The Guerrilla Campaign

the Rude Pundit 7/11/2007 http:/rudepundit.blogspot.com/2007/07/24-hours-of-american-liars-heres-what.html Here's what we've learned in the last 24 hours or so, none of it terribly surprising in and of each separate thing, but in the aggregate, quite, umm, bowel-releasing frightening. We've learned there's different kinds of lies: Lies of Omission - The Surgeon General of the United States was ordered by the White House to lie to America about everything related to, you know, health. When Richard H. Carmona was the Surgeon General from 2002-2006, Carmona wasn't allowed "to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues" and to water down a report on secondhand smoke (something he actually resisted). He was discouraged from attending the Special Olympics, for chrissake, because of Ted Kennedy's involvement in it. Also (and this is the Rude Pundit's favorite part), Carmona ...

by Stacie Adams July 10th, 2007 Displaying a lust for futility often characteristic of bleeding heart types, Saturday’s global Live Earth concert was glaring example of the well intentioned but utterly pointless approach to problem solving. Spearheaded by Al Gore, that denizen of empty gestures, the event accomplished little more than to serve as a gathering place for pop relics well beyond their sell-by date. Acts such as Madonna, Bon Jovi, Genesis, Smashing Pumpkins, and Metallica may have caused some of the less sentient viewers to question whether they’d inadvertently fallen into a wormhole destined for the mid-90s. Unlike benefit concerts of yore, which aimed to raise money with their sprawling festivities, Live Earth’s focus was on raising awareness of global warming. The notion that global warming needs further advertisement is laughable, considering the issue already garners more attention than every member of the Hilton family. Certainly a few well placed TV spots could have a...

Do you remember all the firemen, police, and EMT’s that died at the World Trade Center? Some of them still running up the stairs trying to rescue people. Union workers, every one of them. Lawmakers drop union provision in 9-11 bill By Thomas Ferraro 7/9/07 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070709/pl_nm/usa_security_unions_dc_1 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers agreed on Monday to drop efforts to extend union protection to about 45,000 federal airport security workers as part of stalled legislation to guard against another September 11-type attack. As a result, Democrats and Republicans expressed hope the Senate and the House of Representatives could now reach agreement on a final bill to send to President George W. Bush to sign into law. Organized labor voiced disappointment at the decision. The overall legislation, passed by the Senate and House, would implement many of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission created after the September 11 attacks, and impose some new ones. It...

"They Have Destroyed Everything": Written by Chris Floyd Monday, 09 July 2007 http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/%22They_Have_Destroyed_Everything%22:_Terms_of_Debate_on_Iraq/ Death everywhere, death every day, nothing but death and the stench of death and the never-ending agony of the aftermath of death. This is the true and only meaningful context of all the punditry and political posturing around the "issue" of Iraq. While the White House maneuvers to "buy time" for the president and provide "political cover" for continuing the war – and the Democrats make plans to float some " proposals " on " beginning to redeploy some forces" – the cry of an Iraqi grandfather whose entire family was murdered in the bombing at Amerli rips like a knife to the heart of the matter: "We were wiped out mercilessly, and we blame the Americans, the Iraqi government, the criminals and all the politicians who brought us catastrophe...

Be proud, Americans, be proud. Making Gaza 'Scream' - by Stephen Lendman 07/09/07 Making Gaza "scream" is same kind of scheme the Nixon administration planned for Chile after social democrat Salvador Allende won a plurality of the votes in September, 1970. Before the Chilean Congress confirmed him as president in October, an infamous Nixon CIA Director Richard Helms handwritten note read: "One in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile!...not concerned with risks involved...$10,000,000 available, more if necessary...make the economy 'scream.' " By it, he meant saving the country from a socially responsible leader, like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, using his nation's wealth equitably and not just for its privileged elites. "Scream" it did through Nixon's "soft line" scheme "to do all within our power to condemn Chile and Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty," in the words of his Chilean ambassador Edward Korry. It...

by Mary Pitt 7/8/07 Yawn! It's almost time for the next episode of The Ken And Barbie Show. You know, the new television extravaganza where a bunch of very affluent, carefully groomed, coiffed, and made-up rich folks get on a stage and try to convince us that they "feel our pain". There are two groups and we are supposed to choose the best of each group and then make the final choice between the two of them. We are asked to judge on the basis of appearance, personality, and creative thinking. On the first two criteria, all are almost equally qualified but that last one is a real sticking point. Where both the groups part company with the average voter is the point where they attempt to show us the way to "correct" the problems of poverty, Social Security, and the health system. Both groups seem to have determined that everything can be solved without spending any public money or raising any taxes on the rich folks. The Democrats appear to have bought into the Re...

by Mark Steel If Stonehenge was bombed, you'd soon see one behaving strangely outside a nightclub Published: 04 July 2007 http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/mark_steel/article2733231.ece Among the many complex questions involving the minds of terrorists is why they would rely on a mobile phone to work properly as the detonator. All that effort, ending with a furious Jihadist snarling, "Bollocks, I can't get a signal." Or maybe the terrorists have modernised their facilities, so instead of an instant explosion he heard a voice saying, "Welcome to the Al Qa'ida automated answering service. If you'd like to hear about our special summer range of fertiliser, nails, 3-for-the-price-of-2 gas cylinders and an exciting variety of combustible materials, press one..." So by the time it said, "Or if you'd like to detonate a Silver Mercedes press seven," he'd lost interest and hung up. You'd think there must have been a questio...

by Sheila Samples 7/5/07 "We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men" - George Orwell Recently, Nova M Radio's Mike Malloy suggested the lethargy that appears to have descended on the American people is more "rage fatigue" than a lack of knowledge or comprehension of the damage wrought by this administration. I agree, although for many of us, rather than fatigue, it's more an inability to "focus" on any single atrocity about which to be enraged. There are just too many incoming horrors at any one time. We are in the throes of a national paralysis. It's not that we don't know enough to be enraged. We know too much. About too many things. Our rage is splintered, spread too thin to be effective. For the past five years, people in this country and around the world have protested against Bush and Cheney's genocidal assault on two helpless nations. As they prepare openly for yet a...

Lewis 'Scooter' Libby Sentence Commuted - by Stephen Lendman 7/3/07 On July 2, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Washington) ruled on US v. Libby (07-3068) saying I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby must be imprisoned while appealing his conviction March 6 of lying to federal investigators and a grand jury and obstructing their probe of the 2003 leaking of CIA official Valerie Plame's identity. The court said Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question" for him to remain free under federal law. Earlier, US District Judge Reggie Walton refused to let Libby remain free during appeal saying evidence of his guilt was "overwhelming." Libby faced 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine for his conviction handed down June 5 and as of early July 2 appeared heading for incarceration within weeks. Enter George Bush in his latest brazen and contemptuous defiance of the law. Within hours of yesterday's court decision, ...

by Mary Pitt 7/3/07 A mere two centuries is not long in the history of previous great nations of the world, but it does seem that Americans are eager to end their era of influence in world affairs. We are soundly in the grip of the two-party system, made up of professional politicians, the parties locked belly-to belly in a danse macabre to the music of the multi-national corporatists until it is nearly impossible to discern one from the other. In this artificially-elongated campaign season, the feeling that arises from the grassroots of the mountains and the prairies is a heartfelt prayer for a sensible person with no ties to any of them to arise and save our democracy. While the Houses of Congress are involved in the acquisition of political power, we are led by a putative President who began his reign with the declaration that our archaic laws do not apply to him or to his minions, dancing a jig to the music while waving his middle finger at the helpless sheeple who must labor ever ...

by Richard L. Franklin 7/2/07 'Color free society' is the latest mantra among American conservatives, who have just achieved a stunning victory in the Supreme Court, where the unitary president groupies have recently ruled that race cannot be a factor in attempts to achieve more racially balanced school populations. The efforts to do so in the past have come in part from the horrendous conditions of black schools across America, where textbooks, lab equipment, audiovisual equipment, computers, topnotch teachers, and so forth, are often scarce or totally absent. If race can no longer be factored in when efforts are being made to equalize educational opportunities for blacks, it's clear this country is quietly moving backward when it comes to providing equal opportunities for racial minorities. Conservatives were positively beaming during TV interviews immediately following the Supreme Court decision. They quickly adopted 'color free society' as a kind of mantra that ...

- by Stephen Lendman 7/2/07 Along with Christmas, no federal holiday is more celebrated than the day a new nation declared its independence from the British Crown on July 4, 1776. Coming in the summer with good weather across the country, it's a day or long weekend of parades, outings, various other celebratory events, and baseball at all levels that many years ago often meant major league "double-headers" that was a big occasion for young boys, like this writer, growing up in "big league" cities whose dads took them out for an endless day at the ballpark. It's also a day commemorating the nation's history, liberation and traditions most people don't know or forgot. That's just as well because they were never taught the truths about them, just the acceptable illusions learned in school to the highest levels. They're extolled by the dominant media, most in academia, and by the clergy and others in high places as well who are willing to spr...

by Richard L. Franklin 6/26/07 As of late, I've only rarely seen the death penalty discussed within the framework of traditional theories of democratic social contract. That topic is a book waiting to be written. After all, theories of social contract were discussed at length by the American founders, and the Bill of Rights was assembled with notions of a social contract hovering in the background. The Enlightenment was in full swing back in those times, and rational social contract theories were in the air. We are therefore long overdue in making use of this concept when it comes to discussing the death penalty in America. When a state invests itself with the right to kill its own citizens, it has profound implications for any theory of democracy or the usual notions of a social contract underlying the so-called American 'democracy'. Before I get into the coupling of American theories of democracy and social contract, I hasten to say I see the notions of social contract as...

- by Stephen Lendman 6/25/07 In 1984 (a year of Orwellian significance), activist and media and social critic Edward Herman wrote one of his many important books titled "Demonstration Elections." In it, he analyzed the US-staged elections in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam and the 1982 one in El Salvador. In the book's Orwellian glossary of terms, he defined the process as "A circus held in a client state to assure the population of the home country that their intrusion is well received. The results are guaranteed by an adequate supply of bullets provided in advance (and freely used as necessary to achieve the desired outcome)." This writer calls this ugly business "democracy-engineering, American-style" backed by force to win approval of a rigged process people would never accept another way. Noam Chomsky refers to the notion of "Keeping the Rabble in Line," the title of one of his many books. It can be through soft or h...

have a pretzel.

The Democratic Party and the Infantile Omnipotence of The Ruling Class. by Phil Rockstroh 6/21/07 Why did the Democratic Congress betray the voting public? Betrayal is often a consequence of wishful thinking. It's the world's way of delivering the life lesson that it's time to shed the vanity of one's innocence and grow-the-hell-up. Apropos, here's lesson number one for political innocents: Power serves the perpetuation of power. In an era of runaway corporate capitalism, the political elite exist to serve the corporate elite. It's that simple. Why do the elites lie so brazenly? Ironically, because they believe they're entitled to, by virtue of their superior sense of morality. How did they come to this arrogant conclusion? Because they think they're better than us. If they believe in anything at all, it is this: They view us as a reeking collection of wretched, baseborn rabble, who are, on an individual level, a few billion neurons short of being govern...

I guess one of the dogs got a hold of this one. Really got tore up didn’t he? Well, let me tell you something. This is what you’re letting little georgie bush do with his toy soldiers. The reality though, is that his toy soldiers are your children. Don’t that just give you a warm feeling inside? Whoopee! Let’s send another bunch to the meat grinder. What the hell, they ain’t embryos.

Bush vetoes stem-cell bill http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070620/pl_nm/bush_stemcells_dc_11 "If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos," Bush said. "I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line." “But, of course, I have no problem killing them after they’re born,” he added with a wink.

I was sitting at the tracks waiting for the train to go by, and I remembered something from my past. Some years back, me and my crew were measuring across the tracks about 200-300 feet from a grade crossing, when the steel tape we were using dropped down across the tracks. Bingo. Bells clang, and the gates go down. That must be how trains let the crossings know they're there. Fortunately, it happened on a back road with little traffic. Can you imagine the disruption if that had happened on a busy main road during rush hour? Well, enough of me prattling on about my past. On to the news. Samarra dam in danger Monday, 18 June 2007 HAQ agency- exclusive http://76news.net/eng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=295 HAQ news agency received from reliable sources from the city of Samarra that the American occupation forces today expelled all the workers and staff who work at the dam of Samarra. The incoming news that only people exist in the place are the American sol...