by Mary Pitt
5/31/08
When I was a child growing up in Kansas during the Great Depression, toys were few and hard to come by. Almost all of my dolls were made by hand by my mother of leftover fabric scraps from her essential sewing. Others were passed down from neighborhood kids who had outgrown them. Recently, while discussing politics with a dear friend, one particular rag doll popped into my mind.
This doll was a unique one, I have no recollection of its origin, and I have never seen another like it. It was made of white fabric with a painted-on face and golden yarn hair, and wore a lovely dress in pale colors that denoted a degree of gentility, with hands folded across the front of the body in a demure position. While I was admiring my new possession, my mother took it from me gently, turned it upside-down, and it became a different doll, with black face and arms, with a kerchief tied about its black hair, dressed more modestly in a long gray dress with a white apron.
:"It's called a 'Topsy-Turvy' doll," she explained, "turned one way it is white and the other way it's a black doll."
Now, I was a flatland country kid, had never been around black people at all and, consequently had not been exposed to any of the prejudices about them. I loved both of the dolls equally and, by simply inverting one and smoothing the skirt, I had a completely different one with which to play.
What has this to do with politics? Only that we have a real, live human being and a presidential candidate who is similarly gifted. Barack Obama is either a black man with a white man's culture or a white man with a black man's external indices. You may make your own choice as to how you view him. While the black citizens were concerned about whether he is "black enough" to earn their support, white people are made nervous about the color of his skin! But he is a man who spans the races and, as such, has a deep appreciation of the culture and the cares of both sides of his ancestry as well as a sufficient philosophical education to be able to balance the two sides of his ancestry.
No matter which view you take, he is the same man; highly educated, deeply caring, and with a family that is the epitome of "family values". He has served his apprenticeship in public service and proven his understanding of the problems of the poor and working class, As for his "experience", he has had as much as many former Presidents but he does have a strong understanding of the Constitutional requirements of the position and a dedication to fulfill them. This would be a refreshing attitude after eight years of a President who has constantly shredded that "goddamn piece of paper" and violated its every provision.
But there are, and will always be, those who will look no further than the color of his skin and reject him out of hand because of it. Never mind that he is slow to anger and to judgment, that he prefers to make peace rather than war, and that he promises to restore government of the people, for the people, and by the people. Never mind that he would prefer negotiation to invasion, and that he feels that it is the responsibility of the government to assure that every citizen is able to avail themselves of a decent job, provide for the welfare of their children and have access to needed health care.
As all of these things have fallen by the wayside under the care of the current administration, the Republicans are bellowing that we must "balance the budget and cut taxes". It is convenient for them to forget that the financial state of our government is not from pressures caused by welfare, Medicare, or any of the other standard complaints, but by the trillions of dollars that have been poured into a fruitless war that should never have begun and by the reduction of taxes on the very rich that were granted at the urging of President George W. Bush.
Obama's pledge to end the war and thus the drain on our economy and the lives of our young people is the means to the end that a lot of us want to see, and the sooner the better. All that remains now is for those who would benefit the must from his presidency is whether they can overcome their inborn reluctance to elevate people of color and make their selection based on character, intelligence, and dedication to the cause of the common man. Though he has been tarred with the epithet of "elitism", he is anything but elite, having come from simple stock and knowing first-hand how difficult it is for a child from humble background to get a good education in life, regardless of color. Bill Clinton told you , "I feel your pain," and you turned out in droves to offer him your votes. This is a young man who has already walked in your shoes and we should all do the same for him.
This is a peaceful man and slow to take umbrage but with the resolve to stand firm on principle and would make a real guardian of out national security as it becomes necessary. As Obama nears the mark of actually becoming the Democratic candidate, the choice will be simple. We must vote for a man who will continue the Bush program of strike-first-and-ask-questions-later-and-damn-the-expense or a man who will involve himself in discussion to resolve the differences with other nations and conserve our resources to provide the needed services for the beleaguered American public. The choice is clear that this nation has had enough of the Neo-Con aggression.
I would advise that, if you find color to be a problem, you just turn the dolly over. It will be the same doll but the change in your point of view will make you feel better. Otherwise, you will have at least four years to regret the choice that you made for all the wrong reasons.
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for "societal perfection".
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area
Stealth growers seed or plant on land that doesn't belong to them. The result? Plants that beautify or yield crops in otherwise neglected or vacant spaces.
By Joe Robinson
Special to The Times
May 29, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-hm-guerrilla29-2008may29,0,3848418.story
BRIMMING with lime-hued succulents and a lush collection of agaves, one shooting spiky leaves 10 feet into the air, it's a head-turning garden smack in the middle of Long Beach's asphalt jungle. But the gardener who designed it doesn't want you to know his last name, since his handiwork isn't exactly legit. It's on a traffic island he commandeered.
"The city wasn't doing anything with it, and I had a bunch of extra plants," says Scott, as we tour the garden, cars whooshing by on both sides of Loynes Drive.
Scott is a guerrilla gardener, a member of a burgeoning movement of green enthusiasts who plant without approval on land that's not theirs. In London, Berlin, Miami, San Francisco and Southern California, these free-range tillers are sowing a new kind of flower power. In nighttime planting parties or solo "seed bombing" runs, they aim to turn neglected public space and vacant lots into floral or food outposts.
Part beautification, part eco-activism, part social outlet, the activity has been fueled by Internet gardening blogs and sites such as GuerrillaGardening.org, where before-and-after photos of the latest "troop digs" inspire 45,000 visitors a month to make derelict soil bloom.
"We can make much more out of the land than how it's being used, whether it's about creating food or beautifying it," says the movement's ringleader and GuerrillaGardening.org founder, Richard Reynolds, by phone from his London home. His tribe includes freelance landscapers like Scott, urban farmers, floral fans and artists.
"I want to encourage more people to think about land in this way and just get out there and do it," says Reynolds, whose new handbook for insurgent planters, "On Guerrilla Gardening," is out this week.
The activists see themselves as 21st century Johnny Appleseeds, harvesting a natural bounty of daffodils or organic green beans from forgotten dirt. It's a step into more self-reliant living in the city," says Erik Knutzen, coauthor with his wife, Kelly Coyne, of "The Urban Homestead" to be released in June. The Echo Park couple have chronicled "pirate farming" on their blog, Homegrown Evolution. Guerrilla gardening, Knutzen says, is a reaction to the wasteful use of land, such as vacant lots and sidewalk parkways. He's turned the parkway in front of his home into a vegetable garden.
One of a slew of DIY gardening currents, such as permaculture (design of highly sustainable ecosystems), urban homesteading, composting and free fruit movement, guerrilla gardening is a response to dwindling green space, limited land and suspicions about food sources, say experts. It's also part of a time-honored American tradition of gardening public spaces.
"It reminds me of the Vacant Lot Cultivation societies," says Rose Hayden-Smith, a Food and Society Policy Fellow with UC Cooperative Extension. In the wake of the economic meltdown of the 1890s, many American cities, from Detroit to Philadelphia and Boston, formed Vacant Lot Cultivation associations to encourage residents to grow food on public land. The Liberty and Victory garden campaigns of World Wars I and II, respectively, also exhorted Americans to raise food on untended public land.
"If the federal government was paying attention, they'd be encouraging this right now," with the price of food and fuel," adds Hayden-Smith.
"Guerrilla gardens can serve the same purpose as the Victory gardens," says Taylor Arneson, editor of the Los Angeles Permaculture Guild newsletter and a proponent of sustainable food production. He and a friend raised a farmers market worth of crops -- corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, lettuce, watermelon, cucumber and more -- in a guerrilla dig at a large planter bed in front of an office building on Bundy Drive in West Los Angeles. Farming in broad daylight, they got support from office workers and kids excited to see real cornstalks.
Arneson's approach is to plant first and make arrangements with sympathetic locals to hook up to water taps later. Keeping a guerrilla garden irrigated is one of the trickiest parts of the game. Arneson, a graduate student in village-scale permaculture design, says he rules out 99% of the vacant lots he scouts because they don't have a reliable water source. He looks for some elevation or berm that will let the plants catch water.
After more than a year of growing crops at the Bundy site, he and his friend planned to live on the produce grown there last winter. They planted garlic, potatoes, radishes, carrots, lettuce, onions and more, but in January the owner of the property, after first leaving a cease and desist letter, rototilled the whole plot.
Property owners who don't take kindly to others gardening on their land have laws on their side. But most freelance growing is done in the nooks and crannies of public land, where the law is murkier. Spokespersons at the Los Angeles city departments of Public Works, and Recreation and Parks were unaware of laws proscribing citizen gardening in public spaces. A patch of wildflowers on a city-owned lot wouldn't be removed until it dried up and became a fire hazard, according to the city's Street Services' Lot Cleaning Division.
Back at that median oasis in Long Beach, Scott is making introductions. "This is Aloe nobilis. Put them in the ground and in five years you could turn out 10,000 plants," he says. Scott may not have title to the land, but he tends it as if he did, weeding and pulling out trash -- he's found such debris as car parts and condoms in there. He's bummed when he spots a bare patch. "It's kind of depressing when I see how much work needs to be done," says the Norwalk resident, who works for the government. "This whole section, there's something in the dirt. This is old landfill and they probably just used that dirt."
He built the garden up over a period of years, planting early in the morning to avoid detection. Police have questioned Scott at his traffic island during early morning plantings, part of the uncertainty that comes with guerrilla gardening. Several of his unsanctioned gardens along the San Gabriel River have been wrecked by agave thieves, who, he thinks, steal the leaves to make tequila. "You just take a deep breath and go back to it," he says.
But homeowners in Long Beach have encouraged his work on the median. Today the garden is a veritable nursery. He's taken out hundreds of plants incubated here, some of which he moves to unapproved gardens he's planted and tends in Norwalk and Whittier. Why does he bother with all the work, expense and dodging authorities? "I'd like to show cities that they can use plants like these, not have to water as much and cut down on landscaping costs. Within two to three years, a site like this can generate thousands of plants."
Scott sees his Long Beach garden as a showcase for drought-tolerant, low-maintenance city landscaping. But he's in a bind. How does he broach the subject, given his unsanctioned status? "I wish I could get together with the city," he says. "But I'm apprehensive and pretty much keep under the radar."
Meanwhile, over at landscaping headquarters for the city of Long Beach, superintendent of grounds maintenance Ramon Arevalo waxes on about one of more than a dozen gardens done by "road planters," as he calls guerrilla gardeners. "It's like an underwater scene, a cactus garden that looks like a corral reef. It's beautiful. It's been there on Loynes Drive for 10 years, and we don't know who did it. You should see this place!"
It's Scott's garden. I tell him I have seen it and know the mystery man who planted it. Arevalo is ecstatic. "I can't wait to know him! He's been the talk of this place for 10 years. He's like the 007 of gardening," says Arevalo, laughing heartily. He says a homeowners association has complained that their medians are ugly. Why can't theirs look like that cactus island?
Arevalo is impressed by Scott's use of drought-tolerant plants and assures there will be no repercussions if he comes forward. There is no law against planting on city landscaping, except for ficus trees, whose roots wreck roads and sidewalks. The city discourages unapproved gardening but tries to work with road planters it discovers. "If you want to do this, my advice is to contact myself or the council person," says Arevalo. "We want to partner with people who care about where they live."
At a time of shrinking city budgets and skeletal landscaping staffs, it's a hint at where guerrilla gardening could go -- to approved brigades of citizen gardeners helping cities turn wasted space into food and flowers. After years of looking over his shoulder, Scott can come in out of the cold dawn plantings. He has Arevalo's phone number and attention.
"I'll do whatever he wants," says Arevalo, chuckling. "I want to buy him a coffee."
By Joe Robinson
Special to The Times
May 29, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-hm-guerrilla29-2008may29,0,3848418.story
BRIMMING with lime-hued succulents and a lush collection of agaves, one shooting spiky leaves 10 feet into the air, it's a head-turning garden smack in the middle of Long Beach's asphalt jungle. But the gardener who designed it doesn't want you to know his last name, since his handiwork isn't exactly legit. It's on a traffic island he commandeered.
"The city wasn't doing anything with it, and I had a bunch of extra plants," says Scott, as we tour the garden, cars whooshing by on both sides of Loynes Drive.
Scott is a guerrilla gardener, a member of a burgeoning movement of green enthusiasts who plant without approval on land that's not theirs. In London, Berlin, Miami, San Francisco and Southern California, these free-range tillers are sowing a new kind of flower power. In nighttime planting parties or solo "seed bombing" runs, they aim to turn neglected public space and vacant lots into floral or food outposts.
Part beautification, part eco-activism, part social outlet, the activity has been fueled by Internet gardening blogs and sites such as GuerrillaGardening.org, where before-and-after photos of the latest "troop digs" inspire 45,000 visitors a month to make derelict soil bloom.
"We can make much more out of the land than how it's being used, whether it's about creating food or beautifying it," says the movement's ringleader and GuerrillaGardening.org founder, Richard Reynolds, by phone from his London home. His tribe includes freelance landscapers like Scott, urban farmers, floral fans and artists.
"I want to encourage more people to think about land in this way and just get out there and do it," says Reynolds, whose new handbook for insurgent planters, "On Guerrilla Gardening," is out this week.
The activists see themselves as 21st century Johnny Appleseeds, harvesting a natural bounty of daffodils or organic green beans from forgotten dirt. It's a step into more self-reliant living in the city," says Erik Knutzen, coauthor with his wife, Kelly Coyne, of "The Urban Homestead" to be released in June. The Echo Park couple have chronicled "pirate farming" on their blog, Homegrown Evolution. Guerrilla gardening, Knutzen says, is a reaction to the wasteful use of land, such as vacant lots and sidewalk parkways. He's turned the parkway in front of his home into a vegetable garden.
One of a slew of DIY gardening currents, such as permaculture (design of highly sustainable ecosystems), urban homesteading, composting and free fruit movement, guerrilla gardening is a response to dwindling green space, limited land and suspicions about food sources, say experts. It's also part of a time-honored American tradition of gardening public spaces.
"It reminds me of the Vacant Lot Cultivation societies," says Rose Hayden-Smith, a Food and Society Policy Fellow with UC Cooperative Extension. In the wake of the economic meltdown of the 1890s, many American cities, from Detroit to Philadelphia and Boston, formed Vacant Lot Cultivation associations to encourage residents to grow food on public land. The Liberty and Victory garden campaigns of World Wars I and II, respectively, also exhorted Americans to raise food on untended public land.
"If the federal government was paying attention, they'd be encouraging this right now," with the price of food and fuel," adds Hayden-Smith.
"Guerrilla gardens can serve the same purpose as the Victory gardens," says Taylor Arneson, editor of the Los Angeles Permaculture Guild newsletter and a proponent of sustainable food production. He and a friend raised a farmers market worth of crops -- corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, lettuce, watermelon, cucumber and more -- in a guerrilla dig at a large planter bed in front of an office building on Bundy Drive in West Los Angeles. Farming in broad daylight, they got support from office workers and kids excited to see real cornstalks.
Arneson's approach is to plant first and make arrangements with sympathetic locals to hook up to water taps later. Keeping a guerrilla garden irrigated is one of the trickiest parts of the game. Arneson, a graduate student in village-scale permaculture design, says he rules out 99% of the vacant lots he scouts because they don't have a reliable water source. He looks for some elevation or berm that will let the plants catch water.
After more than a year of growing crops at the Bundy site, he and his friend planned to live on the produce grown there last winter. They planted garlic, potatoes, radishes, carrots, lettuce, onions and more, but in January the owner of the property, after first leaving a cease and desist letter, rototilled the whole plot.
Property owners who don't take kindly to others gardening on their land have laws on their side. But most freelance growing is done in the nooks and crannies of public land, where the law is murkier. Spokespersons at the Los Angeles city departments of Public Works, and Recreation and Parks were unaware of laws proscribing citizen gardening in public spaces. A patch of wildflowers on a city-owned lot wouldn't be removed until it dried up and became a fire hazard, according to the city's Street Services' Lot Cleaning Division.
Back at that median oasis in Long Beach, Scott is making introductions. "This is Aloe nobilis. Put them in the ground and in five years you could turn out 10,000 plants," he says. Scott may not have title to the land, but he tends it as if he did, weeding and pulling out trash -- he's found such debris as car parts and condoms in there. He's bummed when he spots a bare patch. "It's kind of depressing when I see how much work needs to be done," says the Norwalk resident, who works for the government. "This whole section, there's something in the dirt. This is old landfill and they probably just used that dirt."
He built the garden up over a period of years, planting early in the morning to avoid detection. Police have questioned Scott at his traffic island during early morning plantings, part of the uncertainty that comes with guerrilla gardening. Several of his unsanctioned gardens along the San Gabriel River have been wrecked by agave thieves, who, he thinks, steal the leaves to make tequila. "You just take a deep breath and go back to it," he says.
But homeowners in Long Beach have encouraged his work on the median. Today the garden is a veritable nursery. He's taken out hundreds of plants incubated here, some of which he moves to unapproved gardens he's planted and tends in Norwalk and Whittier. Why does he bother with all the work, expense and dodging authorities? "I'd like to show cities that they can use plants like these, not have to water as much and cut down on landscaping costs. Within two to three years, a site like this can generate thousands of plants."
Scott sees his Long Beach garden as a showcase for drought-tolerant, low-maintenance city landscaping. But he's in a bind. How does he broach the subject, given his unsanctioned status? "I wish I could get together with the city," he says. "But I'm apprehensive and pretty much keep under the radar."
Meanwhile, over at landscaping headquarters for the city of Long Beach, superintendent of grounds maintenance Ramon Arevalo waxes on about one of more than a dozen gardens done by "road planters," as he calls guerrilla gardeners. "It's like an underwater scene, a cactus garden that looks like a corral reef. It's beautiful. It's been there on Loynes Drive for 10 years, and we don't know who did it. You should see this place!"
It's Scott's garden. I tell him I have seen it and know the mystery man who planted it. Arevalo is ecstatic. "I can't wait to know him! He's been the talk of this place for 10 years. He's like the 007 of gardening," says Arevalo, laughing heartily. He says a homeowners association has complained that their medians are ugly. Why can't theirs look like that cactus island?
Arevalo is impressed by Scott's use of drought-tolerant plants and assures there will be no repercussions if he comes forward. There is no law against planting on city landscaping, except for ficus trees, whose roots wreck roads and sidewalks. The city discourages unapproved gardening but tries to work with road planters it discovers. "If you want to do this, my advice is to contact myself or the council person," says Arevalo. "We want to partner with people who care about where they live."
At a time of shrinking city budgets and skeletal landscaping staffs, it's a hint at where guerrilla gardening could go -- to approved brigades of citizen gardeners helping cities turn wasted space into food and flowers. After years of looking over his shoulder, Scott can come in out of the cold dawn plantings. He has Arevalo's phone number and attention.
"I'll do whatever he wants," says Arevalo, chuckling. "I want to buy him a coffee."
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Grow Them Young, Pay Them Well
- Anti-Chavistas, That Is
by Stephen Lendman
5/16/08
Who said crime doesn't pay? Read on.
The Washington-based Cato Institute is all about "Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace," or so says its web site. It's been around since 1977 preaching limited government and free market religion with plenty of high-octane corporate funding for backing. It better have it for the award it presented on May 15. It was to a 23 year old fifth year Venezuelan law student at Universidad Catolica Andres Bello. Yon Goicoechea was the fourth recipient of the "Milton Friedman Liberty Prize" in the amount of $500,000. For what? What else. For serving the interests of capital back home and leading anti-Chavista protests.
Goicoechea is leader of Venezuela's "pro-democracy student movement" that in Cato's words "prevented Hugo Chavez's regime from seizing broad dictatorial powers in December 2007." The reference is to the narrow defeat of Venezuela's reform referendum last December. Goicoechea led student-organized street violence against Venezuela's democracy, but don't look for Cato to say that.
It played up Goicoechea's "pivotal role in organizing and voicing opposition to the erosion of human and civil rights in his country (that) would have concentrated unprecendented political and economic power in the hands of the government." Instead, he chooses "tolerance" and the "human right to seek prosperity." He's been active since student and other opposition emerged against the Chavez government's refusal (with ample justification) to renew RCTV's VHF operating license last May.
Then, and in the run-up to last December's referendum, Cato says he stood down "ongoing death threats and continual intimidation due to his prominent and vocal leadership." He's been "indispensable in organizing massive, peaceful protest marches that have captured the world's attention." In fact, there were no death threats but plenty of hard right intimidation targeting Chavistas with tools like Goicoechea a part of it.
Cato founder and president Edward Crane said "We hope the Friedman Prize will help further his non-violent advocacy for basic freedoms in an increasingly militaristic and anti-democratic Venezuela." Far right novelist Mario Vargas Llosa added that "freedom is disappearing" in Venezuela, and "Goicoechea is a symbol of (a) democratic reaction when (it's) threatened."
Goicoechea received his award at a $500 a plate dinner at New York's Waldorf Astoria. Prominent corporate and government types attended, all representing far right interests. None explain how Bolivarianism works, its participatory democracy, its commitment to Venezuela's people, or how it's lifted millions in the country out of desperate poverty. Nor is there comment on a model process, impressive social reforms, supremely democratic elections, or Hugo Chavez's immense popularity. An April 24 - May 2 Venezuela Data Analysis Institute (IVAD) poll puts him at 68.8%. That compares to comparable George Bush ones with some of the lowest ratings ever for a US president.
No discussion either of how student opposition is funded or for what purpose. That their money comes from US agencies like the misnamed National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, the International Republican Institute, and other pro-business US and international agencies and organizations. CIA's part of it, too.
Highlighted are Goicoechea's plans with the money - to challenge Bolivarianism back home and work to subvert it. With those ideas and Cato's backing, he's sure to remain a hard right favorite. He'll also be busy and well-compensated - for more destabilization against the most democratic government in the hemisphere. That's what Goicoecheas are for - to sabotage democracy, subvert equity and justice, topple populist governments, and make Venezuela "friendlier" for business.
Goicoechea now heads home fully briefed for his role, but don't expect Cato to explain it. It's to support capital's divine right, privilege over beneficial social change, and the rights of the few over the many. It's to mobilize indignation against a leader who works for all Venezuelans, especially those in greatest need. Who uses his country's oil wealth for his people, not elitist business interests. For having a Constitution that mandates it. For gaining overwhelming popular support and becoming a hero to millions. For wanting others to share in what Venezuelans have. For believing all people matter, not just the privileged. For becoming the greatest of all threats to the empire (and Cato) determined to stop him. For failing so far. For seeing him gain strength and stature. For securing grassroots allies everywhere. For needing many Goicoecheas to oppose him, but not nearly enough to prevail.
His "non-violent advocacy" and "peaceful" protesting went like this - promoting class warfare; wanting Chavez toppled; and following CIA diktats to:
-- "take to the streets; protest with violent disruptive actions across the nation; create a climate of ungovernability; provoke a general uprising; isolate Chavez" internationally; destabilize the government; disrupt the constitutional process; sustain aggressive agitprop; build unity among the opposition; and end Chavismo and Bolivarianism so capital can get back in control.
Last year, Goicoechea responded by engaging in violent street clashes; targeting pro-Chavez students, police and the National Guard; smashing windows; turning over and setting cars alight; starting other fires; burning tires; throwing rocks and bottles; engaging in a shootout at Caracas' Central University; seeing Venezuela's business media report "peaceful, civic and democratic" students were attacked without provocation; and getting full US (and Cato) backing for all of the above.
Like others of his class, Goicoechea enjoys privilege and wants to keep it. He's also unwilling to share it, and he puts it this way: "We have to fight for our future, for our rights," and you know whose he means. "If we don't fight for our freedoms, we won't be able to take part in a democratic Venezuela in the future." He means democracy for the few like in pre-Chavez days.
Gabriela Calderon shares that view as editor of ElCato.org, Cato's Spanish language website. She's young, well-educated, anti-Chavez, and also against Bolivarianism's spread to her native country of Ecuador. Cato says she's a "frontline" warrior in "the struggle against Hugo Chavez's '21st century socialism,' which is threatening to engulf all of Latin America." She, in turn, calls populists like Chavez and Ecuador's President Raphael Correa "the reactionary right" for in Cato's words: "pushing for greater state control over the economy and people's lives. By contrast, she - and ElCato.org - advocates for individual freedom." That means privatizing everything, favoring property over people, privilege over the needy, crowding out dissent, and getting well-rewarded for supporting all of the above.
These are imperial interests. Youths like Goicoechea and Calderon are its tools, and organizations like Cato are front and center supporting them. It's bankrolled by business, given clear marching orders, and they're full of high-octane markets uber alles religion. But in the spirit of "Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace." Orwell would approve.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
sjlendman.blogspot.com
by Stephen Lendman
5/16/08
Who said crime doesn't pay? Read on.
The Washington-based Cato Institute is all about "Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace," or so says its web site. It's been around since 1977 preaching limited government and free market religion with plenty of high-octane corporate funding for backing. It better have it for the award it presented on May 15. It was to a 23 year old fifth year Venezuelan law student at Universidad Catolica Andres Bello. Yon Goicoechea was the fourth recipient of the "Milton Friedman Liberty Prize" in the amount of $500,000. For what? What else. For serving the interests of capital back home and leading anti-Chavista protests.
Goicoechea is leader of Venezuela's "pro-democracy student movement" that in Cato's words "prevented Hugo Chavez's regime from seizing broad dictatorial powers in December 2007." The reference is to the narrow defeat of Venezuela's reform referendum last December. Goicoechea led student-organized street violence against Venezuela's democracy, but don't look for Cato to say that.
It played up Goicoechea's "pivotal role in organizing and voicing opposition to the erosion of human and civil rights in his country (that) would have concentrated unprecendented political and economic power in the hands of the government." Instead, he chooses "tolerance" and the "human right to seek prosperity." He's been active since student and other opposition emerged against the Chavez government's refusal (with ample justification) to renew RCTV's VHF operating license last May.
Then, and in the run-up to last December's referendum, Cato says he stood down "ongoing death threats and continual intimidation due to his prominent and vocal leadership." He's been "indispensable in organizing massive, peaceful protest marches that have captured the world's attention." In fact, there were no death threats but plenty of hard right intimidation targeting Chavistas with tools like Goicoechea a part of it.
Cato founder and president Edward Crane said "We hope the Friedman Prize will help further his non-violent advocacy for basic freedoms in an increasingly militaristic and anti-democratic Venezuela." Far right novelist Mario Vargas Llosa added that "freedom is disappearing" in Venezuela, and "Goicoechea is a symbol of (a) democratic reaction when (it's) threatened."
Goicoechea received his award at a $500 a plate dinner at New York's Waldorf Astoria. Prominent corporate and government types attended, all representing far right interests. None explain how Bolivarianism works, its participatory democracy, its commitment to Venezuela's people, or how it's lifted millions in the country out of desperate poverty. Nor is there comment on a model process, impressive social reforms, supremely democratic elections, or Hugo Chavez's immense popularity. An April 24 - May 2 Venezuela Data Analysis Institute (IVAD) poll puts him at 68.8%. That compares to comparable George Bush ones with some of the lowest ratings ever for a US president.
No discussion either of how student opposition is funded or for what purpose. That their money comes from US agencies like the misnamed National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, the International Republican Institute, and other pro-business US and international agencies and organizations. CIA's part of it, too.
Highlighted are Goicoechea's plans with the money - to challenge Bolivarianism back home and work to subvert it. With those ideas and Cato's backing, he's sure to remain a hard right favorite. He'll also be busy and well-compensated - for more destabilization against the most democratic government in the hemisphere. That's what Goicoecheas are for - to sabotage democracy, subvert equity and justice, topple populist governments, and make Venezuela "friendlier" for business.
Goicoechea now heads home fully briefed for his role, but don't expect Cato to explain it. It's to support capital's divine right, privilege over beneficial social change, and the rights of the few over the many. It's to mobilize indignation against a leader who works for all Venezuelans, especially those in greatest need. Who uses his country's oil wealth for his people, not elitist business interests. For having a Constitution that mandates it. For gaining overwhelming popular support and becoming a hero to millions. For wanting others to share in what Venezuelans have. For believing all people matter, not just the privileged. For becoming the greatest of all threats to the empire (and Cato) determined to stop him. For failing so far. For seeing him gain strength and stature. For securing grassroots allies everywhere. For needing many Goicoecheas to oppose him, but not nearly enough to prevail.
His "non-violent advocacy" and "peaceful" protesting went like this - promoting class warfare; wanting Chavez toppled; and following CIA diktats to:
-- "take to the streets; protest with violent disruptive actions across the nation; create a climate of ungovernability; provoke a general uprising; isolate Chavez" internationally; destabilize the government; disrupt the constitutional process; sustain aggressive agitprop; build unity among the opposition; and end Chavismo and Bolivarianism so capital can get back in control.
Last year, Goicoechea responded by engaging in violent street clashes; targeting pro-Chavez students, police and the National Guard; smashing windows; turning over and setting cars alight; starting other fires; burning tires; throwing rocks and bottles; engaging in a shootout at Caracas' Central University; seeing Venezuela's business media report "peaceful, civic and democratic" students were attacked without provocation; and getting full US (and Cato) backing for all of the above.
Like others of his class, Goicoechea enjoys privilege and wants to keep it. He's also unwilling to share it, and he puts it this way: "We have to fight for our future, for our rights," and you know whose he means. "If we don't fight for our freedoms, we won't be able to take part in a democratic Venezuela in the future." He means democracy for the few like in pre-Chavez days.
Gabriela Calderon shares that view as editor of ElCato.org, Cato's Spanish language website. She's young, well-educated, anti-Chavez, and also against Bolivarianism's spread to her native country of Ecuador. Cato says she's a "frontline" warrior in "the struggle against Hugo Chavez's '21st century socialism,' which is threatening to engulf all of Latin America." She, in turn, calls populists like Chavez and Ecuador's President Raphael Correa "the reactionary right" for in Cato's words: "pushing for greater state control over the economy and people's lives. By contrast, she - and ElCato.org - advocates for individual freedom." That means privatizing everything, favoring property over people, privilege over the needy, crowding out dissent, and getting well-rewarded for supporting all of the above.
These are imperial interests. Youths like Goicoechea and Calderon are its tools, and organizations like Cato are front and center supporting them. It's bankrolled by business, given clear marching orders, and they're full of high-octane markets uber alles religion. But in the spirit of "Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace." Orwell would approve.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
sjlendman.blogspot.com
Friday, May 16, 2008
Everybody Knows
By Sheila Samples
5/16/08
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.
- Leonard Cohen
The fate of millions was sealed the moment Dick Cheney selected himself as The Destroyer whose charge to keep for the next eight years would be -- as Capitol Hill Blue's Doug Thompson so succinctly described George W. Bush -- a "criminally insane, pill-popping dry drunk." I don't know about that. I've seen some drunks in my time -- even dry ones -- and George Bush appears to be more than a little moist.
Bush was the perfect foil for Cheney. The Scalia-driven 2000 election coup catapulted Bush to the top of the political heap. For the first time in his worthless, impotent, cruelly indifferent life, Bush was suddenly important -- the most powerful man on the face of the earth -- and all because he had been told to scream, "Jezus! Jezus is my philosopher!" to the swooning masses. Makes one wonder at the rigid consent of those same "believers" for the ensuing slaughter of so many innocents -- when murdering even one in the name of Jesus should have sent a collective shriek reverberating throughout the religious universe. (See Matthew 18:14; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2)
Everybody knows that Bush isn't remotely qualified to be at the helm of the world's superpower. He can neither think nor speak coherently, can recognize little other than Texas on a map, has completely torpedoed every business venture he attempted, and admittedly was a hard-partying sot until he was 40. Cheney was another matter. He was a household word. He had been a public servant throughout his career. He served as President Gerald Ford's chief of staff, earned six terms in the House of Representatives where he ascended to the position of minority whip and, finally, was the elder Bush's Secretary of Defense.
We trusted Cheney to keep Bush from making rash decisions. Was it not Cheney who, at the conclusion of the 1991 Desert Storm assault, made the assessment that to expand the exercise to include regime change in Iraq was not morally sustainable because of the chaotic bloodletting -- the needless toll on our uniformed military?
We were wrong. Had we bothered to check the "other priorities" that allowed Cheney to dodge the draft five times on his rise to power, his chilling congressional voting record, his efforts to enrich the military industrial complex by privatizing defense duties and granting massive contracts to Halliburton, we would have known that Cheney was consumed with lust for power and money. We would have known Cheney had been champing at the bit for more than a decade to impose a new order wherein the American Empire controls the world and its resources.
Had we checked, we would have known Dick Cheney was the wrong babysitter for a kid who gets his jollies by blowing things up.
Cheney Unbound
In 1991, Cheney was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the upheaval of the following decade, the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, and the expanding manipulative power of the corporate media created the axis of corruption necessary for a Cheney reign of terror. Cheney was ready, as were the militant warmongers of the Project for the New American Century who had been demanding Saddam Hussein's head for years. At least 12 of the 18 co-signers of the January 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton, and another letter four months later to then House Speaker Newt Gingrich, demanding the overthrow of Saddam were given key positions on Cheney's destructive team.
The fix was in. Four days before the 2001 inauguration, PNAC's deputy director, Thomas Donnelly, wrote a memorandum to "Opinion Leaders," reminding them that "the task of removing Saddam Hussein’s regime from power still remains...Many in the incoming Bush Administration understand this challenge..."
Four months after the inauguration, the White House issued a press release warning that the threat of terrorist-nations using weapons of mass destruction against the American "homeland" was very real. To counter this danger, Cheney put himself in charge of the entire government -- departments of Defense, Justice, Health and Human Services, Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, FEMA, and "other federal agencies," which would naturally include both FAA and NORAD. A new department -- the Office of National Preparedness -- was created so Cheney could protect us from catastrophic harm and deal with "consequence" management.
The next four months were busy ones. With malicious indifference, Cheney set about screwing the American people; destroying 225-year Constitutional protections, passing secret laws to seize unlimited executive power, and locking both Congress and the public out of the legislative process. Bush provided cover by regaling us with hilarious "Benny Hill" bits of linguistic derring-do, strutting from one presidential photo op to another, falling off couches and bicycles, choking on pretzels, and attacking brush with a chainsaw at his Crawford ranch.
Cheney in Charge
Then it was 9-11. Suddenly Bush was no longer a spoiled, bumbling, schizophrenic little president. In an instant, he was transformed into a loaded codpiece -- The Commander in Chief, The Decider of life and death -- a modern-day Caligula towering above mankind with lighted depleted uranium firecrackers gripped in both fists. Cheney could not have picked a more willing accomplice to export death and violence to the four corners of the earth...
With smoke still rising from the ashes of Afghanistan, the drive to topple Saddam, who was demanding Euro for his oil, quickly turned into a crusade. It was Cheney-orchestrated and Cheney-driven. Under the deepening shadows of mushroom clouds, administration neoconservatives teamed up with ecstatic corporate media co-conspirators to terrify an already traumatized public. Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith launched a separate intelligence unit, the Office of Special Plans, to create the propaganda needed to invade Iraq.
Since Bush can't be trusted to maintain a single train of thought in one-on-one interviews, he hit the campaign trail with a prepared speech he delivered over and over -- is now delivering about Iran -- frantically catapulting the propaganda that Saddam was "threatening America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons." Bush convinced a majority of Americans that the Iraqi dictator was allied with Al Qaeda and provided a "safe haven" for terrorists, and if we didn't wipe him out, he would "strike us again without leaving any fingerprints."
Cheney's fingerprints are all over every aspect of the drive for war. For a year and a half, Cheney bullied the entire intelligence apparatus, especially the CIA, into making a false case that Saddam was an immediate nuclear threat. He denigrated the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that there was no evidence, sneering that the intelligence was faulty, and IAEA Director-General Mohammed El-Baradei had no credibility where Iraq was concerned.
But it was Secretary of State Colin Powell who rolled the loaded dice at the UN Security Council on February 8, 2003, in a presentation even he admitted was "bullshit." Powell, who is adept at leaving no fingerprints, but whose shadow lingers over decades of slaughtered innocents, carried the water for his masters one last time. When Powell completed his somber charges that Al-Qaeda was in Iraq running "poison camps" full bore, that Saddam was obtaining magnets for uranium enrichment -- charges backed up with photos and vials of poison -- we were sold. Because we trusted him.
A Moral Fork in the Road
I don't want to go off on an Aristotelian rant here, but thanks to Cheney and those around him obsessed with world government, this nation appears to be running on empty where morality, or ethos, is concerned. Values such as compassion, sympathy, prudence, virtue, decency, ethics -- cannot thrive in a nation controlled by war criminals who force its citizens into submission through fear, violence and propaganda. How can a society be "just" when natural laws have fallen by the wayside and nobody is held accountable for crimes against God and humanity?
We are under the control of the criminally insane. Cheney has turned the greatest democratic republic ever conceived into a world corporation and anointed himself its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He has supplanted two centuries of protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with executive orders and secret laws. In their lust for power and riches, Cheney and Bush have managed in just seven grueling, sadistic, morally corrupt years to destroy entire nations, including their own. And they accomplished this in the only way possible. Because we permitted it. Because we lost our moral compass.
So we stand here in the blood-sodden mess of two lost wars. Millions -- millions -- have been displaced, destroyed, dishonored in Cheney's quest for oil. Tens of thousands of our own citizens are injured, maimed -- 4,077 dead -- an entire generation of Americans lost in a depleted uranium wasteland. "So?" Cheney says, "They were all volunteers." He admitted that losing sons or daughters could "be a burden" on families, but reminded us sternly that "the biggest burden" is on the President, who has to send even more to their deaths.
We're at the crossroads. We can no longer remain neutral nor mill around in confused acceptance of the genocidal madness into which we have been swept. Thomas Jefferson said, "When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
Everybody knows the folly of the treasonous "corrections" made to counter the Iran-Contra evil in the 1980's and early '90's -- the flurry of Presidential Christmas-Eve pardons allowing convicted criminals to recede into the shadows only to return and metastasize throughout the current Cheney/Bush administration.
Cheney, Bush and their co-conspirators throughout the three branches of government must be removed. Indicted. Convicted. Imprisoned. Voting records of the 435 members of Congress and 33 Senators up for re-election in 2008 must be vetted, and those who do not reflect the will of the people must go. No exceptions. The remaining 17 Senators must either stand or fall on their voting records. If those who are guilty of the same breach of trust as their cohorts refuse to budge, they must be impeached and removed from office.
They have left us with but one choice, and one last chance to make that choice. We have reached a point in the "course of human events" where it is not only our "right but our duty" to throw off this destructive government and institute one which remembers it "derives its just powers from the consent of the governed."
The time has come for Americans to blink. Because the Abyss is staring back at us.
Sheila Samples http://sheilastuff.blogspot.com/ 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@wichitaonline.net
5/16/08
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.
- Leonard Cohen
The fate of millions was sealed the moment Dick Cheney selected himself as The Destroyer whose charge to keep for the next eight years would be -- as Capitol Hill Blue's Doug Thompson so succinctly described George W. Bush -- a "criminally insane, pill-popping dry drunk." I don't know about that. I've seen some drunks in my time -- even dry ones -- and George Bush appears to be more than a little moist.
Bush was the perfect foil for Cheney. The Scalia-driven 2000 election coup catapulted Bush to the top of the political heap. For the first time in his worthless, impotent, cruelly indifferent life, Bush was suddenly important -- the most powerful man on the face of the earth -- and all because he had been told to scream, "Jezus! Jezus is my philosopher!" to the swooning masses. Makes one wonder at the rigid consent of those same "believers" for the ensuing slaughter of so many innocents -- when murdering even one in the name of Jesus should have sent a collective shriek reverberating throughout the religious universe. (See Matthew 18:14; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2)
Everybody knows that Bush isn't remotely qualified to be at the helm of the world's superpower. He can neither think nor speak coherently, can recognize little other than Texas on a map, has completely torpedoed every business venture he attempted, and admittedly was a hard-partying sot until he was 40. Cheney was another matter. He was a household word. He had been a public servant throughout his career. He served as President Gerald Ford's chief of staff, earned six terms in the House of Representatives where he ascended to the position of minority whip and, finally, was the elder Bush's Secretary of Defense.
We trusted Cheney to keep Bush from making rash decisions. Was it not Cheney who, at the conclusion of the 1991 Desert Storm assault, made the assessment that to expand the exercise to include regime change in Iraq was not morally sustainable because of the chaotic bloodletting -- the needless toll on our uniformed military?
We were wrong. Had we bothered to check the "other priorities" that allowed Cheney to dodge the draft five times on his rise to power, his chilling congressional voting record, his efforts to enrich the military industrial complex by privatizing defense duties and granting massive contracts to Halliburton, we would have known that Cheney was consumed with lust for power and money. We would have known Cheney had been champing at the bit for more than a decade to impose a new order wherein the American Empire controls the world and its resources.
Had we checked, we would have known Dick Cheney was the wrong babysitter for a kid who gets his jollies by blowing things up.
Cheney Unbound
In 1991, Cheney was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the upheaval of the following decade, the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, and the expanding manipulative power of the corporate media created the axis of corruption necessary for a Cheney reign of terror. Cheney was ready, as were the militant warmongers of the Project for the New American Century who had been demanding Saddam Hussein's head for years. At least 12 of the 18 co-signers of the January 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton, and another letter four months later to then House Speaker Newt Gingrich, demanding the overthrow of Saddam were given key positions on Cheney's destructive team.
The fix was in. Four days before the 2001 inauguration, PNAC's deputy director, Thomas Donnelly, wrote a memorandum to "Opinion Leaders," reminding them that "the task of removing Saddam Hussein’s regime from power still remains...Many in the incoming Bush Administration understand this challenge..."
Four months after the inauguration, the White House issued a press release warning that the threat of terrorist-nations using weapons of mass destruction against the American "homeland" was very real. To counter this danger, Cheney put himself in charge of the entire government -- departments of Defense, Justice, Health and Human Services, Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, FEMA, and "other federal agencies," which would naturally include both FAA and NORAD. A new department -- the Office of National Preparedness -- was created so Cheney could protect us from catastrophic harm and deal with "consequence" management.
The next four months were busy ones. With malicious indifference, Cheney set about screwing the American people; destroying 225-year Constitutional protections, passing secret laws to seize unlimited executive power, and locking both Congress and the public out of the legislative process. Bush provided cover by regaling us with hilarious "Benny Hill" bits of linguistic derring-do, strutting from one presidential photo op to another, falling off couches and bicycles, choking on pretzels, and attacking brush with a chainsaw at his Crawford ranch.
Cheney in Charge
Then it was 9-11. Suddenly Bush was no longer a spoiled, bumbling, schizophrenic little president. In an instant, he was transformed into a loaded codpiece -- The Commander in Chief, The Decider of life and death -- a modern-day Caligula towering above mankind with lighted depleted uranium firecrackers gripped in both fists. Cheney could not have picked a more willing accomplice to export death and violence to the four corners of the earth...
With smoke still rising from the ashes of Afghanistan, the drive to topple Saddam, who was demanding Euro for his oil, quickly turned into a crusade. It was Cheney-orchestrated and Cheney-driven. Under the deepening shadows of mushroom clouds, administration neoconservatives teamed up with ecstatic corporate media co-conspirators to terrify an already traumatized public. Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith launched a separate intelligence unit, the Office of Special Plans, to create the propaganda needed to invade Iraq.
Since Bush can't be trusted to maintain a single train of thought in one-on-one interviews, he hit the campaign trail with a prepared speech he delivered over and over -- is now delivering about Iran -- frantically catapulting the propaganda that Saddam was "threatening America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons." Bush convinced a majority of Americans that the Iraqi dictator was allied with Al Qaeda and provided a "safe haven" for terrorists, and if we didn't wipe him out, he would "strike us again without leaving any fingerprints."
Cheney's fingerprints are all over every aspect of the drive for war. For a year and a half, Cheney bullied the entire intelligence apparatus, especially the CIA, into making a false case that Saddam was an immediate nuclear threat. He denigrated the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that there was no evidence, sneering that the intelligence was faulty, and IAEA Director-General Mohammed El-Baradei had no credibility where Iraq was concerned.
But it was Secretary of State Colin Powell who rolled the loaded dice at the UN Security Council on February 8, 2003, in a presentation even he admitted was "bullshit." Powell, who is adept at leaving no fingerprints, but whose shadow lingers over decades of slaughtered innocents, carried the water for his masters one last time. When Powell completed his somber charges that Al-Qaeda was in Iraq running "poison camps" full bore, that Saddam was obtaining magnets for uranium enrichment -- charges backed up with photos and vials of poison -- we were sold. Because we trusted him.
A Moral Fork in the Road
I don't want to go off on an Aristotelian rant here, but thanks to Cheney and those around him obsessed with world government, this nation appears to be running on empty where morality, or ethos, is concerned. Values such as compassion, sympathy, prudence, virtue, decency, ethics -- cannot thrive in a nation controlled by war criminals who force its citizens into submission through fear, violence and propaganda. How can a society be "just" when natural laws have fallen by the wayside and nobody is held accountable for crimes against God and humanity?
We are under the control of the criminally insane. Cheney has turned the greatest democratic republic ever conceived into a world corporation and anointed himself its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He has supplanted two centuries of protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with executive orders and secret laws. In their lust for power and riches, Cheney and Bush have managed in just seven grueling, sadistic, morally corrupt years to destroy entire nations, including their own. And they accomplished this in the only way possible. Because we permitted it. Because we lost our moral compass.
So we stand here in the blood-sodden mess of two lost wars. Millions -- millions -- have been displaced, destroyed, dishonored in Cheney's quest for oil. Tens of thousands of our own citizens are injured, maimed -- 4,077 dead -- an entire generation of Americans lost in a depleted uranium wasteland. "So?" Cheney says, "They were all volunteers." He admitted that losing sons or daughters could "be a burden" on families, but reminded us sternly that "the biggest burden" is on the President, who has to send even more to their deaths.
We're at the crossroads. We can no longer remain neutral nor mill around in confused acceptance of the genocidal madness into which we have been swept. Thomas Jefferson said, "When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
Everybody knows the folly of the treasonous "corrections" made to counter the Iran-Contra evil in the 1980's and early '90's -- the flurry of Presidential Christmas-Eve pardons allowing convicted criminals to recede into the shadows only to return and metastasize throughout the current Cheney/Bush administration.
Cheney, Bush and their co-conspirators throughout the three branches of government must be removed. Indicted. Convicted. Imprisoned. Voting records of the 435 members of Congress and 33 Senators up for re-election in 2008 must be vetted, and those who do not reflect the will of the people must go. No exceptions. The remaining 17 Senators must either stand or fall on their voting records. If those who are guilty of the same breach of trust as their cohorts refuse to budge, they must be impeached and removed from office.
They have left us with but one choice, and one last chance to make that choice. We have reached a point in the "course of human events" where it is not only our "right but our duty" to throw off this destructive government and institute one which remembers it "derives its just powers from the consent of the governed."
The time has come for Americans to blink. Because the Abyss is staring back at us.
Sheila Samples http://sheilastuff.blogspot.com/ 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@wichitaonline.net
Monday, May 12, 2008
A Sacred Trust the Candidates Choose to Ignore
by Richard L. Franklin
6/12/08
The issues evaded by the three presidential candidates are huge in number, so I'm presenting one single issue I see as urgently pressing. None of the three candidates has bothered to even mention the endless, ongoing poisoning of America.
I live no more than fifty yards from the beautiful Fox River. Unfortunately, paper mills dot its shoreline for many miles. And these factories have been dumping a deadly poison into that beleaguered river for over a century. That poison is dioxin. It is so deadly one dare not swim in the river or eat any fish from that river, but where American eagles unwittingly eat the poisoned dead fish that litter the shores.
The poison thusly enters a food chain. Small animals eat the dead fish, and larger animals eat those animals. Waterfowl feed on aquatic vegetation tainted by dioxin and then are eaten by animals and humans alike. And so forth.
The river bottoms for miles and miles are covered with megatons of poisoned mud. Desultory cleaning up of the river bottoms has been going on feebly for years, but it has been mostly symbolic. EPA's relatively small fines have simply not made serious cleanups economically necessary for the paper plants. It is cheaper to endlessly fight court battles that stretch out for decades. The cost management departments of large mill corporations long ago doubtlessly concluded that long legal battles and appeals will always be cheaper than cleaning out tons of poisoned mud from the river bottoms.
This kind of story is repeated over and over again across America. The types of pollution and manners of spreading them vary greatly, but the lack of cooperation by large corporations in doing cleanups is the same.
Reagan, Big Bush, Clinton, and Little Bush all managed the environment exactly the same. They and their kind have taken their orders from huge corporations such as Monsanto and Dow, and cleanups have been deferred over and over again as one trial after another winds its way through the courts with legal battles that can last for years. As for enforcement of environmental laws, it is almost nonexistent.
This endless desecration of 'America the beautiful' seems to have no powerful foes. Sure, there are sundry green groups, but they can't contribute the millions the poisoning corporations are capable of gifting to the campaign chests of lawmakers and presidents and elected judges.
So why is it that this issue has not been a plank in the programs of even one member of the current triad of candidates for the presidency? Why are they afraid to talk about deadly dioxin being poured into our rivers on a massive scale? Why do they not promise to back judges who see the desecration of our forests, mountains, plains, deserts, lakes, and rivers as an ugly form of treachery by greedily destructive corporations?
I say 'treachery' advisedly. Our lawmakers, judges, and presidents are supposed to be guardians of the magnificent natural heritage left to us following a fanatical slaughter of the American aborigines, peoples who revered all these natural treasures and never abused them.
First we genocidally eliminated millions of natives who revered a magnificent natural treasure, and then immediately began destroying that vast treasure. Only about two or three percent of the original fabulous forests of America now remain. Numerous species of life are now on the edge of extinction. Water tables have been poisoned. Wetlands have been filled in by greedy developers, thusly leading to huge flooding and the removal of vast natural habitats for the former wildlife residents thereof.
I wonder if any of the three candidates has ever hiked through the Rockies or high deserts during the spring blooming of this land's most magnificent, almost ethereal, flowers. I wonder if any of them have even looked at Ansel Adams' wonderful photos of the American landscapes that they have never even bothered to visit.
I have fond memories of coming across mountain lions, wildcats, deer, and mountain goats during my hikes in the Rockies. Those encounters were among the most magical moments of my life. Would any of the three candidates understand what I'm talking about? Is it not ironic that we elect people to care for such great treasures when they have never even visited them and seemingly have no feeling at all for their beauty and their precious value for us and our children and their children?
After a half day of hiking, I once fell asleep on a blanket after eating a bag lunch. When I awoke, there was a deer fawn standing next to me, looking directly down at my face. My feelings at that moment were indescribable. Imagine trying to communicate those kinds of feelings to any of the three candidates.
Why are the three pols deathly afraid of even talking about these shrinking treasures? The answer is ugly and simple. They are afraid of angering their corporate masters.
So what's the answer? I have a childishly simple answer. Make corporations illegal. There. I've said it. And I refuse to take it back.
As a final thought, consider the words spoken by Theodore Roosevelt exactly one century ago:
'The citizens of the United States must control the mighty commercial forces which they themselves called into being.'
This nation has not only ignored those sage words of advice, it has mindlessly entrusted more and more power to those same 'commercial forces' Teddy Roosevelt warned us about.
6/12/08
The issues evaded by the three presidential candidates are huge in number, so I'm presenting one single issue I see as urgently pressing. None of the three candidates has bothered to even mention the endless, ongoing poisoning of America.
I live no more than fifty yards from the beautiful Fox River. Unfortunately, paper mills dot its shoreline for many miles. And these factories have been dumping a deadly poison into that beleaguered river for over a century. That poison is dioxin. It is so deadly one dare not swim in the river or eat any fish from that river, but where American eagles unwittingly eat the poisoned dead fish that litter the shores.
The poison thusly enters a food chain. Small animals eat the dead fish, and larger animals eat those animals. Waterfowl feed on aquatic vegetation tainted by dioxin and then are eaten by animals and humans alike. And so forth.
The river bottoms for miles and miles are covered with megatons of poisoned mud. Desultory cleaning up of the river bottoms has been going on feebly for years, but it has been mostly symbolic. EPA's relatively small fines have simply not made serious cleanups economically necessary for the paper plants. It is cheaper to endlessly fight court battles that stretch out for decades. The cost management departments of large mill corporations long ago doubtlessly concluded that long legal battles and appeals will always be cheaper than cleaning out tons of poisoned mud from the river bottoms.
This kind of story is repeated over and over again across America. The types of pollution and manners of spreading them vary greatly, but the lack of cooperation by large corporations in doing cleanups is the same.
Reagan, Big Bush, Clinton, and Little Bush all managed the environment exactly the same. They and their kind have taken their orders from huge corporations such as Monsanto and Dow, and cleanups have been deferred over and over again as one trial after another winds its way through the courts with legal battles that can last for years. As for enforcement of environmental laws, it is almost nonexistent.
This endless desecration of 'America the beautiful' seems to have no powerful foes. Sure, there are sundry green groups, but they can't contribute the millions the poisoning corporations are capable of gifting to the campaign chests of lawmakers and presidents and elected judges.
So why is it that this issue has not been a plank in the programs of even one member of the current triad of candidates for the presidency? Why are they afraid to talk about deadly dioxin being poured into our rivers on a massive scale? Why do they not promise to back judges who see the desecration of our forests, mountains, plains, deserts, lakes, and rivers as an ugly form of treachery by greedily destructive corporations?
I say 'treachery' advisedly. Our lawmakers, judges, and presidents are supposed to be guardians of the magnificent natural heritage left to us following a fanatical slaughter of the American aborigines, peoples who revered all these natural treasures and never abused them.
First we genocidally eliminated millions of natives who revered a magnificent natural treasure, and then immediately began destroying that vast treasure. Only about two or three percent of the original fabulous forests of America now remain. Numerous species of life are now on the edge of extinction. Water tables have been poisoned. Wetlands have been filled in by greedy developers, thusly leading to huge flooding and the removal of vast natural habitats for the former wildlife residents thereof.
I wonder if any of the three candidates has ever hiked through the Rockies or high deserts during the spring blooming of this land's most magnificent, almost ethereal, flowers. I wonder if any of them have even looked at Ansel Adams' wonderful photos of the American landscapes that they have never even bothered to visit.
I have fond memories of coming across mountain lions, wildcats, deer, and mountain goats during my hikes in the Rockies. Those encounters were among the most magical moments of my life. Would any of the three candidates understand what I'm talking about? Is it not ironic that we elect people to care for such great treasures when they have never even visited them and seemingly have no feeling at all for their beauty and their precious value for us and our children and their children?
After a half day of hiking, I once fell asleep on a blanket after eating a bag lunch. When I awoke, there was a deer fawn standing next to me, looking directly down at my face. My feelings at that moment were indescribable. Imagine trying to communicate those kinds of feelings to any of the three candidates.
Why are the three pols deathly afraid of even talking about these shrinking treasures? The answer is ugly and simple. They are afraid of angering their corporate masters.
So what's the answer? I have a childishly simple answer. Make corporations illegal. There. I've said it. And I refuse to take it back.
As a final thought, consider the words spoken by Theodore Roosevelt exactly one century ago:
'The citizens of the United States must control the mighty commercial forces which they themselves called into being.'
This nation has not only ignored those sage words of advice, it has mindlessly entrusted more and more power to those same 'commercial forces' Teddy Roosevelt warned us about.
Disturbing Stirrings
Ratcheting Up For War on Iran
by Stephen Lendman
5/12/08
Led by Dick Cheney, Bush administration neocons want war on Iran. So does the Israeli Lobby, but it doesn't mean they'll get it. Powerful forces in Washington and the Pentagon are opposed and so far have prevailed. Nonetheless, worrisome recent events increase the possibility and must be closely watched.
Recall George Bush's January 10, 2007 address to the nation. He announced the 20,000 troop "surge" and more. "Succeeding in Iraq," he said, "also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing 'terrorists' and 'insurgents' to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt (those) attacks....we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
That was then; this is now. On May 3, Andrew Cockburn wrote on CounterPunch: "Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret 'finding' authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, (is) 'unprecedented in its scope.' " The directive permits a range of actions across a broad area costing hundreds of millions with an initial $300 million for starters.
full story
by Stephen Lendman
5/12/08
Led by Dick Cheney, Bush administration neocons want war on Iran. So does the Israeli Lobby, but it doesn't mean they'll get it. Powerful forces in Washington and the Pentagon are opposed and so far have prevailed. Nonetheless, worrisome recent events increase the possibility and must be closely watched.
Recall George Bush's January 10, 2007 address to the nation. He announced the 20,000 troop "surge" and more. "Succeeding in Iraq," he said, "also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing 'terrorists' and 'insurgents' to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt (those) attacks....we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
That was then; this is now. On May 3, Andrew Cockburn wrote on CounterPunch: "Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret 'finding' authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, (is) 'unprecedented in its scope.' " The directive permits a range of actions across a broad area costing hundreds of millions with an initial $300 million for starters.
full story
Monday, May 05, 2008
Photo ID to vote
Supreme Court says states can demand photo ID for voting
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 28, 6:09 PM ET
WASHINGTON - States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080428/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_voter_id
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
GEORGE W. BUSH, et al., PETITIONERS v.
ALBERT GORE, Jr., et al.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT
[December 12, 2000]
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html
and so, a question. How does Indiana or the Supreme Court propose to check the photo ID of people voting by absentee ballot? If they don't, then wouldn't they be advocating treating voters and their votes differently? And wasn't THAT the basis for the Supreme Court's decision in bush v Gore?
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 28, 6:09 PM ET
WASHINGTON - States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080428/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_voter_id
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
GEORGE W. BUSH, et al., PETITIONERS v.
ALBERT GORE, Jr., et al.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT
[December 12, 2000]
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html
and so, a question. How does Indiana or the Supreme Court propose to check the photo ID of people voting by absentee ballot? If they don't, then wouldn't they be advocating treating voters and their votes differently? And wasn't THAT the basis for the Supreme Court's decision in bush v Gore?
Sunday, May 04, 2008
The Goldwater Girl And Other Changelings
by Mary Pitt
5/4/08
In this life there is one immutable truth. It is that there will be change, whether or not we may approve or desire that change. At this time, there is no place where this is more true than in the battle for the presidency of the United States. The people whom we thought we knew now appear to us as something different than we ever expected from their past performances.
We hear of concerns about the possibility of a "split" in the Democratic party as the result of the no-holds-barred contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. If this is true, it is not necessarily the fault of the people involved but may be due to the failure of the American public to recognize how severely bifurcated the party has become as the result of the tension created between the desire to consider the welfare of the working class and the desire to win dominance in the halls of government.
As the Democrats continue to jockey for power and privilege they find the voters to be less than compliant with their carefully-laid plans. Most apparent of this syndrome is the campaign of Senator Clinton. Being distrustful of her party's ability to prevail over the opposition, she determined to attempt to appeal to their base in order to beef up her own support. This has been simple for her, inasmuch as her internship in the political field was in the camp of former Republican conservative, Barry Goldwater. Actually, she boasts of her days as a Goldwater Girl.
However, her political leanings were challenged by her relationship with a certain up-and-coming young man named Bill Clinton, who later served two terms as an acceptable Democratic governor and President. Once the White House days were over, she determined to pursue her own political career and availed herself of her husband's support within his party. But some of us wonder, as she makes her appeal to the Reagan Democrats if her indoctrination under the master conservative might still be directing her thinking as to policy as well as to talking points. One might also speculate as to whether her husband's firm friendship with the senior President Bush has any bearing on her political changes.
As Senator Obama trudged along in the path of a traditional Democrat in pursuit of the impossible dream, the improbable candidate found himself being damned by association with one of the heroes of the civil rights movement, one who is known to have associated with and to still be fond of those social warriors from that struggle. These connections are to really scarey people, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, jr, Al Sharpton, Louis Farakhan, the Black Panthers, and the Weather Underground, et al. All of these people and the events in which they participated, by the way, are largely responsible for the fact that we not only got out of Vietnam but have reached the point where a man of color can actually have a chance of becoming our President.
However, even with the "radical preacher" tied about his neck like an albatross, Obama labors on, reaching out to the working class and the poor who are struggling greatly in this time of Bush-o-nomics. We will soon know whether he can reach enough of them with his understanding and care to get them to swallow the last of their inbred racism and support him in his contest or whether the old instincts will compel them to swing to the right and vote Republican-lite due to the racial animus aroused by the words of somebody else.
In any event, the winner of this contest will face another race against another "changeling" whose ambition has wreaked horrendous changes in him. A man who cherished his reputation as a maverick, who had steadfastly refused to march in lockstep with the neo-cons and the religious right has courted both factions and adopted the attitude of the Bush administration as well as the no-taxes-no-welfare program of the super-right and the continuation of the war in the Middle East into the future without foreseeable end. To listen to Senator John McCain parrot the words of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney is to wonder whther he has lost his mind or whether we have. Or perhaps this change is prompted by the fact that his previous positions have been co-opted by Senator Clinton in her effort to capture "the middle of the road".
In any event, to paraphrase Rev. Jeremiah Wright, "It's not God bless America, it's God SAVE America!"
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for "societal perfection".
Building A New World Conference - May 22 - 25
Below is a link to the World Prout Assembly's Radford, VA conference.
Topics to be discussed are cutting-edge, the speaker lineup is sensational – Kathy Kelly, Michael Parenti, Cindy Sheehan, Lynne Stewart, Robert Jensen, David Swanson, Alice Lovelace, Father Roy Bourgeois, William Blum, and many others.
WPA president and conference organizer Garda Ghista deserves heaps of praise for her extraordinary effort, including self-funding the entire project. In times like now, all of us need to get behind these type efforts. What chance do we have to change things if we don't.
http://www.wpaconference.org/
5/4/08
In this life there is one immutable truth. It is that there will be change, whether or not we may approve or desire that change. At this time, there is no place where this is more true than in the battle for the presidency of the United States. The people whom we thought we knew now appear to us as something different than we ever expected from their past performances.
We hear of concerns about the possibility of a "split" in the Democratic party as the result of the no-holds-barred contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. If this is true, it is not necessarily the fault of the people involved but may be due to the failure of the American public to recognize how severely bifurcated the party has become as the result of the tension created between the desire to consider the welfare of the working class and the desire to win dominance in the halls of government.
As the Democrats continue to jockey for power and privilege they find the voters to be less than compliant with their carefully-laid plans. Most apparent of this syndrome is the campaign of Senator Clinton. Being distrustful of her party's ability to prevail over the opposition, she determined to attempt to appeal to their base in order to beef up her own support. This has been simple for her, inasmuch as her internship in the political field was in the camp of former Republican conservative, Barry Goldwater. Actually, she boasts of her days as a Goldwater Girl.
However, her political leanings were challenged by her relationship with a certain up-and-coming young man named Bill Clinton, who later served two terms as an acceptable Democratic governor and President. Once the White House days were over, she determined to pursue her own political career and availed herself of her husband's support within his party. But some of us wonder, as she makes her appeal to the Reagan Democrats if her indoctrination under the master conservative might still be directing her thinking as to policy as well as to talking points. One might also speculate as to whether her husband's firm friendship with the senior President Bush has any bearing on her political changes.
As Senator Obama trudged along in the path of a traditional Democrat in pursuit of the impossible dream, the improbable candidate found himself being damned by association with one of the heroes of the civil rights movement, one who is known to have associated with and to still be fond of those social warriors from that struggle. These connections are to really scarey people, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, jr, Al Sharpton, Louis Farakhan, the Black Panthers, and the Weather Underground, et al. All of these people and the events in which they participated, by the way, are largely responsible for the fact that we not only got out of Vietnam but have reached the point where a man of color can actually have a chance of becoming our President.
However, even with the "radical preacher" tied about his neck like an albatross, Obama labors on, reaching out to the working class and the poor who are struggling greatly in this time of Bush-o-nomics. We will soon know whether he can reach enough of them with his understanding and care to get them to swallow the last of their inbred racism and support him in his contest or whether the old instincts will compel them to swing to the right and vote Republican-lite due to the racial animus aroused by the words of somebody else.
In any event, the winner of this contest will face another race against another "changeling" whose ambition has wreaked horrendous changes in him. A man who cherished his reputation as a maverick, who had steadfastly refused to march in lockstep with the neo-cons and the religious right has courted both factions and adopted the attitude of the Bush administration as well as the no-taxes-no-welfare program of the super-right and the continuation of the war in the Middle East into the future without foreseeable end. To listen to Senator John McCain parrot the words of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney is to wonder whther he has lost his mind or whether we have. Or perhaps this change is prompted by the fact that his previous positions have been co-opted by Senator Clinton in her effort to capture "the middle of the road".
In any event, to paraphrase Rev. Jeremiah Wright, "It's not God bless America, it's God SAVE America!"
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and common sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for "societal perfection".
Building A New World Conference - May 22 - 25
Below is a link to the World Prout Assembly's Radford, VA conference.
Topics to be discussed are cutting-edge, the speaker lineup is sensational – Kathy Kelly, Michael Parenti, Cindy Sheehan, Lynne Stewart, Robert Jensen, David Swanson, Alice Lovelace, Father Roy Bourgeois, William Blum, and many others.
WPA president and conference organizer Garda Ghista deserves heaps of praise for her extraordinary effort, including self-funding the entire project. In times like now, all of us need to get behind these type efforts. What chance do we have to change things if we don't.
http://www.wpaconference.org/
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Feeding Moloch:
Last Barriers to War on Iran Come Down
Thursday, 01 May 2008
Chris Floyd
http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1498/135/
Anyone who thinks the Bush Administration does not intend to attack Iran either has rocks in the head or their head in the sand. The warmongers have raised their cacophonous howling of threat and accusation against Iran to entirely new levels. Every day now, some major Administration figure makes fiery charges that Iran is directly, deliberately killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq: a clear casus belli, if it were true, which it almost certainly is not.
(That is, it a clear cause for war in the perverted logic of Establishment discourse, which ignores the fact that U.S. forces have illegally invaded and occupied Iraq, and the fact the Bush Administration itself supports the same violent sectarian Shiite factions that Iran does in Iraq, factions responsible for killing thousands of innocent people. What's more, Bush and his beloved General Petraeus are now directly paying extremist Sunni factions, including members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, who are likewise engaged in murder, repression and "ethnic cleansing," like their Bush-supported Shiite counterparts. George W. Bush and his minions and handlers have deliberately, knowingly, purposely created a slaughterhouse in Iraq, and they keep it going 24/7 with the fresh meat of murdered innocents. This is the true context of the Administration's charges against Iran: mass murderers accusing others of malevolent intent.)
The latest and most explicit salvo of warmongering comes from CIA honcho Michael Hayden, who finally crossed the red line that Bush officials have been tip-toeing up to for months: the charge that Iran's top government leadership is directly involved in "facilitating the killing of Americans in Iraq." As late as last week, the nation's top military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, said there was "no smoking gun proof" that Iran's leadership was involved in the alleged Iranian support for attacks on American forces. And Petraeus, in his many Tehran-baiting broadsides over the past few months, has likewise always stopped short of this war-triggering accusation.
But now Hayden -- obviously with White House support -- has stepped boldly over that line. In an appearance at Kansas State University, he made it crystal clear:
"It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," Hayden said. "Just make sure there's clarity on that."
In the weeks to come, the Administration will be rolling out more product along these lines, as the AP report notes:
Military commanders in Baghdad are expected to roll out evidence of that support soon, including date stamps on newly found weapons caches showing that recently made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing rate.
Saint Petraeus himself is also preparing a report on alleged Iranian involvement in Iraq. (Aside from Tehran's intimate ties with Bush's own allies in Iraq, of course.) No doubt the word from this sterling officer -- universally respected despite his nearly unbroken record of egregious failure -- will be treated as holy writ by the "bipartisan foreign policy establishment," including the two "progressive" Democratic presidential candidates, one of which has already called for the "obliteration" of Iran, while the other stresses constantly that "all options remain on the table" against Tehran.
Let us, like Michael Hayden, be crystal clear. We are talking about an Administration that, for PR purposes, took the nation to war against Iraq over a potential threat to American lives, from Saddam's alleged WMD and his alleged support for terrorist proxies. (Again, we speak of the publicly stated reasons for war, not the real reasons.) This was the benchmark they set: even a potential threat to American lives justified military action. Now the Bush Administration is claiming that Iran is actually killing Americans; it is not a potential threat, but, as Hayden says, the actual policy of the highest levels of the Iranian government to facilitate the killing of Americans.
According to the benchmarks established by the Administration itself, this is an overwhelming justification for war. Indeed, in the harsh moral universe of geopolitics, the accusation essentially compels war: what nation would accept the killing of its own people without striking back?
So this is where we are now. The very last rhetorical line has been crossed. The last top military official who might -- might -- have resisted military action against Iran has been removed, replaced (with the avid backing of Obama) by Bush's willing executioner Petraeus.
We have seen all this before in the run-up to the destruction of Iraq. You have the incessant allegations and demonization of the target, who is suddenly the main source of evil in the world: just this week, Condi Rice declared that Hamas (an indigenous Palestinian organization whose rise was surreptitiously aided by Israel) is nothing more than a proxy army of Iran, while Pentagon bigwig General Carter Ham charged, ludicrously, that the Shiite government of Iran is supplying weapons and support to the extremist Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan. Again, as with Saddam, we are being told that the Iranian government is behind all of the problems in the Middle East; thus "regime change" in Tehran will remove those problems, and bring peace, freedom and prosperity to the region.
There is also the same removal of any top brass who might stand in the way of military aggression, such as the undercutting and "early retirement" of Army Chief General Eric Shinseki, who had questioned the Iraq war plan's troop levels, and the outright firing of Army Secretary Thomas White, who had publicly sided with Shinseki. Now Admiral William Fallon -- who had dutifully commanded the various Terror War operations launched by Bush in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, but balked at, in his words, "crushing the ants" in Iran until finishing off the other ants first, was pushed into "early retirement" to make way for the ever-obliging Petraeus.
The media too are playing their wonted role, as before. Most of the Bush Regime's charges are simply stovepiped directly into news stories with little or no critical examination, beyond an occasional brief along the lines of, "Iran denies involvement in the attacks." The reality of the Shiite factions in Iraq and their relation to Iran -- including the fact that ever-demonized Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army is far more at odds with Iran than the Bush-supported factions -- is almost never mentioned in any story breathlessly retailing the Administration's latest blood libels against Iran. Professor Juan Cole provides the true context (see his original post for more links):
The poor slum kids and Marsh Arabs in Basra who follow Moqtada al-Sadr don't even like Iranians. The primary Iran-linked force in Basra is the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq [a pillar of the U.S.-backed government] with its Badr Corps militia, which most Basrans code as Iranian puppets. One of my Iraqi correspondents told me that when the Badr Corps was fighting Marsh Arabs, local Basrans characterized it as 'Iranians fighting Iraqis.' The Badr Corps, according to the Iraqi press, fought alongside al-Maliki's 14th Division against the Mahdi Army. The Badr Corps was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and it is alleged that many Badr Corps fighters are still on the Iranian payroll.
Iranians come through Basra on their way up to Karbala and Najaf on pilgrimage to sacred Shiite shrines, and a handful may have gotten caught up in the fighting... But that Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran deliberately sent Iranian troops or agents into Basra to undermine ISCI, Badr, and al-Maliki's Da'wa (Islamic Missionary) Party on behalf of the Sadr Movement just strikes me as daft. It flies in the face of everything else we know about the relationship of these groups with Iran.
And of course, the Iranian government has now come out squarely, in public, in favor of the al-Maliki regime in its attacks on Sadr's militia in Basra. This the reality: In Iraq, the Bush Administration and the Iranian government are on the same side, supporting the same Shiite factions. Just make sure there's clarity on that.
The Administration's literally hell-bent push for war with Iran has absolutely nothing to do with any of its stated reasons about Iranian interference or attacks on Americans in Iraq. (Juan Cole points us to this article by Tom O'Donnell for a look at some of the real reasons.)
But none of this matters. As with Iraq, the reality doesn't matter. The truth doesn't matter. The horrifying, murderous consequences don't matter. What matters is the militarist, elitist agenda of global domination -- in a word, empire -- that has driven America's "bipartisan foreign policy establishment" for decades. Iraq was not an aberration; it was an embodiment of this agenda. And the attack on Iran will be the same. A whole new slaughterhouse is about to open for business: more meat for the grinder, more sacrifices to the Moloch of greed and ambition.
Thursday, 01 May 2008
Chris Floyd
http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1498/135/
Anyone who thinks the Bush Administration does not intend to attack Iran either has rocks in the head or their head in the sand. The warmongers have raised their cacophonous howling of threat and accusation against Iran to entirely new levels. Every day now, some major Administration figure makes fiery charges that Iran is directly, deliberately killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq: a clear casus belli, if it were true, which it almost certainly is not.
(That is, it a clear cause for war in the perverted logic of Establishment discourse, which ignores the fact that U.S. forces have illegally invaded and occupied Iraq, and the fact the Bush Administration itself supports the same violent sectarian Shiite factions that Iran does in Iraq, factions responsible for killing thousands of innocent people. What's more, Bush and his beloved General Petraeus are now directly paying extremist Sunni factions, including members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, who are likewise engaged in murder, repression and "ethnic cleansing," like their Bush-supported Shiite counterparts. George W. Bush and his minions and handlers have deliberately, knowingly, purposely created a slaughterhouse in Iraq, and they keep it going 24/7 with the fresh meat of murdered innocents. This is the true context of the Administration's charges against Iran: mass murderers accusing others of malevolent intent.)
The latest and most explicit salvo of warmongering comes from CIA honcho Michael Hayden, who finally crossed the red line that Bush officials have been tip-toeing up to for months: the charge that Iran's top government leadership is directly involved in "facilitating the killing of Americans in Iraq." As late as last week, the nation's top military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, said there was "no smoking gun proof" that Iran's leadership was involved in the alleged Iranian support for attacks on American forces. And Petraeus, in his many Tehran-baiting broadsides over the past few months, has likewise always stopped short of this war-triggering accusation.
But now Hayden -- obviously with White House support -- has stepped boldly over that line. In an appearance at Kansas State University, he made it crystal clear:
"It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," Hayden said. "Just make sure there's clarity on that."
In the weeks to come, the Administration will be rolling out more product along these lines, as the AP report notes:
Military commanders in Baghdad are expected to roll out evidence of that support soon, including date stamps on newly found weapons caches showing that recently made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing rate.
Saint Petraeus himself is also preparing a report on alleged Iranian involvement in Iraq. (Aside from Tehran's intimate ties with Bush's own allies in Iraq, of course.) No doubt the word from this sterling officer -- universally respected despite his nearly unbroken record of egregious failure -- will be treated as holy writ by the "bipartisan foreign policy establishment," including the two "progressive" Democratic presidential candidates, one of which has already called for the "obliteration" of Iran, while the other stresses constantly that "all options remain on the table" against Tehran.
Let us, like Michael Hayden, be crystal clear. We are talking about an Administration that, for PR purposes, took the nation to war against Iraq over a potential threat to American lives, from Saddam's alleged WMD and his alleged support for terrorist proxies. (Again, we speak of the publicly stated reasons for war, not the real reasons.) This was the benchmark they set: even a potential threat to American lives justified military action. Now the Bush Administration is claiming that Iran is actually killing Americans; it is not a potential threat, but, as Hayden says, the actual policy of the highest levels of the Iranian government to facilitate the killing of Americans.
According to the benchmarks established by the Administration itself, this is an overwhelming justification for war. Indeed, in the harsh moral universe of geopolitics, the accusation essentially compels war: what nation would accept the killing of its own people without striking back?
So this is where we are now. The very last rhetorical line has been crossed. The last top military official who might -- might -- have resisted military action against Iran has been removed, replaced (with the avid backing of Obama) by Bush's willing executioner Petraeus.
We have seen all this before in the run-up to the destruction of Iraq. You have the incessant allegations and demonization of the target, who is suddenly the main source of evil in the world: just this week, Condi Rice declared that Hamas (an indigenous Palestinian organization whose rise was surreptitiously aided by Israel) is nothing more than a proxy army of Iran, while Pentagon bigwig General Carter Ham charged, ludicrously, that the Shiite government of Iran is supplying weapons and support to the extremist Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan. Again, as with Saddam, we are being told that the Iranian government is behind all of the problems in the Middle East; thus "regime change" in Tehran will remove those problems, and bring peace, freedom and prosperity to the region.
There is also the same removal of any top brass who might stand in the way of military aggression, such as the undercutting and "early retirement" of Army Chief General Eric Shinseki, who had questioned the Iraq war plan's troop levels, and the outright firing of Army Secretary Thomas White, who had publicly sided with Shinseki. Now Admiral William Fallon -- who had dutifully commanded the various Terror War operations launched by Bush in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, but balked at, in his words, "crushing the ants" in Iran until finishing off the other ants first, was pushed into "early retirement" to make way for the ever-obliging Petraeus.
The media too are playing their wonted role, as before. Most of the Bush Regime's charges are simply stovepiped directly into news stories with little or no critical examination, beyond an occasional brief along the lines of, "Iran denies involvement in the attacks." The reality of the Shiite factions in Iraq and their relation to Iran -- including the fact that ever-demonized Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army is far more at odds with Iran than the Bush-supported factions -- is almost never mentioned in any story breathlessly retailing the Administration's latest blood libels against Iran. Professor Juan Cole provides the true context (see his original post for more links):
The poor slum kids and Marsh Arabs in Basra who follow Moqtada al-Sadr don't even like Iranians. The primary Iran-linked force in Basra is the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq [a pillar of the U.S.-backed government] with its Badr Corps militia, which most Basrans code as Iranian puppets. One of my Iraqi correspondents told me that when the Badr Corps was fighting Marsh Arabs, local Basrans characterized it as 'Iranians fighting Iraqis.' The Badr Corps, according to the Iraqi press, fought alongside al-Maliki's 14th Division against the Mahdi Army. The Badr Corps was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and it is alleged that many Badr Corps fighters are still on the Iranian payroll.
Iranians come through Basra on their way up to Karbala and Najaf on pilgrimage to sacred Shiite shrines, and a handful may have gotten caught up in the fighting... But that Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran deliberately sent Iranian troops or agents into Basra to undermine ISCI, Badr, and al-Maliki's Da'wa (Islamic Missionary) Party on behalf of the Sadr Movement just strikes me as daft. It flies in the face of everything else we know about the relationship of these groups with Iran.
And of course, the Iranian government has now come out squarely, in public, in favor of the al-Maliki regime in its attacks on Sadr's militia in Basra. This the reality: In Iraq, the Bush Administration and the Iranian government are on the same side, supporting the same Shiite factions. Just make sure there's clarity on that.
The Administration's literally hell-bent push for war with Iran has absolutely nothing to do with any of its stated reasons about Iranian interference or attacks on Americans in Iraq. (Juan Cole points us to this article by Tom O'Donnell for a look at some of the real reasons.)
But none of this matters. As with Iraq, the reality doesn't matter. The truth doesn't matter. The horrifying, murderous consequences don't matter. What matters is the militarist, elitist agenda of global domination -- in a word, empire -- that has driven America's "bipartisan foreign policy establishment" for decades. Iraq was not an aberration; it was an embodiment of this agenda. And the attack on Iran will be the same. A whole new slaughterhouse is about to open for business: more meat for the grinder, more sacrifices to the Moloch of greed and ambition.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)