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August 2005 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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The men and women of the National Guard shouldn't be killing in Iraq. They should be helping in New Orleans and Biloxi. The catastrophic hurricane was an act of God. But the U.S. war effort in Iraq is a continuing act of the president. And now, that effort is hampering the capacity of the National Guard to save lives at home....(full article)
George W. Bush likes numbers. A day after he
received 50.7 percent of the vote in the 2004 general election, he decided
he had a mandate. At a White House press conference, one of the few he
held in four years, President Bush told America, “[T]here is a feeling
that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's
what I intend to tell the Congress” His victory, he said, “is like earning
capital. . . . I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and
now I intend to spend it. It is my style.” But, George W. Bush also
doesn’t like numbers. First, there’s the economy. When Bush came into
office. Bill Clinton left him a $230 billion surplus and a balanced
budget. Not only isn’t the budget balanced, that surplus from five years
ago has turned into a $7.95 trillion deficit, increasing at the rate of
about $1.7 billion a day. That’s about $27,000 for every American,
including those who are unemployed....(full
article)
Bunny and the War Profiteers
You most likely haven't heard of a feisty
woman named Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse, even though you pay her salary.
For over 20 years now, Greenhouse has overseen contracts at the Army Corps
of Engineers. And up until last Saturday, Greenhouse was the
highest-ranking civilian member of the Army Corps of Engineers. She has
been demoted for "poor job performance," despite an untarnished career as
one of the country's highest-ranking procurement officers. And from what
you'll see, her performance has been anything but "poor". So why did she
get shoved out of her position? Well, she did a bad thing. She raised a
little hell over the Pentagon's no-bid contracts to Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR),
the fully owned subsidiary of Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton. The
Greenhouse/KBR debacle all started back in the early months of 2003, when
KBR was awarded a handful of government contracts in anticipation of the
invasion of Iraq. One of KBR's major prewar contracts, the one that got
Greenhouse in hot water with the good old boys, was allotted to rebuild
Iraqi oil fields....(full article)
Triangulation for War
A spectrum of liberal
responses to Cindy Sheehan has come into sharper focus. The message is
often anti-Bush... but not necessarily anti-war....
Democratic Senators Nancy
Pelosi and Hilary Clinton recently sent out a fundraising letter. An
acquaintance of mine who received the letter tells me that it also
included a questionnaire asking him which issues were on his mind. But
there was something very strange about the questionnaire. It seems that in
the list of issues you could check off, they forgot to include anything
about Iraq. My friend was rather peeved about that because as it turns
out, he is mighty concerned about Iraq. But perhaps the omission
isn't so strange after all. Indeed, as the
Washington Post
points out, the Democratic leadership seems to be of the opinion that the
crucial issue is how best to achieve success in Iraq. Given that, it is
unlikely they want folks telling them they're concerned that the 'war on
terror' is going badly....
An Interview with Celia Martinez of the
Worker-Controlled Brukman What started out as a simple demand for back-wages had turned into a fierce struggle for worker control of Brukman. Driven by a need to survive and support their families, the workers tried through legal means to gain ownership, fighting against politicians, judges and police in riot gear. Political differences among the workers themselves threatened to weaken and divide this struggle. Yet more than four years after they confronted their old bosses, the workers are still in charge of Brukman. Their fight has become a symbol of the recuperated factory movement in Argentina and an inspirational example to workers and activists around the world. Celia Martinez, a worker at Brukman, has been part of this struggle from the beginning. In this interview she talks about the worker takeover, how the factory is currently organized, the difficulties of working closely with others in a cooperative, and how this experience has completely changed her political orientation....(full article)
The objectives of empire change very little from one century to another. Control of and access to energy and mining resources are only one strong motive driving imperial policy in Latin America. Control over food and water security is also a vital factor in imperial executive calculations. To veil the obvious injustice of the imperial system, co-option of local media is vital so as to manage the very terms in which political, economic and social issues are discussed. Earlier empires eradicated whole languages and cultures from subject countries' public life. Racism has always been an essential imperial tool and continues in both subtle and overt forms across Latin America. The Venezuelan opposition's racist characterization of President Hugo Chavez is a contemporary glaring example. The Mexican ruling elite's attitudes to the indigenous Zapatistas are another. Racist repression of indigenous peoples continues throughout Latin America from Chile to Mexico, but seldom makes the international media....(full article)
I heard an interview yesterday with a man who offered his observations on my husband’s court martial case at Ft. Stewart. The command of my husband’s unit went to great lengths to manipulate evidence to give the appearance of my husband disobeying an order and Missing Movement of a flight to deploy. In actuality, my husband tried for months to get his command to acknowledge his request to file a Conscientious Objector application, and his command did everything they could to keep him from his rights, and in the process disregarded Army Regulation 600-43, which allows a soldier the right to request CO status as his beliefs about war change during his service. The reason that this man felt that the Army had no choice but to make an example of Sgt. Benderman was that “there are 23,000 soldiers who were scheduled to deploy to Iraq and none of them wanted to go. 22,999 went back, and one did not. 22,999 have wives who are saying my husband went, my friends’ husbands went back, why didn’t this soldier go?” (full article)
War is promoted. Anti-war responds. Anti-war protests. War counters. Somewhere in the middle is the truth. Peace. Freedom to make a choice. Sgt. Kevin Benderman sits in confinement at Ft. Lewis, Washington. His crime? Making a choice. He chose Peace....(full article)
The most recent film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is shaping up to be one of the highest grossing summer blockbusters of 2005. This is the third re-incarnation of Roald Dahl's controversial story over the past four decades. As such, it is instructive, to examine it's transformation in relation to issues of racism and colonialism....(full article)
Long before the cries of "support the troops" became commonplace during every brutal U.S. military intervention, the powers-that-be made it clear how much they intended to follow their own counsel. From Shays Rebellion in 1787 to the quarter-million homeless vets today, generation after generation of U.S. military personnel has suffered a lack of support from their government. The American soldiers who fought in World War I were no exception. In 1924, WWI vets were voted "Adjusted Compensation" by Congress: $1.25 for each day served overseas, $1.00 for each day served in the States. To the "doughboys", it was seen as a bonus....(full article)
One of the greatest contrasts for area residents is how the river Spokane is so powerfully sculpted by nature yet so disembodied from its recent past. The Children of the Sun tribe less than 70 years ago made great snatches of Chinook and Coho near where the Maple Street Bridge funnels SUVs and trucks in an endless stream of belching metal. Sherman Alexie, best known for Smoke Signals and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and a member of the Spokane tribe, does more than lament the loss of the salmon runs. He is confrontational and “in the face” of corporate and political forces that deem salmon as “a fish of diminishing value.” For Alexie and Spokane tribal elder Pauline Flett, and for groups like Salmon for All and Save Our Wild Salmon, it’s a no-brainer to bring back the clear waters and an abundance of native fish to a river like the Spokane and a river system like the Columbia/Snake. For some Northwest salmon people, such as Grey Owl, a Southern Cheyenne artist and cultural guide living on the Nez Perce reservation, river and subsequent fish contamination means early, hard deaths....(full article)
We seem to be on the cusp of achieving a truly independent media -- independent from facts, independent from reality, and now, finally, entirely independent from the views of the overwhelming majority of the American people....(full article)
George Bush . . . “One dead American for every day in office.” President Bush’s latest milestone in the war on terror has been predictably ignored in the mainstream media. Bush, who is now in the fifth year of his presidency, has served 1,727 days in office. With the death toll in Iraq currently at 1,873 servicemen, Bush can now boast that at least one American has died for every day he’s been in office, a sobering tribute to a man who wants to be remembered as “a war president.” Every day, another Casey Sheehan or some other faceless patriot dies in Bush’s war of choice. The tragedy of the war cannot be fully grasped simply by listing the number of American casualties on Bush’s watch, but it’s a good place to start....(full article)
Most progressives would probably agree that in many contexts “blind, unquestioning faith” in a president or other person is “foolish and obsequious.” In this respect, Ken Sanders was right on in his recent article “Love Your Country? Demand Impeachment.” Sanders considered such faith to be “contrary to the fundamental principles of this country, as set forth in the Constitution.” Sanders instead advocated patriotism, which he defined as demanding “truth and honesty.” To be brutally honest, “this country” that Sanders loves is an occupied, ethnically cleansed, annexed, conquered, or illegitimately purchased landmass referred to by the colonialists as the United States of America. A landmass birthed so inauspiciously might give pause to professions of love by many self-designated liberals or progressives. The landmass of the United States of America is a betrayal of the rights of first settlement and represents the theft and occupation of the territory from its Original Peoples. So, historically, it is difficult to grasp “the promise” of what such a landmass “stands for”; certainly, it is a demonstration that military might can translate to territorial expansion through genocide....(full article)
Every village has its cemetery, its collection of spirit inhabitants who invoke memories of village history and remind the living that death and remembrance of the dead are essential to the natural order of things in human society. But cemeteries usually are found on the edges of town, away from the goings-on of daily life. The memorials of carefully arranged and named crosses, stars of David and crescents comprising “Arlington South” in Camps Casey I and II are not relegated to the edges, but instead form the heart of the community that has sprung up near Crawford, Texas this month. Memorial crosses hug the three original tents of Camp Casey I and line the road leading to the camp. The field of crosses at Camp Casey II adjoins the large community tent and is the first thing visitors encounter as they approach from the road. In a reversal of the natural order of things, the dead represented by these memorials are society's youngest adults. The doctrine of pre-emptive war forces members of a society to do the unthinkable: to sacrifice the lives of their young to protect their own....(full article)
(Book review) George Galloway is a fighter. From his teenage years on, he has been active in the struggle for economic, social and political justice. Though no comparison of two individuals is ever completely right, it is strongly tempting to compare him with another fighter of the same caliber, Ralph Nader. Both are men of high principle and demonstrated commitment to the public good. Unlike Mr. Nader, George Galloway did not come to party politics late in his long activist career. Instead, he began and continued to rise through the ranks of the Labor Party of Great Britain, first in Scotland and later on the national stage. His continuity of experience as an MP in the House of Commons and within various high councils of the Labor Party enables him now to offer a retrospective analysis of how the Labor Party was transformed from being the unquestioned champion of working people, to the “New Labor” of today.....(full article)
A timely satire on Israel's "withdrawal" from Gaza, inspired by Elie Wiesel and the highly objective reporting of the mainstream media....(full article)
Thirty years from now, we will get a full account of the White House strategy for dealing with Cindy Sheehan. In the meantime, we are obliged to depend on available fragments of information and our past experience with Karl Rove’s smear machine. So far, we know that the president has altered his vacation plans to cope with a sudden and unexpected outbreak of anti-war fever. As he interrupts his five-week summer siesta to resell the Iraq war, a full-scale smear campaign has been set in motion to discredit the lady from Vacaville. The Rove squads are out in force to change the subject and cast doubt on whether Cindy has the qualifications to argue with the president on the merits of this war of choice. Artful Texan dodgers have been commissioned to paint a canvas portraying a compassionate commander in chief who feels Cindy’s pain but disagrees with her position and her policy recommendations. The desired effect is to convince the public that Sheehan is a distraught uninformed mother of a fallen soldier who needs compassion -- not answers. If things go according to plan, Cindy will be perceived as a weak and vulnerable woman who is being victimized and manipulated by the sinister forces on the extreme left -- a fringe movement that apparently includes every other American. On the other half of Rove’s canvas, the spinmeisters will project a resolute president who wants to ‘stay the course’ and ‘complete the mission’ to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice to “fight the terrorists over there before we are forced to fight them over here.” Bush will throw in a couple of obligatory references to 9/11 insinuating that the invasion of Iraq was a legitimate part of the ‘war on terror’ -- and wrap it up with a bit of fiction about spreading democracy in the Middle East....(full article)
Go ahead and get excited about Cindy Sheehan’s overnight popularity. It really is an incredibly important development for the antiwar movement. But before we drop what we are doing and follow her lead, we better take a sobering step backward and recognize Sheehan, alone as a one-woman show, has very real limitations. First, we should start listening to what she is actually saying, which is that this is not about her or her loss. It’s about the war. It’s about the slaughter taking place in Iraq right now. She’s also calling for troops to come home right now. Which is exactly what the antiwar movement should be calling for. But isn’t. Not yet anyway....(full article)
To frame in concrete terms the issue of the
American violence in Iraq since the invasion and through the ongoing
occupation, one needs to know first its basic traits. For instance, it is
elementary that attacking anyone who is not attacking you is, per se,
a pure act of violence. In a global setting, violence begins when an
imperialist power such as the United States attacks a defenseless, smaller
country with the specific purpose to conquer it. In a practical setting,
violence with all its macabre manifestations divides into many
protagonists acting collectively on the stage of death: bombs raining down
on cities; rubble concealing the “irrelevancy” of murder; hospitals that
are prevented from saving life; all while the desolate face of despair and
destruction becomes the unforgettable gift of “liberators.” Keep in mind,
that if the idea of invading Iraq was not to conquer it, then why has the
United States been trying to dismantle Iraq, partition it, write a
constitution for it, ignite a sectarian war, and force it to adapt to the
needs of its global colonialist imperium under the direction of US
imperialists and Zionists?
National Porn Sunday The Christian Science Monitor, under a headline announcing the existence of “Elephant in the Pews,” says that members of the Protestant clergy have denominated October 9th as National Porn Sunday. This effort to out the porn threat undermining religion could replace Pentecost Sunday. (see XXXchurch.com) Despite the name congregants are not invited to dig around in the back of their closets and bring their copies of Hustler with its feeeelthy pictures to church for show and tell. The occasion’s purpose is to fight the porn addiction which has reportedly taken hold of many Christians. “We were tired of hearing stories about people's lives being wrecked, and feeling they had nowhere to go in the church to get help,” quoth Rev. Craig Gross, calling this deplorable sex dependency “America's dirty little secret.” (full article)
With the president's poll numbers dropping
and anti-Iraq war sentiment rising, the Heritage Foundation is sponsoring
an event built around the premise that the anti-war movement is
anti-American....(full article)
GM, the UAW, and US Health Care
General Motors Corp. is losing market share and money. Basically, GM's business downturn is being driven by UAW members having made more cars and trucks than can be sold in the marketplace. Thus, the company wants to re-open its four-year labor contract with the UAW to cut employee health-care costs, unilaterally if need be. GM says its health-care costs will be $5.6 billion to cover current employees and retirees in 2005. Deep GM discounts on many, but not all, vehicle models have increased sales by extending the "Employee Discounts for Everyone" to the general public. That discount strategy followed a zero-percent vehicle-financing program. Health-care talks between GM and the UAW began this April. There has been no resolution. In late July, the UAW formed a group of financial and legal experts to look more closely at GM's claims concerning employee health-care costs. The conflict over the cost of health care between GM and the UAW creates an opportunity to deepen a discussion about a national health-care program. In my view, such a strategy would have widespread popular appeal for unionized and non-unionized workers in the U.S....(full article)
Pat Robertson was right when he suggested
that the United States would assassinate Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Robertson, of course, is a hypocrite and one of this country's most
effective ad men for atheism. In the main, Pat Robertson is a medieval,
witch-burning, fool. However, he moves among people who are either within
or near to the circles of power. They are not nice people, but they are
not fools. Robertson has either heard directly from this country's rulers'
own lips, or heard from reliable sources close to them, that the US does,
indeed, have President Chavez in its cross-hairs....
Listen up, Reverend Robertson, Mary Fowler -- every last one of you Apostles of Perpetual Psychosis -- it's time that you were called out. The time is long past due the rest of us ceased our cowering and stood up to you Christo-fascists bullies. The hour has come round that we look you straight in your bulging, true believer eyes, and told you that we've had it with your smugness, with your blood-drenched crusades, with your victim mentality -- and to wit the madness begot by this cracked-brain belief system of yours, which all began (according to your sacred delusions) more than two thousand years ago when, at the behest of a wicked cabal, a mob of mammon-worshipping, blood-lusting rabble went on a cosmic killing-spree and murdered your god....(full article)
Christian fundamentalist Pat Robertson, with his unabashed call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, has secured his reputation as America’s most reprehensible and idiotic spokesperson. Pat Robertson is a slug, a substandard intellect, and an embarrassment to every bible-thumping advocate of the Christian crusades he claims to represent. God forgive you if you count yourself among them. Hugo Chavez is not Saddam Hussein. He is not a former American ally turned rogue agent. He is not a dictator or even a communist. He is a lawfully and overwhelmingly elected democratic leader. He is a champion of democracy and the working class. He is a cog in the right wing, neo-liberal-neocon machine. Hugo Chavez is a Bolivarian....(full article)
The Western version of peace is overrated. The West would have us believe Israel made the ultimate sacrifice by “disengaging” from the Gaza Strip, putting “the ball in the Palestinian’s court.” But let’s look at the facts. Yes, Israel removed 8,500 settlers and is dismantling their military posts in Gaza. Israel, however, still controls the ports, airspace and borders. Egypt may patrol the Philadelphi Corridor in the future, but Israel will retain supreme authority. Israel preserved “jurisdiction” over any person or product that comes in or out of Gaza, including medical supplies and other humanitarian goods. The electricity and water will also be turned on or off at the behest of Israel, but don’t go running to the border waving for help or you may be gunned down by the Israeli forces. What does peace entail for the Palestinian people? (full article)
Robertson’s Fatwah: “A Whole Lotta Smitin’
Goin’ On” (posted
10am) Pat Robertson doesn’t have a monopoly on ignorance, he’s just heavily invested in it. Like his ideological twin in the White House, Robertson’s tongue simply outpaces his wit and gets him in trouble from time to time. It’s no big deal. When did it become a crime to be an old man in the grip of senility? Actually we should be grateful to the prattling preacher for summarizing American foreign policy so succinctly. “I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination,” Robertson sheepishly admitted, “but, if he really thinks we are trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.” Who could argue with that logic? Certainly, no one in the White House where such policies are part of a long tradition.....(full article)
According to the opinion polls, the great majority of Americans supported the war on Afghanistan, seeing it as a War on Terror and appropriate response to the 9-11 attacks. Many, if not most, have come to see the war in Iraq as something distinct from, even unrelated and counterproductive to, that Terror War receding from public memory, eclipsed by the Mesopotamian mess. It has become respectable, even mainstream, to question the propriety of the attack on Iraq. Cindy Sheehan has had a lot to do with that. But Afghanistan, while a largely forgotten conflict reported in the back pages of your newspaper, remains Bush’s good war....(full article)
The American Research Group just released a
poll that shows Bush’s overall approval rating dithering at 36%, with a
measly 33% thinking he’s doing a good job on the economy. Bush is looking
more and more like the guy who stumbled into the elevator shaft and hasn’t
hit the bottom yet. Another couple of weeks and the yellow ribbon bumper
magnets will be stacking up at the landfill by the truckload. Call me
crazy, but I think the media had a lot to do with Bush’s downward spiral.
True, many in the mainstream pounded away relentlessly at Sheehan, but at
least they gave her enough camera time to send a laser into the Crawford
White House. That wouldn’t have happened a year ago. Last year they would
have just passed her over like anyone else who protested the war. Just
think of how the tens of thousands of protestors who marched through the
streets before the war were marginalized by the predictable coverage of
the one woman in the long-hooped skirt and the day-glow pulsating in front
of the loudspeakers. This is how the media made the antiwar protestors
look like anachronistic fools. In large part the strategy worked. So what
has changed? (full article)
The Democrats and Cindy Sheehan
As this new invigorated opposition to the
Iraq war comes to a head with media savvy Sheehan at the helm, one would
assume the Democratic Party would find its voice. What do they have to
lose? Certainly not elections. And certainly not their own popularity.
They have none. Even with Bush down in the polls the Democrats are not
able to capitalize. They have not added an ounce to the antiwar campaign
other than a few laughable gestures concerning the
Downing Street Memos. Other than that, they have been completely
silent. Pathetic, in fact. Save Senator Russ Feingold who is now calling
for a mediocre withdrawal plan. But even Russ's half-assed call to
withdrawal troops by December 2006 is being challenged within the
Democratic establishment by the liberal warmongers....(full
article)
Suddenly this Summer... Now, it would not be unreasonable for the president of the United States to come out and answer one question from a grief-stricken mother whose child was sacrificed in what Bush so giddily proclaims a "noble" cause. But that's not how this president does things. No one calls the shots for Bush; he does not make mistakes, and he says the great thing about being president is that he doesn't owe anybody an explanation. About anything. Especially about his war, a noble cause which has settled gloriously around his shoulders like a Cicerian ruff. Bush steadfastly refuses to hear the voice of "the people" or to even acknowledge they have a voice at all. The only call Bush hears comes directly from God -- not from the street rabble comprising the cannon fodder required for his legacy, nor from their keening mothers who are beginning to buzz around his head like pesky mosquitoes at a Texas all day singing and dinner on the grounds. Parents shouldn't have to bury their children. Ever. It disrupts the "natural order" of things. Unfortunately, most of the world is in agreement that nobody is better at disrupting order than George W. Bush. Thanks to his callousness and cruelty, the "one-question" meeting with Sheehan that Bush could have resolved in less than an hour while racking up some badly needed positive PR evolved instead into a movement that is gaining both attention and velocity. It is assuming a life of its own, and is sweeping non-stop across the nation. Cindy Sheehan is emboldening Americans awakening to a nightmare of murder, genocide, torture, abuse, assassination, rendition -- lies piled upon grisly lies -- to break through the yellow ribbons encircling the patriotic detention camp their nation has become....(full article)
It was Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United States and a Republican, who famously said in 1918, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Put differently, and in modern context, blind, unquestioning faith in President Bush is not only foolish and obsequious, but it is also contrary to the fundamental principles of this country, as set forth in the Constitution. Indeed, those who would merely sit by, without protest or question, while our President sends our armed forces off to kill and die in a nation which did not and could not do us any harm, are more than simply slavish sycophants. Those who refuse to acknowledge, much less criticize, the wrongs committed by this President in the name of the United States, while simultaneously denigrating those who do dare protest, betray this country and the promise it stands for. In short, they are positively un-American. They are traitors....(full article)
There is no cause, no issue, no crisis more significant and more immediate than the crisis of global warming. There is a very real prospect that, absent a deep and broad clean energy revolution, we will see within our lifetimes a massive disruption of human society throughout the world -- above and beyond the widespread structural injustice and poverty that already exists -- via floods, major storms, rising sea levels, large-scale refugee movements, droughts, deforestation and a major decline in food production. More and more people in the United States are coming to realize this. Why, then, are the many different actions being taken in the U.S. about this crisis, important as they are, so minimal when compared to the urgency? (full article)
Polls show a majority of Americans have had it with George W. Bush and the war. While I’m usually wary of such reports (especially since in the last two American presidential “elections”, exit polls, which for decades were unfailingly accurate, have been so strangely incorrect), I nonetheless think these numbers reflect some truth. If so, there has (finally) been some consciousness-raisin’ goin’ on in our beleaguered, buggered nation, which means, in turn, that as people horrifyingly begin seeing the blood on their hands, America’s collective stress level will continually elevate ever higher....(full article)
Pat Robertson suggested this past Monday that the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, be assassinated by operatives of the United States government! Though his comments are newsworthy because of his following in the 700 Club and his political stature and role in the political religious right, his comments however are out of synch with everything that has been handed down to us from the teachings of Jesus Christ. What I am suggesting here is that Pat Robertson and individuals of his ilk are not practicing or preaching Christ but have become adherents of a political movement in this nation that attempts to use Christianity towards their own narrow political ends. I believe that there is a role for Christianity in the events of the world, but the teachings of Christ leads us to love one another, strain and stretch to understand each other, and dare to know each other enough that we come to an understanding of one another and from that create a world that is not built on might and winning but on understanding and unity. Clearly the comments of Robertson defy the framework we find in the gospels of Jesus Christ....(full article)
Whenever a New Labour mouthpiece pronounces in public, one can almost see the think balloon over their head with cartoon character Sid Snake hissing "trusssst me...". Financial Times editor John Lloyd's piece in the UK Guardian of August 10th in defense of British government plans to reinforce the country's already tough anti-terror legislation is a fine example of Sid Snake apologetics. Lloyd's piece is entitled "The British did not have it coming," a title that immediately targets a straw man hardly any of Blair's critics have set up. He writes in a context in which the UK government has warned the judiciary not to interfere with the implementation of proposed new courts. As editor of the Financial Times, Lloyd is well used to marketing corporate-friendly myths. In this case he attempts to sell the UK government's red herring that the terror attacks in London were principally the result of Islamic extremism. What most critics of Tony Blair and his Cabinet contend, on the contrary, is that the terror attacks resulted principally from the Blair government's participation in an illegal war of aggression against Iraq and their collusion in the appalling series of war crimes committed during the subsequent occupation. Lloyd wants to defend Tony Blair's repressive new package of proposed measures ostensibly intended to curtail inflammatory propaganda by supporters of terrorism. From the start his arguments are at best obtuse, veering hard towards the disingenuous. He makes five points with a tone of "enough of this nonsense." But instead of strengthening Tony Blair's case, he shows up its fundamental falsity....(full article)
From Tom Baldwin of Times Online in his August 12, 2005, story on Cindy Sheehan: “In the local [Texas] paper, the McGregor Mirror, there is an open letter to ‘the woman complaining about her son’s death in Iraq’ from Ann Lehman, a Crawford resident. “‘You dishonour the President, yourself and God when you deny your son the freedom in death that he had in life to choose. He knew the risk when he joined the military, just as President Bush knows the risk for his life every day!’ she said.” Well, now. Lehman sounds an awful lot like one of those folks who I fancy like to consider themselves “real Americans”; you know, those plain-talkin’ sumguns and gun-ettes who take pride in telling it like it is, consistently expressing sentiments amazingly similar to those aired by other salt-of-the-earth patriots like, for example, would-be war heroes Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly (who absolutely would have been war heroes had they only served in the military, gone to war, and then done something heroic). Lemming-like, check it, Lehman-like views are currently being voiced by other real Americans, too, who, though the cost of their “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers may fall just a crosshair shy of the price Sheehan has paid, still sure as shootin’ know a war when they hear about one on Fox, by jingo....(full article)
There can be no dispute that Saddam Hussein was a cruel despot and an embodiment of evil. It is debatable, however, whether the Iraqi people, let alone the world, are better off without him....(full article)
In recent weeks, many of us have been shocked and appalled by a compelling photo of two gay teenagers being put into nooses by hooded officials, just moments before they were executed by hanging on July 19 in a public square in Mashhad, Iran. For many young gay people in the U.S., this image is a chilling reminder of their own vulnerability as their families reject them and communities across the country attempt to legislate against them. In fact, the myriad anti-gay messages throughout American society convince many gay teens to slip the noose of self-destruction around their own necks....(full article)
This past week when George W. Bush stood on the lawn of his ranch in Crawford, he declared that he supported Cindy Sheehan’s constitutional right to her strong opinion against the war in Iraq. This is America, he said. And the minute he was on the record as backing her First Amendment rights, the attack dogs went off the leash. That’s the kind of government we have now. It’s run by people who have the mentality of 13-year-olds who repeat everything you say. Everything is carried out in the spirit of a very nasty practical joke whose very stupidity is a tremendous insult. Unfortunately, these puerile tactics do accomplish their purpose: they make us disengage....(full article)
The anti-war movement has finally found a pair of shoulders big enough to carry the load: Cindy Sheehan. Sheehan has single-handedly energized the “Bring the Troops Home” campaign and put the Washington warmongers on notice. They have plenty of reason to worry, too. The big guns on the Right, Limbaugh, Hannity, Drudge and O’ Reilly, have been pounding away hour by hour, day by day, wielding every vicious slander they can muster, but without affect. The right wing, mudslinging machine simply hasn’t matched the grit of the unyielding Sheehan. Who could have guessed that a middle-aged mother from Vacaville, CA could be so dogged? (full article)
Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, was apprehended by Scotland Yard’s special Firearms Unit on July 22 in the London subway, and shot 7 times in the head at point-blank range. He becomes the first victim of Britain’s new “shoot-to-kill” policy and the first trophy in Blair’s war on civil liberties. When Tony Blair boasted two weeks ago that “the rules had changed,” he probably never imagined that his edict would produce such immediate and horrific results. But, let’s be clear, Blair’s bloody fingerprints are all over this pointless murder just as they are in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis who have been unable to avoid British and American aggression in their own country....(full article)
When the Senate returns from its summer break next month it will consider a constitutional amendment to ban desecrating the flag. In June the House of Representatives, in a vote of 286 to 130, passed a resolution that would create a new amendment to the Constitution allowing, “The Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.” This is the sixth time since 1990 that the House has approved a flag desecration amendment to the Constitution, only to have the Senate reject it or simply fail to vote on it. Efforts to protect the flag, at the expense of the First Amendment right to free speech and expression, have been a common occurrence during wartime....(full article)
Several months after their self-proclaimed success reducing the flow of immigrants across the Mexico-Arizona border, leaders of the Minutemen are pledging that come Oct. 1, 15,000 volunteers will begin a month-long vigil along both the U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders. Chris Simcox, the head of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a network of groups and individuals, many of them armed, said in mid-July that the volunteers are signing up to "man observation posts and conduct foot and horseback patrols." Devin Burghart, who monitors anti-immigrant movements with the Illinois-based human rights group, the Center for New Community's Building Democracy Initiative, is not surprised by the growth of the vigilante movement -- or its potential for internal strife. "We are seeing a similar trajectory today with the Minutemen movement that we saw with the militia movement in the early 1990s," Burghart told me....(full article)
The government cannot arbitrarily force you to take a drug test. Yet. But not to be dissuaded, they now have a new plan to invade your privacy by tracking your legal drugs. On August 11, at the Texas White House, the president signed a bill to create a program that will monitor prescription drugs in order to prevent abuse. But it seems obvious that just as with illegal drugs, those who want to secure large quantities of legal drugs will find a way. They always have....(full article)
The failed war in Iraq -- and its effect on
the U.S. military -- has the potential to spark the U.S. public to
fundamentally rethink the role of force in U.S. foreign policy, and one of
the central questions for the future of the United States is whether this
questioning can mature and deepen. Can we in the so-called “lone
superpower” face that we are now a nation of mercenaries?
As whistleblower Sibel Edmonds asked the Supreme Court to review her dismissed case against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), mainstream media continues to refer to the government’s defense -- the so-called State Secrets Privilege -- as “rarely used.” In fact it has been used over sixty times since its creation in the 1950s. The State Secrets Privilege is a series of American legal precedents allowing the federal government the ability to dismiss legal cases that it claims would threaten foreign policy, military intelligence or national security. A relic of the Cold War, it has been invoked several times since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Judges have denied the privilege on only five occasions....(full article)
We are witnessing these days the largest show ever produced in Israel and perhaps the entire world. Large army forces, conscripts and reservists, and a substantial part of the police have been mobilized to dismantle a few settlements numbering about 7,000 residents, plus a cast of several thousand backup players who are now starring in the lead roles of the absurd theater being broadcast nonstop and live on all the television channels in Israel and the world. This is a well-directed play. The tears flow like water and the supposed rivals embrace and fall on each other's shoulders, like a Latin soap opera whose main characters make declarations of love peppered with venomous hatred. The professional lamenters weep and shout slogans aimed at shocking the Israeli people, employing an endless reservoir of symbols of the Holocaust and destruction. Even intellectuals and writers, known as proponents of morality, mobilize to aggrandize the collective mourning....(full article)
The following passages were assembled from shredded paper found in an American National Archives dumpster by the Iranian Ambassador. A team of the country's best rug craftsmen is said to be working full-time on puzzling out the complete text. While some portions of this first batch could not be separated from dried globs resembling half-digested pretzels and spattered root beer, much remains legible. Authenticity, while not established, seems likely since the paper bears White House watermarks. The text appears to have been transcribed from recordings with much of the President's special flair for language suppressed, although there is a hand-written note about not making him sound like some "Eastern puke."....(full leaked document)
Once again, Karl Rove has let the dogs out. A vicious campaign to maul Citizen Sheehan is in play. Instead of answering her questions -- the right wing media hacks are focusing on her motives, her mental health, her ideology and her family. These are standard and classic Rovian tactics used to smear administration critics. The predictable pundits at FOX have taken the lead by portraying Sheehan as a treasonous “crackpot” who is exploiting the death of her son to gain fame and fortune and advance the extremist political agenda of leftist “anti-American” groups. Hate radio stations across the nations are assailing Cindy’s integrity and questioning her patriotism. The objective of this smear campaign is to draw fire away from Bush. Instead of focusing on the argument between Sheehan and the president -- we now have a contest between Sheehan’s supporters and her detractors. What started out as a search for the truth is being reduced to an ideological spat between the left and the right. The success of the White House plan of attack is by no means certain. Unlike the small band of neo-cons that infest the administration, most Americans are not glued to any ideology. They tend to navigate the political landscape using nothing more than their common sense. Millions of honorable conservatives want answers to Cindy’s questions. As for the phantom “extreme left” in America -- it only exists in the imagination of the extreme right, which unfortunately has a very real constituency....(full article)
It has been chaos here at "Chez Fystenbutt" as SLAG (Security Ladies Allied for George) prepares for its annual chartered bus trip to Crawford, Texas. (Semi-Automatic weapons: check. Revlon Super-Hold Styling Mist: Check. Microwave Popcorn: Check.) This year we'll be joining our “Commanderin' Chief” to clear more than just brush from the Presidential retreat. As some of you may be aware, Crawford's pristine wilderness is being poisoned by a particularly deadly strain of “Goldstaricus Momicus.” I'm referring to, of course, “Gold Star” mom, and number one Presidential pest, Cindy Sheehan, who is currently camped out at Crawford like some deranged stalker, waiting to ambush POTUS with pictures of her dead son, and demanding that the US pull its troops out of Iraq....(full chronicle)
Thomas Friedman is a famous columnist with The New York Times. He has been described as "a guard dog of US foreign policy." Whatever America's warlords have in mind for the rest of humanity, Friedman will bark it. He boasts that "the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist." He promotes bombing countries and says world war three has begun. Friedman's latest bark is about free speech, which his country's Constitution is said to safeguard. He wants the State Department to draw up a blacklist of those who make "wrong" political statements. He is referring not only to those who advocate violence, but those who believe American actions are the root cause of the current terrorism. The latter group, which he describes as "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists," includes most Americans and Britons, according to the latest polls. . . . Like so much else during the Blair era, this McCarthyite rubbish has floated across the Atlantic and is now being recycled by the prime minister as proposed police-state legislation, little different from the fascist yearnings of Friedman and other extremists. For Friedman's blacklist, read Tony Blair's proposed database of proscribed opinions, bookshops, websites.....(full article)
My friend Elizabeth told me the other day
that she had received a phone call from the United States Marines. They
weren’t interested in her but in her son, Garrett, who is a recent
high-school graduate currently absorbed in taking the exam for his
journeyman’s plumber license. She said that she told the Marines not to
phone again and advised the caller that the Marines were “not going to use
my son as a target.” She and her son are not alone in such opinions. This
year, the Army will fail to make its recruiting goals even though it’s
dangling ever more goodies -- like college tuition and chunks of cash—in
front of the teenagers it hopes to enlist. Now there’s talk of accepting
spry persons over 40 years of age to risk life and limb pro gloria dei
and, I guess, patriae too. One of the Army’s problems is that it gets
harder to find gullible galoots who believe the promises. Bitter veterans
abound with angry stories about care withheld or the quality of the care
offered men and women once they leave the services. Nor does it help that
potential enlistees are shy of signing up because they fear they may never
get out once they are in. The government has broken its word too often. So
sing the National Anthem twice at the ball game and put another “I SUPPORT
OUR TROOPS” sticker on one or even all of the family cars. Hey, it ain’t
my war, ain’t my kid....
The day after Wednesday night’s nationwide
vigils, the big headline at the top of the MoveOn.org home page said:
“Support Cindy Sheehan.” But MoveOn does not support Cindy Sheehan’s call
for swift withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Many groups were important
to the success of the Aug. 17 vigils, but the online powerhouse MoveOn was
the largest and most prominent. After a long stretch of virtual absence
from Iraq war issues, the organization deserves credit for getting
re-involved in recent months. But the disconnects between MoveOn and much
of the grassroots antiwar movement are disturbing....(full
article)
How We Left Gaza We will never know with certainty what took place in the mind of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February 2004, when he first declared, without consulting anyone, that he is ready to evacuate the Jewish settlements in Gaza. But if we try to put together the pieces of the disengagement puzzle, the scenario that makes the most sense is that Sharon believed that this time, as before, he would find a way of evading the plan....(full article)
Despite the dramatic and unprecedented uprising in Israel, of the settler community, the national religious youths and a part of secular right wingers; despite Voodoo ceremonies, the huge money invested in an anti-disengagement campaign and emotional extortion of the Jewish public; despite all this, the dismantling of Gaza settlements can be considered an established fact. However, a fascinating puzzle lingers. Why has Sharon, who is considered a vehement enemy of the Palestinian people and the major engine behind the settlement process of the occupied territories, made such a considerable unilateral concession? Did Sharon indeed undergo a deep metamorphosis to become the big peacemaker and play the role of an Israeli De Gaulle or De Klerk? A careful examination of Sharon’s steps, lead to completely contradictory conclusions....(full article)
It’s strange that Alan Greenspan hasn’t been blamed for the housing bubble. After all, he set the “easy money” policies that put the whole thing in motion and he’s the one who should be held responsible when it goes up in smoke. Let me explain. Most people expect the Federal Reserve to lower rates when business is flagging to stimulate the economy by making loans more available for commerce, home buying, recreational spending etc. But, just as higher rates can stop the economy in its tracks by making money too expensive to borrow, so too, lower rates can have equally adverse consequences. For example, when Greenspan lowered rates to 1% in 2002 he knew that money would surge into the economy and create the appearance that everything was hunky-dory. Predictably, the economy sputtered along from the economic activity generated by the housing boom and from the 30% increase in government spending. But, what else did Greenspan’s lower rates achieve? (full article)
The rising price of gasoline troubles Americans because it threatens the sustaining cultural illusion of our freedom of mobility -- a commercial con job that, over time, has served to transform us from the citizens of a sprawling republic into de facto slaves of the corporate classes. Our masters have the mobility, we have a long commute. How, in any way, shape, or form, are American freeways free? (full article)
The fix is in for the extractors, who envision -- each and every one of them standing proudly on their third 6,000-square-foot homes and plucky yachts -- a world that believes two barrels of oil expended to extract one dirty, rotten barrel is sustainable. With our 1.5 party system mucking up anything sustainable (.5 being a few Republicans and Democrats who can think abstractly and without the 1.0’s Christian Scientology War Party determining energy policy based on a six-month long view and a cornucopian view that the earth has unlimited energy and food for, oh, let’s be conservative and say another 6 billion people), the Bush-Pelosi Mister Rogers Neighborhood is one where global warming, climate change and wasted billions of greenbacks and a trillion here and there will see the world getting ever so closer to the abbreviated version of The Long Emergency....(full article)
This past July Indian PM Manmohan Singh struck a deal with President Bush by which the US promised full support for India's civil nuclear program if it submitted to IAEA controls. For those who've signed the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), not developing weapons is the condition for getting US help on nuclear energy, so a non-signatory like India getting it anyway had a lot of people wringing their hands over the death of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as we know it. In the end, it may only leave the two countries where they've been for years -- coyly playing he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not with each other, this time with nukes glittering up front rather than tucked away in the background. Still, coming as it did just a few weeks before the August 7 anniversary of Hiroshima and the August 15 anniversary of Indian Independence, it churns the debate about whether developing countries, especially one born out of a struggle that claimed to be non-violent, should be building nukes anyway. And it provides a little morality play for the rest of the globe with the contrast between India chomping happily on the tasty little carrot usually reserved for those who agree to the NPT and poor Iran, an NPT signatory for years, bludgeoned night and day with US threats and sanctions. The message is clear. Defy the US, and be invited over to meet the family, grovel, and feel the imperial heel on your neck....(full article)
In a recent radio address to the nation President Bush said, “Our economy is strong, yet I will not be satisfied until every American who wants to work can find a job.” If Mr. Bush truly wants to ensure that everyone who has lost a job can get back to work, he’s going to need to take a stand against sending jobs overseas. At best, his administration has done very little to address this issue. At its worst, the Bush administration has implicitly encouraged outsourcing....(full article)
Many theories have been advanced concerning the intentions of Israeli Prime Minister Sharon’s “disengagement” plan. Some point to its function as a smokescreen to hide Israel’s accelerated theft and walling-off of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Others believe the plan is fundamentally an effort to improve Israel’s security by abandoning an untenable position in the Gaza Strip. “Disengagement” has also been called a diplomatic ploy to garner US approval for Israel’s annexation of most of its illegal West Bank settlements. Many Israelis believe Sharon launched his plan in late 2003 to foment the national crisis that ultimately sidelined his looming indictment on corruption charges. All of these approaches have merit, but none encompasses the entire process and reach of the “disengagement” plan. A full analysis of the goals of “disengagement” would have to account for all of these observations as well as other, less noticed features of Sharon’s execution of the plan to date....(full article)
The surge of antiwar voices in U.S. media this month has coincided with new lows in public approval for what pollsters call President Bush’s “handling” of the Iraq war. After more than two years of a military occupation that was supposed to be a breeze after a cakewalk into Baghdad, the war has become a clear PR loser. But an unpopular war can continue for a long time -- and one big reason is that the military-industrial-media complex often finds ways to blunt the effectiveness of its most prominent opponents. Right now, the pro-war propaganda arsenal of the world’s only superpower is drawing a bead on Cindy Sheehan, who now symbolizes the USA’s antiwar grief. She is a moving target, very difficult to hit. But right-wing media sharpshooters are sure to keep trying. The Bush administration’s top officials must be counting the days until the end of the presidential vacation brings to a close the Crawford standoff between Camp Casey and Camp Carnage. But media assaults on Cindy Sheehan are just in early stages....(full article)
Every voice that comes behind Cindy Sheehan sparks a new voice, and someone else stands up. Someone else is not afraid anymore.” Mona is speaking from the back seat of a Camp Casey shuttle as the Texas prairie speeds past. Today Mona is not afraid what the President will think. But she is worried to death about her son, who is headed for Iraq next month. Mona’s anti-war movement is on a tight schedule indeed. Even the national protests scheduled for Sept. 24-26 in D.C. may be too late. “I was on Air America earlier this week,” says Mona, answering to the usual round of “where you from?” She called the radio station from Ohio to defend Cindy Sheehan’s protest action, and someone asked her if she was planning to go. “Well, if I can arrange it, I’ll go,” Mona recalls. After she hung up, the station got calls. Someone offered a plane ticket from Ohio to Texas. Another offered the rent car. “So I’m here for at least a week, but I can always just turn in the rent car and stay longer.”....(full article)
Once again, in the
case of Right Wing Media Circus versus Cindy Sheehan, we are solemnly
invited to examine the evidence: she met with the President once and she
didn’t have this problem then. And, even more devastating: members of her
family disagree with her and think she ought to shut up. Contradictions
between what she said before and what she’s saying now are examined,
weighed -- and condemned. After all, the woman was under oath! . . . Oh.
Wait a minute. I’m shocked the wingnuts are doing this, because Mom is the
deepest archetype of all, and Cindy Sheehan is a grieving mother. She no
longer has the American sense of privilege standing guard on polite
silence. Her loss and her rage have made her into that most fearsome
thing: someone who feels she has nothing to lose. Because of her, a lot of
people who were sitting on the fence are seeing that George Bush is, just
like she says, a lying bastard and an evil maniac. It is the extreme
discomfort of this perception that is fueling some of the strident talk
about Sheehan. But it will not stand....(full
article)
Cindy Sheehan Confronts Judith Miller’s
War This war can best be told by narrating the stories of two women. One woman played an instrumental role in launching the invasion of Iraq and the other is determined to end the occupation and bring the troops home. One woman wants to shed light on the lies that led to war and the other is willing to hide in jail to avoid telling the truth about her role in this catastrophe. One lady is the mother of a fallen soldier who only demands a few rational answers as to why her son died. The second is a warmongering tramp and WMD huckster who refuses to divulge her role in outing Valerie Plame. One woman is an outsider demanding a single hour of the President’s attention. The other is a power broker from Sulzberger’s New York Times with ready access to Bush administration insiders like Karl Rove and Lewis Libby. One woman is invigorating the entire peace movement and the other is a bona fide neo-con operative of a War Party in retreat....(full article)
Cindy Sheehan makes no secret of her desire to see George W. Bush impeached and, as of Saturday, had actually called him “a s---” (modesty courtesy of the Fourth Estate, which apparently believes that the sight of a good old Anglo-Saxon expletive will bring America apart at the seams). Her “intemperate” outburst, her lack of “civility,” her “name-calling,” will win Sheehan a lot of friends on one side and a lot of enemies on the other, but she has those already, and it doesn’t faze her. As Bush himself remarked last week, “She feels strongly about her position. She has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America.” It sure is, Junior, and something tells me that Cindy Sheehan’s example is going to make you realize it in a way you’ve never had to face it before. While her opponents are busy smearing Sheehan as “treasonous,” an “America-hating idiot,” a “tool”, a “pawn”, a “peacenik” and -- whatever this means -- “more antiwar protester than grieving mother,” let’s not forget that she isn’t the only one out there, not even the only grieving mother in Crawford....(full article)
There is no longer any possibility of the United States achieving its objectives in Iraq. Whatever opportunity there might have been following the initial invasion has been swept away by the abusive treatment of detainees, the wanton slaughter of civilians, and the systematic destruction of Iraqi society. The war has entered a period of retrenchment, with both sides firmly committed to their own objectives, doing whatever is within their power to succeed. This situation will undoubtedly persist for a number of years until the US is ultimately forced to withdraw....(full article)
Concentrating on the Iraq war is a fundamental prerequisite to the understanding of the new wars of colonialist conquests ushered in by the United States under President Bush. To begin with, one cannot address the morally senseless American violence in the world, its application, and its rationales without considering all factors contributing to its emergence as the primary philosophy of the United States under Bush. However, a basic approach to define the parameters of said violence resides in evaluating the environment in which the imperialist coalition executes its strategy for world domination....(full article)
....More recently the rhetoric of Mr. Bush and the new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have continued to undermine those actively seeking diplomatic solutions to this problem even as North Korea plans for its first nuclear weapons test. The recent Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty review also offered a chance for the American government to demonstrate its resolve in preserving a nuclear weapons free world. The collapse of this most recent review and efforts to change the NPT were not unique, as this has happened before. What was new was the complete lack of effort and deliberate lack of diplomatic pressure from Washington to try and salvage the treaty or get any needed changes made. This deliberate failure echoes Mr. Bolton's similarly deliberate failure to curb North Korean nuclear ambitions. Some assumed the policies of Mr. Bolton were an aberration or work of a maverick. However, if this were true, it would seem strange to reward a maverick operating outside of administration policy with a new U.N. post. Nor could the administration be blind to the fact that reprocessing was occurring unabated at Yongbyon during these five years where diplomacy was clearly failing. Finally, given the similar actions of Ms. Rice and the deliberate lack of action by the American government at the NPT review, one is left to presume a nuclear-armed North Korea and nuclear proliferation represents the desired outcome of the Bush administration. Let’s consider then: what are the benefits to the Bush administration if North Korea conducts a successful nuclear test and nuclear proliferation becomes the norm rather than the exception it remains today?(full article)
The thing that is too depressing is what everybody knows yet gets zero negative mention in the official press, especially the right wing newspapers such as the Yomiuri Shimbun or its associated papers and magazines: the shame of Japan’s rapid remilitarization, much encouraged and helped along by the US since at least the 1990s, and much accelerated since the coming to power of George W. Bush. The International Herald Tribune of August 8, 2005, reporting on the atomic bombings’ anniversary ceremonies in Hiroshima, described the survivors’ mood as worrisome. An interviewed survivor who is a physician summed up well how the sands have shifted. “Ten years ago, few could question Article 9 of the Constitution [which bans participation in offensive wars]. But people talk about it openly now.” Another survivor, Akihiro Takahashi, former director of the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, was quoted as saying, “The dispatch of the Self Defense Forces to Iraq is completely out of line with pacifism. In the future the peace constitution will no doubt be revised, and that will lead to conscription and, eventually, the possession of nuclear arms.”....(full article)
Starving
children get media attention, well-fed imperial economists don’t. Yet
modern history shows they are usually two sides of the famine coin. Over
the past month thousands have died of starvation in Niger. All the while
food has been available. The poor simply don’t have the money to pay
rising food costs, so they starve. In the spring the International
Monetary Fund pressured Niger’s President Mamadou Tandja to implement a 19
percent value added tax with foodstuffs included. The tax was added even
though food costs rose more then 75 percent in the previous five years.
Concurrently the country’s nomadic herders main income -- livestock --
fell a quarter in value, leaving the poor with less money to purchase
basic foods. When international groups began drawing attention to the
worsening food crisis the interests of the “market” were placed above
those of the poor. “The Niger government,” August 7th London Observer
reveals, “under instruction from the IMF and European Union, at first
refused to distribute free food to those most in need.” The powers that be
did not want “to depress the market prices” that benefited wholesalers and
speculators....
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