By Sheila Samples
November 24, 2009
If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.
- Thomas S. Szasz, The Second Sin
Several months ago, CNN published the results of a couple of disturbing polls about Americans and their religious beliefs. The first found that more Americans are rejecting religion and thus, according to CNN, America is becoming "less Christian." The second, a Pew survey of only 742 mostly white evangelical Protestants, revealed that more than six in 10 of them believe that torture is often or sometimes justified.
More than six in 10? What this says about those claiming to be God's own is that perhaps they should use their Bibles for more than "thumping." Because not one in 10 -- not one in 10 thousand -- not one in 10 million -- Christians believes that torture can ever be justified. Ever.
Anyone who has paid attention to the growing number of evangelical zealots over the past couple of decades must be aware that there is a growing chasm between Religion and Christianity. Today, the term, "religious Christians" is nothing if not oxymoronic. It seems when folks become apocalyptic frothing-at-the-mouth religious, they ultimately stray from the light and life of Christianity, while descending deeper into the darkness and death of Religion.
Because, all religion is politics. CNN quoted Mark Silk of Trinity College, who said, "In the 1990s, it really sunk in on the American public generally that there was a long-lasting 'religious right' connected to a political party, and that turned a lot of people the other way." Silk cited the obvious link between the Republican Party and groups such as the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family.
Tony Perkins, the right-wing evangelical president of the Family Research Council, told CNN not to worry. He said people will return to their faith in droves; that soon, the decline will ease and religion will be an even greater part of people's lives. The good news, according to Perkins, is, "As the economy goes downward, I think people are going to be driven to religion." (emphasis added)
Yes, as more Americans lose their jobs, their homes, their very reasons for living, those like Perkins see them as Manchurian congregations -- flocks driven to religion like cattle -- bawling, shuffling, pushing, milling around with tags in their ears, looking for a leader. Even now, they can be seen in mammoth mega-churches, some with arms raised -- fists clutching at dead air -- others writhing in the aisles, moaning, begging for some "sign" from their rigidly religious God. Perhaps their panic stems from the instinctive knowledge that God, unable to get a word in edgewise, has left the building.
The conservative religious right is a frightening political force driven in its efforts to divide and conquer by greed, an insatiable lust for power, and an ideology of hate. Its members, unable to drag God down to their level, have no qualms about elevating themselves to what they perceive as His level. They succeed in controlling the flock because fear -- especially fear of God -- is a great motivator. They use God not only as a weapon against millions who stand between them and their goals of replacing democracy with theocracy and of controlling the worlds resources and its people -- but as a divine justification for the destruction they leave in their wake.
No one was more adept at giving God credit for his killing fields than former president George W. Bush, who openly bragged that God had hired him to remove evil from the face of the earth. "I trust God speaks through me," Bush said in 2004. "Without that, I couldn't do my job." And, even before that, in 2003, Bush tried to round up a "coalition of the willing" for his Iraq slaughter on God's behalf. According to Charleston Gazette editor James A. Haught, Bush told then French President Jacques Chirac that "Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse." Haught wrote...
"Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins."
But some presidents, such as Lyndon Johnson, were not so magnanimous. God got the blame, not the credit, for the Vietman atrocity. Ronnie Dugger, in his book, "The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson," writes that Johnson told Austrian ambassador Ernst Lemberter in 1966 that the Holy Ghost regularly visited him..."He comes to me about 2 o'clock in the morning," Johnson said, "--when I have to give word to the boys, and I get the word from God whether to bomb or not."
Now, you don't have to be a Christian to reject the right-wing bull hockey that the God who appeared in a blinding flash of light and spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus has sunk to the evangelical depths where He emits not even a glimmer as He bends our presidents' ears on who to slaughter, urges televangelist Pat Robertson to ask a woman about her sex life, and is still deciding if He wants Michelle Bachman or Sarah Palin to be president.
Christians should be lauded for rejecting modern-day Religion. When the God they are taught to love is either credited -- or blamed -- for all hell on earth; when they search in vain for Jesus, and finally find Him, hanging out in a secretive townhouse on Washington's C Street with the greedy, war-mongering gang who refer to themselves as "The Family," it's time to take a second look at the direction in which this nation is hurtling.
For years, conservative right-wingers have hidden out in the C Street "church," where they are free to conduct all manner of fraud and to carry on adulterous affairs. People who have sold their souls; who have no sense of morality, and who use God as a Trojan Horse to hide their political manipulations to replace both Democrats and Democracy are quite mad, you know. Right-wing evangelicals and neocon operatives are consumed with religious hate, not Christian love. Their modus operandi is, as Weekly Standard operative William Kristol said, "go for the kill."
And, those who are familiar with Kristol know he wasn't referring just to health care. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition protege, the now disgraced Ralph Reed, dubbed in 1995 by Time magazine as "the right hand of God," was a master at evangelical politics, which he said was like Viet Cong-style guerrilla warfare. Reed said, "I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night."
Anyone doubting the viciousness with which Reed would "go for the kill" should have a talk with Vietnam War hero and amputee Max Cleland, who not only found himself crammed into a body bag on election night 2002, thanks to Ralph Reed, but was in there with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
But Reed and others are tyros when it comes to those most likely to cause Christians to reject religion -- those whom CNN failed to mention who incite violence by preaching sermons laced with politics, religion, racism -- and hate. Those like Tempe, Arizona's Steven Anderson, who has no college degree nor formal Bible training, but is qualified to preach because he "has memorized almost half of the New Testament." Anderson started his own church -- Faithful Word Baptist -- in 2005 on Christmas Day. A firey right-wing preacher, he's against homosexuality, liberalism -- and President Barack Obama.
In August, Anderson gave a breathtakingly vile speech entitled, "Why I Hate Obama," in which he said about President Obama, among many other things...
"Obama is a madman in control of this country."
"Obama is NOT my president."
"Obama mocks the Bible."
"Obama is a socialist devil murderer."
"I hope he dies and goes to hell."
"God looks down and says, 'Man -- I HATE that guy!'"
Anderson, and those like him, epitomize the breach between Religion and Christianity. The religious believe that God belongs to them. Christians know that they belong to God. It's that simple. Thus, CNN polls notwithstanding, America cannot become "less Christian" as a result of members of the flock jerking the tags from their ears -- and rejecting modern-day religion.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009
Rack 'em and Screw 'em, Boys!
By Sheila Samples
November 1, 2009
Is there anything scarier than the New York Times' Halloween treat entitled, "Documents Detail Conditions Found at Secret C.I.A. Jails"?
Pardon my Palinese, but -- You betcha! You damnbetcha!
For starters, the "conditions" the Times mentions only briefly are, in reality, depraved, corrupt, immoral, inhumane torture. According to the Times...
"F.B.I. agents who arrived at a secret C.I.A. jail overseas in September 2002 found prisoners “manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring music around the clock,” and a C.I.A. official wrote a list of questions for interrogators including “How close is each technique to the ‘rack and screw'. . ."
What is more frightening -- that the C.I.A. got its jollies by torturing, even murdering human beings in its secret sodomy frat-houses -- or that the F.B.I. took one look, fled the scene and remained silent for years?
Perhaps it's the two-page memo President George Bush had circulated seven months earlier wherein he determined -- under his authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive of the United States –
"...none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world because, among other reasons, al Qaeda is not a High Contracting Party to Geneva." (emphasis added)
[...]
"...I determine that the Taliban detainees are unlawful combatants and, therefore, do not qualify as prisoners of war under Article 4 of Geneva. I note that, because Geneva does not apply to our conflict with al Qaeda, al Qaeda detainees also do not qualify as prisoners of war."
Bush then added piously that our values as a nation that we shared with many nations (?) required us to treat humanely even those not qualified as humans nor entitled to such treatment. So -- wink, wink -- rack 'em and screw 'em, boys!
According to the Times, the documents were released as a result of several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Judicial Watch. Makes you wonder if this nation's mainstream media, both print and electronic, has no access -- nor interest -- in freedom of information, doesn't it?
The Times did provide links (see below) to the released documents -- 953 pages it knew most of us would never read. To offset that, the Times assigned two of its top investigative reporters -- Scott Shane and Charlie Savage -- to get the critical information out.
These guys hopped right on it and, after yawning through the assignment, their bland 306-word "news" article was published on page A28.
I don't know about you, but even for Halloween -- that's scary!
Links to released documents via New York Times
A.C.L.U. vs. C.I.A. (SDNY) (pdf) (13 pages)
A.C.L.U. vs. D.O.D. (DDC2) (pdf) (441 pages)
Judicial Watch vs. C.I.A. (DDC) (pdf) (34 pages)
A.C.L.U. vs. D.O.D. (SDNY) (pdf) (98 pages)
A.C.L.U. vs. D.O.D. (DDC2) (pdf) (61 pages)
A.C.L.U. vs. D.O.D. (pdf) (141 pages)
Feinman vs. C.I.A. (DDC) (pdf) (163 pages)
Judicial Watch vs. D.O.J. (DDC) (pdf) (2 pages)
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
November 1, 2009
Is there anything scarier than the New York Times' Halloween treat entitled, "Documents Detail Conditions Found at Secret C.I.A. Jails"?
Pardon my Palinese, but -- You betcha! You damnbetcha!
For starters, the "conditions" the Times mentions only briefly are, in reality, depraved, corrupt, immoral, inhumane torture. According to the Times...
"F.B.I. agents who arrived at a secret C.I.A. jail overseas in September 2002 found prisoners “manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring music around the clock,” and a C.I.A. official wrote a list of questions for interrogators including “How close is each technique to the ‘rack and screw'. . ."
What is more frightening -- that the C.I.A. got its jollies by torturing, even murdering human beings in its secret sodomy frat-houses -- or that the F.B.I. took one look, fled the scene and remained silent for years?
Perhaps it's the two-page memo President George Bush had circulated seven months earlier wherein he determined -- under his authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive of the United States –
"...none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world because, among other reasons, al Qaeda is not a High Contracting Party to Geneva." (emphasis added)
[...]
"...I determine that the Taliban detainees are unlawful combatants and, therefore, do not qualify as prisoners of war under Article 4 of Geneva. I note that, because Geneva does not apply to our conflict with al Qaeda, al Qaeda detainees also do not qualify as prisoners of war."
Bush then added piously that our values as a nation that we shared with many nations (?) required us to treat humanely even those not qualified as humans nor entitled to such treatment. So -- wink, wink -- rack 'em and screw 'em, boys!
According to the Times, the documents were released as a result of several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Judicial Watch. Makes you wonder if this nation's mainstream media, both print and electronic, has no access -- nor interest -- in freedom of information, doesn't it?
The Times did provide links (see below) to the released documents -- 953 pages it knew most of us would never read. To offset that, the Times assigned two of its top investigative reporters -- Scott Shane and Charlie Savage -- to get the critical information out.
These guys hopped right on it and, after yawning through the assignment, their bland 306-word "news" article was published on page A28.
I don't know about you, but even for Halloween -- that's scary!
Links to released documents via New York Times
A.C.L.U. vs. C.I.A. (SDNY) (pdf) (13 pages)
A.C.L.U. vs. D.O.D. (DDC2) (pdf) (441 pages)
Judicial Watch vs. C.I.A. (DDC) (pdf) (34 pages)
A.C.L.U. vs. D.O.D. (SDNY) (pdf) (98 pages)
A.C.L.U. vs. D.O.D. (DDC2) (pdf) (61 pages)
A.C.L.U. vs. D.O.D. (pdf) (141 pages)
Feinman vs. C.I.A. (DDC) (pdf) (163 pages)
Judicial Watch vs. D.O.J. (DDC) (pdf) (2 pages)
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
smooth talkin'
October 27, 2009
Mack answers questions about Obama visit
news-press.com
http://www.news-press.com/article/20091027/OBAMA/91027025/1075
Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, held a phone conference this morning to answer questions about his position on President Obama’s visit to the DeSoto County solar power plant. He said the president is on a sales pitch to increase his popularity on the taxpayer’s dime.
“Once again we see the president take a tour of the country in what appears to be a PR swing to move legislation and policies that the American people don’t want, don’t need — hurting the American people.”
He specifically mentioned the bailout and stimulus laws, health care reform bills and cap and trade legislation, as examples.
Mack said “liberal ideas” are destroying the “fabric of America.”
On the issue of alternative and renewable energy, Mack said the issue is about encouraging more energy products.
He is against a “tax and spend” philosophy and prefers “government getting out of the way” with less and smarter regulation.
for those who may be unfamiliar with this project, here’s some of the skinny.
Powering Up The Nation’s Largest Solar Power Plant
October 13th, 2009
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/powering-nations-largest-solar-power-plant/
Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) has announced the near completion of its DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Florida. This solar power plant will be producing electricity by the end of month. This project is ahead of its schedule. The plant has an impressive number of 90,000 photovoltaic panels. Experts claim that this solar power plant will generate around 110MW of electricity by the end of 2010. This will provide Florida with the distinction of the second largest solar power-producing state in the country
DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center
http://www.fpl.com/environment/solar/desoto.shtml
Project facts
- Construction commenced in late 2008 and will be completed by October 2009
- At 25 megawatts, the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center will be the largest solar photovoltaic plant in the country
- Annual estimated generation will be about 42,000 megawatt-hours or enough power to serve about 3,000 homes
- Located on FPL-owned property in DeSoto County, Fla.
- Plant consists of more than 90,500 solar panels
Project benefits
- The project will provide around 400 jobs during the peak of construction
- DeSoto County will receive more than $2 million in additional property tax through the end of 2010
- The project represents one of the largest private capital investments in the county
- Over 30 years, the solar facility will prevent the emission of more than 575,000 tons of greenhouse gases; according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, this is the equivalent of removing more than 4,500 cars from the road every year for the entire life of the project
- Will decrease fossil-fuel usage by approximately 7 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 277,000 barrels of oil
- Photovoltaic technology requires no water
- Solar energy can help Florida secure its energy future since it is not subject to oil supply disruptions or price volatility
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngJz5Gq5yzs&feature=player_embedded
and here’s some comments from some of the locals down here in Redneck City about mack the carpetbagger
10/27/2009 2:09:59 PM
CaseyStengel wrote:
Cornelius Macgillicudy IV aka Connie Mack is doing a disservice to his (not really his home) district. We have a financial crisis and he votes NO to any economic stimulus. We have one of the highest rates of unemployment and he votes NO to an extension of benefits. And Florida has one of the LOWEST weekly unemployment benefits nationwide - max $250 but an additional $25 because of the stimulus package.
Mack not only uses an alias but in his financial disclosure form his Fort Myers address is misspelled!
Mack wants private companies to provide jobs but his staff work for the federal government. Why not fire them to test his private job theory.
10/27/2009 1:44:17 PM
exilist wrote:
Connie "Let Them Eat Cake" Mack is such an embarrassment. Connie, how do you find the time to bash Obama in between doing nothing and nothing for your impoverished, hungry, unemployed constituents? Bashing the President for visiting an alternative energy facility... horrors! Stick your silver spoon back in your idiotic mouth. Now go back to your Scientologist in Palm Springs and do us all a favor... never run again. exilist
10/27/2009 1:44:17 PM
Voiceofcivility wrote:
Mack's comments have nothing to do with the FLP solar plant. I guess he sees plenty of solar plants around his home in Palm Springs, CA, so the new FPL plant is no big deal to him.
I really can’t add to anything these commentors have said. They reached the core of the problem with amazing clarity, you know, for rednecks. But still, I got to rant just a tad.
I know. I know, I know. Why does anybody act as if the republican party has any credibility left. They had little enough as it was, but they continue to show us new depths of idiocy and vindictiveness.
it’s gotten to the point where the republican governor of a state that is now the host of what will be the second largest solar plant in the country could be seen at the ceremony today, because the Democratic President of the United States was going to be there.
And then the mack’s snide snark. I tell you.
Well, I got news for this null nutted snideman, the only job the President really has regarding legislation, is to sign it when Congress gets around to actually passing a bill, and then enforcing it when it becomes law. And he can do that anywhere in the world.
Maybe you and your fellow repugs might want to actually DO some WORK at YOUR job, before you criticize anyone for not doing theirs. And then to be so embarassingly wrong. It’s in the Constitution. Congress makes the laws, not the president
Mack answers questions about Obama visit
news-press.com
http://www.news-press.com/article/20091027/OBAMA/91027025/1075
Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, held a phone conference this morning to answer questions about his position on President Obama’s visit to the DeSoto County solar power plant. He said the president is on a sales pitch to increase his popularity on the taxpayer’s dime.
“Once again we see the president take a tour of the country in what appears to be a PR swing to move legislation and policies that the American people don’t want, don’t need — hurting the American people.”
He specifically mentioned the bailout and stimulus laws, health care reform bills and cap and trade legislation, as examples.
Mack said “liberal ideas” are destroying the “fabric of America.”
On the issue of alternative and renewable energy, Mack said the issue is about encouraging more energy products.
He is against a “tax and spend” philosophy and prefers “government getting out of the way” with less and smarter regulation.
for those who may be unfamiliar with this project, here’s some of the skinny.
Powering Up The Nation’s Largest Solar Power Plant
October 13th, 2009
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/powering-nations-largest-solar-power-plant/
Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) has announced the near completion of its DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Florida. This solar power plant will be producing electricity by the end of month. This project is ahead of its schedule. The plant has an impressive number of 90,000 photovoltaic panels. Experts claim that this solar power plant will generate around 110MW of electricity by the end of 2010. This will provide Florida with the distinction of the second largest solar power-producing state in the country
DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center
http://www.fpl.com/environment/solar/desoto.shtml
Project facts
- Construction commenced in late 2008 and will be completed by October 2009
- At 25 megawatts, the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center will be the largest solar photovoltaic plant in the country
- Annual estimated generation will be about 42,000 megawatt-hours or enough power to serve about 3,000 homes
- Located on FPL-owned property in DeSoto County, Fla.
- Plant consists of more than 90,500 solar panels
Project benefits
- The project will provide around 400 jobs during the peak of construction
- DeSoto County will receive more than $2 million in additional property tax through the end of 2010
- The project represents one of the largest private capital investments in the county
- Over 30 years, the solar facility will prevent the emission of more than 575,000 tons of greenhouse gases; according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, this is the equivalent of removing more than 4,500 cars from the road every year for the entire life of the project
- Will decrease fossil-fuel usage by approximately 7 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 277,000 barrels of oil
- Photovoltaic technology requires no water
- Solar energy can help Florida secure its energy future since it is not subject to oil supply disruptions or price volatility
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngJz5Gq5yzs&feature=player_embedded
and here’s some comments from some of the locals down here in Redneck City about mack the carpetbagger
10/27/2009 2:09:59 PM
CaseyStengel wrote:
Cornelius Macgillicudy IV aka Connie Mack is doing a disservice to his (not really his home) district. We have a financial crisis and he votes NO to any economic stimulus. We have one of the highest rates of unemployment and he votes NO to an extension of benefits. And Florida has one of the LOWEST weekly unemployment benefits nationwide - max $250 but an additional $25 because of the stimulus package.
Mack not only uses an alias but in his financial disclosure form his Fort Myers address is misspelled!
Mack wants private companies to provide jobs but his staff work for the federal government. Why not fire them to test his private job theory.
10/27/2009 1:44:17 PM
exilist wrote:
Connie "Let Them Eat Cake" Mack is such an embarrassment. Connie, how do you find the time to bash Obama in between doing nothing and nothing for your impoverished, hungry, unemployed constituents? Bashing the President for visiting an alternative energy facility... horrors! Stick your silver spoon back in your idiotic mouth. Now go back to your Scientologist in Palm Springs and do us all a favor... never run again. exilist
10/27/2009 1:44:17 PM
Voiceofcivility wrote:
Mack's comments have nothing to do with the FLP solar plant. I guess he sees plenty of solar plants around his home in Palm Springs, CA, so the new FPL plant is no big deal to him.
I really can’t add to anything these commentors have said. They reached the core of the problem with amazing clarity, you know, for rednecks. But still, I got to rant just a tad.
I know. I know, I know. Why does anybody act as if the republican party has any credibility left. They had little enough as it was, but they continue to show us new depths of idiocy and vindictiveness.
it’s gotten to the point where the republican governor of a state that is now the host of what will be the second largest solar plant in the country could be seen at the ceremony today, because the Democratic President of the United States was going to be there.
And then the mack’s snide snark. I tell you.
Well, I got news for this null nutted snideman, the only job the President really has regarding legislation, is to sign it when Congress gets around to actually passing a bill, and then enforcing it when it becomes law. And he can do that anywhere in the world.
Maybe you and your fellow repugs might want to actually DO some WORK at YOUR job, before you criticize anyone for not doing theirs. And then to be so embarassingly wrong. It’s in the Constitution. Congress makes the laws, not the president
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Let Them Filibuster
by Mary Pitt
October 25, 2009
The Democrats are terribly worried about their ability to gain the sixty votes required for cloture in order to vote for passage of their health plan in the Senate. There are many of us, particularly on the Progressive side who see the benefits of bringing the bill to the floor regardless of the pre-vote count and let the speeches begin!
The Republicans are griping that the discussions regarding the content of the bill have not been open and transparent as promised by Candidate Obama. Committees have had meetings and administration officials have consulted experts in closed door sessions. Now it is time for the "transparency" for which they pine.
Those bills should be brought to the floor in the state prepared by the respective committees and then allow the floor debates to be aired on C-Span. The benefits for the American people will be enormous. There in all their splendor will stand various and assorted "statesmen" in the very act of speaking for the people of their own states and giving their reasons for the direction of their impending vote.
Allow all the seniors who have been told that their benefits would be threatened by the passage of these measures understand precisely what is in the proposed legislation. Let them know without a doubt that there is no provision for "unplugging Granny".
Allow the unemployed heads of household to watch C-Span as they attempt to pay the family bills with not quite enough money while they worry about the cough that awoke them during the night. They live daily with the fear of yet another doctor's bill which could cost them their home and require that they seek shelter elsewhere.
Allow the low-income worker who is suffering from an ache or an intermittent pain who dares not go to the doctor to have it checked out because of the high deductible required by his employer's decision to cut the coverage to save on expenses. These things may not generate enough pressure against the nay-sayers but it will certainly be remembered by the voters in each and every district next November.
Then let them stand before the final Court of the land. the people, whom they vowed to represent in the Halls of Congress and try to persuade them that the reasons they gave their fellow solons were for the good of the listeners. We have seen the Tea Baggers and the other manipulated minions of the Right with their prepared talking points. Now let the "public advocates" explain the facts to their fellow legislators and the angry voters why they should vote on their behalf rather than for the insurance companies who have filled the campaign coffers with all those lovely dollars.
"We, the people" have limited opportunity to make our needs felt and to offer direction to our representative to Congress. The next chance for us to speak with authority will be next year. Let us really witness the performance of those who were elected to represent us and then to determine whether they have done it properly or whether some changes need to be made. That decision will only be made easier if we are allowed to see their performance in their own arena.
Please, let them filibuster!
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".
October 25, 2009
The Democrats are terribly worried about their ability to gain the sixty votes required for cloture in order to vote for passage of their health plan in the Senate. There are many of us, particularly on the Progressive side who see the benefits of bringing the bill to the floor regardless of the pre-vote count and let the speeches begin!
The Republicans are griping that the discussions regarding the content of the bill have not been open and transparent as promised by Candidate Obama. Committees have had meetings and administration officials have consulted experts in closed door sessions. Now it is time for the "transparency" for which they pine.
Those bills should be brought to the floor in the state prepared by the respective committees and then allow the floor debates to be aired on C-Span. The benefits for the American people will be enormous. There in all their splendor will stand various and assorted "statesmen" in the very act of speaking for the people of their own states and giving their reasons for the direction of their impending vote.
Allow all the seniors who have been told that their benefits would be threatened by the passage of these measures understand precisely what is in the proposed legislation. Let them know without a doubt that there is no provision for "unplugging Granny".
Allow the unemployed heads of household to watch C-Span as they attempt to pay the family bills with not quite enough money while they worry about the cough that awoke them during the night. They live daily with the fear of yet another doctor's bill which could cost them their home and require that they seek shelter elsewhere.
Allow the low-income worker who is suffering from an ache or an intermittent pain who dares not go to the doctor to have it checked out because of the high deductible required by his employer's decision to cut the coverage to save on expenses. These things may not generate enough pressure against the nay-sayers but it will certainly be remembered by the voters in each and every district next November.
Then let them stand before the final Court of the land. the people, whom they vowed to represent in the Halls of Congress and try to persuade them that the reasons they gave their fellow solons were for the good of the listeners. We have seen the Tea Baggers and the other manipulated minions of the Right with their prepared talking points. Now let the "public advocates" explain the facts to their fellow legislators and the angry voters why they should vote on their behalf rather than for the insurance companies who have filled the campaign coffers with all those lovely dollars.
"We, the people" have limited opportunity to make our needs felt and to offer direction to our representative to Congress. The next chance for us to speak with authority will be next year. Let us really witness the performance of those who were elected to represent us and then to determine whether they have done it properly or whether some changes need to be made. That decision will only be made easier if we are allowed to see their performance in their own arena.
Please, let them filibuster!
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".
Monday, October 12, 2009
Charge Of The Beckerheads...
By Sheila Samples
October 12, 2009
I didn't know Van Jones. I didn't know Van Jones was a friend of mine -- at least not until the stench billowing from the Fox Hate Channel became so foul I was forced to take a closer look at this terrifying creature. No -- not Jones, whom President Obama wisely had hired as Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality -- but the sobbing, lying, deliriously insane Glenn Beck.
According to Beck, who began his assault on Jones in a July 23 disjointed rant, wherein he claimed Jones is not only "a communist-anarchist radical," but a former black nationalist, avowed communist-anarchist radical. Or something. Anyway, according to Beck, Jones is really really dangerous -- a racist just like Obama, who has a "deep-seated hatred for white folks" and whose entire agenda is restructuring America into a land of reparations, social justice and jobs for minorities.
The appalling thing about the intellectually challenged Beck, like the Limbaugh-loon he so desperately struggles to impersonate, is that he is given a podium from which to spew his hate. Even more appalling is that he is allowed -- encouraged -- to do so with no reservation, no regulation, and no repercussion. Unless, of course, you consider the multi-million-dollar salary he receives for telling lies and for whipping paranoid masses of gun-toting racists into glassy eyed fury, then it's easy to see Beck is hitting the repercussion jackpot -- over and over again.
As Alexander Zaitchik points out in his three-part Salon series on Beck's background, Beck has always been desperate for two things -- attention and ratings. And he learned early in his career that nothing works as quickly nor as well with the media as personal insults, public humiliation and character assassination.
With few exceptions, the mainstream media fawn over him, laugh at his blatant lies, his death threats and his fake tears. Beck has long been obsessed with destruction -- even murder. In March 2001, he fantasized about killing Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) with a shovel as well as lining up several others and shooting them in the head. On his May 17, 2005 Glenn Beck Program, he chortled...
"Hang on, let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death." And you know, well, I'm not sure."
And more recently, on his Aug 6 Fox program, Beck regaled at least himself by giggling about putting poison in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's wine....
Not a pretty picture. No -- not Beck, who should have the FBI nipping at his heels like other "homegrown terrorists" for threatening the lives of legislators and sowing dissent within the government -- but the media, going all Hunter Thompson on us, curled up at Beck's feet like so many chimps in a zoo cage, feverishly pumping out masturbatory praise for the low-class dirty trickster.
When Jones, rather than sink to Beck's level, resigned his position over the Labor Day weekend, some in the media were ecstatic. NBC Deputy Political Director Mark Murray whooped it up in his 8 Sep "First Read"...
"Van Jones resigns: Speaking of distractions, Glenn Beck got his man -- Van Jones, who resigned from the administration over the weekend. And judging by how Beck responded to the news of the resignation of the mid-level staffer, he won't be satisfied with this scalp. Beck made it sound like he might even have a list of "Who's next," which will embolden defenders of the administration to start focusing on Beck and others. [...] As for Jones, clearly, that 9/11 stuff made him indefensible and does call into question the White House's vetting process. The irony in all of this: Beck never lost his job for calling Obama a racist, but Jones did…"
Time Magazine, a partner of CNN, has led the charge to cover Beck's every move, every word, every teardrop in a desperate effort to get a piece of Beck's attention-and-ratings action. See here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Then, of course, there's Time's photo gallery" and the much-heralded Sep 17 cover story wherein author David Von Drehle takes 3,598 words to debunk his own headline, "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?" and to paint Beck as nothing more than a feisty, lovable -- albeit controversial -- little whippersnapper...
"Glenn Beck: the pudgy, buzz-cut, weeping phenomenon of radio, TV and books . . . The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called "the paranoid style" — the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country — is aflame again, fanned from both right and left. [...] No one has a better feeling for this mood, and no one exploits it as well, as Beck. He is the hottest thing in the political-rant racket, left or right. A gifted entrepreneur of angst in a white-hot market.
[...]
Beck is 45, tireless, funny, self-deprecating, a recovering alcoholic, a convert to Mormonism, a libertarian and living with ADHD. He is a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies — if he believed in conspiracies, which he doesn't, necessarily; he's just asking questions. He's just sayin'. In cheerful days of yore, he was a terrific host of a morning-zoo show on an FM Top 40 station. But these aren't cheerful times. For conservatives, these are times of economic uncertainty and political weakness, and Beck has emerged as a virtuoso on the strings of their discontent."
Not to be outfoxed by her peers, on Sep 22, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric premiered her new one-on-one high-profile online interview show "@katiecouric" with Beck, whom she introduced as a "one-man cottage industry." Beck fielded Couric's painfully shallow questions, such as, "Do you feel that you're...you're kind of being divisive?" with sly grins and winks. "Let me see, here," Beck said, giggling and rolling his eyes while tapping his forehead, "how can I answer that? You're just trying to make some news -- you just want me to give you a sound byte..."
But the most interesting -- and entertaining -- take on Beck comes from Fox News' Chief Beckerhead Chris Wallace, who boasts that he "is on the Glenn Beck bandwagon," and insists that "Beck is a meteor here at Fox News." Wallace was taking the irrepressible Shepard Smith to task for not giving Beck the proper respect; even accused Smith of being jealous of Beck's fame. "Oh no," Smith proclaimed, fighting back fake tears -- "We are here to celebrate, worship and adore..." You gotta watch this.
Most mainstream media -- if they acknowledge Beck's attacks -- present them as news, such as the czars fiasco, the fake Fox ACORN videos, etc. However, there are some, even on the right, who are concerned enough about the damage being done to sound the alarm. The New York Times' David Brooks writes, not only about Beck, but Limbaugh, Hannity and others whose lust for power (attention and ratings) knows no bounds...
"For no matter how often their hollowness is exposed, the jocks still reweave the myth of their own power. They still ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they are aided in this endeavor by their enablers. They are enabled by cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P. They are enabled by lazy pundits who find it easier to argue with showmen than with people whose opinions are based on knowledge. They are enabled by the slightly educated snobs who believe that Glenn Beck really is the voice of Middle America.
So the myth returns. Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.
They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.
The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time."
Like Chris Wallace says, they are all just meteors exploding across this nation's sky. Perhaps someone should remind Wallace and others in the media that the shining streak they're hanging onto is nothing but a trail of gas, and when it enters Truth's atmosphere, it will disintegrate -- taking the Beckerhead Bandwagon with it.
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.
October 12, 2009
I didn't know Van Jones. I didn't know Van Jones was a friend of mine -- at least not until the stench billowing from the Fox Hate Channel became so foul I was forced to take a closer look at this terrifying creature. No -- not Jones, whom President Obama wisely had hired as Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality -- but the sobbing, lying, deliriously insane Glenn Beck.
According to Beck, who began his assault on Jones in a July 23 disjointed rant, wherein he claimed Jones is not only "a communist-anarchist radical," but a former black nationalist, avowed communist-anarchist radical. Or something. Anyway, according to Beck, Jones is really really dangerous -- a racist just like Obama, who has a "deep-seated hatred for white folks" and whose entire agenda is restructuring America into a land of reparations, social justice and jobs for minorities.
The appalling thing about the intellectually challenged Beck, like the Limbaugh-loon he so desperately struggles to impersonate, is that he is given a podium from which to spew his hate. Even more appalling is that he is allowed -- encouraged -- to do so with no reservation, no regulation, and no repercussion. Unless, of course, you consider the multi-million-dollar salary he receives for telling lies and for whipping paranoid masses of gun-toting racists into glassy eyed fury, then it's easy to see Beck is hitting the repercussion jackpot -- over and over again.
As Alexander Zaitchik points out in his three-part Salon series on Beck's background, Beck has always been desperate for two things -- attention and ratings. And he learned early in his career that nothing works as quickly nor as well with the media as personal insults, public humiliation and character assassination.
With few exceptions, the mainstream media fawn over him, laugh at his blatant lies, his death threats and his fake tears. Beck has long been obsessed with destruction -- even murder. In March 2001, he fantasized about killing Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) with a shovel as well as lining up several others and shooting them in the head. On his May 17, 2005 Glenn Beck Program, he chortled...
"Hang on, let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death." And you know, well, I'm not sure."
And more recently, on his Aug 6 Fox program, Beck regaled at least himself by giggling about putting poison in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's wine....
Not a pretty picture. No -- not Beck, who should have the FBI nipping at his heels like other "homegrown terrorists" for threatening the lives of legislators and sowing dissent within the government -- but the media, going all Hunter Thompson on us, curled up at Beck's feet like so many chimps in a zoo cage, feverishly pumping out masturbatory praise for the low-class dirty trickster.
When Jones, rather than sink to Beck's level, resigned his position over the Labor Day weekend, some in the media were ecstatic. NBC Deputy Political Director Mark Murray whooped it up in his 8 Sep "First Read"...
"Van Jones resigns: Speaking of distractions, Glenn Beck got his man -- Van Jones, who resigned from the administration over the weekend. And judging by how Beck responded to the news of the resignation of the mid-level staffer, he won't be satisfied with this scalp. Beck made it sound like he might even have a list of "Who's next," which will embolden defenders of the administration to start focusing on Beck and others. [...] As for Jones, clearly, that 9/11 stuff made him indefensible and does call into question the White House's vetting process. The irony in all of this: Beck never lost his job for calling Obama a racist, but Jones did…"
Time Magazine, a partner of CNN, has led the charge to cover Beck's every move, every word, every teardrop in a desperate effort to get a piece of Beck's attention-and-ratings action. See here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Then, of course, there's Time's photo gallery" and the much-heralded Sep 17 cover story wherein author David Von Drehle takes 3,598 words to debunk his own headline, "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?" and to paint Beck as nothing more than a feisty, lovable -- albeit controversial -- little whippersnapper...
"Glenn Beck: the pudgy, buzz-cut, weeping phenomenon of radio, TV and books . . . The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called "the paranoid style" — the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country — is aflame again, fanned from both right and left. [...] No one has a better feeling for this mood, and no one exploits it as well, as Beck. He is the hottest thing in the political-rant racket, left or right. A gifted entrepreneur of angst in a white-hot market.
[...]
Beck is 45, tireless, funny, self-deprecating, a recovering alcoholic, a convert to Mormonism, a libertarian and living with ADHD. He is a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies — if he believed in conspiracies, which he doesn't, necessarily; he's just asking questions. He's just sayin'. In cheerful days of yore, he was a terrific host of a morning-zoo show on an FM Top 40 station. But these aren't cheerful times. For conservatives, these are times of economic uncertainty and political weakness, and Beck has emerged as a virtuoso on the strings of their discontent."
Not to be outfoxed by her peers, on Sep 22, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric premiered her new one-on-one high-profile online interview show "@katiecouric" with Beck, whom she introduced as a "one-man cottage industry." Beck fielded Couric's painfully shallow questions, such as, "Do you feel that you're...you're kind of being divisive?" with sly grins and winks. "Let me see, here," Beck said, giggling and rolling his eyes while tapping his forehead, "how can I answer that? You're just trying to make some news -- you just want me to give you a sound byte..."
But the most interesting -- and entertaining -- take on Beck comes from Fox News' Chief Beckerhead Chris Wallace, who boasts that he "is on the Glenn Beck bandwagon," and insists that "Beck is a meteor here at Fox News." Wallace was taking the irrepressible Shepard Smith to task for not giving Beck the proper respect; even accused Smith of being jealous of Beck's fame. "Oh no," Smith proclaimed, fighting back fake tears -- "We are here to celebrate, worship and adore..." You gotta watch this.
Most mainstream media -- if they acknowledge Beck's attacks -- present them as news, such as the czars fiasco, the fake Fox ACORN videos, etc. However, there are some, even on the right, who are concerned enough about the damage being done to sound the alarm. The New York Times' David Brooks writes, not only about Beck, but Limbaugh, Hannity and others whose lust for power (attention and ratings) knows no bounds...
"For no matter how often their hollowness is exposed, the jocks still reweave the myth of their own power. They still ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they are aided in this endeavor by their enablers. They are enabled by cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P. They are enabled by lazy pundits who find it easier to argue with showmen than with people whose opinions are based on knowledge. They are enabled by the slightly educated snobs who believe that Glenn Beck really is the voice of Middle America.
So the myth returns. Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.
They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.
The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time."
Like Chris Wallace says, they are all just meteors exploding across this nation's sky. Perhaps someone should remind Wallace and others in the media that the shining streak they're hanging onto is nothing but a trail of gas, and when it enters Truth's atmosphere, it will disintegrate -- taking the Beckerhead Bandwagon with it.
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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The Great New Iran ‘Crisis’
Dry Heaves and Sucker Ploys:
Written by Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 29 September 2009 00:03
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1847-dry-heaves-and-sucker-ploys-the-great-new-iran-qcrisisq.html
The new "Iran crisis" is such a sickening concoction of stupidity and lies that it almost defies comment. It certainly defies contemplation; even to think about it for thirty seconds is enough to bring on a bout of the dry heaves.
Fortunately, several other writers -- with iron-clad innards, no doubt -- have boldly waded in and dismantled the deception behind the manufactured hissy fit over Iran's "secret nuclear facility." Jason Ditz at Antiwar.com gives a good overview of the case, which, shucked of all the warmongering frenzy, boils down to this little nubbin of reality:
Iran was building a new nuclear enrichment facility, as it is allowed to do by international treaty. The United States and several other Western countries knew about the facility for years. The facility, which is still months away from completion, is not designed to enrich uranium to weapons grade. Iran is not required to inform the IAEA about any new enrichment plant until six months before the plant goes into operation. There is some quibbling about a codicil that was meant to require Iran to give extra early notice; but this was never ratified by the Iranian legislature, so Iran is in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty which it signed and ratified years ago. (As opposed to such already nuclear armed American allies as India and Israel.) The facility was not secret, it can't build bombs, it is not even finished, and it has no nuclear material in it.
Er, that's it. But upon this paper-thin foundation, a vast fortress of sinister bullshit has been erected by the "progressive" American president and his laughable lapdogs in London and Paris. The long-known presence of a unfinished, non-weaponized, treaty-compliant building is now being presented to the world as a burning reason to impose harsh new sanctions on Iran -- harsh to the point of outright acts of war, such as an embargo on shipments of gasoline and other fuel products to Iran. And of course, our coddled, padded, well-protected War Party hacks have seized upon this non-event to bay even louder for oceans of Persian blood to slake their thirsts -- or bolster their faltering manhoods, or do whatever it is that the thought of foreigners being slaughtered in great numbers far, far away does for pathetic little wretches like Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman and the Whole Sick Crew.
I don't have much to add to the analysis of offered by Ditz, Scott Ritter, Jason Raimondo, Glenn Greenwald, among others. (And if you want to put the issue in its deepest, truest context, see this piece written two years ago by Arthur Silber: "So Iran Gets Nukes. So What?") But I will note what is likely to be a side issue, but an interesting one nonetheless -- the timing of these "revelations."
As we all know, Barack Obama and his Europuppies meant to make a big show of sword-waggling at the opening of the oh-so-momentous G20 summit in Pittsburgh. Iran beat them to the punch by formally notifying the IAEA of the new facility before the summit, but in any case, the "Iran crisis" served its purpose for the Masters of the West: it covered up the fact that they actually had nothing whatsoever to say about the ostensible theme of the summit -- solving the global economic collapse. If the "Iran crisis" had not sucked up all the media oxygen, these "leaders" might have had to explain why they have given trillions of public dollars to the perpetrators of the economic collapse, while letting millions upon millions of their citizens slide into jobless, homeless penury. They would have had to explain why they are taking nothing but the most ineffective, cosmetic measures to rein in the hyper-greed of the oligarchs. And they would have to admit that their only plan for addressing the crisis in the future is to do more of the same: giving the elite even more public money to use as they please.
But all the economic questions were blown away by the ever-sexy talk of war. And of course, all the hoo-rah about a new war also distracted from the White House dithering over the old, failing war in Afghanistan. It's the oldest con trick in the book: distracting the sucker while you pick his pocket.
But unfortunately it's not just a game: the militarists are in deadly earnest about attacking Iran, and year by year, they creep ever closer to their ultimate goal -- no matter which party controls the White House. As I wrote here last year:
There is literally nothing that Iran can do – or not do – to divert the American elite's desire to strike at their land and bring it under domination. And apparently there is nothing that anyone in America with any power or a major platform will do to stop it either.
Arthur Silber concludes his damning analysis of our unforced march to new horror with a heartbreaking quote from Martin Luther King Jr. Let it serve as the last word here as well; no one will put it better:
There is such a thing as being too late.... Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with lost opportunity.... Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late."
Written by Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 29 September 2009 00:03
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1847-dry-heaves-and-sucker-ploys-the-great-new-iran-qcrisisq.html
The new "Iran crisis" is such a sickening concoction of stupidity and lies that it almost defies comment. It certainly defies contemplation; even to think about it for thirty seconds is enough to bring on a bout of the dry heaves.
Fortunately, several other writers -- with iron-clad innards, no doubt -- have boldly waded in and dismantled the deception behind the manufactured hissy fit over Iran's "secret nuclear facility." Jason Ditz at Antiwar.com gives a good overview of the case, which, shucked of all the warmongering frenzy, boils down to this little nubbin of reality:
Iran was building a new nuclear enrichment facility, as it is allowed to do by international treaty. The United States and several other Western countries knew about the facility for years. The facility, which is still months away from completion, is not designed to enrich uranium to weapons grade. Iran is not required to inform the IAEA about any new enrichment plant until six months before the plant goes into operation. There is some quibbling about a codicil that was meant to require Iran to give extra early notice; but this was never ratified by the Iranian legislature, so Iran is in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty which it signed and ratified years ago. (As opposed to such already nuclear armed American allies as India and Israel.) The facility was not secret, it can't build bombs, it is not even finished, and it has no nuclear material in it.
Er, that's it. But upon this paper-thin foundation, a vast fortress of sinister bullshit has been erected by the "progressive" American president and his laughable lapdogs in London and Paris. The long-known presence of a unfinished, non-weaponized, treaty-compliant building is now being presented to the world as a burning reason to impose harsh new sanctions on Iran -- harsh to the point of outright acts of war, such as an embargo on shipments of gasoline and other fuel products to Iran. And of course, our coddled, padded, well-protected War Party hacks have seized upon this non-event to bay even louder for oceans of Persian blood to slake their thirsts -- or bolster their faltering manhoods, or do whatever it is that the thought of foreigners being slaughtered in great numbers far, far away does for pathetic little wretches like Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman and the Whole Sick Crew.
I don't have much to add to the analysis of offered by Ditz, Scott Ritter, Jason Raimondo, Glenn Greenwald, among others. (And if you want to put the issue in its deepest, truest context, see this piece written two years ago by Arthur Silber: "So Iran Gets Nukes. So What?") But I will note what is likely to be a side issue, but an interesting one nonetheless -- the timing of these "revelations."
As we all know, Barack Obama and his Europuppies meant to make a big show of sword-waggling at the opening of the oh-so-momentous G20 summit in Pittsburgh. Iran beat them to the punch by formally notifying the IAEA of the new facility before the summit, but in any case, the "Iran crisis" served its purpose for the Masters of the West: it covered up the fact that they actually had nothing whatsoever to say about the ostensible theme of the summit -- solving the global economic collapse. If the "Iran crisis" had not sucked up all the media oxygen, these "leaders" might have had to explain why they have given trillions of public dollars to the perpetrators of the economic collapse, while letting millions upon millions of their citizens slide into jobless, homeless penury. They would have had to explain why they are taking nothing but the most ineffective, cosmetic measures to rein in the hyper-greed of the oligarchs. And they would have to admit that their only plan for addressing the crisis in the future is to do more of the same: giving the elite even more public money to use as they please.
But all the economic questions were blown away by the ever-sexy talk of war. And of course, all the hoo-rah about a new war also distracted from the White House dithering over the old, failing war in Afghanistan. It's the oldest con trick in the book: distracting the sucker while you pick his pocket.
But unfortunately it's not just a game: the militarists are in deadly earnest about attacking Iran, and year by year, they creep ever closer to their ultimate goal -- no matter which party controls the White House. As I wrote here last year:
There is literally nothing that Iran can do – or not do – to divert the American elite's desire to strike at their land and bring it under domination. And apparently there is nothing that anyone in America with any power or a major platform will do to stop it either.
Arthur Silber concludes his damning analysis of our unforced march to new horror with a heartbreaking quote from Martin Luther King Jr. Let it serve as the last word here as well; no one will put it better:
There is such a thing as being too late.... Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with lost opportunity.... Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late."
Monday, September 07, 2009
Labor Day in a Kleptocracy
[…]
We are living through a profound global financial crisis. That crisis has many proximate causes in the governance and deregulation of Wall Street. We have seen the astounding bailout of Bear Stearns using $30 billion plus in public money—Bear Stearns – an investment bank, an enterprise that prided itself on being in the business of cowboy capitalism, business without a safety net.
But the real roots of the crisis do not lie on Wall Street. The cause of the crisis can be found in the long-term weakening of the real American economy in an era of globalization—in closed factories, outsourced high tech jobs and low wage jobs with no benefits, and in the unsustainable effort to maintain middle class living standards through borrowing. It is to be found in the reality of lives like that of Kimberly Somsel of Westland Michigan, a member of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate Working America, an unemployed single mother of two battling breast cancer and facing foreclosure due to a ballooning “2 and 28” loan payment. She is selling the family car and her furniture just to get by. Five houses on her block are threatened with foreclosure.
Powerful voices in our country say that public resources should be there for Bear Stearns, but not for Kimberly Somsel, to keep the champagne flowing on Wall Street, but not to build a future for Michigan. But there is another way — a return to a high wage economy driven by productive investment in the United States. This way requires not that we retreat from the global economy, but that we insist that the globalized economy have real rules that work for working people. At the center of these rules must be labor market regulation, and in particular, regulation that empowers workers to speak for themselves by acting together. But rules are no enough. The United States must pursue a real national economic strategy in a globalized world economy.
For thirty years, America’s economic elites and their political allies have pursued a combination of economic and social policies designed to produce a low wage economy. These policies—our labor laws and our broader system of labor market regulation, our tax policies and our approach to globalization, have yielded decades of stagnant wages and rising economic inequality.
But at the same time, policymakers of both parties have sought, with some success, to maintain high levels of consumer spending. The pursuit of the contradiction of a low wage, high spending economy has systematically destroyed the various ways we individually and collectively save and invest. Instead of an income driven economy, we have become an economy driven by asset bubbles fueled by cheap debt. The ultimate unsustainability of this strategy has brought us to our current economic crisis.
To grasp what needs to be changed, it is necessary to review the thirty years of policy that got the United States to where we are.
[…]
[full article]
- How a Low Wage Economy with Weak Labor Laws Brought Us the Mortgage Credit Crisis
http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/events/spring08/feller/
… In fact, they behave politically much more like Afghan and Pakistani big landlords, who pay their peasants a dollar a day and call in the army to put down any organized protests. In part, they have been offered an irresistible temptation by the destruction of organized labor; French workers wouldn't put up with a tenth of the insults visited upon us by our overlords. But it is a dead end, even for the uber-rich. Healthy, educated workers will be key to American economic competition in the world in the coming century. Our super-rich and our politicians are hollowing the country out with their ponzi schemes and their Sparta strategy of projecting military force even as the country's economic base in manufacturing and productivity sinks in comparison to rivals.
As we barbecue on imported grills and watch sports on our foreign-made LCD televisions and lament the bad economy, we should take a moment Monday to celebrate not just the individual worker but what is left of the American labor movement, since only if it is strengthened is our country likely to succeed in stepping back from the abyss. Aristotle warned us that each form of legitimate government is subject to decay. Aristocracies too easily become juntas. And democracies too easily become demogoguery and mob rule. The first eight years of the twenty-first century took us perilously close to both at once.
I celebrate today the organized workers, the ones who can push back against the crooks in pinstripe:
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
[full article]
Where have All the broad Shoulders Gone?
Or, Labor Day in a Kleptocracy
http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/where-have-all-broad-shoulders-gone-or.html
We are living through a profound global financial crisis. That crisis has many proximate causes in the governance and deregulation of Wall Street. We have seen the astounding bailout of Bear Stearns using $30 billion plus in public money—Bear Stearns – an investment bank, an enterprise that prided itself on being in the business of cowboy capitalism, business without a safety net.
But the real roots of the crisis do not lie on Wall Street. The cause of the crisis can be found in the long-term weakening of the real American economy in an era of globalization—in closed factories, outsourced high tech jobs and low wage jobs with no benefits, and in the unsustainable effort to maintain middle class living standards through borrowing. It is to be found in the reality of lives like that of Kimberly Somsel of Westland Michigan, a member of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate Working America, an unemployed single mother of two battling breast cancer and facing foreclosure due to a ballooning “2 and 28” loan payment. She is selling the family car and her furniture just to get by. Five houses on her block are threatened with foreclosure.
Powerful voices in our country say that public resources should be there for Bear Stearns, but not for Kimberly Somsel, to keep the champagne flowing on Wall Street, but not to build a future for Michigan. But there is another way — a return to a high wage economy driven by productive investment in the United States. This way requires not that we retreat from the global economy, but that we insist that the globalized economy have real rules that work for working people. At the center of these rules must be labor market regulation, and in particular, regulation that empowers workers to speak for themselves by acting together. But rules are no enough. The United States must pursue a real national economic strategy in a globalized world economy.
For thirty years, America’s economic elites and their political allies have pursued a combination of economic and social policies designed to produce a low wage economy. These policies—our labor laws and our broader system of labor market regulation, our tax policies and our approach to globalization, have yielded decades of stagnant wages and rising economic inequality.
But at the same time, policymakers of both parties have sought, with some success, to maintain high levels of consumer spending. The pursuit of the contradiction of a low wage, high spending economy has systematically destroyed the various ways we individually and collectively save and invest. Instead of an income driven economy, we have become an economy driven by asset bubbles fueled by cheap debt. The ultimate unsustainability of this strategy has brought us to our current economic crisis.
To grasp what needs to be changed, it is necessary to review the thirty years of policy that got the United States to where we are.
[…]
[full article]
- How a Low Wage Economy with Weak Labor Laws Brought Us the Mortgage Credit Crisis
http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/events/spring08/feller/
… In fact, they behave politically much more like Afghan and Pakistani big landlords, who pay their peasants a dollar a day and call in the army to put down any organized protests. In part, they have been offered an irresistible temptation by the destruction of organized labor; French workers wouldn't put up with a tenth of the insults visited upon us by our overlords. But it is a dead end, even for the uber-rich. Healthy, educated workers will be key to American economic competition in the world in the coming century. Our super-rich and our politicians are hollowing the country out with their ponzi schemes and their Sparta strategy of projecting military force even as the country's economic base in manufacturing and productivity sinks in comparison to rivals.
As we barbecue on imported grills and watch sports on our foreign-made LCD televisions and lament the bad economy, we should take a moment Monday to celebrate not just the individual worker but what is left of the American labor movement, since only if it is strengthened is our country likely to succeed in stepping back from the abyss. Aristotle warned us that each form of legitimate government is subject to decay. Aristocracies too easily become juntas. And democracies too easily become demogoguery and mob rule. The first eight years of the twenty-first century took us perilously close to both at once.
I celebrate today the organized workers, the ones who can push back against the crooks in pinstripe:
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
[full article]
Where have All the broad Shoulders Gone?
Or, Labor Day in a Kleptocracy
http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/where-have-all-broad-shoulders-gone-or.html
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Of Elephants And Blue Dogs
by Mary Pitt
July 29, 2009
While the Congressional "elephants" are straining at the gnat of Obama's health care plan, the Blue Dogs are busily gorging on the poisonous fat being spread before them by the voracious and monopolistic insurance and pharmaceutical companies, the citizens for whom they were chosen to protect are continuing to be victimized and destroyed.
The handwriting is on the wall to tell us that nothing good is going to come of the enthusiasm with which the American people voted for the longed-for "change".
Neither of these mythical creatures sounded an alarm about the trillions of American dollars that were simply strewn to the wind in the misguided effort to "bring democracy to Iraq".
There was then no outcry about the state of the national debt, no discussion of deficit financing, only great glee at the prospect of all the pork that would be rained upon their constituents and campaign donors. There was no mention of anything resembling a budget.
It was all "off-budget appropriations" in the interest of "national security" Why? Because Bush, Cheney, and Company said it was necessary!
Now, the nation is mired deeply in the greatest depression of a hundred years. The major financial institutions have had to resort to government bailouts because of the greedy abandon with which they tried to corner markets and wring the last drop of lifeblood from the people. Oh, yes, the people! Those mute bovines who toil their lives away and suffer mainfully before being delivered by merciful death. One may feed them more or less, depending on the state of one's wallet and provide them medical care when one deems their services to be necessary to the cause of the enrichment of one's bank account. This is not an exaggeration but an exact assessment of the attitude of the super-rich to the working American.
The facts are that, sooner or later, everyone will become ill if for no other reason than the aging process. The human body is a fantastic machine and, with good care and simple maintenance will often last a long time. However, when given the wrong fuel, and, lacking tune-ups, it may well sputter and die.
The purse-lipped budgeteers will deny these poor creatures the benefit of health care under the pretext of giving them a "choice" when, in truth, the only choice they have is whether to lose their homes and neglect their families or to seek the care that is needed from a recalcitrant welfare system that is being methodically choked by the same pinch-penny politicians who have created the situation. "The poor should make better choices; stop smoking, lose weight, and then they will not become ill!" This mantra resounds through the hallowed halls of Congress and is repeated by the parrots of the mainstream media. In the extremely limited food allowance by the welfare system or food stamps, it is truly not possible to provide children with a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables and protein-rich meat and dairy products.
Rather, the normal diet for the poor will consist of macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, or cheap pizza. This is not very different from the food ingested by the generation of children of the last depression. In that instance, the meals largely consisted of beans, oatmeal, gravy, and whatever Daddy could fell with his shotgun. Pellagra ran rampant in most of the nation as the result of the lack of fresh vegetables in the winter. Now, of course, with most of the population confined to cities, the only "game" that Daddy can bag with his precious Second Amendment gun is only whatever valuables can be garnered from the victim of the moment.
Science has proven that the trend to obesity develops in the early years. As the diet changes to solid food, the inadequate and unbalanced choices will generate too many fat cells in the body which will be with that child for a lifetime. As they grow up without the expensive amenities provided to the wealthy children; piano lessons, soccer practice, little league, poor children are more apt to be left with television sets for baby sitters until they are old enough to go to the streets for their continuing maturation. Some never have any medical care beyond free vaccinations until they must fight for their lives as the result of a gunshot wound. So much for "developing healthy habits".
With more layoffs, more foreclosures, and more hungry and homeless, there truly is a "national emergency" and, as such, it justifies a presidential declaration to that effect and Executive Orders to personnel in Health and Welfare. This could include loosening the eligibility standards on income for food stamps and Medicaid to reflect the true cost of living for the disabled, the unemployed, and uninsured. To that end, President Obama would be roundly applauded for telling the reluctant Congressmen to stop taxing their inadequate brains over a health care measure and, taking a page from the Bush playbook, with such a declaration, take these remedial steps in order to provide every American with the things that we and our forebears have worked, fought, and died for: a place to live in peace, an adequate diet, and health care.
Please, Mr. President, do something good to put in our history books..
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".
July 29, 2009
While the Congressional "elephants" are straining at the gnat of Obama's health care plan, the Blue Dogs are busily gorging on the poisonous fat being spread before them by the voracious and monopolistic insurance and pharmaceutical companies, the citizens for whom they were chosen to protect are continuing to be victimized and destroyed.
The handwriting is on the wall to tell us that nothing good is going to come of the enthusiasm with which the American people voted for the longed-for "change".
Neither of these mythical creatures sounded an alarm about the trillions of American dollars that were simply strewn to the wind in the misguided effort to "bring democracy to Iraq".
There was then no outcry about the state of the national debt, no discussion of deficit financing, only great glee at the prospect of all the pork that would be rained upon their constituents and campaign donors. There was no mention of anything resembling a budget.
It was all "off-budget appropriations" in the interest of "national security" Why? Because Bush, Cheney, and Company said it was necessary!
Now, the nation is mired deeply in the greatest depression of a hundred years. The major financial institutions have had to resort to government bailouts because of the greedy abandon with which they tried to corner markets and wring the last drop of lifeblood from the people. Oh, yes, the people! Those mute bovines who toil their lives away and suffer mainfully before being delivered by merciful death. One may feed them more or less, depending on the state of one's wallet and provide them medical care when one deems their services to be necessary to the cause of the enrichment of one's bank account. This is not an exaggeration but an exact assessment of the attitude of the super-rich to the working American.
The facts are that, sooner or later, everyone will become ill if for no other reason than the aging process. The human body is a fantastic machine and, with good care and simple maintenance will often last a long time. However, when given the wrong fuel, and, lacking tune-ups, it may well sputter and die.
The purse-lipped budgeteers will deny these poor creatures the benefit of health care under the pretext of giving them a "choice" when, in truth, the only choice they have is whether to lose their homes and neglect their families or to seek the care that is needed from a recalcitrant welfare system that is being methodically choked by the same pinch-penny politicians who have created the situation. "The poor should make better choices; stop smoking, lose weight, and then they will not become ill!" This mantra resounds through the hallowed halls of Congress and is repeated by the parrots of the mainstream media. In the extremely limited food allowance by the welfare system or food stamps, it is truly not possible to provide children with a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables and protein-rich meat and dairy products.
Rather, the normal diet for the poor will consist of macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, or cheap pizza. This is not very different from the food ingested by the generation of children of the last depression. In that instance, the meals largely consisted of beans, oatmeal, gravy, and whatever Daddy could fell with his shotgun. Pellagra ran rampant in most of the nation as the result of the lack of fresh vegetables in the winter. Now, of course, with most of the population confined to cities, the only "game" that Daddy can bag with his precious Second Amendment gun is only whatever valuables can be garnered from the victim of the moment.
Science has proven that the trend to obesity develops in the early years. As the diet changes to solid food, the inadequate and unbalanced choices will generate too many fat cells in the body which will be with that child for a lifetime. As they grow up without the expensive amenities provided to the wealthy children; piano lessons, soccer practice, little league, poor children are more apt to be left with television sets for baby sitters until they are old enough to go to the streets for their continuing maturation. Some never have any medical care beyond free vaccinations until they must fight for their lives as the result of a gunshot wound. So much for "developing healthy habits".
With more layoffs, more foreclosures, and more hungry and homeless, there truly is a "national emergency" and, as such, it justifies a presidential declaration to that effect and Executive Orders to personnel in Health and Welfare. This could include loosening the eligibility standards on income for food stamps and Medicaid to reflect the true cost of living for the disabled, the unemployed, and uninsured. To that end, President Obama would be roundly applauded for telling the reluctant Congressmen to stop taxing their inadequate brains over a health care measure and, taking a page from the Bush playbook, with such a declaration, take these remedial steps in order to provide every American with the things that we and our forebears have worked, fought, and died for: a place to live in peace, an adequate diet, and health care.
Please, Mr. President, do something good to put in our history books..
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".
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Cheney's Inferno
by Jeff Huber
http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/07/cheneys-inferno.html
I tend to regard Dick Cheney the way most of us divorced folks probably think of our ex-spouses. The ex-spouses are going to hell and revenge is already ours, so why waste our breath on them? It’s likewise with Cheney. He’s out of power, his next political post will be as Vice-Prince of Darkness; is he worth wasting a thousand-word essay on anymore? Then something happens to remind me that there’s a big difference between Dick Cheney and ex-spouses. Ex-spouses may have been bona fide bums and broom jockeys, but none of them was the first arch villain of the 21st century.
Were any of us actually shocked by the recent revelation that Lord Cheney ordered the CIA to withhold information about a secret program from Congress for eight years? Given the galactic scale of his malevolence in the Office of the Vice President, ordering the CIA to lie to Congress amounts to a parking violation. Even before young Mr. Bush was elected, Cheney was a proponent of extra-constitutional presidential powers. Most of us are familiar with the unprecedented extent to which Bush exceeded his Article II authorities. Even more horrifying, though, is the way Cheney expanded the powers of his office.
The Constitution gives the vice president one power only: Article I states that “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.” Cheney made himself a vice-commander in chief.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Cheney, from a bunker beneath the White House, called his old pal Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Cheney told Rumsfeld that "pursuant to the president's instructions,” he had ordered fighter pilots to shoot down the airliners involved in the attacks. What’s wrong with this scenario is that the vice president is not in the military chain of command. As delineated in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, command authority passes directly from the president to the secretary of defense to the four-star unified commanders (Central Command, Southern Command, European Command, etc.)
Young Mr. Bush was alive and conscious throughout that crisis—well, as conscious as he ever was. He had no business passing orders through Cheney, and Cheney had no business ordering anybody to fire on anything. It’s possible that the military commanders he spoke to knew this and didn’t pass the orders along to the pilots in the air. Bush should have gone directly through Rumsfeld who, as it played out, was only informed of Cheney’s illegal orders after the fact.
We know that Cheney cooked the intelligence on Iraq through Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans. Journalist and former CIA officer Philip Giraldi asserts that Cheney was behind the forgery of the Nigergate “Habbush letter” document. Cheney authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified information to discredit Joe Wilson when Wilson refuted the claim that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Niger. Cheney also played a key role in revealing Valerie Plame’s undercover role in the CIA. Cheney’s secret White House Information Group, which included Condi Rice, Karl Rove, the nightmarish Mary Matalin and other right wing luminaries, sold the war to the American public through false propaganda echoed by access-poisoned journalists like Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller of the New York Times.
Cheney used the Iranian Directorate to cook intelligence on Iran much as the Office of Special Plans manufactured WMD evidence on Iraq. The Iranian Directorate was located in the same office as the OSP and included OSP veterans Abram Shulsky, John Trigilio, Ladan Archin and Reuel Marc Gerecht.
Cheney authorized illegal torture. He met secretly with big oil executives to formulate an energy policy that favored his pals at Exxon and Shell and the other major energy companies.
Cheney has a reach-around relationship with Israel’s hard-right Likudniks. Sidney Blumenthal of Salon.com reported in August 2006 that Cheney and his henchmen were sharing National Security Association intelligence with Israel as part of an attempt to escalate the Iraq war into open hostilities with Iran and Syria. Many are convinced, as am I, that Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon was agreed upon at a meeting between Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu at an American Enterprise Institute conference in Colorado.
Cheney subverted the operations of the entire executive branch by inserting neocon ideologues in key positions. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and Stephen Cambone strangled dissent in the Defense Department. Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley ensured that his boss Condoleezza Rice was nothing more to Bush than a workout partner and an office wife. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton undermined Colin Powell’s efforts at statesmanship. In the second Bush term, when Rice moved to the top State billet, Cheney arranged to have Bolton made U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., ensuring continuation of the administration’s “make them an offer they can’t accept” diplomacy, of which the Iran policy was a perfect example. Insisting that Iran give up its inherent right—as guaranteed by the U.N. Nonproliferation Treaty—to develop nuclear energy as a precondition to direct talks ensured that those talks would never take place.
Senator Pat Leahy (D-Vermont), speaking of the revelation that Cheney had directed the CIA to withhold information from Congress, said that nobody in America, including Cheney, is “above the law.” Where has Leahy been for the last eight years and change? Everybody in the Bush administration except Scooter Libby was above the law.
President Obama has so far been reluctant to investigate the wrong doing of the Bush administration. That’s a mistake. If we let that administration’s major decision makers walk, we leave the door open for the next generation of tyrants to give us a repeat performance.
Cheney will spend the next life roasting in a room at the Robert McNamara Suite of the LBJ Hilton in Hell, but we need to start rebalancing the scales of justice on this side of eternity.
Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes at Pen and Sword.
http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/07/cheneys-inferno.html
I tend to regard Dick Cheney the way most of us divorced folks probably think of our ex-spouses. The ex-spouses are going to hell and revenge is already ours, so why waste our breath on them? It’s likewise with Cheney. He’s out of power, his next political post will be as Vice-Prince of Darkness; is he worth wasting a thousand-word essay on anymore? Then something happens to remind me that there’s a big difference between Dick Cheney and ex-spouses. Ex-spouses may have been bona fide bums and broom jockeys, but none of them was the first arch villain of the 21st century.
Were any of us actually shocked by the recent revelation that Lord Cheney ordered the CIA to withhold information about a secret program from Congress for eight years? Given the galactic scale of his malevolence in the Office of the Vice President, ordering the CIA to lie to Congress amounts to a parking violation. Even before young Mr. Bush was elected, Cheney was a proponent of extra-constitutional presidential powers. Most of us are familiar with the unprecedented extent to which Bush exceeded his Article II authorities. Even more horrifying, though, is the way Cheney expanded the powers of his office.
The Constitution gives the vice president one power only: Article I states that “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.” Cheney made himself a vice-commander in chief.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Cheney, from a bunker beneath the White House, called his old pal Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Cheney told Rumsfeld that "pursuant to the president's instructions,” he had ordered fighter pilots to shoot down the airliners involved in the attacks. What’s wrong with this scenario is that the vice president is not in the military chain of command. As delineated in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, command authority passes directly from the president to the secretary of defense to the four-star unified commanders (Central Command, Southern Command, European Command, etc.)
Young Mr. Bush was alive and conscious throughout that crisis—well, as conscious as he ever was. He had no business passing orders through Cheney, and Cheney had no business ordering anybody to fire on anything. It’s possible that the military commanders he spoke to knew this and didn’t pass the orders along to the pilots in the air. Bush should have gone directly through Rumsfeld who, as it played out, was only informed of Cheney’s illegal orders after the fact.
We know that Cheney cooked the intelligence on Iraq through Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans. Journalist and former CIA officer Philip Giraldi asserts that Cheney was behind the forgery of the Nigergate “Habbush letter” document. Cheney authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified information to discredit Joe Wilson when Wilson refuted the claim that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Niger. Cheney also played a key role in revealing Valerie Plame’s undercover role in the CIA. Cheney’s secret White House Information Group, which included Condi Rice, Karl Rove, the nightmarish Mary Matalin and other right wing luminaries, sold the war to the American public through false propaganda echoed by access-poisoned journalists like Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller of the New York Times.
Cheney used the Iranian Directorate to cook intelligence on Iran much as the Office of Special Plans manufactured WMD evidence on Iraq. The Iranian Directorate was located in the same office as the OSP and included OSP veterans Abram Shulsky, John Trigilio, Ladan Archin and Reuel Marc Gerecht.
Cheney authorized illegal torture. He met secretly with big oil executives to formulate an energy policy that favored his pals at Exxon and Shell and the other major energy companies.
Cheney has a reach-around relationship with Israel’s hard-right Likudniks. Sidney Blumenthal of Salon.com reported in August 2006 that Cheney and his henchmen were sharing National Security Association intelligence with Israel as part of an attempt to escalate the Iraq war into open hostilities with Iran and Syria. Many are convinced, as am I, that Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon was agreed upon at a meeting between Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu at an American Enterprise Institute conference in Colorado.
Cheney subverted the operations of the entire executive branch by inserting neocon ideologues in key positions. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and Stephen Cambone strangled dissent in the Defense Department. Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley ensured that his boss Condoleezza Rice was nothing more to Bush than a workout partner and an office wife. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton undermined Colin Powell’s efforts at statesmanship. In the second Bush term, when Rice moved to the top State billet, Cheney arranged to have Bolton made U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., ensuring continuation of the administration’s “make them an offer they can’t accept” diplomacy, of which the Iran policy was a perfect example. Insisting that Iran give up its inherent right—as guaranteed by the U.N. Nonproliferation Treaty—to develop nuclear energy as a precondition to direct talks ensured that those talks would never take place.
Senator Pat Leahy (D-Vermont), speaking of the revelation that Cheney had directed the CIA to withhold information from Congress, said that nobody in America, including Cheney, is “above the law.” Where has Leahy been for the last eight years and change? Everybody in the Bush administration except Scooter Libby was above the law.
President Obama has so far been reluctant to investigate the wrong doing of the Bush administration. That’s a mistake. If we let that administration’s major decision makers walk, we leave the door open for the next generation of tyrants to give us a repeat performance.
Cheney will spend the next life roasting in a room at the Robert McNamara Suite of the LBJ Hilton in Hell, but we need to start rebalancing the scales of justice on this side of eternity.
Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes at Pen and Sword.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Fading Into Mist
By Sheila Samples
July 19, 2009
If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers
- Albert Camus
There is no subject more restricted nor more controlled in the United States than a critical discussion of Israel. Balanced argument is ignored while each word is parsed -- and condemned. It's strange that we are free to rant and rave and point out the war crimes of our own administration -- of all other administrations throughout the world -- but not those of Israel. The few who dare to question the damage Israel has wrought throughout the Middle East for decades are immediately labeled "anti-Semitic," and are in danger of losing their friends, jobs, their reputations and, if they persist, their country -- for America has zero tolerance for those who recognize Israel's brutality.
Why is this? Are not crimes against humanity just that, regardless of who is committing them? For example, when one-and-a-half million human beings are imprisoned like caged animals, with no food, electricity, medical care, clean water, and then are exterminated like so many insects -- cut to pieces, burned to a crisp with illegal weapons banned by the Geneva Conventions -- is that not a crime against humanity? Are the men, women and children trapped behind the walls of Gaza with nowhere to run -- nowhere to hide -- not human?
Kill Them All
If you've been listening to the Israeli leadership for the past 60 years, the last 10 years -- the last year -- you know very well that Palestinians are many things, but not human. In 1982, former Likud leader and prime minister Menahim Begin said Palestinians "are beasts walking on two legs." The next year, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces Raphael Eitan gloated, "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." And, in 1988, Yitzhak Shamir, a Likudnik elected Prime Minister twice, told the settlers taking over the Palestinian land, "The Palestinians will be crushed like grasshoppers...heads smashed against the boulders and walls."
But it was our own Evangelical, oxy-moronic (sic) Judeo-Christian (sic) cloven-hoofed Pat Robertson, who chats often with God who gave us the real lowdown on Israel's "moral" savagery. Robertson explained God's rationale to his 700 Club members in May 1985...
"The wars of extermination have given a lot of people trouble unless they know what was going on. The people in the land of Palestine were very wicked. They were given over to idolatry; they sacrificed their children; they had all kinds of abominable sex practices; they were having sex, apparently, with animals; they were having sex men with men, and women with women; they were committing adultery, fornication; they were worshipping idols, offering their children up; and they were forsaking God.
"God told the Israelites to kill them all -- men, women and children, to destroy them. And that seems to be a terrible thing to do. Is it? Or isn't it? Well, let us assume there were 2,000 of them, or 10,000 of them living in the land, or whatever number there was of them. I don't have the exact number. Pick a number. God said, 'Kill them all.' . . . the abomination was there like a contagion. God saw that there was no cure for it. It wasn't going to change; their hearts weren't going to change; and all they would do is cause trouble for the Israelites, and pull the Israelites away from God, and prevent the truth of God from reaching the Earth. So, God, in love, took away a small number that he might not have to take away a large number."
Beasts. Insects. Victims of a relentless, methodical genocide that grinds away, day after day, year after year, with no analysis, no reflection, no questions -- subsidized with US equipment, US political support, US taxpayers' money. How easily we have not only excused, but given our blessing to Israel's crimes -- handed over our brothers -- from the 1967 attack on the USS Liberty using US-financed French aircraft leaving 34 dead and 174 injured American sailors, to massacres using US-furnished weapons in Jenin, Rafah, Sabara, Shatila, Lebanon, and repeatedly in Gaza.
How silently we stood on March 16, 2003 when an Israeli soldier in a US Caterpillar bulldozer crushed to death 23-year-old Rachel Corrie -- shot and seriously wounded 26-year-old Brian Avery on April 5, 2003 -- and, on April 11, 2003, shot and killed 21-year-old Tom Hurndall while he was attempting to save three terrified Palestine children who were being shot at as they played.
Political Monsters
Israel's grotesque 22-day foray into Gaza earlier this year shocked the world with its savagery -- with one notable exception -- the United States. Perhaps that's because, according to the Australian Herald, one week before the invasion, the US shipped 989 containers of munitions, including white phosphorous, to Israel. Three months earlier, Congress approved a $77 million sale to Israel of 1,000 Boeing Corp. GBU-39 bunker-buster bombs which arrived just in time to wreck havoc on the Gaza infrastructure.
Despite the layers upon layers of justification Israel cites, there is only one reason it continues its heinous extermination of the Palestinian people -- because it can. Because the United States supports such atrocity. Because the United States finances, arms and equips Israel, and -- more important -- protects it from having to account for any of its crimes. So, who's to blame here? From whose hands does the blood of Palestinian men, women and children run? Israel or the United States? Who are the monsters?
Speak, memory.
Scarcely a week after the "war" on Gaza began, the jubilation in both houses of Congress was palatable. Members elbowed each other out of the way to co-sponsor and vote for resolutions condemning Hamas for forcing Israel to maim and kill its Gaza population. Resolutions were submitted and passed by voice vote on Jan. 8. The Senate Resolution had 34 co-sponsors; the House Resolution chalked up 116. The votes and the blame were shamefully one-sided, with Hamas being blamed for both the war and the death of its own citizens. Israel did not receive a single rebuke; was praised throughout -- ironically, for facilitating "humanitarian aid to Gaza with hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance and numerous ambulances entering the Gaza Strip since the war began."
Three days later, investigative journalist Max Blumenthal covered a 10,000-strong rally in New York City. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) whipped the crowd into a frenzy, shouting about the morality of Israel text-messaging Palestinians to "vacate their homes because there were weapons in them..." Schumer, giddy with pride, his fist waving in the air, cried -- "What other country would do that!"
According to Blumenthal, the rally was pulsating with hate. He said...
"Right in front of the stage, a man held a banner reading, “Islam Is A Death Cult.” Rally attendees described the people of Gaza to me as a “cancer,” called for Israel to “wipe them all out,” insisting, “They are forcing us to kill their children in order to defend our own children.” A young woman told me, “Those who die are suffering God’s wrath.” “They are not distinguishing between civilians and military, so why should we?” said a member of the group of messianic Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch group that flocked to the rally.
"No one I spoke to could seem to find any circumstance in which they would begin to question Israel’s war. No number of civilian deaths, no displays of extreme suffering -- nothing could deter their enthusiasm for attacking one of the most vulnerable populations in the world with the world’s most advanced weaponry. There are no limits, no matter what Israel does, no matter how it does it."
As I watched those caught up in the shockingly racist excitement of that rally, I could not help but wonder what these people -- what US politicians -- would do if the children being blown to bits, the homes bombed and bulldozed, the families mutilated, the livelihoods destroyed -- were theirs. And, I also am forced to wonder -- is the inability to hold back tears at the sight of so much inhumane lust for blood anti-Semitic -- even anti-American?
Blame the Jews?
Perhaps I am the wrong person to address this issue. I was raised, for the most part, in the wilds of New Mexico by parents completely devoid of racism, bigotry or hate. Those ugly ideologies weren't just ignored -- they didn't exist. This may sound naive, but I never met a Jew until I was married, my husband was in the Army and stationed at Fort Monmouth in Long Branch, New Jersey. We rented a bedroom "apartment" from the Brodskys, a Jewish family -- wonderful, joyous, good-natured people who welcomed us into their midst as if they had been waiting for us all their lives. For me, for years, the Brodskys personified all Jews.
So, when I look to the Middle East and see human beings abused, without food or adequate health care, their infrastructure destroyed, their children slaughtered for sport, it is difficult for me to believe such barbaric savagery is being committed, or even condoned, by Jews who are aware of what is happening. American Jews, Jews in Israel, Jews around the world are vigorously opposed to such treatment. Far more Jews than non-Jews in this country speak out about Israel's relentless execution of Palestinians. They protest, engage in "die-ins," hold 24-hour vigils with signs heralding their dissent. They scream to heaven -- but their voices are silenced and the media steadfastly refuses to cover their views.
There was no mention of the rally in New York City in support of Gaza on the same day as the Schumer Screamer; no mention of IDF soldiers who refused to serve because of the violence against innocent Palestinians; no mention of the 700 Israeli citizens arrested in the first two weeks for protesting the assault; and no mention of a Jan 8 meeting of prominent Canadians who spoke out against the war on Gaza.
Toronto psychotherapist Judith Weisman, a Jew who is a member of Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for a Just Peace, the Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation of Palestine, and a founding member of Not In Our Name, said, "Zionism is the scourge of the Jewish people. It is Zionism that has created all of this."
Weisman, herself a former "committed Zionist," said, "it took many years for the scales to literally fall off of my eyes and for me to see what Israel has wrought among the Palestinians." Weisman says she is frightened at the influence Israel now has around the world, and the "power that Israel and the United States are using to control so much of what is happening around the world."
It's not that nobody is listening, it's that -- for those hog-tied to the US media -- there's nothing to hear but silence, propaganda and lies. Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz that fully a third of those killed were children. Levy said...
"The public's shocking indifference to these figures is incomprehensible. A thousand propagandists and apologists cannot excuse this criminal killing. One can blame Hamas for the death of children, but no reasonable person in the world will buy these ludicrous, flawed propagandistic goods in light of the pictures and statistics coming from Gaza."
No matter. We here in the United States have moved on. We have given our blessing to the great political monsters. It is as George Orwell wrote in his prescient 1984...
"Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth."
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.
July 19, 2009
If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers
- Albert Camus
There is no subject more restricted nor more controlled in the United States than a critical discussion of Israel. Balanced argument is ignored while each word is parsed -- and condemned. It's strange that we are free to rant and rave and point out the war crimes of our own administration -- of all other administrations throughout the world -- but not those of Israel. The few who dare to question the damage Israel has wrought throughout the Middle East for decades are immediately labeled "anti-Semitic," and are in danger of losing their friends, jobs, their reputations and, if they persist, their country -- for America has zero tolerance for those who recognize Israel's brutality.
Why is this? Are not crimes against humanity just that, regardless of who is committing them? For example, when one-and-a-half million human beings are imprisoned like caged animals, with no food, electricity, medical care, clean water, and then are exterminated like so many insects -- cut to pieces, burned to a crisp with illegal weapons banned by the Geneva Conventions -- is that not a crime against humanity? Are the men, women and children trapped behind the walls of Gaza with nowhere to run -- nowhere to hide -- not human?
Kill Them All
If you've been listening to the Israeli leadership for the past 60 years, the last 10 years -- the last year -- you know very well that Palestinians are many things, but not human. In 1982, former Likud leader and prime minister Menahim Begin said Palestinians "are beasts walking on two legs." The next year, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces Raphael Eitan gloated, "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." And, in 1988, Yitzhak Shamir, a Likudnik elected Prime Minister twice, told the settlers taking over the Palestinian land, "The Palestinians will be crushed like grasshoppers...heads smashed against the boulders and walls."
But it was our own Evangelical, oxy-moronic (sic) Judeo-Christian (sic) cloven-hoofed Pat Robertson, who chats often with God who gave us the real lowdown on Israel's "moral" savagery. Robertson explained God's rationale to his 700 Club members in May 1985...
"The wars of extermination have given a lot of people trouble unless they know what was going on. The people in the land of Palestine were very wicked. They were given over to idolatry; they sacrificed their children; they had all kinds of abominable sex practices; they were having sex, apparently, with animals; they were having sex men with men, and women with women; they were committing adultery, fornication; they were worshipping idols, offering their children up; and they were forsaking God.
"God told the Israelites to kill them all -- men, women and children, to destroy them. And that seems to be a terrible thing to do. Is it? Or isn't it? Well, let us assume there were 2,000 of them, or 10,000 of them living in the land, or whatever number there was of them. I don't have the exact number. Pick a number. God said, 'Kill them all.' . . . the abomination was there like a contagion. God saw that there was no cure for it. It wasn't going to change; their hearts weren't going to change; and all they would do is cause trouble for the Israelites, and pull the Israelites away from God, and prevent the truth of God from reaching the Earth. So, God, in love, took away a small number that he might not have to take away a large number."
Beasts. Insects. Victims of a relentless, methodical genocide that grinds away, day after day, year after year, with no analysis, no reflection, no questions -- subsidized with US equipment, US political support, US taxpayers' money. How easily we have not only excused, but given our blessing to Israel's crimes -- handed over our brothers -- from the 1967 attack on the USS Liberty using US-financed French aircraft leaving 34 dead and 174 injured American sailors, to massacres using US-furnished weapons in Jenin, Rafah, Sabara, Shatila, Lebanon, and repeatedly in Gaza.
How silently we stood on March 16, 2003 when an Israeli soldier in a US Caterpillar bulldozer crushed to death 23-year-old Rachel Corrie -- shot and seriously wounded 26-year-old Brian Avery on April 5, 2003 -- and, on April 11, 2003, shot and killed 21-year-old Tom Hurndall while he was attempting to save three terrified Palestine children who were being shot at as they played.
Political Monsters
Israel's grotesque 22-day foray into Gaza earlier this year shocked the world with its savagery -- with one notable exception -- the United States. Perhaps that's because, according to the Australian Herald, one week before the invasion, the US shipped 989 containers of munitions, including white phosphorous, to Israel. Three months earlier, Congress approved a $77 million sale to Israel of 1,000 Boeing Corp. GBU-39 bunker-buster bombs which arrived just in time to wreck havoc on the Gaza infrastructure.
Despite the layers upon layers of justification Israel cites, there is only one reason it continues its heinous extermination of the Palestinian people -- because it can. Because the United States supports such atrocity. Because the United States finances, arms and equips Israel, and -- more important -- protects it from having to account for any of its crimes. So, who's to blame here? From whose hands does the blood of Palestinian men, women and children run? Israel or the United States? Who are the monsters?
Speak, memory.
Scarcely a week after the "war" on Gaza began, the jubilation in both houses of Congress was palatable. Members elbowed each other out of the way to co-sponsor and vote for resolutions condemning Hamas for forcing Israel to maim and kill its Gaza population. Resolutions were submitted and passed by voice vote on Jan. 8. The Senate Resolution had 34 co-sponsors; the House Resolution chalked up 116. The votes and the blame were shamefully one-sided, with Hamas being blamed for both the war and the death of its own citizens. Israel did not receive a single rebuke; was praised throughout -- ironically, for facilitating "humanitarian aid to Gaza with hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance and numerous ambulances entering the Gaza Strip since the war began."
Three days later, investigative journalist Max Blumenthal covered a 10,000-strong rally in New York City. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) whipped the crowd into a frenzy, shouting about the morality of Israel text-messaging Palestinians to "vacate their homes because there were weapons in them..." Schumer, giddy with pride, his fist waving in the air, cried -- "What other country would do that!"
According to Blumenthal, the rally was pulsating with hate. He said...
"Right in front of the stage, a man held a banner reading, “Islam Is A Death Cult.” Rally attendees described the people of Gaza to me as a “cancer,” called for Israel to “wipe them all out,” insisting, “They are forcing us to kill their children in order to defend our own children.” A young woman told me, “Those who die are suffering God’s wrath.” “They are not distinguishing between civilians and military, so why should we?” said a member of the group of messianic Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch group that flocked to the rally.
"No one I spoke to could seem to find any circumstance in which they would begin to question Israel’s war. No number of civilian deaths, no displays of extreme suffering -- nothing could deter their enthusiasm for attacking one of the most vulnerable populations in the world with the world’s most advanced weaponry. There are no limits, no matter what Israel does, no matter how it does it."
As I watched those caught up in the shockingly racist excitement of that rally, I could not help but wonder what these people -- what US politicians -- would do if the children being blown to bits, the homes bombed and bulldozed, the families mutilated, the livelihoods destroyed -- were theirs. And, I also am forced to wonder -- is the inability to hold back tears at the sight of so much inhumane lust for blood anti-Semitic -- even anti-American?
Blame the Jews?
Perhaps I am the wrong person to address this issue. I was raised, for the most part, in the wilds of New Mexico by parents completely devoid of racism, bigotry or hate. Those ugly ideologies weren't just ignored -- they didn't exist. This may sound naive, but I never met a Jew until I was married, my husband was in the Army and stationed at Fort Monmouth in Long Branch, New Jersey. We rented a bedroom "apartment" from the Brodskys, a Jewish family -- wonderful, joyous, good-natured people who welcomed us into their midst as if they had been waiting for us all their lives. For me, for years, the Brodskys personified all Jews.
So, when I look to the Middle East and see human beings abused, without food or adequate health care, their infrastructure destroyed, their children slaughtered for sport, it is difficult for me to believe such barbaric savagery is being committed, or even condoned, by Jews who are aware of what is happening. American Jews, Jews in Israel, Jews around the world are vigorously opposed to such treatment. Far more Jews than non-Jews in this country speak out about Israel's relentless execution of Palestinians. They protest, engage in "die-ins," hold 24-hour vigils with signs heralding their dissent. They scream to heaven -- but their voices are silenced and the media steadfastly refuses to cover their views.
There was no mention of the rally in New York City in support of Gaza on the same day as the Schumer Screamer; no mention of IDF soldiers who refused to serve because of the violence against innocent Palestinians; no mention of the 700 Israeli citizens arrested in the first two weeks for protesting the assault; and no mention of a Jan 8 meeting of prominent Canadians who spoke out against the war on Gaza.
Toronto psychotherapist Judith Weisman, a Jew who is a member of Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for a Just Peace, the Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation of Palestine, and a founding member of Not In Our Name, said, "Zionism is the scourge of the Jewish people. It is Zionism that has created all of this."
Weisman, herself a former "committed Zionist," said, "it took many years for the scales to literally fall off of my eyes and for me to see what Israel has wrought among the Palestinians." Weisman says she is frightened at the influence Israel now has around the world, and the "power that Israel and the United States are using to control so much of what is happening around the world."
It's not that nobody is listening, it's that -- for those hog-tied to the US media -- there's nothing to hear but silence, propaganda and lies. Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz that fully a third of those killed were children. Levy said...
"The public's shocking indifference to these figures is incomprehensible. A thousand propagandists and apologists cannot excuse this criminal killing. One can blame Hamas for the death of children, but no reasonable person in the world will buy these ludicrous, flawed propagandistic goods in light of the pictures and statistics coming from Gaza."
No matter. We here in the United States have moved on. We have given our blessing to the great political monsters. It is as George Orwell wrote in his prescient 1984...
"Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth."
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.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Don't Look Now, Mr. President
by Mary Pitt
June 13, 2009
Don't look now but your base is slipping! You may ask anyone involved in the Katrina disaster how important those few little grains of sand sliding off to the side can be. Nobody seemed to notice when the levees that held back the waters of Lake Ponchartrain began deteriorating but we all now know that they were the precursers to calamity.
In the same way, a few of your supporters were disgruntled when your first cabinet appointees were simply re-treaded from the Bush and Clinton administrations. We can appreciate that you needed a few key people with experience from Day One but, rather than they adapting to your point of view, you appear to have accepted their influence to shift your own views to coincide with that of the leaders for whom they previously worked!
Your persistence in continuing the bail-out process begun by the Bush administration dislodged a few small grains of sand. Many others are watching as tightly as possible for signs of success from your own domestic stimulus plan. Meanwhile, there are those who really care about the sexual-orientation discrimination in the military and are watching as some highly trained, capable, and experienced people are being lost to the cause of world peace.
But the storm is building, Mr. President! On the streets of the nation, you can hear the complaints of the common people who have lost or will lose their jobs as well as their health insurance. They were watching as you held the conference on health care "reform". With absolutely no input from the people most affected by the decisions that they and you might make, they can see less of the vaunted "hope" which you sold them on your road to the White House.
But all is not lost! You and Mrs. Obama are well known for your work with the people in the inner city slums and you have each visited in the stricken factory towns of the nation. Perhaps you should send your emissaries out into the "real world" of the small villages that are peopled by the elderly and the working poor where the only jobs in the area moved to the cities before the owners moved them offshore. The mean age of the populace increases because the young just can't wait to grow up and move away to where the good jobs may be found.
In these little backwater places, particularly in the South and Republican Central states, these people are simply ignored. When an important figure appears in the vicinity, they see only the very wealthy and the politically prominent while the people whose voices you should hear remain at home, convinced that nobody wants to hear their opinions. You must reach down and let them know that the care of which they were so convinced on election day was really from the heart. Faith does wear a bit thin when the belly is growling.
We know that you have to try to put the world back together before we can move forward but if, in the process, more lives are decimated the nation as we know it will cease to exist. It is obvious that having a majority of Democrats in Congress is not enough so long as there are still too many Blue Dogs and "moderates" in those Houses, (the same people who rubber-stamped the wartime ambitions of President Bush), and those people must be replaced with some who are more forward-looking and progressive-minded.
Those of us who still cling to the hope with which we sent you to that Oval Office want to see you taking an active part in the off-year elections of 2010. Forget the old Party war-horses who have grown into a sense of entitlement and help us to get a few more of them replaced with fresh minds and fresh ideas to match your own. You see, your supporters are not all traditional Democrats, either. Many of the votes that were eventually cast for you were from previous supporters of Hillary Clinton but many others had begun with their hopes invested in other candidates. Democrats like Cynthia McKinney and Dennis Kucinich had, (and still have), a very strong attraction with their proposals. Others leaned toward Ron Paul and Ralph Nader. These are voters who will not stand solidly behind you until 2012 if they feel that you betrayed them.
It is unfortunate that you cannot, despite the immense task before you, ignore the pressures brought about by the imminence of the next election but you will need more than four years to solidify the changes that you are trying to institute. You must tend those levees and reinforce those little grains of sand so that they remain solidly in place. You must fight for the needed programs and refuse the many "compromises" that are offered by the opposition in the attempt to cripple your programs and defraud the people. You must let Congress know that we insist on doing things our way or not at all, and then bring the problem to the people in 2010 and inspire them to give you a more progressive Congress. Otherwise, you may find that your carefully-constructed levee wall fail you in 2012 and the Obama Administration will become an obscure footnote in the history of our nation.
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".
June 13, 2009
Don't look now but your base is slipping! You may ask anyone involved in the Katrina disaster how important those few little grains of sand sliding off to the side can be. Nobody seemed to notice when the levees that held back the waters of Lake Ponchartrain began deteriorating but we all now know that they were the precursers to calamity.
In the same way, a few of your supporters were disgruntled when your first cabinet appointees were simply re-treaded from the Bush and Clinton administrations. We can appreciate that you needed a few key people with experience from Day One but, rather than they adapting to your point of view, you appear to have accepted their influence to shift your own views to coincide with that of the leaders for whom they previously worked!
Your persistence in continuing the bail-out process begun by the Bush administration dislodged a few small grains of sand. Many others are watching as tightly as possible for signs of success from your own domestic stimulus plan. Meanwhile, there are those who really care about the sexual-orientation discrimination in the military and are watching as some highly trained, capable, and experienced people are being lost to the cause of world peace.
But the storm is building, Mr. President! On the streets of the nation, you can hear the complaints of the common people who have lost or will lose their jobs as well as their health insurance. They were watching as you held the conference on health care "reform". With absolutely no input from the people most affected by the decisions that they and you might make, they can see less of the vaunted "hope" which you sold them on your road to the White House.
But all is not lost! You and Mrs. Obama are well known for your work with the people in the inner city slums and you have each visited in the stricken factory towns of the nation. Perhaps you should send your emissaries out into the "real world" of the small villages that are peopled by the elderly and the working poor where the only jobs in the area moved to the cities before the owners moved them offshore. The mean age of the populace increases because the young just can't wait to grow up and move away to where the good jobs may be found.
In these little backwater places, particularly in the South and Republican Central states, these people are simply ignored. When an important figure appears in the vicinity, they see only the very wealthy and the politically prominent while the people whose voices you should hear remain at home, convinced that nobody wants to hear their opinions. You must reach down and let them know that the care of which they were so convinced on election day was really from the heart. Faith does wear a bit thin when the belly is growling.
We know that you have to try to put the world back together before we can move forward but if, in the process, more lives are decimated the nation as we know it will cease to exist. It is obvious that having a majority of Democrats in Congress is not enough so long as there are still too many Blue Dogs and "moderates" in those Houses, (the same people who rubber-stamped the wartime ambitions of President Bush), and those people must be replaced with some who are more forward-looking and progressive-minded.
Those of us who still cling to the hope with which we sent you to that Oval Office want to see you taking an active part in the off-year elections of 2010. Forget the old Party war-horses who have grown into a sense of entitlement and help us to get a few more of them replaced with fresh minds and fresh ideas to match your own. You see, your supporters are not all traditional Democrats, either. Many of the votes that were eventually cast for you were from previous supporters of Hillary Clinton but many others had begun with their hopes invested in other candidates. Democrats like Cynthia McKinney and Dennis Kucinich had, (and still have), a very strong attraction with their proposals. Others leaned toward Ron Paul and Ralph Nader. These are voters who will not stand solidly behind you until 2012 if they feel that you betrayed them.
It is unfortunate that you cannot, despite the immense task before you, ignore the pressures brought about by the imminence of the next election but you will need more than four years to solidify the changes that you are trying to institute. You must tend those levees and reinforce those little grains of sand so that they remain solidly in place. You must fight for the needed programs and refuse the many "compromises" that are offered by the opposition in the attempt to cripple your programs and defraud the people. You must let Congress know that we insist on doing things our way or not at all, and then bring the problem to the people in 2010 and inspire them to give you a more progressive Congress. Otherwise, you may find that your carefully-constructed levee wall fail you in 2012 and the Obama Administration will become an obscure footnote in the history of our nation.
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".
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Listen Up, Buster
by Mary Pitt
June 6, 2009
We, the people, are sick and tired of hearing that "single payer is off the table" in the same breath with "health care reform". Attempting to "repair" a broken-down old vehicle without considering the possibility of a replacement as an alternative simply makes no financial sense. The same is true with trying to repair our broken health system.
We are besieged on all sides by all the profit-generated complaints about the evils of "socialism" creating waiting lines and people dying while waiting for health care as well as the specter of "paying for somebody else's doctor bills." That is pure malarkey and far from the situation as it already exists. Let's take a look at the model that is already before us.
A prime example is our existing Medicare/Medicaid system:
Nobody is required to get permission to see a doctor! You go to the same physician who has been your family doctor for years or, if you choose, you may pick one out of the Yellow Pages. You need no pre-approval. You go to the doctor. That's it.
There is no waiting line! When you call for an appointment, the receptionist will ask questions about your need based on your own complaints. If your need is urgent, most doctors will "work you in". If not, you may have to wait a few days.
There is no pre-approval required! Your personal doctor decides what you need. If you require a specialist with skills and training beyond his own, he may refer you to one. If your problem requires surgery, you will be sent to a surgeon who cares for people with that complaint, and the surgery will be scheduled. At no point is there anybody looking over his shoulder from whom he requires permission.
If necessary, you will enter a hospital at the convenience of the surgeon or physician! This will probably be a facility at which the doctor practices daily and will likely be not a great distance from your home. You will receive the same treatment as do all the other patients. (As you perambulate through the halls, you may see a private room at the end of the hall but pay it no mind. That is for somebody who thinks their station is too exalted to allow them to mingle with the Great Unwashed and are either there "on comp" or paying through their blue noses to satisfy their own egos.)
With those arguments out of the way, when you are restored to health, you will get a statement of explanation of the charges. You are not expected to pay in full, only to check the statement and to notify the insuring agency of any discrepancies that you may find. YOU are the first monitor of the honesty and accuracy of this billing.
A bit later, you will receive a second statement which will show the amounts paid by Medicare/Medicaid and any balance which you are charged with paying. Currently, if you receive both Medicare and Medicaid, you pay nothing at all. If Medicare only, there is now a system of "deductibles and co-payments" but, in most cases, you will find the care providers to be quite patient with the small partial payments which you can afford in your own budget.
There may be charges that deemed necessary to the care you required and are not covered. There is a schedule of maximum hospital time allowed to your particular surgery or problem. This may be appealed by your doctor due to unusual circumstances but they will seldom hamper your recovery or strain your wallet. In today's system, you will not be allowed to get free breast implants, abortions, face lifts, or even surgery to improve your vision, (except for cataracts), but those services such as cardiac surgery, appendectomy, or cancer, will be treated as routine.
This concept is not a foreign one to our free nation. Throughout our history, people have banded together and formed "cooperatives" in order to have a larger organization for purposes of bulk purchasing or marketing more efficiently. Even today, the land is dotted with "farm co-ops" which were founded for that purposes and, in rural areas, electrical power is still successfully functioning after having been begun by Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Agency. Many city people belong to "child care co-ops" where mothers exchange their labor to provide care for their children while they work and "food co-ops" flourish as people who prefer fresh, locally-grown produce to the canned, sterilized, and polluted stuff that is sold in the supermarket.
The purpose of these cooperatives is simple. That is to "cut out the middle man", the amorphous figures who produce nothing and provide nothing but profit from the work of others by controlling the access of human interaction and sharing. Our lives are full of them! We cannot go to an individual business owner to invest in their business. We must go through a stock broker who, in turn, deals through Wall Street and all the organizations represented there, each of whom takes a share of our money before it ever reaches its intended target. So it is with medical care. We go to an insurance company who takes our money, tells us to which doctors we may go to, then tells those doctors what procedures they may and may not do for us, keeping a share of our money at every step. They are not at all concerned with our health, only with the money they can keep for the privilege of brokering the services of our physicians.
Think of single-payer medical care as a giant cooperative where everybody pays in what they can afford, on a sliding scale, and each is allowed to take out what they need. This is the same principle on which we finance our government, pay for our public services, (from the bottom up), pay for our military, and even bail out our over-acquisitive banking system.
It's called "democracy" and it's the American Way! How dare they take it "off the table"?!?
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".
June 6, 2009
We, the people, are sick and tired of hearing that "single payer is off the table" in the same breath with "health care reform". Attempting to "repair" a broken-down old vehicle without considering the possibility of a replacement as an alternative simply makes no financial sense. The same is true with trying to repair our broken health system.
We are besieged on all sides by all the profit-generated complaints about the evils of "socialism" creating waiting lines and people dying while waiting for health care as well as the specter of "paying for somebody else's doctor bills." That is pure malarkey and far from the situation as it already exists. Let's take a look at the model that is already before us.
A prime example is our existing Medicare/Medicaid system:
Nobody is required to get permission to see a doctor! You go to the same physician who has been your family doctor for years or, if you choose, you may pick one out of the Yellow Pages. You need no pre-approval. You go to the doctor. That's it.
There is no waiting line! When you call for an appointment, the receptionist will ask questions about your need based on your own complaints. If your need is urgent, most doctors will "work you in". If not, you may have to wait a few days.
There is no pre-approval required! Your personal doctor decides what you need. If you require a specialist with skills and training beyond his own, he may refer you to one. If your problem requires surgery, you will be sent to a surgeon who cares for people with that complaint, and the surgery will be scheduled. At no point is there anybody looking over his shoulder from whom he requires permission.
If necessary, you will enter a hospital at the convenience of the surgeon or physician! This will probably be a facility at which the doctor practices daily and will likely be not a great distance from your home. You will receive the same treatment as do all the other patients. (As you perambulate through the halls, you may see a private room at the end of the hall but pay it no mind. That is for somebody who thinks their station is too exalted to allow them to mingle with the Great Unwashed and are either there "on comp" or paying through their blue noses to satisfy their own egos.)
With those arguments out of the way, when you are restored to health, you will get a statement of explanation of the charges. You are not expected to pay in full, only to check the statement and to notify the insuring agency of any discrepancies that you may find. YOU are the first monitor of the honesty and accuracy of this billing.
A bit later, you will receive a second statement which will show the amounts paid by Medicare/Medicaid and any balance which you are charged with paying. Currently, if you receive both Medicare and Medicaid, you pay nothing at all. If Medicare only, there is now a system of "deductibles and co-payments" but, in most cases, you will find the care providers to be quite patient with the small partial payments which you can afford in your own budget.
There may be charges that deemed necessary to the care you required and are not covered. There is a schedule of maximum hospital time allowed to your particular surgery or problem. This may be appealed by your doctor due to unusual circumstances but they will seldom hamper your recovery or strain your wallet. In today's system, you will not be allowed to get free breast implants, abortions, face lifts, or even surgery to improve your vision, (except for cataracts), but those services such as cardiac surgery, appendectomy, or cancer, will be treated as routine.
This concept is not a foreign one to our free nation. Throughout our history, people have banded together and formed "cooperatives" in order to have a larger organization for purposes of bulk purchasing or marketing more efficiently. Even today, the land is dotted with "farm co-ops" which were founded for that purposes and, in rural areas, electrical power is still successfully functioning after having been begun by Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Agency. Many city people belong to "child care co-ops" where mothers exchange their labor to provide care for their children while they work and "food co-ops" flourish as people who prefer fresh, locally-grown produce to the canned, sterilized, and polluted stuff that is sold in the supermarket.
The purpose of these cooperatives is simple. That is to "cut out the middle man", the amorphous figures who produce nothing and provide nothing but profit from the work of others by controlling the access of human interaction and sharing. Our lives are full of them! We cannot go to an individual business owner to invest in their business. We must go through a stock broker who, in turn, deals through Wall Street and all the organizations represented there, each of whom takes a share of our money before it ever reaches its intended target. So it is with medical care. We go to an insurance company who takes our money, tells us to which doctors we may go to, then tells those doctors what procedures they may and may not do for us, keeping a share of our money at every step. They are not at all concerned with our health, only with the money they can keep for the privilege of brokering the services of our physicians.
Think of single-payer medical care as a giant cooperative where everybody pays in what they can afford, on a sliding scale, and each is allowed to take out what they need. This is the same principle on which we finance our government, pay for our public services, (from the bottom up), pay for our military, and even bail out our over-acquisitive banking system.
It's called "democracy" and it's the American Way! How dare they take it "off the table"?!?
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".
Monday, June 01, 2009
The Political Future
by Mary Pitt
June 1, 2009
One may hear much speculation as to the future of the Republican Party as that once-august group find their following at a historic low and they have to turn for leadership to radio commentators and historic losers from their past. The most-asked questions in the television fora is, "Where is the future of the Republican party?"
The future of the Republican Party may be seen if one looks closely at the other side of the aisle in today's Congress as well as in secondary positions in the administration. After years of hearing references to RINO's, (Republicans In Name Only), we now are beginning to count the DINO's. A new President who was swept into office on a wave of Progressive support is finding his path to the restoration of our nation blocked by Senators and Representatives who profess to be of his own party.
The most prominent of these may well be Secretary-of-State Hillary Clinton. Her history since her failed attempt to establish universal medical care at the beginning of her husband's first term has been one of compromising and conceding to opponents the very heart of the principles which she professes to espouse. After eight years of watching her husband as his major successes were in the area of maintaining and improving the status quo to the benefit of the financial masters, she was so well schooled in the politics of survival as a politician that her record for supporting the policies of George W. Bush is all but unblemished. In the Senate, she diligently worked to become the leader of a "half-a-loaf coalition" that we may call the DINO's.
These DINO's are a combination of the Blue Dog Democrats and some almost-Republican opportunists who insist that we must cling to "the way we've always done it.". (If we have always done it right, why is it not working?) In coalition with a few "moderate Republicans", they have done an admirable job of foot-dragging and hampering the passage of President Obama's most progressive proposals. On the other hand, under the influence of Secretary Clinton and the many other re-treads from the Bush and Clinton administrations, the President too often has no choice but to follow their lead into the old tactics of compromise and coalition in order to make any progress at all.
The Progressive movement watches, aghast, as they are marginalized by the title of "fringe groups" and the "middle way" is presumed to be the proper path. The younger members of Congress are held in check by the seniority system which allows them little influence until they have become sufficiently "trained" to be allowed committee chairmanships and other positions which would allow them to assist in the needed reforms. There may be hope if the Progressives can continue to cling together in common cause through another election cycle or two and dislodge many of the bought-and-paid-for old veterans who like things just the way they are.
Both parties are represented in the House and the Senate but that may be misleading. There may well be the same sort of crisis in the Democratic Party as the Republicans now suffer. The result will be a lot of aisle-crossing as more Progressive members are added, pushing the "moderates" to the right and to the left as the parties re-align in an effort to keep their power. The future of both parties is currently represented in Congress but, with the continued efforts of "we, the people", the lines will be re-drawn. The war-mongers and mind-benders will be pushed out to the Libertarians and other militant parties, the present middle will be the right, and the Democrats will become more Progressive in their attempts to restore a nation that is free and democratic.
This occurance will be dependent upon maintaining the fervor of the common people to re-establish their power. With each election, as more young people are inspired to public service and more war veterans return home with the determination that nothing like the George Bush administration, ever happens again, we will become "a more perfect union". Then and only then will we be able to proudly boast of the government which was visualized by the Founders in forming our precious Constitution..
June 1, 2009
One may hear much speculation as to the future of the Republican Party as that once-august group find their following at a historic low and they have to turn for leadership to radio commentators and historic losers from their past. The most-asked questions in the television fora is, "Where is the future of the Republican party?"
The future of the Republican Party may be seen if one looks closely at the other side of the aisle in today's Congress as well as in secondary positions in the administration. After years of hearing references to RINO's, (Republicans In Name Only), we now are beginning to count the DINO's. A new President who was swept into office on a wave of Progressive support is finding his path to the restoration of our nation blocked by Senators and Representatives who profess to be of his own party.
The most prominent of these may well be Secretary-of-State Hillary Clinton. Her history since her failed attempt to establish universal medical care at the beginning of her husband's first term has been one of compromising and conceding to opponents the very heart of the principles which she professes to espouse. After eight years of watching her husband as his major successes were in the area of maintaining and improving the status quo to the benefit of the financial masters, she was so well schooled in the politics of survival as a politician that her record for supporting the policies of George W. Bush is all but unblemished. In the Senate, she diligently worked to become the leader of a "half-a-loaf coalition" that we may call the DINO's.
These DINO's are a combination of the Blue Dog Democrats and some almost-Republican opportunists who insist that we must cling to "the way we've always done it.". (If we have always done it right, why is it not working?) In coalition with a few "moderate Republicans", they have done an admirable job of foot-dragging and hampering the passage of President Obama's most progressive proposals. On the other hand, under the influence of Secretary Clinton and the many other re-treads from the Bush and Clinton administrations, the President too often has no choice but to follow their lead into the old tactics of compromise and coalition in order to make any progress at all.
The Progressive movement watches, aghast, as they are marginalized by the title of "fringe groups" and the "middle way" is presumed to be the proper path. The younger members of Congress are held in check by the seniority system which allows them little influence until they have become sufficiently "trained" to be allowed committee chairmanships and other positions which would allow them to assist in the needed reforms. There may be hope if the Progressives can continue to cling together in common cause through another election cycle or two and dislodge many of the bought-and-paid-for old veterans who like things just the way they are.
Both parties are represented in the House and the Senate but that may be misleading. There may well be the same sort of crisis in the Democratic Party as the Republicans now suffer. The result will be a lot of aisle-crossing as more Progressive members are added, pushing the "moderates" to the right and to the left as the parties re-align in an effort to keep their power. The future of both parties is currently represented in Congress but, with the continued efforts of "we, the people", the lines will be re-drawn. The war-mongers and mind-benders will be pushed out to the Libertarians and other militant parties, the present middle will be the right, and the Democrats will become more Progressive in their attempts to restore a nation that is free and democratic.
This occurance will be dependent upon maintaining the fervor of the common people to re-establish their power. With each election, as more young people are inspired to public service and more war veterans return home with the determination that nothing like the George Bush administration, ever happens again, we will become "a more perfect union". Then and only then will we be able to proudly boast of the government which was visualized by the Founders in forming our precious Constitution..
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Seeds Of Truth
By Sheila Samples
May 9, 2009
I have learned over the past decade if I want to know what's really going on in the United States, I have to cruise through the foreign media to see what's creating a furor or causing a stink. So, while searching for the status of Spain's on-again, off-again criminal proceedings against six Bush Administration war criminals, this headline in Der Spiegel caught my eye -- "Frankenfood Ban is Neither Populism nor Panic-Mongering."
A closer look at the article revealed it wasn't a Norm Coleman ploy to get folks in Minnesota to quit eating burgers and fries, nor a menu for the genetically obscene monster in Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein," but an announcement by Germany's Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner that Germany is banning the cultivation of MON 810, a genetically modified (GM) corn produced by US biotech giant Monsanto.
The GM Monster
It appears that MON 810 is also believed to be the "Frankenstein" of GM crops by at least five other European countries -- France, Austria, Hungary, Greece and Luxembourg -- all of whom have banned its use. MON 810 was approved by the European Union in 1998, and was the only GM crop approved for cultivation in Germany. Aigner said she had legitimate reasons to believe that the genetically modified Monsanto seed "presents a danger to the environment." The plant produces a toxin that not only destroys the larvae of the corn borer moth, but other, beneficial, insects as well.
Andreas Thierfelder, spokesman for Monsanto Germany, responded that Monsanto would decide "as quickly as possible" whether to take legal proceedings. She said the "matter was very urgent as the planting season was about to start." Just how urgent was evident days later when Monsanto filed a lawsuit against the German government, claiming that its ban on MON 810 is arbitrary and contravenes EU rules. Although Monsanto sued France in an effort to overturn its ban on genetically modified corn, and lost that battle in March when France's highest court ruled that the corn "may" harm the environment and wildlife, the German government is justifiably edgy, as it must prove conclusively to the German court that MON 810 damages the environment.
But the feeder GM corn is just one tiny blip on the Frankenfood radar. And, it's not just Europeans who should worry…..
full article
May 9, 2009
I have learned over the past decade if I want to know what's really going on in the United States, I have to cruise through the foreign media to see what's creating a furor or causing a stink. So, while searching for the status of Spain's on-again, off-again criminal proceedings against six Bush Administration war criminals, this headline in Der Spiegel caught my eye -- "Frankenfood Ban is Neither Populism nor Panic-Mongering."
A closer look at the article revealed it wasn't a Norm Coleman ploy to get folks in Minnesota to quit eating burgers and fries, nor a menu for the genetically obscene monster in Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein," but an announcement by Germany's Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner that Germany is banning the cultivation of MON 810, a genetically modified (GM) corn produced by US biotech giant Monsanto.
The GM Monster
It appears that MON 810 is also believed to be the "Frankenstein" of GM crops by at least five other European countries -- France, Austria, Hungary, Greece and Luxembourg -- all of whom have banned its use. MON 810 was approved by the European Union in 1998, and was the only GM crop approved for cultivation in Germany. Aigner said she had legitimate reasons to believe that the genetically modified Monsanto seed "presents a danger to the environment." The plant produces a toxin that not only destroys the larvae of the corn borer moth, but other, beneficial, insects as well.
Andreas Thierfelder, spokesman for Monsanto Germany, responded that Monsanto would decide "as quickly as possible" whether to take legal proceedings. She said the "matter was very urgent as the planting season was about to start." Just how urgent was evident days later when Monsanto filed a lawsuit against the German government, claiming that its ban on MON 810 is arbitrary and contravenes EU rules. Although Monsanto sued France in an effort to overturn its ban on genetically modified corn, and lost that battle in March when France's highest court ruled that the corn "may" harm the environment and wildlife, the German government is justifiably edgy, as it must prove conclusively to the German court that MON 810 damages the environment.
But the feeder GM corn is just one tiny blip on the Frankenfood radar. And, it's not just Europeans who should worry…..
full article
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Death By the Numbers:
Pakistan Counts the Toll of the Bush-Obama Drone War
Written by Chris Floyd
April 11, 2009
http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1738-death-by-the-numbers-pakistan-counts-the-toll-of-the-bush-obama-drone-war.html
As we all know, the Terror Warriors in the White House (of whatever political stripe) don't do body counts. They just kill people, make unsupported claims of "clean hits" on "militants," backtrack a bit later when eyewitness reports confirm extensive civilian casualties, promise "investigations" that kick the PR can way down the road -- and carry on killing.
But strangely enough, the people who are being killed by these well-wadded, massively protected elites do count how many of their sons and daughters and mothers and fathers are being slaughtered by American ordnance. Imagine that! It's almost like they are real people or something!
Pakistan is the latest target of the Terror Warriors; the progressive, anti-war, last-best-hope-for-world-peace Barack Obama has made it his special project to lay some heavy hurt on the Pakistanis, escalating the drone bombing campaign initiated by his much-emulated predecessor, George Widowmaker Bush. Indeed, the Obama administration is mulling expanding their expansion of the drone war into Pakistan's troubled -- but oil-rich -- southern province of Baluchistan. One begins to suspect that the progressive humanitarians in the White House have been drawing on the beserker fantasies of General Ralph Peters for strategic guidance on the "Af-Pak" front.
In any case, every week brings new reports of deadly attacks in Pakistan's frontier regions, almost all of them involving the deaths of civilians. Americans generally hear little or nothing about these attacks beyond official snippets about "successful" attacks against the apparently endless, ever-replenishing supply of "top Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders." [Or to put it in reality's terms, the United States government and its progressive, humanitarian leaders regularly order, admit and applaud the "extrajudicial killing" -- i.e., murder -- of uncharged, untried individuals living within the borders of an allied country. As it saith in the Scriptures: These be your gods, O progressives!] But while Americans turn a deaf ear, in Pakistan the blood cries out, and is measured, as far as possible, by a government that is further shaken by each American attack and the violent extremism it engenders.
This week, Pakistani officials released stunning figures of the civilian death count in the American drone war: almost 700 innocent men, women and children killed so far -- as opposed to 14 actual, wanted extremist leaders. As the Pakistani paper The News reports:
Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent....
According to the figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities, a total of 537 people have been killed in 50 incidents of cross-border US predator strikes since January 1, 2008 to April 8, 2009, averaging 34 killings per month and 11 killings per attack. The average per month killings in predator strikes during 12 months of 2008 stood at 32 while the average per attack killings in the 36 drone strikes for the same year stood at 11.
Similarly, 152 people have been killed in 14 incidents of cross-border predator attacks in the tribal areas in the first 99 days of 2009, averaging 38 killings per month and 11 killings per attack.
Now there's change you can believe in (to coin a phrase)! In just a few months in office, Obama has managed to raise the average kill rate achieved by Bush from 32 to 38 per month. And who can doubt that this young, capable, charismatic president will not increase that civilian slaughter rate even further as he ratchets up the drone war in the months -- and years and years -- to come?
Written by Chris Floyd
April 11, 2009
http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1738-death-by-the-numbers-pakistan-counts-the-toll-of-the-bush-obama-drone-war.html
As we all know, the Terror Warriors in the White House (of whatever political stripe) don't do body counts. They just kill people, make unsupported claims of "clean hits" on "militants," backtrack a bit later when eyewitness reports confirm extensive civilian casualties, promise "investigations" that kick the PR can way down the road -- and carry on killing.
But strangely enough, the people who are being killed by these well-wadded, massively protected elites do count how many of their sons and daughters and mothers and fathers are being slaughtered by American ordnance. Imagine that! It's almost like they are real people or something!
Pakistan is the latest target of the Terror Warriors; the progressive, anti-war, last-best-hope-for-world-peace Barack Obama has made it his special project to lay some heavy hurt on the Pakistanis, escalating the drone bombing campaign initiated by his much-emulated predecessor, George Widowmaker Bush. Indeed, the Obama administration is mulling expanding their expansion of the drone war into Pakistan's troubled -- but oil-rich -- southern province of Baluchistan. One begins to suspect that the progressive humanitarians in the White House have been drawing on the beserker fantasies of General Ralph Peters for strategic guidance on the "Af-Pak" front.
In any case, every week brings new reports of deadly attacks in Pakistan's frontier regions, almost all of them involving the deaths of civilians. Americans generally hear little or nothing about these attacks beyond official snippets about "successful" attacks against the apparently endless, ever-replenishing supply of "top Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders." [Or to put it in reality's terms, the United States government and its progressive, humanitarian leaders regularly order, admit and applaud the "extrajudicial killing" -- i.e., murder -- of uncharged, untried individuals living within the borders of an allied country. As it saith in the Scriptures: These be your gods, O progressives!] But while Americans turn a deaf ear, in Pakistan the blood cries out, and is measured, as far as possible, by a government that is further shaken by each American attack and the violent extremism it engenders.
This week, Pakistani officials released stunning figures of the civilian death count in the American drone war: almost 700 innocent men, women and children killed so far -- as opposed to 14 actual, wanted extremist leaders. As the Pakistani paper The News reports:
Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent....
According to the figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities, a total of 537 people have been killed in 50 incidents of cross-border US predator strikes since January 1, 2008 to April 8, 2009, averaging 34 killings per month and 11 killings per attack. The average per month killings in predator strikes during 12 months of 2008 stood at 32 while the average per attack killings in the 36 drone strikes for the same year stood at 11.
Similarly, 152 people have been killed in 14 incidents of cross-border predator attacks in the tribal areas in the first 99 days of 2009, averaging 38 killings per month and 11 killings per attack.
Now there's change you can believe in (to coin a phrase)! In just a few months in office, Obama has managed to raise the average kill rate achieved by Bush from 32 to 38 per month. And who can doubt that this young, capable, charismatic president will not increase that civilian slaughter rate even further as he ratchets up the drone war in the months -- and years and years -- to come?
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