Follow the Money

Comment on today's David Brooks column in the New York Times

2010-01-26T09:16:00.001-05:00

Written in response to "The Populist Addiction"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/opinion/26brooks.html

by
Jason Crowson

Texas

January 26th, 2010

7:42 am

Wow. I am continually utterly amazed at Mr. Brooks. If there was ever a writer who spends more time hiding what he truly believes, I have never read him.

Somewhere in Mr. Brooks' past there is a fantastic writing professor, perhaps several, and Mr. Brooks himself no doubt brings his own stroke of genius to the keyboard.

Most writers spend an entire essay proving their point. Mr. Brooks seems to spend the majority of his lulling his readers into a false sense of affinity, as if they too could believe and think the way he believes and thinks.

After luring them in, he then gently sets the hook, nothing more than a flick of the wrist: yes now you can side with the most ultraconservative members of society and feel like you are a moderate. Congratulations.

And among it all, larger than life, looming like some great shadow because a huge unknown object is blocking light that would normally beam upon the subject matter are the topics Mr. Brooks precisely omits.

Make no mistake about it, my friends: if you are black, you would still be enslaved if others had not been willing to fight and die for your freedom; if you are a woman who votes, thank the women who fought and died to get that right to vote; if you're an American child who gets to go to school instead of working 16 hours a day for slave wages, thank the children of history who joined the fight and, yes, died so that you can go to school; if you enjoy weekends off, thank the workers who fought and died for your rights to have weekends off; if you have an over active bladder and urinate 12 times a day while at work, again, thank the workers who fought and died for your right to take bathroom breaks.

This is not some esoteric subject drifting in the ether. It boils down to bodily functions, political rights you are losing, and jobs that allow human beings to earn a living and maintain their dignity and integrity.

It's not a matter of feigning a maneuver into some non-existent middle ground where you can discredit people who are trying to make your life better while just as slyly buttressing the arguments of people who have worked not just for decades but for centuries to make America a country of slaves and wealthy.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Mr. Brooks we all know the history of President Lincoln and Mr. Hamilton. Thank you very much. This has nothing to do with either of them. It has everything to do with Theodore Roosevelt creating national parks while regulating the robber barons whom he berated verbosely and publicly. It has everything to do with the New Deal and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's regulations of the financial industry and establishing the social and economic safety nets that allowed the American middle class to thrive for much of the twentieth century. And it has everything to do with the rise of the robber barons once again, in a different guise, with different leaders, with different economic buzzwords, and how these neo-robber barons have worked incredibly hard to dismantle all of the Roosevelts' legacies and dreams.

The neo-robber barons have succeeded brilliantly. Now it's time for the pendulum to swing in the other direction.

Keep writing, Mr. Brooks. Your skill is astounding, your subtly profound, your subterfuge always astonishing and brilliant.

2009-12-09T18:28:00.002-05:00

Open letter to Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravensthal

2009-09-29T11:23:00.001-04:00

Steeler Nation
Liberty, NC
September 29, 2009

Mayor Luke Steelerstahl
Deep in a Secure Bunker
Pittsburgh, PA 15xxx

Dear Mayor Steelersthal,

WOW! GREAT JOB, KIDDO! You really helped show the local population that PITTSBURGH IS A WINNER! A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE! Who doesn’t want to stay in a city overrun by NINJA TURTLES! You should sell riot cop action figures – seriously! It’ll be great for revenue!

AW MAN! I liked the part when that BIG ARMY TRUCK came out and that ROBOT VOICE came on and it was "WE REPRESENT THE IMPERIAL FORCE. YOU WILL BE ARRESTED. DON’T FUCK WITH US”. And then the protesters were like “Nah ah. We have a right to stand here. It’s in the Constitution yinz dumb jagoffs.” And then the ninja turles were all, PSHEW! PSHEW!! WOOWOOWOOWOO! And there goes the gas canisters PSSSSHHHSHSHHS! And kids are all coughing and trying to get away, but the ninja turtles were all “NAH AH” and start beating up women with batons and shit. TOTALLY AWESOME!!!

So I’d like to thank you personally for radicalizing (RADICAL!!!) hundreds and possibly thousands of residents and students in my hometown of Pittsburgh. Those Citizens of Pittsburgh who generally had a vague idea of the G20 being another way for the powers that be to screw us over, now clearly understand that not only does the G20 stand for economic violence on the bottom 99% of the world, but it stands for direct physical violence, NINJA TURTLES!!, theft and imprisonment and a total disregard for the law of the land, the US Constitution, to anyone who speaks out against it, or happens to reside in Pittsburgh and wants to get around their neighborhood or their campus or go to work and earn money. PSHEW! PSHEW!! BOOM!!!

(You see, working people don’t have piles of money they can live on and it means we have to work, like every day, and can’t just take two days off while the mayor shuts down the city to pimp it out to world leaders. But you don’t give a fuck anyway so why try to explain it.)

Direct violence from power in the form of NINJA TURTLES! is not something that a good segment our population here in the United States goes through, including white college kids, like you and me once were. If they only had a vague idea that the Iraq war or the war in Vietnam weren’t such good ideas, that all went out the window and the way the world really works becomes crystal clear when they get beaten on their own campus, hassled by POLICE NINJA TURTLES! wherever they go, or trapped in a stairwell by riot police and gassed. (Watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZT3O5m0Eis) GREAT LESSON MAYOR!! YOU SHOULD BAY A TEACHER DAHN CCAC!

In the Post-Gazette, you said ( I know, reading the newspaper is boring, but they have GARFIELD!):

"As a group, the police responded admirably," he said, pledging an internal evaluation of what went right and wrong on the streets during and shortly after the summit.

"We kept our city safe," he said while sending "a message to the out-of-town anarchists that this is our town."

What about the out-of-town police, who were far more violent than a couple of broken windows? Show me one cop with cuts and bruises from the protestors! You knew it was going to happen, that’s why you bought a $10 million insurance policy to protect against policy brutality and unlawful arrest lawsuits, just like the cities that hosted the political conventions. In fact I’m sure you consulted with the same people they did….PSHEW PSHEW!! ACTION! EXPLOSIONS! RIOTS!

And I wonder what that “evaluation” of yours is gonna turn up? I have a little evaluation of you Mayor Steelerstahl: Your goofy ass should be fired and thrown in a federal prison for violating the US Constitution. That won’t happen though because you’re still covered in semen from all the world leaders you fellated at the expense of the city.

GAS CANISTERS!! LAHD NOISES! BATONS!! NINJA FUCKING TURTLES!!!!!!!!

Pittsburghers have never taken shit from power and if you think you have a problem with some young anarchists from out-a-tahn, you’re going to have a bigger problem from residents and students who are pissed off at you and can now see the little machine you run for exactly what it is – a whorehouse that pimps out Pittsburgh to the highest bidder.

Go Steelers,
-Brian Gallagher
Former Pittsburgh Citizen
Now member of Steeler Nation

(you can flood the Pittsburgh Police Tip Form with your complaints about police brutality that you've experienced, read about or seen on Youtube here: http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/police/html/police_tip_form.html

Letter to Senator Max Baucus (D)-Montana

2009-07-25T22:26:00.000-04:00

Letter to Senator Max Baucus (D)-Montana

The following letter was emailed to Senator Max Baucus on the below date via this link http://baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue ...........

7/25/09

Dear Senator Max Baucus,

You kinda look like Peter Fonda. Did anyone ever tell you that?

Peter Fonda was in a movie called Easy Rider. It’s from your era, the hippy/baby boomer era, so you and your fellow senior citizens probably know it well. Anyway, the premise of the movie is Wyatt or “Captain America” (Peter Fonda) and his friend Billy (Dennis Hopper) make a million dollars in the free market by buying cocaine from a bunch of poor Mexicans and selling it to Phil Spector, a wealthy American, who needed so much cocaine because he has such a huge nose, I suppose.

So he and Billy take that money, roll it up, stick it in a tube and insert it into the hole of Peter Fonda’s American Flag teardrop gas tank on his famous chopper, to hide the dirty money. I have the DVD of Easy Rider, and there’s a commetary on there with Dennis Hopper, who said that scene with the tube thrust into the American flag gas tank was deliberately symbolic of the American Dream being fucked with the almighty dollar, obtained from drug money.

Do you enjoy fucking? A man of your stature would never admit to it, because there's some strange status quo that leaders shouldn't have penises. And forget balls too, because to even need balls you must have convictions.

And that’s for the best, because thinking about old hippies fucking is disgusting to most people, especially us young people who aren’t from the Hippy Era and are under the age of 60 and enjoy practicing hygiene… But what I’m getting at is, your name reminds me of “Bacchus”, the Roman god of wine and music and partying and orgies. Bacchus was said to engage in three-day-long drunken orgies…..

Speaking of three-day-long orgies, I want to get tickets to come party with you at “Camp Baucus” in Big Sky, Montana on the weekend beginning July 31, but I’m concerned about the activity that will go on there. The invitation says “fly fishing, golf and horseback riding”. Honestly, that sounds boring to me. Are those euphemisms for some weird kind of rich-people fucking that we in the unwashed masses never get to participate in? Oh well. On it’s face, that sounds like the kind of activity rich old men like to engage in with their nagging wives and spoiled children.

What about guns, dope and fucking in the streets? Will that go on at Camp Baucus? If not, you fucking hippies are certainly getting bland in this day and age.

But I know you, Senator Max Baucus from the great state of Montana, are into hardcore fisting. How else would AHIP have gotten that hand so far up your ass when you use their exact rhetoric about finding a “uniquely American solution” to the health care crises. Exactly how much lube did that take? I bet it was $2500 worth of lube. Awww yeah.

We all know “a uniquely American solution” doesn’t mean widespread civil disobedience and revolution and all that kind of kick-ass shit that I like, it means a solution where stupid old rich fucks can continue to get together and engage in their bland, fly fishing, big money, politician-fistin’ orgies, for the purpose of keeping policy in place so they can continue to profit off of denying coverage to sick and dying people.

You sounded like Porky Pig when Great Falls Tribune capitol bureau chief John S. Adams interviewed you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDR-oOVFRI) about single payer healthcare and asked what you’ve done to oppose insurance and pharma companies. Your response: “Badee badee badee dip dip pay premiums, badee dip dip don’t like it!”

At the end of Easy Rider, right before the freedom loving pair Wyatt and Billy are shot by rednecks, and right after they engage in a bacchinal LSD and alcohol fueled orgy during Mardi Gras in a New Orleans cemetary (the type of orgies you can relate to- rich men fucking the poor in the ass - are going on there today), Billy is still happy about the money, about their situation living free out on the open road “retired in Florida, mister!”

But Wyatt tells him: “We blew it.”

Wyatt and Billy could have built up new communities with that money, could have taken care of sick rebels, could have helped out struggling farmer-individualists, but instead they just wanted to take their money and party at Camp Bacchus, just like you’re doing now with your millions in health industry contributions, while people who don’t have access to that kind of money get sick and die unneccesarily.

Have your fun, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat from Montana, with fucking the Ameircan dream in the ass with drug money.

You blew it, motherfucker.

Love,
Sloover

Catholic church kicks out a raped 9-year old, but not the rapist

2009-03-30T19:31:00.000-04:00

Vatican defends Brazil excommunication

March 8, 2009, 6:40 am

A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the
mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in
Brazil after being raped.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church's
Congregation for Bishops, told the daily La Stampa on Saturday that the
twins the girl had been carrying had a right to live.

"It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived
were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be
eliminated," he said.

Re, who also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America,
added: "Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian
church is unjustified."

The row was triggered by the termination on Wednesday of twin
foetuses carried by a nine-year-old allegedly raped by her stepfather
in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

The regional archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, pronounced
excommunication for the mother for authorising the operation and
doctors who carried it out for fear that the slim girl would not
survive carrying the foetuses to term.

"God's law is above any human law. So when a human law ... is
contrary to God's law, this human law has no value," Cardoso had said.

He also said the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the
church. Although the man allegedly committed "a heinous crime ... the
abortion - the elimination of an innocent life - was more serious".

more here:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5375029/vatican-defends-brazil-excommunication/

archaeologists

2009-02-17T08:34:00.000-05:00

updates

2007-08-01T09:41:00.000-04:00

In the last month I've been updating my myspace page only - I'll probably get back to simulcasting (simulblogging) on this here one.

http://blog.myspace.com/sloover

Did I mention I hate NPR?

2007-06-29T16:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Sloover,

Thank you for contacting NPR's Morning Edition.

We regret that our programming has not met your expectations. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal.

We welcome praise, as well as criticism, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration.

Thank you for listening to Morning Edition, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.

Sincerely,

Justin
NPR Services
(202)513-3232
www.npr.org

-------------- Original Text -----------------
Date : 6/27/2007 10:34:23 AM
Thanks for that hard hitting piece of journalism covering the topic the American people are instructed to be most concerned with - John Edwards's hair. Its becoming more and more the kind of thing I expect from such respectable media outlets as Morning Edition, Good Morning America and the National Enquirer.

Divide and Conquer part 2

2007-06-26T14:11:00.002-04:00

Pasted from http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/06/cnn-blows-it-truth-told-about-gaza.html

Nir Rosen (Angry journalist) on CNN (thanks Nir):
"NIR ROSEN, JOURNALIST: Well, it already did. We created a civil war. This is actually outrageous. Outgoing U.N. envoy to the Middle East peace process, Alvaro De Soto, himself accused the U.S. of fomenting a civil war by training, funding and arming Fatah thugs and inserting them into Gaza to destabilize the Hamas government. We never gave them a chance. They were democratically elected in an election that was widely recognized as free and fair, even by former President Jimmy Carter. And then the U.S., along with Israel, Jordan and Egypt trained these gangs and actually put them in Gaza to overthrow the Hamas government. And, of course, it's actually backfired and Fatah was overthrown. But all you're going to do is isolate and further radicalize Hamas. And so when you say that the U.S. is seeking to ease tensions in the Middle East, I disagree with you. These are tensions that the U.S. actually created in the Middle East.
ROBERTS: Nir, I mean what are you talking about, we have Fatah thugs being sent into the country to wage war with Hamas.
ROSEN: Well, they were trained by the U.S. General Dayton (ph), our envoy to the peace process, was responsible for a program, along with Elliot Abrams (ph), the deputy national security adviser for the Middle East, and they actually trained Fatah in the West Banks. The Jordanian special forces created the Fatah Badr brigade. The Egyptians, as well, trained Fatah in Egypt. The United Arab Emirates actually sent money and arms. And then they were allowed to enter Gaza and then began to attack Hamas. I mean this was an existential threat to a democratically elected government. What we've done is overthrow a government that was elected. The U.S. . . ."

Divide and Conquer part 2

2007-06-26T14:11:00.001-04:00

Pasted from http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/06/cnn-blows-it-truth-told-about-gaza.html

Nir Rosen (Angry journalist) on CNN (thanks Nir):
"NIR ROSEN, JOURNALIST: Well, it already did. We created a civil war. This is actually outrageous. Outgoing U.N. envoy to the Middle East peace process, Alvaro De Soto, himself accused the U.S. of fomenting a civil war by training, funding and arming Fatah thugs and inserting them into Gaza to destabilize the Hamas government. We never gave them a chance. They were democratically elected in an election that was widely recognized as free and fair, even by former President Jimmy Carter. And then the U.S., along with Israel, Jordan and Egypt trained these gangs and actually put them in Gaza to overthrow the Hamas government. And, of course, it's actually backfired and Fatah was overthrown. But all you're going to do is isolate and further radicalize Hamas. And so when you say that the U.S. is seeking to ease tensions in the Middle East, I disagree with you. These are tensions that the U.S. actually created in the Middle East.
ROBERTS: Nir, I mean what are you talking about, we have Fatah thugs being sent into the country to wage war with Hamas.
ROSEN: Well, they were trained by the U.S. General Dayton (ph), our envoy to the peace process, was responsible for a program, along with Elliot Abrams (ph), the deputy national security adviser for the Middle East, and they actually trained Fatah in the West Banks. The Jordanian special forces created the Fatah Badr brigade. The Egyptians, as well, trained Fatah in Egypt. The United Arab Emirates actually sent money and arms. And then they were allowed to enter Gaza and then began to attack Hamas. I mean this was an existential threat to a democratically elected government. What we've done is overthrow a government that was elected. The U.S. . . ."

Divide and Conquer part 2

2007-06-26T14:11:00.000-04:00

Pasted from http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/06/cnn-blows-it-truth-told-about-gaza.html

Nir Rosen (Angry journalist) on CNN (thanks Nir):
"NIR ROSEN, JOURNALIST: Well, it already did. We created a civil war. This is actually outrageous. Outgoing U.N. envoy to the Middle East peace process, Alvaro De Soto, himself accused the U.S. of fomenting a civil war by training, funding and arming Fatah thugs and inserting them into Gaza to destabilize the Hamas government. We never gave them a chance. They were democratically elected in an election that was widely recognized as free and fair, even by former President Jimmy Carter. And then the U.S., along with Israel, Jordan and Egypt trained these gangs and actually put them in Gaza to overthrow the Hamas government. And, of course, it's actually backfired and Fatah was overthrown. But all you're going to do is isolate and further radicalize Hamas. And so when you say that the U.S. is seeking to ease tensions in the Middle East, I disagree with you. These are tensions that the U.S. actually created in the Middle East.
ROBERTS: Nir, I mean what are you talking about, we have Fatah thugs being sent into the country to wage war with Hamas.
ROSEN: Well, they were trained by the U.S. General Dayton (ph), our envoy to the peace process, was responsible for a program, along with Elliot Abrams (ph), the deputy national security adviser for the Middle East, and they actually trained Fatah in the West Banks. The Jordanian special forces created the Fatah Badr brigade. The Egyptians, as well, trained Fatah in Egypt. The United Arab Emirates actually sent money and arms. And then they were allowed to enter Gaza and then began to attack Hamas. I mean this was an existential threat to a democratically elected government. What we've done is overthrow a government that was elected. The U.S. . . ."

Divide and Conquer

2007-06-13T13:41:00.000-04:00

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/US_confirms_it_arming_Sunni_insurgents_0610.html

US confirms it is arming Sunni insurgents

American officers acknowledge that it is arming some groups that are suspected to have been involved in American attacks as well as link to Al Qaeda. Some American officers maintain they are simply arming both sides of a civil war.

Textbook imperialism. And most people outside the US can see it.

Hillary fundraiser shut down!

2007-06-01T13:41:00.000-04:00

Hell yeah! This is part of Project Hound the Democrats to their Graves. Way to be people!

http://www.ktvu.com/print/13425757/detail.html

Cindy Sheehan letter

2007-05-30T08:57:00.000-04:00

I haven't followed Cindy Sheehan's activism that closely, but from what I did observe her understanding of the issues and message became more and more intelligent and clear as time went on.

In her "resignation letter" she touches on a few points that I have been trying to make, and Arthur Silber has been making quite clearly about Democrats and the anti-war non-movement:

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party...However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on....

...Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives...

...I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won't work with that group; he won't attend an event if she is going to be there...

...However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children's children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself...

...I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America…you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it. ...

These are very sober, accurate conclusions. You cannot function as a selfless, compassionate person if by the very way you have to feed yourself is by functioning within a system based on greed and selfishness.

I cannot emphasize enough that getting out of the old system and creating a new one is what Sloover for President 2008 is all about. The way to get out is through small reforms. The way to build a new system is to organize and operate independent of the crown.

On Sheehan from the San Fransisco Chronicle, answer to the question, "Was Cindy Sheehan an effective anti-war leader?":

Quinton Kruse, Santa Rosa

Well, she was about the only one that stepped up. I didn't care for her approach personally, but I guess nothing ever happens until it happens to you. If you want to see a real anti-war movement, bring back the draft.

Endless War Part 2

2007-05-30T08:55:00.000-04:00

Is there still any doubt in your mind that the United States government is not looking out for your "life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness", and in fact has become "destructive of these ends," and that it is our right and prudent course of action to rise up, kick ass, and "alter or abolish it and institute new government"?

Are there any shadows of doubts left about Democrats being anything other than the "left" wing of the ONE corporate party now? Because this is their war too. All the motherfucking way. They are funding it, they aren't doing anything about stopping it, and motherfuckers like Harry Reid continue to lie to us about what's in the bill, and what anyone can read about in the bill. With very few exceptions, the Democrats are 100% on board with the Bush administration. They do not care what the people of this country think. And what about what the people of Iraq think? Hahahaha, funny. The Democratic Party continues to help George Bush, their ally, rob us of our tax dollars to fund Operation Secure Markets for Multinational Government Connected Corporations. And this is exactly what's happening, if you care enough to follow the money. Iraq's oil, their most lucrative resource, is now available to be privatized, taken over by multinational companies such as Kellogg, Brown and Root. It was never about "us" controlling their oil. It was always about a few multinational companies controlling it, and also with endless war there are endless government contracts to companies who used to be staffed by current top-level government officials. There's nothing difficult about understanding the reasons the US government has been in Iraq for four years. And less and less people are buying the nonsense about protecting American citizens from terrorism. Do I have to even explain this one again? Endless war endlessly manufactures anti-Ameircan terrorists: it's obvious, it's happening, many and top intelligence officials have admitted as much.

Yet the Democrats continue to fund their beloved war that they have supported from the beginning. And it's the last time I'm voting for any of them. They are a bunch of self-serving assholes who don't give a shit if their policy promotes terrorism. They love terrorism. This is a War to Manufacture Terrorism. Just like the War on Drugs manufactures drugs.

This is dedicated to the Plan-Colombia-enacting, NAFTA-signing, Iraq-War-Loving Democrats:

Endless War Part 1

2007-05-30T08:54:00.000-04:00

Arthur Silber replies to other similar commentaries:

"Notice anything missing? Oh, it's nothing much. Nothing very important. Only a few small details.

Over 650,000 dead Iraqis, the overwhelming majority of whom never threatened or harmed the U.S., or even wished to. The number is probably much closer to one million now.

A completely devastated and destroyed country, which huge numbers of people have been forced to flee, and to which they may never be able to return.

And all this with regard to a country that had not attacked us, and that did not threaten us. We had a choice: by definition, we were not compelled, by facts, or morality, or history, or by any other factor, to initiate a criminal war of aggression, an offensive war similar in principle to Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland, a pattern most of our national leaders continually announce they may well repeat with Iran.

The Iraqis -- the dead, mutilated, maimed, and displaced Iraqis -- did not have a choice."

My first campaign commercial

2007-05-21T13:48:00.000-04:00

Kinky Friedman already took "Why the Hell Not?" so I think "We're coming, motherfuckers" is a pretty cool second choice.

George Monbiot on Democracy Now

2007-05-21T13:47:00.001-04:00

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/18/1429219

Ron Paul tells the truth

2007-05-21T13:46:00.001-04:00

The truth? How daarrrre you! This is a presidential debate!!! You can't be telling the truth! Get in line with the rest of the Republican dipshits like Giuliani, and repeat the lie that people hate the United States for absolutely no reason.

Speaking of extremists who target the U.S, Paul said, "They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East [for years]. I think (Ronald) Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is bigger than theVatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting."

Bill Moyers interviews Jon Stewart

2007-05-21T13:45:00.001-04:00

Jon Stewart interview with Bill Moyers, with some great footage of John McCain's Daily Show appearance, where he's actually question. .

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/watch.html

part 1:

part 2:

Here's a video of war protestors getting arrested at another Democrats' office

2007-05-09T13:14:00.001-04:00

Okay, the singing is a little retarded, but it's San Fransisco. Code Pink is kinda dorky, but they're old. But they have the right idea. At least they are trying to physically DO something.

Charges dropped for Chapel Hill SDS

2007-05-09T09:26:00.000-04:00

As usual, there is a bunch of finger wagging at people actually trying to oppose the war with direct action and civil disobedience. And I suspect a lot of that finger wagging is coming from the "blue" tribe.

Do you want to know a fact? It's not discussed on television because reality is generally uncomfortable and not usually very profitable: most Americans don't give a shit about the current wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. They don't have family there, or friends, nor do they REALLY give a shit how many soldiers are killed, much less Iraqi civilians, and as long as there is not an immediate physical threat, they can slap that pro or antiwar bumper sticker on their cars and put it out of their minds.

Maybe I'm not in tune with their world, but I've given a shit since the beginning. Not only because I knew friends and family would be in these countries, but because I actually give a fuck about the long term consequences of the actions of our government. I don't know why I give a fuck. I would give a fuck if I had no friends and family "over there". Even though it makes the war more real to me having physically lost a friend there, I would give a fuck even if I didn't know anybody in Iraq, even if it wasn't my country that's going to shit because of a completely bought and paid for government, operating with the illusion of an effective system of checks and balances.

I don't even see the point in criticising the pro-war crowd anymore. Many of them have been convinced, and the rest obviously cannot be convinced. My problem is with people against the war, who realize the terrible consequences, who think loss of life whether American or Iraqi is needless and terrible, who see that it's leading our country and the world with it down into a hellhole, yet, who not only refuse to DO anything about it, but have hostile reactions to any group trying to actually, physically DO SOMETHING TO STOP THE WAR.

From what I can gather, liberals like direct action and civil disobedience, and stopping war, as long as it follows these parameters:

1. Only people in elementary school history books are allowed to have engaged in civil disobedience (never mind that plenty of fingers were wagged at them). People who engage in civil disobedience now pale in comparison to those who engaged in civil disobedience in the past, who are accepted as part of mainstream American history. I mean come on, we can clearly see the positive consequences of their actions. They never made one mistake, misspoke, or had problems with communicating their message. Everybody in past movements agreed with each other on everything, and we moved forward peacefully to a more glorious society.

2. The only accepted forms of protest are those which are silent and nondisruptive. You must only write polite letters to your representatives and a newspaper owned by a media conglomerate, even if the people who read those letters only pay attention to what you have to say if you've included cash in the envelope. And letters should be as historically significant as Letter from a Birmingham jail. Oh, and pushing a button next to a Democrat's name every two years is different from pushing a button next to a Republican's name, even if their foreign policy platform is identical.

3. Democrats can go on with their policy, shared with the Republicans, of hegemony at all costs, of forcing markets all over the world whether they are wanted or not, and the upper crust liberals can go on worshipping their Obamas and Hillarys because, even though they almost mirror George Bush in matters of foreign policy, they are from the blue tribe, so when they become president all will be well in America, and their atrocities are to be forgiven, because they are better on healthcare.

4. Any ideas not discussed on television are radical.

5. Holding signs and going to a protest is cool! Like we did in the 60s, man! As long as you have a permit, and it doesn't accomplishing anything, or disrupt the flow of traffic, or make anyone too mad, or disrupt the political sport of red vs. blue, then go ahead.

6. A guy who voted several times to fund a corrupt and illegal war crime is okay as long as he's a Democrat.

7. Calling the Iraq War an illegal war crime is crazy and radical. Do you ever see anyone on TV talking like that? Come on! Hey, the US never has intentions that are less than noble. We wanted democracy in Iraq. George Bush just messed it up. A democrat would have installed a stable puppet by now.

That is what is considered "the left" in America by people who buy into mainstream media arguments.

Responding to someone who said of the SDS "they wanted to be arrested", which might be true and I commend them for it. Everybody should be getting arrested at the offices of government officials, and I'm ashamed I haven't yet...

If they wanted to be arrested, then obviously they knew their actions had consequences. A class 2 misdemeanor carries a maximum consequence of $500, which, if they were so inclined, they could have chosen not to pay and maybe gone to jail for a few days.

To my knowledge the SDS didn’t ask anyone to drop any charges.

Democrats are slightly better than Republicans, but not much different, and despite what the media has been saying about the recent “withdrawal” bill, they aren’t offering any real alternatives to Bush’s policy. We’re never withdrawing from Iraq without massive public pressure. If young men and women are willing to die for Bush’s war crimes, just as many should be willing to spend a few days in a cell or pay a couple hundred dollars in fines to make trouble for members of Congress.

From what I can tell the SDS is one of the only groups doing anything effective in actually trying to STOP the fucking war. Nobody else seems to give a shit, as long as there’s not immediate physical threat to their comfy, upper crust Orange County lifestyles.

Arthur Silber explains Democrat position on Iran & US Hegemony

2007-05-08T11:22:00.000-04:00

Please do yourself a favor and read Arthur Silber regularly. This is not your run of the mill "blog" by any means.

Make no mistake: there is no significant difference whatsoever between McCain's tuneful "Bomb Iran" and, as two prime examples, what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have to offer.
...
Even if a threat does not exist at present, and even if it is not likely to exist for five or ten years or longer, we are to be the sole arbiters of when a possible alleged threat is "intolerable," on the basis of standards that we alone determine -- and we are then "entitled" to launch an attack on a non-existent threat so as to bring the targeted country into accordance with our unappealable demands. In short: we are entitled to run the world. Period, end of story. Moreover, as I noted last week, Clinton's comments make clear that it would be nice "if the rest of world" thought our resort to bombing, possibly with nuclear weapons, was a "last resort," but it is hardly a requirement -- and it need not even be true. How is this different from what McCain believes, or Bush for that matter?
...
it is a wonder to me that any so-called "liberal" or "progressive" would even consider supporting her presidential candidacy for a second. Ah, but she might be "electable" -- and if the goal is solely to install a member of one's own tribe in the White House, no matter how criminal in mind and deed she might be, Clinton's monstrous sins fade into insignificance. Simultaneously, identical sins remain monstrous if practiced by Republicans. So much for principles, consistency, or minimal coherence.
...
It is a measure of how embarrassingly thickheaded our political debates are that anyone can consider Obama to be "original" in any respect at all. At every point of importance, Obama has fully absorbed what has been the consensus view in foreign policy for the last sixty years (and longer).
...
Obama's program is, quite simply, endless interventions across the globe, for any reason at all and on any basis we choose. No one, and no country, is safe from our interference. We will determine the goals, and we will determine whether others are meeting them in the required manner. We are the final arbiter of what is permissible and what is not; there is no appeal from the court convened by America's governing elites.

The War on Terrorism is Bullshit

2007-05-08T10:12:00.001-04:00

One of my bad habits is that I tend to state the obvious. But just like the War on Some Drugs, what's clear to anyone paying the least bit of attention is the War On Terrorism is only a war on some terrorism, namely that terrorism which directly conflicts with wealthy American interests. Its primary objective is clearly not to save civilian lives - if that we're the case, the Pentagon would be primarily going after al Qaeda, instead of focusing on forming client governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And of course, when the US government kills civilians, that's not terrorism. Also, when a terrorist happens to oppose Fidel Castro, it's perfectly okay for him to kill civilians, and he can rest assured that he won't be considered an enemy in the War on Terrorism, he'll be released by a US judge on bail, and the lapdog US "liberal" media will ignore him liberally.

Chapel Hill SDS goes to trial today

2007-05-07T13:11:00.000-04:00

This is from a press release from the Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society.

Dear Anti-War Friends and Allies—

Representative Price has failed to represent the will of the people and lead us out of Iraq. Instead, Price is trying to appease the growing anti-war movement which is sweeping through North Carolina and the rest of the country with empty rhetoric and failed promises of action. On February 16 2007, six students, as part of a larger coordinated national effort, visited Price's Chapel Hill office to share our grave concerns about his supposed commitment to end the Iraq War. David Price's political advisor, Rose Auman, would not allow us to speak to Price by phone. Instead, Auman called the Chapel Hill Police Department to intimidate and silence us. The David Price Six were arrested and charged with first degree trespassing for the 'crime' of exercising our first amendment rights to seek a redress of grievances from our Congressperson. When we invited Congressman Price to come to our trial to testify as to his position about our country's invasion and occupation of Iraq, he wrote to District Attorney James Woodall and asked him to drop the charges against us. Woodall declined.

On Friday, March 23, Rep. David Price and the U.S. House of Representatives voted for war by funding an additional $100 billion dollars to continue the criminal Iraq Occupation. The Democratic leadership, which was elected on an anti-war mandate, framed this vote as a win—as 'the first check on the president's failed Iraq policy'. This supplemental was non-binding, calling for a withdrawal by March of 2008. This is a farce! The overwhelming majority of U.S. service people, Iraqi civilians, and American citizens want the troops out now!

Last week, President Bush's veto of the Democratic Party's war supplemental was extremely troubling. It was a weak bill, however; the next one the Democratic leadership puts forward will be even weaker. Iraq is in turmoil. Attacks against occupying forces are increasing and the U.S. surge has failed. Over 300 Iraqi civilians and 3 U.S. service people are dying every day bringing the death toll to over 655,000 Iraqi civilians and 3,358 U.S. service people. The Bush administration and mainstream media are using fear to keep us in Iraq—Both fear of letting down our soldiers in the field and fear of an Iraqi civil war. First, the best way to support the troops is to move them out of harms way. Second, there is no civil war. Just as the U.S. was born out of a strong resistance against the English invaders and occupiers, there is a strong Iraqi resistance movement against the U.S. invaders and occupiers. We stand in solidarity with the Iraqi Resistance and their struggle to throw the U.S. occupiers out!

Join us the Monday as we tell Price and the Bush Administration that we will not be silenced. We will continue to speak, continue to seek justice and continue to engage in civil disobedience until our collective voices drown out our politician's shameful support for this crime against humanity, the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Join us as we say—IRAQ FOR IRAQIS, TROOPS OUT NOW!

In Struggle,

The David Price Six—
Laura Bickford, Ben Carroll, Alisan Fathalizadeh, Sara Joseph, Dante
Strobino, Tamara Tal

What: Support the David Price Six!
When: Monday, May 7th-- Rally at 1 PM—Pack the Court at 2 PM!
Where: Chapel Hill Courthouse (in the post office)—East Franklin Street

For more information visit: chapelhillsds.org or raleighFIST.wordpress.com

A realistic perspective on Biofuels

2007-05-04T14:33:00.000-04:00

Rachel Burton is one of the founders of Piedmont Biofuels, the largest biodiesel co-op in the country, now building a million gallon/year facility, that grew up from a few kids mixing biodiesel from McDonald's waste oil in the basement of a little shack outside of Pittsboro, NC. Rachel taught some auto mechanics and biofuels courses at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro, where they have a great sustainable agriculture program (including Biofuels) taught mostly by local farmers, where my wife and I took some courses a few years ago before we became farmers (she full time, me part time).

As a continuation of my last post about the large-scale production of biodiesel and its potential ill-effects, I want to refer you to a speech of Rachel's posted on the blog of our local Slow Food convivia, titled "Slow Fuel".

We understand that biodiesel doesn’t scale very well, and we have no delusions that in the future everybody will simply be running around on vehicles powered by soybeans. Once we have used up all of our waste fats, oils, and greases, we can start growing some oilseed crops, and once we’ve planted every arable inch in oilseed crops we are out of tricks.

And if that time comes, we will not even have begun to power an unquenchable economy like the United States. Some in biofuels are already to plant oil palm trees all in a row in the developing world to ship supertankers of oil to the U.S. market, to which we ask you to be very afraid.

Some have grandiose plans of producing biofuels from algae with yields of 10,000 gallons per acre. We’ve even put out the challenge to few universities in the southeast to produce a gallon of algae oil. ..We cannot possibly grow enough BTUs to fuel our current consumption. The biota will not give it to us.

We are not wanting to be the next Rockefellers of fuel. Of course we believe that the carbon age is rapidly coming to an end. For us, peak oil, and climate change, and resource wars are standard baseline thinking. But when we reflect on those influences which have the most deadly effect on this planet, we find ourselves suspicious of corporate structure, and shareholder value, and greed. We are opposed to business as usual. And we want to turn over the apple cart that is our atrocious energy paradigm

We have a design-build group that ships “farm scale” biodiesel processors which help people make their own fuel. And we have an education and outreach group that runs all over the Southeast in an effort to demonstrate biodiesel, and subsequently demonstrate a different way of relating to energy and fuel consumption.
..
.. the linkage between local FOOD production and local FUEL production are inescapable, and we are simply interested in living in a community that can feed and fuel itself.

Press Reaction to Republican Debate

2007-05-04T13:34:00.000-04:00

I don't have TV anymore. Apparently the Republicans had a debate. I'm sure they explored the issues in depth, with some hard hitting questions by Chris Matthews. Ok I can't keep a straight face.

But at least the press reacted with hard hitting analysis of the debates.

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan: "If we view the proceedings in vulgar and reductive Who Won, Who Lost terms, and let's, Mitt Romney won..." (Peggy Noonan, "An Incomplete Field," The Wall Street Journal," 5/4/07)

- Noonan: "The statuesque Mr. Romney had a certain good-natured command, a presidential voice, and a surprising wiliness. He seemed happy to be there, and in the mysterious way that some people seem to dominate, he dominated." (Peggy Noonan, "An Incomplete Field," The Wall Street Journal," 5/4/07)

- Noonan: "He did some light-handed and audience-pleasing Clinton bashing, and was confident on stem-cell research." (Peggy Noonan, "An Incomplete Field," The Wall Street Journal," 5/4/07)

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: "Former Gov. Mitt Romney (Mass.) stood out with clear and crisp answers - showing flashes of humor and an ease with the important issues. He sounded authoritative when he talked about Iraq (not an easy task for a one-term governor of Massachusetts) and effectively cast himself - a Mormon - as part of the broad faith community in America." (Chris Cillizza, "Debate Wrap Up," The Washington Post's The Fix, Posted 5/3/07)

Newsweek's Howard Fineman: "I think Mitt Romney came off looking presidential..." (MSNBC's "Post Debate Analysis," 5/3/07)

compiled by Le Courier on http://forums.raleigh.craigslist.org/?forumID=20

lapd

2007-05-03T12:29:00.000-04:00

This is just another example of the LAPD doing what they do best, being jackass tough guys and roughing up women and innocent bystanders.

Democrats don't want to withdraw from Iraq

2007-05-02T12:15:00.000-04:00

The majority of Democrats don't want to leave Iraq.

The bill Bush vetoed only suggested a draw down of combat forces, not all forces.

The US government is building permanent military bases in Iraq, and a huge embassy.

We're not leaving Iraq as long as Democrats and Republicans control Congress.

They don't give a fuck what 70% of the American people think.

Do you care?

If you care, what are you doing about it?

Arthur Silber is back

2007-05-02T09:35:00.000-04:00

Actually he's been back - I'm a week late - but I'll be catching up today. Sometimes this guy is the only blogger worth reading.

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/

"Iraq has not altered the fundamentals of our foreign policy in any significant way...What we would vehemently condemn others for doing, including the invasion and occupation of a country that did not threaten them, is permitted to us, and to us alone. No action is prohibited to us, while only those actions are available to others that we choose to permit."

"For all their ferocious opposition to the Bush administration and to Republicans generally, liberal and progressive bloggers act as if they are largely indifferent to bringing about a quick end to the incomprehensibly deadly Iraq occupation. They certainly demonstrate no sustained, serious effort to pressure Congressional Democrats into defunding the war -- or into acting to oppose an attack on Iran in every way possible. The concerns of these bloggers and the Washington Democrats are perfectly coextensive: they will condemn the Iraq war and act to block an attack on Iran only to the degree such actions will not endanger their perceived political opportunities in 2008."

"Proving still another time in an infinite series of such demonstrations that it has learned nothing over the last six years, the NYT plasters an entirely false headline on its story: "War Bill Passes House, Requiring an Iraq Pullout." In fact, the bill "requires" no such thing; it certainly does not require an "Iraq pullout." The charade goes on unchallenged only because our governing class and our major media institutions know they can count on the majority of Americans to be ignorant of the relevant facts and/or largely disinterested in acquiring them."

Happy Real Labor Day

2007-05-01T13:47:00.000-04:00

Today is the real Labor Day - International Workers' Day. In our society it's considered communist to have a day for the working man. Congress moved our Labor Day to September so we wouldn't get any ideas about organizing and possibly having a real democracy some day. They changed May 1st to "Loyalty Day". No, that's not a joke. They were considering calling it "Shut Up and Do What We Tell You Day", or "Sit Rover! You Are Such a Good Loyal Little Puppy! Now Here's a Treat! A Whole 15 cents! Day" Yes, that's a joke.

The Human Rights Watch report on Wal Mart is getting some good play in the mainstream press today.

Hugo Chavez nationalized Venezuela's oil industry. Wait, scractch that, he "SEIZES", (Associated Press), and "GRABS" (CNBC) the oil.

NPR mentioned the immigration rallies but insisted on downplaying them by having Karl Kassel repeat that the turnout was going to be lower than last year.

"May Day" mentions appear in the mainstream press almost exclusively in stories expressing horror over some protest riots in Turkey and Germany and in hopeful speculation over Castro's health for his no-show (so far) at Cuba's International Workers' Day rally.

In their typical comedic fashion, FoxNews.com has a "May Day Around the World" slide show, reminding us that what May Day is, is a bunch of commies and transvestite prostitutes getting together and starting riots for no reason. I'm sure if someone decides to look at the American flag wrong, we'll see it first on Fox's lovely slideshow.

And Rupert Murdoch picks today to make a public attempt to further consolidate media corporations. Notice he doesn't attempt to "seize" or "grab" Dow Jones. It's just a friendly business proposition.

Theyrule.net

2007-04-25T14:44:00.000-04:00

Just discovered this today - very useful:

They Rule aims to provide a glimpse of some of the relationships of the US ruling class. It takes as its focus the boards of some of the most powerful U.S. companies, which share many of the same directors. Some individuals sit on 5, 6 or 7 of the top 500 companies. It allows users to browse through these interlocking directories and run searches on the boards and companies. A user can save a map of connections complete with their annotations and email links to these maps to others. They Rule is a starting point for research about these powerful individuals and corporations.

Some of my favorite "maps"

Go to LOAD MAP>Popular

"All the news they see fit to print"
"Who really controls foreign policy"
"The Iraqi Governing Council"

Unapologetic Israeli propaganda

2007-04-25T13:42:00.000-04:00

Hamas fires rockets into Israel despite truce

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas's armed wing broke a five-month ceasefire on Tuesday by firing rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip after Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians over the weekend.

Hamas stopped short of declaring a formal end to the ceasefire, which began in November, and said the group was responding to Israeli violations of the shaky agreement.

An Israeli army spokesman said at least five rockets were shot at Israel on Tuesday, two of which landed near a southern Israeli town. There were no reports of casualties.

This is Reuters' logic:

Israel kills 9 Palestinian civilians, but that's not breaking a ceasefire.
In response to Israel killing 9 Palestian civilians, Hamas fires rockets into Israel, which kill no one, but that is breaking a ceasefire.

Pat yourself of the back, Media

2007-04-25T13:04:00.000-04:00

I'm glad Newsweek and NPR all these other fucking assholes decided it was finally time to tell the country the truth about the bullshit surrounding Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, since the government said it was okay.

Great, hard-hitting journalism there, you fuckers.

Sports, Politics, Culture

2007-04-25T09:01:00.000-04:00

This is a sort of continuation of my earlier thoughts about why more Americans are interested in sports than are interested in politics/history/world affairs.

Just to eliminate any misconceptions that may have been derived from earlier posts for those who don't know me well: in general I like sports, particularly the NFL, the Steelers, sometimes during the summer I'll go see a baseball game, every once in a while I get to a hockey game, etc. I played baseball, football, basketball, and street hockey as a kid. But the level of interest I have in it is not on par with most of my friends. I like to get together with friends and watch the Steeler games, cheer them on, drink beer, bitch about the coaching, the refs, etc.. But I don't have as much of a wealth of knowledge about all the stats and trades and history or the playbook that many of my friends do. I'm not saying people should be more interested in things I am. In fact, I should be more interested in sports so I have more to bullshit about with people I know.

My question was more concerned with why people are interested in sports in the first place, why they use their brain power on it and not the things I use my brain power on. It has nothing to do with intelligence, it has everything to do with interest. Anyone who can analyse football and rattle off stats for every player would tell you it's not rocket science. I say the same thing about all the bullshit I talk about on here. It's not hard, especially with the internet, to access different ideas about economy and world affairs than what's presented in mainstream media. I'm not doing anything on here that requires any kind of college degree from an elite institution. What I do here, in the confines of this blog, I don't think is any more important than what a guy who blogs about baseball is doing.

And I never wanted to suggest that people being interested in sports in some societal ill based on violence that needs to be eliminated, which you can hear plenty of people who consider themselves anarchists. In a culture where hundreds of thousands of people fill stadiums every week, and hundreds of thousands only show up in Washington once or twice per year during the most stupid war in history, thinking all people into sports are stupid is an elitist opinion. And it's one I'm against personally. Any new society or anarchist utopia that I envision will most certainly include beer drinking and big dudes in armor crushing each other on Sunday afternoon.

I don't have problems with the sports themselves, I have a problem with an aspect of sports, and it's the same thing I have a problem with in the rest of society - the commercialism that disrupts the game and ruins the kind of team mentality that was prevalent during the 70s era of the Pittsburgh Steelers, just like the commercialism that disrupts and ruins the team mentality of American life. And most importantly - I don't think this sort of hyper-commercialism is inevitable - that team mentality has to die under the iron fist of high-dollar bullshit, arrogant asshole players, and stupid Superbowl commericals. If anything, the hyper-commercialism of sports and the glorification of players based on their arrogance is one of the things that pushed me toward being anarchistic.

What brought this on was, I was looking into some of Michael Albert's stuff after referencing him in my last post, and I downloaded a lecture of his and he was addressing what sounded like a classroom full of college students, and he hit on some points about political activism that always turned me off and I assume is what turns most people off during the few times I went to antiwar rallies or political meetings or even hung around so-called anarchist punks. You can download audio of this talk here.

The way that we don't just individually not watch sports, but the way that we get a gut, visceral hostile reaction to people watching or participating in sports. The way that we do that around religion - we are in the most sports conscious and the most religious country in the world. It is a little like if you were going to go to France and be an organizer, but not speak French. It's not wise - not if you want to win. Now if the reason you're going to France to organize is because you like the other organizers in France, and you don't give a shit about reaching the French public - okay - no need to speak French.....

For instance I went to State College in Pennsylvania... in a room with 300 people, all radicals, I could have picked 280 of them walking around the campus. That's how much like each other they looked and how much unlike the rest of the campus they looked... We have to understand something. On that campus, each Saturday, everybody goes to the football game, except the 300 people in that room. I asked people to raise their hands, "How many people had been to a football game?" Three people, all black, raised their hands. The whole rest of the room, no. And they were all laughing because of course they thought, at the beginning of my talk, I was pointing out how wonderful they were because they managed to rise above the horrible lifestyle and degenerate morality of their brethren on the campus. So then I said, "On the way here this morning I passed the sports bar" There's this huge bar, downtown State College, State College has a population of maybe 60,000, the stadium holds 80,000, and every Saturday there's 80,000 people in it. That should tell you something - football is this town....So I said "How many of you people have been down the sports bar to organize?" And the whole room burst into hysterics. They're all laughing and they think I'm making a joke. Meanwhile, if you're not organizing that sports bar, go to the beach. Because you're not organizing the campus - what are you doing? - That's the whole student body! How can you possibly write that off? And I honestly think if we ask what it is we're writing off, often times it is the writing-off of working class cultures and values and styles....[for example] McDonald's is unnaccaptable. Why is McDonald's unnacceptable? Is is unacceptable because it's a multinational, or is it unacceptable because working people eat there? Wwith good reason, not with bad reason. They don't eat there to get sick - they're not morons. They eat there because it's inexpensive and because it's actually not poison.... That doesn't mean McDonald's shouldn't be a target for us....but there's more than one way to talk about it. Every working class guy watching football in the afternoon knows that those people earn more [on that particular Sunday] than he or she earns in two years. It isn't just us who know that.

When he says “us”, he’s speaking as a person educated at MIT to a group of college students. I don't exactly know where I am in that "us". Even as someone who went to college and I consider myself somewhat anarchist, I feel more outside of them then I do on the inside. I not only walk past some of those people in the sports bar, on Sunday in the fall I'm one of them.

The thing that struck me when I went to my first war protest in DC in January 2003, was the vast amounts of “regular” people there. Most of the people weren’t hippies and anarchist punks, most of it was little old ladies and people who weren’t particularly freakish looking. The last one I was at, there were a few guys there that looked like they were right out of the Republican convention. And that’s the kind of thing that keeps me involved, because I hate elitists, whether they are elite CEOs or elitist anarcho-hippy/punks. So the "regular" people were there, but the organizers were egotistical assholes. Their speeches were mostly tirades against Bush, they did little to galvanize the crowd, theydid absolutely nothing to try to appeal to average American sensibilities.

I don't think much of what I say is in disagreement with most of the public. I just think these kinds of ideas are not presented very often in the mass media, which most of the public accesses. Every average joe out there will tell you that the government sucks, and that politicians are corrupt no matter whether they are Democrats or Republicans (even people who identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans will generally have this sentiment) and most people will tell you that the people with the money have the power, and average joes are shit on, and healthcare sucks, and no matter how hard you work, you'll still get screwed one way or the other. Where I depart from most people, I think, is that I don't believe this is inevitable, and that's one of the messages I want to get across to people I know.

I don't give a shit about communicating with anarchists or Marxists or wealthy liberal progressives (which is why I don't give lectures to classrooms full of them) because, as Albert says, there's no point in trying to fight the power unless you get a popular movement going. I do read certain authors who could be desribed as anarchist. They make sense to me, but their problem is, whether they like it or not, they can't communicate to anyone who's not college educated, because most of them speak in code about things that aren't taught in the kind of high school I went to. And all college education is is learning a set of codes that prevent non-college people from accessing ideas. You don't have to have some superior mental capacity to get a college degree. You do have to have access to money, or like me, federal loans that'll I'm still paying a decade later.

And even when they are far enough removed from academia to be able to speak without code, they write way too long posts that no one has time to read.

Greenwashing is COOL!

2007-04-24T11:21:00.000-04:00

Celebrity Sheryl Crow is now saying that her comment about putting limitations on the use of toilet paper was a joke http://www.sherylcrow.com/news.aspx?&in=1

But this isn't the only instance of controvery with Celebrity Crow that has caught the media's eye this week. What I still don't understand is why anyone would approach Karl Rove and bitch at him about global warming. What reaction did they expect? "Yes, Sheryl Crow, the power of your celebrity has convinced me! I'll contact the president immediately and tell him to sign the Kyoto treaty at once!"

I've written before about how liberal celebrities serve power as court jesters. But I want to talk about something else here: This bullshit is all part of the greenwashing bandwagon of companies that opposed environmentalism for years, and are now suddenly environmentally conscious. We are supposed to think that if everyone in the world owned a hybrid car, and built an environmentally friendly house, we would live in harmony with nature forever, and continue our lifestyle in the pyramid scheme economy of infinite production to satisfy infinite need of the minority, leading of course to infinite waste. We should ignore that we're building 100 times more cars and houses than ever before, so even though individual houses and cars are becoming more energy-efficient, we're increasing total energy use exponentially, as long as we're "greener than the Jonses" we can feel good about ourselves as environmentally conscious individuals with individual moral actions. Another funny joke: rainforests are being cleared to make room for huge plantations to make palm oil for biodiesel production This is from Z Magazine, by George Monbiot http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=57&ItemID=9285

In promoting biodiesel - as the European Union, the British and US governments and thousands of environmental campaigners do - you might imagine that you are creating a market for old chip fat, or rapeseed oil, or oil from algae grown in desert ponds. In reality you are creating a market for the most destructive crop on earth.
...
In September, Friends of the Earth published a report about the impacts of palm oil production. "Between 1985 and 2000," it found, "the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia"(8). In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest has been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares is scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5m in Indonesia.

Almost all the remaining forest is at risk. Even the famous Tanjung Puting National Park in Kalimantan is being ripped apart by oil planters. The orang-utan is likely to become extinct in the wild. Sumatran rhinos, tigers, gibbons, tapirs, proboscis monkeys and thousands of other species could go the same way. Thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands, and some 500 Indonesians have been tortured when they tried to resist(9). The forest fires which every so often smother the region in smog are mostly started by the palm growers. The entire region is being turned into a gigantic vegetable oil field.

The solution is to drastically cut energy use, not to replace one enery source with another. And this will take more than a few optional actions individuals can take. Athough individuals improving their habits and lives to use less energy is a good first step, if we are to prevent the human race from eating itself, no less than a restructuring of our entire society will be required. A few websites I can think of off the top of my head offering some real solutions are

conev.org
social-ecology.org
http://www.zmag.org/debatelibmuni.htm - Debate between Michael Albert (Parecon) and Social Ecologist Peter Staudenmaier

Garbage rises

2007-04-20T09:28:00.001-04:00

I wasn't going to comment on the recent mass murders, but I'm hearing a lot of outraged people from that campus and elsewhere asking the question – Why do they give him so much airtime? If you're wondering how sick the media has to be to turn a sociopathic killer into the next American Idol, I suggest you take advice from the title of this blog. This is how our current system works. There is simply too much money to be made in transforming garbage into celebrities. Ratings go up, advertising revenues go up, stock value goes up, and the culture suffers. They don't care about the qualitative aspects of the human experience, they care about numbers, and there is plenty of literature and radio and television which explains why this is a good thing, and an inevitable thing, being published and broadcast and uploaded every day by companies that benefit from this sort of pyramid system where garbage is rewarded.

I'll let Michael Albert explain, starting at 0:57

The question is, what can we do about it? First of all, ignore people who say there is no alternative (TINA, invented by Margaret Thatcher and which Albert refers to). Our current system is not a natural phenomenon, nor is it inevitable. In the whole of human life on earth since we evolved into what we are now, the hierarchical pyramid system has only encompassed a blink of an eye. The vast majority of humans throughout time have spent their lives living in egalitarian bands. If you could squeeze the history of human life on earth in a 24 hour day, our current system has only encompassed the past few minutes (perhaps I'm being too generous). Hierarchical systems have only been in place, at best, the past hour or so. Humans have evolved in egalitarianism, and many mental health professionals will tell you that a true sense of community is just as essential to an individual's health as water, food and sex.

Now, we all have to engage in our current system to survive, we are compelled to. So we have to create new systems within our own. But you can refuse to participate to a certain extent. (For example, I don't have a TV, don't listen to commercial radio, don't read mainstream magazines, subscribe to independent media, listen to many independent bands, etc, read mainstream news media only with a critical eye. That's just a very basic level that is just a self-serving way of non-participation to prevent myself from getting migraines.)

Relating back to the latest tragedy, some of the families of those murdered refused to give interviews to NBC because of their disgusting, profitable coverage. I wish all of the families would follow suit. Perhaps there should be an organized group that encourages non-participation of victims' families with big media. But as long as you have a system in place where garbage rises, this kind of coverage will remain in place. If there is enough pressure, the media may make minor adjustments, but it will continue to make profits (what else can it do?), and continue to promote garbage.

And it's important to note, even with sympathetic coverage, the media picks and chooses which tragedies to be sympathetic to. The families of murder victims go through the same anguish, whether they are Americans or British, or Iraqi or Afghani. Yet the media chooses to show sympathy for only certain groups. This really came to light to me with the subway bombings in London in July 2005. Yes, this is a terrible tragedy, but I cannot bring myself to feel more sympathetic to victims of terror who I don't know personally in London, Virginia and Israel than I am to victims of terror in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Palestine, yet this is what the media suggests. What would be the reaction if I put a message stating "We are all Colombians" on my office door? I would probably be reprimanded for bringing politics into the workplace.

Post Office to increase rates for small presses

2007-04-19T15:09:00.001-04:00

The rest of this post is copied from http://action.freepress.net/freepress/postal_explanation.html

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Jan. 16, 1787
What's at Stake

Our nation's founders understood the First Amendment would be worth little without a postal system that encouraged broad public participation in America's "marketplace of ideas."

Thomas Jefferson supported this with calls for a postal service that allowed citizens to gain "full information of their affairs," where ideas could "penetrate the whole mass of the people." Along with James Madison, he paved the way for a service that gave smaller political journals a voice. Their solution included low-cost mailing incentives whereby publications could reach as many readers as possible.

Other founders soon came to understand that the press as a political institution needed to be supported through favorable postal rates. President George Washington spoke out for free postage for newspapers through the mail, and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton -- no proponent of government deficit -- conceded that incentives were necessary to spawn a viable press.

The postal policies that resulted have lasted for more than 200 years, spurring a vibrant political culture in the United States. They have eased the entry of diverse political viewpoints into a national discourse often dominated by the largest media organizations.
Time Warner Rewrites History

All of this could change in 2007.

In an unprecedented move, the agency that oversees postal rates in the United States has quietly attempted to unravel much of what the founders accomplished. Earlier this year, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) rejected a postal rate increase plan offered by the U.S. Postal Service. Instead they opted to implement a complicated plan submitted by media giant Time Warner. (Click here to read the decision and click here for a timeline)

Under the original plan, all publishers would have a mostly equal increase (approx. 12 percent) in the cost for mailing their publications. The Time Warner plan overturned this level playing field to favor large, ad-heavy magazines like People at the expense of smaller publications like In These Times and The American Spectator. It penalizes thousands of small- to medium-sized outlets with disproportionately higher rates while locking in privileges for bigger companies.
Fight Back: Tell Congress to Act

The PRC has aligned itself with a media giant in an apparent effort to stifle smaller media in America. The stunning move is an unprecedented abuse of the agency's discretion. Congress must now step in to protect smaller media from these unfair rate hikes.

The Post Office should not use its monopoly power to favor the largest publishers and undermine the ability of smaller publishers to compete. It must be held accountable for a plan that could drive smaller publications to the brink of bankruptcy. With public involvement we can reverse the PRC decision and restore the postal system that has served free speech in America so well.

Demand a formal and open accounting of why more than 200 years of pro-democracy postal policy was abandoned.
Stop The Rate Hikes, Stand Up for Independent Media:

For individuals: Send a Letter to Congress and the Postal Service

For publications: Sign the Letter to the Postal Board of Governors

References:

John, Richard R. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).

Kielbowicz, Richard B. News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700-1860s (Greenwood, 1989).

Burns, Eric. Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism (New York: Public Affairs, 2006).

Fuller, Wayne E. "The Populists and the Post Office." Agricultural History 65, no. 1 (1991): 1-16.

Kielbowicz, Richard B. "Postal Subsidies for the Press and the Business of Mass Culture, 1880-1920." Business History Review, 64 (Autumn 1990): 451-88

Kielbowicz, Richard B. "Origins of the Second-Class Mail Category and the Business of Policymaking, 1863-1879." Journalism Monographs 96 (April 1986): 1-26.

Kielbowicz, Richard B., and Linda Lawson. "Protecting the Small-Town Press: Community, Social Policy, and Postal Privileges, 1845-1970." Canadian Review of American Studies 19 (Spring 1988): 23-45.

Kielbowicz, Richard B., and Linda Lawson. "Reduced-Rate Postage for Nonprofit Organizations: A Policy History, Critique, and Proposal." Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 11 (Spring 1988): 347-406.

Kielbowicz, Richard B. "Cost Accounting in the Service of Policy Reform: Postal Rate Making, 1875-1926." Social Science Quarterly 75 (June 1994): 284-299.

Nichols, John and Robert W. McChesney. Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections and Destroy Democracy (New York: The New Press, 2005).

Peters, John Durham. "The Marketplace of Ideas: A History of the Concept," in Andrew Calabrese and Colin Sparks, editors, Toward a Political Economy of Culture: Capitalism and Communication in the Twenty-First Century (Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), pp.65-82.

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Zapatistas

2007-04-18T10:37:00.001-04:00

If you would like to give me a birthday present, you can give me a favor and read about the Zapatistas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation

And check out this trailer, and the whole movie available here.

A lot of people have "fall back" plans if their careers don't work out for them, if they end up alone, if something should "god forbid" happen to their loved ones. Like "if the band doesn't make it, I'll fall back on my college degree." or "If I don't make it freelancing, I'll fall back on my office gig."

My fall back plan used to be hobo - I used daydream about being a hobo and living in the woods ever since I was in high school - ways to find food, places I'd go, ways to get drunk. People from New York call bums hobos. I'm not talking about a bum. I mean a hobo like a dude with a name like "Mississippi Jack" or "Walla Walla Pete", a guy that moves around and rides the rails and works a bit and moves on and hitchhikes and tries to stay out of jail and have a miserable and free life like that.

In the past few years my fall-back plan was to max out some credit cards purchasing a 5 year supply of whiskey and disappear into the woods to drink myself to death. That's more of a prolonged suicide. No hope in that. But I've become more hopeful in the past few years, no small thanks to my new path in life and to revolutionary movements going on in the world like the Zapatistas.

My new plan, in case the shit hits the fan, is to move to Mexico and join the EZLN.

he tried

2007-04-13T09:09:00.001-04:00

Chomsky on Iran

2007-04-10T15:04:00.001-04:00

"If Iran was building up its military presence in the Gulf of Mexico, the US government would never take Iranian sailors prisoner. They'd just bomb the aircraft carriers to the bottom of the sea, and not one mainstream reporter would bat an eye." --Sloover, March 29, 2007

"It is, however, useful to ask how we would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting U.S. government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian occupation (called "liberation," of course). Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites -- nuclear and otherwise -- in the United States, if the U.S. government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the government of the U.S. and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the U.S. that killed millions of people (just as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?"
--Noam Chomsky echos my sentiments (haha), with a bit more context, "What If Iran Had Invaded Mexico?" posted on Tom Dispatch, April 5, 2007

And also from Chomsky in the same article:

The Iranian-American consensus includes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere (82% of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved because of elite opposition, then at least a "nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that would include both Islamic countries and Israel" (71% of Americans). Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer building better relations with Iran to threats of force. In brief, if public opinion were to have a significant influence on state policy in the U.S. and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be at hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global nuclear conundrum.

The Great American Fear of Embarrassment

2007-04-04T15:31:00.000-04:00

Continuing from the last post, I suspect there is a reason why, in modern American society, it's perfectly acceptable to be enthusiastic about sports and not about politics or other aspects of culture, such as music. Children are introduced to sports enthusiastically by adult members of the community. It is presented as something children can all engage in and be excited about, if not excel at.

History and governmental affairs, on the other hand, are presented in the most bland and boring format imaginable, with very little enthusiasm from teachers and other adults in the community. Thus popular delusions have been formed, that people interested in history are nerds, and people engaging in politics are those rich white men in Washington.

I was born in the mid 1970s, right after the disaster in Vietnam, and during a time of recession and a great deal of unemployment, when it should have been perfectly obvious the importance of educating about history and the actions of government, yet most of the adult members of the community didn't give a damn enough about their own society to even think about reforming the educational system. Was it fatigue after the political unrest of the 1960s? Had you given up?

And the time and place I was borne into were equally historically significant for what I'm thinking about now. At the same time steelworkers were being fired in droves, the Steelers were the champions of the world. I don't remember images of labor rallies on television, and getting together at gramma's to rally around the United Steelworkers, but I do remember the Superbowl on television, people dressed in black and gold, and Terry Bradshaw, and I'll always remember the Steelers as not only an NFL team but a deeply ingrained cultural aspect of growing up in Pittsburgh.

In fact, it's almost as though the great revolutionary fervor of western Pennsylvania workers, going back to the strikes and IWW activity in the 20th century, and even on back to Homestead in the 19th, and even back to the Whiskey Rebellion in the 18th, was in the 1970s transferred to support for a championship NFL team.

And I remember music, Irish music sung by all members of my family, from as far back as I can remember. Music was something I personally was brought up around as a participatory thing that was just as much a part of getting together with family as was playing whiffle ball with cousins or hot sausage in a crockpot. And they sang beautifully, better than anything you can hear on the radio.

There was also music that came on TV, on the radio, the commercialized music that you didn't need to experience with other people, that you didn't need to even leave your bedroom for, that you could experience as an individual, as we all have. You didn't need to go to a party, or even a show, if you had it on record. And soon when MTV came around, you didn't need to leave the house to see the band, because there they were beaming across the living room floor to your couch.

So as I was growing up in the 1980s music was more and more becoming a routine, image-driven, individual experience, and not a community experience like singing songs around a beer keg at a family party, or going to a show at a club and dancing. Politics and history had become something boring that those men in suits engage in, and only nerds are interested in, and it has little to do with people getting together and making their lives more tolerable and free. But sports remained a community function, something that fills stadia across the country, something we don't have to be embarrassed being enthusiastic about, an excuse for getting together with our friends, and something I was encouraged to participate in, whether I wanted to or not.

But people at club shows don't show enthusiasm for bands, unless they have attained an acceptable level of commercial fame or underground noteriety. It's not the bands - as always there are good ones and shitty ones. It's that people don't know how to have fun in a musical context. In short, they don't know how to party. Music is just the soundtrack of a party, it always has been, and, like a party, it's always been a participatory affair - if you're not in the band, you're singing along, if you're can't sing, you're dancing, and if you can't dance, you dance anyway.

I rarely go to clubs to see bands anymore because it's depressing as hell. I hate watching my beloved rocknroll go the route of symphony music or Shakespeare - where rather than participate, the audience politely claps at the end of a piece, then goes home early to watch television.

Yes, rock n roll has gone down the same path democracy has in this country - it has become a farcical exercise, simply because people are too embarrassed to participate. People show up, go through some motions, and go home. With music, they show up and clap. In democracy, they show up and push a button for one of two millionaires who have virtually the same platform. Less and less people even show up. Is it any wonder?

And just like people who have the nerve to show up at a club to have fun at a rock show - and I'm not talking drunk and beligerent people who like to slam dance when people around them don't, I'm simply talking about people who show up to dance and hollar and harmlessly make a fool out of themselves - like them, anybody taking actual political action, like civil disobedience, organizing, protesting, is regarded as a freak. I was personally called an "idiot" at a White Stripes concert for saying "wooo!" after a song, rather than just standing and clapping like everybody else - I wasn't dancing, wasn't particularly drunk, was silent during the songs, but when I showed the least bit of enthusiasm, someone was embarrassed enough to call me an idiot. I would expect to be treated similarly at an opera hall.

Also, two years ago my wife and I went to see a Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night that a friend of ours was producing. I decided to dust off my Oxford Shakespeare and read the play beforehand, and we also did a little Cliff Notesing online so we could get the jist, because it's hard to follow the language. Well, that play is goddamn hilarious. They served beer at the play, so we got a little drunk, and when Malvolio came out in his yellow socks, my wife and I lost it. The actor did it perfectly, we were laughing our asses off, with tears streaming down. Nobody else was laughing but one other guy. This is in one of those New Urban communities with a bunch of rich people, who I guess go to see Shakespeare to be able to say they went to see Shakespeare. People began to stare at us. I started to feel like an idiot. Don't you understand? It's SUPPOSED to be funny! Likewise, I KNOW I'm making a fool out of myself here at the rock show. And? You're supposed to! It's FUN! It's a RELEASE! It would be great if more people joined in.

And that's my point about democracy. It's not a rocknroll show, no matter how much the band rocks, if you just politely applaud at the end of a song, looking upon those who are there to have fun as freaks. There's no difference between that behavior and going to the symphony. It's not democracy if you simply show up and push buttons, and look at people who organize and actually try to change things through direct action as freaks. It's no different from living in a monarchy.

Of course, systems of power are always at work against any kind of popular organization, or cathartic self-expression. They have a heavy hand in manufacturing this embarrassment. Much of what’s known as “conservatism” in mainstream media has nothing to do with a philosophical outlook about government policy and political affairs, it’s an apolitical reaction to people who care enough about the state of the world to have an opinion about it. “Hippy” is the ultimate accusation from those with no opinion whatsoever, leveled at those who have any opinion critical of the United States government. Ironically, this is a word invented by big media to describe young people who attended rock n roll shows or engaged in any kind of political action in the 1960s.

So WHY do people refuse to participate? There are many reasons, but I think it can be boiled down to the fear of embarrassment. It's embarrassing in our current cultural climate to dance, to sing, to talk about politcs. The social network around music is crumbling, and the social networks of democracy are practically non-existant, but the social network around sporting events are thriving (and the only reason for this is that there is a lot of money to be made from it), so it's very easy to become involved in sports without being embarrassed but it's very awkward being involved in political action. People are afraid they might "offend" somebody who holds a different political belief from them, yet those same people are keen on offending people from a rival sports team.

When you are passionate, by the very nature of being passionate, you're opening yourself up to criticism, and in this modern American culture, there is PLENTY of criticism - not particularly to people who have certain opinions, but of people who have opinions AT ALL, people with any passion at all.

The main problem with this country is not that the assholes have gotten control, it's that those with passion, those who have opinions, who love to dance and make a fool out of themselves for its own sake, are being crushed by their own embarrassment, and all they need to do is to get off their asses and express their opinion, get in the street and take over, get your ass to a club and dance to a live band.

And to make this kind of passionate expression work, be it political expression or musical expression, you need many people participating, then the one guy at the club who says "wooo" doesn't look like such an idiot, when 100 other people are "woo"ing along with him.

One person screaming from a rooftop is an idiot, but 1000 people screaming from the rooftops is a revolution.

Movement is a physical act

2007-03-29T14:09:00.000-04:00

Murray Bookchin argued that once you begin to eliminate the domination of humans by humans, only then can you begin to eliminate the domination of nature by humanity. A system of infinite production and infinite need is by its essence a dominating system. The illusion of infinite need can only be impressed upon a minority, since by physical impossibility all humans cannot have access to infinite material wealth. On the contrary, the majority must not have access to even the most basic resources for a pleasurable life in order to uphold this pyramidal system of infinite need for a minority. Ignoring the fact that this system manufactures poverty, and in fact must manufacture poverty in order to thrive are the rags-to-riches myths, which do happen but not at the extent represented in popular first world media - myths that accuse the majority poor of being lazy, stupid and/or genetically inferior, ultimately a product of their own choice to live in poverty.

Contrary to Al Gore's assertions of adjusting individual personal habits, it's clear that the only thing we can do for "the environment", or more accurately, the survival of our species, is to shut down the pyramidal system manifested in its utmost extreme in corporate globalisation (or the redistribution of wealth to the upper .01% of humans), to shut down the system of infinite resource plunder which ultimately turns the planet into a garbage heap and necesseties the domination of human over human and human over nature.

The inverse of our current system would be a directly democratic, egalitarian society in which all forms of domination and hierarchy are eliminated. It would be a society which does not lay waste to natural resources for profit but works with nature to produce needs for the society in a way that sustains the natural environment. This does not advocate a trustafarian idealism, a return to primitive tribal ways of life, which is an impossible joke, but a new way of life that uses technology in such a way that does not lay waste to the ecosystem for the purposes of keeping a hierarchical system of infinite profit for an elite minority in place.

So how do we go from here to there? By definition it cannot happen through actions of elite groups of rich activists. There must be mass popular movements for such drastic changes. Latin America is ripe for such a mass movement - the Zapatistas and others have already made considerable progress by declaring themselves independent of the Mexican government and setting up their own cultural institutions.

The US, however, is not. We are sitting within the walls of the castle enjoying our panem et circenses.

Certainly the Iraq war is a manifestation of the pyramid system at its most violent. It's textbook imperialism, and if you want to ever live in a society based on egalitarianism and direct democracy, resisting the Iraq occupation is a good place to start.

So here I entertain the idea of advocating for a draft. Mass movements from within the castle walls are only possible when a great number of people and their children are physically threatened by power. In our current culture, it is especially easy for the individual to lock himself away in a prison of virtual reality- a fantasy world created by mass media which renders the physical person immobile and so manipulates the emotions that the prison is made to feel like its opposite- an escape from the harsher world of reality.

So you have to physically pull people from these virtual realities. In regards to US foreign policy, a draft would do this. In the early 20th century, thousands of American socialists, communists and anarchists took to the streets of the USA in protest to US economic policy because they worked extremely hard, long hours in grueling conditions, yet still had empty stomachs. Probably the only thing that made rebellion fashionable and got a great number of middle class youth out into the streets during the Vietnam War was the physical threat to them in draft form.

But the draft will never happen. Private military contracting will increase as American combat forces slowly withdraw, and other US forces will remain on their permanent bases in Iraq. These private military companies - unaccountable to the US public - will continue to use torture, murder, and other forms of atrocity, or hire out paramilitary groups to perform these deeds for them, and this will continue to be ignored or glossed over in the mainstream US press, who will probably ignore Iraq as though the war is over, as it ignores Colombia as though we haven't been at war there for decades.

Since there will not be a draft, there must be other methods to physically remind people about the war, and one of these methods is physically organizing (not just on the internet) and taking over a street or an intersection or a highway. We just have to get more people who are willing to do this. It would be nice if just as many people were willing to take over whole city blocks for reasons other than a basketball victory, or other forms of panem et circenses, but until they are physically or at least emotionally compelled to do so - even if they are mentally against the war - they will remain locked into the approved forms of organization - that of attending sporting events or getting together to watch the Super Bowl on TV.

Iran and British sailors

2007-03-29T11:35:00.000-04:00

I was on the road for about 8 hours yesterday, so I was listening to mainstream reports about Iran arresting British sailors on both AM radio and NPR. If the facts matter and you want a better understanding of the situation, it'd be a good idea to read the Guardian's Q&A., in which you get an amount of context not approved by the mainstream media in both the US and UK.

Did the incident take place in a diplomatically sensitive area?
Yes. Iraq and Iran have disputed navigation rights on the Shatt al-Arab since 1935, when an international commission gave Iraq control.
...

What are British naval forces doing in the Gulf?

British ships are working with a US naval force that has recently expanded with the arrival of a second aircraft carrier battle group, led by USS Stennis. The ships are engaged in routine patrols, and the west has naval forces in the area as a matter of course to ensure the safe passage of oil tankers.

The US is committed to protecting Iraq's southern oil terminals against attack until the Iraqi navy can prove it is capable of ensuring the six miles of shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz stay open. Up to 80% of Europe's trade with Asia, and a substantial proportion of the world's oil and gas, are shipped through local waters.

US officials say they want to send a message to Iran that America has plenty of military muscle in reserve despite its commitments in Iraq.

A large western naval presence can be seen as part of a war of nerves as the US puts pressure on Iran to halt the nuclear work the Bush administration believes is for an atomic bomb.

I doubt the British military personnel are in any real danger, although I don't understand Iran's motivation for making the woman wear an Islamic headscarf and having her appear in a video. Though I do understand the reason Iran is trying to counter the military build-up in the gulf that a power system naturally does when it is threatened. They don't have the negotiating power of a nuke, so they take prisoners. If Iran was building up its military presence in the Gulf of Mexico, the US government would never take Iranian sailors prisoner. They'd just bomb the aircraft carriers to the bottom of the sea, and not one mainstream reporter would bat an eye.

Follow up on Bushopedia

2007-03-29T08:53:00.000-04:00

There IS one.

B U S H O P E D I A

A Comprehensive Alphabetical Guide to George W. Bush, the Bush Administration, Other Aspects of the Far Right, and Related Topics.

by Bill Potts

Tool!

2007-03-22T08:11:00.001-04:00

This is the dipshit I was talking about.

"I never listened to Iron Maiden but it's hip to support America and wear a Maiden shirt with my beard"

Give him the bizness, Seann William Scott!

More coverage
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/555857.html

This News Observer story characterizes Dip Shitinson as the "lone dissenter". Wrong. He was the lone conformist among hundreds of dissenters. If you are adhering to US government policy, you are not dissenting, at all. You are a conformist.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20070321/cm_thenation/4177843

The Life and Times Spencer Batchelder

2007-03-21T15:20:00.000-04:00

I came across this blog searching, ironically for army recruitment propaganda that I plan to use for some local Shadow Government (shdogovt) counter-recruitment activity.

This is some of the best writing on the Iraq war I've ever read, from a soldier deployed there. Nothing like first-hand experience. You can't find quality stuff like this in the New York Times. This is from "Why I Write this Blog":

A fear stricken public elected Bush again allowed him to take away our rights and freedoms, wire tap our homes and businesses all unpunished. My new fear of this deployment is what is happening to America. We cut social programs to line the pockets of corporations. Is this the country I swore to defend? The anger I felt during the last deployment is nothing compared to the hatred I feel today. I guess I am bitter, I am slowing turning into the thing I most despise, the disgruntled veteran. I have had such a hard time dealing with this more than any other issue in my life. But I see so much wrong with America. Maybe because I have sacrificed so much for this country I feel that I do have the right to express my opinions or that they should count more than people like Ann Coulter who have done nothing but poison public opinion. I also serve in a different Army than I once did. The liberal soldier or the politically active soldier is an endangered species today. Gone are the days when I or the people I serve with could say, “I didn’t sign up for this.” Soldiers that join today know exactly what they are getting into; they know they will go to Iraq over, and over, and over again. They know that they risk their lives for lies. Yet they still serve, it goes to show you the power that recruiters have over young impressionable minds. It saddens me that some of the army’s best and brightest get out because their government has betrayed them. I am disappointed that in America, when I signed a contract to protect our citizens I now count on them to defend me. I guess that I have no viable option but to join my brothers in arms and leave an organization I so believed in, whose principles I swore to uphold to the best of my ability. I can no longer serve a government that lies to its people, which tortures, murders, and exploits the ideals it was based upon. I can no longer fight a war that I find morally reprehensible. That I have seen people lose their lives for. I have been to more memorials than I can count on two hands. I have seen the faces of the men displayed above empty pairs of boots who have never met the children born to them during the deployment. I have shed tears for their wives, children, mothers, and fathers whom I have never met. I have scrubbed the blood of Iraqis off my boots, looked into their lifeless eyes and saw the idealism that our country was founded upon. I discovered extremes of hatred and compassion I never knew were possible while serving in this country. And while I feel I have grown and learned much serving here I do miss a day when serving your country meant what it said, not as it is today where I am serving the interests of large corporations and lobbyists. So that’s why I write this blog. To share my life, my story, and my views to involve people in the country in which they live. It is the obligation of every citizen of this nation to become involved in politics, that is the basis of which our country is founded upon. A government of the people for the people is an ideal we in this country must uphold because the inaction of her citizens will be her demise.

And from a recent post:

There is such a lack of concern in the states, or even interest in what happens here in Iraq that frankly I am disgusted and deeply concerned about the moral fabric of our nation. People carry on with their daily lives like we aren't occupying a nation half a world away. I really wish at this point that something drastic would happen. Perhaps a draft because that is the only thing I fear that would make people actually get involved in their political process. I am sure that if little Nancy Soccer Mom in her 2.5 bathroom, 5 bedroom home in some upper middle class suburb of Chicago had to kiss her son goodbye because he received a draft card people might actually care about this war and the men and women who are fighting it.

I guess Tillman didn't support himself

2007-03-21T14:15:00.000-04:00

According to Jeremy Staat:

A former NFL player who joined the Marines and was motivated by college roommate Pat Tillman, who died in Afghanistan, was heading for the war in Iraq Tuesday night.

I love how Fox Sports completely ignores Tillman's story, zero mention of the fact that Tillman became anti-war, zero mention that Tillman was killed by American fire.

"The way I look at it, we're spreading freedom, and you have to support the troops and you have to support the war," Staat, 29, told KITV in Honolulu on Tuesday as he prepared to leave from Hawaii. "You can't just tell some Marine who just lost his buddy that we supported you but not the war, because in that case you're basically saying that Marine, his buddy, just died for nothing. We're one team."

You know what? I've been tired of being told I don't "support the troops", whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean. He's not going to be spreading freedom. That's total bullshit, and I fail to have any respect for anyone who still believes this. It's goddamn sad. This poor stupid meathead is going to end up maimed or dead because this country refuses to teach kids about history or to help them develop critical thinking skills. Instead, kids are enthusiatically taught about sports, which is fine, but to the expense of all else, so they can be trained to respect authority and be good little followers at all costs. Fuck that.

Tillman went to Afghanistan because he thought, like many of us, he'd actually be fighting the people responsible for 9/11. And to compare this dipshit to Tillman is also a disgrace. Tillman wasn't an "ex-NFL player" farting around in the arena league. He turned down $3.6 million with the Cardinals because he thought he'd be serving his country.

From all I've read about Tillman he was an intelligent dude, and he turned against the war later on before his death. So I guess Tillman didn't "support the troops"? Using Staat's logic, that's exactly what he's saying. But we don't need logic when we think in slogans.

Guess what, you fucking shithead? Everyone who died in those wars died because it's making a few billionaires richer. Not to protect us. Not to spread freedom. But to protect the interests of a few billionaires who want to have strategic control of the middle east. It has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, or any of that shit, and it's been made obvious to ANYONE paying the SLIGHTEST BIT OF ATTENTION, over and over and over and over and over and over again, YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!

From Wikipedia, of course not mentioned in the Fox Sports story:

The September 25, 2005 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that Tillman held views which were critical of the Iraq war and did not support President Bush's re-election. According to Tillman's mother, a friend of Tillman had arranged a meeting with Noam Chomsky, to take place after his return from Afghanistan. Chomsky confirmed this [12].

Did this Staat asshole even pay attention to what his former roommate believed??

Petition to NC congress to repeal 2006 Military Commissions act

2007-03-21T11:23:00.000-04:00

Why the hell not? Signing petitions and writing emails to newspapers or politicians is the least I can do. From this day forth I might as well write an email or sign a petition every single day I can. It might not do anything, but at least I'm letting the bastards know I'm here.

http://www.petitiononline.com/stopMCA/

We oppose the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This is an unjust law that violates the basic human rights of citizens and non-citizens. It does away with habeas corpus rights (to a prompt court hearing to determine whether one's imprisonment is legal, to know what charges have been brought, and to have legal counsel). It also gives the executive branch power to allow interrogation techniques that violate the Geneva Conventions and human decency. No one should be subject to arbitrary arrest or to detention without a prompt and fair trial, and no one should, under any circumstances, be subject to torture.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Woo hoo! That was a good lunch

2007-03-20T13:15:00.000-04:00

<-photo from DailyTarHeel.com

For more info go to http://march20antiwar.blogspot.com/

Students organized by Students for a Democratic Society walked out of class met in the Pit at UNC today at noon. They spoke through a megaphone in the Pit for a while, and then I'd say about 300 students/citizens/staff (well, I was there, I don't know about any other staff) marched through campus, marched up Columbia street (without a permit) and took over the intersection between Franklin and Columbia for about 20 minutes, stopping and turning around traffic, then marched east on Franklin before returning to campus. A single hipster counter-protestor held up a flag and was chanting "Win the war" the whole time. I wanted to go up to him and tell him to fucking enlist, because most of the men my age I know who are gung ho about winning wars actually had the balls to join. I don't agree with them, but I respect that they're willing to die for it. But I didn't need to school this little shit, because out of nowhere an old man with a briefcase, on his lunch hour went down and schooled his ass. I couldn't hear the conversation but that old man was chewing his college-aged, pro-war-but-too-much-of-a-pussy to enlist hipster ass out in the Pit. The only part of the conversation I hear was the end, when the hipster sheepishly said "Thanks for your service". An old WWII veteran schooling a single pro-war counter-protestor. Sometimes you get good days. He sure gave him a Piece of his Mind.

But the most dispicible thing to me was, pro-war hipster had an Iron Maiden shirt on. Asshat probably never listened to Iron Maiden in his life, but now it's "hip" to wear their shirt, because it's ironic or some bullshit. That offended me personally as a teenage metalhead.

Yep, Yours truly was there. I'm sure the reactionary student newspaper will have a negative editorial tomorrow, but I haven't felt that good since the Steelers won the Superbowl. I was on the Southside of Pittsburgh, along with thousands of other people. And if UNC wins basketball game there'd be thousands on Franklin Street, not hundreds like there were today.

Why? Not because Americans are stupid. One of the elements that contributes to enthusiasm for sports and apathy toward government/world affairs/history is Americans were enthusiastically educated about sports, enthusiastically engaged in sports by their parents, coaches, teachers. History and Current Affairs are presented in the most bland and boring way imaginable in public schools.

But if American children were as enthusiastically educated about history as they are about sports, there'd be weekly rioting in the streets in this country right now, and now you can see why Americans aren't educated about history.

Inevitably there's much reactionary response about "What good does it do?" The war could be ended if Americans would step out of their ordinary lives, with many things to distract them from what their government is and what it does, and pressure their government officials on a massive scale. During Vietnam, many more Americans died and were injured, and there was a draft, so many more Americans' personal lives were affected. Also to an extent the media was much more responsible. Now, we have to step in and disrupt the flow of traffic, disrupt people to jolt them out of their everyday realities and make them think about the world outside of the comfortable bubble of this American life, and also outside of the bubble that the mainstream media creates. We have to take to the streets, especially without permits, and make people listen. Sure, maybe they'll just be pissed off and react negatively, but at least they thought about it. Making people even THINK about Iraq in this country is a step in the right direction.

This must happen on a wider and wider scale. There should have been thousands, not hundreds taking the streets today.

If nothing else, it was good practice for the revolution.

Media Coverage:
http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/03/21/Features/whose.Streets.our.Streets-2783765.shtml
"Thanks to the organizers staying calm and disciplined, there were no arrests or serious incidents," he said, adding that police officers couldn't have controlled the crowd even if they wanted to because they were vastly outnumbered.
"If we don't find our justice and our democracy in Washington, we will find it in the streets," Gilbert said.
"You can expect more of this."

http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/555583.html
It said "few". More like one guy.
http://www.nbc17.com/midatlantic/ncn/news.apx.-content-articles-NCN-2007-03-20-0003.html
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=triangle&id=5134832
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-831403.cfm
http://charlotte.com/115/story/58104.html

Folks come out in Raleigh http://rdu.news14.com/content/headlines/?ArID=102060&SecID=2
High School kids walk out in Asheville http://citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770320039&source=rss
SDS Students Arrested in Die-in in Rhode Island http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2007/03/20/Metro/Student.Arrested.At.Sds.dieIn.Downtown-2782022.shtml
Walk out in NY http://www.bupipedream.com/pipeline_web/display_article.php?id=4540
http://media.www.technicianonline.com/media/storage/paper848/news/2007/03/21/News/WalkOut.Brings.High.School.College.Students.Together-2783380.shtml
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770320088

Pre-coverage
http://wral.com/news/local/story/1241586/
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-831014.cfm
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/555544.html

Happy Anniversary!

2007-03-20T11:34:00.000-04:00

Today marks the 4th year of the Iraq occupation. I just wanted to post to remind you we're never leaving Iraq. NEVER EVER EVER. As long as Republicrats are in office, there will be military bases in Iraq, along with occassional fighting, forever and ever and ever.

I'll be participating in a Walk-out and rally today at the university. I'll let you know if anything significant happens.

Bush administration scandal of the week

2007-03-16T10:02:00.000-04:00

I won't comment on the Gonzales firing of US attorneys other than to say there needs to be a Bushopedia for all the wonderful scandals, lawlessness and corruption thinking folk have had to endure for the past 6 years.

The Ides of March are come

2007-03-16T09:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was March 15, the Ides of March.

On this day in 44 BC Julius Caesar was assassinated. From Wikipedia:

Caesar summoned the Senate to meet in the Pompey's Theater on the Ides of March 44 BC for the purpose of reading a petition, written by the senators, asking him to hand power back to the Senate.

This was 4 years after Caeser, then proconsul of Rome (the "most senior magistry of the republic"), crossed the Rubicon on January 10, 49BC with his army, after the Senate ordered him back from conquering Gaul, and accusing him of treason because of his monarchical aspirations. Crossing the Rubicon ignited a civil war and the Roman Empire went from a democratic form of government to a dictatorship under Caesar. Yet the Senate still remained as a shadow of its former self, with no power to put in check the power of the chief executive.

A few days later...

As the Senate convened, Caesar was attacked and stabbed to death by a group of senators who called themselves the Liberatores ("Liberators"); they justified their action on the grounds that they committed tyrannicide, not murder, and were preserving the Republic from Caesar's alleged monarchical ambitions.

And now, in 2007 AD, near the Ides of March, our Senate acts boldly against our modern day Caesar....

Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

And left establishment NPR promotes kinder, gentler protesting "Have a fundraiser!"

Tell 'em Ajax!
I'm sicka these WIMPS!

Democrats and Iraq

2007-03-13T13:27:00.000-04:00

Can Congress End the War? Democratic Leaders May Prefer to Claim They Tried But Failed By David Swanson:

So, clearly the question before us is not just what Congress can do to end the war, but also how the American public can persuade a Democratic Congress to want to end the war. Most Republican members of Congress still follow White House orders like sheep, and leading House Democrat Emanuel is openly telling the media that he'd just as soon have the war still going on in 2008. The war has cost an estimated 655,000 Iraqi lives and over 3,000 American ones in its first 4 years, with the death rate increasing over time, so by a safe estimate Emanuel has just written off perhaps another few hundred thousand lives for the sake of an electoral strategy.

A few examples of getting them to want to:

1. UNC Chapel Hill SDS members occupy Democrat David Price's office in Chapel Hill, are dragged away by police on trespassing charges.
2. Code Pink members camp outside Democrat Nancy Pelosi's house in San Francisco.
3. Occupation of Democrat Edward Markey's office in Mass. by Veterans for Peace, in which he pledged to vote against Iraq war funding.

Other occupations can be found on the Occupation Project's website.

This should keep happening on greater and greater scales for those who can afford misdemeanor fines or a lawyer. As Republicrats continue to ignore the people, the people should continue to ignore the law.

Democrats kneel to King George once again

2007-03-13T09:22:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Schwarz posting on Thismodernworld.com pointed me towards this bit of sickening but not surprising news:

Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

The justification for it, as Schwartz points out, is of course absurd, in the typical Republicrat fashion:

Rep. Shelley Berkley (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said in an interview there is widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which is believed to be seeking nuclear weapons and has expressed unremitting hostility about the Jewish state.

"It would take away perhaps the most important negotiating tool that the U.S. has when it comes to Iran," she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"I didn't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize it in a civilized way," said Rep. Gary Ackerman (news, bio, voting record) of New York.

Schwartz states the obvious truth:

Obviously the proposed language wouldn’t “take away” the possibility of the U.S. using force. It would only take away the possibility of Bush using force without Congressional approval.

And anyone who knows a bit about this history of Israel and Palestine knows this business about Ahmadinejad wanting to "wipe Israel off the map" was not about bombing Israel into the Mediterranian with nuclear bombs, but his belief, which nobody but hardline Islamic militants share, that Israel should return her land to Palestinians and go back to where it was before 1948, and cease being a sovereign state. This is obviously never going to happen. What most people believe is that Israel should withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza,and end their brutal oppression and aparteid of the Palestinian Muslims and Christians in those territories, as well ending the illegal occupation of Sheeba farms in Lebanon and the Golan Heights in Syria, and return thousands of civilian political prisoners who are held in Israeli jails.

While such inflamatory and stupid language is being used as a propaganda tool in the US media to get Americans to be unjustifiably afraid of Iran's nuclear capabilities (and they are 5-10 years away from having a bomb) so we won't stop the Democrats from allowing Bush to launch another Republicrat terrorist war there, Israel is right to consider Iran a threat. It's also safe to assume Iran is pursuing a nuclear bomb. What the big threat of a nuclear Iran is to the US and Israel is not that they'll use it to "wipe Israel off the map" - Ahmadinejad has no interest in the destruction of his country which would happen if they nuked anybody, as world forces would ally to bomb Iran back to the stone age. The real danger to US and Israel is that Iran will have negotiating power with a bomb that they don't have now.

But a unilateral attack on Iran (I doubt even the UK would be on board) would guarantee the annihilation of the United States. We may already be doomed from our stupid actions in Iraq. It's certainly created more terrorism and helped the anti-American jihadist movement more than anything else I could imagine. The pan-Shiite movement in the region, now from the majority Shiite taking control in Iraq, who are allied with Iran and Syria, will be given a golden opportunity to be a world superpower if the US invades Iran.

I just can't grasp the insanity of the Republicrats right now. An invasion on Iran will go against their own interests of US global domination. Our military is not large enough, a draft would ignite a domestic revolt, the treasury has already been looted by the Bush regime, Iran is a much stronger nation that Iraq was (Iraq was crippled by a decade of sanctions, and Saddam's military was in tatters), and Bush's incompetance kept him from achieving his goal in Iraq, which was of course to make it a client state. You'd have to be psychotic to even dream that any of this could be achieved in Iran.

Unless chaos is itself the goal. It's certainly profitable in the short term.

Arthur Silbur has a few choice words for the blue war criminals.

And Noam Chomsky weighs the possibility:

Despite the sabre-rattling it is, I suspect, unlikely that the Bush administration will attack Iran. Public opinion in the US and around the world is overwhelmingly opposed. It appears that the US military and intelligence community is also opposed. Iran cannot defend itself against US attack, but it can respond in other ways, among them by inciting even more havoc in Iraq. Some issue warnings that are far more grave, among them the British military historian Corelli Barnett, who writes that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch world war three".

Then again, a predator becomes even more dangerous, and less predictable, when wounded. In desperation to salvage something, the administration might risk even greater disasters. The Bush administration has created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. It has been unable to establish a reliable client state within, and cannot withdraw without facing the possible loss of control of the Middle East's energy resources.

The Iran War - It's Up to Us

2007-03-08T08:27:00.000-05:00

Two years ago when I started this blog, some of my earliest posts were about the buildup for War in Iran. Sure, I could show the average person, who has a slight interest in mainstream news, where in 2005 I predicted a war in Iran and make myself out to be some sort of prophet. But the reality is, what I do is simple. 1) I believe nothing the government says outright, but pay attention to what they say as an indication of what they'll do, with the realization that most of their language is Orwellian. 2) I pay attention to journalism critical of US foreign policy, which is almost exclusively outside the mainstream. In fact, I don't even have a television anymore. Democracy Now! comes on my radio at 6:30pm when most of the country is watching Katie Couric.

One of the ways to gauge Bush administration foreign policy is to read exactly what they wrote, and what Katie Couric will never bring up. The neoconservatives in the administration were part of an organization called the Project for a New American Century, which outlined their plans for global power during the Clinton administration.

The basis of their ideas are outlined in their Statement of Principles.

The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire.

This in effect means the US government should be able to attack anybody, since anybody is a potential dire threat. Before crises emerge, not when they exist. And since the crisis is yet to exist, we can safely assume that in our "representative" form of government the Commander in Chief and his administration are the ones who will decide when and where crises will come into existance. So this doctrine gives the US power to attack whoever the fuck they want. And is it just an unbelievable coincidence that the neocons have decided crises and dire threats just might emerge in oil-rich nations, whose leaders don't readily cut deals with us?

Neoconservative doctrine is further fleshed out in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America. Neocon goals become transparent by simply taking a look at the strategy's outline - "global economic growth" through coercion and force (ironically known as neoliberalism). A global economic system so wealth can flow up to the upper 1% through corrupt economic policy that the Clinton administration helped put in place. Forcing markets on the poor. This is going on in all corners of the globe. The World Bank & IMF infiltrate poor nations by offering them funding with certain conditions - mainly that their markets become dominated by multinational US-based corporations. This is happening in Iraq. It's happened in Jamaica, India, countless examples. Family farmers become factory workers, wage slaves, because they can't compete with the cheap price of global agribusiness produce.

And again in the 2002 Strategy the neocons reassert the 1997 PNAC principles of preventive attack, based on their own judgement. And we're supposed to believe it's just a coincidence that oil-rich Iran is being threatened and not North Korea.

For more information on Iran, you can read articles from the people who warned us about Iraq, Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh. Hersh and Ritter have contacts from inside the govenrment, so when the government wants to let people know of it's plans, they let people like Hersh and to a lesser extent Ritter know about what they are going to do, and it has a very Watergate/Deep Throat feeling to it, because Hersh is getting inside information and exposing it. The people who read Hersh are going to be anti-war anyway, and government officials know exactly what they're doing. "Leaking" is mostly a propaganda tactic by people in high office, not a whistle-blower who was so overwhelmed with moral outrage that he just had to risk his career to let Sy Hersh know about these horrible plans. Although, with the extreme actions of the neoconservative administration there have been quite a few whistleblowers. But it's easy to tell the whistleblowers from the those who deliberately and anonymously leak information as part of a propaganda plan - the leakers still have a job. In any case, Hersh and Ritter are the canaries in the mine, thus a good indication that an Iran attack is being planned.

But whether that attack is carried out is up to us. If you want to stop an attack on Iran, and get the wimpy ass Democrats to act on Iraq - there are various things you can do.

1. Email, write, call the people that represent you in congress.

2. Organize or join a local antiwar group. Organizing is the fundamental first step in challenging any system of power. You can't do shit without organizing.

3. Email or send a letter to a local newspaper.

4. Attend antiwar protests. There are a lot of egotists that do go to these things, and they get the most news coverage, but mostly it's old ladies. Just going is important. The next on is on St. Patrick's Day in DC, the March on the Pentagon

5. And, if the US does attack Iran, I am going to organize with a local antiwar group and pick a day to get arrested for non-violent civil disobedience. Basically, you go to the office of your local representative with a group of your friends, read a list of demands for that representative (namely - we'll sit here until he takes action against the war, etc), and sit there until the police are called in to drag you out. If you're like me, you'll have to get some funds together to pay for fines and court costs, and you won't mind spending a night in jail, which I've done before and it's not that traumatic, especially if you are with friends in the same holding cell. I figure if people have the balls enough to join the military and fight the war, I should have the balls to spend a night in jail to resist it.

Privitization of Walter Reed may have led to poor conditions

2007-03-06T08:47:00.000-05:00

I was listening to our local AM radio reactionary, Bill Lumaye, on my commute home from work yesterday. He suggested that the conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were because of the "bureaucracy", big government, publically funded services, all that horrible stuff, and then went on to suggest that if the hosptial was privatized, as in turned over to Halliburton or a subsidiary, the conditions would magically improve immediately.

My reaction to this was "Oh! They want to privatize it!" I thought maybe why attention was finally being paid to conditions that have been deteriorating over the past four years. I was wrong, it turned out.

Bill then got four or five veterans on the line to ask them about their experiences, the majority of whom said their overall experience was just fine and dandy at veteran's hospitals - not to say that reflects the current experience - but the point is it backfired Bill's plan to help promote privatization.

So what happened at Walter Reed? According to this Army Times report, the reason I was wrong in my initial reaction was that the very fact Walter Reed HAS BEEN PRIVATIZED was exactly the thing that was causing problems.

The [Committee on Oversight and Government Reform] wants to learn more about a letter written in September by Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi to Weightman.

The memorandum “describes how the Army’s decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was causing an exodus of ‘highly skilled and experienced personnel,’” the committee’s letter states. “According to multiple sources, the decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed led to a precipitous drop in support personnel at Walter Reed.”
...
“The conditions that have been described at Walter Reed are disgraceful,” the letter states. “Part of our mission on the Oversight Committee is to investigate what led to the breakdown in services. It would be reprehensible if the deplorable conditions were caused or aggravated by an ideological commitment to privatize government services regardless of the costs to taxpayers and the consequences for wounded soldiers.”

The letter said the Defense Department “systemically” tried to replace federal workers at Walter Reed with private companies for facilities management, patient care and guard duty – a process that began in 2000.

“But the push to privatize support services there accelerated under President Bush’s ‘competitive sourcing’ initiative, which was launched in 2002,” the letter states.

During the year between awarding the contract to IAP and when the company started, “skilled government workers apparently began leaving Walter Reed in droves,” the letter states. “The memorandum also indicates that officials at the highest levels of Walter Reed and the U.S. Army Medical Command were informed about the dangers of privatization, but appeared to do little to prevent them.”

So I wrote a little email to Bill, asking him to address this in his show today. I'm sure he will.

For more information on this, read "The long-term wounds of Walter Reed" by Mark Benjamin. and you can also listen to an interview with him on CounterSpin.

I don't think there's even an illusion with Edwards

2007-03-05T16:15:00.000-05:00

From my new favorite blogger, Arthur Silber ... the obvious truth about my fellow Tar Heel John Edwards:

Edwards' overall perspective, and the basic assumptions underlying his more specific prescriptions, are those that have driven U.S. foreign policy for the last century. As I am documenting in the "Dominion Over the World" series, this perspective and these assumptions are shared by Democrats and Republicans alike. I emphasize once more that Bush is an unusually blatant and crude embodiment of these views -- but, with regard to the most fundamental issues, Bush's overall objectives and his primary justifications have been and are shared by any number of Democrats, including Edwards himself.

More evidence Paul Street was right about The Obama Illusion

2007-03-02T15:50:00.000-05:00

Notice how this headline is a big sundae with whipped cream and a cherry on top for rightist reactionaries:
Obama blames U.S. for stronger Iran
It's also a lie. He's blaming the Bush administration, not "the U.S." which I presume would mean the US government. A right wing reactionary would take that as "blames America".

"He's blamin' America fer Eye-ran's doins? That dang Muslim libril!" is how you're supposed to react if you tend to vote for people with (R)s after their name.

But when you read the story, like a few of us do, you find that Obama is not saying anything that goes out of the firmly established Republicrat boundaries. He doesn't even get close to the boundaries. Just as programmed, this Charismatic Young Politician with a Vision recites allegience to Israel:

Obama also emphasized in his speech his commitment to protecting the security of Israel, which he called "our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy."

"Our job is to renew the United States' efforts to help Israel achieve peace with its neighbors while remaining vigilant against those who do not share this vision," Obama said.

And in the next breath is a megaphone for Republicrat Iran policy, and we're supposed to think he's a leftist because his first thought would be to "try" diplomacy. But of course, an attack on Iran's population, which of course would kill and cripple hundreds and then thousands of Iranian civilians, crush any hopes of real democracy or Reform in Iran as the population will turn to militant elements for defense, kill and cripple more Americans, further drive the US into debt that will not be paid in our grandchildren's lifetimes, manufacture more anti-US terrorism, further destabilize the region, further increase anti-Americanism, mobilize Russia and China to support Iran and work against the US. is not an option "off the table" for this "progressive" :

"While we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons," Obama said.

The Bottom Line on Iraq

2007-03-02T10:11:00.000-05:00

"Our ongoing occupation of Iraq, which no one is prepared to even try to end, has resulted in the fragmentation and significantly increasing strength of a global jihadist movement -- which many experts (and non-experts) predicted before this catastrophe began. We have created far more enemies than we had before, and we therefore face greater dangers now than we did four years ago. Those dangers continue to increase every day that we remain."

Arthur Silber
3/1/07
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/

Liberal Dem Establishment once again attacking Kucinich

2007-02-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

Of course, anyone with principles never has "electoral viability" to these "Daily Kos" types. I know Kucinich won't be elected, particularly because he isn't completely bought and paid for by corporate interests like Barack Obama is. Even if you don't agree with Kucinich on the issues at all (I don't agree with him on abortion if the Nation's characterization Kos quotes is accurate), that suggests to me that maybe we should work to change the system instead of trying to elect a neoliberal like Obama, and I mean neoliberal in the corporate globalisation sense, much like Hillary and her husband are neoliberals.

Kos goes on with a reactionary rant about Kucinich's Department of Peace:

"Higher evolution of human awareness"? "Transform consciousness"? "Paradign shift"? What the hell is this crap? I expect this kind of crap out of Deepak Chopra (or Tom Cruise), not a serious presidential candidate.

No, I guess we should just keep thinking the way we always have, the "faith" that if a celebrity like Obama becomes elected, all will become right with the world.

The left establishment is just as reactionary as the right when someone they don't like plays in their sandbox.

That's why it's imperative to support people like Hillary, Edwards, or Obama - he's more handsome, a neoliberal, a perfect Democrat because he speaks strong words about being progressive while being totally bought by corporate interests and completely in favor of the continued redistribution of wealth to the upper 1% through globalization.

At least Republicans are honest about being a corporate party - they make no bones about being pro-rich, while the Democrats have to pretend to be a party of the people in order to make us believe we have an actual choice, and that the government is not just a tool of the elites, and part of that is making damn sure guys with actual opinions are kept in the margins.

I don't agree with Kucinich on everything, but as long as he's on the margins of the Blue wing of the Corporate Party, I may consider becoming a Democrat again just to vote for him in the primary next year.

Meanwhile, I'll be trying to get Nader ballot access, and at least write him in for President.

Salmonella in Peanut Butter

2007-02-15T13:47:00.000-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070215/ap_on_he_me/peanut_butter_salmonella

How does salmonella get in peanut butter? Short answer - Lots of Processing. How does it become widespread? Highly centralized food distribution systems.

This recounts how a salmonella outbreak in peanut butter in Australia was traced in 1999 (I do the research so the AP doesn't have to):

Microbiologists traced the salmonella to a particular brand of peanut butter from a manufacturer in Queensland.

[Microbiologist Peter] Wood was quoted as saying, "Fortunately, the company had retained a sample of that batch of peanut butter so that shelf life tests could be conducted," and that the sample was contaminated with the same strain of S. Mbandaka infecting patients.

The batch of peanut butter was traced to one batch of roasted peanuts from one supplier. Again, the disease detectives were in luck, because the supplier had kept a sample of the peanuts to study possible aflatoxin contamination. Again tests matched the strains of salmonella.

It turns out that the roasting company had moved and separated the roasted peanuts with an auger, a drill-like machine with a spiraling blade that could lift piles of peanuts.

Wood was quoted as saying, "The auger was only used four times because it proved not to be as time-saving as first thought."

Wood said the machine was rarely used and had been kept in the company tool yard. During that time, eastern Australia was in the throes of a plague of mice. The rodents nested everywhere, including the tool yard,
where their droppings contaminated the auger.

When the auger was brought in to the plant, it was washed down but Wood said it was not sanitized before it was used on Jan. 10, 1996.

Salmonella from the auger became mixed with the peanuts, and the contaminated peanuts in turn contaminated the peanut butter production apparatus. Jar after jar of contaminated peanut butter began wending its way to supermarket shelves under generic labels.

Wood was quoted as saying, "It took us six months to track down the cause of the outbreak," and that over that time, peanut butter production had continued, meaning all six months' worth of peanut butter had to be removed from store shelves and destroyed.

Howard Coble's speech and my letter to him

2007-02-15T10:47:00.000-05:00

My congressmen, an old Republican in our very conservative district, spoke out against Bush's escalation. His four minute speech can be viewed here from CSPAN here
(See North Carolina>H. Coble)

This is my letter in response:

Dear Howard Coble,

THANK YOU! for your speech on the Iraq war. While I don't necessarily agree with your interpretation of the Iraqis "rejecting freedom", it's completely clear to anyone with a level head that it's time to bring our troops home. Some of us had been listening to military experts and former CIA members since 2002 who predicted all the terrible things that would happen in this war - that it would destabilize the area, that a civil war could break out- and also we listened to weapons inspectors who doubted Saddam's WMD capabilities, and it turned out he had none, as President Bush has said. We were all called far left wackos and told we "hated America", whatever that is supposed to mean. Now, billions of dollars later, and thousands of lives destroyed and shattered, it turns out we were right, and maybe by opposing the Iraq war we didn't "hate America" after all.

Well, it's no fun being ignored and it's no fun being right. I have lost a dear friend in this horrible idiotic mess, and have cousins over there still who are risking their lives for contractors who scam the American people out of tax dollars so they can send empty trucks running all over the place and charge $65 for a load of laundry for a soldier. How cruel or horribly insane does a government have to be to put its own citizens in a position to risk their lives to provide security in a civil war, and, as many military experts have said, to CREATE MORE TERRORISM that would not have been created had the government listened to the sober criticisms from the beginning, who were not just going along with popular opinion at the time, brought on my deliberately misdirected fear, that 70% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein directed the 9/11 atrocities.

Well, if I thought Saddam had weapons he could use on us, if I thought he had carried out 9/11, and if I thought he was a threat to us at all, I would have supported this war. But despite what the New York Times wanted us to believe, that all turned out to be nonsense, proven over and over again. And each reason the Bush administration invented for going to Iraq turned out to be nonsense too, proven over and over again. This isn't a war on terror, this war is MANUFACTURING terrorists out of people who may or may not have had any gripe with us at all. As we can all clearly see, many of Saddams former enemies have been attacking US troops. Anyone supporting this war is completely insane or is simply too apathetic and careless of the fate of humanity to pay attention.

And if our nation is to survive at all, let alone "prosper" we have to stop harping on simplistic definitions of the motivations of human beings, even Iraqis, that would somehow lead them to "reject freedom". That is absolutely absurd. But if you think people are so stupid that that kind of explanation will get troops out of this corrupt bloodbath, so be it, whatever works.

Again, I thank you Mr. Coble for your speech.

NYTimes selling Iran war

2007-02-14T14:08:00.000-05:00

From yesterday's Democracy Now, just like it sold Iraq, and with the same government megaphone authors, the NY Times is supporting the US governments build up to launch a terrorist attack on Iran, based on claims with no proof.

Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/world/middleeast/10weapons.html

Michael Gordon is the stupid motherfucker who co-authored the Judith Miller articles hyping the faulty Iraq war intelligence in the run-up to that stupid fucking war.

A critical article about this story can be found in the mainstream rag Editor & Publisher

(as an aside, It's no longer worth addressing people who think the New York Times is leftist- not that I have any evidence I'm addressing anybody. I could spend all day addressing widely held, absurd beliefs of people who don't give a shit enough to pay attention, but there are already plenty of liberal bloggers who shoot fish in a barrel daily)

I love Democracy Now

2007-02-14T13:23:00.000-05:00

It's Valentine's Day, so Amy Goodman & company are doing exposés on the diamond, chocolate, and flower industries. Next year they should attack Hallmark for making the stupid thing up in the first place.

Democrats and the myth of US morality

2007-02-12T14:48:00.000-05:00

Arthur Silber comments on a recent article by William Pfaff , reminding us that American imperialism is not exclusive to Bush or neoconservative doctrine.

Howard Zinn kicks Democrat ass

2007-02-07T13:11:00.000-05:00

From this month's Progressive, "Impeachment by the People" pasted here without permission:

Courage is in short supply in Washington, D.C.

The realities of the Iraq War cry out for the overthrow of a government that is criminally responsible for death, mutilation, torture, humiliation, chaos.
But all we hear in the nation's capital, which is the source of those catastrophes, is a whimper from the Democratic Party, muttering and nattering about "unity" and "bipartisanship," in a situation that calls for bold action to immediately reverse the present course.

These are the Democrats who were brought to power in November by an electorate fed up with the war, furious at the Bush Administration, and counting on the new majority in Congress to represent the voters. But if sanity is to be restored in our national policies, it can only come about by a great popular upheaval, pushing both Republicans and Democrats into compliance with the national will.

The Declaration of Independence, revered as a document but ignored as a guide to action, needs to be read from pulpits and podiums, on street corners and community radio stations throughout the nation. Its words, forgotten for over two centuries, need to become a call to action for the first time since it was read aloud to crowds in the early excited days of the American Revolution: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new government."

The "ends" referred to in the Declaration are the equal right of all to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." True, no government in the history of the nation has been faithful to those ends. Favors for the rich, neglect of the poor, massive violence in the interest of continental and world expansion—that is the persistent record of our government.

Still, there seems to be a special viciousness that accompanies the current assault on human rights, in this country and in the world. We have had repressive governments before, but none has legislated the end of habeas corpus, nor openly supported torture, nor declared the possibility of war without end. No government has so casually ignored the will of the people, affirmed the right of the President to ignore the Constitution, even to set aside laws passed by Congress.

The time is right, then, for a national campaign calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Representative John Conyers, who held extensive hearings and introduced an impeachment resolution when the Republicans controlled Congress, is now head of the House Judiciary Committee and in a position to fight for such a resolution. He has apparently been silenced by his Democratic colleagues who throw out as nuggets of wisdom the usual political palaver about "realism" (while ignoring the realities staring them in the face) and politics being "the art of the possible" (while setting limits on what is possible).

I know I'm not the first to talk about impeachment. Indeed, judging by the public opinion polls, there are millions of Americans, indeed a majority of those polled, who declare themselves in favor if it is shown that the President lied us into war (a fact that is not debatable). There are at least a half-dozen books out on impeachment, and it's been argued for eloquently by some of our finest journalists, John Nichols and Lewis Lapham among them. Indeed, an actual "indictment" has been drawn up by a former federal prosecutor, Elizabeth de la Vega, in a new book called United States v. George W. Bush et al, making a case, in devastating detail, to a fictional grand jury.

There is a logical next step in this development of an impeachment movement: the convening of "people's impeachment hearings" all over the country. This is especially important given the timidity of the Democratic Party. Such hearings would bypass Congress, which is not representing the will of the people, and would constitute an inspiring example of grassroots democracy.

These hearings would be the contemporary equivalents of the unofficial gatherings that marked the resistance to the British Crown in the years leading up to the American Revolution. The story of the American Revolution is usually built around Lexington and Concord, around the battles and the Founding Fathers. What is forgotten is that the American colonists, unable to count on redress of their grievances from the official bodies of government, took matters into their own hands, even before the first battles of the Revolutionary War.

Throughout the nation's history, the failure of government to deliver justice has led to the establishment of grassroots organizations, often ad hoc, dissolving after their purpose was fulfilled. For instance, after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, knowing that the national government could not be counted on to repeal the act, black and white anti-slavery groups organized to nullify the law by acts of civil disobedience. They held meetings, made plans, and set about rescuing escaped slaves who were in danger of being returned to their masters.

In the desperate economic conditions of 1933 and 1934, before the Roosevelt Administration was doing anything to help people in distress, local groups were formed all over the country to demand government action. Unemployed Councils came into being, tenants' groups fought evictions, and hundreds of thousands of people in the country formed self-help organizations to exchange goods and services and enable people to survive.

More recently, we recall the peace groups of the 1980s, which sprang up in hundreds of communities all over the country, and provoked city councils and state legislatures to pass resolutions in favor of a freeze on nuclear weapons. And local organizations have succeeded in getting more than 400 city councils to take a stand against the Patriot Act.

Impeachment hearings all over the country could excite and energize the peace movement. They would make headlines, and could push reluctant members of Congress in both parties to do what the Constitution provides for and what the present circumstances demand: the impeachment and removal from office of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Simply raising the issue in hundreds of communities and Congressional districts would have a healthy effect, and would be a sign that democracy, despite all attempts to destroy it in this era of war, is still alive.

Mainstream liberals - Court Jesters in the service of King George

2007-02-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

This article from last October in the London Review of Books more eloquently states what I've tried to say for a few years now about mainstream liberals. We can include people like Barack Obama and Hillary in their ilk- are they still calling Hillary a liberal?

Although the term "liberal" has been so bastardized by both the left and right in the narrow political spectrum of the mainstream media, like many other terms in our Orwellian national "dialogue" (including the term dialogue, "liberal" has come to be used in reference to something the term originally had nothing to do with - specifically, court jesters in the service of the power apparatus.

The most obvious examples of court jestering are liberal celebrities, specifically Bono, who routinely "courts" world leaders while wearing ridiculous looking over-sized pink sunglasses. An entire liberal radio network called Air America featured hosts whose primary occupations were professional comedians. And how many political punk bands are there who dress almost literally like clowns, sing about their system not working for me and then sign contracts for a record label owned by a major media conglomerate, and expect me to take them seriously?

But at least these celebrities, however bad their approach, are opposed to the Iraq war.

This article takes on the liberal intelligentsia, particularly those who favored the war at the outset, and who now, in their big media outlets, refuse to even consider that whatever the US does is at all unjust and pure.Bush’s Useful Idiots: Tony Judt on the Strange Death of Liberal America

Magazines and newspapers of the traditional liberal centre – the New Yorker, the New Republic, the Washington Post and the New York Times itself – fell over themselves in the hurry to align their editorial stance with that of a Republican president bent on exemplary war. A fearful conformism gripped the mainstream media. And America’s liberal intellectuals found at last a new cause.
...
In today’s America, neo-conservatives generate brutish policies for which liberals provide the ethical fig-leaf. There really is no other difference between them.

This was followed by a response from a few American liberals who I have no interest in (Ackerman and Gitlin - "A-G" below), popular with people who read the New York Times and other garbage, then that response was commented on by Edward Herman, a man who actually does challenge US power in his writings.

In short, an imperial and militarized state will use its military power relentlessly, and the feedback effects of this chronic warfare are inevitably going to entail encroachments on domestic freedom. But A-G can’t confront this deeper relationship and challenge militarism and the imperial state. They adapt to it, and in the process “liberal principles” are compromised and thrust aside, and the liberals do in fact serve as the imperial state’s “useful idiots.”

If you ever wonder why so many people in an educated society

2007-01-22T08:29:00.000-05:00

Believe global warming doesn't exist, this might help you understand why.

Like the tobacco industry that for decades denied a link between smoking and lung cancer, ExxonMobil has waged a "sophisticated and successful disinformation campaign" to mislead the public about global warming, according to a major new report by the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Among the most prominent recipients were the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), to which Exxon-Mobil has contributed more than 1.6 million dollars; the George C. Marshall Institute (630,000 dollars); and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which has received more than two million dollars, more than any other beneficiary.

With often overlapping directors, advisors, and staff, the 43 groups, according to the report, have acted as an "echo chambre" that, with the help of right-wing media, such as the Wall Street Journal, and columnists, deliberately spread disinformation about climate change.
...
Indeed, according to the report, even some of same individuals involved in the tobacco industry's efforts contributed to ExxonMobil's campaign.

Steven Milloy, for example, whose Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (ASSC) was created by tobacco giant Philip Morris in 1993 to raise questions about the link between second-hand smoke and cancer, has served as a member of the Global Climate Science Team (GCST), which ExxonMobil helped create in 1998, and run the Free Enterprise Action Institute to which the company has contributed 130,000 dollars -- or almost two-thirds of the group's total expenses.

You can follow this link to get the full UCS report

MLK Day- You won't hear this on television- 2.

2007-01-15T12:45:00.000-05:00

I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about "Where do we go from here," that we honestly face the fact that the Movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's market place. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, "Who owns the oil?" You begin to ask the question, "Who owns the iron ore?" You begin to ask the question, "Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two thirds water?" These are questions that must be asked.
Now, don't think that you have me in a "bind" today. I'm not talking about Communism.
What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

If you will let me be a preacher just a little bit - One night, a juror came to Jesus and he wanted to know what he could do to be saved. Jesus didn't get bogged down in the kind of isolated approach of what he shouldn't do. Jesus didn't say, "Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying." HE didn't say, "Nicodemus, you must stop cheating if you are doing that." He didn't say, "Nicodemus, you must not commit adultery." He didn't say, "Nicodemus, now you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively." He said something altogether different, because Jesus realized something basic - that if a man will lie, he will steal. And if a man will steal, he will kill. So instead of just getting bogged down in one thing, Jesus looked at him and said, "Nicodemus, you must be born again." He said, in other words, "Your whole structure must be changed." A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them - make them things. Therefore they will exploit them, and poor people generally, economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. What I am saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!"

-Martin Luther King, Jr., on revolution

MLK Day- You won't hear this on television- 1.

2007-01-15T12:23:00.000-05:00

"When you think of the Civil Rights movement, the first thing you think of is Martin Luther King. King was an important figure. But he would have been the first to tell you, I'm sure, that he was riding the wave of activism, that people who were doing the work, who were in the lead in the Civil Rights movement, were young SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] workers, freedom riders, people out there in the streets every day getting beaten and sometimes killed, working constantly. They created the circumstances in which a Martin Luther King could come in and be a leader. His role was extremely important, I'm not denigrating it, it was very important to have done that. But the people who were really important are the ones whose names are forgotten. And that's true of every movement that ever existed." - Noam Chomsky

"King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significance). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation." - Federal Bureau of Investigation in a note to Dr. King

20,000 new targets

2007-01-11T09:45:00.000-05:00

If I pushed a soldier in front of a speeding locomotive, and he was killed, would I be charged with murder? What if I pushed 20,000 soldiers in front of 20,000 speeding locomotives? I think I'd deserve to be hanged.

Bush, as usual, displayed his hatred for democracy last night. This is typical of American rulers, but with Bush there's an extremism there that even more deeply centralizes his power into a few neoconservative radicals around him.

We live in a fake democracy where the elected (or appointed) leadership from the minority class of billionaires is occasionally forced to listen to the bottom 99%, the citizenry. Fortunately for willful submissives, in his seething hatred of democracy Bush is so far to the right, he has ignored the citizenry along with the Congress and decided to increase troop levels back to what they were last year. Even many members of that upper 1% have finally come around to see how terrible and stupid this whole war is.

Iraq: the Logic of Withdrawal

2007-01-10T10:01:00.000-05:00

Via Chomsky's site, a new book just released with a similar title to Zinn's Vietnam-era book I read last year (Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal), with a forward by Zinn.

I'm also interested in George McGovern's book released in October, Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now. Both should make more sense than the moderate ISG report.

just curious

2007-01-09T14:01:00.000-05:00

not sure if anyone reads this as there hasn't been a comment for over a year. Regardless of whether it's read or not, I keep it as a journal for the old reasons people used to keep journals: developing ideas, as a historical record, etc.

If you are reading it, I doubt you agree with me on everything, so speak up if you want.

Doggy Steps

According to the liberal NPR, there is no anti-war movement

2007-01-09T11:37:00.000-05:00

*UPDATE - Massive "March on Washington" being planned by the nonexistent antiwar movement.

According to the NPR show Weekend America:

This week, with Democrats taking over Congress, anti-war activists have tried to spark momentum. It's what anti-war leader Cindy Sheehan calls a "peace surge." However, there is no mass movement to draw on. Weekend America's Michael May talks with Sheehan and others about how they hope to overcome the general malaise, and about the likelihood of their success.

I guess it doesn't happen if the mainstream media doesn't cover it. Reality, as usual, evades the media. Even if we only used mass demonstrations as a gauge, we can point to a HUGE, international antiwar movement, perhaps the largest that has ever occurred. We are talking about millions of people pouring into the streets, and being almost ignored by the mainstream press.

The Weekend America segment went on to compare today's antiwar movement with what went on during the 1960s with Vietnam. They had a guy on basically saying the reason there is no antiwar movement is that there is no draft. As Chomsky points out from this interview:

Opposition to the war in Iraq is far greater than the much worse war in Vietnam. Iraq is the first war I think in the history of European imperialism, including the U.S., where there was massive protest before the war was officially launched. In Vietnam it took four or five years before there was any visible protest. Protest was so slight that nobody even remembers or knows that Kennedy attacked South Vietnam in 1962. It was a serious attack. It was years later before protest finally developed.

And today, we have the internet. People exchange ideas and organize and promote their cause on the internet. Protests aren't the absolute measure of antiwar actions, but even if they were, the antiwar sentiment that exists today is unprecedented.

FDA to Force Feed Americans with cloned meat

2006-12-29T16:56:00.000-05:00

From the Organic Consumers Assn.:

TAKE ACTION: FDA APPROVES FOOD FROM CLONES

Despite a September survey found that 64% of Americans are repulsed by the idea of eating food from cloned animals, the FDA announced this week that milk, eggs and meat from cloned animals will soon be allowed on the market.

Ignoring a number of disturbing studies suggesting potential human health hazards, Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine said "that meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day." Consumer, food safety, and animal welfare groups have condemned the announcement, pointing out that animal cloning is inherently unpredictable and hazardous, and that the practice of cloning has led to a high number of cruel and painful deformities in the experimental animals' offspring.

Recognizing that requiring labels on cloned food would lead to a massive boycott by consumers, FDA bowed to industry lobbyists by stating that there likely will be no required labeling of food products containing ingredients from cloned animals. The FDA's controversial proposed regulations in the Federal Register will now be followed by a three month public comment period.

The OCA is calling on health and humane-minded consumers across the nation to stop this outrageous and hazardous regulation from coming into force as federal law. The FDA will be accepting comments until April 2007. Please consider making the message an/or subject line below unique before submitting to the FDA. Thanks!

12/29/20006: Approval of Cloned Food Leaves Consumers Unprotected

12/26/2006: Despite Lack of Science and Strong Public Concern, FDA Expected to OK Food From Cloned Animals

Send Comments to:

Secretary of Health
Michael Leavitt
U.S. Department of Health and Human
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201
TollFree: 877-696-6775
Mike.Leavitt_G06@hhs.gov

Gerald Ford, another dead war criminal

2006-12-29T15:48:00.000-05:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pwj4QSQlHVE a quick rundown by Amy Goodman of Ford and Henry Kissinger's complicity in Indonesian acts of genocide against East Timor

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2815881561030958784&q=trials+of+henry+kissinger
You can watch this entire film about the war criminal Henry Kissinger or go to 48:18 if you're interested in East Timor genocide

National Security Archive documents proving Ford's complicity

Ford and Kissinger took great pains to assure Suharto that they would not oppose the invasion. Ford was unambiguous: “We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem and the intentions you have.” Kissinger did indeed stress that “the use of US-made arms could create problems,” but then added that, “It depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self defense or is a foreign operation.” Thus, Kissinger’s concern was not about whether U.S. arms would be used offensively—and hence illegally—but whether the act would actually be interpreted as such—a process he clearly intended to manipulate.(26) In any case, Kissinger added: “It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly.”
Indeed, timing and damage control were very important to the Americans, as Kissinger told Suharto: “We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return. . . If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the President returns home.” Kissinger also asked Suharto if he anticipated a “long guerilla war,” apparently aware that a quick military success would be easier to spin than a long campaign. Suharto acknowledged that there "will probably be a small guerilla war" but he was cagey enough not to predict its duration. Nevertheless, his military colleagues were optimistic; as one of the architects of Indonesian policy, General Ali Murtopo explained to a U.S. scholar some months before the invasion, "the whole business will be settled in three weeks."(27)

Tired of liberal bloggers...

2006-12-22T09:28:00.000-05:00

Chomsky mentioned NPR's coverage of Obama's personality in the talk I linked to below. It struck me because I heard the same report and had the same reaction. And NPR is at the left of the range of mainstream faux-politics.

And liberal bloggers have been engaging in the same kind of "personality" talk about Democratic presidential hopefuls. In place of discussing which kinds of policy they support (perhaps because it virtually mirrors Republican policy), I've run into things about Hillary Clinton's appearance on some horrid daytime talk show and Barak Obama's appearance on Monday Night Football, as though it's supposed to be significant.

There is a certain kind of masochistic insanity to all this. Do those even with dissident convictions (however mild they may be) honestly believe that the fate of this country depends on the way a person comes off on a talk show, or the jokes they tell or the way they shake hands with the host? Are Bush's gaffes and departures from proper English so much more terrible than the terrorist foreign policy he's behind?

I get the feeling most of these people can talk to you all day about how stupid Bush is, and how he's trying to "get the oil", as though a Democrat in the White House will come in a save everything and we'll finally live in Utopia. Never mind that Hillary's husband helped mass murder more Iraqis than Bush has even tried to, and conducted terrorist chemical warfare on Colombian farmers under the guise of the drug war. Or that Hillary has supported the insane Iraq War from the beginning, and is towing the same line to this day.

Series of good talks this week on Democracy Now!

2006-12-21T10:09:00.000-05:00

Howard Zinn

"Whether you call yourself a totalitarian state or you call yourself a democracy, it works the same way, and that is, the leaders of the country are able to cajole or coerce and entice the people into war by scaring them, telling them they’re in danger, and threatening them and coercing them, that if they don’t go along, they will be considered unpatriotic."
...

"Don’t journalists learn from I.F. Stone, who said... “Just remember two words: governments lie”
...

"Governments in general do not represent the people of the societies that they govern. And since they don’t represent the people and since they act against the interest of the people, the only way they can hold power is if they lie to the people. If they told people the truth, they wouldn’t last very long. So history can help in understanding deception and being skeptical and not rushing to embrace whatever the government tells you."

"You will hear a young fellow who is going off to Iraq. I remember hearing the same thing when a young fellow went off to Vietnam. And a reporter goes up to the young fellow and says, “You know, young man, you’re going off, and what are your thoughts and why are you doing this?” And the young man says, “I’m doing this for my country.” No, he’s not doing it for his country. And now, she’s not doing it for her country. The people who go off to war are not doing fighting for their country. No, they’re not doing their country any good. They’re not doing their families any good. They’re certainly not doing the people over there any good. But they’re not doing it for their country. They’re doing it for their government."

Noam Chomsky - analysis of the Iraq Study Group (or Baker-Hamilton) report, along with comments on democracy in the South.

"...two-thirds of the people of Baghdad want US troops out immediately, and about over three-quarters of the whole population, including Kurds, again, wants a firm timetable for withdrawal within a year or less. Well, that isn’t mentioned, because in our mission to bring democracy to the world, we don’t care about the opinions of people. ...Also interesting is that the American people are treated the same way. A majority of people here are in favor of a firm timetable for withdrawal. But that's irrelevant, too."

"The indigenous population is, for the first time in hundreds of years, taking a -- really beginning in some of the countries, take a very active role in their own affairs. In Bolivia, they succeeded in taking over the country, controlling their resources. Bolivia -- and it’s also leading to significant democratization, real democracy, in which the population participates. So it takes a Bolivia -- it’s the poorest country in the hemisphere in South America -- Haiti is poorer -- it had a real democratic election last year, of a kind that you can't imagine in the United States, or in Europe, for that matter. There was mass popular participation, and people knew what the issues were. The issues were crystal clear and very important. And people didn't just participate on election day. These are the things they had been struggling about for years."

"There's a lot of talk here about, you know, we have a divided country. We have to unify. We need a unifier, somebody who will bring it back together. Red and blue, and so on. That's pretty marginal. It is a divided country. It's divided between public opinion and public policy. A very sharp divide."

"I was driving home from work the other day and torturing myself by listening to NPR, and -- ... But they had a section on Barack Obama, the great new hope. And it was very exuberant: what a fantastic personality he is and a great candidate, thousands of people coming out. And it went on for about 15 minutes of excited rhetoric. There's only one thing missing. They didn’t say a word about what his policies were on anything."

Robert Fisk

One of the most extraordinary events was the siege of ’82, when over and over again leaflets would fall from the sky. “If you value your loved ones, run away and take them with you.” An attempt to depopulate West Beirut. And I always remember my landlord -- I live on the seafront -- I met him at front door one day, and he was holding a little net full of fish. He had been fishing on the sea. He said, “We don't have to do as we’re told and leave our homes. We can live, you see, Mr. Robert. We can stay here.”

Scott Ritter & Sy Hersh

RITTER: As an American, I will tell you, Hezbollah does not threaten the national security of the United States of America one iota. So we should not be talking about using American military forces to deal with the Hezbollah issue. That is an Israeli problem. And yet, you’ll see the New York Times, the Washington Post and other media outlets confusing the issue. They want us to believe that Hezbollah is an American problem.

Petition for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq

2006-12-21T08:21:00.000-05:00

Why we stand for immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq

THE U.S. occupation of Iraq has not liberated the Iraqi people, but has made life worse for most Iraqis.

Tens of thousands of U.S. service people have been killed or maimed, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have lost their lives as a result of the U.S. invasion in 2003, the ongoing occupation, and the violence unleashed by them.

Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed, and U.S. plans for reconstruction abandoned. There is less electricity, less clean drinking water, and more unemployment today than before the U.S. invasion.

All of the justifications initially provided by the U.S. for waging war on Iraq have been exposed as lies; the real reasons for the invasion — to control Iraq's oil reserves and to increase U.S. strategic influence in the region — now stand revealed.

The Bush administration has insisted again and again that stability, democracy, and prosperity are around the next bend in the road. But with each day that the U.S. stays, the violence and lack of security facing Iraqis worsen. The U.S. says that it cannot withdraw its military because Iraq will collapse into civil war if it does. But the U.S. has deliberately stoked sectarian divisions in its ongoing attempt to install a U.S.-friendly regime, thus driving Iraq towards civil war.

The November elections in the United States sent a clear message that voters reject the Iraq war, and opinion polls show that seven in 10 Iraqis want the U.S. to leave sooner rather than later. Even most U.S. military and political leaders agree that staying the course in Iraq is a policy that is bound to fail.

Yet all the various alternative plans for Iraq now being discussed in Washington, including those proposed by House and Senate Democrats, aren't about withdrawing the U.S. military from Iraq. Rather, these strategies are about continuing the pursuit of U.S. goals in Iraq and the larger Middle East using different means.

Even the proposal to redeploy U.S. troops outside of Iraq, a plan favored by many Democratic Party leaders, envisions continued U.S. intervention inside Iraq.

With former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insisting that a military victory in Iraq is no longer possible and (Ret.) Lt. Gen. William Odom calling for "complete withdrawal" of all U.S. troops, the antiwar movement should demand no less than the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. military — as well as reparations to the Iraqi people, so they can rebuild their own society and genuinely determine their own future.

We call on the U.S. to get out of Iraq — not in six months, not in a year, but now.

SIGN IT HERE

Also signed by the following people able to get at least a marginal amount of mass media attention:

Ali Abunimah
ElectronicIraq.net
Gilbert Achcar
Author
Clash of Barbarisms
Michael Albert
ZNet
Tariq Ali
Author
Bush in Babylon
Anthony Arnove
Author
Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
Noam Chomsky
Author
Hegemony or Survival
Kelly Dougherty
Executive Director
Iraq Veterans Against the War*
Eve Ensler
Playwright
The Vagina Monologues
Eduardo Galeano
Author
The Open Veins of Latin America
Rashid Khalidi
Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies
Columbia University
Camilo Mejía
First Iraq War resister to refuse redeployment
Arundhati Roy
Author
God of Small Things
Howard Zinn
Author
A People's History of the United States

Balanced coverage, in spite of the facts

2006-12-15T11:02:00.000-05:00

I don't pay attention to conservative news outlets because the supposedly liberal ones are bad enough.

NPR, in the past week, has featured:

- story on Global Warming where they spend five minutes on Senator Inhofe, who thinks global warming is a hoax.
- "balanced" coverage of Pinochet's death, where Steve Inskeep asked an American reporter working for a newspaper in Santiago how to pronounce his name out of respect for the brutal tyrant. I'm sure there'll be plenty of mourners at Saddam's funeral, but will they get as much coverage as the US media gave to Pinochet's supporters? Maybe if it was 1988.

Counterspin covers the Pinochet coverage nicely. (about 1/3 of the way through)

Thoughts on the Iraq Study Group Report

2006-12-07T11:57:00.000-05:00

The gist of the report is this: Iraq is fucked, but we can't leave until we find a way to do it with "our interests" intact.

"Because events in Iraq have been set in motion by American decisions and actions, the United States has both a national and a moral interest in doing what it can to give Iraqis an opportunity to avert anarchy."

The reference to "anarchy" is interesting here. Not "chaos" or "violence" or "endless war the US caused". Anarchy. Of course they are referring to the chaos that inevitably ensues if the population is not controlled under the boot of a centralized power. Of course everyone goes nuts without some form of power making decisions for them. Especially a US-backed puppet that works in service of US interests. And this is just one example - the main goal of the report, I can tell already on page 9, is we need to keep our "interests" in tact. 18 references to "interests" - and that's just with a search of that particular term.

The report seems to, however, come to terms with a few facts that any rational person has realized months and years ago.

- Those carrying out mass kidnappings and attacks "wearing police uniforms" or "wearing Iraqi Army uniforms" are, as is obvious, members of the police and army and facilities protection services. The New York Times et al can continue to publish misleading headlines to make Iraq appear more stable than it is, but the US government is now in disagreement.

"The Iraqi government is not effectively providing its people with basic services:
electricity, drinking water, sewage, health care, and education."

Ahem. Hello? Over here?

"Experts estimate that 150,000 to 200,000—and perhaps as
many as 500,000—barrels of oil per day are being stolen. Controlled prices for refined products
result in shortages within Iraq, which drive consumers to the thriving black market. One senior
U.S. official told us that corruption is more responsible than insurgents for breakdowns in the
oil sector."

"Senior members of Iraq’s oil industry argue that a national oil company could reduce
political tensions by centralizing revenues and reducing regional or local claims to a percentage
of the revenue derived from production. However, regional leaders are suspicious and resist this
proposal, affirming the rights of local communities to have direct access to the inflow of oil
revenue."

"The Iraqi government cannot now govern, sustain, and defend itself without the support of the
United States. Iraqis have not been convinced that they must take responsibility for their own
future."

you gotta be kidding me with this bullshit.

"The Iraqi people could be subjected to another strongman who flexes the political and military muscle required to impose order amid anarchy."

more anarchy

"Other countries in the region fear significant violence crossing their borders. Chaos in Iraq
could lead those countries to intervene to protect their own interests, thereby perhaps sparking a
broader regional war. Turkey could send troops into northern Iraq to prevent Kurdistan from
declaring independence. Iran could send in troops to restore stability in southern Iraq and
perhaps gain control of oil fields. The regional influence of Iran could rise at a time when that
country is on a path to producing nuclear weapons."

"Perceived failure there could diminish America’s credibility and influence in a region that is the
center of the Islamic world and vital to the world’s energy supply. This loss would reduce
America’s global influence at a time when pressing issues in North Korea, Iran, and elsewhere
demand our full attention and strong U.S. leadership of international alliances. And the longer
that U.S. political and military resources are tied down in Iraq, the more the chances for
American failure in Afghanistan increase."

"U.S. foreign policy cannot be successfully sustained without the broad support of the American people."

Let that be a lesson.

"Sixty-one percent of Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S.-led
forces."

"Iraqis may
become so sobered by the prospect of an unfolding civil war and intervention by their regional
neighbors that they take the steps necessary to avert catastrophe. But at the moment, such a
scenario seems implausible because the Iraqi people and their leaders have been slow to
demonstrate the capacity or will to act."

"The United States can begin to shape a positive climate
for its diplomatic efforts, internationally and within Iraq, through public statements by President
Bush that reject the notion that the United States seeks to control Iraq’s oil, or seeks permanent
military bases within Iraq. However, the United States could consider a request from Iraq for
temporary bases."

"RECOMMENDATION 23: The President should restate that the United States does not seek to
control Iraq’s oil."

It's not about the US government controlling the oil, it's about US companies. The government acts in the interest of these companies, and is staffed by former executives of these companies. I never took seriously the claims that Bush would "get the oil" and distribute it to the American people in the form of lower gas prices so he'd be re-elected. That's an absurd misunderstanding of how the government works for powerful corporations.

Water War

2006-11-29T11:11:00.000-05:00

Many of you have seen the video of the American soldiers driving away from a group of poor Iraqi kids wagging a plastic bottle of water at them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9A_vxIOB-I

This becomes metaphoric when you know the history. For one thing, water is scarce in the middle east, so it's a big issue, and so there's great demand for it. When there's demand, there's money to be made.

All over the third world, particularly in dry regions, multinationals like Bechtel are trying to privatize water and sell it back to poor people, pricing it based on market demand. In Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2000 - the elitist government handed control of water over to Bechtel and then passed laws stating the people had to buy all water back from Bechtel - it was literally against the law to even collect rainwater in buckets.

I'll just put the link to the article because this is not relevant to Iraq http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-05/12shiva.cfm

Now in Bolivia they have a president Evo Morales who was democratically elected, but of course he's being called a communist because he's not just handing public resources like water over to the rich, which is supposed to be the function of government - to be a reverse Robin Hood.

With Iraq, US-backed (under Clinton) UN sanctions, which tightened the grip of Saddam's power by weakening the population, left the water system completely devastated in an already arid dictatorship, and millions of children died throughout Clinton's presidency from easily curable diseases like diarrhea.

Here's what then Sec. Madeline Albright said about that: http://youtube.com/watch?v=H1KwVz_e1Gk

Then with the 2003 US attack, the water treatment plants were bombed, along with water supply lines, and hospitals and the usual civilian infrastructure targets, and Bechtel was subsequently handed $680 million in our tax money to rebuild the plants and water lines.

For more on the global water issue, see Vandana Shiva's book Water Wars: Privitization, Pollution and Profit

The elite press, then and now

2006-11-28T13:06:00.000-05:00

Nearly all the newspaper accounts published at the time were manufactured by journalists at a distance, and were not only inaccurate in their facts but intentionally misleading. As usual, only one side of the question has been allowed to get to the wider public.

-George Orwell in his account of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia

Fuck the Police 2006

2006-11-17T12:15:00.000-05:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LJkuunuuzJQ

I really don't think I can understand those in support of authoritarians who will inevitably say things like "Well, he should have had is ID."

The level of anger when I see cops taze someone who is held down gives me an adrenaline rush. I honestly have a biological reaction that I've always had in reacting to unjustified authority and abuse. I guess some people get that kind of rush when kids don't show their IDs or when a cancer patient possesses marijuana or when somebody crosses the street under a "Don't Walk" sign. And I guess that's why they become cops.

Iraq Vet Thanks Rumsfeld for his Service

2006-11-15T10:06:00.000-05:00

This is from today's edition of the UNC student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, written by a former US Army Captain and Iraq War veteran.

Finally, and on a more personal note, I would like to thank Mr. Rumsfeld for affording me the opportunity to see how much blood it takes to cover completely the back of an unarmored HMMWV.

When that Rocket Propelled Grenade hit the side of the vehicle, it didn't explode, it simply passed straight through the "plywood armor" we attached and severed the leg of one of our soldiers.

Had there been even the slightest amount of armor, the RPG would have harmlessly shattered on the side of the vehicle.

Thanks to Mr. Rumsfeld, that didn't happen, and I was lucky enough to witness the event. Of course, the man who fired that RPG was a Shiite Muslim of the Mahdi Militia, the very people we set about to free from the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein.

Then again, I suspect he was just greeting us as liberators.

Fisk speaks on media & the middle east

2006-11-14T16:43:00.000-05:00

Here's a good talk that you can watch on video from MIT given by Noam Chomsky and the Mid East expert Robert Fisk. I'm going to try to check out his latest book on the "Conquest of the Middle East" if I can catch it at the library. He's been in Lebanon for years and spoke eloquently on Democracy Now in the midst of the Israeli government terrorist bombings.

In this speech he talks about media: "I sometimes think the LA Times and the New York Times should be called 'American Officials Say,' and we can cut out the journalists."

Journalist Robert Fisk of the UK-based publication, The Independent, recounts his experiences traveling around the world and living in the Middle East, Fisk speaks on history and geopolitics in the Middle East. His focus is on the problems with journalism in the United States, which include an over-reliance on what government authorities say and the common mode of reporting 'from Baghdad' but entirely within the confines of a hotel room. Using newspaper articles and speeches from politicians, Fisk illustrates the lack of concern for Iraqis as human beings. Fisk's talk also looks at the Armenian genocide, which was downplayed in Western media. After the talk, Fisk fields questions ranging from the rumors of civil war in Iraq to the situation in Lebanon.

Update: for some stupid reason they took this down.

Where do they get all those police uniforms?

2006-11-14T08:26:00.000-05:00

Did they rob the police uniform factory?

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped up to 150 staff and visitors in a lightning raid on a government research institute in downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, the largest mass abduction since the start of the U.S. occupation.

Do you think, maybe, these ARE THE POLICE?

Shiite militias and other illegal groups are known to wear stolen or fake police and army uniforms.

It almost seems easier to join the police force, which by all accounts is lacking in officers, then use the power of that uniform and all that new ammo and shit they give you to carry out your real mission.

alternative news sources

2006-11-13T16:56:00.000-05:00

Ironically, you can turn to the foreign press to find out what's going on in this country, but here are a few serious, infotainment-free domestic news sources I read regularly.

democracynow.org
zmag.org
Counter Spin

same as the old boss

2006-11-12T10:51:00.000-05:00

"Impeachment is off the table." - new Republicrat speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi

Harry Reid on Face the Nation 5 minutes ago:

- refused to say he'd tax the rich
- pro domestic wire tapping on American citizens
- on withdrawing troops: "of course not"
- wants to spend $75 billion on "revitilizing the military"

And now the "right wing" guy is on with Bob Schiffer, on that left wing news source, which always gives "both sides".

Representative democracy doesn't work kids. The Republicans want bush to end the war... or blame Democrats for whatever happens - we'll see. I think we're getting out soon because sometimes, as with this election, the elites and the pundits - the people on Sunday morning talk shows - are forced to deal with public opinion. Though obviously they hate it with every goddamn word they say.

We, on the other hand, that have nothing to do with the Republicrats, should start taking great steps toward revolution right now. Get your head out of NFL and junk food, idiots, unless you want a boot on your neck in the next decade. It's real fucking cute when people say they don't vote because there's no difference, because we're controlled by elites, because I'm hunkering down for Armagheddon, but what the fuck are you doing to change shit? Nothing, you're just getting fucked up and trying to entertain yourself with whatever goddamn pop culture and sub culture turd that comes along on the internet.

More IDF terrorism

2006-11-09T15:18:00.000-05:00

I don't think anyone takes these kinds of quotes seriously anymore:

The military said the results of its inquiry concluded that "the Palestinian civilian casualties were caused by IDF (Israeli army) artillery." The military statement said the inquiry determined the problem was a "technical failure" in the system that directs the fire. It said the army commander ordered a halt to artillery fire at Gaza until a further check is completed.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered the military to "re-evaluate its policy of artillery fire in Gaza, including the safety range."

I don't know how this can happen over and over again with people still saying with a straight face that it was "inadvertent".

Who knows? Maybe the Democrats believe this crap. We'll see in January. Will they pass another resolution cheering this terrorism?

panem et circenses is neutral (cont)

2006-11-09T09:33:00.000-05:00

Why so serious all the time?
Why not laugh in panem et circenses?
Not everyone in the world gets panem et circenses, you know.
Our forefathers fought & died for panem et circenses.
The terrorists hate panem et circenses.
If we give up our right to panem et circenses, the terrorists will have won.
The soldiers are fighting for your panem et circenses.
The soldiers are fighting and dying for your panem et circenses.
Support the troops, these colors don't panem et circenses.
God gave you panem et circenses.
Why do you hate panem et circenses?

There.

I talked politics with you.
I'm not even very political and stuff,
but we should all be in favor of panem et circenses.
Right?
Right.
Now back to panem et circenses.

First Socialist Senator of the 21st Century

2006-11-09T08:20:00.000-05:00

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/08/1457245

Senator-Elect Bernie Sanders of Vermont ran as an independent, but describes himself as a socialist.

I notice the Democrat media outlets don't give a shit about this, like the Democrat blogs, and NPR, etc.

I'm not exactly in favor of anything that promotes hierarchy or centralized power, and socialism has certainly been used to do that - you'd have to add "libertarian" in the classical sense to any socialism I'd support - but I'd feel better living under a government where the Democrats represented the right wing, and democratic Socialists the left. Our government, even with the Democratic sweep, even if a democrat wins in 2008 and Democrats retain control of Congress, is still far to the right, and I'd vote for any socialist candidate if given the chance.

Lets see what this terrible dangerous socialist has in store for America:

In terms of socialism, I think there is a lot to be learned from Scandinavia and from some of the work, very good work that people have done in Europe. In countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark, poverty has almost been eliminated. All people have healthcare as a right of citizenship. College education is available to all people, regardless of income, virtually free. I have been very aggressive in trying to move to sustainable energy. They have a lot of political participation, high voter turnouts. I think there is a lot to be learned from countries that have created more egalitarian societies than has the United States of America.
...
AMY GOODMAN: And if people ask, “What do you mean, ‘socialist’?” what would you say?
REP. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, I think it means the government has got to play a very important role in making sure that as a right of citizenship, all of our people have healthcare; that as a right, all of our kids, regardless of income, have quality childcare, are able to go to college without going deeply into debt; that it means we do not allow large corporations and moneyed interests to destroy our environment; that we create a government in which it is not dominated by big money interest. I mean, to me, it means democracy, frankly. That's all it means. And we are living in an increasingly undemocratic society in which decisions are made by people who have huge sums of money. And that's the goal that we have to achieve.

DOOM! I tells ya. DOOM!

panem et circenses is neutral

2006-11-08T16:03:00.000-05:00

It's not that panem et circenses exists. It's not even that we engage in panem et circenses. Panem et circenses is neutral. It's the addiction to panem et circenses. It's panem et circenses above all. People are born and die over panem et circenses. Panem et circenses is the Alpha and the Omega. Panem et circenses we must give our free time to, our freedom to. Here is a religion, here is totalitarian doctrine.

All I see, all I speak, all I taste, all I hear, all I smell, all I touch - panem et circenses.

Serious conversation brings nervousness - it's like living in a dictatorship with no visible dictator. Panem et circenses is the dictator. All his subjects are self-controlling and fat in body and mind with panem et circenses.

The Genius of it!

The Iraq disaster will come to a close

2006-11-08T14:27:00.000-05:00

Rumsfeld is on his way out

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/rumsfeld/index.html

"I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made" in Iraq, Bush said.

ugh, I feel weird about sharing this on a goddamn blog, but I actually got emotional reading that quote. While I did want to emphasize in earlier posts that voting is the least democratic thing you can do, Don't tell me this election means nothing.

Being "happy" about Rumsfeld's resignation is not in the cards for me. This war became way too personal the day my good friend was blown up by an RPG. But this looks like the beginning of the end of the quagmire in Iraq, and I have cousins over there, and I don't want to go through this crap again. And the Republicans don't want to go through another election cycle in two years with this pathetic, horrible, stupid, disgusting failure of humanity on everyone's mind. It's time to declare victory and move out. We all know telling the truth is too much for these damn people, until it blows up in their face, and even then it takes another 3 fucking years.

Basic Solutions

2006-11-08T13:28:00.000-05:00

I try to keep it general because there are a billion different problems and a billion different situations and solutions to them. This is just political activity in general that's much more effective than voting. Generally if there is any hope for the survival of the human race, Americans, junkies of panem et circenses, can take the most basic two-fold approach:

1. Realize like pharohs, and kings, and the Church, and the State, now the central seat of power rests in a few multinational corporations, who are literally trying to subjugate the world populace for profit. The minority, the power elite, are getting more powerful, while the majority are getting less powerful. But, the majority holds up the power elite, so we can...

2. ...Create and/or support alternative economic and social institutions independent of centralized, corporate power. Decentralization, is what I'm talking about. Economic hierarchy will not sustain us, that's what we have now - but if we stop supporting it, it will crumble.

There are literally thousands of organizations all over the world you can join that are already working toward these goals. I am part of a few of these groups. One is an electricity co-op. Another is a producer-only farmers market. Also we're part of a few organizations that promote sustainable agriculture and small farms.

There is no greater victory for the power elite then hopelessness and isolation of individuals in the majority. Individuals who are resigned to their fate as someone who's going to get paid a slave wage, pay out the ass for basic healthcare and then screwed out of their retirement, and never do anything about it, are the absolute ideal figures to the power elite.

Meet the new boss...

2006-11-08T10:04:00.000-05:00

...slightly less conservative than the old boss.

I voted, but voting for Democrats over Republicans is only a baby step toward progress, or maybe more accurately, a backward baby step away from doom. You have to remember that the Democrats are the same party who voted for authorization to use force in Iraq, for NAFTA, Plan Colombia, HR 921 supporting Israeli government terrorism in Lebanon on the same day human rights orgs reported that 1/3 of the victims were children, etc etc.

Everyone gets sanctimonious about voting, and voting out a lunatic like Rick Santorum could be labeled a Good Thing, and I think a Democratic win lessens the chances of another one of my friends or cousins getting FUCKING KILLED IN IRAQ (lessens, not removes, and not by much since far-right Bush is still commander in chief), and especially in local elections voting does impact your life - but it's the political action people do outside of voting that really counts for something, and that those in power really hate, and that involves as a first step meeting at some designated location for a designated purpose with your neighbors to improve the state of your community. With us, it's farmers' market, our local/national sustainable farming organizations, local/national/international Slow Food Movement, and local/national anti-NAIS action.

That's what all these clubs your parents or grandparents belonged to were about. They didn't just show up at the Rotary to play bingo. It was about having citizens organizations as a collective voice, and realizing that with collective action even the powerless can improve their lives. The few elite can only have power in wealth, while the poor gain power through collective action. That's the whole idea behind voting, but, when you have representative government and campaigning reliant on wealth, you can only get representatives of the power elite.

But we should remember that a centralized power apparatus should not dictate the course of the lives of people who have only marginal control over it, be it in a totalitarian, communist, or democratic or capitalist apparatus.

But, since we live in a free society that resulted from struggles for basic human rights, we are probably closer than anyone to having the opportunity to wrest power from the few. The only thing keeping us from that is the choice not to.

The only time I'll be satisfied with the US government is when we have Democrats on the right and actual leftists on the left talking about things like workplace democracy, universal healthcare, local food, decentralization and accepting US state terror for what it is.

panem et circenses - a thought for election day in AD 2006

2006-11-07T13:53:00.000-05:00

from http://www.capitolium.org/eng/imperatori/circenses.htm
It was Juvenal that coined this system, a mechanism of influential power over the Roman mass. "Panem et Circensus", literally "bread and circuses", was the formula for the well-being of the population, and thus a political strategy. This formula offered a variety of pleasures such as: the distribution of food, public baths, gladiators, exotic animals, chariot races, sports competition, and theater representation. It was an efficient instrument in the hands of the Emperors to keep the population peaceful, and at the same time giving them the opportunity to voice themselves in these places of performance.

From http://www.thomasjamesmartin.com/breadcircus.htm: In Juvenal's time (55-127 A.D.), the Roman Republic was but a distant memory as the power of the emperors grew stronger and stronger. The once proud Senate that had witnessed the splendid orations of Cato and Cicero—dominated and weakened year after year by the succession of dictators—atrophied into a figurehead of an institution. However, Juvenal felt that the populace took the duties of citizenship far more seriously during the days of the Republic than in the virtual dictatorships of the Caesars.
He lamented that "the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddle no more and longs eagerly for just two things — bread and circuses."

Those scornful words "bread and circuses," panem et circenses in Latin, become more meaningful when you understand that Roman citizens became increasingly addicted to free distributions of food and the violent gladiatorial and other contests held in the Coliseum and the chariot races of the Circus Maximus. He felt that Romans had lost the capacity to govern themselves so distracted by mindless self-gratification had they become.

Thus, bread and circuses, is a phrase now used to deplore a population so distracted with entertainment and personal pleasures (sometimes by design of those in power) that they no longer value the civic virtues...

Hacking Democracy

2006-11-03T11:17:00.000-05:00

If you have HBO, check this out. I'll be waiting for it to appear on Google video or Youtube. No matter who wins the elections on Tuesday, we need to get on this. Write some letter to some papers, organize meetings in your town.

In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems for their elections. Unsatisfied with their explanation, she set out to learn about electronic voting machines on her own. In the course of her research, which unearthed hundreds of reported incidents of mishandled voting information, Harris stumbled across an "online library" of the Diebold Corporation, discovering a treasure trove of information about the inner-workings of the company's voting system.
...

In Florida, Leon County supervisor of elections Ion Sancho presided over a trial "mini-election" to see if the vote could be hacked without being detected. Before votes were actually cast, computer analyst Harri Hursti "stuffed the ballot box" by entering votes on the computer's memory card. Then, after votes were cast, the results displayed when the same memory card was entered in the central tabulating program indicated that fraud was indeed possible. In other words, by accessing a memory card before an election, someone could change the results - a claim Diebold had denied was possible.

Terra Madre 2006

2006-10-31T13:40:00.000-05:00

Last day of Terra Madre in Turino, Italy was yesterday. This is the second Terra Madre orchestrated by the Slow Food Movement. Farmers, chefs, fisherman from all over the world gather in Italy to celebrate food. A few of our farmer and chef friends were lucky enough to be able to attend this. Anyone who gives a damn should be educated about this global democratic movement for small farms and good food. This is not a negative movement in that it only criticizes the dominant food production/consumption system but is a movement in that the participants, by their very livelihoods, already embody the solution.

Here are some starting points:
slowfood.org
terramadre2006.org

Check out the Terra Madre blog featuring delegates from around the terra
http://blog.terramadre2006.org/

Check out the program and listen to some voices of Terra Madre
http://www.terramadre2006.org/terramadre/eng/programma.lasso

You might want to consider joining your local Slow Food Convivium. Much more than voting or marching at protests, democracy starts to happen only when people get together and have meetings with specific purposes. You can also "vote with your dollar" by supporting your local farmer and eating more food produced locally.