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April 2005 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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Rebutting Gordon Brown:
The Attorney General's Legal Advice, British Prime Minister Tony Blair thinks that the controversy over the Attorney General's legal advice is a “damp squib.” His ministers struggle to put out the raging fire -- which has torched their election campaign plans -– by offering up distortions and lies. The crucial point is that in his 7 March legal advice, Lord Goldsmith said that if there was no second UN resolution authorizing war against Iraq, there had to be “hard evidence” of Iraqi “non-compliance and non-cooperation” with its disarmament obligations. (Legally, this is nonsense, but the issue is what the Government's legal adviser told Tony Blair, and what Mr. Blair did with that advice.) Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has sought to defend the decision to go to war (which he participated), by referring to a range of documents brought before the British Cabinet on 17 March 2003. None of these documents demonstrates that Iraq was failing to cooperate with inspectors, or that Iraq definitely possessed weapons of mass destruction. The documents instead demonstrated that Iraqi cooperation with the inspectors, and Iraqi disarmament, were increasing, not decreasing, on 17 March 2003. It was also clear that the judgment as to Iraq's cooperation should not have been made by the British Cabinet, but by UN weapons inspectors and the UN Security Council....(full article)
On May Day 2005, it is a good time to reflect on the many who gave their lives in the cause of organized labor so that future generations of workers would enjoy a living wage, an eight-hour day, worker’s compensation, decent working conditions, basic job security and standards of safety. Of equal and greater importance, May Day 2005 is a critical time to consider that what has been gained through generations of blood and sweat can easily be lost through negligence and fear....(full article)
Ft. Stewart, GA -- Yesterday [April 27] at
Ft. Stewart Georgia, U.S. Army Sergeant Kevin Benderman was dealt a
setback in his battle with the U.S. Army when his application for
Conscientious Objector status was denied by his command. Benderman applied
for CO status after having already served one combat tour in Iraq during
which his Captain ordered personnel in the unit to fire on Iraqi children
throwing rocks. This was one of many incidents during his deployment that
Benderman said convinced him that war is immoral and it is his duty to
refuse to kill....(full article)
Back to the Ancient Future:
Chewing Raw Grubs
with the I spent the middle weekend in April with a group of artists and thinkers called the April Fools Group. Put together by Brad Blanton, psychotherapist and creator of “radical honesty” politics and therapy, the three-day meeting was set on a farm down the Shenandoah Valley amid the battlefields and rolling countryside of Newmarket, Virginia. Brad, a world famous redneck headshrinker, had put together old hippies, theoreticians, musicians, young anarchists, beautiful brilliant women and aging writers to yap, drink and plot against the Bush administration. So when I pulled into Brad’s driveway to find him and a fellow named Hank parked in lawn chairs up on the roof with a bottle of bourbon I knew this thing was off to a good start. The gathering was an organizational meeting for Brad Blanton’s independent run for the Virginia Seventh District U.S. House of Representatives. Blanton’s working slogan is “America needs a good psychiatrist.” And we got a lot accomplished in that direction, despite my intellectual flatulence and Brad’s orneriness. Any psychotherapist who actually gets people to pay for advice such as “Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke” must be called ornery at the very least. And any politician who thinks he can get elected on the basis of extreme honesty, well....(full article)
We do unto others what was done unto us. What we do to others reveals our personal and collective history. Primo Levi, who had been There, said, “The Palestinians are the Jews to the Jews.” I was reminded of Primo Levi’s statement on Sunday when I saw “MADE IN PALESTINE,” an exhibit of Palestinian Art, at the SomArts Cultural Center in San Francisco....(full article)
American news outlets provided extensive -- and mostly laudatory -- coverage of Marla Ruzicka after she died in Baghdad on April 16. The humanitarian aid worker’s undaunted spirit and boundless dedication had endeared her to a wide array of people as she strived to gain acknowledgment and compensation for civilians harmed by the war in Iraq. Ruzicka was determined to help Iraqi victims and loved ones. “Their tragedies,” she said, “are our responsibilities.” Her funeral, at a church in her hometown of Lakeport, California, was a moving occasion as friends and co-workers paid tribute to a woman whose moral energies led her to take great risks and accomplish so much in a life of 28 years. By all accounts, she was a wonderful and inspiring person. Yet after I left the funeral, some key themes of the media eulogies and other testimonials kept bothering me. We were being encouraged to celebrate Marla Ruzicka’s life, her work and her message. But -- in the context of a continuing war -- what was her message? (full article)
With ever more outlandish discourse, the Christian Right has gained the upper hand in the battle over abortion in Bush’s second term. But the pro-choice movement has helped pave the way....(full article)
Anti-Arabism and Islamophobia are so much a part of the political and cultural discourse on Arabs and Muslims in American society today that most do not even recognize it as racism. The fear mongering of the Bush administration and the right wing media pundits who make a living from demonizing Arabs and Muslims have inundated people with images of the violent Arabs bent on death and destruction. For media outlets like Fox Television, it is a way to sell their sensationalist news programs and for the current administration, a way to sell its wars....(full article)
My wife Michele and I went to the Yankee game on May Day last year (2004). They gave out free caps. "NY" on the front, of course...and a shiny patch on the back of the hat acknowledged the giveaway day sponsor: Hess. The House that Ruth Built became a moveable ad for oil (instant replays brought to you by Dodge). The seventh inning stretch required fans to stand in honor of the “men and women in uniform” who fight to “preserve our way of life.” Fifty thousand removed their free caps, watched a digitized flag wave on the big screen, and held the Hess patch over cholesterol-laden hearts while belting out “God Bless America,” collectively choosing to ignore the blood being spilled to keep the world safe for petroleum (Michele and I opted for a strategic bathroom break at that point). The Yankees won and many of the fans promptly rushed out to drive home in their ubiquitous SUVs...adorned, of course, with the ubiquitous “support the troops” yellow ribbon sticker....(full article)
As most of you know, Pope John Paul II,
formerly known as Karol Wojtyla, died from organ failure after a series of
prolonged illnesses. His is a complex portrait, and one worth a glance at
this time of changes. Even as he was head of one of the most vile
institutions in human history, an institutional merger of Spirituality and
State into what we call Religion, in many ways he has been a great
reformer within that institution. Even as he chaired the death cult that
has caused more war, theft, and suffering than any other force in human
history, he fought for freedom and prayed for peace. And for all the
needless suffering his refusal to punish child molester priests has
caused, for all the needless starvation and slow death in the developing
world that his anti-birth control policies have caused, for all the AIDS
his anti-condom policies have caused, in many ways he has taken more steps
toward undoing the ravages of racism and ignorance than any Pope before
him. The man was a walking contradiction. And love him or hate him, you
have to respect the path he chose in leaving this world behind....
It’s truly comforting to know that, even in the grip of post-9/11 paranoia, the G-men of the FBI are still using their resources efficiently. If you have any doubts, just ask Steve Kurtz. He is living proof that your tax dollars are hard at work....(full article)
Better people than I, last week -- provided they could wade their way through all those stories about the pope, and all the TV dramas pretending that “American voters never knew” Franklin Roosevelt had polio -- tried to balance Bush’s brain with Lincoln’s. All of them, so far as I know, have since run shrieking into corners, begging for death, before another word escapes the mouth of the Idiot-in-Chief. I refer especially to David Rossie’s piece in The Binghamton (NY) Press and Sun-Bulletin, which pled -- no, wept -- for Americans to wake up and see how far they’ve been duped. Rossie did nothing but quote the respective commanders....(full article)
The publication of UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith’s legal advice, presented to Prime Minister Tony Blair on 7 March 2003, before the invasion of Iraq, but not published until today (28 April 2005), marks a significant defeat for the Government, and an important opportunity for the anti-war movement to educate the general public about some crucial realities -- particularly about the role and function of the UN weapons inspectors. Foreign Minister Jack Straw is piloting a new Big Lie for the Government to cover up its dishonesty. What does the legal advice mean? As long rumored, Lord Goldsmith's advice is finely balanced and equivocal -- the very opposite of the black-and-white legal certainty that military chiefs wanted and Tony Blair announced to the world....(full article)
It was spring 1966 and down at the end of fraternity row in the exclusive new brick high-rise apartment building, the children of the rich and the few were partying hard. On the second floor balcony they socialized, cooked and drank beer with beautiful girls. The building even had a pool, a rare luxury in those times, and was the kind of place where only a few high-enders could afford to live while in school. That day a homeless person, an even rarer thing back then, shuffled by. Seeing them on the balcony, he asked for food. His attitude was one of a supplicant at the feet of God: “Pardon me, sirs...” The cream of American youth was moved. They threw him a raw onion, which he ate like an apple, while they cheered and hooted and guffawed. He was sick the rest of the day. They drove their BMWs to class, and they laughed and told and retold the story. Forty years later we see those frat boys of yesterday have come into their own, inheriting their daddies’ places in the world in the form of George Bush and his supporters....(full article)
My
dad always responded to anything that was patently obvious with, “Well,
yea-ah. Anybody with half sense and one eye knows that,” which was his way
of saying don't go with the flow, but look at facts and come to your own
conclusions. He also said, “If you're determined to show your ass, make sure
it's a clean ‘un,” or -- get those facts straight before you jump out there
and start concluding... Well,
I've looked at heaps and piles of facts about what the deranged leaders of
this nation are willing to do to the men and women who wear the US military
uniform, and I've come to two conclusions. This country's most expendable
commodity is its children and, with few exceptions, Americans appear to be
both senseless and blind....
SouthWest Border Vigilantes say gringos should drop everything they are doing and go stand shoulder to shoulder at the Mexican border to prevent anybody from walking North. In response, I'm not saying gringo vigilantes are altogether stupid people, because there are most likely many areas of life where they display dignity and intelligence. The sooner they return to those areas the better. Yet suppose for the sake of peacemaking that we find common ground with vigilantes in their pure anxiety about the border. What they are worried about is a swamped labor market where more people share fewer jobs and declining pay. That anxiety has some basis in reality. But it is misleading to see the chief cause of the labor problem along an imaginary line that separates the USA from Mexico. Blame America's problems on Mexicans? The battle cry of the border vigilante is evidence that we live in desperate and confused times....(full article)
There are as many Americans living below the official poverty line as the combined populations of Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Tennessee. (William Quigley, Ending Poverty as We Know it: Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage, Temple University Press, 2003) In only four of America’s 3,066 counties can a full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a single-bedroom apartment. (New York Times, "Study Finds Gap in Wages and Housing Costs," December 25, 2004) Attribute this largely to a Wal-Martized economy where sweatshop friendly mega retailers cut the legs out from under local, community benefiting businesses, forcing our consequently beleaguered working class ever closer to rock bottom. Desperation on Main Street is measured by the diminishing number of days that even a two-breadwinner family’s paychecks last, as bills relentlessly mount. That isn’t the better lives for their progeny our parents and grandparents so glowingly envisioned. It represents an unacceptable betrayal of their fondest hope, and the hallowed American Dream itself....(full article)
Immediately following Iraq's elections in January, the Bush administration and its apologists declared that the "successful" elections in Iraq delivered a "body blow" to the insurgency. In March, General John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, and Lt. General John F. Sattler, the top Marine officer in Iraq, both declared that the strength of the insurgency was waning thanks, in large part, of the elections. General Abizaid even went so far as to predict that by the end of 2005, Iraqi security forces would be leading the fight against the insurgents. At first, it appeared that Bush & Co. might actually have been correct. In the weeks immediately following the elections, it did appear as though insurgent attacks were more sporadic and less effective. In short, it seemed relatively quiet in Iraq. Appearances, however, are often deceiving....(full article)
It shouldn't come as much of a shock that Jack Abramoff, the infamous DC super-lobbyist who has been accused of ripping off millions from his Native American clients, is a rabid Zionist. Abramoff, in the late 1990s, set up a pro-Israel charity front called the Capital Athletic Foundation. Sounds jovial enough. “The pitch ... was hard to resist,” Michael Isikoff recently reported for Newsweek, “a good way to get access on Capitol Hill, he told his clients ... was to contribute to [his] worthy charity ... [which] was supposed to provide sports programs and teach ‘leadership skills’ to city youth. Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay.”....(full article)
In 2003, President Bush nominated California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Courts of Appeals. However, due to her ultra-conservative judicial views, the Democrats in the Senate prevented her nomination from going forward by use of the filibuster. Mr. Bush re-nominated her again in February. Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a party-line vote, approved of her nomination, with all 10 Republicans affirming her, and all eight Democrats opposing her. Unless Republicans elect to carry out the so-called “nuclear option” of abolishing the filibuster, Democrats will almost certainly block her nomination again. And for good reasons....(full article)
When
the Abu Ghraib prison photographs emerged one year ago the Bush
Administration said: now the Iraqis will see that there is justice in the
United States. Leading Republican Senators, John Warner, Lindsay Graham
and John McCain, promised that everyone culpable would be held
accountable, no matter how senior. Hopefully, the Iraqis were not watching
too closely....
Since George W. Bush assumed the US presidency, his regime has defied international law and wreaked murderous havoc on developing nations. Many political pundits have pointed to the neoconservative agenda as announced in the Project for the New American Century’s unabashed call for a Pax Americana. But Bush and some of his circle also claim to be taking cues from the Christian God. If this is true, then presumably Christian teaching is influencing the only superpower and hence the rest of the world. The Bible forms the core of Christian thought. It is a selective compilation of tales that has had and has stupefying transformative powers in the world. As such, an understanding of the Bible is important. Toronto-based Tony Malone is an accomplished musician and freethinker who devoted several years researching rare and valuable biblical works. The result was his two richly illustrated books The Bible For People Who Hate The Bible....(full article)
Where do I want the Green Party to be in 20 years? In 2025, I want the Green Party to be the majority political party in the United States. I want most of the members of Congress, most governors, and most members of state legislatures, to be Greens. This is a very ambitious goal, but by no means an unrealistic one. History has many examples of small, upstart parties rising to majority status, notably the Republican Party under Lincoln and the British Labour Party in the first half of the last century. The next third party success story could be the Green Party. But people aren’t stupid. If they see the Greens collaborating with, say, the Democratic Party in presidential elections, people will begin to ask what makes us Greens different. If they see us retreating from the battleground states for fear of “taking away” votes from the Democrats -- as indeed the official Green Party campaign did in 2004 -- they will ask the perfectly reasonable question: Why should I bother supporting Greens if it’s just a roundabout way of supporting Democrats? (full article)
2005 marks the centennial of the founding of the most bold, radical, and egalitarian mass union in US history: the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, also known as the Wobblies). Big Bill Haywood, “The Rebel Girl” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Joe Hill, Free Speech fights, the Patterson and Lawrence strikes, “Solidarity Forever”, and so much more: the legacy of the Wobblies is one of the most enduring things in the American radical tradition. Paul Buhle, a professor of American Civilization at Brown University and a leading scholar of American radical history, is co-author of the new Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the IWW. In a recent interview with Left Hook (www.lefthook.org) co-editor Derek Seidman, Buhle answered some questions about the IWW, his new book, and the Traveling Wobbly show (www.wobblyshow.org)....(full article)
The best news coming out of the first hearing of the Carter-Baker Commission is that the co-chairs recognize that Americans are losing faith in their democracy, and that even in the 2004 presidential election -- among the most passionate elections in recent history -- 40% did not vote and, increasing numbers of voters lack confidence that their votes were counted as cast. The bad news is that a corporate conflict of interest of one member of the Commission raises doubts that they will recommend the common sense necessity -- voter verified paper ballots....(full article)
“Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength, than such arguments would imply … At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed … The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes … must be proclaimed and denounced.” (Frederick Douglass, 5 July 1852, in a speech titled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”) With this statement we agree one hundred and some percent. One may in fact be tempted to call the current era a Post-Analytic Era. Meaning, we are well past the point where analysis alone is the primary needed catalyst to spark a change in the hearts and minds of the truly downtrodden. One may more efficaciously invest in growing less scared of the system by creating autonomous institutions of our own, and thus becoming less impressed by the system’s claims to omnipotence, and more discerning of its weaknesses. For it can only be a supremely unstable and weekly-invested system that needs to kill and deceive, murder and rape and insult daily for its survival. For a demonstration of all-the-analysis-you-need, here is a post-analytic exposé....(full article)
In a report issued to the UN Commission on Human Rights, M. Cherif Bassiouni reported on allegations that American military forces and independent contractors in Afghanistan acted above the law with "sexual abuse, beatings, torture, and use of force resulting in death." As a result, the UN Commission on Human Rights was pressured at a meeting in Geneva by U.S. diplomats to eliminate his post that was appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last April: the United Nation's "independent expert on human rights in Afghanistan."....(full article)
At an FDA hearing on the safety of psychotropic drugs on Feb 2, 2004, dozens of tortured parents testified that their children had committed suicide or other violent acts after being prescribed the same drugs that are being marketed in the Bush-backed pharmaceutical industry schemes aimed at recruiting the nation's 52 million school children as customers. In July 2003, the Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health (NFC) recommended screening all children for mental illness and designated TeenScreen as a model program to ensure that every student receives a mental health check-up before finishing high school. The NFC also has a preferred drug program in place modeled after the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), which lists what drugs are to be used on children found to be mentally ill. The list contains every drug that people complained about at the FDA hearing, including Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Wellbutron, Zyban, Remeron, Serzone, Effexor, Buspar, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroqual, Geodone, Depakote, Adderall, and Prozac. There is little if any evidence that these drugs work on children but, nevertheless, an estimated 10 million children in the US are now taking these mind-altering drugs even though they have documented side effects including suicidal ideation, mania, psychosis, and future drug dependence....(full article)
The Eyes Wide Open exhibition, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, came to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento recently. I live right across the street, so it took me about three minutes to walk to the traveling presentation on a gorgeous California spring day. Over 1,500 pairs of combat boots were arrayed on the lawn, symbolizing the number of reported U.S. military dead in Iraq. Some of the footgear belonged to the deceased; the rest was donated by a surplus store. An adjacent grassy area held about 1,000 pairs of neatly-arranged shoes, a memorial to the estimated 100,000-plus Iraqi citizens killed since America, unprovoked, attacked their country. As people quietly wandered through the display, many pausing to read the occasional newspaper article or note accompanying a pair of boots, the names and ages of the dead, soldiers and civilians alike, were read aloud by volunteers one by one, each name punctuated at reading’s end by a woman dinging a chime. One by one, that is, except for the periodic Iraqi appellation followed by “and 29 family members, ages unknown” or some similar ghastly number....(full article)
David Horowitz and his gang never cease to amaze. From their crackpot intellectualism, to their red baiting antics -- it's clear the folks over at FrontPageMagazine.com are nothing short of fascist. On April 25, Ann Coulter wannabe and FrontPage darling, Debbie Schlussel, had this to say about the death of peace activist Marla Ruzicka, who, as I am sure you know, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq earlier this month....(full article)
At the beginning of every episode of the long running sci-fi series, The X-Files, viewers were shown the mysterious words “I want to believe.” We were to understand that one of the FBI investigators in the show was eager to overcome his skepticism, to be persuaded that aliens, goblins and suchlike really exist. When it comes to the humanity and compassion of leaders like Tony Blair and George Bush, mainstream journalists also “want to believe.”....(full article)
He should have stayed at Democratic Party headquarters. In a speech delivered in Minneapolis on April 20th, Howard Dean said of the US military occupation of Iraq, “Now that we’re there, we’re there and we can’t get out.” He also extended his firm endorsement of George Bush’s policy of aggression, stating “I hope the president is incredibly successful with his policy now that he’s there.” That’s the role of “progressive” politicians -- and their adoring fans: to endorse the murderous policies of George Bush. The $40,000 raised for the Democratic Party as proceeds from Dean’s speech is simply more blood money, the byproduct of the political apparatus that makes sure the killing floor abroad is kept busy. Perhaps this taste for blood can be explained by the fondness Deaniacs in particular have for screams; this time, though, it is not their pop idol who is roaring, but countless real-life people experiencing the hard-headed realism of the likes of Howard Dean and the rest of George Bush’s supporters....(full article)
Last month, First Lady Laura Bush did something her husband never dared -- she went to Afghanistan. While there, Mrs. Bush went to great pains to applaud her husband and to highlight the progress and achievements made by Afghan women. Thanks to Bush's benevolence, the women of Afghanistan are now free. Free to walk the streets without burqas or male supervision. Free to vote. Free to go to school. Indeed, on May 9, 2003, President Bush boldly declared that the days when Afghan women "were beaten in streets and executed in soccer fields are over." According to Bush, women's human rights in Afghanistan are a "foreign policy imperative and a cornerstone of all U.S. humanitarian efforts in the region." If only the facts supported the rhetoric....(full article)
Philippines Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz stated recently that the threat posed by the New People’s Army (NPA), the military wing of the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines, has made it imperative for Manila to negotiate an agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The MILF is one of two major Muslim insurgent groups in the southern third of the archipelago. (The other, the Moro National Liberation Front, has already signed a peace agreement.) The government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has asked the U.S. State Department to leave the MILF off of its list of international terrorist organizations in order to promote the peace talks. Cruz calls the NPA “the greatest internal security threat to the country now.” What’s significant here is that Manila is downplaying the problem of Muslim insurgency while emphasizing that of the resurgent Maoist People’s War, whereas the U.S. has depicted its own renewed military presence in the islands exclusively as an effort to crush al-Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorism....(full article)
In all the hullabaloo raised by the coverage of the Terri Schiavo case and the cable news network's fixation on the so-called miracle of Ashley Smith -- the Atlanta woman freed by her kidnapper, after he murdered four people and subsequent to her reading passages from Rick Warren's best selling Christian self-help book The Purpose Driven Life to him -- few are talking about the elephant in the room: the Christian right's vision of transforming America into a Christian nation....(full article)
Today, I overheard two regular sorts of people talking about the “Amityville Horror” movie that was just released. One man, a large straight-laced self-proclaimed Christian with racist tendencies stated, “that’s a bunch of garbage, ghosts don’t exist!” In which an attractive female replied, “How do you know?” I was staring at the two and they must have noticed because the women asked, “what?” I blurted out some simple reply like “oh nothing”, but then I thought about it and asked the Christian man two simple questions that upset him greatly and instantly:....(full article)
The U.K. Observer has produced evidence that the new Pope Benedict XVI was directly involved in obstructing justice in the investigation of pedophile priests. The article, “Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered Bishops to keep allegations secret,” details how Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger “issued an order ensuring the church’s investigations into sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.” (The Observer, April 24, 2005) The order was sent to American bishops in May 2001 and “asserted the church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood.” (18 years old) What right would that be? The right to protect the Catholic Church from the lawsuits of psychologically damaged victims? Or the right to ignore the laws of the host nation in which the pedophile priests were serving? (full article)
...But the hue and cry of more rigorous intellectuals -- that Creationism is unfounded, poor science -- misses the point of Creationism and the extremities of religious intolerance: why is it being propounded? Why is it being forced, by law, onto the rest of the American world (to begin with)? Their agenda has been made quite plain: dominate and destroy. But there is more to it than this....(full article)
South Texas seems an unlikely place for boosting people's rights during an age when everywhere else people's rights are coming down. But once you think about it, of course it makes sense that wherever an entire geographical region is subjected to the experience of lockdown, there might be the precise place to look for practical resistance rising. And if you're going to have a Texas-sized fight between people-power and self-made mercenaries who run around dressed in trappings of state why not have that fight in the boot tracks of a homeland security stomping grounds, along two state highways that shoot a hundred miles North from the Mexican border cities of Reynosa and Matomoros? (full article)
America’s wacky right wing party and political system doesn’t get much worse than this. On Sunday, the Republican United States Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) appeared on a national evangelical Christian television show that depicted Democrats as being against religious believers. Frist’s remarks appeared as part of a “Justice Sunday” telecast titled “The Filibuster Against People of Faith.” “Justice Sunday” is set up by the Family Research Council, a Washington-D.C.-based right wing lobbying group that is helping lead a reactionary “Christian” campaign to impose right-wing political dominance over the federal judiciary. The Sunday broadcast denounced the Democrats for using the 200-year old Senate filibuster procedure to block the appointment to federal judicial positions of nominees who oppose abortion rights as a matter of moral and religious principle. It’s a bit of an odd role for Frist, who has not been as strongly associated with the Christian rights as his more messianic fellow Republican leaders House Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-Texas) and President George W. Bush (R-Texas). “With his patrician bearing and background in the relatively liberal Presbyterian Church,” the New York Times noted last Friday, “Dr, Frist, a Harvard-trained transplant surgeon, does not fit in as naturally with Christian conservatives as President Bush.”....(full article)
April 25
There’s simple rule for atheists and agnostics in America: keep your head down and your mouth shut. I recently wrote an article for Dissident Voice web site criticizing the new Pope and organized religion. Boy, did the brickbats start to fly. Many were put off by my assessment of the Pope as right-wing extremist who will undoubtedly lead the papal caravan back to the 13th century. More were offended by my dismissive remarks about religion. Why? Is it such a stretch to acknowledge that someone may have an opinion that veers from the majority? (According to the latest polls, 90% of Americans believe in God) Or, is it simply because atheists and their unwelcome worldview offer a real challenge to people of faith? (full article)
The world’s largest known hydrocarbon resource is neither in Iraq nor in Saudi Arabia. The oil sands in the western Canadian province of Alberta comprise the largest known hydrocarbon reserves -- estimated at over 300 billion barrels of currently recoverable oil. The oil sands contain bitumen, a viscous mixture of hydrocarbons that requires melioration into crude oil before it can be refined into various fuels. Recovery of the oil is energy intensive, environmentally disruptive, and expensive (although the soaring cost of oil is making extraction more profitable). The oil sands are found in three different deposits in northern Alberta: Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake. Situated east of Peace River is the 10,000 square kilometer traditional territory of the Lubicon Lake First Nation, a Cree community of about 500 people. The community was overlooked when the federal government sought treaties with First Nations in the area in 1899. Since then, the federal government has neglected its responsibility to look after the best interests of the Lubicon while the Alberta government began to sell off the resources to corporate interests....(full article)
In 2005, the global economy makes people move. They are part of a migrant job market within and between all nations. These children, women and men seek jobs because of poor work opportunities at home. Some call this freedom. It is not for them but good enough for other folks. Consider some migrant laborers who travel the U.S. Mexican border. They have been meeting a new force there. It goes by the name of the Minuteman Project, comprised of volunteers. The MP’s mission is to defend the U.S. border. Soon the MP will expand its mission from intercepting foreign workers to slowing foreign capital. This money has been flooding into the U.S. below the political radar screen of public sentiment. The time for financial flood control is here, according to the MP. Its mission creep is striking fear into the hearts of overseas investors whose excess cash has been funding the American nation’s federal deficit....(full article)
(Associated Depressed Newswire)
In
a further attempt to conserve the nation’s energy supply and to lower
skyrocketing gas prices, Tennessee Republican Senator Bill Frist has
introduced legislation in the Senate that would mandate that the Earth’s
rotation be stopped permanently so that the United States has daylight 24
hours a day, seven days a week. President George W. Bush has vowed to sign
the proposal into law if passed....
Earth Day is finally here, and it's always nice to say thank you to those enviros out there that work day in and day out to protect our natural environment. So here's a short excerpt from Left Out! -- and a big thanks to the Sierra Club, for, well, not much!....(full article)
It didn't take long. The former anti-war presidential candidate has now become the pro-occupation leader of the Democratic Party. Just when a majority of the public is saying the Iraq War is not worth it, Howard Dean the new leader of the Democratic Party is saying: “Now that we're there, we're there and we can't get out.”....(full article)
Elizabeth Schulte explains why the antiwar movement has to remain independent from the Democratic Party....(full article)
The U.S. occupation of Iraq, now more than
two years old, remains the defining issue in world politics. More than
100,000 Iraqi civilians are dead -- so are more than 1,500 U.S. soldiers.
The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal has exposed the U.S. government’s use of
torture around the world. Every one of George Bush’s justifications for
the invasion has been exposed as a lie, and his approval ratings have hit
a new low. So why is the antiwar movement not growing? (full
article) April 21
On 13 April, an
Algerian asylum-seeker named Kamel Bourgass was found guilty of plotting
to use poisons to cause a “public nuisance” in Britain. This rather minor
offense has been blown up into a national crisis by the British
Government, the police, the intelligence services, and the mass media, in
yet another example of “counter-terror” scaremongering. At the start of
the misnamed “ricin affair” in January 2003, the public was told that an
al Qaeda cell had been arrested before it could launch a terrorist attack
using the chemical weapon “ricin”. The public was told that the police had
discovered traces of ricin in the flat used by the cell. It has now been
established that there was no “ricin” and no “cell”....(full
article)
In Britain, An Absurdity: Persuading
People They A familiar, if desperate media push is under way to convince the British people that the main political parties offer them a democratic choice in the general election on 5 May. This demonstrable absurdity became hilarious when Tony Blair, leader of one of the nastiest, most violent right-wing regimes in memory, announced the existence of "a very nasty right-wing campaign" to defeat him. If only it was that funny. If only it was possible to read the "ah but" tributes to a "successful" Labour government without cracking a rib. If only it was possible to read warmongers bemoaning the "apathy" of the British electorate without one's laughter being overtaken by the urge to throw up....(full article)
Progressive policy critics and moderate government insiders have long cautioned against a sustained American presence in the Middle East. American encroachment, they warn, radicalizes young Muslim fundamentalists and substantiates Bin Laden’s message of religious Jihad. Administration officials dismiss these critics publicly (although rare words of candor do sometimes escape -- CIA Chief Goss admitted that the Iraqi invasion has made America less safe) but concede their points privately. Ambitions of U.S. hegemony and supremacy however supersede security concerns. Ideological ambition to “maintain a lock on the world’s energy lifeline and potentially deny access to its global competitors” (like China) is priority number one for American policy makers. Control and access can be maintained in two ways -- military and economically....(full article)
The ceaseless demonization of Iraqis committed to ending foreign control of their country is a key ideological crutch for maintaining the American occupation. Smearing the armed resistance as a band of murderous thugs is well understood by American war planners to be a crucial part of effective counter-insurgency work. Obviously, brutal and horrific attacks on Iraqi civilians have been carried out by some forces claiming to be a part of the resistance. But there is strong evidence from US government and independent intelligence data suggesting that this phenomenon has been wildly exaggerated and torn out of context, creating a false public perception that serves to prop up domestic support for the occupation....(full article)
The outcries at yet another outrage by terrorists results in sending more troops somewhere. As this was the war whoop for Vietnam, it is no wonder that a few Army Intelligence Officers in their plush offices deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, which was not gutted by terrorists, are having second thoughts. As the CIA has engaged in the use of liars, cheats, drug dealers, ex-murderers and other scum of the earth in their never ending quest for intelligence, I suggest the Armed Forces do the same. There is, however, no need to scour the streets for likely suspects, they are conveniently located under one roof, as it were: the U.S. prison system....(full article)
It's true that thousands of caribou and other types of wildlife will be displaced if Washington D.C. lawmakers pass a measure to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But there's an even bigger issue floating under the radar: the very real possibility of an environmental tragedy that could be as catastrophic as the 1989 oil spill caused by the Exxon Valdez oil tanker if swift measures aren't taken to address severe safety and maintenance issues plaguing drilling operations in nearby Prudhoe Bay -- North America's biggest oil field, 60 miles west of ANWR -- and other areas on Alaska's North Slope. That's just one of many alarming claims that employees working for BP, the parent of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., the Anchorage company that runs the 24-year-old Prudhoe Bay on behalf of Phillips Alaska Inc., Exxon Mobil and other oil companies, have made over the years as a way of drawing attention to the dozens of oil spills -- three of which occurred between March and April alone -- that could boil over and happen at ANWR if BP continues to neglect safety issues and the area is opened up to further oil and gas exploration....(full article)
If Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's involvement with the Hitler Youth and his stonewalling of the pedophile priests scandal aren't enough to disqualify him from becoming pope, what would? (full sermon)
The papacy of Benedict XVI confronts journalists with a key question: How much critical scrutiny is appropriate when a religious leader gains enormous power? So far, most American media outlets seem to be walking on eggshells to avoid tough coverage of the new pope. Caution is in the air, and some of it is valid. Anti-Catholic bigotry has a long and ugly history in the United States. News organizations should stay away from disparaging the Catholic faith, which certainly deserves as much respect as any other religion. At the same time, the Vatican is a massive global power. Though it has no army, it is more powerful than many governments. And in the present day, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church is the capital of political reaction garbed in religiosity. Many dividing lines between theology and ideology have virtually disappeared....(full revelation)
It is typically American to fawn over the ritual pageantry of crowning a new Pope. For though, as a nation of immigrants and usurpers, we have thrown off the yoke of royalty, aristocracy, monarchy and most of the spectacle that attends such elitism, it is as if we continually yearn for that lost part of ourselves that we excised like a cancer in the war for independence. Like the melancholy Edmund Burke, we crow in eternal sorrow, “The age of chivalry is dead!” I do not share the obsession. I prefer the theatre of realism, the comedy of the absurd, and the drama of existentialism to the spectacular illusions of the Royal Court. I am no fan of the grand musicals of a forgotten time. I do not yearn for the age of romance or chivalry or heroism for I recognize that the very concepts were not only lies but malevolent lies employed in the exploitation of human kind. I am frankly embarrassed by the idolatry of the people for all things royal....(full confession)
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Pope
Ratzinger: More “Pie-in-the-Sky” for