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July 2005 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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The final vote on CAFTA, the free trade agreement between the US and Central America, rolled out in the wee hours of July 28. It was a tight vote in the House, a squeaking 217-215, where 15 Democrats crossed over to support the measure while 27 Republicans voted against it. Supporters of CAFTA anticipate abolishing custom taxes and undermining labor and environmental laws over time among the countries involved, which will consist of the US, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and Dominican Republic. CAFTA will eliminate tariffs on 80 percent of US exports to these countries. CAFTA was first approved in the Senate a few weeks ago when 10 neoliberal Democrats crossed over to support Bush's obtuse trade legislation, which slipped by with a 55-45 vote. Twelve Senate Republicans opposed the bill. It was California's liberal Dianne Feinstein and Oregon's Ron Wyden who led the way in Democratic support for the legislation. Had the Democrats opposed the agreement in the Senate, CAFTA would have been defeated. But the Dems support for CAFTA in the Senate and now the House of Representatives has handed Bush a major victory....(full article)
How about that wild and wacky world capitalist system? The United States is clearly the world's "hegemonic" military power. The U.S. government's capacity for "forward global force projection" is stupendous and its imperial "defense" budget" matches the combined military expenditures of all potential enemy states many times over. Things are a little different in the economic sphere, however, and all the money the U.S. is spending on militarism and empire is part of the problem for Uncle Sam....(full article)
“The bottom line is this, failure in Iraq is
now considered an ‘existential threat” to America’s continued dominance in
the world. We should not anticipate that that is something that American
elites will easily relinquish....(full
article)
Conservative Ideology Hinders U.S. AIDS
Policy
Last month, the Bush
administration put further impediments in the way of effectively treating
the global AIDS crises. The administration is now requiring American
organizations that receive federal funding to sign an agreement pledging
their opposition to prostitution. Of course, it’s ludicrous to think that
anyone actually supports prostitution. But in requiring organizations to
formally declare their opposition, this will put those organizations that
are trying to reduce the spread of AIDS among prostitutes in a difficult
position....(full article)
Psychotic America: Feeling The Heat It’s summer again in Bush’s America, and without any significant time in therapy, the country has more issues than Time Magazine. We don’t even have to look at “mainstream” stories such as Robert’s nomination to the Supreme Court or the Karl Rove/Valerie Plame scandal to see the depths of the psychosis. At the beginning of last week, I read an article detailing a death in Washington State. It seems that a man passed away from injuries sustained while having sex with a horse. You read that correctly . . . not a fat person, a genuine equine sex partner was instrumental in his demise. Now, a story about a guy who croaked while getting it on with a farm animal doesn’t appear to indict the entire nation into the loony bin…just this man and his need for some good tail. But read further....(full article)
The latest bombings in London have produced a strange political atmosphere here; I cannot recall anything like it. A truth is struggling to be heard. It is being said guardedly, apologetically. Occasionally, a member of the public breaks the silence, as an East Londoner did when he walked in front of a CNN camera crew and reporter in mid-platitude. "Iraq!" he said. "We invaded Iraq and what did we expect? Go on say it." The Scottish MP Alex Salmond tried to say it on BBC radio. He was told he was speaking "in poor taste . . . before the bodies are even buried." The Respect Party MP George Galloway was lectured by BBC television presenter that he was being "crass". The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said the diametric opposite of what he had previously said, which was that the invasion of Iraq would come home to our streets. With the exception of Galloway, not one so-called anti-war MP spoke out in clear, unequivocal English. The warmongers were allowed to fix the boundaries of public debate; one of the more idiotic, in The Guardian, called Blair "the world's leading statesman". And yet, like the man who interrupted CNN, people understand and know why, just as the majority of Britons oppose the war and believe Blair is a liar. This frightens the British political elite. At a large media party I attended, many of the important guests uttered "Iraq" and "Blair" as a kind of catharsis for that which they dared not say professionally and publicly. The bombs of 7 July were Blair's bombs....(full article)
One of the first orders of business for George W. Bush in January 2001 was to establish a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the cornerstone social policy of his presidency. At a ceremony attended by numerous religious leaders, Bush announced executive orders that instructed the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Justice, Education and Housing and Urban Development to set up Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives within their agencies. That done, Bush moved to cement his executive actions in congressional legislation. There he was rebuffed, however, over objections that government money would be used for religious proselytization, and that recipients of government grants would be allowed to discriminate in their hiring, based on religion. Bush called on Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) to craft a legislative compromise. When they failed to win a consensus, the president went back to issuing executive orders. Now, House allies are trying to come up with a legislative package that will pass muster. One of the keys to the compromise is a "Sense of the Congress" resolution dealing with the religious hiring question....(full article)
There are in fact serious criticisms to be made about the Chávez government from a trade union standpoint. Yet, by rejecting the legitimacy of the UNT out of hand, and backing the CTV, the AFL-CIO has lent political credibility to the conservative Venezuelan opposition. This, in turn, has revived debate over the AFL-CIO’s involvement in U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, a look at the AFL-CIO’s past and present in Venezuela points to two conclusions: that the files on organized labor’s collaboration with U.S. foreign policy should be opened, and that the AFL-CIO’s reliance on government funds for international work should end....(full article)
Over the last two days hundreds of people have died in Mumbai and across Maharashtra as the South-West monsoon lashes the state. 37.1 inches fell in one day -- the highest ever in the country. About 150,000 people were stranded in railway stations, tens of thousands of others on the road or in buses as commuter services were shut down. Electricity and phone links were cut in the city, some 76,000 farm animals have been killed and 1.7 million acres of crops have been destroyed. Tens of thousands of homes, along with roads, railway tracks, and bridges have been washed away. It's a story well-rehearsed in other parts of India, like Gujarat, also hit hard by the monsoons this summer. Just the familiar story of third world countries too poor to defend themselves against Mother Nature's psychotic abuse. Or something else? (full article)
It was all I could do not to let out a guffaw when I heard House Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay talk about the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) the other day. While discussing the Republicans' urgent need to pass CAFTA (in the name of national security, no less), DeLay remarked, without a touch of irony, "We find ourselves today with Democratic leaders browbeating members against voting their principles for politics sake." DeLay's hypocritical self-righteousness is simply awe-inspiring. There he was, the man with such a penchant for browbeating that he is not-so-affectionately called "The Hammer," condemning Democrats for allegedly following his lead, albeit in a far less bludgeoning fashion. I mean, this is the guy who threatens to take committee seats away from fellow Republicans who, because of their damnable principles, won't vote the way he wants them to. DeLay has also been known to "primary" recalcitrant Republicans by actively recruiting primary opponents to run against them....(full article)
The “evil ideology” that underscores the war on terror is predicated on two basic theories: preemption and enemy combatants. Both of these run counter to fundamental principles of human rights and democratic governance. Both must be met head on and defeated. There is no wiggle room for equivocating or appeasement; this ideology is the greatest manifestation of fanaticism in the world since the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and must be collectively challenged. As Tony Blair says, “This is not an isolated criminal act” but “an extreme and evil ideology” thrusting us towards global war and ever-increasing human rights abuse....(full article)
From the moment the John Roberts nomination was announced, the media called it a done deal. NPR and the New York Times gushed over his humility, humor, and congeniality. With Roberts's belief system barely mentioned, you'd think Bush had just nominated Mister Rogers. In the wake of this media love fest, I keep encountering people who oppose everything Roberts has stood for, but see no use in trying to stop what seems his inevitable confirmation. But we can make a powerful impact by raising the discomforting truth that Roberts may be closer to a smiling Antonin Scalia. However the Senators vote -- and it's not foreordained, the more we raise key issues and principles, the more they'll echo down the line around future nominations and policies....(full article)
Michelle Malkin, sometimes known as Bill O’Reilly in drag, opened one of her recent syndicated rants with this question: “Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Civil-liberties activists, anti-war organizers, eco-militants and animal-rights operatives are in a fright over news that the nefarious FBI is watching them. Why on earth would the government be worried about harmless liberal grannies, innocent vegetarians, unassuming rainforest lovers and other ‘peaceful groups’ simply exercising their First Amendment rights?” Ms. Malkin was referring to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, charging that the FBI had amassed hundreds of pages of secret files on that organization and similar groups. Well, let me suggest that this cute-looking new darling of the salivating right is asking the wrong question. What she should want to know is why the FBI is snooping on the ACLU. After all, the rights the ACLU defends include those that allow Ms. Malkin to write exactly what she wants to write, no matter how misinformed....(full article)
Midway through July, the Karl Rove scandal was dominating the national news -- until the sudden announcement of a Supreme Court nominee interrupted the accelerating momentum of the Rove story. Since then, some anti-Bush groups and progressive pundits have complained that the White House manipulated the media agenda. But when it comes to deploying weapons of mass distraction, the worst is yet to come....(full article)
The wild salmon story has generated a coalition of groups, both native and non-native, in the Pacific Northwest fighting for the salmon’s imperiled existence against the imbalanced needs of humans that require too much ecologically sensitive land for development; that seek to irrigate deserts to grow non-native crops reliant on river water and petrochemicals; and who want hydroelectricity to grow human settlements which hold to an out-of-whack perception of economic growth as an unending cycle....(full article)
If we accept the premise that New York Times reporter Judy Miller chose to go to jail rather than reveal a source who blew the cover of a CIA agent, then who in the White House has forsaken a loyal servant and one who went to the ends of the earth to support the president’s foreign policy, even to the extent of treating a notoriously unreliable source as if he were the one true Bohdi Satya? (full article)
Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist?
Tom Friedman: Fabricating the Roots of
Terror Tom Friedman is the undeclared spokesman of the American establishment. His articles represent a distillation of the current thinking among a broad range of American mandarins, particularly members of the powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the driving force behind much of America’s foreign policy. He is the imperial chronicler, the man responsible for promoting the narrow interests of elites and transforming the crimes of the empire into a narrative of generosity and goodwill. If one can decode Friedman’s bi-weekly hieroglyphic, they can also understand how elites use the media to manage public perceptions....(full article)
I sold my home three weeks ago anticipating what I believe will be “Economic Armageddon” in the United States. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. My wife and I have lived in the same home for 25 years, raised both of our children there, and owned the property outright without any loans or mortgage. The house was paid for in “sweat-equity”, that is, by wielding a shovel day-in and day-out in my one-man landscape business. I don’t say that for sympathy, but to illustrate that we played by the rules, worked hard, paid our taxes, and took advantage of the American dream of home-ownership. All that has changed. I sold my home for one reason: George W. Bush. He and his protégé at the Federal Reserve have submerged the country into a morass of “unsustainable” debt, disrupted the nation’s economic equilibrium and thrust us towards fiscal disaster. They’ve also generated a humongous housing bubble through their irresponsible and self-serving manipulation of interest rates. The facts are astonishing....(full article)
Senator Hillary
Clinton, a likely 2008 presidential candidate, called for a "cease fire"
within the Democratic Party as she accepted a leadership post with the
Democratic Leadership Council on July 25. The DLC was greatly responsible
for her husband's rise to power in the early 1990s, and Hillary's new
position within the right-wing organization is a sure sign the New York
Senator wants to see the Democrats move further right. Hillary is
apparently attempting to build a conservative base for a potential
presidential bid in 2008....(full article)
(Media Lens Cogitation)
In 1992 a group of neuroscientists traveled
to India to research the effects of meditation. In the mountains above
Dharamsala, the scientists spent time with a young monk who had been
meditating intensively for six years. Richard Davidson, a psychobiologist
from the University of Wisconsin, had done pioneering work correlating
minute shifts in facial expression with emotions. He explained to the monk
that he would be shown a video of Tibetan demonstrators being beaten by
Chinese security forces. His face would simultaneously be videoed to
record any reactions. Writer Alan Wallace described the result:
“As the monk watched
the video, we didn’t detect any change of expression in his face at all,
no grimace, no shudder, no expression of sadness.” (Wallace, Buddhism
With An Attitude, Snow Lion Publications, 2001, p.176) The monk was
asked to describe his experience while watching the video. He replied: “I
didn’t see anything that I didn’t already know goes on all the time, not
only in Tibet but throughout the world. I am aware of this constantly.”
It was not that the monk failed to
experience compassion while watching these brutal scenes, Wallace
explains: “He was aware that he was simply being shown a video -- patterns
of light -- representing events that took place long ago. But this
suffering was simply one episode in the overall suffering of samsara
[existence], of which he was constantly aware. Hence, while looking out
over the ocean of suffering, he didn't feel anything extraordinary when he
was shown a picture of a glass of water”. (E-mail to author, July 15,
2005) This
account came to mind when I saw the response to the July 7 terrorist
atrocities in London. In the video experiment, the monk’s mind was so
steeped in compassion that his expression did not change at all even when
he saw images of his own people being brutalized. So what does it tell us
that so many British people were so deeply shaken by the suffering of
their fellow citizens? After all, have we not been reading and watching
endless accounts and footage of near-identical horrors in Iraq and
Palestine on mainstream and internet-based media over the last few years?
Victory Over Bush’s Social Security Plan
The PR blitz of the
Bush White House on the taxpayers’ dime to “save” Social Security from
running out of funds “is on life support,” according to a recent article
in The Washington Post. Who put the president’s plan there? Many
people from all backgrounds and walks of life with no name recognition.
Alone they lack political power. Yet together they are powerful. Here is a
story to tell and re-tell about the year’s political victory of the many
over the few of the upper class in the world’s lone superpower....(full
article)
Getting Americans to Spend Some Minutes
on the Minutes I was heartened by the reaction a group of about fifty of us received the other day when, prior to attending a Downing Street Memo (DSM) House Party, we all stood at a busy Sacramento intersection for an hour or so displaying signs and banners emblazoned with messages about the leaked highly classified British government papers that prove the Bushies cooked the Iraq war books. Honks of support a-sounded, and I personally had only one official bird sighting. It was encouraging, but there’s obviously a very long way to go before the millions of Americans who are still unaware of the documents finally learn of their existence....(full article)
My dear daughter was born on March 10, 1983.
As I think back on that day, I recall seeing her for the first time, all
wrinkled and red. “Hello. I’m your Daddy. Welcome to this world.”
Many happy birthdays
followed, despite the heartbreaking realization in her second year that
she was incurably hearing-impaired. It made for a hard childhood,
considering the cruelty of other kids, and her understandable difficulty
in learning. But she persevered, applying herself with such determination
that she graduated high school with honors and went on to college where
she’s been a regular on the Dean’s list. It was only recently that her
birthday came to be associated in my mind with something else. Something
unimaginably horrible, and the very antithesis of joy experienced over
beautiful and precious life permitted to flourish....
Some claim a process of sweeping “modernization” is required to fix the structural problems plaguing our elections, something to bring us more in line with other successful Western democracies. While change must indeed come, however, it need not come like a tidal wave. The tools we need to better our democracy are already with us. What is needed is less a fundamental overhaul than steady, vigorous progress -- seeking changes on the local level and using these to build momentum. The following are two basic, commonsense improvements that can make our democracy more open, more inclusive, and ultimately, more fair....(full article)
Republican strongman and future presidential candidate Tom Tancredo proposed bombing Mecca if the Islamofascist Suicide Terror Monkeys get any funny ideas about nuking American Holy Sites like Dollywood or Disneyland. America's number one “Security Mom,” Mrs. Jolene Fystenbutt, believes that the House Representative's proposal is a tad bit extreme, but she welcomes the debate as an opportunity to put forward her own vision of prosperity for the billions of wrongheaded people who hate our freedoms almost as much as their own funny looking children. Below is an exclusive interview with Mrs. Fystenbutt and her dear friend Mrs. Stella La Chance, the lovely wife of her pastor Fred....(full article)
John Roberts is the perfect stealth candidate for the Supreme Court. Scrubbed and square-jawed, he should be able to muscle his way through the Senate proceedings without breaking a sweat. The Democratic leadership has already rolled over, so there’s little doubt that the neocons’ favorite Trojan Horse will soon be taking his place next to the Brothers Grimm, Scalia and Thomas, when the court resumes a few months from today. You have to hand it to the Republicans, they know how to rule with a sledge hammer. They come to Washington with bared teeth and don’t mind breaking glass or overturning the political ox cart if it moves the ball further down the field. The Democrats are simply no match; Lieberman, Dodd, Clinton and the insufferable blowhard Joe Biden, a coterie of puffy-chested backslappers who invariably capitulate on every matter of principle. Bill Frist would be doing us all a great favor if he ran a skip-loader through the Democrats front office and dumped the lot of them in the D.C. landfill....(full article)
The continuing intense polarization of our country is a direct result of the dominant Republican Party’s refusal to fragment, even in the face of massive corruption, ongoing scandals, and George Bush’s free fall in the polls. This unity is made possible, no doubt, by corporate ownership of the media, but it is driven by a wartime mindset -- and I don’t mean Iraq. As far as most liberals are concerned, however, the Culture War is like a high-pitched dog whistle: outside their range of perception. But you better believe the attack dogs of the right hear it. There is a reason they all start howling at the same time....(full article)
In the American system of life, the dollar value of an individual, of a group of people is what matters. It's easily calculated. "People are fungible," said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It's all about the return-on-investment, the metrics and the data whether you are a military or civilian American. You're just another number. In this system, platitudes like "freedom is not free," "military service is the highest calling," "freedom to buy and sell," are little more than the equivalent of a cosmetic makeup base designed to disguise the hard face of reality that Americans are taught and encouraged to ignore. For example, it costs roughly $30,000 to train a regular US soldier and, perhaps, $40,000 to train a special operations soldier or military academy graduate. Multiply those figures by approximately 2,000 US KIA, and 16,000 US maimed in action or non-operative and returned stateside. Do the math. Using the $30,000 figure and 2,000 US dead equals $60,000,000. Taking the 16,000 maimed and multiplying by $30,000 equals $480,000,000. So those American lives -- men and women -- mostly youngsters, were worth $540 million dollars (have the insurgents spent this much?). What kind of people can tolerate being fungible, can live with the lies of their "leaders", and be happy being a number in a balance sheet? These calculations take place every day in every organization large and small. It all makes a mockery of the mythical American way of life. Of course, it's not a way of life, it's a cold, calculating system. Will people ever confront the silent horror that is the American system of life? (full article)
Journalism professor, columnist and author Walt Brasch began writing his essential new book, America’s Unpatriotic Acts, just as Congress was debating the need to preserve the USA PATRIOT Act. “By exposure of what the federal government has done to our Constitutional rights during the past four years,” he explains, “I hope the people will fully understand that the claims by the Administration are for the most part not innocent inaccuracies, but blatant lies.” Mickey Z. recently interviewed Dr. Brasch....(full interview)
I read in the morning paper about the People’s Bank of China’s decision to end its tie of the yuan, the Chinese currency, to the U.S. dollar. The article mentioned the old and new value of the yuan per dollar. This move, I read, will make exports from China to the U.S. more costly. Meanwhile, U.S. exports will become less costly. The new price of the yuan could make the jobs of U.S. manufacturing workers more secure, the article noted. Moreover, the rising U.S. trade deficit, the nation’s excess of imports over exports, may be corrected with the newly priced yuan. Perhaps the U.S. reliance on foreign lenders that include China’s central bank to finance that deficit would fall. Crucially, the millions of human beings who labor to make the goods that are bought and sold in China and the US. were faceless and nameless....(full article)
Overseas production guarantees that manufacturers and stockholders and everyone in the pipeline see greater profits. But do the Americans who have lost those jobs benefit from the lower costs of imported goods that we buy every day? In shopping for fabric, I discovered that American-made and Chinese- and Indian-made fabrics were the exact same price per yard. And that price was a third higher than a year ago. Can the North Carolina worker who lost her textile job afford to buy the fabric now produced in other lands? When I need plastic containers, I always buy Sterilite because the company produces its high-quality line in Massachusetts. And the prices are as good or better than some imports. So the question is, does the American consumer gain anything at all from the emigration of U.S. jobs? (full article)
The neo-con smear campaign against the Wilsons was standard operating procedures. Still smug from what then appeared to be a cakewalk in Iraq -- the neo-con brigades and their media collaborators had already unceremoniously taken out Hans Blix, Eric Shensenki and a host of others who had cast doubt on the wisdom of their follies. Wilson was only an ex-ambassador and should have been an easy mark. His five minutes of fame were up. Unfortunately for the neo-cons, Wilson again refused to play by their rules. Instead, he again went public and pointed the finger at Karl Rove -- accusing him and the administration of mounting a smear campaign and violating national security laws in the process. This Joseph Wilson character is a piece of work -- a one-man demolition squad tearing down the neo-con temples of power with one blow after another. Maybe if they hadn’t messed with his vulnerable AK-47 wielding wife, he might have gone a little easier on the bastards. Two years on, he is still standing tall and doesn’t appear to give a damn about the incessant smear campaign against his character and his credibility....(full article)
In a recent article on Nicaragua, Frank J. Kendrick of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), an American NGO, managed to write extensively on the country without mentioning two crucial issues facing the country right now. Curiously, Kendrick's analysis of Nicaragua omitted the continuing sinister US government intervention in Nicaragua's internal politics as well as vitally important arguments about the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Political battle lines in Nicaragua are now being drawn for a presidential election that is still more than a year away in November 2006....(full article)
In a city of desperate poverty -- without jobs, without electricity, without security, without drinkable water, without medical facilities, with little food and less hope -- several hundred well-armed soldiers in armored vehicles laid siege, blocking escape routes, and opened fire. Indiscriminate bullets found the bodies of men, women, children, infants and the elderly. This was not Fallujah. It was not Ramadi, Baghdad or some obscure community in the Anbar province of Iraq. It was Cite Soleil in Haiti where families frequently adorn the bodies of the dead with photographs of deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In diplomatic and intellectual circles, there is a heated debate over whether Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. In Cite Soleil, that designation belongs to the United Nations for it was their soldiers, the Peace Keepers that carried out this horrendous deed....(full article)
“Show-Me” the state of Missouri, and I will show you a microcosm of George Bush's domestic agenda for America. Under Governor Matt Blunt, Missouri is rapidly implementing laws reminiscent of the Gilded Age, when corporations ruled and the people were disposable cogs in their profit-making machines. Virtually each day I pick up the newspaper, Blunt has advanced this despicable agenda still further. Watching my former home state (and current neighboring state) become an ally to the American plutocracy in their bid to sweep away the remains of the progressive, humanitarian advances of the 20th Century leaves me deeply sickened and saddened....(full article)
How can anybody reasonably consider the Democrats the party of opposition? I mean, what exactly do they oppose? Far too many Dems in Washington are reading whatever dyslexic cue cards George Lakoff flashes in front of them. The one issue you'd think the Democrats would want to stand behind, as President Bush appoints a pro-lifer to the bench, is the right for a woman to get an abortion. But here we have commander in chair Howard Dean exclaiming that Democrats should drop their pro-choice shtick and do what they can to pull more pro-lifers into the fold....(full article)
The panic signals are out again, and familiar voices are declaring their conviction that “radical Islam” represents an unprecedented diabolical threat to the “civilized” West. Physical security in the face of suicide bombers is, admittedly, a serious problem. Unfortunately, however, it is not the central problem but a diversionary issue that obscures a much deeper reason for alarm. Our ultimate problem is not our leaders’ failure to protect us against terrorists but our inability or unwillingness to stop the terrorism they practice against people throughout the world. Until a solution for U.S. terrorism is found, we may or may not manage to topple additional “rogue states” and kill more Al Qaeda operatives, but we certainly won't solve the overarching problems of Zionism gone mad, imperialism running amok, and a political system utterly unresponsive to the people it claims to serve. In giving these long neglected topics some attention, it wouldn’t hurt to keep in mind that Islamic militants never did us any harm until Washington backed Jewish supremacy over Arab lands, imposed and harbored the fallen Shah, planted military bases near the holiest shrines of Islam, and murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians via bombing, economic sanctions, and occupation....(full article)
Despite many differences, there are striking
parallels between Bush's invasion of Iraq and Hitler's invasion of Russia,
and understanding these parallels serves to warn of the coming storm Bush
is calling down upon all of us....
Each time I encounter constitutional attorney John Bonifaz I am more impressed with his grasp of contemporary political problems and historical analysis and with his ability to crisply articulate the issues before us. On Saturday afternoon he addressed 160 of us packed tightly into the meeting room of the Media Education Foundation in Northampton, MA. This was one of 350 such July 23 meetings throughout the country, marking the third anniversary of preparation of what is referred to in infrequent media accounts as the Downing Street Memo....(full article)
* * *
"Airpower remains
the single greatest asymmetrical advantage the United States has over its
foes." Exactly. To a government intent on creating the collective illusion
of the Iraq war as a defensive campaign against a belligerent dictator,
what would be likely to undermine that illusion than the image of a
bullyboy in the skies pounding a rag tag, almost-disarmed enemy? That
explains the official white out of the air war and the silence of the
official media, but not the stunning indifference of the public. Bush lied
us into war? It's a nice slogan but rather self-deceiving. It seems more
honest to say that most people didn't resist too much when they were being
tutored in official mythology and that some even turned out to be rather
apt pupils. The media might have kept the story of the pre-war war off the
screen but anyone with his wits about him could have put together the
story from those telltale tidbits that popped up from time to time from an
otherwise comatose press....(full article)
Washington Secures Long-Sought
Hemispheric Outpost, Paraguay and the United States recently entered into an agreement that allows U.S. military personnel to enter Paraguay to train officials in counter-terrorism and anti-narcotrafficking measures. According to the Head of Social Communication of the Paraguayan Armed Forces Col. Elio Flores, these U.S. Special Forces units will be working with the National AntiDrugs Secretariat, the Presidential Escort Regiment and the Air Transport Brigade. . . . This agreement grants U.S. soldiers complete legal immunity from some of their actions while they are in the country, affording them the same privileges as diplomats as well as leaving them free from prosecution for any damages inflicted on the public health, the environment or the country’s resources. According to Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) Paraguay, the Paraguayan National Congress passed this resolution allowing for the entry of U.S. forces with no debate, behind closed doors and with the public largely unaware of the entire transaction. Joining with SERPAJ, other human rights groups also have voiced their concern, with U.S. military instructors being criticized by human rights activists for having a history of teaching torture tactics to thousands of Latin American mid-level military officers at the U.S.-based School of the Americas since shortly after World War II....(full article)
The wife of a US National Guardsman wrote that if her husband were to have died during his tour of duty in Iraq, “I would be promoting all the good he did in this world and not downsizing it and belittling the efforts he and his comrades made.” (Shona Emery, NH Union Leader, July 15). My husband DID NOT ENLIST TO DEFEND HIS COUNTRY SO THAT ORDINARY CITIZENS COULD REMAIN FREE TO ABUSE THE SYSTEM. “All the good he did in this world” has not stopped war from happening. “All the good he did in this world” has not stopped the citizens of this country from misinterpreting the sacrifice of people like her husband. Sure, soldiers have given their lives to defend their country. Sure, there is honor in their belief that what they did was right, and there is hope that good will come out of it. DOES THE GOOD COME? Seriously, think about it. Where are the results of our soldiers' good efforts? What are Americans doing to earn the freedoms and rights that our soldiers fought to defend? (full article)
In what will certainly be viewed as a sign of the apocalypse, Canada became the fourth nation to legalize same-sex marriage. Sarcasm aside, the news that Canada has joined the ranks of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain by granting full legal rights to same-sex couples will most certainly raise the hackles of America's so-called moral majority. Canada's legalization of same-sex marriage will likely rally America's Christian soldiers to renew their call for a constitutional amendment to defend marriage against the onslaught of homosexuality. After all, as President Bush explained in his call for such an amendment, while America is a free society, the "commitment of freedom ... does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions." Actually, Mr. President, it does....(full article)
In the last few weeks, the media and others have been questioning whether Karl Rove and others have committed a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act [IIPA], sometimes referred to as the “outing” statute. Many reporters and Republican partisan pundits claim that legal experts seem to agree that the IIPA has not been violated. The IIPA’s detractors claim that a case cannot be made for its violation because the proof required of the individual elements of the IIPA present a very high bar for the prosecution. Even Democratic partisans seem to concede that it is likely the IIPA has not been violated. This writer wonders why so many people seem to have summarily concluded the IIPA does not apply to what is (many would say finally) becoming a national scandal. Despite the national implications of the IIPA at this moment, there so far has been no diligent or thorough analysis by any legal scholar of the elements of this crime or of the application of the known facts to the elements of this crime. Most analyses to date have been cursory and faulty. When the elements of this federal crime are properly analyzed, the IIPA will likely become a very serious hammer for the prosecution. Rove and others and their lawyers better beware. The known facts of the case will be applied to each element of the IIPA, and show why Rove and others need to be genuinely concerned about having violated the IIPA....(full article)
Pity those with the courage to speak the truth. Take London's mayor Ken Livingstone, for instance. Following the damnable terrorist bombings in his city, Livingstone opined that "80years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands" motivated the four suicide bombers. For his remarks, Livingstone (nicknamed "Red Ken" by his critics) was castigated by right-wingers for his alleged membership in the club, "The men who blame Britain." Livingstone is not alone in his sentiments. Chatham House, the prestigious British think tank, released a report this week entitled "Security, Terrorism and the UK." In the report, Chatham House warned that the UK "is at particular risk" for terrorist attacks because of its allegiance to the U.S. in the war on terror, including the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In response, British foreign secretary Jack Straw accused Chatham House of making "excuses for terrorism." Does Livingstone really "blame" Britain for the attacks against it? Is Chatham House really concocting "excuses" for terrorism? (full article)
After he died on Monday, front pages focused on the failures of William Westmoreland as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. Overall, the coverage faulted him for being a big loser, not a mass killer....(full article)
Northern California peace organizations recently confronted Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Hart at the California National Guard headquarters in Sacramento in response to alarming revelations that the Guard illegally spied upon three anti-war groups at the State Capitol during a demonstration on Mother's Day. In a feature in the San Jose Mercury News on July 3, the Guard confessed -- confirmed by Guard upper echelon e-mails -- that it had tracked at least one anti-war rally held on Mother's Day at the State Capitol that included Gold Star Families for Peace, Raging Grannies and Code Pink. In those e-mails, the Guard said its “folks” continued to “monitor” the rally, including parents of American soldiers killed in Iraq. Over 30 members of the three peace organizations and others, after holding a protest in front of the Guard’s office, tried to talk to the Guard Commander, but were stopped at the front door by armed guards with their guns drawn. That’s when the activists and reporters confronted Hart, the Guard’s public affairs representative, who met them and reporters at the front door....(full article)
It's fashionable on the Left to look down one's nose at the world of sports. To do so, according to Dave Zirin, would be to miss a chance at both inspiration and solidarity. Zirin's new book, What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States creates a much-needed bridge between the political and the playing field. I interviewed my fellow sports fan/subversive via e-mail....(full interview)
New poem by Adam Engel,
inspired by that
"eminent domain" nightmare in which the Supreme Court "Liberals" voted to
allow cities to invoke "eminent domian" to steal private homes for
private/corporate use and abuse....
[Editor's Note: As this article goes to press,
Pentagon officials today confirmed that 52 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
have gone on a hunger strike to protest their continued imprisonment and
mistreatment. The Pentagon's statement stands in contrast to accounts by
two Afghan prisoners, released earlier this week, that claim more than 180
Afghan prisoners are on a hunger strike. According to the Center for
Constitutional Rights in New York, lawyers representing the prisoners say
the hunger strikes reflect the prisoners' peaceful demand to be treated as
human beings: “The vast majority of prisoners live in appalling
conditions… and every prisoner is suffering from the effects of indefinite
detention without legal process.”]
The Record of Judge John Roberts
President Bush has nominated Judge John Roberts to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1979, Mr. Roberts was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. He went on to serve in the Reagan administration as an assistant to Attorney General Smith and as an associate White House legal counsel. He also served as deputy solicitor general in the administration of Mr. Bush’s father. He was in private practice until 2003 when he was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Many people hoped that Mr. Bush would appoint a moderate Republican in the mold of Justice O’Connor. Unfortunately, Judge Roberts is a solid conservative. While his legal record will be reviewed intently over the course of the next few months, his role in the following cases will likely take center stage....(full article)
Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court is a slap in the face of women. Out of nine justices, there were only two women to begin with -- Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That is to say, until last week, only a bit more than 20% of the most intellectually weighty branch of government was drawn from the 52% of the population that is female. And if Roberts gets in, the female contribution falls to just over 10%. OK, so the justices are not supposed to be representative; the executive gets to appoint the most qualified candidates, letting the chips fall where they may. It just so happens that the chips fell on eight white justices and one black. And that all except one graduated from Ivy League law schools. And that none are progressive, but come out of the center-right and the far right. So let's not suggest that the Supremes aren't a representative body. They represent one part of the population pretty well: male, white, and middle or upper class....(full article)
Two days before the London subway bombings, Fed Master Alan Greenspan flushed nearly $40 billion in liquidity into financial markets. The sudden activity was an astonishing departure from the current policy of tightening interest rates to stifle inflation. The Chairman has not explained his erratic behavior, but there’s growing speculation that Greenspan may have had information about the likelihood of terrorist attacks and decided to “preemptively” head off a run on the markets. As it turns out, his actions may have been a positive factor in stabilizing the market following the incident, (check out “Following the Money” by The Cunning Realist for more on the Fed’s unusual action) but that doesn’t address the larger issue of whether Greenspan had inside information that an attack was imminent....(full article)
On 8 July
I
wrote that the London bombings were the result of Blair's
participation in the Iraq war. The next day the entire media was united in
refusing to accept there was any link. They loyally echoed the Government.
Blair said there was no link and tried to prove it by arguing that
"President Putin opposed the war in Iraq but his country has been
subjected to terrorism." He must have thought that British citizens had
never heard of Chechnya (Blair had supported Putin's offensive against the
Chechens and applauded Russia). But why did these attacks happen? That is
the key question which the entire media and the entire political class in
this country tried to ignore. They did so because the government and the
main opposition party know perfectly well why it happened. They have a
guilty conscience. To accept the link meant that the pro-war politicians
and newspaper editors were, at the very least, partially responsible....(full
article)
Making Sense of Terrorism
A US diplomat mused over the surrender of
the organs of the US government to the Pentagon. The official arrived at a
rationalization: “I just wake up in the morning and tell myself, ‘There’s
been a military coup,’ and then it all makes sense.” Sensible or not,
people exposed to the lethality of US empire are dying with no near end in
sight and there has been no let up in the Iraqi resistance or, as the
London bombings indicate, the war on terror. Why it happened does not
require anything beyond Stegosaurian cognition. As one Iraqi doctor
related, “The U.S. induces aggression. If you don’t attack me, I will
never attack you. The U.S. is stimulating the aggression of the Iraqi
people!” UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has correctly identified an “extreme
and evil ideology” lying at the root of the terror. Where the mendacious
Blair erred is exclusively ascribing a “poisonous misinterpretation of the
religion of Islam” as being the root cause of the terror. The root cause
is rather the insidious ideology of capitalism that spawns imperialism,
exploitation, and usurpation of wealth by a few people....(full
article)
Blame the Democrats & Move On: The
Federalist Court Judge John G. Roberts of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has been nominated to replace Sandra Day O’Conner as the pivotal member of the Supreme Court. Who is John Roberts? By all accounts, he is a very conservative and brilliant lawyer who will rise to a position of elite power at the age of 50. Most importantly, he is a favored son of the Federalist Society and he will be confirmed....(full article)
With all of
the hullabaloo focused on CAFTA, Washington is moving ahead with a new
police training facility in a troubled Central American country.
As
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice astonishes the world by
repeatedly describing El Salvador as a “democracy,” she announced at this
year’s Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly in Ft.
Lauderdale (June 5–7) that plans are underway to develop an International
Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador. The school would yearly
enroll as many as 1,500 students from various hemispheric countries.
Negotiations for the ILEA come during a period when cooperation among
Central American nations on matters of national and international security
is already at an all time high. The Salvadoran Ombudsperson for Human
Rights, Dr. Beatrice de Carrillo, and the Popular Social Block (BPS), a
group led by a Lutheran pastor in El Salvador, are at the head of protests
against the launching of the controversial U.S. facility as well as the
overall expansion of U.S. influence in the country. Today, El Salvador is
the consummate Central American Banana Republic....(full
article)
Nicaragua: A Three-Way Political
Battleground In February, a new political group was formed in Managua called the Movement for Nicaragua. Some 500 irate citizens, calling themselves non-partisan, rallied under the banner “Tomorrow is too late,” and called upon the people to “rescue” their country that had been “hijacked” by the country’s leftist and rightist party bosses (“Caudillos”) former President Daniel Ortega, of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), and former President Arnoldo Aleman, of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC)....(full article)
Now that a jury of what I can only imagine
to be his peers -- a jury composed of fine, upstanding Vermonters -- has
sentenced convicted murderer
Donald Fell to death for the 2000 slaying of “North Clarendon
grandmother Terry King,” I think it’s time to take a closer look at this
“culture of life” everyone keeps talking about. By “everyone,” I mean the
righteous, the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” people. Mainly, these
are “fundamentalist” Christians, who believe -- no matter which
“testament” it comes from and no matter when, where or by whom the texts
were translated -- that the published Bible is the "literal" word of God.
You can’t argue with people like that and I don’t see why anyone would
try. It is their job not to think. They most certainly should never be
allowed on juries....
It
appears that Mr. Thomas Friedman has a Muslim problem. He has a great deal
of trouble thinking straight when writing about Muslims; and, as The
New York Times’ resident expert on Islam, he displays this malaise
frequently, often twice a week.
In the wake of the recent
bombings in London -- as atrocious as bombings get anywhere -- Mr.
Friedman sums up his thoughts on this terrible tragedy in the title of his
column of July 8, 2005, “If it’s a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim
Solution.” The conditional ‘If’ is merely a distraction. I could say that
it is a deceptive ploy, but I will be more charitable. It is perhaps the
last gasp of Mr. Friedman’s conscience, mortified by his own
mendacity....(full article)
Fire Sulzberger and Judith Miller for WMD
Hoax
(article link has been fixed) Now that the Michael Jackson trial is over, a horde of mass media analysts have a little spare time to pour over every last detail of the Plame scandal. Yet, a little scrutiny reveals that these are the same media lads that played a critical role in marketing the WMD hoax. Their new game plan is to drown the public in an ocean of tangential details instead of concentrating on Wilson’s alarming contention that “intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” They want the whole affair to become a replay of the ‘stain on the dress’ to avoid dealing with the ‘stain on the press.’....(full article)
Karl Rove could be in a lot of trouble if what journalist Murray Waas has written is true. In a web exclusive for the American Prospect, Waas contends "Rove did not disclose that he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during Rove's first interview with the FBI, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter…. The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them, the sources said." f this revelation is in fact correct, Rove could be indicted under 18 U.S.C. 1001 for obstruction of justice -- or what us laypeople have aptly coined the "Martha Stewart Crime." Indeed, if Waas's sources are accurate, the Bush administration could be in a world of hurt -- for Rove wouldn't even have to be the actual leaker to be indicted. Fact is, he wouldn't have to have done anything more than what he is already claiming he did....(full article)
As the Gaza withdrawal unfolds in the next few months and much is made of Israel's decision to move unilaterally, the specter of real peace is nowhere on the horizon. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's successful bullying of the legislative agenda and appeasement of the settlement lobby has been carried through from the beginning as a fait accompli. Sharon has been a master at buying time from the US in order to implement an aggressive settlement policy in East Jerusalem and the West Bank....(full article)
As Freud once said, “Sometimes an idea is
just an idea.” (That would be Fred Freud, my neighbor.) My plan to
inspire one million pissed-off Americans (the “madder’n hells”) to descend
upon the U.S. Capitol on September 26, demand Congress hold hearings on
the Downing
Street Memos (DSM), and then attend said hearings while re-swarming
the building daily, has met an early demise. ‘Tis sad, but true: the
madder’n hells are deader’n hell....
July 18
Another Casualty in Rumsfeld’s
Information War Another chapter was added to Donald Rumsfeld’s booklet of “Information warfare” on Saturday when blogger Khalid Jarrar was picked up by Iraqi Secret Service (Mukhabarat) agents and taken to an undisclosed location. Jarrar has not been formally charged with a crime, but he is author of a popular blog, Tell Me a Secret, that provides valuable information to people outside of Iraq who are curious to know the real details of the ongoing crisis....(full article)
The Army National Guard, faced by extended tours of duty in Iraq, didn’t meet its recruitment quota. So in 2004, it began a multimillion-dollar direct mail advertising campaign. One of those targeted was Petra Gass, a resident of rural northeastern Pennsylvania, who received a full-color 12-inch by 17-inch tri-fold telling her in bold capitals that she could be “the most important weapon in the war on terrorism.” Gass says she doesn’t know how she got onto the database that generated her name. She does know she has no plans to join the Guard. Petra Gass is a 50-year-old German citizen. A little known provision of the No Child Left Behind Act, signed by President Bush in 2001, requires all public high schools to provide to the Department of Defense the names, ages, phone numbers, and addresses of all males. The government has the data for about 4.5 million high school students. Few parents are aware the data is routinely provided to the government; even fewer are aware they have the right to “opt-out” by signing a form that prohibits the school district from sending personal information to the Department of Defense....(full article)
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and
senior advisor to President Clinton, takes on Norman Solomon of the
Institute for Public Accuracy and author of
War Made Easy:
How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death on Iraq, the
Democrats, the invasion of Iraq and much more....
Tony Blair has the virtue of consistency -- in public, anyway. Immediately following the recent terrorist atrocities in London, he did not hesitate to claim, “It is through terrorism that the people that have committed this terrible act express their values . . . When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed....” [emphasis mine] Blair sharpened the point when questioned in the House of Commons on July 12, saying, “It is a form of terrorism aimed at our way of life, not at any particular government or policy.” This is in direct contradiction, however, to the conclusions in a leaked British government report titled “Young Muslims and Extremism,” which appeared last weekend in the Sunday Times of London. Like the Downing Street memos, this leaked document is very much at odds with the Blair government’s public pronouncements. The Times’ front-page story included the following highly pertinent comments....(full article)
The U.S. employment services sector is projected to have a 4.4 percent average annual rate of growth through 2012, states the Bureau of Labor Statistics. People who toil in that sector are usually called temporary workers. Against that backdrop, economic recovery means many things. One thing can be more hiring opportunities for temporary employees in the U.S. In the current phase of the business cycle, American employers are increasing their hiring of temporary workers, slowly. The demand for such employment had dropped in the recession of 2001 that followed the stock market slide. For employers, the basic virtue of temporary employees is their flexibility. What makes them this way is the shaky nature of their employment. Are we talking labor union representation here? (full article)
Looks like Karl Rove did break the law, the same federal
law that got Martha Stewart sentenced to six months in prison. It now
appears that Rove, President Bush's chief of staff, may have lied to the
FBI in October 2003 -- a federal crime -- when he was questioned by
federal agents investigating who was responsible for leaking information
about a covert CIA operative to the media. During questioning by the FBI
about his role in the Plame affair, Rove told federal agents that he only
started sharing information about Plame with reporters and White House
officials for the first time after conservative columnist Robert Novak
identified her covert CIA status in his column on July 14, 2003, according
to
a report in the American Prospect about Rove's testimony in
March 2004. But Rove wasn't truthful with the FBI what with the recent
disclosure of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper's e-mails,
which reveal Rove as the source for Cooper's own July 2003 story
identifying Plame as a CIA operative, and show that Rove spoke to Cooper
nearly a week before Novak's column was published and, according to
previously published news reports, spoke to a half-dozen other reporters
about Plame as early as June 2003....(full
article)
Is Sulzberger Hiding Judith Miller in Jail? So, who would know more about Valerie Plame? Karl Rove or Judith Miller and her neo-con pals at the Office of Special Plans? Did Rove leak on Miller or did Miller leak on Rove? Why would a hatchet man and a publicist like Rove be privy to the identity of an undercover Pentagon agent? Rove is a prankster and a world-class expert in orchestrating smear campaigns. But Miller is The New York Times expert on WMDs who spent years sleeping with the OSP and Ahmed Chalabi. The OSP actually used to cite Miller’s articles as reliable sources of information on Iraq’s weapons programs. She was, after all, the expert who authored Germs -- a bible whose passages were regularly cited as gospel truth by the neo-con War Party....(full article)
Tyranny has very few indispensable parts: a compliant media that will regulate information to meet the goals of the state; a “rubber-stamp” Parliament that will endorse the policies of the supreme leader; a judiciary that will adjust the law to serve the requirements of the ruling body, a strong military to seize the wealth of weaker nations; and a security apparatus, that will eliminate any domestic threats to the system. On June 29 President Bush took the great leap forward in transforming the nation’s intelligence services by ordering a restructuring of the FBI and putting “a broad swath of the agency” under the direct control of the executive. Bingo -- Bush’s personal secret police: an American Gestapo....(full article)
The U.S. Army general widely considered the “architect” of abusive prisoner interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and in Afghanistan used “creative” and “aggressive” tactics, but did not practice torture or violate law or Pentagon policy. Despite the recommendations of military investigators, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey C. Miller will not be reprimanded -- thus bringing to a close what could be the last of 15 separate investigations into detainee abuse....(full article)
First it was folk singer Yusuf Islam, better known as Cat Stevens, who was denied entry into the United States, and now we have internationally renowned British Muslim scholar Dr. Zaki Badawi, who this week was also denied entry and sent back to the UK. Popular Muslims aren't popular in | |
Two
Profiles of a Pathological Asshole