being only one of the more serious symptoms of that downward slide.
The foundations of America's putative democracy are crumbling at a scary rate. The capital punishment horror story is but one facet of a so-called 'democracy' that is crumbling on nearly every front. There are many causes one might embrace, but the state killing of its own citizens is a horror that has always weighed as heavily on my mind as any of our assorted national catastrophes.
Richard L. Franklin is the author of 'The Mythology of Self-Worth'.
6/26/07
As of late, I've only rarely seen the death penalty discussed within the framework of traditional theories of democratic social contract. That topic is a book waiting to be written. After all, theories of social contract were discussed at length by the American founders, and the Bill of Rights was assembled with notions of a social contract hovering in the background. The Enlightenment was in full swing back in those times, and rational social contract theories were in the air. We are therefore long overdue in making use of this concept when it comes to discussing the death penalty in America.
When a state invests itself with the right to kill its own citizens, it has profound implications for any theory of democracy or the usual notions of a social contract underlying the so-called American 'democracy'. Before I get into the coupling of American theories of democracy and social contract, I hasten to say I see the notions of social contract as formed by thinkers such as Hobbes, Hume, Locke, and the more intellectual of the American founders as being heuristic devices or simple metaphors. After all, there never has existed an actual anarchic state of nature in which a war of man against man existed prior to the emergence of the modern state with its written constitutions. Tribes existed as organized societies as soon as humans walked the earth.
Let's just say the idea of anarchic warring humans in a primitive state eventually gathering together to form a social contract is a useful heuristic tool. If it aids our understanding of the American 'democracy' and its meaning, it surely is a tool we should not readily discard.
With that in mind, let's pause to consider what a sane person in a state of nature would agree to in a social contract. Would he agree to surrender to the government a right to take his life if he were to violate the laws that have been created under the umbrella of a social contract?
We need pause for a moment to offer a concrete example, so as to give measure to the full impact of what is involved here. During my lifetime, several states had a death penalty statute for the performance of oral sex or anal sex or sex with animals. These laws came under the umbrella known as sodomy. This meant de facto that an angry spouse could make a complaint against his or her spouse for performing oral sex, and he or she could theoretically end up being literally fried in the electric chair.
Does that sound outlandish? Not really. I have a clear memory of an angry Chicago wife signing a complaint complaint against her husband for violating the state sodomy law. When hauled in for questioning, the man quite readily admitted to having gone down on his wife, since it never occurred to him that his actions were criminal. He was forthwith convicted of a felony by his own words and sent to prison. That's pretty bad, but since Illinois once had a capital punishment law for sodomy, we might say he got off easy. It took the money and power of Hugh Hefner and Playboy Magazine plus years of litigation before this man was finally paroled.
Illinois has a long and colorful history regarding its capital laws and punishments. Quite recently, a bunch of law students proved that a majority of 25 prisoners on the Illinois state death row were innocent, thusly destroying for all time the absurd claim that no innocent person has ever been executed in America. It was only through a bizarre fluke that a bunch of students bared the truth about how capital laws are abused in this country and how innocent people are routinely killed by the state.
Getting back to the social contract, would a person in a state of nature sign onto a social contract that might entail his being executed for making love to his wife with oral sex? Of course not. No rational person in a state of nature would ever agree to giving that kind of power to the state. The fact is it's impossible to visualize a person in a state of nature ever agreeing to give to a proposed state the power to kill him if that state should arbitrarily decide to kill him as punishment for private acts he believed were wholly private and harmless.
The empirical reality is that there will always be new constituencies springing up to campaign for capital punishment laws for acts they especially abhor, often for all sorts of irrational reasons. There still is a huge constituency for executing Jane Fonda for visiting North Vietnam during the 60s. There also will always be politicians capitalizing on the proposal of and creation of new capital crimes. Bill Clinton ran amok signing a host of new capital laws into existence. Using the Oklahoma City false flag operation, he signed so many new federal capital crimes, it raised the number of capital Federal crimes to sixty. One of these laws made executions dependent on just how many ounces of pot or coke a person had in his or her possession, thusly making life or death dependent on the accuracy of a scale or on some kind of arbitrary judgment as to how much was 'too much' by the powers that be.
'Rex non potest peccare.'
Going one step further, would a person in a state of nature agree that the 'king can do no wrong'? It is quite clear that this doctrine was anathema to the American founders. This brings us to a conflict between the doctrines and the later workings of the American system. The great Declaration lists life as an inalienable right. This would seem to militate against any laws giving the state the right to kill its own citizens, i.e. those who have presumably signed onto the American social contract. Common law, on the other hand has always vouchsafed the right of the state to kill its own citizens, but common law has often endorsed obscene punishments for harmless actions.
Based on my own research, I estimate that at least 20% of executions in the US have been wrongful killings of innocent people, with a large percentage of these being poor blacks with incompetent court-appointed lawyers. The argument of pro-death-penalty agitators that this is a cost one has to pay for living in our wonderfully democratic America is sickening. Those who make this claim are unlikely to ever be framed for a murder and then killed by the state, nor is it likely any of their friends or relatives will be unjustly framed and executed. Common wisdom suggests that such folderol is easy for them to spout due to their race, economic class, and so on.
In summary, so long as capital punishment (and therefore the murdering of innocent persons by the state) continues in this country, it will be incorrect to call America a democracy in any deep sense. This sole fact militates against the longtime democratic social contract theory embraced by most democratic thinkers in the Western World. Despite this growing majority among other democracies, efforts to increase the right of the state to kill its own citizens has been a steady drumbeat among those of the American right. With a false flag operation once again being used by the American government to foment a constant state of anxiety among the American people, we are likely to see a will to expand the number of capital crimes.
First came Oklahoma City and Clinton's waiting-in-the-wings huge increase in federal capital crimes. Then came 9/11 and a steady drumbeat to allow torture, disappearing of prisoners, and arbitrary executions. The inability of Americans to realistically appraise the realities of Empire America has led us down a precipitous path toward neofascism, with state executions being only one of the more serious symptoms of that downward slide.
The foundations of America's putative democracy are crumbling at a scary rate. The capital punishment horror story is but one facet of a so-called 'democracy' that is crumbling on nearly every front. There are many causes one might embrace, but the state killing of its own citizens is a horror that has always weighed as heavily on my mind as any of our assorted national catastrophes.
Richard L. Franklin is the author of 'The Mythology of Self-Worth'.
Monday, June 25, 2007
'Demonstration' Government in Palestine
- by Stephen Lendman
6/25/07
In 1984 (a year of Orwellian significance), activist and media and social critic Edward Herman wrote one of his many important books titled "Demonstration Elections." In it, he analyzed the US-staged elections in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam and the 1982 one in El Salvador. In the book's Orwellian glossary of terms, he defined the process as "A circus held in a client state to assure the population of the home country that their intrusion is well received. The results are guaranteed by an adequate supply of bullets provided in advance (and freely used as necessary to achieve the desired outcome)."
This writer calls this ugly business "democracy-engineering, American-style" backed by force to win approval of a rigged process people would never accept another way. Noam Chomsky refers to the notion of "Keeping the Rabble in Line," the title of one of his many books. It can be through soft or hard methods to assure the public goes along with what governments want imposed.
Herman's main theme was that "elections held under conditions of military occupation and extensive pre-election 'pacification' " aren't free at all but aim to get an occupying force's puppet choice accepted by the people it's installed to rule with influence wielded more by bullets than ballots to create "stability." Herman defines that term, too, as "a political arrangement free of open warfare and satisfactory to our interests." By that he means the "rabble" is cowed, induced or pummeled into submission…
full article
6/25/07
In 1984 (a year of Orwellian significance), activist and media and social critic Edward Herman wrote one of his many important books titled "Demonstration Elections." In it, he analyzed the US-staged elections in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam and the 1982 one in El Salvador. In the book's Orwellian glossary of terms, he defined the process as "A circus held in a client state to assure the population of the home country that their intrusion is well received. The results are guaranteed by an adequate supply of bullets provided in advance (and freely used as necessary to achieve the desired outcome)."
This writer calls this ugly business "democracy-engineering, American-style" backed by force to win approval of a rigged process people would never accept another way. Noam Chomsky refers to the notion of "Keeping the Rabble in Line," the title of one of his many books. It can be through soft or hard methods to assure the public goes along with what governments want imposed.
Herman's main theme was that "elections held under conditions of military occupation and extensive pre-election 'pacification' " aren't free at all but aim to get an occupying force's puppet choice accepted by the people it's installed to rule with influence wielded more by bullets than ballots to create "stability." Herman defines that term, too, as "a political arrangement free of open warfare and satisfactory to our interests." By that he means the "rabble" is cowed, induced or pummeled into submission…
full article
Friday, June 22, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Within the Architecture of Denial and Duplicity:
The Democratic Party and the Infantile Omnipotence of The Ruling Class.
by Phil Rockstroh
6/21/07
Why did the Democratic Congress betray the voting public?
Betrayal is often a consequence of wishful thinking. It's the world's way of delivering the life lesson that it's time to shed the vanity of one's innocence and grow-the-hell-up. Apropos, here's lesson number one for political innocents: Power serves the perpetuation of power. In an era of runaway corporate capitalism, the political elite exist to serve the corporate elite. It's that simple.
Why do the elites lie so brazenly? Ironically, because they believe they're entitled to, by virtue of their superior sense of morality. How did they come to this arrogant conclusion? Because they think they're better than us. If they believe in anything at all, it is this: They view us as a reeking collection of wretched, baseborn rabble, who are, on an individual level, a few billion neurons short of being governable by honest means.
Yes, you read that correctly: They believe they're better than you. When they lie and flout the rules and assert that the rule of law doesn't apply to them or refuse to impeach fellow members of their political and social class who break the law -- it is because they have convinced themselves it is best for society as a whole.
How did they come by such self-serving convictions? The massive extent of their privilege has convinced them that they're the quintessence of human virtue, that they're the most gifted of all golden children ever kissed by the radiant light of the sun. In other words, they're the worst sort of emotionally arrested brats -- spoiled children inhabiting adult bodies who mistake their feelings of infantile omnipotence for the benediction of superior ability: "I'm so special that what's good for me is good for the world," amounts to the sum total of their childish creed. In the case of narcissists such as these, over time, self-interest and systems of belief grow intertwined. Hence, within their warped, self-justifying belief systems, their actions, however mercenary, become acts of altruism.
The elites don't exactly believe their own lies; rather, they proceed from the neo-con guru, Leo Strauss' dictum (the modus operandi of the ruling classes) that it is necessary to promulgate "noble lies" to society's lower orders. This sort of virtuous mendacity must be practiced, because those varieties of upright apes (you and I) must be spared the complexities of the truth; otherwise, it will cause us to grow dangerously agitated -- will cause us to rattle the bars of our cages and fling poop at our betters. They believe it's better to ply us with lies because it's less trouble then having to hose us down in our filthy cages. In this way, they believe, all naked apes will have a more agreeable existence within the hierarchy-bound monkeyhouse of capitalism.
This may help to better understand the Washington establishment and its courtesan punditry who serve to reinforce their ceaseless narrative of exceptionalism. This is why they've disingenuously covered up the infantilism of George W. Bush for so long: Little Dubya is the id of the ruling class made manifest -- he's their troubled child, who, by his destructive actions, cracks the deceptively normal veneer of a miserable family and reveals the rot within. At a certain level, it's damn entertaining: his instability so shakes the foundation of the house that it causes the skeletons in its closets to dance.
By engaging in a mode of being so careless it amounts to public immolation, these corrupt elitists are bringing the empire down. There is nothing new in this: Such recklessness is the method by which cunning strivers commit suicide.
Those who take the trouble to look will apprehend the disastrous results of the ruling elites' pathology: wars of choice sold to a credulous citizenry by public relations confidence artists; a predatory economy that benefits one percent of the population; a demoralized, deeply ignorant populace who are either unaware of or indifferent to the difference between the virtues and vicissitudes of the electoral processes of a democratic republic, in contrast to the schlock circus, financed by big money corporatist, being inflicted upon us, at present.
Moreover, the elitist's barriers of isolation and exclusion play out among the classes below as an idiot's mimicry of soulless gated "communities" and the pernicious craving for a vast border wall -- all an imitation of the ruling classes' paranoia-driven compulsion for isolation and their narcissistic obsession with exclusivity.
Perhaps, we should cover the country in an enormous sheet of cellophane and place a zip-lock seal at its southern border, or, better yet -- in the interest of being more metaphorically accurate -- let's simply zip the entire land mass of the U.S. into a body bag and be done with it.
What will be at the root of the empire's demise? It seems the elite of the nation will succumb to "Small World Syndrome" -- that malady borne of incurable careerism, a form of self-induced cretinism that reduces the vast and intricate world to only those things that advance the goals of its egoist sufferers. It is an degenerative disease that winnows down the consciousness of those afflicted to a banal nub of awareness, engendering the shallowness of character on display in the corporate media and the arrogance and cluelessness of the empire's business and political classes. It possesses a love of little but mammon; it is the myth of Midas, manifested in the hoarding of hedge funds; it is the tale of an idiot gibbering over his collection of used string.
What can be done? In these dangerous times, credulousness to party dogma is as dangerous as a fundamentalist Christian's literal interpretation of The Bible: There is no need to squander the hours searching for an "intelligent design" within the architecture of denial and duplicity built into this claptrap system -- a system that we have collaborated in constructing by our loyalty to political parties that are, in return, neither loyal to us nor any idea, policy nor principle that doesn't maintain the corporate status quo.
Accordingly, we must make the elites of the Democratic Party accountable for their betrayal -- or we ourselves will become complicit. The faith of Democratic partisans in their degraded party is analogous to Bush and his loyalist still believing they can achieve victory in Iraq and the delusion-based wing of the Republican Party who, a few years ago, clung to the belief, regardless of facts, that Terri Schiavoâ?Ts brain was not irreparably damaged and she would someday rise from her hospital bed and bless the heavens for them and their unwavering devotion to her cause.
Faith-based Democrats are equally as delusional. Only their fantasies don't flow from the belief in a mythical father figure, existing somewhere in the boundless sky, who scripture proclaims has a deep concern for the fate of all things, from fallen sparrows to medically manipulated stem cells; rather, their beliefs are based on the bughouse crazy notion that the elites of the Democratic Party could give a fallen sparrow's ass about the circumstances of their lives.
In the same manner, I could never reconcile myself with the Judea/Christian/Islamic conception of god -- some strange, invisible, "who's-your-daddy-in-the-sky," sadist -- who wants me on my knees (as if I'm a performer in some kind of cosmic porno movie) to show my belief in and devotion to him -- I can't delude myself into feeling any sense of devotion to the present day Democratic Party.
Long ago, reason and common sense caused me to renounce the toxic tenets of organized religion. At present, I feel compelled to apply the same principles to the Democratic Party, leading me to conclude, as did Voltaire regarding the unchecked power of The Church in his day, that we must, "crush the infamous thing."
Freedom begins when we free ourselves from as many illusions as possible -- including dogma, clichés, cant, magical thinking, as well as blind devotion to a corrupt political class.
I wrote the following, before the 2006 mid-term election: "[...] I believe, at this late hour, the second best thing that could come to pass in our crumbling republic is for the total destruction of the Democratic Party -- and then from its ashes to rise a party of true progressives.
"[...] I believe the best thing that could happen for our country would be for the leaders of The Republican Party -- out of a deep sense of shame (as if they even possessed the capacity for such a thing) regarding the manner they have disgrace their country and themselves -- to commit seppuku (the act of ritual suicide practiced by disgraced leaders in feudalist Japan) on national television.
"Because there's no chance of that event coming to pass, I believe the dismantling of the Democratic Party, as we know it, is in order. It is our moribund republic’s last, best hope -- if any is still possible."
I received quite a bit of flack from party loyalist and netroots activists that my pronouncement was premature and we should wait and see.
We've waited and we've seen. Consequently, since the Republican leadership have not taken ceremonial swords in hand and disemboweled themselves on nationwide TV, it's time we pulled the plug on the Democratic Party, an entity that has only been kept alive by a corporately inserted food-tube. In my opinion, this remains the last, best hope for the living ideals of progressive governance to become part of the body politic.
Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: philangie2000@yahoo.com
by Phil Rockstroh
6/21/07
Why did the Democratic Congress betray the voting public?
Betrayal is often a consequence of wishful thinking. It's the world's way of delivering the life lesson that it's time to shed the vanity of one's innocence and grow-the-hell-up. Apropos, here's lesson number one for political innocents: Power serves the perpetuation of power. In an era of runaway corporate capitalism, the political elite exist to serve the corporate elite. It's that simple.
Why do the elites lie so brazenly? Ironically, because they believe they're entitled to, by virtue of their superior sense of morality. How did they come to this arrogant conclusion? Because they think they're better than us. If they believe in anything at all, it is this: They view us as a reeking collection of wretched, baseborn rabble, who are, on an individual level, a few billion neurons short of being governable by honest means.
Yes, you read that correctly: They believe they're better than you. When they lie and flout the rules and assert that the rule of law doesn't apply to them or refuse to impeach fellow members of their political and social class who break the law -- it is because they have convinced themselves it is best for society as a whole.
How did they come by such self-serving convictions? The massive extent of their privilege has convinced them that they're the quintessence of human virtue, that they're the most gifted of all golden children ever kissed by the radiant light of the sun. In other words, they're the worst sort of emotionally arrested brats -- spoiled children inhabiting adult bodies who mistake their feelings of infantile omnipotence for the benediction of superior ability: "I'm so special that what's good for me is good for the world," amounts to the sum total of their childish creed. In the case of narcissists such as these, over time, self-interest and systems of belief grow intertwined. Hence, within their warped, self-justifying belief systems, their actions, however mercenary, become acts of altruism.
The elites don't exactly believe their own lies; rather, they proceed from the neo-con guru, Leo Strauss' dictum (the modus operandi of the ruling classes) that it is necessary to promulgate "noble lies" to society's lower orders. This sort of virtuous mendacity must be practiced, because those varieties of upright apes (you and I) must be spared the complexities of the truth; otherwise, it will cause us to grow dangerously agitated -- will cause us to rattle the bars of our cages and fling poop at our betters. They believe it's better to ply us with lies because it's less trouble then having to hose us down in our filthy cages. In this way, they believe, all naked apes will have a more agreeable existence within the hierarchy-bound monkeyhouse of capitalism.
This may help to better understand the Washington establishment and its courtesan punditry who serve to reinforce their ceaseless narrative of exceptionalism. This is why they've disingenuously covered up the infantilism of George W. Bush for so long: Little Dubya is the id of the ruling class made manifest -- he's their troubled child, who, by his destructive actions, cracks the deceptively normal veneer of a miserable family and reveals the rot within. At a certain level, it's damn entertaining: his instability so shakes the foundation of the house that it causes the skeletons in its closets to dance.
By engaging in a mode of being so careless it amounts to public immolation, these corrupt elitists are bringing the empire down. There is nothing new in this: Such recklessness is the method by which cunning strivers commit suicide.
Those who take the trouble to look will apprehend the disastrous results of the ruling elites' pathology: wars of choice sold to a credulous citizenry by public relations confidence artists; a predatory economy that benefits one percent of the population; a demoralized, deeply ignorant populace who are either unaware of or indifferent to the difference between the virtues and vicissitudes of the electoral processes of a democratic republic, in contrast to the schlock circus, financed by big money corporatist, being inflicted upon us, at present.
Moreover, the elitist's barriers of isolation and exclusion play out among the classes below as an idiot's mimicry of soulless gated "communities" and the pernicious craving for a vast border wall -- all an imitation of the ruling classes' paranoia-driven compulsion for isolation and their narcissistic obsession with exclusivity.
Perhaps, we should cover the country in an enormous sheet of cellophane and place a zip-lock seal at its southern border, or, better yet -- in the interest of being more metaphorically accurate -- let's simply zip the entire land mass of the U.S. into a body bag and be done with it.
What will be at the root of the empire's demise? It seems the elite of the nation will succumb to "Small World Syndrome" -- that malady borne of incurable careerism, a form of self-induced cretinism that reduces the vast and intricate world to only those things that advance the goals of its egoist sufferers. It is an degenerative disease that winnows down the consciousness of those afflicted to a banal nub of awareness, engendering the shallowness of character on display in the corporate media and the arrogance and cluelessness of the empire's business and political classes. It possesses a love of little but mammon; it is the myth of Midas, manifested in the hoarding of hedge funds; it is the tale of an idiot gibbering over his collection of used string.
What can be done? In these dangerous times, credulousness to party dogma is as dangerous as a fundamentalist Christian's literal interpretation of The Bible: There is no need to squander the hours searching for an "intelligent design" within the architecture of denial and duplicity built into this claptrap system -- a system that we have collaborated in constructing by our loyalty to political parties that are, in return, neither loyal to us nor any idea, policy nor principle that doesn't maintain the corporate status quo.
Accordingly, we must make the elites of the Democratic Party accountable for their betrayal -- or we ourselves will become complicit. The faith of Democratic partisans in their degraded party is analogous to Bush and his loyalist still believing they can achieve victory in Iraq and the delusion-based wing of the Republican Party who, a few years ago, clung to the belief, regardless of facts, that Terri Schiavoâ?Ts brain was not irreparably damaged and she would someday rise from her hospital bed and bless the heavens for them and their unwavering devotion to her cause.
Faith-based Democrats are equally as delusional. Only their fantasies don't flow from the belief in a mythical father figure, existing somewhere in the boundless sky, who scripture proclaims has a deep concern for the fate of all things, from fallen sparrows to medically manipulated stem cells; rather, their beliefs are based on the bughouse crazy notion that the elites of the Democratic Party could give a fallen sparrow's ass about the circumstances of their lives.
In the same manner, I could never reconcile myself with the Judea/Christian/Islamic conception of god -- some strange, invisible, "who's-your-daddy-in-the-sky," sadist -- who wants me on my knees (as if I'm a performer in some kind of cosmic porno movie) to show my belief in and devotion to him -- I can't delude myself into feeling any sense of devotion to the present day Democratic Party.
Long ago, reason and common sense caused me to renounce the toxic tenets of organized religion. At present, I feel compelled to apply the same principles to the Democratic Party, leading me to conclude, as did Voltaire regarding the unchecked power of The Church in his day, that we must, "crush the infamous thing."
Freedom begins when we free ourselves from as many illusions as possible -- including dogma, clichés, cant, magical thinking, as well as blind devotion to a corrupt political class.
I wrote the following, before the 2006 mid-term election: "[...] I believe, at this late hour, the second best thing that could come to pass in our crumbling republic is for the total destruction of the Democratic Party -- and then from its ashes to rise a party of true progressives.
"[...] I believe the best thing that could happen for our country would be for the leaders of The Republican Party -- out of a deep sense of shame (as if they even possessed the capacity for such a thing) regarding the manner they have disgrace their country and themselves -- to commit seppuku (the act of ritual suicide practiced by disgraced leaders in feudalist Japan) on national television.
"Because there's no chance of that event coming to pass, I believe the dismantling of the Democratic Party, as we know it, is in order. It is our moribund republic’s last, best hope -- if any is still possible."
I received quite a bit of flack from party loyalist and netroots activists that my pronouncement was premature and we should wait and see.
We've waited and we've seen. Consequently, since the Republican leadership have not taken ceremonial swords in hand and disemboweled themselves on nationwide TV, it's time we pulled the plug on the Democratic Party, an entity that has only been kept alive by a corporately inserted food-tube. In my opinion, this remains the last, best hope for the living ideals of progressive governance to become part of the body politic.
Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: philangie2000@yahoo.com
Toy Soldiers
I guess one of the dogs got a hold of this one. Really got tore up didn’t he?
Well, let me tell you something. This is what you’re letting little georgie bush do with his toy soldiers. The reality though, is that his toy soldiers are your children. Don’t that just give you a warm feeling inside? Whoopee! Let’s send another bunch to the meat grinder. What the hell, they ain’t embryos.
Well, let me tell you something. This is what you’re letting little georgie bush do with his toy soldiers. The reality though, is that his toy soldiers are your children. Don’t that just give you a warm feeling inside? Whoopee! Let’s send another bunch to the meat grinder. What the hell, they ain’t embryos.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
the third veto
Bush vetoes stem-cell bill
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070620/pl_nm/bush_stemcells_dc_11
"If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos," Bush said. "I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line."
“But, of course, I have no problem killing them after they’re born,” he added with a wink.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070620/pl_nm/bush_stemcells_dc_11
"If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos," Bush said. "I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line."
“But, of course, I have no problem killing them after they’re born,” he added with a wink.
the ongoing crime
I was sitting at the tracks waiting for the train to go by, and I remembered something from my past. Some years back, me and my crew were measuring across the tracks about 200-300 feet from a grade crossing, when the steel tape we were using dropped down across the tracks. Bingo. Bells clang, and the gates go down. That must be how trains let the crossings know they're there.
Fortunately, it happened on a back road with little traffic. Can you imagine the disruption if that had happened on a busy main road during rush hour?
Well, enough of me prattling on about my past. On to the news.
Samarra dam in danger
Monday, 18 June 2007
HAQ agency- exclusive
http://76news.net/eng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=295
HAQ news agency received from reliable sources from the city of Samarra that the American occupation forces today expelled all the workers and staff who work at the dam of Samarra.
The incoming news that only people exist in the place are the American soldiers who are now deployed between infantry over the dam and divers underneath.
Other news also reported that the occupation forces opened Dokan dam and allowed the water to flow since ten days.
Which is among the Samarra street said that the American forces are planning to blow up a disaster which is blowing up the Dam then stick the charge with the Iraqi resistance as it did with the Sarafya bridge and al-Nessur tunnel and others in other places, but this thing is different, because destroying Samarra bridge, which we pray to Allah to prevent them from doing that, as experts said will lead to a disaster which is causing the sinking of entire regions.
HAQ Agency has published before a news that said the occupation forces, from time to time, close the Samarra bridge pretext on existing of a VBIED on the dam and the experts confirmed that several VBIEDs (exploded cars) can not demolish the dam, unless they place explosions on its foundations, and The detonation of the dam will lead to the sinking of Baghdad.
Source of Dam security confirmed that American army divers constantly dive underneath.
Negroponte behind Samarra blast
Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:25:52
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=13435§ionid=351020201
Negroponte's Time In Honduras at Issue
Focus Renewed on Intelligence Pick's Knowledge of Death Squads in 1980s
By Michael Dobbs
Monday, March 21, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52001-2005Mar20.html
Iran-contra men return to power
Bush appointments tainted by Reagan-era scandal
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Monday August 20, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,539429,00.html
Fortunately, it happened on a back road with little traffic. Can you imagine the disruption if that had happened on a busy main road during rush hour?
Well, enough of me prattling on about my past. On to the news.
Samarra dam in danger
Monday, 18 June 2007
HAQ agency- exclusive
http://76news.net/eng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=295
HAQ news agency received from reliable sources from the city of Samarra that the American occupation forces today expelled all the workers and staff who work at the dam of Samarra.
The incoming news that only people exist in the place are the American soldiers who are now deployed between infantry over the dam and divers underneath.
Other news also reported that the occupation forces opened Dokan dam and allowed the water to flow since ten days.
Which is among the Samarra street said that the American forces are planning to blow up a disaster which is blowing up the Dam then stick the charge with the Iraqi resistance as it did with the Sarafya bridge and al-Nessur tunnel and others in other places, but this thing is different, because destroying Samarra bridge, which we pray to Allah to prevent them from doing that, as experts said will lead to a disaster which is causing the sinking of entire regions.
HAQ Agency has published before a news that said the occupation forces, from time to time, close the Samarra bridge pretext on existing of a VBIED on the dam and the experts confirmed that several VBIEDs (exploded cars) can not demolish the dam, unless they place explosions on its foundations, and The detonation of the dam will lead to the sinking of Baghdad.
Source of Dam security confirmed that American army divers constantly dive underneath.
Negroponte behind Samarra blast
Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:25:52
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=13435§ionid=351020201
Negroponte's Time In Honduras at Issue
Focus Renewed on Intelligence Pick's Knowledge of Death Squads in 1980s
By Michael Dobbs
Monday, March 21, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52001-2005Mar20.html
Iran-contra men return to power
Bush appointments tainted by Reagan-era scandal
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Monday August 20, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,539429,00.html
The Record of the Newspaper of Record
- by Stephen Lendman
6/20/07
Dictionaries define "yellow journalism" variously as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation and readership or serve a larger purpose like lying for state and corporate interests. The dominant US media excel in it, producing a daily diet of fiction portrayed as real news and information in their role as our national thought-control police gatekeepers. In the lead among the print and electronic corporate-controlled media is the New York Times publishing "All The News That's Fit To Print" by its standards. Others wanting real journalism won't find it on their pages allowing only the fake kind. It's because this paper's primary mission is to be the lead instrument of state propaganda making it the closest thing we have in the country to an official ministry of information and propaganda.
full story
6/20/07
Dictionaries define "yellow journalism" variously as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation and readership or serve a larger purpose like lying for state and corporate interests. The dominant US media excel in it, producing a daily diet of fiction portrayed as real news and information in their role as our national thought-control police gatekeepers. In the lead among the print and electronic corporate-controlled media is the New York Times publishing "All The News That's Fit To Print" by its standards. Others wanting real journalism won't find it on their pages allowing only the fake kind. It's because this paper's primary mission is to be the lead instrument of state propaganda making it the closest thing we have in the country to an official ministry of information and propaganda.
full story
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
idiot and insane
US states are re-evaluating who is unfit to vote
By Pam Belluck Published: June 19, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/19/news/vote.php
[...]
New Jersey may put on the November ballot an amendment to the state's constitution to replace language forbidding an "idiot or insane person" to vote....
My question is, how in the hell have republicans been able to vote in NJ all these years?
By Pam Belluck Published: June 19, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/19/news/vote.php
[...]
New Jersey may put on the November ballot an amendment to the state's constitution to replace language forbidding an "idiot or insane person" to vote....
My question is, how in the hell have republicans been able to vote in NJ all these years?
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Happy Father’s Day
enjoy the day, you fucks.
Millions of desperate Iraqis stream into Syria
By Hannah Allam
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sun, Jun. 17, 2007
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/world/17380478.htm
DAMASCUS, Syria - Nobody used the word "crisis" when the first wave of Iraqis fled the war and settled here. Most came with deep savings accounts and connections to well-placed Damascus businessmen.
The word didn't crop up when a second wave ushered in the Christians, whose clergy organized them into a vocal, cohesive bloc. Nor did it come into play with the villagers who were simply absorbed into remote desert communities because their tribes straddle the Syrian-Iraqi border.
But the word definitely applies now, as shell-shocked Iraqis of all backgrounds pour into Syria at the rate of nearly 1,000 a day. In fact, "crisis" may not be strong enough, as the flow of Iraqis becomes a torrent. At least 1.4 million are already here, according to the United Nations, each with a story of terror and trauma and a need for services that is stretching Syrians' patience. Many believe the number may be higher.
"What's their future, the 2 million Iraqis here? They can't work, they have to renew their residency cards, they live in poverty. It's an explosive situation," said Lourance Kamle, 32, a Syrian relief worker whose agency focuses on Iraqi refugees. "Make a war? Fine. And what comes after? The Americans should come here and see all these poor people because that's the result of their war."
Bush administration officials have long accused Syria of not doing enough to stop al-Qaida sympathizers from slipping into Iraq, but they barely mention the far larger number of Iraqis who cross the border in the other direction. The United States remains at the bottom of the list of countries that have accepted Iraqi refugees, though the State Department has promised to admit as many as 7,000 this year.
[…]
Sybella Wilkes, the U.N.'s regional spokeswoman on refugee issues, said that so far U.N. workers have registered 32,000 Sunnis, 19,000 Shiites, 19,000 Christians and 5,500 members of other faiths. But most refugees don't register; they just cross the border and focus on making it to the next day.
"This is our biggest operation in the world, and there's no camp setting to identify people easily," she said. "They disappear into the landscape, and some of them have very real protection needs."
On a recent day, Wilkes surveyed the throngs of Iraqis waiting for the registration tents to open. Most were women, signaling another batch of female-headed households. In most cases, she explained, the men have been kidnapped, killed or imprisoned. Their distraught wives are left with few options but to flee.
"No menfolk with them. All of these will probably be vulnerable cases," Wilkes predicted.
She was right. Of the 300 or so Iraqis who lined up early that day, many turned out to be the widows of assassinated husbands, the mothers of kidnapped sons and the orphans of bombing victims. They clutched death certificates and photos of their deceased or missing relatives. Collectively, they'd lost enough men to fill a graveyard.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Wall Street Journal's Looking Glass World
- by Stephen Lendman
6/8/07
She's at it again on the Journal's editorial page in her June 4 article called "The Young and the Restless," subtitled "Is this the beginning of the end for Hugo Chavez?" The writer is self-styled Latin American expert Mary Anastasia O'Grady always getting top grades in vilification and disinformation but failing ones on regional knowledge and legitimate journalism.
This time she may have overstepped. Her article wreaks with disinformation, outright lies, and most disturbing of all - incendiary commentary straddling the tipping edge of inciting insurrection. She can get away with it because she represents elitist interests and the Journal's editorial view supporting the Bush administration's fixation on ousting Hugo Chavez by any means, including through violence. It doesn't matter that Chavez was just reelected again in December by a near two to one margin or that he's admired and loved by the great majority of Venezuelans. They're unperturbed and/or supportive of his shuttering RCTV's VHF Channel 2 overshadowing that issue being used as a pretext for suspicious violent street protests, mainly in Caracas. More on that below.
It's clear O'Grady will fit right in if the Journal's controlling Bancroft family succumbs to greed selling out to Rupert Murdock's wooing. That prospect's got Journal employees apoplectic. They're scrambling through their union seeking an alternate buyer willing to grant what Murdock never will - journalistic independence and what's left of the paper's tattered integrity. Those ideas are anathema to how he views journalism, and he's not shy saying it....
full article
6/8/07
She's at it again on the Journal's editorial page in her June 4 article called "The Young and the Restless," subtitled "Is this the beginning of the end for Hugo Chavez?" The writer is self-styled Latin American expert Mary Anastasia O'Grady always getting top grades in vilification and disinformation but failing ones on regional knowledge and legitimate journalism.
This time she may have overstepped. Her article wreaks with disinformation, outright lies, and most disturbing of all - incendiary commentary straddling the tipping edge of inciting insurrection. She can get away with it because she represents elitist interests and the Journal's editorial view supporting the Bush administration's fixation on ousting Hugo Chavez by any means, including through violence. It doesn't matter that Chavez was just reelected again in December by a near two to one margin or that he's admired and loved by the great majority of Venezuelans. They're unperturbed and/or supportive of his shuttering RCTV's VHF Channel 2 overshadowing that issue being used as a pretext for suspicious violent street protests, mainly in Caracas. More on that below.
It's clear O'Grady will fit right in if the Journal's controlling Bancroft family succumbs to greed selling out to Rupert Murdock's wooing. That prospect's got Journal employees apoplectic. They're scrambling through their union seeking an alternate buyer willing to grant what Murdock never will - journalistic independence and what's left of the paper's tattered integrity. Those ideas are anathema to how he views journalism, and he's not shy saying it....
full article
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Not for Freedom
By Charley Reese
June 5, 2007
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese364.html
I didn't watch any of the Memorial Day events on television. Memorial Day, it seems to me, should be only for the families of the dead. It's really impossible to remember someone we never knew.
Of course, these days Memorial Day gets larded with politics and pseudo-patriotism. It's nauseating to watch a bunch of actors, entertainers and politicians who never heard a gun fired in anger put on a maudlin performance as if they really gave a rat's toenail for the dead.
The fact is, war is started by old men who never go near the war, and wars are always fought by the young. The king of Belgium once noted that it takes 20 years of peace to produce a man and 20 seconds of war to destroy him. Think about that. All that a young human being is – intelligence, health, youth, education, knowledge, potential accomplishments – reduced to a bloody pile of broken bones and guts in an instant. They are strangers killing and being killed by strangers.
War is mass murder, and no doubt part of the degradation of the human species is the fact that starting with the War Between the States, the human toll of war has increased exponentially. It's ironic that wars take the healthiest and bravest, while the unhealthy and the cowardly manage to evade them.
Look at all the draft dodgers of the Vietnam Era who suddenly became war hawks as soon as they were too old to go. I've said it before: If I had children of war age, I would do everything in my power to dissuade them from joining the military.
The present war is a bad war. It is not being fought to protect freedom, let alone the American people. Poor Cindy Sheehan, who bravely protested the war, finally gave up. She felt betrayed by the Democrats, by the anti-war movement, but the saddest thing of all, she said, was that she finally faced the fact her son died for nothing.
And sad as it is to say, it's true. The politicians and some of the media chicken hawks like to fork the fertilizer talking about sacrifices for freedom (sacrifices most of them studiously avoid ever making), but it's just fertilizer.
Why did we go to war in Iraq? Because the president hated Saddam Hussein; because the Israeli lobby wanted us to; because the crazy neoconservatives had the insane idea that the Middle East could be democratized at the point of a gun; because oil companies and other corporations lusted for profit.
Missing is any threat to the safety and freedom of the United States, a threat no Iraqi ever made or ever had the capability of carrying out. So, if you don't want to say the kids are dying for nothing, you can say they are dying for Halliburton, for ExxonMobil, for the president's ego, for a cockamamie theory of a bunch of academics, for Israel, for money or for oil. What you cannot truthfully say is that they are dying for freedom.
The "global war on terror" is just a bad metaphor that doesn't have any connection to reality. How long are the American people going to allow liars to lull them into sacrificing the most precious treasure the country has – its youth – in a futile, lie-ridden, corruption-pocked war?
In my dreams, I see the American people rising like a roaring lion and ripping the guilty politicians out of their offices, but that is only a dream. The kind of people with the courage to do that lie moldering in millions of graves around the world.
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.
June 5, 2007
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese364.html
I didn't watch any of the Memorial Day events on television. Memorial Day, it seems to me, should be only for the families of the dead. It's really impossible to remember someone we never knew.
Of course, these days Memorial Day gets larded with politics and pseudo-patriotism. It's nauseating to watch a bunch of actors, entertainers and politicians who never heard a gun fired in anger put on a maudlin performance as if they really gave a rat's toenail for the dead.
The fact is, war is started by old men who never go near the war, and wars are always fought by the young. The king of Belgium once noted that it takes 20 years of peace to produce a man and 20 seconds of war to destroy him. Think about that. All that a young human being is – intelligence, health, youth, education, knowledge, potential accomplishments – reduced to a bloody pile of broken bones and guts in an instant. They are strangers killing and being killed by strangers.
War is mass murder, and no doubt part of the degradation of the human species is the fact that starting with the War Between the States, the human toll of war has increased exponentially. It's ironic that wars take the healthiest and bravest, while the unhealthy and the cowardly manage to evade them.
Look at all the draft dodgers of the Vietnam Era who suddenly became war hawks as soon as they were too old to go. I've said it before: If I had children of war age, I would do everything in my power to dissuade them from joining the military.
The present war is a bad war. It is not being fought to protect freedom, let alone the American people. Poor Cindy Sheehan, who bravely protested the war, finally gave up. She felt betrayed by the Democrats, by the anti-war movement, but the saddest thing of all, she said, was that she finally faced the fact her son died for nothing.
And sad as it is to say, it's true. The politicians and some of the media chicken hawks like to fork the fertilizer talking about sacrifices for freedom (sacrifices most of them studiously avoid ever making), but it's just fertilizer.
Why did we go to war in Iraq? Because the president hated Saddam Hussein; because the Israeli lobby wanted us to; because the crazy neoconservatives had the insane idea that the Middle East could be democratized at the point of a gun; because oil companies and other corporations lusted for profit.
Missing is any threat to the safety and freedom of the United States, a threat no Iraqi ever made or ever had the capability of carrying out. So, if you don't want to say the kids are dying for nothing, you can say they are dying for Halliburton, for ExxonMobil, for the president's ego, for a cockamamie theory of a bunch of academics, for Israel, for money or for oil. What you cannot truthfully say is that they are dying for freedom.
The "global war on terror" is just a bad metaphor that doesn't have any connection to reality. How long are the American people going to allow liars to lull them into sacrificing the most precious treasure the country has – its youth – in a futile, lie-ridden, corruption-pocked war?
In my dreams, I see the American people rising like a roaring lion and ripping the guilty politicians out of their offices, but that is only a dream. The kind of people with the courage to do that lie moldering in millions of graves around the world.
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.
Resource Wars - Can We Survive Them?
- by Stephen Lendman
6/6/07
Near the end of WW II, Franklin Roosevelt met with Saudi King ibn Saud on the USS Quincy. It began a six decade relationship guaranteeing US access to what his State Department called a "stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history" - the region's oil and huge amount of it in Saudi Arabia. Today, the Middle East has two-thirds of the world's proved oil reserves (around 675 billion barrels) and the Caspian basin an estimated 270 billion barrels more plus one-eighth of the world's natural gas reserves. It explains a lot about why we're at war with Iraq and Afghanistan and plan maintaining control over both countries. We want a permanent military presence in them aimed at controlling both regions' proved energy reserves with puppet regimes, masquerading as democracies, beholden to Washington as client states. They're in place to observe what their ousted predecessors ignored: the rules of imperial management, especially Rule One - we're boss and what we say goes.
The Bush administration is "boss" writ large. It intends ruling the world by force, saying so in its National Security Strategy (NSS) in 2002, then updated in even stronger terms in 2006. It plainly states our newly claimed sovereign right allowed no other country - the right to wage preventive wars against perceived threats or any nations daring to challenge our status as lord and master of the universe. Key to the strategy is controlling the world's energy reserves starting with the Middle East and Central Asia's vast amount outside Russia and China with enough military strength to control their own, at least for now. These resources give us veto power over which nations will or won't get them and assures Big Oil gets the lion's share of the profits.
In Iraq, the new "Hydrocarbon Law," if it passes the puppet parliament, is a shameless scheme to rape and plunder the country's oil treasure. It's a blueprint for privatization giving foreign investors (meaning US and UK mainly) a bonanza of resources, leaving Iraqis a sliver for themselves. Its complex provisions give the Iraqi National Oil Company exclusive control of just 17 of the country's 80 known oil fields with all yet-to-be-discovered deposits set aside for foreign investors. It's even worse with Big Oil free to expropriate all earnings with no obligation to invest anything in Iraq's economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share new technologies. Foreign investors would be granted long-term contracts up to 35 years, dispossessing Iraq of its own resources in a scheme to steal them.
That's what launched our road to war in 1991 having nothing to do with Saddam threatening anyone. It hasn't stopped since. The Bush (preventive war) Doctrine spelled out our intentions in June, 2002. It then became NSS policy in September getting us directly embroiled in the Middle East and Central Asia and indirectly with proxy forces in countries like Somalia so other oil-rich African nations (like Sudan) get the message either accede to our will or you're next in the target queue.
With the world's energy supplies finite, the US heavily dependent on imports, and "peak oil" near or approaching, "security" for America means assuring a sustainable supply of what we can't do without. It includes waging wars to get it, protect it, and defend the maritime trade routes over which it travels. That means energy's partnered with predatory New World Order globalization, militarism, wars, ecological recklessness, and now an extremist US administration willing to risk Armageddon for world dominance. Central to its plan is first controlling essential resources everywhere, at any cost, starting with oil and where most of it is located in the Middle East and Central Asia...
full article
6/6/07
Near the end of WW II, Franklin Roosevelt met with Saudi King ibn Saud on the USS Quincy. It began a six decade relationship guaranteeing US access to what his State Department called a "stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history" - the region's oil and huge amount of it in Saudi Arabia. Today, the Middle East has two-thirds of the world's proved oil reserves (around 675 billion barrels) and the Caspian basin an estimated 270 billion barrels more plus one-eighth of the world's natural gas reserves. It explains a lot about why we're at war with Iraq and Afghanistan and plan maintaining control over both countries. We want a permanent military presence in them aimed at controlling both regions' proved energy reserves with puppet regimes, masquerading as democracies, beholden to Washington as client states. They're in place to observe what their ousted predecessors ignored: the rules of imperial management, especially Rule One - we're boss and what we say goes.
The Bush administration is "boss" writ large. It intends ruling the world by force, saying so in its National Security Strategy (NSS) in 2002, then updated in even stronger terms in 2006. It plainly states our newly claimed sovereign right allowed no other country - the right to wage preventive wars against perceived threats or any nations daring to challenge our status as lord and master of the universe. Key to the strategy is controlling the world's energy reserves starting with the Middle East and Central Asia's vast amount outside Russia and China with enough military strength to control their own, at least for now. These resources give us veto power over which nations will or won't get them and assures Big Oil gets the lion's share of the profits.
In Iraq, the new "Hydrocarbon Law," if it passes the puppet parliament, is a shameless scheme to rape and plunder the country's oil treasure. It's a blueprint for privatization giving foreign investors (meaning US and UK mainly) a bonanza of resources, leaving Iraqis a sliver for themselves. Its complex provisions give the Iraqi National Oil Company exclusive control of just 17 of the country's 80 known oil fields with all yet-to-be-discovered deposits set aside for foreign investors. It's even worse with Big Oil free to expropriate all earnings with no obligation to invest anything in Iraq's economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share new technologies. Foreign investors would be granted long-term contracts up to 35 years, dispossessing Iraq of its own resources in a scheme to steal them.
That's what launched our road to war in 1991 having nothing to do with Saddam threatening anyone. It hasn't stopped since. The Bush (preventive war) Doctrine spelled out our intentions in June, 2002. It then became NSS policy in September getting us directly embroiled in the Middle East and Central Asia and indirectly with proxy forces in countries like Somalia so other oil-rich African nations (like Sudan) get the message either accede to our will or you're next in the target queue.
With the world's energy supplies finite, the US heavily dependent on imports, and "peak oil" near or approaching, "security" for America means assuring a sustainable supply of what we can't do without. It includes waging wars to get it, protect it, and defend the maritime trade routes over which it travels. That means energy's partnered with predatory New World Order globalization, militarism, wars, ecological recklessness, and now an extremist US administration willing to risk Armageddon for world dominance. Central to its plan is first controlling essential resources everywhere, at any cost, starting with oil and where most of it is located in the Middle East and Central Asia...
full article
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Even Plan B Doesn't Look Promising in Failed State of Iraq
Ambassador Gerald B. Helman
6/05/2007
http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/helman-guest-op-ed-even-plan-b-doesnt.html
There are continuing reports, seemingly based upon authoritative backgrounding out of Baghdad and Washington, suggesting that variations on a "Plan B" are being developed. While support continues to be voiced for the current "surge", doubt is beginning to be expressed even by military and White House officials that a confident evaluation of the surge is unlikely by the promised deadline of September. It may take longer, perhaps to the end of the year. General Odierno was quite forceful in insisting that a serious evaluation cannot be made until January.
From the military point of view, the surge is evidently not producing the desired results of improving security in Baghdad, and is unlikely to do so under current plans and force levels. After an initial slight lull, the level of violence is back up to pre-surge levels, and then some in the case of US deaths. The political component of the surge, the overriding importance of which has been underscored by General Petraeus, is also stalled. It has failed to bring about any significant reconciliation between contending Iraqi factions nor has it led to progress on key legislation, the adoption of which is supposed to lead to a more stable political environment.
For domestic political consumption, the White House seems to be addressing all of this, at least for now, through its familiar tactics of pushing out the time when success can be expected (originally it was six months from the initiation of the surge, then September sometime) and dampening expectations by predicting the obvious--increased US casualties. In other words, things will get worse before they get better.
Meanwhile, work on a Plan B continues, with the options apparently ranging from elements of the Iraq Study Group Report (reduce US forces, concentrate on training the Iraqi army and force protection and continuing interdiction of al Qaeda) to variations on partition. Most recently, the President and others have suggested establishing a long-term US military base presence in Iraq to provide local and regional stability, citing as an example the continuing US military presence in Korea. (This example is so inept historically and strategically as to cast further doubt on the competence and strategic objectives of the Administration.) Presumably the bases are the three huge installations the Pentagon built a while ago with permanency in mind.
Much of the Plan B planning, as reported, seems to be the product of wishful thinking about the current situation today in Iraq and what realistic options might exist in the 6 months ahead, and beyond leading to U.S. elections. To this observer, given the history of our performance in Iraq, any new plan must be subjected to early and very critical evaluation.
Politically, Iraq today is a failed state. Its writ runs only through part of the Green Zone. It cannot control the use of force domestically nor can it protect its frontiers. Its continuing existence depends upon the US. The US is the occupying power and provides significant financing and what little security exists outside the Green Zone. Baghdad and the rest of the country are under the control of warring factions and militias. Corruption is endemic and overwhelming. The loyalties of the police and army are as suspect as their professional competence. How will any plan B change that? How will the existence of large, permanent US bases in Iraq help the present Government expand its authority and gain legitimacy?
Militarily, it is important to project what might happen if, in six months, the US implements a Plan B whose principal elements consist of a troop drawdown to 100,000 in 2008, dedicated to Iraqi army training, force protection and al Qaeda interdiction. But is there any reason to hope that in six months' time the Iraqi army will stand tall and demonstrate the competence that the surge was designed to showcase? That the police will be anything other than hopeless? That their loyalties will be directed to their elected government? None of this is very likely, in which case what happens to the US presence in the Green Zone and, indeed, to the Iraqi government that is pretty much confined to the Green Zone? What reason is there to think that a new training regimen, presumably with embedded US trainers (who will be very vulnerable), will be any more successful than what has passed for training during much of the last four years. Will it really take large numbers of US troops in three permanent bases to chase down 1-2,000 Al Qaeda? Should it really be the job of the US to defend Iraq against foreign invasions? And who is about to invade (except for maybe the Turks to punish the Kurds)?
To this observer, there is nothing in the suggested Plan B, even if in part based on the Iraq Study Group Report, that would recommend it as an alternative to an announced, scheduled withdrawal from Iraq, that could also incorporate the elements of the Study Group report. Such a schedule would have the virtue of forcing the contending factions in Iraq, and Iraq's neighbors, to face up to their responsibilities to find a political accommodation, or to face the consequences of their (and our) failures. This is not rocket science; it's hardball politics in which the US is just one of the pawns that various Iraqi factions are trying to manipulate.
But there remains the question of the permanent bases, a concept now being floated by the Administration but one which must have been in the minds of the White House and our military planners from the time when these massive installations were first projected. Congress should probe this one very carefully and insist that the Administration's plans should be on the public record. Whatever their purposes, and certainly there has been little candor on the part of the Administration as to what these are, the bases will never be accepted either by the Iraqi people, of whatever faction (except the Kurds). It will violate every concept of independence, national pride and Arab identity that have been the hallmarks of the post-colonial period. Any Iraqi government that supported it would not only fail, but would be despised. Such bases might have the dubious benefit of uniting all Iraqis in opposition. Only a US Administration that expected to be greeted with flowers by the Iraqis could convince itself that those same Iraqis will tolerate such bases and that such bases could survive in hostile territory, with long and endangered supply lines.
Not to be forgotten is that a delay in evaluating the surge, much less the kind of Plan B that seems to be emerging, will impact the domestic political process. There is restiveness in the Republican ranks. The polls are clear that a growing majority of Americans want out. The Republican establishment realizes full well that if the current level of violence continues into next year, with US deaths approaching 5,000 by November 2008, then the GOP will suffer a disastrous defeat in November. Moreover, the Democrats are unlikely to be as accommodating as they were with the last supplemental. It is the budget, and the need to continue financing the war, that will constitute the center of the debate beginning in September. Republicans up for reelection in '08 will have to fish or cut bait on Iraq. As for Mr. Bush, he still seems to be on track to hand over the entire mess to his successor, including his permanent bases.
Helman "was United States Ambassador to the European Office of the United Nations from 1979 through 1981" and was among the coiners of the phrase "failed states."
6/05/2007
http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/helman-guest-op-ed-even-plan-b-doesnt.html
There are continuing reports, seemingly based upon authoritative backgrounding out of Baghdad and Washington, suggesting that variations on a "Plan B" are being developed. While support continues to be voiced for the current "surge", doubt is beginning to be expressed even by military and White House officials that a confident evaluation of the surge is unlikely by the promised deadline of September. It may take longer, perhaps to the end of the year. General Odierno was quite forceful in insisting that a serious evaluation cannot be made until January.
From the military point of view, the surge is evidently not producing the desired results of improving security in Baghdad, and is unlikely to do so under current plans and force levels. After an initial slight lull, the level of violence is back up to pre-surge levels, and then some in the case of US deaths. The political component of the surge, the overriding importance of which has been underscored by General Petraeus, is also stalled. It has failed to bring about any significant reconciliation between contending Iraqi factions nor has it led to progress on key legislation, the adoption of which is supposed to lead to a more stable political environment.
For domestic political consumption, the White House seems to be addressing all of this, at least for now, through its familiar tactics of pushing out the time when success can be expected (originally it was six months from the initiation of the surge, then September sometime) and dampening expectations by predicting the obvious--increased US casualties. In other words, things will get worse before they get better.
Meanwhile, work on a Plan B continues, with the options apparently ranging from elements of the Iraq Study Group Report (reduce US forces, concentrate on training the Iraqi army and force protection and continuing interdiction of al Qaeda) to variations on partition. Most recently, the President and others have suggested establishing a long-term US military base presence in Iraq to provide local and regional stability, citing as an example the continuing US military presence in Korea. (This example is so inept historically and strategically as to cast further doubt on the competence and strategic objectives of the Administration.) Presumably the bases are the three huge installations the Pentagon built a while ago with permanency in mind.
Much of the Plan B planning, as reported, seems to be the product of wishful thinking about the current situation today in Iraq and what realistic options might exist in the 6 months ahead, and beyond leading to U.S. elections. To this observer, given the history of our performance in Iraq, any new plan must be subjected to early and very critical evaluation.
Politically, Iraq today is a failed state. Its writ runs only through part of the Green Zone. It cannot control the use of force domestically nor can it protect its frontiers. Its continuing existence depends upon the US. The US is the occupying power and provides significant financing and what little security exists outside the Green Zone. Baghdad and the rest of the country are under the control of warring factions and militias. Corruption is endemic and overwhelming. The loyalties of the police and army are as suspect as their professional competence. How will any plan B change that? How will the existence of large, permanent US bases in Iraq help the present Government expand its authority and gain legitimacy?
Militarily, it is important to project what might happen if, in six months, the US implements a Plan B whose principal elements consist of a troop drawdown to 100,000 in 2008, dedicated to Iraqi army training, force protection and al Qaeda interdiction. But is there any reason to hope that in six months' time the Iraqi army will stand tall and demonstrate the competence that the surge was designed to showcase? That the police will be anything other than hopeless? That their loyalties will be directed to their elected government? None of this is very likely, in which case what happens to the US presence in the Green Zone and, indeed, to the Iraqi government that is pretty much confined to the Green Zone? What reason is there to think that a new training regimen, presumably with embedded US trainers (who will be very vulnerable), will be any more successful than what has passed for training during much of the last four years. Will it really take large numbers of US troops in three permanent bases to chase down 1-2,000 Al Qaeda? Should it really be the job of the US to defend Iraq against foreign invasions? And who is about to invade (except for maybe the Turks to punish the Kurds)?
To this observer, there is nothing in the suggested Plan B, even if in part based on the Iraq Study Group Report, that would recommend it as an alternative to an announced, scheduled withdrawal from Iraq, that could also incorporate the elements of the Study Group report. Such a schedule would have the virtue of forcing the contending factions in Iraq, and Iraq's neighbors, to face up to their responsibilities to find a political accommodation, or to face the consequences of their (and our) failures. This is not rocket science; it's hardball politics in which the US is just one of the pawns that various Iraqi factions are trying to manipulate.
But there remains the question of the permanent bases, a concept now being floated by the Administration but one which must have been in the minds of the White House and our military planners from the time when these massive installations were first projected. Congress should probe this one very carefully and insist that the Administration's plans should be on the public record. Whatever their purposes, and certainly there has been little candor on the part of the Administration as to what these are, the bases will never be accepted either by the Iraqi people, of whatever faction (except the Kurds). It will violate every concept of independence, national pride and Arab identity that have been the hallmarks of the post-colonial period. Any Iraqi government that supported it would not only fail, but would be despised. Such bases might have the dubious benefit of uniting all Iraqis in opposition. Only a US Administration that expected to be greeted with flowers by the Iraqis could convince itself that those same Iraqis will tolerate such bases and that such bases could survive in hostile territory, with long and endangered supply lines.
Not to be forgotten is that a delay in evaluating the surge, much less the kind of Plan B that seems to be emerging, will impact the domestic political process. There is restiveness in the Republican ranks. The polls are clear that a growing majority of Americans want out. The Republican establishment realizes full well that if the current level of violence continues into next year, with US deaths approaching 5,000 by November 2008, then the GOP will suffer a disastrous defeat in November. Moreover, the Democrats are unlikely to be as accommodating as they were with the last supplemental. It is the budget, and the need to continue financing the war, that will constitute the center of the debate beginning in September. Republicans up for reelection in '08 will have to fish or cut bait on Iraq. As for Mr. Bush, he still seems to be on track to hand over the entire mess to his successor, including his permanent bases.
Helman "was United States Ambassador to the European Office of the United Nations from 1979 through 1981" and was among the coiners of the phrase "failed states."
Monday, June 04, 2007
Kangaroo courts at risk in Guantanamo
Monday, June 04, 2007
http://www.leninology.blogspot.com/
Bush's policy of military tribunals for detainees in Guantanamo - we would be barbaric to say 'suspects', since most of them don't appear to be suspected of anything specific - has hit a welcome legal blockage. The ruling dismissing charges in Omar Ahmad Khadr's case, which stated that the whole procedure is flawed, came from a US army colonel appointed to oversee one of the tribunals. That means it's serious, or so I'd guess. The "flaw" is that "Congress authorized charges only against detainees who had been determined to be unlawful enemy combatant". However, "the military here has determined only that Khadr was an enemy combatant. Military lawyers said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here."
None of the detainees have been found to be "unlawful" enemy combatants. I expect that Camp Delta (née X-Ray) will be wound up at some point in the distant future, since it is not the main focus of detention policy, despite being the most visible. All evidence to date points to it being an indefinite holding pen for small fry, and people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, as well as a very visible form of intimidation. When the US doesn't kill any senior Al Qaeda leaders that it can find, it claims to detain them in unknown locations apart from Guantanamo. (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for instance, spent only six months in Guantanamo - reportedly - and his location is kept secret, even now that he has confessed to everything from the murder of Thomas Becket to the framing of Martha Stewart.) Of course, one shouldn't underestimate the ability of the Bush administration to organise a reversal. An earlier ruling from a US district court insisting that detainees should be protected by the constitution if there was any doubt as to their 'unlawful' status was thrown out by a three judge panel including one John Roberts, whom Bush appointed to the Supreme Court the following week. The Republicans are particularly adept at this kind of thing. Yet, the networks of secret prisons and rendition points are probably far more valuable to them than the gulag in Guantanamo, which even the bumpkin billionaire Thomas Friedman thinks is an "embarrassment".
Huge setback to Bush's military tribunals at Guantánamo
By William Glaberson
Monday, June 4, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/04/news/gitmo.php
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba: A military judge here Monday dismissed war crimes charges against a Canadian prisoner, saying there was a flaw in the procedure that the military has used to file such charges against Guantánamo detainees.
The ruling in the case of Omar Ahmed Khadr will probably stall the military's war-crimes prosecutions and there were immediate calls from critics for Congress to re-examine the legal system it set up last year for the war-crimes trials by military commissions.
The military judge, a U.S. Army colonel, said that Congress authorized charges only against detainees who had been determined to be unlawful enemy combatants, but that the military here has determined only that Khadr was an enemy combatant. Military lawyers said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here.
The ruling will not free Khadr, who is accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, and the military prosecutors are permitted to re-file their murder and terrorism charges against him. But the ruling appeared to raise far-reaching questions about the future of the legal proceedings because it involved central principles of detention procedures.
The military judge, Peter Brownback, said that the military commission lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case against Khadr because he was not designated an "unlawful" enemy combatant by an earlier military hearing that considered whether he was properly held at Guantánamo.
"A person has a right to be tried only by a court which he knows has jurisdiction over him," Brownback said from the bench in the military courtroom.
Under directives from President George W. Bush and senior Defense Department officials, military officials have held detainees after finding simply that they were "enemy combatants."
Those procedures have long drawn criticism, with some opponents of the administration's policies saying they appeared to ignore principles of the international law of war that permit the violence of battle without classifying it as a war crime.
Brownback said a provision of the law Congress passed last year permitted a commission to hear a war crimes case only if a prior hearing - known as a combatant status review tribunal - had determined that a prisoner was an "unlawful enemy combatant."
Without the additional finding that Khadr was an unlawful combatant, the judge said, the military commission lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case. The military judge acted on his own, with no request from the defense.
The chief of the military defense attorneys at Guantánamo Bay, Dwight Sullivan, a U.S. Marine colonel, said the ruling could spell the end of the war-crimes trial system set up last year by Congress and Bush after the Supreme Court threw out the previous system, The Associated Press reported from Guantánamo.
Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan and who is now 20, will remain at the U.S. military base along with about 380 other men suspected of links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Sullivan said that the dismissal would have a "huge" impact because none of the detainees had been found to be an "unlawful" enemy combatant. "It is not just a technicality. It's the latest demonstration that this newest system just does not work," Sullivan said. "It is a system of justice that does not comport with American values."
Sullivan said that to reclassify the prisoners as "unlawful" combatants, the whole review system would have to be overhauled, a time-consuming act.
The new system gives prosecutors 72 hours to appeal, but the court designated to hear the appeal - known as the court of military commissions review - does not even exist, Sullivan said.
Sullivan said that the judge hearing the case of the only other Guantánamo detainee charged with crimes was not bound by Brownback's ruling, but that he expected the same decision.
The other detainee is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who is accused of chauffeuring Osama bin Laden and of being the Qaeda chief's bodyguard.
The only other detainee charged under the new system, David Hicks of Australia, pleaded guilty in March to providing material support to Al Qaeda and is serving a nine-month sentence in Australia.
http://www.leninology.blogspot.com/
Bush's policy of military tribunals for detainees in Guantanamo - we would be barbaric to say 'suspects', since most of them don't appear to be suspected of anything specific - has hit a welcome legal blockage. The ruling dismissing charges in Omar Ahmad Khadr's case, which stated that the whole procedure is flawed, came from a US army colonel appointed to oversee one of the tribunals. That means it's serious, or so I'd guess. The "flaw" is that "Congress authorized charges only against detainees who had been determined to be unlawful enemy combatant". However, "the military here has determined only that Khadr was an enemy combatant. Military lawyers said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here."
None of the detainees have been found to be "unlawful" enemy combatants. I expect that Camp Delta (née X-Ray) will be wound up at some point in the distant future, since it is not the main focus of detention policy, despite being the most visible. All evidence to date points to it being an indefinite holding pen for small fry, and people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, as well as a very visible form of intimidation. When the US doesn't kill any senior Al Qaeda leaders that it can find, it claims to detain them in unknown locations apart from Guantanamo. (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for instance, spent only six months in Guantanamo - reportedly - and his location is kept secret, even now that he has confessed to everything from the murder of Thomas Becket to the framing of Martha Stewart.) Of course, one shouldn't underestimate the ability of the Bush administration to organise a reversal. An earlier ruling from a US district court insisting that detainees should be protected by the constitution if there was any doubt as to their 'unlawful' status was thrown out by a three judge panel including one John Roberts, whom Bush appointed to the Supreme Court the following week. The Republicans are particularly adept at this kind of thing. Yet, the networks of secret prisons and rendition points are probably far more valuable to them than the gulag in Guantanamo, which even the bumpkin billionaire Thomas Friedman thinks is an "embarrassment".
Huge setback to Bush's military tribunals at Guantánamo
By William Glaberson
Monday, June 4, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/04/news/gitmo.php
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba: A military judge here Monday dismissed war crimes charges against a Canadian prisoner, saying there was a flaw in the procedure that the military has used to file such charges against Guantánamo detainees.
The ruling in the case of Omar Ahmed Khadr will probably stall the military's war-crimes prosecutions and there were immediate calls from critics for Congress to re-examine the legal system it set up last year for the war-crimes trials by military commissions.
The military judge, a U.S. Army colonel, said that Congress authorized charges only against detainees who had been determined to be unlawful enemy combatants, but that the military here has determined only that Khadr was an enemy combatant. Military lawyers said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here.
The ruling will not free Khadr, who is accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, and the military prosecutors are permitted to re-file their murder and terrorism charges against him. But the ruling appeared to raise far-reaching questions about the future of the legal proceedings because it involved central principles of detention procedures.
The military judge, Peter Brownback, said that the military commission lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case against Khadr because he was not designated an "unlawful" enemy combatant by an earlier military hearing that considered whether he was properly held at Guantánamo.
"A person has a right to be tried only by a court which he knows has jurisdiction over him," Brownback said from the bench in the military courtroom.
Under directives from President George W. Bush and senior Defense Department officials, military officials have held detainees after finding simply that they were "enemy combatants."
Those procedures have long drawn criticism, with some opponents of the administration's policies saying they appeared to ignore principles of the international law of war that permit the violence of battle without classifying it as a war crime.
Brownback said a provision of the law Congress passed last year permitted a commission to hear a war crimes case only if a prior hearing - known as a combatant status review tribunal - had determined that a prisoner was an "unlawful enemy combatant."
Without the additional finding that Khadr was an unlawful combatant, the judge said, the military commission lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case. The military judge acted on his own, with no request from the defense.
The chief of the military defense attorneys at Guantánamo Bay, Dwight Sullivan, a U.S. Marine colonel, said the ruling could spell the end of the war-crimes trial system set up last year by Congress and Bush after the Supreme Court threw out the previous system, The Associated Press reported from Guantánamo.
Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan and who is now 20, will remain at the U.S. military base along with about 380 other men suspected of links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Sullivan said that the dismissal would have a "huge" impact because none of the detainees had been found to be an "unlawful" enemy combatant. "It is not just a technicality. It's the latest demonstration that this newest system just does not work," Sullivan said. "It is a system of justice that does not comport with American values."
Sullivan said that to reclassify the prisoners as "unlawful" combatants, the whole review system would have to be overhauled, a time-consuming act.
The new system gives prosecutors 72 hours to appeal, but the court designated to hear the appeal - known as the court of military commissions review - does not even exist, Sullivan said.
Sullivan said that the judge hearing the case of the only other Guantánamo detainee charged with crimes was not bound by Brownback's ruling, but that he expected the same decision.
The other detainee is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who is accused of chauffeuring Osama bin Laden and of being the Qaeda chief's bodyguard.
The only other detainee charged under the new system, David Hicks of Australia, pleaded guilty in March to providing material support to Al Qaeda and is serving a nine-month sentence in Australia.
All They Have Is Each Other
By Sheila Samples
6/4/07
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."
- Dante
Okay. Let's talk about troops. Everybody's doing it. We're bombarded round-the-clock with "support the troops...fund the troops...bring the troops home...surge the troops...use the troops for Commander Guy photo ops..." Congress is embroiled in a ghoulish "troop" food fight that has gone on far too long. Democrats say Republicans demoralize and dishonor the troops by sending them into an unwinnable war built on lies. Republicans counter that, by suggesting the war is lost, Democrats demoralize and dishonor the troops by calling them "losers."
Losers? Oh, yes. Big time. The men and women who wear this nation's uniform are losers every day, in every way. They are not only demoralized and dishonored, but are dehumanized by a diabolical den of dimwits whose eyes never waver from the 2008 prize, and who view "troops" as a faceless mass of political capital to be spent toward winning that prize. Their deserter commander-in-chief and his chickenhawk minions are very careful to call military personnel "troops," lest they assume human form and enter the slumbering masses' consciousness -- a vacuous pit otherwise known as the "dead zone."
Killing the Troops
On Armed Forces Day, May 19, eight soldiers were blown to bits by roadside bombs in Iraq -- a total of 15 for the weekend, which brought the casualty toll since the March 2003 invasion to 3,419. As the troops lay dead and dying, body parts scattered amidst the explosive ruin in a foreign land, their president took to the airwaves to somberly discuss...how to make life easier for illegal immigrants here at home. Less than a week later, as Bush and the press were bobbing and weaving in the Rose Garden, the number of dead troops rose to 3,432, a day later to 3,444 and, finally, on May 26 -- two days before Memorial day -- to 3,455.
That's 36 American men and women, most under the age of 30, lost in one week. Lost forever. On Memorial Day, as Bush yet again disgraced the hallowed ground of Arlington National Cemetery with more babbling about how his will cannot be broken and the only way to honor the dead troops is to complete his "mish-shun," eight American troops were slain in a Baghdad roadside explosion, another in an explosion near Tahir, two perished in a helicopter crash, and five British troops were kidnapped. It's difficult to keep up, but the total now stands at 3,467. No, 3,471. No, 3,474. No, 3,480. No, 3,495.
God, I can't keep up with the numbers. It's impossible to do the math -- to stay abreast of the burgeoning number of precious human beings who were lied into a death trap and who return to orphans, widows, and parents physically maimed, psychologically deranged or as neatly folded US Flags. There is no evidence that Bush knows, or cares, that 633 soldiers and marines have been brutally wiped off the face of the earth since he was given the Iraq Study Group report, then strutted off like a college kid on Christmas break to "decide" whether to pull the troops out of the trap or to keep using them as bait. We knew, and Congress knew, what his decision would be -- and what it was -- more troops.
Betraying the Troops
The surge has been quietly ongoing since then, in spite of angry shouts from the American people -- shouts that fell on deaf ears not only in the Oval Office, but throughout the Congress. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid caved to Bush's demands, while vowing to come back in September and "hold the president to account." Reid announced with bowed head, "We will never, ever, ever, ever give in to this president." Then he gave in.
Sad. There is no honor in a nation whose leaders are given the power to choose life or death for their fellow citizens held captive in an illegal, treasonous, bloody occupation -- and choose death. What do you do after betraying those who elected you -- trusted you -- to stem the needless flow of American blood? Do you dash off to Greenland to check on the climate, or do you stand in the well of the Senate, eyes downcast, with your tail between your legs?
It doesn't matter. They knew what they were doing -- extending tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months, sending other troops back for second and third tours -- weary, wounded and disheartened. They had the purse strings, the Constitutional power, and the mandate of the American people to bring Bush's madness to a screeching halt -- to save the lives of those citizens he daily condemns to death.
They chose, instead, to back down. They chose to allow Bush -- as Texas commentator Jim Hightower said -- to stick the troops in another country's vicious civil war. "They're under attack from every direction by every faction, every hour of every day," Hightower wrote, "hit by car bombs, roadside bombs, chlorine bombs, IEDs, suicide bombs, rocket fire, mortar rounds, snipers, and assassins. There is no safety in Iraq."
The legislators who voted to fund Bush's folly until September were casting votes of betrayal. Nothing will change in September. A second surge, sans the initial fanfare, is underway that could double the number of troops in Iraq by December, bringing the total to more than 200,000. We can disregard December if we are to believe CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre, who reported on Memorial Day that "no major troop reductions are planned until at least January 2009."
We can also disregard January 2009. According to Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there is no plan to even plan withdrawal of troops. "We do have ongoing replacements of forces, and we do change the size of the force over time so that that system is available to either plus-up or draw down," Pace told the Senate in early May, "but we have published no orders saying come up with a complete plan for total drawdown." However, Pace did say they planned to maintain a series of military installations for a long period of time -- maybe a few decades...
You'd think as a minimum, the top military brass and the troops' commander-in-chief would know at any given moment exactly how many lives were lost in their war. However, the only thing Bush knows is that he "grieves 'n mourns" for the heroes who "give their lives" for his mission. Numbers aren't important. What's important to Bush is that he "pre-shates" their sacrifice. And Pace, who monitors the number of gays wearing the hetero-military uniform, commented last week that we lost "nearly 3,000 Americans on 9-11," and then warned we are "getting close" to losing that many troops in Iraq.
Actually, Pete, we are losing three or more American men and women every single day. It's six months -- 180 days -- 540 dead troops until December. It's 18 months -- 545 days --1,635 dead troops until January 2009. How many days -- how many dead troops -- are there in a "few decades"? You do the math.
Supporting the Troops
George Bush and the corporate war profiteers have blanketed the landscape of the entire country with yellow ribbon. "Support the Troops" is non-sequitural double think -- a psyops tool cleverly used by both Republicans and Democrats to desensitize and control the slobbering masses. It means you are anti-American if you scream in pain each time a soldier or marine is killed -- innocent Iraqis are massacred. It means shut the hell up and support whatever deranged blather comes out of Bush's mouth, even if we must sacrifice our sons and daughters on his killing fields.
So many of them died in vain.
In Feb. 2005, the Marines sent a "priority 1 urgent" request for more than 1,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. In spite of the MRAP's proven ability to withstand blasts from IEDs and to save lives, it was 21 months (Nov. 2006) before this urgent plea was acted upon. After a few MRAPs trickled into the area and their life-saving value was recognized, both the Army and Marines requested as many as 18,000 to replace the totally inadequate humvees. Although Defense Secretary Robert Gates "talked the talk" that the MRAP is the Pentagon's "highest priority" new gear buy, until the Pentagon "walks the walk," Americans will continue to be slaughtered by the ever-present IEDs.
Supporting the troops is ensuring they have sufficient equipment and materiel in order to survive, and providing the proper care for the wounded and maimed when they return. This type of support is not a high priority with the Bush administration. In addition to forcing soldiers to dig through scrap piles for metal to reinforce vehicles, injured troops are billed for damaged or lost body armor, charged for food while in the hospital and routinely have their pension benefits cut. Because of Bush's brand of support, troops are faced not only with having to deal with the traumatic reality of their injuries, but most of them face financial ruin as well.
Bush has relentlessly fought supporting the troops from the outset. He not only opposes, but "strongly opposes" any pay raise for his troops. He threatened to veto the 2008 defense authorization bill if it included a paltry 3.5-percent raise for the military, a $40 monthly increase for widows and survivors, or any attempt to curb prices for prescription drugs the troops are forced to buy under TRICARE. Current pay and benefits are "sufficient," he said, echoing the refrain of Barbara Bush, his mother, as she looked out over the Katrina refugees penned up in the Houston Astrodome -- "...so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this (she chuckled slightly) is working very well for them."
And, on Mar. 18, 2003, the day before Bush's bloody invasion of Iraq, the former first lady appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" to shrug aside the death sentences he was imposing upon an entire generation of Americans. “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”
Bush is truly his mother's son -- shallow, unfeeling, incapable of compassion. In a recent meeting with five families of slain soldiers, one, Elaine Johnson, asked him why we were in Iraq. Bush could not answer that, nor could he explain what we were fighting for. But he did toss each of them a presidential coin and quipped, "Don’t go sell it on eBay.”
To Bush, body bags and deaths are simply an inconvenience and, with the help of the corporate media, he is very adept at hiding them from prying eyes. Bush is on a righteous mission -- he is the President, the Decider, the Commander-in-chief and God has chosen him to lead this country to its destiny.
And the troops? They have learned when it comes to support, all they have is each other. All they have is each other.
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
6/4/07
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."
- Dante
Okay. Let's talk about troops. Everybody's doing it. We're bombarded round-the-clock with "support the troops...fund the troops...bring the troops home...surge the troops...use the troops for Commander Guy photo ops..." Congress is embroiled in a ghoulish "troop" food fight that has gone on far too long. Democrats say Republicans demoralize and dishonor the troops by sending them into an unwinnable war built on lies. Republicans counter that, by suggesting the war is lost, Democrats demoralize and dishonor the troops by calling them "losers."
Losers? Oh, yes. Big time. The men and women who wear this nation's uniform are losers every day, in every way. They are not only demoralized and dishonored, but are dehumanized by a diabolical den of dimwits whose eyes never waver from the 2008 prize, and who view "troops" as a faceless mass of political capital to be spent toward winning that prize. Their deserter commander-in-chief and his chickenhawk minions are very careful to call military personnel "troops," lest they assume human form and enter the slumbering masses' consciousness -- a vacuous pit otherwise known as the "dead zone."
Killing the Troops
On Armed Forces Day, May 19, eight soldiers were blown to bits by roadside bombs in Iraq -- a total of 15 for the weekend, which brought the casualty toll since the March 2003 invasion to 3,419. As the troops lay dead and dying, body parts scattered amidst the explosive ruin in a foreign land, their president took to the airwaves to somberly discuss...how to make life easier for illegal immigrants here at home. Less than a week later, as Bush and the press were bobbing and weaving in the Rose Garden, the number of dead troops rose to 3,432, a day later to 3,444 and, finally, on May 26 -- two days before Memorial day -- to 3,455.
That's 36 American men and women, most under the age of 30, lost in one week. Lost forever. On Memorial Day, as Bush yet again disgraced the hallowed ground of Arlington National Cemetery with more babbling about how his will cannot be broken and the only way to honor the dead troops is to complete his "mish-shun," eight American troops were slain in a Baghdad roadside explosion, another in an explosion near Tahir, two perished in a helicopter crash, and five British troops were kidnapped. It's difficult to keep up, but the total now stands at 3,467. No, 3,471. No, 3,474. No, 3,480. No, 3,495.
God, I can't keep up with the numbers. It's impossible to do the math -- to stay abreast of the burgeoning number of precious human beings who were lied into a death trap and who return to orphans, widows, and parents physically maimed, psychologically deranged or as neatly folded US Flags. There is no evidence that Bush knows, or cares, that 633 soldiers and marines have been brutally wiped off the face of the earth since he was given the Iraq Study Group report, then strutted off like a college kid on Christmas break to "decide" whether to pull the troops out of the trap or to keep using them as bait. We knew, and Congress knew, what his decision would be -- and what it was -- more troops.
Betraying the Troops
The surge has been quietly ongoing since then, in spite of angry shouts from the American people -- shouts that fell on deaf ears not only in the Oval Office, but throughout the Congress. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid caved to Bush's demands, while vowing to come back in September and "hold the president to account." Reid announced with bowed head, "We will never, ever, ever, ever give in to this president." Then he gave in.
Sad. There is no honor in a nation whose leaders are given the power to choose life or death for their fellow citizens held captive in an illegal, treasonous, bloody occupation -- and choose death. What do you do after betraying those who elected you -- trusted you -- to stem the needless flow of American blood? Do you dash off to Greenland to check on the climate, or do you stand in the well of the Senate, eyes downcast, with your tail between your legs?
It doesn't matter. They knew what they were doing -- extending tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months, sending other troops back for second and third tours -- weary, wounded and disheartened. They had the purse strings, the Constitutional power, and the mandate of the American people to bring Bush's madness to a screeching halt -- to save the lives of those citizens he daily condemns to death.
They chose, instead, to back down. They chose to allow Bush -- as Texas commentator Jim Hightower said -- to stick the troops in another country's vicious civil war. "They're under attack from every direction by every faction, every hour of every day," Hightower wrote, "hit by car bombs, roadside bombs, chlorine bombs, IEDs, suicide bombs, rocket fire, mortar rounds, snipers, and assassins. There is no safety in Iraq."
The legislators who voted to fund Bush's folly until September were casting votes of betrayal. Nothing will change in September. A second surge, sans the initial fanfare, is underway that could double the number of troops in Iraq by December, bringing the total to more than 200,000. We can disregard December if we are to believe CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre, who reported on Memorial Day that "no major troop reductions are planned until at least January 2009."
We can also disregard January 2009. According to Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there is no plan to even plan withdrawal of troops. "We do have ongoing replacements of forces, and we do change the size of the force over time so that that system is available to either plus-up or draw down," Pace told the Senate in early May, "but we have published no orders saying come up with a complete plan for total drawdown." However, Pace did say they planned to maintain a series of military installations for a long period of time -- maybe a few decades...
You'd think as a minimum, the top military brass and the troops' commander-in-chief would know at any given moment exactly how many lives were lost in their war. However, the only thing Bush knows is that he "grieves 'n mourns" for the heroes who "give their lives" for his mission. Numbers aren't important. What's important to Bush is that he "pre-shates" their sacrifice. And Pace, who monitors the number of gays wearing the hetero-military uniform, commented last week that we lost "nearly 3,000 Americans on 9-11," and then warned we are "getting close" to losing that many troops in Iraq.
Actually, Pete, we are losing three or more American men and women every single day. It's six months -- 180 days -- 540 dead troops until December. It's 18 months -- 545 days --1,635 dead troops until January 2009. How many days -- how many dead troops -- are there in a "few decades"? You do the math.
Supporting the Troops
George Bush and the corporate war profiteers have blanketed the landscape of the entire country with yellow ribbon. "Support the Troops" is non-sequitural double think -- a psyops tool cleverly used by both Republicans and Democrats to desensitize and control the slobbering masses. It means you are anti-American if you scream in pain each time a soldier or marine is killed -- innocent Iraqis are massacred. It means shut the hell up and support whatever deranged blather comes out of Bush's mouth, even if we must sacrifice our sons and daughters on his killing fields.
So many of them died in vain.
In Feb. 2005, the Marines sent a "priority 1 urgent" request for more than 1,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. In spite of the MRAP's proven ability to withstand blasts from IEDs and to save lives, it was 21 months (Nov. 2006) before this urgent plea was acted upon. After a few MRAPs trickled into the area and their life-saving value was recognized, both the Army and Marines requested as many as 18,000 to replace the totally inadequate humvees. Although Defense Secretary Robert Gates "talked the talk" that the MRAP is the Pentagon's "highest priority" new gear buy, until the Pentagon "walks the walk," Americans will continue to be slaughtered by the ever-present IEDs.
Supporting the troops is ensuring they have sufficient equipment and materiel in order to survive, and providing the proper care for the wounded and maimed when they return. This type of support is not a high priority with the Bush administration. In addition to forcing soldiers to dig through scrap piles for metal to reinforce vehicles, injured troops are billed for damaged or lost body armor, charged for food while in the hospital and routinely have their pension benefits cut. Because of Bush's brand of support, troops are faced not only with having to deal with the traumatic reality of their injuries, but most of them face financial ruin as well.
Bush has relentlessly fought supporting the troops from the outset. He not only opposes, but "strongly opposes" any pay raise for his troops. He threatened to veto the 2008 defense authorization bill if it included a paltry 3.5-percent raise for the military, a $40 monthly increase for widows and survivors, or any attempt to curb prices for prescription drugs the troops are forced to buy under TRICARE. Current pay and benefits are "sufficient," he said, echoing the refrain of Barbara Bush, his mother, as she looked out over the Katrina refugees penned up in the Houston Astrodome -- "...so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this (she chuckled slightly) is working very well for them."
And, on Mar. 18, 2003, the day before Bush's bloody invasion of Iraq, the former first lady appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" to shrug aside the death sentences he was imposing upon an entire generation of Americans. “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”
Bush is truly his mother's son -- shallow, unfeeling, incapable of compassion. In a recent meeting with five families of slain soldiers, one, Elaine Johnson, asked him why we were in Iraq. Bush could not answer that, nor could he explain what we were fighting for. But he did toss each of them a presidential coin and quipped, "Don’t go sell it on eBay.”
To Bush, body bags and deaths are simply an inconvenience and, with the help of the corporate media, he is very adept at hiding them from prying eyes. Bush is on a righteous mission -- he is the President, the Decider, the Commander-in-chief and God has chosen him to lead this country to its destiny.
And the troops? They have learned when it comes to support, all they have is each other. All they have is each other.
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, June 03, 2007
Big Men On White Horses
by Mary Pitt
6/3/07
For a hundred years, the children of this nation have gone to bed at night to stories of handsome princes and beautiful princesses, of evil witches, fearsome ogres, and happy endings. They have gone to Saturday matinees depicting good, honest people, laboring under the yoke of greedy oppressors and being saved at the last, crucial moment, by a big man on a white horse. No matter how well-educated, no matter how sophisticated we have become in our everyday lives and outlook on the world, we are still waiting for a big man on a white horse to rise out of the sunrise and save our lives and our possessions.
How do we go about finding these modern-day heroes? We elect them, of course! We trot out selected specimens from our leadership like contestants for Miss America and choose them based on appearance, congeniality, performance, and ability to deliver inspiring speeches to the waiting judges. However, on closer inspections, we learn that they are only an array of ordinary people aspiring to their own plans for self-aggrandizement.. Not a true avenging angel in the bunch, much less one who is truly self-effacing and willing to give their all for the nation of their birth.
Now, the odd thing about real heroes is that they rarely look the part. The icon of the Republican Party and the image which they wish to project would be the late John Wayne who, to anybody's knowledge, never did a heroic thing in his life anywhere but on the "silver screen". On the other hand, a true hero, Audie Murphy, barely over five feet tall, was the most decorated soldier in World War II. He couldn't even make it as a hero in the movies! He was "too small" and "too pretty" and did not project an imposing persona as he rode into town at the head of a posse. Thus, they transferred their loyalty to Ronald Reagan. To give Reagan credit, he did pay his dues by working for years, first with the Screen Actor's Guild and then as a popular Governor of California. Now, they look to Fred Thompson, another actor, to mount a white horse and vanquish the bogey-men. However, while they blast Barack Obama for being a political tyro. Mr Thompson has even less experience in the arena. It does appear that, to the Republicans, the fact that he played a President in the movies will have to suffice.
Meanwhile, the Democrats search for another John F. Kennedy, handsome but not too pretty, suave, an inspiring speaker, and looks good in a suit. Their "big man on a white horse" seems to be Al Gore who appears to have no taste for the prospect. Failing to accomplish that, they are willing to settle for a "first"; the first Woman President or the first Black President. They are, after all, the party of change! However, the one thing that they will not change is the mindset of their leadership and they are running scared. They have become convinced that the country as a whole is not far removed from the Republicans in their political attitude and they cannot win by opposing them too completely. They have, and will continue to rubber-stamp the Bush tax cuts, the war on terror, NAFTA, and illegal immigration without addressing the very real problems of the working Americans. Yet they tell us that they are the only alternative to "more of the same".
One might well wonder about our greatest Presidents through our history. Would George Washington's ill-fitting teeth, Abe Lincoln's moles on his craggy face, or the huge girth of Howard Taft have disqualified them instantly as they appeared on television as canned beef? Would the rumpled, ill-fitting suits bring them demerits in light of the fact that steam irons had not yet been invented? Some of these great men were downright ugly, gross, and sweaty, not at all the type you would invite to a fancy party or invite to do a photo spread for a magazine. But the decisions that they made were historic and responsible for our steady growth into one of the most successful nations in history, a leader not only in military power but in advocacy for peace and brotherhood throughout the world
Perhaps it would be a good idea if we were to turn off the televisions during the "debates" and simply listen to the few opinions that make their way through the programmed cookie-cutter format, follow it up by reading the newspapers and researching the individual candidates on the internet. After all, there is a difference between choosing whom to invite to "have a beer with" you or whom you would like to have live next door, and in choosing a person with the good sense and integrity to make the right decisions for our future and that of our nation. Just remember that great policy may be hidden behind a homely face, the next George Washington may not be the most eloquent speaker, and the next Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy may be wearing a rumpled suit.
And I seriously doubt whether any of them will ride in on a white horse.
Mary Pitt lives in a house by the side of the road in a little rural village in Kansas where she can observe the world both as it is and as she would like it to be. Questions and comments will reach her at mpitt@cox.net
6/3/07
For a hundred years, the children of this nation have gone to bed at night to stories of handsome princes and beautiful princesses, of evil witches, fearsome ogres, and happy endings. They have gone to Saturday matinees depicting good, honest people, laboring under the yoke of greedy oppressors and being saved at the last, crucial moment, by a big man on a white horse. No matter how well-educated, no matter how sophisticated we have become in our everyday lives and outlook on the world, we are still waiting for a big man on a white horse to rise out of the sunrise and save our lives and our possessions.
How do we go about finding these modern-day heroes? We elect them, of course! We trot out selected specimens from our leadership like contestants for Miss America and choose them based on appearance, congeniality, performance, and ability to deliver inspiring speeches to the waiting judges. However, on closer inspections, we learn that they are only an array of ordinary people aspiring to their own plans for self-aggrandizement.. Not a true avenging angel in the bunch, much less one who is truly self-effacing and willing to give their all for the nation of their birth.
Now, the odd thing about real heroes is that they rarely look the part. The icon of the Republican Party and the image which they wish to project would be the late John Wayne who, to anybody's knowledge, never did a heroic thing in his life anywhere but on the "silver screen". On the other hand, a true hero, Audie Murphy, barely over five feet tall, was the most decorated soldier in World War II. He couldn't even make it as a hero in the movies! He was "too small" and "too pretty" and did not project an imposing persona as he rode into town at the head of a posse. Thus, they transferred their loyalty to Ronald Reagan. To give Reagan credit, he did pay his dues by working for years, first with the Screen Actor's Guild and then as a popular Governor of California. Now, they look to Fred Thompson, another actor, to mount a white horse and vanquish the bogey-men. However, while they blast Barack Obama for being a political tyro. Mr Thompson has even less experience in the arena. It does appear that, to the Republicans, the fact that he played a President in the movies will have to suffice.
Meanwhile, the Democrats search for another John F. Kennedy, handsome but not too pretty, suave, an inspiring speaker, and looks good in a suit. Their "big man on a white horse" seems to be Al Gore who appears to have no taste for the prospect. Failing to accomplish that, they are willing to settle for a "first"; the first Woman President or the first Black President. They are, after all, the party of change! However, the one thing that they will not change is the mindset of their leadership and they are running scared. They have become convinced that the country as a whole is not far removed from the Republicans in their political attitude and they cannot win by opposing them too completely. They have, and will continue to rubber-stamp the Bush tax cuts, the war on terror, NAFTA, and illegal immigration without addressing the very real problems of the working Americans. Yet they tell us that they are the only alternative to "more of the same".
One might well wonder about our greatest Presidents through our history. Would George Washington's ill-fitting teeth, Abe Lincoln's moles on his craggy face, or the huge girth of Howard Taft have disqualified them instantly as they appeared on television as canned beef? Would the rumpled, ill-fitting suits bring them demerits in light of the fact that steam irons had not yet been invented? Some of these great men were downright ugly, gross, and sweaty, not at all the type you would invite to a fancy party or invite to do a photo spread for a magazine. But the decisions that they made were historic and responsible for our steady growth into one of the most successful nations in history, a leader not only in military power but in advocacy for peace and brotherhood throughout the world
Perhaps it would be a good idea if we were to turn off the televisions during the "debates" and simply listen to the few opinions that make their way through the programmed cookie-cutter format, follow it up by reading the newspapers and researching the individual candidates on the internet. After all, there is a difference between choosing whom to invite to "have a beer with" you or whom you would like to have live next door, and in choosing a person with the good sense and integrity to make the right decisions for our future and that of our nation. Just remember that great policy may be hidden behind a homely face, the next George Washington may not be the most eloquent speaker, and the next Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy may be wearing a rumpled suit.
And I seriously doubt whether any of them will ride in on a white horse.
Mary Pitt lives in a house by the side of the road in a little rural village in Kansas where she can observe the world both as it is and as she would like it to be. Questions and comments will reach her at mpitt@cox.net
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