Source
Liberty Beat
Anatomy of a Murder
Not only our enemies around the world scoff when Bush speaks of human rights

by Nat Hentoff
February 3rd, 2006 2:37 PM


Defense Secretary Rumsfeld: Silent about a homicide on his watch
photo: Chad J. McNeeley/DOD
In the introduction to the recently released 532-page Human Rights Watch World Report 2006 (available in book form from Seven Stories Press), executive director Kenneth Roth writes:
"The U.S. government's use and defense of torture and inhumane treatment [of prisoners] played the largest role in undermining Washington's ability to promote human rights. . . . Any discussion of detainee abuse in 2005 must begin with the United States, not because it is the worst violator but because it is the most influential. . . . The widely publicized abuse at Abu Ghraib paralleled similar if not worse abuse in Afghanistan, in Guantánamo, elsewhere in Iraq, and in the chain of secret detention facilities where the U.S. government holds its "high-value" detainees."

The January 18 reponse from the White House to this charge was utterly, shamelessly predictable. Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan, rejecting this description of the United States, proclaimed:

"The United States does more than any country in the world to advance freedom and promote freedom and human rights."

What this administration actually does, proclaiming its devotion to human rights, is to exemplify George Orwell's truth, "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

Six days after the White House congratulated itself on George W. Bush's human rights record, there was this story in The Washington Post:

"A military jury in Colorado issued a reprimand last night to an Army interrogator [19-year veteran Lewis E. Welshofer] who was convicted of negligent homicide for using an aggressive technique on an Iraqi general who died during questioning. Jurors decided not to impose any prison sentence for what originally was charged as a murder."

The corpse was Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, "a high-ranking Saddam Hussein loyalist who was believed to have engineered insurgent attacks in northern Iraq."

Army officer Welshofer, interrogating the prisoner on November 26, 2003, at Qaim, Iraq, shoved him into a sleeping bag and sat on his chest before "waterboarding" him to simulate drowning. No information was obtained, because the prisoner stopped breathing.

Shortly before being stuffed into the sleeping bag, General Mowhoush—as Josh White reported in the January 25 Washington Post—"had been beaten by Iraqi paramilitaries code-named 'Scorpions,' who were working with the CIA, according to classified documents."

In the January 23 New York Times, Eric Schmitt added to this anatomy of a murder: "The widely publicized incident has drawn attention from human rights groups as one of the worst instances of abuse against detainees in American custody." As for the preliminary beating of the prisoner, Schmitt noted that at the trial of interrogator Welshofer, "the CIA involvement" in the beating "remained largely unaddressed."

That's no surprise, but in the same report there is this intriguing footnote to the Bush administration's resounding human rights record: "Mr. Welshofer and another interrogator designed the sleeping bag techniques as a last resort, believing that it would create a claustrophobic effect on a prisoner. . . . A small hole was cut in the bottom of the sleeping bag to allow the detainee to breathe."

I guess it just wasn't a big enough hole.

Lest you think Welshofer received only a reprimand for his "aggressive technique," the Associated Press reported that he has been fined $6,000 with restrictions to his barracks, work, and place of worship for 60 days.

After the sentence was pronounced, the AP continued, "soldiers in the gallery, many of whom had worked with Mr. Welshofer and who had testified as character witnesses, broke into applause."

The son of the murdered prisoner, Mohammed Mowhoush, did not applaud. In a conference call with several reporters organized by David Danzig of Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) and reported by Josh White in the January 25 Washington Post, the murdered man's son said of the American officer who executed his father, "His punishment is not justice."

The son also revealed that when he was 15 he and his three brothers were snatched from their Qaim home on October 27, 2003, during a raid by U.S. soldiers' helicopters and armed vehicles in search of their father. The U.S. troops threatened that if the father didn't give himself up, the boys would be sent to Guantánamo. As Josh White writes: "Arresting someone to entice relatives to turn themselves in is considered by human rights organizations to be a form of hostage taking. It is considered illegal in wartime, but military investigative documents reveal it occurred in Iraq."

Interrogated for days without charges, the son was stripped of his clothes, had cold water poured on him, and was twisted into painful "stress" positions. Then he was taken into a room where his father was being assaulted. Yelling at the father, the guards said if he did not tell the truth, his son Mohammed would be executed. (Hussein's torturers used to use that technique. )

By then, his father couldn't respond. "He was tired," his son remembers, "and I saw wounds on his body. He was tired because they beat him so much, they made a lot of pain on him, and he didn't even talk to me."

David Danzig, head of Human Rights First's End Torture Now campaign told me, "The sentence given the low-level officer who suffocated this son's father suggests the U.S. is not cracking down on the chain of command. The senior military leaders, and the president, are not being held accountable."

But around the world, and here, the president is no longer able to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. The mounting evidence of what is being done to our "detainees" skewers this Bush pledge in his January 26 press conference: "No American will be allowed to torture another human being anywhere in the world!"[Emphasis added.]

Will there be enough of us to move Congress to force the president to act inside—not in contempt of—the law? Or am I fantasizing?

Generation Debt
Wanted: Really Smart Suckers
Grad school provides exciting new road to poverty

by Anya Kamenetz
April 27th, 2004 10:10 AM




 


Star students, turn back now: Graduate assistants on strike last week at Columbia
photo: Shiho Fukada
Log on, shout out:

Invisible Adjunct
The archives of this now-defunct blog cover every aspect of the academic job market issue. There is a long list of links to just about every blog on the topic.

(a)musings of a grad student
Harvard grad student Rebecca Goetz writes about academics, politics and life.

beyondacademe.com
Professional profiles of historians working outside the academy.
Barely Tenured
A professor at a small Midwestern college muses on her discipline, academia, and quest to get pregnant.
Easily Distracted
The excellent blog of Swarthmore social science professor Timothy Burke, an IA poster, ranges across politics, culture, academia and the role of higher education.

Other Web Resources:

Adjunct Nation
Website for the magazine Adjunct Advocate, with polls and job
Chronicle of Higher Education
Higher education's foremost professional journal.
 
 
Here's an exciting career opportunity you won't see in the classified ads. For the first six to 10 years, it pays less than $20,000 and demands superhuman levels of commitment in a Dickensian environment. Forget about marriage, a mortgage, or even Thanksgiving dinners, as the focus of your entire life narrows to the production, to exacting specifications, of a 300-page document less than a dozen people will read. Then it's time for advancement: Apply to 50 far-flung, undesirable locations, with a 30 to 40 percent chance of being offered any position at all. You may end up living 100 miles from your spouse and commuting to three different work locations a week. You may end up $50,000 in debt, with no health insurance, feeding your kids with food stamps. If you are the luckiest out of every five entrants, you may win the profession's ultimate prize: A comfortable middle-class job, for the rest of your life, with summers off.
Welcome to the world of the humanities Ph.D. student, 2004, where promises mean little and revolt is in the air. In the past week, Columbia's graduate teaching assistants went on strike and temporary, or adjunct, faculty at New York University narrowly avoided one. Columbia's Graduate Student Employees United seeks recognition, over the administration's appeals, of a two-year-old vote that would make it the second officially recognized union at a private university. NYU's adjuncts, who won their union in 2002, reached an eleventh-hour agreement for health care and office space, among other amenities.

Grad students have always resigned themselves to relative poverty in anticipation of a cushy, tenured payoff. But in the past decade, the rules of the game have changed. Budget pressures have spurred universities' increasing dependence on so-called "casual labor," which damages both the working conditions of graduate students and their job prospects. Over half of the classroom time at major universities is now logged by non-tenure-track teachers, both graduate teaching assistants—known as TAs—and adjuncts. At community colleges, part-timers make up 60 percent of the faculties.

Average teaching loads for grad students have increased, while benefits are often cut off after five years. Humanities TAs are paid stipends ranging from less than $10,000 at a public school like SUNY-Buffalo to $18,000 at unionized NYU. Adjuncts, more and more likely to be recent post-docs who couldn't find a better position, earn less than $3,000 a course—usually without benefits, and far less than the $60,000 yearly national average for full-time professors. Meanwhile, the debt burden has grown: The average holder of a graduate degree spends 13.5 percent of his or her income paying back loans (eight percent is considered manageable). Fifty-three percent of those holding master's degrees, 63 percent of those holding doctorates, and 69 percent of those holding professional degrees are over $30,000 in debt. If they end up as "marginal employees," the academic freedom and security of tenure is replaced by a constant anxiety and alienation.

But the Internet means no isolated community has to stay that way. A new group of tortured, funny, largely anonymous websites are providing an outlet for academics who feel like they're getting spanked by their alma mater. They have names like Invisible Adjunct, (a)musings of a grad student, Beyond Academe, and Barely Tenured, and they address the emotional just as much as the practical consequences of competing in, and losing, the academic job-market lottery.

Founded in February 2003, Invisible Adjunct quickly became one of the most popular such blogs. Dozens of regular posters followed discussion threads like "The Old Boy Network" and "Is Tenure a Cartel?" Invisible Adjunct's author—call her IA—is a New Yorker in her late thirties with a Ph.D. in British history, an adjunct for the past two years. "I've spent all these years and I've failed," says IA, who entered graduate school in 1993 and received her Ph.D. in 1999. "You agree to do this five-to-seven-year low-paid apprenticeship because you're joining this guild. And if you end up as an adjunct you think, wow, I'm really getting screwed over."

The also pseudonymous Thomas H. Benton was a frequent contributor to Invisible Adjunct's blog and has penned a series of cautionary columns for the Chronicle of Higher Education. He is even more blunt than IA. "The premise of graduate education in the humanities is a lie: Students are not apprentices preparing for a life of scholarship and teaching," he says. "They are a cheap source of labor and status for institutions and faculty and, after they earn their degrees, most join the reserve army of the academic underemployed." Benton, a professor at a small liberal arts college, warns his students about trying to follow in his footsteps. "My experience as a working-class kid who finally earned an Ivy League Ph.D. is that higher education is not about social mobility or personal enrichment; it is one trap among many for people who are uninitiated into the way power and influence operate in this culture."



----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------

Grad school applications are up slightly over the last decade, as unemployed college grads seek a haven from the job market. Every winter, a new crop of bright, bookish, maybe slightly fuzzy-headed kids, the kind who cover the sidewalks of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, decide they're sick enough of the 9-to-5 grind to borrow some money and go back to school.

Unlike trade schools, most graduate programs do not offer prospective students detailed data on job placement, which varies widely from program to program. Tri-State Semi Driver Training School in Middletown, Ohio, for example, guarantees a job before you even start driving, while the American Language Institute in San Diego promises lifetime placement assistance to its teachers of English as a foreign language. Your local Ivy League English department can't offer the same deal: Last year, the Modern Language Association expected some 965 Ph.D.'s to be granted, while only 422 assistant professorships were advertised, a drop of 20 percent from the year before. In the foreign languages, there were only 263 positions advertised (for the 620 Ph.D.'s projected), a drop of one-third from the previous year. The MLA estimates that students who entered English programs in 2003 had a 20 percent chance of coming out with a tenure-track position. The situation is better in history, where the number of new Ph.D.'s in 2003 almost equalled the number of new jobs, after a decade of "overproduction," with growth coming in trendy specializations like the Middle East.

But numbers like these do little to deter the best students. "Top undergraduates are arrogant; they lack perspective," says Benton. "They've been fawned over all their lives, and they think grad school is there to help them realize their potential, not to use them up and toss them out."

Dan Friedman completed a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale University this spring after 10 years. He now teaches at a private high school in New Jersey, making twice the $25,000 he was offered as a university part-timer. He says that as a TA back at Yale, he tried to warn his favorite students. "I've had a few bright students, majors, who are often interested in carrying on and I've said to all of them, 'Don't do it.' I really wanted them to stop and think. And without exception, they thought I was joking. Only one of them came back to me—she ended up at NYU—and said, 'Now I know what you were talking about.'" Friedman says, however, that he isn't sure he would have taken his own advice back then. "I didn't know what I was getting into. It would have been different if I had known. You're committed to your subject and you think, I want to study literature. You don't think of yourself as a 40-year-old trying to support a family."

As a scholar of contemporary theory, Friedman quotes a cultural critic's perspective on the economic impact of the love of learning. "As graduate students get more and more exploited, people believe in it more and do it despite the difficulty." He refers to the 2001 book The Invisible Heart by feminist economist Nancy Folbre, which describes how the work that is most important to a society tends to be the most undervalued. "Teachers, nurses, people who do things they really care about, get shafted."

Devotion to the academic world, however, is not necessarily healthy. "People develop this identity," says IA. "They say, 'This intellectual work is who I am.' And it's hard to give that up. Even though there are two jobs in your field this year and 300 candidates, it still feels like you've failed."



----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------

Ironically, defining herself as essentially an academic cuts off the humanities Ph.D. student's best shot at making a decent living: a job outside the academy. Last year, Alexandra Lord and Julie Taddeo created the website Beyond Academe, whose purpose is to profile history Ph.D.'s, like themselves, who've found satisfactory employment while still practicing their discipline—with museums, nonprofit foundations, government agencies, or as researchers for companies.

"I've been stunned by what people have said at some of the blog sites," Lord says. "They seem to believe that working as an adjunct and earning $19,000 and having no health insurance is preferable to working outside the academy. I think this prejudice is even stronger with people in grad school now than it is among older faculty." For her own part, Lord has no regrets. "I was a single New York woman teaching in a small rural town in Montana. I could go days without speaking to my colleagues, and all my social contact was with 18- to 20-year-olds. I felt that I had sacrificed my personal life for a professional career and I didn't see a reward." Now a public historian in Washington, D.C., Lord has peers she can talk to and makes $37,000 more than she did as a tenure-track professor.

The Invisible Adjunct is herself headed beyond academe. After making a final pass at the academic job market, she is leaving the academy, and her blog, behind this spring. "I'm finishing up my semester of teaching and then I'm just going to have to figure out what my next move should be."

Like Lord, Friedman has no regrets at leaving the ivy-covered walls. He currently teaches literature and an interdisciplinary seminar to high school freshmen four days a week and coaches soccer. "The best phrase I've heard for us is the intellectual lumpenproletariat," he says, using the Marxist term for the ground-down members of the underclass who lack the class consciousness for revolt. "If something happened to empower those people, there would be an incredible efflorescence of culture in this country, because there's more of them now than there ever has been. But they are too busy scuttling around getting shitty jobs."

USA creating a base for war on the people
FPF-Venezuela: TOP STORY AT THIS HOUR!

USA creating a base for war on the people
of South America and Venezuela

THE INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER editor Bob Chapman writes:

Jan. 31st - 2005 - The US for many years has been active in Colombia in assisting the government against FARC, the narco-terrorist group. As there was in Vietnam, there are military advisers in country-accompanied by US Special Forces and Colombian military.

Considering the actions of the US, in both Colombia and Venezuela recently, and the oil war now in progress, we believe the Bush administration wants to do the same thing in Venezuela as they have in Iraq and they are using Colombia as a springboard.

In fact, it‚s surprising that they did not pursue Venezuela first.

The oil is a short distance away, they already had a force nearby, and logistically it is a much easier target than Iraq. Be as it may, it is a safe bet Venezuela is next.

That is why Petrosur or PetroAmerica is being used as an energy alliance and that is why the South American community of Nations was created in December.

The first victim of these moves was FTAA. That is why the Granda affair was created.
PlanColombia and the domination of the region by the US has begun .... our government was not able to overthrow the Chavez government so the next move will be to bring about warfare.

Venezuela had best expedite their defense because their timeframe for outside interference is the next two years.

The Bush neocons cannot unseat the Chavez government legally, so before the next election, two years hence, they have to move to invade the country under the guise of rooting out this government, which they will accuse of helping the narco-terrorists.

The elitists want to steal Venezuela‚s oil now that they do not control it anymore.

Yes, we will hear administration officials saying Venezuela is undemocratic.

The next we will hear is that Venezuela is aiding the narco-terrorists. It is the view of the elitists that once Venezuela is subdued, the remainder of South America will fall into their hands like ripe fruit.

There are currently more than 400 US 'advisers' permanently in Colombia and most of them are mercenaries.

Colombian police are being militarized and US$1.3 billion in the latest military equipment is being moved into Colombia.

We see a Colombian army of 200,000 and when you add in support, it's 320.000 people ... the US is creating a base for war ... this is war on the people of South America and, particularly Venezuela.

Once the South American countries are defeated, the US will have a permanent residence on the continent. Stopping drugs will be the cover for the operation, whose real intent is to control the entire region.

All of this would not have been necessary had the Venezuelan elitists been able to maintain power, but they became so corrupt that the citizens removed them from power.

It is easy for the elitists to manipulate Colombia ... it is a country with 20% unemployment, and 40% of those who work have to depend on the underground economy.

All the money in the country is in the hands of elitists or drug producers and the national economy is run by the IMF. ( a.k.a. ''International Misery Fund'' - HR)

The people have an uncaring elitist government and the alternative is just as bad.
Behind the scenes all America wants in the name of free trade, globalization and transnational corporatist control is the further subjugation of the people.

There is now no question that there will be no budget cuts and the Bush administration will continue to add mounting debt and the Fed will continue to resort to debt financed growth via M3 and the repo pool.

This means further US financial dependency as we stand and watch the decline of a once great empire.The plug will be pulled by foreign US asset holders. It is only a question of when.

This is compounded by imperial overreach in Iraq and Afghanistan and possibly in Iran, Syria and Venezuela.

Iraq is a deepening quagmire. Oil prices remain between $45 and $50 a barrel reflecting a continuing premium as violence spreads across the Middle East.

All we need is one untoward event, a catalyst, and everything could break loose ...

the event will occur ...the only question is when. [end quote]


Story/Venezuela - Url.: http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25038

THE INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER P. O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda,
FL 33951, USA Bob Chapman international_forecaster@yahoo.com

Url.: http://www.vheadline.com/español

VHeadline.com remains 100% independent of all political factions in Venezuela --
our aim is to report what's happening without submitting to lawlessness

Our editorial statement reads: VHeadline.com Venezuela is a wholly independent e-publication promoting democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference.

We seek to shed light on nefarious practices and the corruption which for decades has strangled this South American nation's development and progress.

Our declared editorial bias is most definitely pro-Constitutional, pro-Democracy and pro-VENEZUELA. --

Roy S. Carson, Editor/Publisher - Editor@VHeadline.com

Please give your support to our continuing efforts
http://www.vheadline.com/support or send your check to
VHEADLINE P.O. Box 940207, Houston, TX 77094-7207, U.S.A.

HR

posted by FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION at 7:20 PM 174 comments

DU Scandal Explodes -
Horrendous US Casualties

 FreeMarketNews.com
2-22-6
 
The Preventive Psychiatry Newsletter has written to its subscribers telling them that the real reason the former Veterans Affairs Secretary, Anthony Principi, recently resigned was because he has been involved in a massive scandal covering up the fact that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by the use of depleted uranium, according to the SF Bay View.
  
In the article Arthur Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law, reportedly wrote that "thousands of our military have suffered and died from, [and depleted uranium] has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed." Bernklau went on to detail several alarming statistics. The historical disability rate amongst soldiers last century was about 5 percent, although it approached 10 percent during Vietnam. But due to the use of depleted uranium in the battlefield, 56 percent of the 580,400 solders that served in the first Gulf War were on Permanent Medical Disability by 2000. 11,000 Gulf War veterans are already dead. Now 518,739 Gulf War Veterans, almost all of them, are currently on medical disability.
  
Principi, under the order of the Bush Administration, had been allegedly covering up the disastrous results of using depleted uranium since 2000. However, with so many soldiers having serious health problems it has become impossible to keep secret.
  
http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=8018

THE COMING ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

 

Is there a coming economic collapse? When will this happen? How will this affect us?

 

Many wonder what the future is for the global economy. Over the last few years economists have been expressing increasing concerns about the direction the global economy is going in, and the possibility of a worldwide depression. They have been warning about the growing global imbalances in the world economy, and the consequences if not corrected.

 

Yet we live in a time where the global economy is booming, especially in the Anglo-Saxon and Asian economies. Consumer spending is up. House prices around the world have risen dramatically. Unemployment remains low. The global economy has experienced the longest period of sustained economic growth in recent history. The $US continues remain stable.

 

Why has the global economy experienced such strong growth? Will this growth continue? What does the future hold?

 

Interestingly some of the stimulus for the growth the global economy has recently experienced is a result of decisions made following Sept 11th. Already, prior to Sept 11th the US Federal Reserve was maintaining a loose fiscal policy in an effort to stimulate economic growth in the US economy, which had slowed down following years of strong growth during the Clinton administration. Then along came Sept 11th which threaten to destabilize the American banking system. To prevent this happening the Fed injected billions into the banking system to provide sufficient liquidity to prevent a run on the dollar and the banks.

 

Meanwhile, Japan since the late eighties had been wrestling with a stagnant economy, deflation and a rising currency. The Bank of Japan was already printing money prior to Sept 11th to support their own debt-ridden banks and to stimulate the domestic economy, and has continued with this policy ever since – printing yen to purchase American dollars. Japan has been able avoid inflation through having high domestic savings and by investing heavily outside the country. This has kept the Yen from appreciating against the dollar, enabled Japan’s export sector to remain competitive, and kept interest rates at near zero. As much of Japan’s external investments have been in the USA, it has resulted in Japan holding assets worth trillions of US dollars, many of which are invested in US Treasury Bonds and Mutual Funds.

 

Printing money to solve a nation’s economic problem can never be sustained. Eventually, it will lead to the debasing of a nations currency and run-away inflation. Yet for a short period, it can create an artificial prosperity, deluding the masses into believing this new prosperity can be sustained. The long-term consequences of inflating their money supply will spell disaster for America and Japan, and have dire consequences for the global economy.

 

The rapid increase in the money supply of US dollars is the number one reason America’s wealth has shifted from the US to Asia and Europe. In particular China has benefited enormously from the inflow of dollars which has financed the rapid growth of its economy, providing the capital to develop their competitive export sector. The Asian economies high rates of personal savings have financed their domestic growth as well as finance the US deficits. This has continued to allow the USA to maintain its privileged position of retaining the $US dollar as the world’s reserve currency; and allowing it to retain its global military and political dominance.

 

It has become popular by American politicians to blame China for the decline in America’s production base. This is totally unfair, and shows both their ignorance and a failure to accept responsibility by the American leadership. Actually, it is through China being able to supply America with cheap consumer goods, and lend the capital to purchase these goods which has allowed the US to contain inflation, benefiting the American consumer. Germany, which is now the world’s number one export nation and which has a wage structure higher than the US, has had to cope with a rising currency, but has still been able to expand its exports between 10-20% per annum, and continues to have an expanding large trade and current account surpluses. German manufactures also have to compete with their Asian competitors just as those from America, yet have a 160.5 billion trade surplus.

 

The reason why America has such large trade and current deficits is because of the expansion of its money supply without the corresponding expansion of its productive capacity to produce the wealth to sustain the increase in money in circulation. The lack of domestic savings to provide the investment capital into new manufacturing capacity is also a contributing factor. The cost of maintaining a large military establishment and the decline in the social fabric of society are also significant contributing factors, both of which consume resources that should be invested in the manufacturing sector for a nation to remain internationally competitive.

 

So it would appear in the short-term, the loose monetary policies of America and Japan appear to have benefited everyone. Expanding the money supply has provided the capital to support the growth of the expanding Asian economies, especially those of India and China. Inflation (if you exclude property) has been contained (normally a consequences of a loose money policy) because of China and India being able to produce consumer goods and services cheaply for the global markets, preventing manufactures in the Anglo-Saxon economies from raising their prices.

 

The increase in the supply of US dollars has been able to finance the growth in global trade. It has also provided the liquidity to finance the trade in oil, even as its price continues to escalate.

 

 

But what are the long-term consequences of such fiscal policies?

 

The rise in property prices. The value of property is one of the first commodities to rise in value when the supply of money increases rapidly. In the short-term this makes property owners believe they have suddenly struck it rich, but in reality it is the decline in the value of their money. It also places an increased financial burden upon the population, who end up paying an increased percentage of their income on housing, unless their incomes also rise. The burden of servicing this new mortgage debt is riskier today, as much of the capital to finance the growth in mortgage debt has come from short-term borrowings through the banking system from Asian investors, with the interest being remitted back to these lenders, rather than retained in the local economy. The real danger is that if the Asian investors withdraw their capital from the Anglo-Saxon nations, it would cause a collapse of the property sector and threaten the survival of their banking system.
 

The shift of the productive manufacturing base from the Anglo-Saxon nations to low-cost Asian economies. The outflow of printed dollars from the USA to Asia has provided the capital to allow these countries to rapidly expand their manufacturing sector, and under-cut the higher cost Anglo-Saxon producers. Yet the increase of the money supply has allowed the Anglo-Saxon consumer to still have retained their ability to purchase consumer goods manufactured from Asia, often financed through borrowing from the same Asians, even as their income from the productive sector declines.
 

The increase in the money supply has resulted in the rapid growth in consummation of non-renewable resources in newly emerging economies in both the Anglo-Saxon countries and especially China and India. This growth in demand for these essential commodities can not be sustained. Without the supply of cheap energy our standard of living will not be maintained. Eventually the availability of energy will become limited to only those nations with currencies strong enough to purchase them.
 

Damage to the global environment – the increase of the money supply has stimulated economic growth to where the planet can no longer cope with the damage done to the environment. For the sake of short-term prosperity, we are destroying the ability of the planet to sustain life.
 

It has enabled the American, Japanese and UK Governments to finance their enormous budget deficits though borrowing the money they have printed. In the case of America and Britain is that they are also borrowing increasingly from nations that were their former enemies. In all these countries the national debt has grown to such an extent, that a tightening of the money supply resulting in higher interest rates, could increase their budget deficits to such an extent it would bankrupt them.
 

Funding of wars – America has been able to finance its wars in the Middle East on borrowed money – printed money now controlled from Asia. This has left the American economy extremely vulnerable and open to collapse if this money is with-drawn for geo-political reasons. Amazingly, the US does not even include the war in Iraq or Afghanistan in its budget.
 

Increasing the money supply to the extent that has happened, will eventually lead to the erosion in the value of the purchasing power of the currency, and a lack of confidence in its value.
 

But what of the long-term consequences for the world if there is a collapse of existing economic system? What will be the future to the global economy of the loose money policies of the last few years? Does economic disaster now loom over the horizon? What will trigger off a lack of confidence by America’s creditors in continuing to invest in the USA and support the $US?

 

There could be any-one of a number of factors that would lead to international confidence in the American economy and the US dollar such as:

 

Switch from accepting payment in oil from dollars to Euro by OPEC.
A major national disaster, such as an earthquake in Tokyo, a cyclone in America, a terrorist attack.
A military defeat in Iraq.
A further blow-out in the US twin deficits.
Rising interest rates in other parts of the world.
Lack of confidence in America’s ability to service its debts.
Major economic calamities in the US, such as run on the banking system, fall in the share-market, or a collapse of major corporations.
A major disease epidemic, such as bird flu.
 

The world has experienced some of the greatest shift of wealth in recent history, from the Anglo-Saxon nations who have dominated the global economy for the last 200 years, to Asia and Continental Europe. This shift in wealth will shortly result in the economic collapse of the Anglo-Saxon nations – their money will become worthless, and their economies will disintegrate into anarchy and poverty. This collapse will also have disastrous consequences to the Asian economies, which have become depended on exporting to the North American market to support their domestic growth. While the Asian economies will be severely affected from the collapse of the Anglo-Saxon economies, they will survive and recover.

 

The region in the world which will fill the vacuum from the coming collapse of the $US will be the Eurozone. The Euro will replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, propelling the Eurozone nations into the most influential global economic power. To support filling the monetary vacuum following the collapse of the dollar, Europeans will have to resolve their constitutional differences and form a political union. Those nations that accept the EU Constitution will form a United States of Europe, but it is unlikely that all existing EU members will agree to be a part of such a political union.

 

The future for the Anglo-Saxon people looks bleak. The sudden withdrawal of overseas investment will see their economies go into fee-fall. Their currencies will be come worthless. Property prices will collapse. Businesses will fail. Disease will become wide-spread, made worse without the drugs to control that many that is now depended upon. Farmers without the money to purchase fuel and chemicals will no longer have the ability to mass produce food. Starvation and anarchy will prevail. There will be little governments can do to save their people from death and destruction.

 

Meanwhile, America’s over-stretched military will no longer have the financial resources to continue its futile Middle East wars, and to sustain its bases that circumnavigate the globe, will be forced to with-draw back to the USA.

 

Few can comprehend of the fate that lies ahead for the Anglo-Saxon group of nations. It will be a time of human suffering greater than ever experienced. Two thirds will die – those who survive will be taken into slavery. After 200 years of global dominance, their defeat will result in some of the most dreadful suffering mankind has experienced. Yet all this could be avoided if they had not rejected the Law of God. It is only by returning to following God’s Law and the teachings of Jesus Christ that this looming disaster can be avoided.

 

 

Bruce Porteous

bruceport@xtra.co.nz

26 February, 2006

Edited by author 03-02-2006 05:07 PM
THE WOMEN WHO LAUNCHED A MOVEMENT

Bristov calls the competition that is control by imperialism , capitalism, a fair way giving everyone a chance. We all know that's not true; that the Owners' guns and laws protect the protected few and abuse the rest of us, the rest of the world.
 
Places that have succumbed to the many sided attacks on their effort to establish actual socialism, were unable to achieve the goal before going under. They were not yet socialist.
The attack on nations directing themselves toward ever more just arrangements, called socialist by the brutal Western nations, the U.S. in particular, which HUGELY protects the right of a few people to steal from us all - to steal our land and our labor - the attack has come from many angles and is incessant, followed by war, if the nation keeps on trying.
 
http://www.democracynow.org/search.pl?query=economic+hitman
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/15/1436221
 
It's worthwhile to look at the whole interview; it chronicles the constant invasion by 'diplomacy' like this, that, as interviewee describes, is accompanied by the threat of murder - example the Wellstone murder , the Gary Webb 'suicide' (two bullets to the brain!!), re: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2818 America's Debt to Gary Webb. Those are here in the U.S. Jenkins tells how it's done world-wide.
 
A great example is the Ayn Rand stance; that the best people deserve the best and fuggeddaboud the rest. See 'Atlas Shrugged'.
 
"The protests this week in Bolivia come as Latin America is seeing significant success among popular progressive movements. From Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Lula da Silva of Brazil to the changes of government in Uruguay and now Ecuador, there is a continent-wide trend that has Washington concerned. The US has long exploited countries throughout Central and Latin America for the natural resources, labor and land. Over the decades, this exploitation has been backed up by force and through devastating policies dictated to puppet regimes. Our next guest says he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries in Latin America and around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies. From 1971 to 1981, John Perkins worked for the international consulting firm of Chas T. Main. He described himself as an "economic hit man." "
 
Norma
----- Original Message -----
From: sidneybristov@aol.com
To: Humane-Rights-Agenda@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 6:00 AM
Subject: HumaneRightsAgenda Women Mar ...


  
  
 
Rose Wilder Lane The Discovery of Freedom
Isabel Paterson The God of the Machine
Ayn Rand The Fountainhead

Sixty-three years ago, thoughtful, well-intentioned, educated people in the United States all understood that socialism was the future. The average citizen might have retained a quaint belief in the American system of free enterprise, limited government, and individual rights, but among the cognoscenti -- academics, artists, newspaper and radio pundits -- it was widely recognized that the capitalist experiment had run its course. The overwhelming consensus was that the coming century would see economies managed by benevolent experts: the chaotic, dog-eat-dog competition of the market would give way to rational central planning.

History has been unkind to the old conventional wisdom. But the intellectual sea change preceded the visible collapse of socialist economies. The first real sign of the resurrection of the classical liberal idea came with the publication in 1943 of three groundbreaking books unabashedly defending individualism and free-market capitalism. Almost as unorthodox as the books' contents, in the climate of the 1940s, were their authors -- three remarkable women described by libertarian journalist John Chamberlain in his memoir:

If it had been left to pusillanimous males probably nothing much would have happened.... Indeed, it was three women -- [Isabel] Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand -- who, with scornful side glances at the male business community, had decided to rekindle a faith in an older American philosophy. There wasn't an economist among them. And none of them was a Ph.D.

I had already absorbed the message of Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy the State and Hillaire Belloc's The Servile State, but it was Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine, Rose Lane's The Discovery of Freedom and Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and (later) Atlas Shrugged that turned Nock's conception of social power into detailed reality. These books made it plain that if life was to be something more than a naked scramble for government favors, a new attitude toward the producer must be created.

Paterson, Lane, and Rand began to do just that. Each was an original thinker in her own right. But each also made a mark as a great popularizer of liberal ideas. A few beleaguered liberal economists had argued, with great force, that no planned economy could match the productive efficiency of a capitalist system. Yet these economic arguments, despite their technical force, were unable to match the power of the utopian socialist vision to capture the popular imagination. These three -- Lane and Paterson almost entirely bereft of formal education, Rand writing fiction in an adopted tongue -- did just that. The sweeping histories of Lane and Paterson chronicled humanity's ascent from barbarism to civilization in a way that uncovered the necessary links between civil liberties, stable property rights, and material progress. Even more successful was Rand's allegorical tale of a brash and brilliant young architect struggling to maintain the integrity of his work in a profession where his independence of mind is despised and resented. Above all a romantic epic, The Fountainhead also served up a blistering satire of the day's intellectual fads and hinted at the Objectivist philosophy of rational self-interest that she would develop in greater detail in her Atlas Shrugged.

The effect the trio had was no accident: they were frequent correspondents (and friends too, at times) who saw each other -- despite quarrels over fine points of ethics or conflicting religious views -- as comrades in arms engaged in a war of ideas. The odds in that war looked less than encouraging, however: even the captains of industry who were emblems of the free enterprise system had, as often as not, succumbed to the prevailing orthodoxy. Undaunted, Rand wrote to Paterson in 1945: "You were right, we can do it without their help. We'll have to save capitalism from the capitalists."

Surveying the disheartening intellectual climate of the 40s, F. A. Hayek wrote:

We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.... Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.

               THE WOMEN WHO LAUNCHED A MOVEMENT

The battle, history has since shown, is not yet lost, and this is due in no small part to Rand, Paterson, and Lane's belief in the power of ideas. Unconstrained by conventional political categories, they savaged the collectivist economic nostrums of the left even while, in their lives and careers, they exploded the rigid gender roles seen as sacrosanct by so many on the right. In the process, they laid the foundations of the modern libertarian movement. This Women's History Month, on the sixty-third anniversary of their monumental triple achievement, the Cato Institute pays homage to three women without whom it would not exist.

Read Jim Powell's essay on Rand, Paterson and Wilder Lane for the Foundation for Economic Education

Bush Jokes are No longer Funny


By Gerald Rellick

3/10/06

There was time when Bush jokes and cartoons were funny. I still maintain a large collection of them myself. But it’s difficult to look at them now or those in the papers. It would be like a decent German citizen looking at Hitler cartoons in the Berlin newspapers in 1945, if such were allowed, as Germany was turned into rubble day by day. Bush humor—if there ever was any -- is long gone. It represents a dilemma of sorts for political cartoonists. What more can they do? George Bush is a totally failed president - without doubt the worst president in American history, and he is doing his best—albeit probably unconsciously – to bring the country slowly, but inexorably, to ruin. The Republican Congress is totally spineless, trying nothing more to cling to some concept they call “power,” although they too realize at bottom that “Bush is the worst.” How does one poke fun at all this dreadfulness? Humor, which always clings precariously to truth, has lost its edge, overpowered by gruesome reality.

I, along with countless other writers have catalogued the Bush failures, his ineptness, his total inability to govern. But to what end? Yes, his poll numbers are in now in the mid 30’s, unprecedented for a second term president just reelected. And his vice President, the loathsome Dick Cheney, is somewhere in the vicinity of 18%. As one writer pointed out, this is less than believes in space aliens and ghosts – which is about a third of the population. How can one govern when being totally out of sync with America’s values ands standards? Is democracy now on the decline in the U.S.? Have greed, self interest and spin won the day? Has the American public been made fools of by the clever machinations of Karl Rove, the Dr. Frankenstein of American politics, the man who took this half-brained creature, this pseudo-moron, George Bush, and transformed him into president of the U.S.?

I have a writer friend who argues that Bush has reached the end, that he is now road kill. No longer is congress rejecting him, but he believes that the “military elite” will stop Bush before his madness leads to another military debacle. I find little comfort in this view.

What military elite?

Consider the military “men” who have served Bush over the course of his presidency. Colin Powell, Army general, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Vietnam combat veteran, may well go down in history as America’s Neville Chamberlain, a man with the backbone of jello, who as secretary of state couldn’t bring himself to stand up for his own convictions to a pathetic weakling, George Bush, but chose, rather, to “obey orders” like a toy soldier. I hope Powell lives long enough to see his disgrace recorded in the history books. Children of the next generation will grow up seeing Powell in the same light as our generation saw Neville Chamberlain upon his return from Munich in 1938 with paper in hand, signed by Herr Hitler, that “peace was at hand.” These children will learn of the disgrace of Colin Powell, one of America’s greatest failures, as he went before the United Nations in February, 2003, waving his own papers—those from George Tenet -- to present George Bush’s drummed-up, bogus case for war with Iraq. It will take some time, but truth and justice will prevail. To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous line, “The arc of history is long but it bends toward [truth and justice]. Colin Powell will die with his cowardice – not his medals -- clutched to his chest.

Look at another Vietnam combat veteran, John McCain, and you see much the same thing, a physical hero who endured years of captivity and torture in a North Vietnamese prison camp, but in the end, just another moral coward, unable to lead, a man who stands for nothing -- nothing, that is, except the insatiable desire to be president. There is not an ass in Washington McCain won’t kiss to be president. I saw McCain on Jay Leno a few months ago trying to act like a cool dude. He was truly pathetic. You would really have to be sick to vote for John McCain for president.

And look again at another Vietnam fighter pilot, “top gun” Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Congressman from California, just convicted of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to eight years in federal prison. As a young man he was “full of piss and vinegar,” but as a real adult, faced with real responsibilities, he was a total failure. Like George W. Bush, he never grew up. He never learned what real life was all about.

All three “heroes” have at the end of the day disgraced themselves and disgraced their country. What are we to make of this? For one, they are all Republicans. And in one way or another closely associated with George Bush. Is that a coincidence? Perhaps.

Only two members of Congress have ever worn the Congressional Medal of Honor, Sen. Daniel Inyoue of Hawaii and former Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, both Democrats.

But it’s not hopeless for the GOP in the courage/cowardice category. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is a Vietnam combat veteran, wounded in action. And Hagel opposes most of George W.’s Iraq war policies. And then there is Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a 37-year Marine Corps veteran of two wars, who like Hagel has little use for the cowardly George Bush.

And on the subject of cowardice, consider this. In a recent hunting escapade, Dick Cheney accidentally shot one of his hunting comrades. There may have been negligence involved, but that is up to the local district attorney to decide. But more importantly, I think, is the nature of the hunt. These were not wild birds. The birds were bred in captivity. They had spent their lives in pens, and then on hunting day, were released for the sole purpose of being killed by Dick Cheney and cohorts for pure sport as they flew into the open sky for their only moments of brief freedom. Whether you are an animal lover or not, there is something disgusting and degrading about this kind of hunt and something less than human about those who participate in it.

All this brings to mind words from Kurt Vonnegut from his book of essays, “Palm Sunday,” when he addressed the graduating class of his alma mater, Cornell, in May 1980.

“I pity you people of today for not having truly great leaders to write about---Roosevelt and Churchill and Chiang Kai-Shek….Oh, sure, we [may] have another war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time? All you have is a lot of ordinary people standing around with their thumbs up their ass.”

So, America, these are the leaders you elected. You chose them. Now, what are you going to do about it?

Gerald S. Rellick, Ph.D., worked in aerospace industry for 22 years. He now teaches in the California Community College system. He can be reached at grellick@hotmail.com

Democratic Election Gains in 2006

 

I am predicting gains of up to 25 seats in Congress for Democrats in Congress in the 2006 elections if the outrageous Delay orchestrated Texas Congressional Redistricting Scheme is reversed by the Supreme Court. The recent appointments of Roberts and Alito put that issue in doubt.

 

Before those court packing nominations were approved by the Senate, the Texas Scheme would almost certainly have been reversed. Senate Democrats failed to zero in on this issue during the Senate hearings of these nominees. The failure of the Alito filibuster effort will forever shame those Senate Democrats who scuttled the effort. They seriously undermined American Democracy by being essentially spineless. The few Senate Democrats who actually voted to approve the Alito nomination should all face active Democratic Primary opponents. They may have kept the unpopular, anti-democratic forces of Bush Republicanism in control of Congress.

 

Political events could still produce such large Democratic gains to make the Texas court case outcome less important. If Bush takes the United States to war with Iran before the 2006 elections, I predict Democratic gains in Congress will top 50 seats. Americans are tired of the seemingly endless war lust of Bush Republicanism.

 

The incompetence and greed of the Bush Republicans when it comes to war has finally penetrated the American psyche (except for those whose perception of reality has been distorted by Right Wing talk radio and/or Fox News.) Americans do not want us involved in 3 major wars with Moslem nations at the same time with no viable plans for winning completely in any of them.

 

Should gasoline price hit $3 per gallon again and stay there for more than a couple of weeks before the November elections, Republicans and those few elected Democrats who vote often for the Bush Agenda will suffer badly at the polls. Americans understand that the Republican Party sides with huge international corporations over American consumers at every opportunity. The oil industry, drug companies and credit card companies virtually own the Republican Party in the Bush era. This will certainly not change before the 2006 elections.

 

Any successful large-scale terrorist attack before November will certainly doom Republican chances for retaining power in either the House or Senate. Tough talk but incompetent execution on homeland security and terrorism has grown very old and annoying to American voters. The Bush Republicans are good at undermining American freedom in the name of security but are terrible at actually improving security.

 

Renewal of the falsely-named Patriot Act, the Dubai port deal and the failure of Republicans in Congress to investigate the illegal wiretapping by the Bush Administration will already cost Republicans badly at the polls. Any successful terrorist attacks will highlight Republican incompetence in dealing with terrorism. I certainly do not want to gain votes in this manner but the issues is not in the hands of Democrats. Democrats who voted for the falsely-named Patriot Act renewal are likely to suffer along with the Republicans. Hopefully, the falsely-named Patriot Act will be repealed immediately by Democrats in Congress after they gain control.

 

The greatest assets Democrats have going for them in 2006 are the policies and record of Bush Republicans over the past 6 years. Never before in American history has corruption so dominated a major American political Party like it has the modern Republican Party. Never has greed and incompetence so dominated the actions, policies and record of a governing Party. Corruption, cronyism and cover-up are the keywords defining Bush Republicanism.

 

Only Democrats very closely tied to Bush Republican policies need to seriously worry about re-election. Almost all Republicans should be worried. Few swing seats will be taken by Republicans. Many formerly safe Republican seats will not be safe for Republicans in 2006. Democrats have great allies in Bush, Cheney, Frist, Delay and crew!

 

Written by Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence (hosts of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

 

Feel free to publish in your newspaper or on your website at no charge without prior permission.

WHAT WE THINK
Politicians demonize Arabs and Muslims to justify their war
Making anti-Arab racism respectable
March 17, 2006 | Page 3

THE DEMONIZATION of Arabs and Muslims by politicians and the media is on the rise--with all too predictable results.

According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 46 percent of Americans think poorly of Islam today--higher than immediately following the September 11 attacks. According to the poll, the proportion of Americans who believe Islam helps to cause violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled, from 14 percent in January 2002 to 33 percent today. One in four Americans admit to being prejudiced against Muslims and Arabs.

These numbers are the inevitable consequence of a “war on terror” that has made scapegoats of Arabs and Muslims at home--including the special “registration” of thousands of Arab and Muslim men and racial profiling at every turn--while waging war on them abroad. The blame lies squarely with the politicians--not only George Bush’s Republicans, but the “opposition” Democrats as well.

International outrage over anti-Muslim caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad was dismissed by politicians and the media as an “overreaction” to an issue of “free speech.”

More recently, Democrats exploited the controversy over a business deal that would have transferred management of six U.S. ports to Dubai Ports World to try to look tougher on “national security” than the Bush administration. “What would normally have been a routine business deal with a stable ally turned into a political fiasco that sent a ‘no Arabs or Muslims need apply’ message,” commented Parvez Ahmed, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Facing dissention within its own party, the Bush administration engineered the Dubai company’s withdrawal from the deal. But the ports controversy was another sign that anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism is thoroughly acceptable in Washington.

As Middle East expert Juan Cole told the Washington Post, Americans “have been given the message to respond this way by the American political elite, mass media and by select special interests...I think anti-Arab racism and profiling has become respectable.”

Just how “respectable” was apparent this month as Washington’s elite gathered for the annual policy conference of the American Israeli Pubic Affairs Committee.

“While it may be true--and probably is--that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim,” Dan Gillerman, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, told the crowd at a March 6 luncheon.

Gillerman’s hypocrisy is incredible--and easily exposed. The Israeli military’s record of inflecting terror on innocent Palestinians is second to none in today’s world--except perhaps for the U.S. government, and the suffering and death it has caused with its occupation for oil and empire in Iraq.

Nevertheless, none of the dozens of Bush administration officials, members of Congress or other politicians present at the AIPAC conference--including prominent Democrats such as former vice presidential nominee John Edwards, Virginia's ex-Gov. Mark Warner and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh--found Gillerman’s bigotry offensive enough to offer even mild criticism.

Unfortunately, much of the antiwar movement has been quiet when it comes to standing up against this racism.

Organizations such as the national coalition United for Peace and Justice offered no criticism of Democrats exploiting anti-Arab racism during the recent ports controversy, for example. Many liberals even joined in the rhetoric about protecting “national security.”

The antiwar movement has to take a clear and uncompromising stand against racism against Arabs and Muslims at home--because this is another front in the broader “war on terror.”

Not speaking out when the politicians of both parties associate Arabs and Muslims with terrorism opens the door to accepting U.S. justifications for continuing the occupation of Iraq--that Iraqis are “prone to violence” and “incapable” of ruling themselves, so the U.S. must remain for “as long as it takes.” And, of course, the civil liberties of all of us are at stake if the politicians can get away with racially profiling some people as “inherently” more likely to be terrorists.

Not challenging this bigotry divides and weakens our movement, keeping Arabs and Muslims--those who are impacted most by the war on our rights at home and the occupation abroad--on the outside.

Any antiwar movement worthy of the name has to take up the defense of Arab and Muslim rights--and stand up to this racist scapegoating.

Prestowitz Urges Koizumi
To Call for 'Plaza Accord II' at G-8

From Kyodo News Agency
Tuesday, March 28, 2006

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060328/kyodo/d8gki7284.html

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should take the lead at a
Group of Eight meeting in calling for a "Plaza Accord II," former
U.S. trade negotiator Clyde Prestowitz said Tuesday.

"We all need to cooperate on diminishing the role of the dollar in
international trade," said Prestowitz, now the president of the
Economic Strategy Institute, which he founded, at a lecture at the
Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

Even though Koizumi is going to step down from the premiership in
September, he is in a good position to suggest that G-8 leaders
adopt a new Plaza Accord to help reduce current global economic
imbalances similar to those seen in the mid-1980s, when the first
accord was struck, Prestowitz said.

The 1985 Plaza Accord was signed by the then Group of Five economic
powers to coordinate foreign exchange policies. Troubled by a large
trade deficit, particularly with Japan, the United States under the
administration of President Ronald Reagan aimed to bring down the
value of the U.S. dollar against other major currencies.

Since then the world economy has gone through a radical
transformation, with China and India emerging as major economic
powerhouses. The G-5 has now expanded to the G-8 grouping Britain,
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and Russia.

But the U.S. dollar is again in a situation in which many
economists, including Prestowitz, see it as overvalued and partly
responsible for increasing trade deficits in the United States.

The U.S. government recently said its current account deficit in
2005 totaled $804.95 billion, up 20.5 percent from the previous
year, to hit a record high for the fourth straight year due to a
bigger goods trade deficit on higher imports and oil prices.

"We are back (to a similar situation to the mid-1980s with a similar
global economic imbalance), except it's bigger and there are more
players," said Prestowitz, a trade negotiator in the Reagan
administration.

To help resolve this matter, he said the United States should raise
taxes and increase financial savings, while other countries should
stimulate consumption.

As a means of solving the problem, the world needs to begin pricing
oil "not in the dollar but in a basket of currencies," such as the
yen, dollar, euro, and yuan, he suggested.

                             Event Announcement

May 1st Law Day - 11 AM, to 12:00 Noon at Bangor City Hall, "The Peoples Voice". A get together with accounts of how the system fails those it serves, plus A CALL for good laws to be fairly implemented.

Anyone who has been wrongfully denied General Assistance, can spek at the open forum. The purpose, is to inform the Public what requires fixing and how.

This could be the beginning of another civil/ecomonic rights movement for people of all skin tones. It is past timefor those of us at the bottom speak out. We know the barriers, first hand.

 We at Hospitality House Inc, also will call for Fair wages, Fair profits. Enough to cover the full cost of living.

Call Jan at 1-800-438-3890

                           MORE INFORMATION

This could be the first rally of a new economic civil movement. As the 1955 -1970 civil rights which brought attention the the poor and black predictiment. Its time for another for people of all races who are underpaid.

Hospitality House Inc. hopes breaking one or two of the myths surrounding the poor and the real middleclasses will result in a fairer nation. The below has gone out to organizations asking for particapants and letters.

 Lets join forces to make Maine, and many other states freer. The Unheard working poor Should be HEARD.

 Our Homeless Crisis Hotline, deals with all people including women and their families escaping their abusers. Only to abused by governmental bad application of good General Assistance (GA) Laws. Women who in fact qualify for needed aid to elude their abuser, are Lied to by Trusted public officials. and Children are harmed with lack of a safe place to be or food, by this immoral practice.

 We deal with callers who are the mentally ill, the disabled, or just the shy. To the Public Official they must appear ready to go away. So they also are decieved as to the actual laws. This makes America less fair, than bad application of laws in Iraq

Hospitality House Inc., aim to make General assistance or town welfare work as lawmakers intended. This will strenghten all families, not just the ones suffering abuse.

On May 1st-Law Day in MAINE, Hospitality House Inc. will host a get together "Asking for Fair Application of Laws". Our non-profit will begin with asking the General Assistance Laws be properly applied.

This can be a first rumble for Economic Civil Rights. Where all will be paid not enough to survive-But to thrive. We will still Have millionares-but only after everyone is fed and has a safe bed.

To illustrate the failure of law in rotten treatment, we will bring up a class of citizens who wish Fair and Equal Treatment under the law. The Poorest of the poor, are those who must set aside their dignity, and seek General Assistance, (GA) or town welfare-based upon income.

We are asking many organizations to help us. We have asked the Council of Churches if they will ask its church goer's, if any of them have been to GA in the past 5 years or so and treated badly, or feel their were UNFAIRLY denied assistance to write a letter.

We would love to have Family Crisis to have anyone denied GA to write us a letter telling us of their experience.

This letter should include the date, of the application; in what town the application happened; if the town or city even allowed an application be submitted. How many where effected by the denial. -The excuse the trusted official used for denial. And what reprecusations happened. As did they became homeless? Did one of their family member need to be hospitalized, due to circumstances resulting from the denial.
   
The person signing the letter can sign either their real name, or a name or something along the lines of Mainer who was denied. Abused by GA, or any amusing tag your clients can think of -as treated as S - - t, or anything else they can imagine. Please have contact information on the envelope, so Jan can get ahold of you.

These letters should be sent to Hospitality House Inc. by April 22, 2006 at PO Box 62 Hinkley ME. 04944

If there are any questions, call the Homeless Crisis Hotline at 1-800-438-3890.

Jan LightfoottLane

Help us have a good gathering by announcing this Sunday, or the soonest that Hospitality House Inc. needs the People of Maine tell officials when the system fails to work. We will read the letters.

 Or our non-profit will love to have people who can gather at 11:00, Monday May 1st at Bangor City Hall. About 80% of all workers are one paycheck away from requiring aid. On May 1st they can tell their own account of their abuse by the trusted officials who they turned to for help.

Need coverage of this event and enough people to make the event newsworthy. There will be a suprised at the end of the get together. The suprise alone should make this event wothy of being reported.

Hospitality House Inc. PO Box 62 Hinckley ME. 04944

Cynthia under attack

With Fox News leading the way, the story of Cynthia McKinney's scuffle with a Capitol cop continues to make the headlines in the United States. An absurdity, one would have thought, given the original incident.

The Capitol Hill policeman in question supposedly failed to recognise Congresswoman McKinney, grabbed hold of her, and she responded by allegedly hitting the cop with her cell phone. But we should remember that, given technical miniaturisation, a modern mobile phone is hardly a lethal weapon - and surely the cop was failing in his job by failing to recognise McKinney.

According to the media wolf pack, U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein is reviewing the 'case', which means an arrest warrant could be issued for Congresswoman McKinney. Wainstein is best known for his pearl of wisdom - wait for it -: "Terrorists and spies use public libraries!"

The fuss is even more bizarre when one considers that numerous members of Congress are little more than the corrupt hirelings of various lobbies. They are incapable of standing up to the blandishments of Alaskan loggers, tobacco barons or pharmaceutical companies, let alone THE LOBBY that Cynthia has openly defied. Unlike them, Cynthia has never bowed the knee to the AIPAC.

While Cynthia McKinney has resisted, too many of the white men in suits have chosen wrong over right. And Cynthia has been consistently right about the attack on Iraq, about the many bizarre anomalies of the 9/11 attack and about increasing domestic deprivation.

If you are in a position to make a difference, and are still brave enough to offend the really powerful, then retribution will invariably follow, sooner or later. You can be 'Gallowayed' and flung into jail on flimsy charges as you enter Egypt. Or you can be 'Livingstoned', like London's Mayor, and threatened with loss of office over some harmless banter.

The former leader of Britain's Liberal party, Charles Kennedy, had his card marked when he opposed the attack on Iraq. He did this in a quite diffident and half-hearted way, but it was enough to be noted down against him. After a decent interval, he was swept away by a suspiciously coordinated and synchronised press storm. Incidentally, most ordinary people were bemused by the virulence the print media displayed towards this inoffensive and basically decent man.

Several years earlier, a UK government minister, David Mellor, dared to express some sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. He was gone in a (blatantly setup) sex scandal a short while later. In America, the fate of Paul Findley, a man who should have been a real 'elder stateman', is well known : political oblivion.

I recall that Cynthia was courteous enough to send me a note of thanks after I e-mailed her a couple of Josephine Baker song links. Jo Baker once encountered controversy herself when she called Juan Peron's Argentina 'an enlightened democracy'.

Old time Argentina may or may not have been an 'enlightened democracy', but one thing is certain : modern America is neither enlightened nor even a true democracy. This episode proves that fact, yet again.

CG says:
You may not have realized this, but you are looking at the "political engine" that will change the world. I don't mean this site, in particular -- though I would certainly love a place at the table in that process. I mean the "blogosphere," in general. I'm not sure that very many people realize just how powerful, how culturally transforming, this media could become.

snip

That's right, folks, the "business press" has noticed you, they don't much like you, and here's the best part. There's nothing they can do about you. Indeed, the so-called "mainstream media" has also taken notice -- occasionally conducting conferences on "blogger ethics." It seems we're "irresponsible," and lack "journalistic standards."

All of which is complete hogwash. Consider the latest example of "journalistic standards" as practiced by Chris Matthews on MSNBC.

(ALP: Snip out a buncha stuff about Chris M doing some “faux outrage” “reporting”)

This sorry excuse for reporting by Chris Matthews points to an ugly truth just dawning on the majority of Americans, in the wake of the Plamegate scandal. The mainstream media has failed this country. Scooter Libby -- possibly along with Karl Rove and maybe even Dick Cheney, himself -- spoon fed the leak of Plame's identity to Judith Miller, Robert Novak and the rest of the MSM, who dutifully reported it to the public. Being the "responsible jounalists" that they are, they failed to notice the politically motivated animosity behind the leak.

Snip

The blogosphere was all over that story, the second it broke in July, 2003. The mainstream media didn't pick it up until September -- and indeed they picked it up from the blogosphere. And remember, they were the one's reporting the original story. The blogosphere detected the politics of the story. The MSM blithely ignored that part. In fact, bloggers noticed the "big lie" about yellowcake, the day after the President's State of the Union message. Again, it was September before the alleged "professionals" in the MSM caught up with the "amateurs."

The whole "drumbeat for war" pumped out daily by the Bush administration, was dutifully passed along by the MSM, with nary a "fact check" forthcoming. Judith Miller's role as a mouthpiece for the administration regarding weapons of mass destruction is well documented -- so much so that the New York Times issued an "apology" for her for piss poor reporting. In fact, we didn't simply march off to a needless war because of the White House's PR operation. We marched off to a needless war, because the mainstream media aided and abetted that PR operation -- instead of asking the hard questions, and digging for the true facts, the way they claim to do.

Then they have the nerve to question the "responsibility" of the citizen bloggers who called them to account. The problem isn't "irresponsible bloggers." It's irresponsible journalists and their editors -- not those pesky "amateurs" who expose the deficiencies of those "professional" jounalists, such as they are. That's their real problem. People are looking over their shoulder. Citizens on the internet are "paying attention to that man behind the curtain," instead of being dutifully impressed with the smoke and flames of the wizard's theatrics.

Take it to the bank Mr. Matthews and Forbes Magazine; bloggers are a problem -- for you. You're going to have to start doing your job, because we will surely do it for you. And again, you can bitch and moan about it until you are old. The internet genie isn't going back in the bottle. It's a new world of citizen "fact checkers," and they will burn your ass the next time a Judith Miller slouches into the newsroom with some crock of bullshit from the likes of Chalabi and Dick Cheney.

Meanwhile, the more people get who get "wired" into the blogosphere, the more people will realize just what a narrow, distorted picture of the public's business they have been getting from the mainstream media. Which brings us to the "point of departure" in understanding the revolutionary impact of the blogosphere. The internet is much more than an extension of your telephone, mailbox and TV set. It is a new medium, with its own unique characteristics. It is a technological change on a par with the automobile or the printing press in its capability to fundamentally transform our culture. It isn't any particular individual's effort that will do this. It is the nature of the medium itself -- something many of us are only just beginning to become aware of.

Let us start with a fairly regular complaint about average American citizens. They are profoundly ignorant, and grossly uninformed about the world they live in. Well-informed and well-educated Americans are painfully aware of the cultural milieu in which they exist. It is as if average middle class Americans live in Disneyland. They believe in the image of "heroic America," for example -- the one that saved Europe from Nazism and rebuilt it with the Marshall plan. They are blissfully unaware of all of the history of US foreign policy in the ensuing sixty years.

They are utterly unaware of a long list of democratically elected regimes toppled by the US government, from Iran in 1953, to Guatemala, to Brazil, to the Dominican Republic, to Chile, right up to current efforts against the elected government of Venezuela. Most Americans can't tell you what "IMF" stands for -- "International Monetary Fund, for those internet "newbies" who don't know -- let alone what it does. Basically, the IMF is majority owned by the US government, and dictates domestic policy in other supposedly sovereign nations, on matters like public infrastructure, social spending, and labor unions. What they dictate are "business friendly" policies that ruin domestic economies, and mire them in "McKinley era" squalor. See Argentina for a perfect example of how the IMF beggars developing nations. Middle class Americans know nothing of this. They just know how we beat the Nazi's and rebuilt Europe -- blissfully ignorant of the fact that the US government ruthlessly squashes any effort in the third world to create the kind of social democratic economies that exist in Europe, and used to exist here, before the "Reagan revolution" started beggaring our own working people.

How did Americans get to be so god damned ignorant? One word. Television -- another culture-creating technology. Here's a little research project for you. Go read some of Alexis DeToqueville's "Democracy in America." While you're at it, read a few of the numerous speeches delivered by Abraham Lincoln in the late 1850's, just before his election as President. Or how about checking out some of the pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers and other assorted "literature" from the early history of the US. If you think politics is "down and dirty" today, you will be in for a surprise. The founding fathers practiced "take no prisoners" rhetoric. It wasn't all "low brow," either. Lincoln's speeches -- at the Cooper Union in New York, for example -- were published in full in the newspapers. People read, largely because there wasn't much else to do, except hang around the saloon. There wasn't a boob tube at the saloon, either. In the age before television and radio, vigorous debate -- and I mean vigorous -- was one of the things people did in the saloons. Instead of vegetating in front of the blue tit, people headed out for a drink, and argued politics -- creating the huge irony that in the years before the so-called "information age" Americans may well have been better informed.

Not only did you know what was in the paper, you knew what your neighbors thought about it -- including neighbors who didn't necessarily see things the same way you did. Oh, and what you saw in "the papers" would be more accurate. There were lots of them -- competing with each other. In fact, the word "press" as it is used in the first amendment meant literally, the printing press. The "press" was any asshole who owned one. While a printing press is somewhat of a "big ticket" item, it was not beyond the means of plenty of ordinary citizens -- who used their presses to speak their minds. A television station on the other hand, is another kettle of fish. There are only a finite number of available frequencies for one thing, and the capital requirements for your own TV station run into the tens of millions of dollars. There aren't very many people in your town with that kind of jack.

As for the "press" today, it quit meaning "ordinary citizens" over a hundred years ago, when Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst turned the newspaper business into "big business."

Snip

Television is even worse. Starting with the economics of it, you're talking tens of millions of dollars to set up your "microphone." You're talking about the necessity for a large technical support crew to run the thing -- people who have to eat. It is a recipe for being beholden to the advertising dollar, in a medium where advertising is necessarily expensive. In short, "newspapers of record" and television are the medium of corporate oligarchy, not democracy.

To further illustrate this, let's consider the actual nature of the medium. Television is a passive medium. It is linear for one thing and time bound for another. Though "Tivo" is changing that somewhat, it can only go so far. A program has a beginning and an end. You can't jump around, or at least not conveniently. And here's the thing. Nobody wants to jump around. They don't want to "fiddle" with it. They want to turn it on, recline under its blue glow and "absorb" their news and entertainment. Television does not engage the viewer, it pacifies him.

It doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Certain famous television shows -- The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, for the two best known examples -- did what good theatre is supposed to do, engaging people's minds and imaginations. Network executives didn't like those shows. "Too cerebral" they said. Right, that's why they have cult followings who watch them to this day -- generating many millions in advertising revenue for their syndicators. What those executives really meant was, "we don't want people thinking." Instead, they want them passively ‘receiving' the messages of their advertisers. Because really, "critical thinking" is poison to Madison Avenue. Since Madison Avenue is paying for your television entertainment, they want that entertainment to compliment their advertising, not undermine it.

The result is that American television is the most banal, stultifying cultural shit ever devised by the mind of man. It exists to sell Budweiser -- the blandest, sorriest excuse for beer ever devised by the mind of man. It exists to serve consumers -- not citizens -- in a "one size fits all" marketplace, where the goal is to sell millions of mass-produced copies of mediocrity. It is a medium of standardized products, and it needs standardized minds. Imagination and creativity have no place in the corporate workplace, the corporate marketplace, and therefore, they have no place in the TV production studio -- with one noteworthy exception. Television programming is so bad, and the mush minds of "Disneyland Americans" so inured to the "blue light," that advertising is the last refuge of American creativity, to the point that the commercials are getting better than the programs, which isn't saying much.

This is where our "Disneyland culture" comes from. It is a corporate mass-produced commodity, like every individual product it sells. Television created it. Television lulls the American working person to sleep every night, telling him fairytales about "heroic America," and carefully keeping any fact, any opinion, any point of view, any concept away from him that might cause some of his unused synapses to spring to life. All Disneyland Americans have to do is turn on the box, and find out what a wonderful land this is, and what wonderful corporate employers they have, and what wonderful mass produced products they can buy. Oh, and it also ladles out a heaping helping of irrational fear, oh and what awful "non-Disney approved" people are out there lurking.

Television does something else even worse. It isolates people. Corporate America has a propaganda pipeline straight into your living room. The more you "tune in" to the commercial messages, and to the frames and memes of the corporate media, the less you listen to your neighbors. Even if you see something on TV you don't like, what can you do about it? Talk back to your TV screen? In fact, many Americans do just that, only to hear their spouses say, "he can't hear you." And he can't. The talking head -- talking to you -- is in a windowless studio somewhere. He's talking to you, but he doesn't know you exist, and worse, he doesn't care.

Television creates more than mere "passivity," it creates "learned helplessness." It tells you about an "objective reality" that is no such thing. That reality is simply the editorial decisions of people just like you -- listening to their corporate paymasters, just like you. But they don't present themselves that way. They present their images as "reality," and teach you that your experience, your insight, your research, and your point of view are all worthless. It shows you other people who believe in their Disneyland reality, subtly suggesting that you must be "crazy" if you aren't happy in the cultural wasteland presented on television. Since you haven't had a meaningful conversation with your neighbors in years, if not decades, you assume that they must be "believers," and there must be something wrong with you, if you aren't. That's why Americans don't talk to each other anymore, except to the extent that they talk about what's on TV. Best not to let anyone know that you have "strange ideas" that aren't on TV. Your neighbors might think you a heretic, or something. Or more likely, they will think you are one of the "bogeymen," the news readers caution you to fear on a regular basis. Thanks to the media, Americans now fear their neighbors -- who they never get to know, aggravating the problem -- further reinforcing their isolation.

Then, about ten years ago, that started to change. Something really unexpected happened in Disneyland. We call it the "world wide web." The first thing you learn in this new medium is something really eye opening. For some, it might be disturbing. There is much more to reality than what is on TV. Not only are there other points of view, other stories not being told, and other opinions, they are held by educated, respectable, intelligent people. The web is a world where people talk to each other. The first thing they learn is that they are not isolated "weirdos" because they don't believe what they see on television. The second thing they learn is the awesome power of their own voice.

You can't talk back to your TV. You can barely talk back to your newspaper -- writing them "snail mail" letters, they might publish if your point of view matches the frame for the debate they have chosen. On the internet, you can talk back to everybody. In fact, web designers are learning a really interesting lesson these days. Blogs and other sites that have "comments" get more traffic than those that don't. People don't just want to hear from other people, they want to talk back. They want to be heard. That is why the size of the blogosphere doubles every year.

Television and newspapers give you "canned" news, information and opinion. They give you "McKnowledge." The blogosphere is a gourmet buffet. If there is a "marketplace of ideas" you can find it on the internet, not on your TV, and not in your newspaper. I open the op/ed page of my local newspaper from time to time. I just can't believe what I see there. A whole lot of nothing is what I see. Bland, "safe" opinions, on the narrow facts that are acceptable to the nation's editors. Online I get the full spectrum of human opinion, from neonazi skinheads to Maoists, and everybody in between. I see facts -- backed up by solid research, and documentation -- mainstream news reporters never seem to learn about. I get to see television talking heads -- like Chris Matthews in the example I started with -- cut down to size.

Image mongering was what he was giving us, not rigorous reporting of the true facts. It was the blogosphere that let the air out of his balloon. Here's the other neat thing. It isn't bloggers whose "irresponsibility" is the problem. We police each other, as much as we police Chris Matthews. Remember, in this medium, people talk back. You post up some bullshit, you'll get called on it. It doesn't take long either. Drudge was the source of Matthews' bilge. Progressive bloggers ripped him a new asshole -- with the actual memo in question -- and they did it in a matter of hours.

But wait, there's more.

(ALP: 2nd post coming right up)
 Source

Surfing the Future of News 2.0
By John Gorenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on May 19, 2006, Printed on May 20, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/35924/

You could almost picture the movie trailer: "In a News 2.0 future, where the ultimate journalistic crime … is being editor-in-chief …"

Blogs were only the beginning of a revolution that has put you in control of the news: deciding the headlines, choosing what's front page. Or at least that's the premise and promise of a whole slew of internet services suddenly on the horizon, which forgo editors in favor of consumer choice. Some sites robotically survey public opinion -- others let users nominate and vote on stories. And in some spots on the Net, the rightness of democratic editing has become such an article of faith that it's downright scandalous for one man, even the owner of news site Digg.com, to appear to take charge of a front page.

That's why reports of a "Digg Army" -- a platoon of 15 or so robot users that gamed Digg's system to promote two stories -- have engendered a headache for Kevin Rose, "Tech TV" personality, creator of the computer news site Digg and one of several entrepreneurs to have received a fortune in venture capital funding -- $2.8 million -- for the promise of news by and for users. He told CNN last year that his Bay Area business had dispensed with "editors in a smoke-filled back room" in favor of handing control over to the 100,000+ Diggers.

In recent weeks, however, a flurry of disgruntled Diggers were accusing Rose not only of casting editorial votes with the Army, but covering it up: banning Digg Army stories from Digg and spiking links to critics. Rose, reached Thursday morning, said the controversy stemmed from a "complete misunderstanding" of how his site works, saying the people themselves had hit a "complain" button to dump the unfavorable coverage.

"Once it was buried," says Digg CEO Jay Adelson, "the website that submitted it -- Forever Geek -- created fake accounts…" "--someone did," corrects Rose. And as the alleged Geek Army submitted the story again and again, he says, the site's "secret sauce" -- a hidden security formula for blocking spam sites -- had hummed to life, he says.

Clearly secrecy is father to suspicion. "They key for us is to make it more transparent," he says.

These are the questions facing the new world of you-are-the-editor news sites, which have been proliferating since last fall. While Digg's emphasis is on computers, information technology and the RIAA, other sites are turning the approach to finding other material from the web -- as on Reddit, where users vote for interesting links.

And other sites are exploring the wider genre of news as newspapers traditionally cover it. Seattle-based Newsvine, which opened to the public in March with an undisclosed six-figure investment, has sought to create a place for friendly discussion of everything from Iraq to the Mariners.

The need the new sites are addressing, says longtime tech journalist Dan Gillmor, is to cut through the noise of the internet and find the good stuff users are submitting. "This is the experimentation period," he said. And the "big jump from where we are to where we need to be," Gillmor says, is a long way off. Companies are trying out new methods for weighing credibility and trustworthiness of web news, so that there's more than mere popularity at stake. "We're not going to know for some years what works and really doesn't," he says.

Or even what features are going to stick around, and which will prove to be relics like Windows 98's Channels, the ill-fated experiment in fetching the news for you. Read a blog or browse photos on Flickr, and the experience is breezy. But click to one of the new services -- grouped together under the loose banner of News 2.0 -- and you can be at a loss as to what the features are supposed to do for you, those little vestiges of Friendster, MySpace or Del.icio.us and even multilevel marketing, features that may lure venture capitalists and the kind of people who get excited about "folksonomies," but whose advantage to understanding the world situation may not be readily apparent to your mother. Or you.

So what's it like browsing some of these sites now? Hoping to test out what works, and narrowing my focus to websites that provide general news stories -- many others are offering local info -- I hit up a random group of News 2.0 sites, hoping to cut through the "noise" to find exactly what I want. It couldn't just be a big breaking story (like the recent immigration rallies) or a music consumer story that was guaranteed to be covered (Apple is keeping iTunes downloads at 99 cents!). It would have to test the ability of these sites to personalize the news and find what I want.

It's too early for a fair test of original "citizen journalism" on these portals. The goal, instead, would be to see how easily they steered me towards information on what was important to me, the consumer of news. Uncertain, I cast my fate into the hands of my fellow citizen-editors and asked a particularly nerdy question: "Just how is Katherine Harris' Senate campaign in Florida doing, anyway?" If there wasn't any coverage of this question, would they expect me to write it myself?

Personal Bee: So many metaphors for cutting through the buzz on the internet. According to this just-launched Berkeley site, the news is like pollen and nectar. I think. Priding itself on RSS search, it seeks out "buzz words" that it groups into tags on the left, then relies on a cadre of user "beekeepers" to tend to a collection of "bees" that sort these into categories. It's in an early Beta stage and still seeking keepers that would complete its full range of bees, which include "The Iraq War and Beyond," and "The Conservative Spread." The tilt is towards PR, business and high tech, and it's easy to envision this dispassionate site being agglomerated into a corporate portal.

Unnerved by the stock photo art of a guy on an IKEA couch, I clicked around and easily found wire stories for two of the stories I was looking for. Not much luck with cutting through the noise to find Katherine Harris, though, even after searching in "The Conservative Spread." It did, however, deliver me a piece on how "illegal immigration and its supporters will be taking our national anthem and using it to promote the further breaking of our laws."

Newsvine :So a news story is a bee. No, wait, it's something that grows on a vine. And you can "seed" it by contributing your own links to tag. Only they don't get better with age. And the vine grows next to a list of Associated Press stories, see, and …

Newsvine, a site that feels as friendly as Blogger but is still working out just what it is, has the feel of a news theme park -- allowing user-submitted journalism, but cautiously introducing it on the main page in the shadow of more reliable wire content. Like other sites, Newsvine teems with discussion of a new kind of "citizen journalism," but so far it's more commentary than reporting. The closest thing to an exception this week was Matthew Smith, one of the "featured writers," who took to the streets to garner opinions from his like-minded Davenport, Iowa, neighbors:

    I wanted to get the take on [the immigration rally] from average, middle-class citizens. The impression those conversations left me with make me think that the protests may have done a disservice to the cause. Mid-westerns [sic] are nice people. They're generally even tempered, hardworking and slow to judge others. But there are some things that just "rub" many the wrong way. All but one of the individuals I spoke with yesterday had some degree of "bad feeling" about the protests. The root of the bad feeling is the fact that good, hardworking, "mind their own business" Americans don't like having things "thrown in their face."

Newsvine's fans adhere to a romantic Code of Honor that seeks to safeguard civil discussion, meaning very little will be "thrown in your face." While the Vine can suffer from obvious left and right axes-to-grind, and the layout still confuses me after a few hours, the contributors -- many of whom seem charmingly unjaded by the dirty world of partisan blogging -- are working out idealistic ways of putting out a common publication together.

"This is the recipe for peace," writes one contributor. "Who does not want a 'piece of it'?" There are promises of an upcoming multilevel marketing scheme to pay contributors. Can the innocence last?

("Katherine Harris' ego got a little too big a little too fast after Florida's election fiasco in 2000," seeds user Cranky Greg. "Now the chickens are coming home to roost." Word.)

CommonTimes: The news is like a … communal garden in Northern California? When Robert Scheer is the top-ranked story, you know you're in liberal territory. You can promote and demote stories from the front of the newspaper-themed layout, which is easy on the eyes. With support for bookmarking site del.icio.us and other feeds -- but short on users for now, with just about everything submitted by someone named "billbar." I enter Katherine Harris into a search that appears to mix mainstream news sources with progressive outlets like Crooks And Liars. Katherine Harris, according to my search, says, "I'm in this race, and I'm gonna win." I've cut through the noise and found the Katherine Harris signal.

iTalkNews: While a critical mass of commenters can create what Web 2.0 boosters call "noise," too few participants can produce this picture of entropy. Having kicked off last year with press releases announcing a "2005 Citizen Journalism Road Trip" to generate original reporting, iTalkNews is now experiencing long stretches of what look like very slow news days. Top search: "420." The other day the top story, voted up by a mere seven users, was a review of "Hustle and Flow," which came out last Oscar season. The next week it was someone's commentary on "spineless P2Ps" that I couldn't quite follow. A "vote no on this story" feature goes mostly unused. This is what entropy looks like. (Full disclosure: iTalkNews asked me if I'd be interested in working for no salary, plus stock options. I declined. The site's business model, like many: to be sold.) My search for Katherine Harris "did not match any documents."

WikiNews: More than a year old, this is the news spinoff of the more famous Wikipedia encyclopedia, where anyone can edit reports. It's worth noting, as a study in contrasts, that the biggest and perhaps most "citizen journalism" site in the world, Korea's OhMyNews, was launched with the fiery mission of recruiting "news guerillas" to wage a liberal war against "the final gutter of Korean capitalist society." Wikipedia's Ayn Rand-obsessed founder Jimmy Wales, on the other hand, sees "neutrality" as the holy grail of citizen journalism--the idea being that the energy of the people is best harnessed by delivering news that is as "unbiased" as his encyclopedia. "If the mainstream media can't do good, unbiased journalism, then we'll have to do it for them," he told CNET in 2005.

The result so far is a trickle of between four and ten stories a day. Unlike Wikipedia pieces, these age rather quickly and often drop off the site before they can be fact-checked. The coverage is still short of comprehensive, and this week painted a picture of a world overshadowed by reports of company web servers suffering Denial Of Service attacks. There is no sensationalism here -- this is probably the least likely prose on the internet to raise hell, affectless and lacking the little pithy cues that make AP news stories easy-to-read "pyramids."

Coverage of the White House Correspondents' Dinner was typically robotic. The lead paragraph: "The annual event is well-known for its evening lineup of fun-filled theatrics, attended by politicians and people from the media and entertainment industries."

The last update on my Katherine Harris was Aug. 5 of last year, when a stormy Bob Novak left the set of CNN's "Inside Politics" after being mocked for defending her chances. "Novak, a political conservative, has similar views to those of the Wall Street Journal," the WikiNews story said.

NowPublic: When I was in journalism school during the dot-com boom, it was frequently said that the "21st century journalist" would be an all-in-one champ who could report, write, code HTML and shoot video footage. While this hasn't widely occurred, Vancouver-based NowPublic, one of the first of the "News 2.0" sites, has sought to create virtual news teams by letting users contribute photos and video footage to accompany submitted stories. The front page is a hodgepodge of tags and images that are heavy on world culture. Lots of Kathy Harris here.

Traditional news sites are beginning to adopt some of these techniques; the BBC, most surprisingly, has just established a MySpace-like segment of its website. "More and more mainstream media sites are starting to reach out and incorporate citizens as parts of the equation," says author J.D. Lasica, another booster of the new wave in news sites. "There's still too much skepticism from traditional media. They think that they're the gatekeepers, and that the rest of us ought to be happy to be passive consumers."

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/35924/

The dollar's evil twin: Exploring the Bush bureaucracy's private monetary system
 
China and Japan (who hold an accumulated $1.7 trillion in US securities and currency) are gradually moving away from the dollar towards the euro."---
 
---"There's no way the stock market could continue to advance while buying inflated oil futures at the same time. Even with margin trading there is just so much money to go around. So the money had to come from really deep pockets -- which the oil companies have. They couldn't lose because they were feeding themselves with their own money."
Then of course Michael Rupert has taught us the critical lesson that drug money pouring in from Afghanistan and Colombia is what really keeps our economy afloat.---

---No-bid contract money-pits, drug money, petro-dollars, money-laundering schemes, off-shore hidey-holes, safety-deposit boxes full of gold, numbered Swiss bank accounts, artificial money creation, the outrageous use of credit, Enron-style boondoggles. . . . If you add in all these shadow sources of revenue, NOW the booming U.S. economy makes sense." Holy sheep dookie. "That means that corruption and nepotism and cronyism and bribes and embezzlement and money-laundering and drugs are holding our economy together!" ---

---one of Whitney's other comments. "By collapsing the dollar, Bush can shift the wealth of the American middle class to corporate mandarins in the blink of an eye. Industry profits will soar while working class people drown in an ocean of red ink."---

from http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_825.shtml

9-11 Should Not Have Changed Everything!

 

 

In the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, it became accepted politically that everything had changed in America. The idea was always simply nonsense. The Bush Republican machine used the public hysteria to sell a broad array of pro-Corporatist and anti-civil liberties measures.

 

The terrorists were never going to destroy America or American political conditions by acts of terrorism. The assault on American institutions and traditions were only going to be successful if they were launched by strong elements of the American political spectrum. Our nation was unfortunate to have the Bush Republicans in power during the 9-11 attacks.

 

The 9-11 attacks were successfully executed largely as a result of incompetence by the Bush Administration. The outrage expressed by the Republican establishment and their Fox News allies during the 2004 Presidential Election concerning Michael Moore’s movie, Fahrenheit 9-11, was based on fear of facts. There was great fear that the American public would discover that political and policy failures by this Republican Administration. They could be documented unless the documents were hidden from public view.

 

The cult of government and corporate secrecy that surrounds Republican rule was sold on the basis of National Security. The doctrine has been used to conceal and justify a broad array of corruption and oppressive measures. The secrecy cult has not extended to the behavior, activities or privacy of individual citizens.

 

Big Brother government spying on average citizens has long been a fear of traditional conservatives but not by the Corporatists of the current Republican Right. These Bush Republican Corporatists want government behavior protected from the constraints of both law and public opinion. They want hide their corruption and abuses from the citizenry. This change is a serious threat to what America should be about…. true responsive and representative government.

 

Traditionally, Americans have rallied to the traditions of our Founding Fathers when faced by serious national challenges. We stood by our Constitution and Bill of Rights during World War II. The current conflict, with the forces of Bin Laden, is certainly not as serious as the worldwide war with the Nazi-Fascist- Japanese Axis.

 

The 9-11 terrorist attacks hurt us emotionally as a nation but were not seriously going to destroy our nation even if repeated over and over again. We are a much stronger nation than most Republican politicians want to admit. The 8-11 attacks were tiny when compared to our vast resources. We are by far the strongest military power ever seen on this planet. Our population is around 300 million and growing. We dominate an entire Continent and more.

 

Our economy is huge. Only the largest corporations can adversely damage our economic health as a nation. It is unfortunate that the 9-11 attacks did not focus on the damage that these corporations are doing to the interests of our American nation with the active support of Bush Republicanism. They are undermining the national security of our nation by exporting our manufacturing base and creating foreign enemies for the American nation.

 

It is time to use some logic politically. Use your votes to restore common sense. We need to open the actions of government to public view. We need to restrain excessive Corporate power. We need to restore individual liberties to our citizens. We need to secure the established traditions of our nation and rely on the teachings of our Founding Fathers. We need to admit that the 9-11 attacks should not have changed us in fundamental ways as Americans… because America is stronger than the terrorist threat!

 

 

 

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com .

The American way of war crimes
June 9, 2006 | Pages 6 and 7

JOE ALLEN is the son and nephew of Marines--his uncle, a veteran of the Vietnam War, died from cancer as a result of his exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange. Joe’s articles on the history of the Vietnam War have appeared in the International Socialist Review. Here, he explains why the massacres of civilians in Iraq are part of a long and bloody record of U.S. war crimes.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ON MAY 24, Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, made a quickly arranged flight to Iraq to deal with the growing political fallout from a series of criminal investigations into the murder of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines.
 Hear Joe Allen speak at Socialism 2006, a political conference scheduled for June 22-25 at Columbia Univerisy in New York City. For more information, go to the Socialism 2006 Web site at socialismconference.org.
  
According to an “amended” copy of his speech that appeared on the Marine Corps Times Web site, Hagee stressed what he called the “core values” of Marines in combat. “We do not employ force just for the sake of employing force,” Hagee said, in his speech titled “On Marine Virtue.”

“We use lethal force only when justified, proportional and, most importantly, lawful...This is the American way of war. We must regulate force and violence, we only damage property that must be damaged, and we protect the non-combatants we find on the battlefield.”

It is, of course, difficult to take Gen. Hagee’s statements seriously given the widespread destruction wreaked on Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion and occupation more than three years ago. The “American way of war” has produced, to name a just few highlights: the wholesale destruction of cities like Falluja, the deaths of well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and the creation of Shiite deaths squads.

This is much more in line with the definition of Gen. Fred Weyand, one of the architects of the Vietnam War. “The American way of war,” Weyand said, “is particularly violent, deadly and dreadful. We believe in using ‘things’--artillery, bombs, massive firepower.”


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

GIVEN THE level of misery and suffering brought to Iraq by the U.S. military, homilies by a commanding Marine general about “respecting human life” and “regulating force and violence” may seems like a macabre stand-up comedy routine.
Yet there is something deeper going on. “The emerging details of the killings [in Haditha] have raised fears,” according to the New York Times, “that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq.”

Now, military investigations are clearly revealing the tip of the iceberg of the extent of war crimes committed by the U.S. forces--especially the Marine Corps--in Iraq.

The most important of these investigations so far has focused on the massacre of two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians in the small city of Haditha, west of Baghdad--an atrocity reported in Time magazine in March. The Marines involved in the massacre at Haditha could face capital murder charges under the Uniform Conduct of Military Justice.

A second investigation has opened up into whether the Marines’ superior officers engaged in a cover-up by filing false reports claiming that the civilians died in crossfire or were killed by a makeshift bomb.

The circumstances of the Haditha massacre and the cover-up that followed may remind many of the infamous My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. How the Army handled the case after it became public tells us much about how the Pentagon officialdom deals with war crimes.

In March 1968, members of Charlie Company of the Americal Division entered the village of My Lai and murdered more than 400 elderly men, women and children, including babies, over a period of four hours.

Among the dozens involved in the killings, only one man, Lt. William Calley, was eventually found guilty and sentenced to life at hard labor.

Calley was found to be personally responsible for the murder of 20 people. However, President Nixon ordered him released from the stockade after his guilty verdict. Calley’s sentence was reduced to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army, and he was released from custody (most of the time spent in his apartment on base at Fort Benning) after three years.

The record during the current Iraq war is worse in many ways. Take the case of Army Capt. Rogelio Maynulet, who was found guilty of the “mercy killing” of an Iraqi civilian. “He was sentenced with dismissal from the United States Army...there will be no confinement time,” a military spokesperson said.

In May 2004, when U.S. troops were pursuing suspected militiamen supporting Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr near the Iraqi city of Najaf, Maynulet fired on a car, wounding the driver and a passenger. Maynulet said he then shot the driver, a local garbage collector, dead. His reason? “He was in a state I didn’t think was dignified,” Maynulet said. “I had to put him out of his misery.”

On January 21, 2006, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, a U.S. Army interrogator, was convicted of causing the death of Iraqi Major Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush during a questioning in November 2003. Welshofer killed him by putting a sleeping bag over his head, sitting on his chest and covering his mouth.

A court-martial jury decided that Welshofer was not guilty of murder but negligent homicide. He faces a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

DESPITE HAGEE and other commanders’ claim that these actions are an aberration from the “training” that Marines and Army troops receive, these atrocities are directly attributable to a war for conquest--and the racism that flows from it.
It has long been a recognized military strategy that the most effective way to get soldiers of a conquering army to kill their opponents is to dehumanize those opponents. Racism is the most effective tool to accomplish that.

One Vietnam War veteran said that during basic training, “The only thing they told us about the Viet Cong was they were gooks. They were to be killed. Nobody sits around and gives you their historical and cultural background. They’re the enemy. Kill, kill, kill. That’s what we got in practice. Kill, kill, kill.”

William Calley’s initial psychiatric report revealed that he did not feel he was killing human beings at My Lai, but “rather that they were animals with whom one could not speak or reason,” an Army psychiatrist wrote.

Racism against Arabs and Muslims pervades the U.S. military today, despite the hot air about “cultural sensitivity” training for soldier heading to Iraq. “Raghead,” “camel jockeys” and “sand niggers” are just a few of the racist hate spewed at the people of Iraq by American soldiers.

The Marines, with their cult-like worship of death and destruction, always add an extra dose of fanaticism to any situation.

A short time ago, Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq, made this clear. “Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know,” Mattis said. “It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”

In the 1930s, retired Marine Gen. Smedley Butler described his activities as a soldier invading one country after another throughout Latin America as being a “high-class muscleman for Wall Street.” Despite what Gen. Hagee may claim, such musclemen are not known for their virtues.

Two Cheers for Immigrants

Actually I hate immigrants. They ruin our country and wreck our institutions and bankrupt the nation. I sincerely wish the Aztecs had slaughtered Cortez, and the Incas had done the same to Pizzaro. I wish the Massachusetts Indians had burned and sunk the Mayflower and all succeeding ships that tried to put ashore in North America . The Pilgrims should have been sent back to England , or put to work in the fields and kitchens as slaves for 300 years, just like the black Africans."

 Is Civilization Worth it?

As things get worse and worse for us, we're going to need more and more of all the things that give us relief and oblivion and all the things that get us revved up and excited. More religion, more revolution, more drugs, more television channels, more sports, more casino's, more pornography, more lotteries, more access to the Web-more and more and more of it all-to give ourselves the impression that life is nonstop fun. But meanwhile, of course, every morning we must shake off the hangover and forget about fun for eight or ten hours while we drag our quote of stones up the side of the pyramid.
- Daniel Quinn in Beyond Civilization (pg 78)

Reading this tonight it made me ask myself this question - is what we get in exchange for working 40 plus hours a week, enough? Meaning, is the benefit and enjoyment we get from modern technology and other consumer goods enough compensation for working long hours at what are many times, crappy jobs that we really don't like? I worked at a job that most people in my age group would love to have, working in the testing department of a video game company, and I walked away from it because of how meaningless it was to me. Granted, it was a fun job, but I couldn't justify working long hours when it was going towards the creation of a video game. Hey, I love video games - I just couldn't spend my life doing it. And the thing was that I was making a lot of money (for my age). I partied hard and bought a lot of fun stuff (and in fact, if you want, I can sell you all the Star Wars collectibles in my basement for a reasonable price), but as time went on, the money I was making, and all the stuff I could buy with it, wasn't enough. Maybe most of you reading this love your job and think that yeah, working at your job is a fair trade for what you receive outside of your job. Maybe some of you won't. But I would bet you a dollar that the majority of people in our society hate their jobs - the question is, do they hate them enough to try and live another way? Or, can they tolerate the shittiness of their jobs because they get to go home and play XBox? Is being an Oilers fan fair trade for enduring 40 hours of filing in a dental office? Is being able to go home and listen to your CD's a fair enough trade for enduring 40 hours a week sitting in a cubicle and staring at a computer?

The other, probably more important question is this - do the positives of our society outweigh the negatives? There is no doubt that within our civilization we have created many great things - democracy, medicine, space travel, and on-line poker. But we have also created many terrible things - widespread poverty, warfare at unprecedented levels, and sexual exploitation of every conceivable nature (amongst others). Yes, many people in our world live nice, stable lives (and are able to indulge in the benefits of modern civilization), but the reality is that the majority don't. The majority are poor (and no, it is not all their fault). Is civilization so great that we must maintain it, no matter what?

http://dodosville.blogspot.com/

AGE OF GRIEF

A pervasive sense of loss and unease envelops us, a cultural sadness that can justly be compared to the individual who suffers a personal bereavement.

A hyper-technologized late capitalism is steadily effacing the living texture of existence, as the world's biggest die-off in 50 million years proceeds apace: 50,000 plant and animal species disappear each year (World Wildlife Fund, 1996).

Our grieving takes the form of postmodern exhaustion, with its wasting diet of an anxious, ever-shifting relativism, and that attachment to surface that fears connecting with the fact of staggering loss. The fatal emptiness of ironized consumerism is marked by a loss of energy, difficulty in concentrating, feelings of apathy, social withdrawal; precisely those enumerated in the psychological literature of mourning.

The falsity of postmodernism consists in its denial of loss, the refusal to mourn. Devoid of hope or vision for the future, the reigning zeitgeist also cuts off, very explicitly, an understanding of what has happened and why. There is a ban on thinking about origins, which is companion to an insistence on the superficial, the fleeting, the ungrounded.

Parallels between individual grief and a desolate, grieving common sphere are often striking. Consider the following from therapist Kenneth Doka (1989): "Disenfranchised grief can be defined as the grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported." Denial on an individual level provides an inescapable metaphor for denial at large; personal denial, so often thoroughly understandable, introduces the question of refusal to come to grips with the crisis occurring at every level.

Ushering in the millennium are voices whose trademark is opposition to narrative itself, escape from any kind of closure. The modernist project at least made room for the apocalyptic; now we are expected to hover forever in a world of surfaces and simulation that ensure the "erasure" of the real world and the dispersal of both the self and the social. Baudrillard is of course emblematic of the "end of the end," based on his prefigured "extermination of meaning."

We may turn again to the psychological literature for apt description. Deutsch (1937) examined the absence of expressions of grief that occur following some bereavements and considered this a defensive attempt of the ego to preserve itself in the face of overwhelming anxiety. Fenichel (1945) observed that grief is at first experienced only in very small doses; if it were released full-strength, the subject would feel overwhelming despair. Similarly, Grimspoon (1964) noted that "people cannot risk being overwhelmed by the anxiety which might accompany a full cognitive and affective grasp of the present world situation and its implications for the future."

With these counsels and cautions in mind, it is nonetheless obvious that loss must be faced. All the more so in the realm of social existence, where in distinction to, say, the death of a loved one, a crisis of monumental proportions might be turned toward a transformative solution, if no longer denied. Repression, most clearly and presently practised via postmodern fragmentation and superficiality. does not extinguish the problem. "The repressed," according to Bollas (1995) "signifies the preserved: hidden away in the organized tensions of the unconscious, wishes and their memories are ceaselessly struggling to find some way into gratification in the present -- desire refutes annihilation."

Grief is the thwarting and deadening of desire and very much resembles depression; in fact, many depressions are precipitated by losses (Klerman, 1981). Both grief and depression may have anger at their root; consider, for example, the cultural association of black with grief and mourning and with anger, as in "black rage."

Traditionally, grief has been seen as giving rise to cancer. A contemporary variation on this thesis is Norman Mailer's notion that cancer is the unhealthiness of a deranged society, turned inward, bridging the personal and public spheres. Again, a likely connection among grief, depression, and anger -- and testimony, I think, to massive repression. Signs abound concerning weakening immune defenses; along with increasing material toxins, there seems to be a rising level of grief and its concomitants. When meaning and desire are too painful, too unpromising to admit or pursue, the accumulating results only add to the catastrophe now unfolding.

To look at narcissism, today's bellwether profile of character, is to see suffering as an ensemble of more and more closely related aspects. Lasch (1979) wrote of such characteristic traits of the narcissistic personality as an inability to feel, protective shallowness, increased repressed hostility, and a sense of unreality and emptiness. Thus, narcissism too could be subsumed under the heading of grief, and the larger suggestion arises with perhaps greater force: there is something profoundly wrong, something at the heart of all this sorrow, however much it is commonly labelled under various separate categories.

In a 1917 exploration, "Mourning and Melancholia," a puzzled Freud asked why the memory of "each single one of the memories and hopes" that is connected to the lost loved one "should be so extraordinarily painful." But tears of grief, it is said, are at base tears for oneself. The intense sorrow at a personal loss, tragic and difficult as it most certainly is, may be in some way also a vulnerability to sorrow over a more general, trans-species loss.

Walter Benjamin wrote his "Theses on History" a few months before his premature death in 1940 at a sealed frontier that prevented escape from the Nazis. Breaking the constraints of marxism and literariness, Benjamin achieved a high point of critical thinking. He saw that civilization, from its origin, is that storm evacuating Eden, saw that progress is an single, ongoing catastrophe.

Alienation and anguish were once largely, if not entirely, unknown. Today the rate of serious depression, for example, doubles roughly every ten years in the developed nations (Wright, 1995).

As Peter Homans (1984) put it very ably, "Mourning does not destroy the past -- it reopens relations with it and with the communities of the past." Authentic grieving poses the opportunity to understand what has been lost and why, also to demand the recovery of an innocent state of being, wherein needless loss is banished.

Generous with the fortunes they did nothing to deserve
Do they expect us to be grateful?

July 14, 2006

Alan Maass examines the philanthropy of today’s robber barons.

BILL GATES and Warren Buffett have grabbed headlines lately not for the usual reason of the record fortunes they’ve amassed, but because of the record sums they plan to give away to charity.

In June, Gates--cofounder of Microsoft and the world’s wealthiest man for 12 years running, according to Forbes magazine--announced that he would retire from business to concentrate on managing the philanthropic foundation he runs with his wife.

A few weeks later, Buffett--the world’s second-richest man--declared that he would donate more than 80 percent of his fortune, mostly to the Gates foundation, which promises to devote its efforts to combating AIDS, especially in Africa.

The mainstream media--never faint in its praise of these two latter-day robber barons--now seems ready to canonize them as saints.

“Billanthropy,” the Economist magazine declared on its cover. “We’re in awe of a Buffett or a Gates,” gushed the Chicago Tribune’s Julia Keller, “not just because these people made a lot of money, but because they made a lot of money and then turned around and gave a great deal of it away to causes they deemed worthy.”

Gates’ and Buffett’s good deeds (or, more accurately, announced plans for future good deeds) were just the thing to hype in the ongoing effort to clean up Corporate America’s image in an era of oil company profiteering and business mega-scandals like the Enron collapse--something highlighted by the timely death of disgraced Enron CEO Ken Lay.

Less remarked on was the grotesque fact that Gates and Buffett are bucking a trend among the super-rich--since Congress and the Bush administration three years ago lowered the top rate of the estate tax imposed on wealthy inheritances, bequests to charities from the rich have fallen steadily and sharply, year by year.

And practically no one mentioned the most obvious point--that Gates and Buffett could give away 99.9 percent of their net worth and still remain rich beyond any ordinary person’s wildest dreams. The truth is that their billions in gifts to charity will have less effect on their lives than a working person giving a buck to someone who asks for it on the street.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
JUST WHAT did Gates and Buffett do to become so immensely wealthy?

Neither man is among one-third of people on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans who landed there from birth, thanks to the family fortune. On the other hand, neither came from modest backgrounds and worked their way up the ladder either. Both started out on the upper rungs.

Gates’ parents were wealthy enough to send him to the most expensive prep school in Seattle and pay his full tuition at Harvard. Buffett’s father was a stockbroker and four-term Republican congressman whose son’s early years were sufficiently comfortable that, at age 14, Warren had saved enough money to invest in 40 acres of farmland--not exactly a common experience for U.S. teenagers.

But the “rags to riches” myths about Gates and Buffett are misleading in a more fundamental way. The bigger lie is that the two ever did anything useful or productive to justify the vast wealth that they accumulated beyond what they were born with.

Gates is rich because the company he founded became a giant in the computer industry. But Gates has never had anything to do with actually producing or distributing the packages of software Microsoft sells.

He doesn’t even design the products. Microsoft thrived by buying software developed by other people and successfully marketing it as the boom in personal computers took off in the 1980s.

Gates is rich because he owns. He and his fellow Microsoft shareholders own the means of producing computer software--the factories and offices, the machines, the patents on different technologies.

Likewise, Buffett began his business life in the owning game--as a stockbroker, buying and selling shares of ownership in different companies through stock trading.

The flagship of his empire, Berkshire Hathaway, is in reality a mammoth holding company, with investments and controlling interests in a wide range of subsidiaries. In other words, its chief business is owning other companies.

Buffett’s operation is built around the most parasitic of capitalist ventures--insurance. Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance subsidiaries generate enormous amounts of cash--by charging premiums from customers on the gamble that future claims won’t cost as much as the premiums bring in. This huge fund of ready capital has been the basis for Berkshire Hathaway to make further investments and buy up new companies.

Buffett is known in the business world for rejecting the kind of financial shenanigans that led, for example, to the collapse of Enron and Ken Lay’s notorious end. But this preference for orthodox accounting methods shouldn’t obscure Buffett’s record of ruthlessness at the companies he acquires--and the string of laid-off workers, closed factories and devastated communities left in his wake.

The hallmark of a Buffett-run company is a tough management devoted to cutting costs and squeezing workers. Berkshire Hathaway itself was founded as a textile company, but Buffett closed the company’s mills one by one, shuttering the last more than two decades ago.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BUFFETT AND his top executives say that their main job at Berkshire is “capital allocation.” But this “job” is dependent on being owners--with the absolute authority to dispose of assets and resources any way they choose, regardless of the consequences for others.

This is true about the capitalist system generally. The power of the minority at the top rests on its ownership and control of what Karl Marx called the “means of production.” Because they own, the capitalists make the most important decisions about how the resources of society are used--and they put the priority on guaranteeing and expanding their own wealth and power.

That wealth is dependent most of all on hiring much larger numbers of people to do the actual work of making or providing different goods and services.

The wealth of the few wouldn’t exist without the labor of the many. The profits that come from auto or computer sales, for example, wouldn’t exist without a workforce making these products.

For their labor, workers get paid a wage, but even the best-paid worker doesn’t receive as much as they produce. The capitalists keep the profit after covering wages and other costs of production, such as raw materials and machinery.

This is supposed to be a fair exchange--workers get “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” and capitalists get a return on their investment. But there’s nothing fair about it. The employers have all kinds of ways to keep wages down, but there’s no limit on their profits.

The Marxist case is that capitalism is based on organized theft--the theft of the value of what workers produce by the small class of people who employ them.

The term for this process is exploitation. Normally, this word is associated with especially low wages and brutal conditions. In reality, exploitation takes place every minute of every day--carried out by a small minority of people that does nothing useful or productive, but gets richer because it owns and controls the wealth created by the people who do work.

For all the seeming importance of shrewd stock deals and corporate alliances, Gates’ and Buffett’s billions rest more fundamentally on the labor of workers.

For them to polish their p.r. images now with promises of charity to help the poor reeks of hypocrisy. At best, they are giving back what they plundered from society.

An interesting piece by Jonathan Cook (see below), but before that, an announcement. I've been now for a few days in Moscow, where I spoke on a few radio channels, published a commentary to the Israeli attack on Lebanon < http://zavtra.ru/cgi//veil//data/zavtra/06/661/24.html > and presented my new book in Russian called The Curse of Chosenness http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/2734679/ published by Algoritm, Moscow. I believe that Russia presents a hope for the Middle East; though not as powerful or as strong-willed as the USSR of old, but still, by virtue of its theopolitics and geopolitics, it's an opposition to the Judaeo-American Empire, like the Parthians opposed the Roman Empire. More about it - in near future, inshallah!
Why the Hezbullah missiles landed in Nazareth? Jonathan Cook explains that the Jews located their military bases in the heart of Arab cities. He reminds us that the politically-correct term "Israelis" should be substituted by correct term "Jews", as the fate of Israeli Arabs is quite different. And by the way, yesterday the Jews bombed a Christian suburb of Beirut showing once again that they do not distinguish between Muslims and Christians - and neither should we.
 
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=9333
July 19, 2006
The Human Shields of Nazareth
 
by Jonathan Cook
Nazareth hit the international headlines for the first time in this vicious war being waged by Israel mostly on Lebanese civilians. Reporter Matthew Price, corseted in a blue flak jacket in Haifa, told BBC viewers that for the first time Hezbollah had targeted Nazareth late on Sunday. "Nazareth is a mostly Christian town," he added, managing to cram into a single sentence of a few words two factual mistakes and a disturbing hint of incitement.


Whatever the precision of its rockets (and Nazareth's residents are certainly worried enough about that), Hezbollah struck not at Nazareth but at a site some distance from Nazareth – a site of strategic significance to Israel, though I cannot say more than that as we are now officially under martial law in the country's north.


Matthew Price was also wrong about Nazareth being a "mostly Christian town." During the 1948 war in which Israel's army ethnically cleansed much of the surrounding area of Palestinians, Muslim villagers fled to Nazareth in search of sanctuary. Today, two-thirds of the city's 75,000 inhabitants are Muslim – or at least they are by the religious classification system imposed on all citizens by the Israeli authorities.


Which brings us to the nasty element of incitement from our BBC reporter.


Several Israeli armaments factories and storage depots have been built close by Arab communities in the north of Israel, possibly in the hope that by locating them there Arab regimes will be deterred from attacking Israel's enormous armory. In other words, the inhabitants of several of Israel's Arab towns and villages have been turned into collective human shields – protection for Israel's war machine.


Before the strike close to Nazareth late on Sunday night, several Arab villages in the north had been hit by Hezbollah rockets trying to reach these factories. No one at the BBC saw the need to mention these attacks nor the fact that "mostly Muslim" villages had been hit. So why did the strike against Nazareth – and its mistaken Christian status – became part of the story for the BBC?


Because Israel wants to portray Hezbollah, and its leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, as a crazed Islamic militia, as fanatical Muslims who hate Jews and Christians with equal vehemence. This is all part of Israel's claim that it is fighting George Bush's "war on terror." Predictably, the BBC obliged by regurgitating this piece of racist nonsense.


If anybody still doubts that Israel is shaping the news agenda of broadcasters like the BBC, here was as good as the proof.




According to the jingoistic Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office and the army are delirious at their success in dictating the headlines and tone of foreign news broadcasts.


Ehud Olmert's media adviser, Assif Shariv, told the Post that the international media were interviewing Israeli spokespeople four times as much as spokespeople for the Palestinians and Lebanese. Another government adviser, Gideon Meir, boasted: "We have never had it so good. The hasbara [propaganda] effort is a well-oiled machine."


Which may explain why we know so little about what is happening in Lebanon and Gaza – and why we know so little about what is happening inside Israel too.


To remind you, I, like other residents of northern Israel, am under martial law. As are the foreign journalists – and in addition they are required to submit their copy to the military censor. So all I can tell you, without breaking the law, is that you are not getting the entire picture of what has been happening here in the Galilee.


Certainly, a piece of news that I doubt you will hear from the foreign media, although bravely the liberal Hebrew media has been drawing attention to the matter, is that the "only democracy in the Middle East" has all but silenced al-Jazeera from reporting inside Israel.


The reason is clear: until recently al-Jazeera had been running rings around the local and foreign press.


Al-Jazeera is the Arab world's most serious and popular news gatherer, and essential viewing for anyone who wants to get a realistic idea of the news from both sides of the border. When I heard the missile strike close by Nazareth on Sunday night, al-Jazeera told me what had happened a full half hour before the Israeli media, and a day before my colleague Matthew Price.


How do they do it? Because most of their staff in Israel are Israeli citizens, as well as being Palestinian Arabs. Their journalists belong to the forgotten fifth of the Israeli population whose citizenship is Israeli but whose nationality is Palestinian.


So not only do al-Jazeera's reporters know the northern patch of Israel like home ground (because it is home ground) but they are also not cravenly waiting for the Israeli Prime Minister's Office and army's spokesman to tell them what is going on.


Watching al-Jazeera has been a revelation: it has dedicated a substantial portion of its coverage to events inside Israel as well as in Lebanon, in stark contrast to Israeli broadcasters who rarely use any of the footage from Lebanon.


Similarly, al-Jazeera faithfully translated Ehud Olmert's speech word for word into Arabic, and then included a lengthy analysis from a local correspondent for its viewers. Israeli broadcasters, on the other hand, repeatedly mistranslated the televised words of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah into Hebrew and English, removing context and his calls for negotiation.


Similar misrepresentations of Nasrallah's position in the foreign media presumably reflected their over-reliance on the Israeli broadcasters.


But al-Jazeera's coverage inside Israel – the Arab world's best chance of being exposed to the Israeli point of view – is being effectively shut down. In the past two days, its editor has been arrested on two occasions and another senior journalist was taken in for questioning. According to its reporters, they cannot move from their office without being followed by the Israeli security services.


Why are they receiving this treatment? Because, according to Israel's only serious newspaper, Ha'aretz, the country's Hebrew media have been inciting against them. In particular Reshet Bet radio station, one of several wings of the Israeli media loyal to the government, has been telling lies that al-Jazeera is revealing classified information, namely the location of rocket strikes.


Is the claim true? According to Ha'aretz again: "Other TV networks, including Israeli news services, made similar reports without suffering from police intervention."


Freedom of the press rarely means much when governments go to war. The local media usually consider it their patriotic duty not only to strip of vital context the information they offer their viewers, but they often falsify the record too. Much of Israel's media are clearly doing both jobs with some accomplishment.


But the fact that some in the Israeli media see it as part of their job to silence journalists not as craven as themselves is the real eye-opener. Maybe they realize al-Jazeera just makes them look like propagandists.



Nabila Espanioly, the director of a charitable organization in Nazareth promoting women and children's interests, makes a point worth remembering as the foreign and Israeli media huddle in the shelters of Haifa and Nahariya interviewing terrified "Israelis."


In fact, they are talking not to Israelis but to Israeli Jews. The fifth of the Israeli population who are not Jewish but Arab are rarely to be found hiding in public shelters because the authorities neglected to build any in their towns and villages.


In other words, although the Israeli army has sited several important weapons factories and military intelligence posts close to Arab communities in the north, the Israeli government has not offered the Arab residents any protection should there be fallout – quite literally in the case of the Katyusha rockets – as a result.


This is another tiny facet of the discrimination endured for decades by the country's Arab population that so rarely surfaces in media coverage of Israel.


Similarly oblivious to the ironies, the Israeli and foreign media have been running heartwarming stories about how "Israelis" are opening their homes and hearths to their compatriots fleeing the north. Again for "Israelis" substitute "Israeli Jews."


No one I know here in Nazareth believes they would find much of a welcome in Tel Aviv or Beersheva should they go looking for one. Which leaves them with nowhere to run should they need to.


The only Arab communities out of the line of Hezbollah fire are those in the southern Negev belonging to the Bedouin. But that is not much comfort. Most of the Negev's 150,000 Bedouin have been forced to live in squalid tents and metal shacks by an Israeli government that bulldozes anything more permanent. The authorities also deprive many of the Bedouin communities of water and all public services. So sweating it out with the Katyushas may be the better option.



A final footnote – one to ponder in the quieter moments after the worst of the suffering is over. Those Israeli Jews fleeing for their lives as they head south to the quiet – so far at least – of Tel Aviv and beyond offer a small echo of events nearly six decades ago when 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homes by the Israeli army.


Israeli Jews have always taken the view – and happily tell any outsiders as much – that the "Arabs" lost the right to their homes in the war of 1948 because they "fled" (in fact many were forcibly expelled, but let that drop for the moment).


The Israeli government has adopted much the same view, even refusing to allow the 250,000 of its own Arab citizens who are classified as internal refugees – their ancestors fled the fighting in 1948 but have citizenship because they stayed inside what is today Israel – to return to their original homes and land.


So how exactly should we regard those Israeli Jews now fleeing from Nahariya and Haifa? Should they lose their homes, their land, and their bank accounts just as the Palestinians did in 1948?
 


__._,_.___

Edited by author 07-26-2006 12:44 AM
Things fall apart. Other things are pulled apart. The distinction means little to those caught in the collapse, but perhaps those of us who haven't fallen yet may still find a place to stand by discerning one from the other.

Every week, the world becomes a little more like Godard's Weekend. We're becoming inured to the degradation of infrastructure, public institutions and personal ethics. Thousands of New Yorkers are entering their second week without electricity, and in St Louis a quarter of a million residents and businesses are not far behind. Unheard of midnight temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius (103 Fahrenheit) are being recorded. Wires are melting, grids are stressing and networks are failing. Our increasingly frequent and violent electrical storms just don't feel right, and don't tell me different. The global climate is changing more rapidly than even the gravest recent projections, and temperatures are creeping up towards creating our own extincition-level conditions. ("If the ambient temperature is higher than 40C (104F), the human body will eventually reach 40C unless there is a cooling mechanism. At a sustained body temperature of 40+C, a human will die.") The planet is already facing its greatest extinction event in 65 million years: "We're losing life on Earth and we're losing the diversity of life on Earth," says Dr Anne Larigauderie. "Everywhere we look, we are losing the fabric of life." So it may be in death that we at last rejoin the natural realm.

That's not to say this is natural. There are still the unnatural men of whom Chaplin spoke in The Great Dictator - "machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts" - who have always been capable and ammorally fit to attempt to profit by the overthrow of every good thing. They were never going to leave to chance - to nature - their place in the new order, if this order is finished.

For what it's worth - and I think the assumption of military influence falls short of "hard evidence" - there's this to consider:

Last night, July 23, 2006, a violent storm developed and passed over homes in eastern Richmond, Virginia. Commercial electrical power was lost from approximately 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. One home was equipped with a Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting system mounted in the ceiling throughout the house. The system includes a 120 watt, 18 volt @ 7 amp solar panel mounted on the roof feeding into a Charge Controller regulator and into a bank of wet cell 12 volt batteries. The LED lighting system was completely isolated from the conventional electrical system. The LED system in made up of banks of three LEDs in series. Those three series arrangements are then wired in parallel with the batteries. All LEDs are designated either 40,000 MCD or 50,000 MCD. Hundreds of other LEDs in the house, but not in this system, were not effected - we believe because they were not subjected to the antenna effect found in the lighting system. During the storm, 46 Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) throughout the house were burnt and fused together internally and destroyed. It is significant to know the LEDs were burnt/fused together internally, not burnt open as you might expect.

The LED lights were turned on and operating in the living room and kitchen at the time of the event and though considerably more LEDs were involved fewer were damaged and lost. Many LEDs not destroyed were noticably weakened and light output reduced. During the latter part of the storm, in complete darkness outside, an indicator on the solar cell charge controller indicated electrical current was flowing from the solar cell panel on the roof into the batteries. Twenty minutes after the observation it abruptly stopped. It is significant to realize there was no sun radiation (it was night), but another type of radiation was hitting the solar panel and the entire system. We believe this is hard evidence of external military forces affecting electrical systems and power grids in the United States and is an indicator of a much larger event against the American people.

Israeli forces are dropping cluster bombs and incendiaries upon fleeing Lebanese civilians, and under orders to bomb ten buildings in southern Beirut for every Hezbollah rocket that strikes Haifa. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed has learned "from a credible and informed source that a former senior Labour government Minister, who continues to be well-connected to British military and security officials, confirms that Britain and the United States 'will go to war with Iran before the end of the year.'" And with the conscience of a serial killer who exploits her multiple dead in ritual, the Secretary of State says that extreme violence signals the "birth pangs" of a "new" Middle East.

While last Friday, Adamo Bove, a lead investigator into the Italian probe of the rendition of Abu Omar, "apparently jumped to his death." Also Friday, an unnamed Citibank employee fell to his death at its Canary Wharf UK headquarters, a "suspected suicide." And the same day, the chopped-up remains of Opus Dei financier Gianmario Roveraro were found under a bridge, though "police have made no link" between the order and his murder, though the last he had been seen alive was when leaving an Opus Dei meeting. (Roveraro had once said that his part in Opus Dei was "not concerned with finance -- finance is not Catholic or masonic, it is just finance.") And freeway snipers have begun stalking America again before midterm elections, this time in California and Indiana. (Whether they, too, will be caught "like a duck in a noose" remains to be seen.)

Beirut is no more a natural disaster than New Orleans continues to be, where families are now expected to dig their own graves, and no less a product of deep politics than the Pearl Harbor of Lower Manhattan. When cities become ruins, when they go dark and lose the capacity to provide for their people, it's usually on account of choice. It's because someone, an enemy within or without, wants to shoot out the lights and drive a soft urban populace into despair and barbarism. (Military recruitment hit a 30-year low in the mid-90s, and now, as the US economy sharply worsens for those near the bottom and their options further narrow, recruitment soars. But which is more to be desired by the rulers of this new, hard age: economic opportunities for the most poor or more bodies for its Army of Darkness?)

If it looks like social engineering, maybe it is.


Jeff Wells

Edited by author 08-03-2006 12:39 AM
Israel's Latest Massacre in Qana: Racist Jewish Fundamentalism a Factor


Our friend Satya Sagar offers a frightening piece explaining that Israel/Palestine is a prototype of our collective global future, “because that is what those who run the world want”. Indeed I wrote in the Introduction to Galilee Flowers: “In these essays Palestine is perceived as a model of the world. There are forces at work here that strive to eliminate its native population, to destroy its churches and mosques, to ruin its nature.” We are encouraged by Satya’s call: “May a thousand Hezbollahs bloom to take up the challenge of preventing this from happening”.

 

Israel as Future of the Globe?


For all those who think that Israel is run by the most despicable, racist and repressive regime in the world here is some very bad news indeed.

 
Not only are the Israeli state and its ruthless methods here to stay they could also be, very frighteningly, a prototype of our collective global future.

 
Watching the unbelievable destruction wrought by the Israelis in Gaza and Lebanon a simple question very high on many minds must be ‘ How in hell does this artificially concocted child of European guilt and American ambition get away with all this again and again and again?’

 
The answer is that instead of being a strange historical aberration Israel may well be a model state that global elites want to establish to control the world in the days to come.

 
A world where the ruling classes live off the stolen resources and labour of those they contemptuously deem ‘lesser human beings’ in a system of institutionalized apartheid.

 
A world where the forces of the militarized State can routinely shoot anybody, even entire populations and call them ‘terrorists’ with complete impunity.

 
A world where the process of nation building automatically involves smashing the sovereignty of every other nation reducing their people to a faceless, nameless, helpless mass.

 
The question of why Israel’s brazen crimes against humanity have been tolerated by the so called ‘international community’ is not new at all, being one asked from the very day this nation was violently forged six decades ago. The legacy of Zionist terrorism, the numerous pogroms against the Palestinians, the systematic usurpation of their land, the routine bombing of civilians, the murder of peace activists--- any other fledgling nation even contemplating crimes on this scale would have been ostracized out of existence by now.

 
Many have attempted to answer this conundrum in many different ways. Israel is the bulldog of the US in the Middle-East – there to keep an eye on the region’s oil wealth, promote the sales of Western arms and intimidate Arab regimes into meek submission. And in all its actions Israel merely imitates its mentors in the United States, whose own list of crimes against humanity make that of its protégé pale into nothing.
 
For some others it is Israel, run by Jewish supremacists, that is manipulating the West for its own devious purposes. They are abetted in all this by Christian fundamentalists in the US who believe in some complicated bull about the role of Zionists in bringing about rapture, the return of Jesus Christ and Armageddon. (An end of the world hastened and brought about by these strange bed fellows themselves)

In yet another version the formation of Israel, aided and encouraged by Western powers, was a historical fobbing off of Europe’s abused Jewish masses onto the heads of the hapless Palestinian people- fulfilling the Nazi dream of getting Europe rid of the Jews. A cynical pitting of the victims of European racism against the victims of their colonialism.
 
There is no doubt of course that the history of Europe and post-Second World War geopolitics of the United States have a lot to do with the creation of Israel.
 
In many ways the State of Israel carries over into our era all the baggage of Europe from the turn of the 19th century with its simplistic understanding of race and biology, the crude equation of national interest with conquest of territory, the brutal trappings of the colonial state and worst of all the tryst with fascism that deeply shaped the worldview of Zionism. In the past six decades Israel’s behaviour, within its own region, has also mirrored the relentless American need for control over the world’s natural resources.
 
But all this focus on historical trends obscures the fact that in contemporary Israel today has become the template of a terrible global future. Here is where the accumulated burdens of the past, stoked to the right temperatures in the crucible of the present, are shaping the contours of a world yet to come.

Already, the aggressive Israeli ‘whatever the cost’ pursuit of self-interest - unfettered by any principles of civilized behaviour and contemptuous of all international law- has become the role model for governments in many other parts of the world. Every indicator points to this sad trend. The way the leaders of the world have openly acquiesced in the Israeli assault on the Palestinians and Lebanese in recent days is testimony to the fact that elites everywhere find this violence a useful exercise, not just in the context of the Middle-East itself but on their own home turf too.

Just take your eyes off for a minute from Israel and look around the globe and you can see what I mean. Look at the mini-Israels that governments everywhere are operating within their own national boundaries against the poor, the ethnic minorities, the historically marginalized or any population that can be enslaved at low cost. For the votaries of the hard state and the preservers of privilege everywhere Israel is the pioneering trendsetter in newer and more brazen ways of exercising illegitimate power.

That is why even as many governments condemn Israel in public, they are also slyly figuring out how best to incorporate elements of similar repression within the apparatus of their own states.
 
At one level is the exhortation to emulate Israel internationally. In India, after the mysterious Mumbai bomb blasts in early July that killed over 200 people there has been a clamour from the right wing to ‘do it like the Israelis’ and bomb whoever is responsible for the blasts wherever. That’s a call for bombing nothing less than four countries, given the officially aired suspicion that the mastermind behind the blasts is somewhere in Kenya, was trained in Pakistan, hatched the plot in Nepal and infiltrated into the country through Bangladesh.

Going by this logic, now that the Israeli bombing of Lebanon has already killed two Indians and injured several more that makes a strong case for India bombing Tel Aviv too. (That would be truly ironic as India is today the largest customer for Israeli weapons!) Imitating Israel, in anything it does, is a recipe for perpetual World War- something that suits the designs of some countries and their rulers perhaps but not of a majority of this planet’s residents.

At another level governments around the globe are using the excuse of the Israeli example to terrorise their own populations. While Israel certainly did not invent the concept of kidnapping, torture and assassination of its opponents it has done more than any other regime in the world to legitimize such behaviour internationally. (This has been possible of course because of its special hold over Western governments- particularly the US – who define what is ‘legitimate’ and what is not.)
 
Given the discontent produced by the forces of globalization throughout the world and the need of the elites for controlling the ‘rebellious masses’ Israel’s approach to law and order are a ‘valuable’ contribution towards maintenance of the unjust status quo everywhere. All you need to do is to close your eyes, shut your conscience out, pretend to be the Israeli government and imagine all your opponents – workers, farmers, students anyone- as Palestinians.
 
In that sense it is not just nation states but also corporations- which are the main shareholders of the Empire - that seek guidance from Israel for ideas on how to put down dissent and continue ruling the world. After all at the core of global capitalism lies a fierce authoritarian urge that seeks to monopolise everything that exists but is unable to do so because the little people of the world have fought and established, over the centuries, some basic norms and laws of human and social behaviour. If Israel keeps demolishing these ‘barriers’ and advances the forces of barbarism - it makes complete world domination by the moneyed that much easier.
 
What emerges then is that, given the importance of Israel to global elites, a solution to the Palestinian question can never really be achieved through a struggle that focuses exclusively on the politics of the Middle-East itself. Contrary to what Condoleezza Rice believes a lasting resolution of the issue will not come from eliminating the Hezbollah. Instead a just peace is possible only by promoting more organizations that are willing to take on the various global interests that are bent on making our entire world look like one large State of Israel.
 
Satya Sagar is a journalist, writer, video maker based in New Delhi. He can be reached at sagarnama@...

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/8/5/122335/1324

Jostein Gaarder, the author of the global literary phenomenon Sophie's World (printed in 26m copies in 53 languages), launches a scorching attack on Israel in Aftenposten, Norway's paper of record. Gaarder, a historian of ideas, describes himself as a friend of the Jewish people but doubts whether Israel truly is the same. Suffice it to say that this will not appear in the New York Times anytime soon.

The form of Gaarder's condemnation is inspired by Amos, the first Judaic prophet whose message is preserved in scroll (ca. 750 B.C.). Quoting Wikipedia: "The central idea of the book of Amos according to most scholars is that Yahweh puts his people on the same level as the nations that surround it -- Yahweh expects the same morality of them all."

God's chosen people

Jostein Gaarder, Aftenposten 05.08.06

From the Norwegian by Sirocco

There is no turning back. It is time to learn a new lesson: We do no longer recognize the state of Israel. We could not recognize the South African apartheid regime, nor did we recognize the Afghan Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam Hussein's Iraq or the Serbs' ethnic cleansing. We must now get used to the idea: The state of Israel in its current form is history.

We do not believe in the notion of God's chosen people. We laugh at this people's fancies and weep over its misdeeds. To act as God's chosen people is not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We call it racism.

Limits to tolerance

There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises as justification for occupation and apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We laugh uneasily at those who still believe that the God of flora, fauna, and galaxies has selected one people in particular as his favorite and given it funny stone tablets, burning bushes, and a license to kill.

We call child murderers 'child murderers' and will never accept that such have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages. We say but this: Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas, Hizballah, or the state of Israel!

Unscrupulous art of war

We acknowledge and pay heed to Europe's deep responsibility for the plight of the Jews, for the disgraceful harassment, the pogroms, and the Holocaust. It was historically and morally necessary for Jews to get their own home. However, the state of Israel, with its unscrupulous art of war and its disgusting weapons, has massacred its own legitimacy. It has systematically flaunted International Law, international conventions, and countless UN resolutions, and it can no longer expect protection from same. It has carpet bombed the recognition of the world. But fear not! The time of trouble shall soon be over. The state of Israel has seen its Soweto.

We are now at the watershed. There is no turning back. The state of Israel has raped the recognition of the world and shall have no peace until it lays down its arms.

Without defense, without skin

May spirit and word sweep away the apartheid walls of Israel. The state of Israel does not exist. It is now without defense, without skin. May the world therefore have mercy on the civilian population. For it is not civilian individuals at whom our doomsaying is directed.

We wish the people of Israel well, nothing but well, but we reserve the right not to eat Jaffa oranges as long as they taste foul and are poisonous. It was endurable to live some years without the blue grapes of apartheid.

They celebrate their triumphs

We do not believe that Israel mourns forty killed Lebanese children more than it for over three thousand years has lamented forty years in the desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs like they once cheered the scourges of the Lord as "fitting punishment" for the people of Egypt. (In that tale, the Lord, God of Israel, appears as an insatiable sadist.) We query whether most Israelis think that one Israeli life is worth more than forty Palestinian or Lebanese lives.

For we have seen pictures of little Israeli girls writing hateful greetings on the bombs to be dropped on the civilian population of Lebanon and Palestine. Little Israeli girls are not cute when they strut with glee at death and torment across the fronts.

The retribution of blood vengeance

We do not recognize the rhetoric of the state of Israel. We do not recognize the spiral of retribution of the blood vengeance with "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." We do not recognize the principle of one or a thousand Arab eyes for one Israeli eye. We do not recognize collective punishment or population-wide diets as political weapons. Two thousand years have passed since a Jewish rabbi criticized the ancient doctrine of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

He said: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." We do not recognize a state founded on antihumanistic principles and on the ruins of an archaic national and war religion. Or as Albert Schweitzer expressed it: "Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose."

Compassion and forgiveness

We do not recognize the old Kingdom of David as a model for the 21st century map of the Middle East. The Jewish rabbi claimed two thousand years ago that the Kingdom of God is not a martial restoration of the Kingdom of David, but that the Kingdom of God is within us and among us. The Kingdom of God is compassion and forgiveness.

Two thousand years have passed since the Jewish rabbi disarmed and humanized the old rhetoric of war. Even in his time, the first Zionist terrorists were operating.

Israel does not listen

For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of humanism, but Israel does not listen. It was not the Pharisee that helped the man who lay by the wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a Samaritan; today we would say, a Palestinian. For we are human first of all -- then Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Or as the Jewish rabbi said: "And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?" We do not accept the abduction of soldiers. But nor do we accept the deportation of whole populations or the abduction of legally elected parliamentarians and government ministers.

We recognize the state of Israel of 1948, but not the one of 1967. It is the state of Israel that fails to recognize, respect, or defer to the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more; more water and more villages. To obtain this, there are those who want, with God's assistance, a final solution to the Palestinian problem. The Palestinians have so many other countries, certain Israeli politicians have argued; we have only one.

The USA or the world?

Or as the highest protector of the state of Israel puts it: "May God continue to bless America." A little child took note of that. She turned to her mother, saying: "Why does the President always end his speeches with 'God bless America'? Why not, 'God bless the world'?"

Then there was a Norwegian poet who let out this childlike sigh of the heart: "Why doth Humanity so slowly progress?" It was he that wrote so beautifully of the Jew and the Jewess. But he rejected the notion of God's chosen people. He personally liked to call himself a Muhammedan.

Calm and mercy

We do not recognize the state of Israel. Not today, not as of this writing, not in the hour of grief and wrath. If the entire Israeli nation should fall to its own devices and parts of the population have to flee the occupied areas into another diaspora, then we say: May the surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. It is forever a crime without mitigation to lay hand on refugees and stateless people.

Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no longer protected by a state. Fire not at the fugitives! Take not aim at them! They are vulnerable now like snails without shells, vulnerable like slow caravans of Palestinian and Lebanese refugees, defenseless like women and children and the old in Qana, Gaza, Sabra, and Chatilla. Give the Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and honey!

Let not one Israeli child be deprived of life. Far too many children and civilians have already been murdered.

From (Sirocco) my blog.

Also available there:

A partial analysis of the controversial essay, refuting some bad interpretations.

A comment on the letter to the Norwegian people from Shimon Samuels at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

 

 

I wrote out of disgust for the war
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1415414.ece

Jostein Gaarder sticks to the intentions behind his controversial critique of Israel's conduct in recent fighting in Lebanon, but admits that the approach chosen was 'problematic'.

"I must admit that the reactions have been stronger than I expected. But now it is over for my part. Starting today I have no intention of further comment on this matter," Gaarder told Aftenposten.

"Now it can run its course without my participation. But I hope that in a month or a year I can think back and not regret what I have done. I don't regret it today at least," Gaarder said.

The reactions to Gaarder's editorial "God's chosen people", published on Saturday, have been ferocious. The author of the bestselling "Sophie's World" has been accused of being anti-Semitic, muddled, ignorant and mixing an ill assortment of themes. He now admits that he would have chosen a different form for trying to make his point if he were to do it again.

"I said in advance that my greatest fear was to offend Jews and when I now see that I have done this I have to ask myself what could have been done differently. First and foremost I would have tried to differentiate more clearly between religion and how religion is used politically and rhetorically in Israel," Gaarder said.

"Also, I think it is sad that the debate has turned away from my intention, namely to confront the war Israel is waging... but I must also point out that I have received hundreds of encouraging and supportive mails and messages, much more than would have thought from the debate in newspapers and other media. The support also concerns the style of the article."

Form and content
Gaarder is asked if he could expect to urge reconciliation from Israel while writing in the manner of biblical prophecy, and if he should not have given greater thought to the consequences of his article and the mood of anger that inspired it.

"Perhaps. It is a bit early to say. Let us see how the debate develops. I see that the rhetorical devices chosen were debatable. On the other hand, I am a writer. The piece is written in literary style, formed as a prophecy. And I am absolutely not about to retreat from the content, despite the clarifications I have now given you. I have long thought of confronting Israel and the abuse of religion for political ends taking place in Israel itself. I drafted this with several Middle East experts before I published it. Many Israelis have messianic ideas about their nation and the war being waged. They believe the land is given them by God. This is naive and dangerous. I believe we must confront this type of thinking - no matter where we find it. 'God bless America' says President George W. Bush. Why can't he say 'God bless the world'?", Gaarder said.

Worries
Gaarder said that calls like those of Professor Helge Høibraaten, who wrote that he should 'shut his face', only remind him of those who ask for an author's books to be burned. Gaarder confirms that he has been frightened by the reactions.

"It is correct that I have started to look over my shoulder when I walk down the street. Not that I have any objective reason to do so, it could well be just that I am just a bit crazy. And I have no fear at all of being attacked by Norwegian Jews. They are very peaceful people," Gaarder said.

'Laughable obsessions'
Gaarder is asked about the passage "we laugh at this people's obsessions", one of the article's flashpoints.

"...We must ask: Is it so that we can discuss some religions and not others? Some aspects of a religion and not others? It must be possible to put forth religious criticism in the public sphere. We have traditions for this in Norway. Arnulf Øverland wrote "Christianity - the tenth plague" in the 1930s and was accused of blasphemy. This is over and done with," Gaarder said, and goes on to stress the importance of using freedom of speech, and that it must be possible to have such discussions without being branded an anti-Semite.

"I have said it countless times and I can repeat it again: I am a humanist, not an anti-Semite. Both the Jewish and Greek traditions of thought are part of the foundation on which I stand. My article was written from disgust for the war, and the assault of the Israeli war machine ... and I also condemn Hezbollah's missiles over Israel, to make that clear," Gaarder said.

Mohammed caricatures
Gaarder paused when asked if he would have published the caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that set off violent reactions in the Muslim world last winter.

"I have seen the drawings and didn't like them. I have seen caricatures of Jesus, too, and don't like that either. So if I had been the editor I would not have printed the Mohammed drawings. Of course I don't mean that it should be forbidden, but that I personally would not have done it," Gaarder said.

"It has to do with giving offense. This is not the type of religious criticism I want. I don't want to offend people. That is also why I say that the only thing that I am truly sorry about my article is that it has been hurtful."

August 15, 2006
A Victory for Hizbollah, Syria and Iran
Israel Wasn't Hoping for This


Beirut.

You have to be down here with the Hizbollah amid this terrifying destruction--way south of the Litani river, in the territory from which Israel once vowed to expel them--to realise the nature of the past month of war and of its enormous political significance to the Middle East. Israel's mighty army has already retreated from the neighbouring village of Ghandoutiya after losing 40 men in just over 36 hours of fighting. It has not even managed to penetrate the smashed town of Khiam where the Hizbollah were celebrating yesterday afternoon. In Srifa, I stood with Hizbollah men looking at the empty roads to the south and could see all the way to Israel and the settlement of Mizgav Am on the other side of the frontier. This is not the way the war was supposed to have ended for Israel.

Far from humiliating Iran and Syria--which was the Israeli-American plan--these two supposedly pariah states have been left untouched and the Hizbollah's reputation lionized across the Arab world. The "opportunity" which President George Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, apparently saw in the Lebanon war has turned out to be an opportunity for America's enemies to show the weakness of Israel's army. Indeed, last night, scarcely any Israeli armor was to be seen inside Lebanon--just one solitary tank could be glimpsed outside Bint Jbeil and the Israelis had retreated even from the "safe" Christian town of Marjayoun. It is now clear that the 30,000-strong Israeli army reported to be racing north to the Litani river never existed. In fact, it is unlikely that there were yesterday more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers left in all of southern Lebanon, although they did become involved in two fire-fights during the morning, hours after the UN-ceasefire went into effect.

Down the coast road from Beirut, meanwhile, came a massive exodus of tens of thousands of Shia families, bedding piled on the roofs of their cars , many of them sporting Hizbollah flags and pictures of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's chairman, on their windscreens. At the massive traffic jams around the broken motorway bridges and craters which litter the landscape, the Hizbollah was even handing out yellow and green "victory" flags, along with official notices urging parents not to allow children to play with the thousands of unexploded bombs that now lie across the landscape. At least one Lebanese child was killed by unexploded ordnance and another 15 were wounded yesterday.

But to what are these people returning? Haj Ali Dakroub, a 42-year old construction manager, lost part of his home in Israel's 1996 bombardment of Srifa. Now his entire house has been flattened. "What is here that Israel should destroy all this?" he asked. "We don't deny that the resistance was in Srifa. It was here before and it will be here in the future. But in this house lived only my family. So why would Israel bomb it?"

Well, I did happen to notice what appeared to be the casing of a missile hanging from the balcony of a much-damaged house facing the rubble of Ali Dakroub's home. And a group of Hizbollah militiamen, one of them with a pistol tucked into his trousers, walked past us nonchalantly and disappeared into an orchard. Was this, perhaps, where they kept some of their rockets? Mr Dakroub wasn't saying.

"I am going to rebuild my home with my two sons," he insisted. "Israel may come back in 10 years and destroy it all over again and then I'll just rebuild it all over again. This was a Hizbollah victory. The Israelis were able to defeat all the Arab countries in six days in 1967 but here they could not defeat the resistance in a month. These resistance men would come out of the ground and shoot back. They are still here."

"Come out of the ground" is an expression I have heard several times these past four weeks and I am beginning to suspect that many of the thousands of guerrillas did indeed shelter in caves and basements and tunnels, only to emerge to fire their missiles or to use their rockets on the Israeli army once it made the mistake of sending troops into Lebanon on the ground.

And does anyone believe that the Hizbollah will submit to their own disarmament by a new international force of UN and Lebanese troops once--if--it arrives? There was a symbolic moment yesterday when Lebanese soldiers already based in southern Lebanon joined Hizbollah men in Srifa to clear the rubble of a house in which the bodies of an entire family were believed buried. Lebanese Red Cross and civil defense personnel--representatives of the civil power which is supposed to claw back its sovereignty from the Hizbollah--joined in the search. The mukhtar, who so blatantly regarded the Hizbollah as heroes, is also a government representative. And at the entrance to this shattered village still stands a poster of Nasrallah and the Iranian President Ali Khamenei.

Far from driving the Hizbollah north across the Litani river, Israel has entrenched them in their Lebanese villages as never before.
***********************************************************
Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's newest book is The Conquest of the Middle East.

Hiring home based workers ID 109
We are hiring home based workers to complete simple online Projects. Join today Please visit: http://www.clicknearn.net/affiliate/affiliate.php?id=109&group=2

 Gaza swelters through summer without power

By Gideon Levy
Posted by Jason Miller
8/23/06

Haaretz.com

It's hot, very hot, in the Gaza Strip. But over the last two months, ever since Israel bombed the new power station in the center of the Strip, the heat has become unbearable. The bombing has disrupted the supply of electricity to some 1.5 million residents; food in refrigerators goes bad, the patients in the hospitals groan, industry and work are paralyzed, traffic is gridlocked and there is a severe water shortage.

On the night of June 28, the Israel Air Force bombed the power station as part of Operation Summer Rains, destroying its six transformers. The assault was approved by the security cabinet, and was intended to pressure the Palestinians into releasing Gilad Shalit, the captured soldier.

The modern power station, financed by Enron in partnership with a Palestinian company, was completely paralyzed, and the Gaza Strip lost some 60 percent of its supply of electricity. Gaza buys the remaining 40 percent from the Israel Electricity Corporation.

On Sunday this week, the burned out and destroyed transformers were still lying near the power station's fence. Two were made by Israeli company Elco Industries, and four by the German ABB. The station, located between Gaza and Dir al Balah, was inaugurated at the end of 2001. It was to provide power not only to Gaza but to the West Bank too, after being linked in the future to the Israeli network.

Israel knew exactly what it was bombing, says station manager Dr. Drar Abu-Sisi. It's impossible to operate the station without the transformers. Replacing them would take at least a year - either by ordering new transformers or by hooking up to the Egyptian power network.

With a capacity of 140 megawatts, the power station was the most advanced in the Arab world. Israel could have paralyzed the station by simply stopping its fuel supply, without putting it out of action for months.

"Had they told us on the phone to cut the power off, we'd have done so right away," says Abu-Sisi, who is convinced that the bombing was politically motivated.

"It was a foolish attack, which only sows more and more hatred for Israel," he says.

Each transformer costs around $2 million, but the main damage is indirect - the loss of income to the power station, grave damage to all its systems that could rust, and the huge blow to the Gaza Strip's miserable economy.

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's Office told Haaretz yesterday that "the bombing was intended to disrupt the activity of the terror networks directly and indirectly associated with Gilad Shalit's kidnapping."

Meanwhile, the station's 160 workers are out of work and Gaza has electrical power for only a few hours a day. Those who can afford it buy generators, and everyone goes up on the rooftops at night to escape the burdensome heat inside.

posted by Jason Miller at willpowerful@hotmail.com or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.

CONTROLLING THE MASSES

Controlling the Masses: From Religion to Bernays

by Tom Rushing

Current Era

8/30/06

The most powerful political/economic force on the planet is and always will be “We the people.” In this article, I will make an attempt at giving a very brief overview of the methods used to assert control over the masses, the use of these methods in past and present governments and the evolution of the methods themselves. Many of the methods of control from the past are still used today. With increased understanding of the human psyche and the human brain, the sophistication level of these methods have evolved into completely new more subtle yet more powerful techniques and are implemented on a grand scale daily.

There have been benevolent compassionate powerful rulers and brutally barbaric powerful rulers, but the rulers or the established rule that maintained their rule all had one thing in common. They were able to avoid political coups and revolutions. Established rule that ignores the power of the people will run the risk of being ousted. Whether Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake,” or not and whatever her intended message was, the masses had the impression that their lot in life was not going to improve unless action was taken in the form of revolution.

Education and Organization

Education and organization are the two major factors that must be in place for the people to exert any influence in politics. Knowing this, the ruling classes made certain for centuries that few had the opportunity to even learn to read. The idea of commoners being able to read scriptures for themselves or the law of the land was not acceptable really until almost modern times. This greatly improved the chances of the ruling class to hold on to their power and restrict any vertical class movement. On occasion, however, enough information could be acquired through experience or word of mouth to evoke an organized response.

If education is the primer, then organization is the powder. Too many times I have heard, “There is nothing I can do.” In a manner of speaking that statement holds some truth. One person can be extremely effective, but this effectiveness is usually proportional to the number of people influenced by that person. When half of the population can be of one mind on any given course of action, almost anything is possible. If it is singular action to a course, a relative low percentage of the population need be involved to spawn change. We need only look to the civil rights movement to see how a minority group incited change to a country made up of a vast array of different kinds of people and interests.

Before Sigmund Freud and Bernays

Control over the masses in the pre-modern era was a relatively simple matter before Democracy. Common people were accustomed to being ordered about and serving. Usually if one was not too hungry they considered themselves perhaps even lucky. Without the ability to read and understand what life could be like, there was little room for comparison. The power and might of the ruling classes’ minds and military relative to the peasant was seemingly insurmountable. The occasional public punishment by various methods was often times enough to make the uneducated mind fall in line. The age of revolutions and civil rights could not have come about without the ability of conferring complex ideas to a significant percentage of the population.

Religion played an essential role in placating the masses. Before reading became popular, people went to their religious leaders and were told what was right and wrong and read to them selected text to confirm their assertions. The rulers made sure to keep close tabs on the religious leaders and rewarded and punished them according to the messages and influence they pushed on their congregations. If this sounds familiar, it should. This method continues to be used today. Perhaps the current administration is using it more than most have in a very long time however. Even today, the people that I have met that are most steadfast in their faith in our rulers and question least their religion are the ones that do not bother to read more than what is recommended to them by their religious leaders. It continues to amaze me that most Christians have not read their bible at least once from cover to cover, but have no problem dedicating their lives and beliefs and their votes in accordance to their preacher’s wishes without much deliberation. Religion is and has been perhaps the most effective tool of the ruling classes.

The Twentieth Century to the Present

Make no mistake about it. The class war has never ended. The ideal presented in Star Trek is a long way from reality. Almost everything that can be owned in the United States and the world is owned by a very small percentage of people and the wealth that these people enjoy is a direct result of the blood, sweat and tears of the lower classes.

Sigmund Freud introduced the idea that humans were in a struggle with their animalistic natures and if this goes unchecked then people will run around naked destroying things and society will fall apart. He apparently had very little confidence in humans. This idea was widely accepted especially in the upper classes thus confirming of the fear that Democracy left unchecked could destroy their society. If the people could not be trusted to control their basic animalistic nature, then how would they know how to vote?

In steps Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays. Propaganda during war was nothing new, but Bernays saw an opportunity to use the unconscious desires of humans to manipulate the masses in times of peace also. Bernays believed that by fulfilling the unconscious desires of people would change a potentially unruly population into a controlled docile one. Bernays invented the much used term “public relations,” and used it to turn the population of the United States into consumers. Before Bernays worked his magic, the American population only bought goods according to their needs. It was practically unheard of to buy something for any other reason.
Bernays made it acceptable to make a purchase based on desires. Using Hollywood through product placement, and the media, he changed the population into an easily placated self-absorbed group where before they were actively participating. Over the years, this has changed Democracy from a function of the entire society into less than a passing diversion. It is not by accident that here in the United States we have perhaps a lower voter turnout than anywhere else in the world.

Bernays put his methodology to the test in many areas. Bernays, being approached by the tobacco company, effectively double their customers with one wave of his wand. He asked had a few women light up after a march in front of the press and in a movie or two prominent actresses were instructed to smoke and almost overnight erased the stigma of women smoking. After this victory and his ideas tested and proven, Bernays was ready to move onto bigger things. He was involved in all sorts of advertising and promotion from the automobile industry to governmental agencies that needed public support. Although there have been many attempts to oppose these methods as unethical, they have gone largely unopposed.

As long as industry is making money and politicians are passing the laws they are pushing for the industry, they will continue to go unopposed. This is pure propaganda and is intended to be a psychological attack at the essence of humanity to evoke a non-response to governmental malfeasance and other societal issues as well as to evoke a gluttonous consumer based society. If that seems to sum up much of how the world seems to consider most Americans, at least we can now tell that it is not by accident.

The methods had been used for years to promote the hard to sell policies of the government, but starting with Clinton and Blair a new use was found. Polls were taken to find out what the voter desired most. These finding were easily turned into speeches and in the cases of Clinton and Blair, won elections. Blair took it one step farther and used it to set policy while Clinton simply did what he and his advisors thought was best after the election was won. Blair took polls and no one seemed concerned about the rail system in Britain, so little funding was appropriated until trains began derailing and killing people. Politicians soon learned that people’s concerns were not always in line with their needs. Of course if they had studied Bernays and the methodology of the polls, they would have known this. Now, politicians use the polls to write their speeches and continue to do what they feel is best regardless of what they say in the speeches. This is why Bush talks about peace and wages war and all the other double speak that persists, to placate to the desires and not the needs of society which effectively placates the masses.

One would think that the population would eventually catch on to this trick, and perhaps some have, but the public relations business is stronger and more centralized than ever. Just a few short years ago, there were over 50 media stations broadcasting news to Americans. Now there are only five. This number could go lower soon, but at this point the company heads are all of one voice pounding out PR about whatever they want us to think we want. The journalism schools in the U.S. are very few and most have switched over to public relations. Journalists will soon go the way of the dinosaur if something does not change this horrible trend.

I am not certain if the ruling class has a valid fear of humanity or not, but unchecked control of the masses through psychological operations should be met with some opposition at the very least, and steps need to be taken to remove some of the mediums that make these operations so pervasive. We do still have a choice to shut off the television to watch and read from sources that take pride in their lack of participation in the promotion of self absorption.
posted by Jason Miller at 11:33 AM

Intro by Kristoffer Larsson:

Here is a truly brilliant article on Afghanistan
and the truth about the U.S. aid to poor
countries. It is funny to read what she writes
about the Kabul-Kandahar Highway. Instead of
hiring other companies that were prepared to do
the work for 250,000 USD per kilometer, USAID gave
the contract to the Louis Berger Group for 700,000
USD per km (that's much money, considering the
highway has 389 kilometers all together). Although
the highway ended up costing over 1 million per
km, the Berger Group didn't do the job itself but
hired Indian and Turkish subcontractors to do the
actual work. The result? A lousy two-lane highway,
which poor Afghans needs to pay 20 USD a month for
driving on.

The United States only gives 8 USD per citizen as
foreign aid (or 0.02% of national income) every
year, compared to Sweden's 193 dollars, which is
still far from Luxemburg's generosity (357 USD).
But that's not all: only 14 cents of every U.S.
aid dollar is pure aid. 47% is "phantom" aid,
meaning that the U.S. doesn't really send this
money to the recipient country. Instead they might
spend it on sending Americans to do some work,
which of course is much more expensive than
hiring, for instance, Afghans. Of the remaining
53% (which the recipient actually receives), an
average of 70% is ear-market for spending on
American products, which-again needless to say-is
much more costly than buying domestic products.
The big winners of the aid policy are the U.S.
companies that get these contracts, not the poor
countries that really need it.
KL

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=116512

Why It's Not Working in Afghanistan
By Ann Jones

Remember when peaceful, democratic, reconstructed
Afghanistan was advertised as the exemplar for the
extreme makeover of Iraq? In August 2002,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was already
proclaiming the new Afghanistan "a breathtaking
accomplishment" and "a successful model of what
could happen to Iraq." As everybody now knows, the
model isn't working in Iraq. So we shouldn't be
surprised to learn that it's not working in
Afghanistan either.
The story of success in Afghanistan was always
more fairy tale than fact -- one scam used to sell
another. Now, as the Bush administration hands off
"peacekeeping" to NATO forces, Afghanistan is the
scene of the largest military operation in the
history of that organization. Today's personal
email brings word from an American surgeon in
Kabul that her emergency medical team can't handle
half the wounded civilians brought in from
embattled provinces to the south and east.
American, British, and Canadian troops find
themselves at war with Taliban fighters -- which
is to say "Afghans" -- while stunned NATO
commanders, who hadn't bargained for significant
combat, are already asking what went wrong.
The answer is a threefold failure: no peace, no
democracy, and no reconstruction.
Doing Things Backward
Critics of American Afghan policy agree that the
Bush administration, in its haste to take out
Saddam's Iraq, did things backward. After bombing
the Taliban into the boondocks in 2001, it set up
a government without first making peace -- a
scenario later to be repeated in Iraq.
Instead of pressing for peace negotiations among
rival Afghan parties, the victorious Americans
handed power to Islamists and militia commanders
who had served as America's stand-in soldiers in
its Afghan proxy war against the Soviet Union in
the 1980s. Then the Bush administration staged
elections for these candidates and touted the
result as democracy. It also confined an
International Security Assistance Force, made up
largely of European troops, to the capital,
creating an island of safety for the government,
while dispatching warlords of its choice to hunt
for Osama bin Laden in the countryside.
In the east and south -- that is, about half the
country -- the Taliban never stopped fighting.
Now, augmented by imported al-Qaeda fighters
("Arab-Afghans") and new tactics learned from the
insurgency in Iraq (roadside bombs or IEDs,
suicide bombing), Taliban forces are stronger than
at any time since the United States "conquered"
them in 2001. According to the Afghan Independent
Human Rights Commission, most Afghans have long
favored a process of amnesty and reconciliation;
and President Hamid Karzai recently called on the
Bush administration to change course and stop
killing Afghans. But administration policy,
recently reaffirmed in Kabul by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, calls for a fight to the last
Talib.
Predictably, public opinion has been turning
steadily against the largely powerless central
government, guarded in the capital by foreign
forces. The insecurity endured by most Afghans --
the absence of peace -- is enough to make them
give up hope in President Karzai, often jeeringly
referred to as the "mayor of Kabul" or "assistant
to the American Ambassador."
Historically Afghans have selected and followed
strong leaders; they expect a leader to deliver
security, jobs, special favors. something anyway.
The Karzai government, confined to a self-serving
American agenda that is often at odds with Afghan
interests, has delivered nothing at all to the
average Afghan, still living in abysmal poverty.
In 2004, Afghans dutifully voted for Karzai as the
instrument of American promises. By 2005, when
Parliamentary elections were held, voters
indicated that they were fed up with the same old
candidates -- all those militia commanders and
Islamist extremists -- and the same old hollow
promises.
The sad part of the story is this. Despite the
Bush administration's sham "peace" and fake
"democracy," it might have made -- might still
make -- a success of Afghanistan if only it
delivered on that third big promise: to rebuild
the bombed-out country. Most Afghans, after the
dispersal of the Taliban, were full of hope and
ready to work. The tangible benefits of
reconstruction -- jobs, housing, schools,
health-care facilities -- could have rallied them
to support the government and turn that illusory
"democracy" into something like the real thing.
But reconstruction didn't happen. When NATO-led
forces moved into the southern provinces this
summer to keep the peace and continue
"development," Lieutenant-General David Richards,
British commander of the operation, seemed
astonished to find that little or no development
had so far taken place.
For that failure the U.S. is to blame. Until this
year, the American-led Coalition assumed sole
charge of "security" operations outside Kabul, but
it never put enough troops on the ground to do the
job. (Sound familiar?) As a result, aid workers
(both international and Afghan) lost their lives,
and non-governmental aid organizations (NGOs)
withdrew to Kabul, or like Médecins Sans
Frontières, left the country altogether. Private
contractors who remained in the field found
themselves regularly diverting project funds to
"security," so that, as in Iraq, aid money poured
into operations that belonged in the military
budget.
A recent audit by the Special Inspector General
for Iraq Reconstruction found the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) using
"an accounting shell game" to hide mammoth cost
overruns on projects -- as high as 418% --
resulting partly from such security problems.
There's every reason to believe that an audit of
Afghanistan reconstruction by many of the same
firms under contract to USAID would reveal similar
accounting practices used for the same reason.
Without peace there can be no security, and
without security no development.
The Reconstruction Shell Game
But there's more to the story than that. To
understand the failure -- and fraud -- of such
reconstruction, you have to take a look at the
peculiar system of American aid for international
development. During the last five years, the U.S.
and many other donor nations pledged billions of
dollars to Afghanistan, yet Afghans keep asking:
"Where did the money go?" American taxpayers
should be asking the same question. The official
answer is that donor funds are lost to Afghan
corruption. But shady Afghans, accustomed to
two-bit bribes, are learning how big-bucks
corruption really works from the masters of the
world.
A fact-packed report issued in June 2005 by Action
Aid, a widely respected NGO, headquartered in
Johannesburg, South Africa, makes sense of the
workings of that world. The report studied
development aid given by all countries globally
and discovered that only a small part of it --
maybe 40% -- is real. The rest is "phantom" aid;
that is, the money never actually shows up in
recipient countries at all.
Some of it doesn't even exist except as an
accounting item, as when countries count debt
relief or the construction costs for a fancy new
embassy in the aid column. A lot of it never
leaves home. Paychecks for American "experts"
under contract to USAID, for example, go directly
from the Agency to their American banks without
ever passing through the to-be-reconstructed
country. Much aid money, the report concludes, is
thrown away on "overpriced and ineffective
Technical Assistance," such as those very hot-shot
American experts. And a big chunk of it is
carefully "tied" to the donor nation, which means
that the recipient is obliged to use the donated
money to buy products from the donor country, even
when -- especially when -- the same goods are
available cheaper at home.
The U.S. easily outstrips other nations at most of
these scams, making it second only to France as
the world's biggest purveyor of phantom aid. Fully
47% of American development aid is lavished on
overpriced technical assistance. By comparison,
only 4% of Sweden's aid budget and only 2% of
Luxembourg's and Ireland's goes to such
assistance. As for tying aid to the purchase of
donor-made products, Sweden and Norway don't do it
all; neither do Ireland and the United Kingdom.
But 70% of American aid is contingent upon the
recipient spending it on American stuff,
especially American-made armaments. Considering
all these practices, Action Aid calculates that 86
cents of every dollar of American aid is phantom
aid.
According to targets set years ago by the UN and
agreed to by almost every country in the world, a
rich country should give 0.7% of its national
income in annual aid to poor ones. So far, only
the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and
Luxembourg (with real aid at 0.65% of national
income) even come close. At the other end of the
scale, the U.S. spends a paltry 0.02% of national
income on real aid, which works out to an annual
contribution of $8.00 from every citizen of "the
wealthiest nation in the world." (By comparison,
Swedes kick in $193 per person, Norwegians $304,
and the citizens of Luxembourg $357.) President
Bush boasts of sending billions in aid to
Afghanistan, but in fact we could do better by
passing a hat.
The Bush administration often deliberately
misrepresents its aid program for domestic
consumption. Last year, for example, when the
President sent his wife to Kabul for a few hours
of photo ops, the New York Times reported that her
mission was "to promise long-term commitment from
the United States to education for women and
children." Speaking in Kabul, Mrs. Bush pledged
that the United States would give an additional
$17.7 million to support education in Afghanistan.
As it happened, that grant had previously been
announced -- and it was not for Afghan public
education (or women and children) at all, but to
establish a brand-new, private, for-profit
American University of Afghanistan catering to the
Afghan and international elite. (How a private
university comes to be supported by public
taxpayer dollars and the Army Corps of Engineers
is another peculiarity of Bush aid.)
Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister of
Afghanistan and president of Kabul University,
complained, "You cannot support private education
and ignore public education." But typically,
having set up a government in Afghanistan, the
U.S. stiffs it, preferring to channel aid money to
private American contractors. Increasingly
privatized, U.S. aid becomes just one more
mechanism for transferring taxpayer dollars to the
coffers of select American companies and the
pockets of the already rich.
In 2001, Andrew Natsios, then head of USAID, cited
foreign aid as "a key foreign policy instrument"
designed to help other countries "become better
markets for U.S. exports." To guarantee that
mission, the State Department recently took over
the formerly semi-autonomous aid agency. And since
the aim of American aid is to make the world safe
for American business, USAID now cuts in business
from the start It sends out requests for proposals
to a short list of the usual suspects and awards
contracts to those bidders currently in favor.
(Election-time kickbacks influence the list of
favorites.)
Sometimes it invites only one contractor to apply,
the same efficient procedure that made Halliburton
so notorious and profitable in Iraq. In many
fields it "preselects vendors" by accepting bids
every five years or so on an IQC -- that's an
"Indefinite Quantities Contract." Contractors
submit indefinite information about what they
might be prepared to do in unspecified areas,
should some more definite contract materialize;
the winners become designated contractors who are
invited to apply when the real thing comes along.
USAID generates the real thing in the form of an
RFP, a Request for Proposals, issued to the
"pre-selected vendors" who then compete (or
collaborate) to do -- in yet another country --
work dreamed up in Washington by theoreticians
unencumbered by first hand knowledge of the
hapless "target."
The Road to Taliban Land
The criteria by which contractors are selected
have little or nothing to do with conditions in
the recipient country, and they are not exactly
what you would call transparent. Take the case of
the Kabul-Kandahar Highway, featured on the USAID
website as a proud accomplishment. In five years,
it's also the only accomplishment in highway
building -- which makes it one better than the
Bush administration record in building power
stations, water systems, sewer systems, or dams.
The highway was featured in the Kabul Weekly
newspaper in March 2005 under the headline,
"Millions Wasted on Second-Rate Roads." Afghan
journalist Mirwais Harooni reported that even
though other international companies had been
ready to rebuild the highway for $250,000 per
kilometer, the U.S.-based Louis Berger Group got
the job at $700,000 per kilometer -- of which
there are 389. Why? The standard American answer
is that Americans do better work -- though not
Berger which, at the time, was already years
behind on another $665 million contract to build
Afghan schools. Berger subcontracted to Turkish
and Indian companies to build the narrow,
two-lane, shoulderless highway at a final cost of
about $1 million per mile; and anyone who travels
it today can see that it is already falling apart.
Former Minister of Planning Ramazan Bashardost
complained that when it came to building roads,
the Taliban had done a better job; and he too
asked, "Where did the money go?" Now, in a move
certain to tank President Karzai's approval
ratings and further endanger U.S. and NATO troops
in the area, the Bush administration has pressured
his government to turn this "gift of the people of
the United States" into a toll road, charging each
driver $20 for a road-use permit valid for one
month. In this way, according to American experts
providing highly paid technical assistance,
Afghanistan can collect $30 million annually from
its impoverished citizens and thereby decrease the
foreign aid "burden" on the United States.
Is it any wonder that foreign aid seems to
ordinary Afghans to be something only foreigners
enjoy? At one end of the infamous highway, in
Kabul, Afghans complain about the fancy
restaurants where those experts, technicians, and
other foreigners gather, men and women together,
to drink alcohol, carry on, and plunge half-naked
into swimming pools. They object to the
brothels -- eighty of them by 2005 -- that house
women trafficked in to serve the "needs" of
foreign men. They complain that half the capital
city still lies in ruins, that many people still
live in tents, that thousands can't find jobs,
that children go hungry, that schools and
hospitals are overcrowded, that women in tattered
burqas still beg in the streets and turn to
prostitution, that children are kidnapped and sold
into slavery or murdered for their kidneys or
eyes. They wonder where the promised aid money
went and what the puppet government can possibly
do to make things better.
At the other end of the highway, in Kandahar
city -- President Karzai's home town - and in the
southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul,
and Uruzgan, Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah is
reported to have more than 12,000 men under arms
and squads of suicide bombers at the ready. They
ambush newly arrived NATO troops. The embattled
British commander, Lieutenant-General Richards,
recently issued a warning: "We need to realize
that we could actually fail here."
The U.S. attacks the Taliban, as it did in 2001,
with air power. (The Times of London reports that
in May alone, U.S. planes flew an "astonishing"
750 bombing raids.) Every day brings new reports
of NATO and Taliban combat casualties, and of
"suspected" Taliban as well as civilians killed,
long range, by American bombs.
In the meantime, the Taliban take control of
villages; they murder teachers and blow up
schools. U.S.-led drug eradication teams take
control of villages and destroy the poppy crops of
poor farmers. Caught as usual in the middle of
warring factions, Afghans of the south and east
long ago ceased to wonder where the money went.
Instead they wonder who the government is. And
what ever happened to "peace"

Journalist and photographer Ann Jones spent much
of the last four years in Afghanistan working as a
human rights researcher and women's advocate with
international humanitarian agencies and teaching
English to Kabul high school English teachers. She
writes about her Afghan experience for the Nation
magazine and notably in a new book Kabul in
Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan
(Metropolitan Books, 2006). For more on her, check
out her website.

Edited by author 09-17-2006 03:50 PM
 The U.S. Global Empire


There is a new empire in town, and its global presence is increasing every day.

The kingdom of Alexander the Great reached all the way to the borders of India. The Roman Empire controlled the Celtic regions of Northern Europe and all of the Hellenized states that bordered the Mediterranean. The Mongol Empire, which was the largest contiguous empire in history, stretched from Southeast Asia to Europe. The Byzantine Empire spanned the years 395 to 1453. In the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire stretched from the Persian Gulf in the east to Hungary in the northwest; and from Egypt in the south to the Caucasus in the north. At the height of its dominion, the British Empire included almost a quarter of the world’s population.

Nothing, however, compares to the U.S. global empire. What makes U.S. hegemony unique is that it consists, not of control over great land masses or population centers, but of a global presence unlike that of any other country in history.

The extent of the U.S. global empire is almost incalculable. The latest "Base Structure Report" of the Department of Defense states that the Department’s physical assets consist of "more than 600,000 individual buildings and structures, at more than 6,000 locations, on more than 30 million acres." The exact number of locations is then given as 6,702 – divided into large installations (115), medium installations (115), and small installations/locations (6,472). This classification can be deceiving, however, because installations are only classified as small if they have a Plant Replacement Value (PRV) of less than $800 million.

Although most of these locations are in the continental United States, 96 of them are in U.S. territories around the globe, and 702 of them are in foreign countries. But as Chalmers Johnson has documented, the figure of 702 foreign military installations is too low, for it does not include installations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan. Johnson estimates that an honest count would be closer to 1,000.

The number of countries that the United States has a presence in is staggering. According the U.S. Department of State’s list of "Independent States in the World," there are 192 countries in the world, all of which, except Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, have diplomatic relations with the United States. All of these countries except one (Vatican City) are members of the United Nations. According to the Department of Defense publication, "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country," the United States has troops in 135 countries. Here is the list:
Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Antigua
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belgium
Belize
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burma
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Congo
Costa Rica
Cote D’lvoire
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominican Republic
East Timor
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Fiji

Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guatemala
Guinea
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Liberia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Mali
Malta
Mexico
Mongolia
Morocco
Mozambique
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
 Niger
Nigeria
North Korea
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia and Montenegro
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovenia
Spain
South Africa
South Korea
Sri Lanka
Suriname
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Uruguay
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

This means that the United States has troops in 70 percent of the world’s countries. The average American could probably not locate half of these 135 countries on a map.

To this list could be added regions like the Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia, Gibraltar, and the Atlantic Ocean island of St. Helena, all still controlled by Great Britain, but not considered sovereign countries. Greenland is also home to U.S. troops, but is technically part of Denmark. Troops in two other regions, Kosovo and Hong Kong, might also be included here, but the DOD’s "Personnel Strengths" document includes U.S. troops in Kosovo under Serbia and U.S. troops in Hong Kong under China.

Possessions of the United States like Guam, Johnston Atoll, Puerto Rico, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and the Virgin Islands are likewise home to U.S. troops. Guam has over 3,200.

Regular troop strength ranges from a low of 1 in Malawi to a high of 74,796 in Germany. At the time the most recent "Personnel Strengths" was released by the government (September 30, 2003), there were 183,002 troops deployed to Iraq, an unspecified number of which came from U.S. forces in Germany and Italy. The total number of troops deployed abroad as of that date was 252,764, not including U.S. troops in Iraq from the United States. Total military personnel on September 30, 2003, was 1,434,377. This means that 17.6 percent of U.S. military forces were deployed on foreign soil, and certainly over 25 percent if U.S. troops in Iraq from the United States were included. But regardless of how many troops we have in each country, having troops in 135 countries is 135 countries too many.

The U. S. global empire – an empire that Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Genghis Khan, Suleiman the Magnificent, Justinian, and King George V would be proud of.

March 16, 2004

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting and economics at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL. Visit his website.

Copyright © 2004 LewRockwell.com

Economy Booms ... for Billionaires

By Holly Sklar
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
via Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger
Tuesday, October 3, 2006

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll...D=/20061003/OPINION...

Millionaires are so last millennium. The new Forbes 400 list of richest Americans is billionaires only.

If you're net worth is a mere $999 million, forget it. A billion means a thousand million, and that's the Forbes 400 minimum -- up from $900 million in 2005.

Donald Trump and two of his kids grace the Forbes 400 cover, but ranked No. 94 with $2.9 billion, Trump's a long way from No. 1 Bill Gates with $53 billion.

The combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans is a record-breaking $1.25 trillion. That's about the same amount of wealth held by half the U.S. population, numbering 57 million households.

The economy is booming for billionaires. It's a bust for many other Americans.

A record 400 Americans are billionaires -- and a record 47 million Americans have no health insurance. America has 400 billionaires -- and 37 million people below the official poverty line.

The official poverty line for one person was just $9,973 in 2005 (latest data). That wouldn't cover the custom-made men's shoes ($4,128) and Hermes purse ($6,250) on the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index. The official poverty line of $15,577 for a three-person family is lower than the cost of the Patek Philippe men's gold watch ($17,600).

The Forbes 400 minimum is up $100 million since 2005, but the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour -- just $10,712 a year -- since 1997. GOP leaders in Congress have been holding a raise for minimum wage workers hostage to more giant tax cuts for wealthy inheritors.

Wealth isn't trickling down. It's flooding up -- from workers to bosses, small investors to big, poorer to richer.

The heirs to Wal-Mart founders Sam and Bud Walton have a combined $82.5 billion -- while the children of Wal-Mart workers swell the ranks of state health insurance programs for the neediest.

In today's corporate America, workers see gutted paychecks and pensions despite rising worker productivity, while CEOs get golden pay, perks, pensions and parachutes. The pay gap between average workers and CEOs has grown nine times wider since the 1970s.

The number of billionaires is a record high, but the share of national income going to wages and salaries is at a record low.

U.S. corporate profits increased 21 percent in the past year, Market Watch reported in March. "Profits have been so high because almost all of the benefits from productivity improvements are flowing to the owners of capital rather than to the workers," said Market Watch.

The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans (minimum net worth $6 million) owned 62 percent of the nation's business assets, 51 percent of stocks and 70 percent of bonds as of 2004, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances - which excludes the Forbes 400. That's way up from 1989, when the wealthiest 1 percent owned 54 percent of business assets, 41 percent of stocks and 52 percent of bonds.

Our growing economy is not producing a growing middle class, but a richer aristocracy.

The high point for median household income - the income of the household in the middle -- was $47,671 in 1999, adjusted for inflation. In 2005, median household income was $1,345 less at $46,326. In the same period, the Forbes 400 gained more than 100 billionaires.

Government policies are fueling rising inequality. Taxpayers with incomes above $1 million will see their after-tax income grow by about 6 percent this year thanks to tax cuts the nation can't afford.

In an economy where money is flowing up to the very top, even college-educated workers are going backward. Inflation-adjusted median household income was lower in 2005 than 1999 even when the householder had a bachelor's degree, master's degree, professional degree or doctorate.

The problem is much bigger than the rich getting richer, while the poor get poorer. The really rich are getting richer at the expense of most everyone else.

Solutions include restoring the link between rising worker productivity and pay, raising the miserly minimum wage, narrowing the obscene pay gap between workers and CEOs, rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy -- and stop taxing income from work more than income from capital gains.

-----------

Holly Sklar is co-author of A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future (www.letjusticeroll.org) and Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us. Readers may write to her at hsklaraol.com and at P.O. Box 301045, Boston MA 02130.

 I hope that george w bush develops a rare,rabid strain of mutant crabs that will slowly and painfully chew off his @#*@%%@.Then I hope that they will deficate them down his big fat $%@#* swallowing,republican orafice.In closing,I would like to remind Americans of the following wisdom..."vote democrat and LIVE like a republican".Thank you for reading my opinion. As the old saying goes...opinions are like George w bushes, everyone has one.

Hot news from after-coup Thailand by our friend Satya Sagar:

 

Thai Coup In Hot Soup

Satya Sagar

 

It is a staple dish you will not find in any recipe book on Thailand’s famous cuisine. And yet for most connoisseurs of modern Thai history a ‘coup in hot ‘n spicy soup’ is always an eagerly awaited meal.


Less than a month after the Thai military took power by ousting the government of Premier Thaksin Shinawatra in a ‘happy’, bloodless coup all indications are this favourite national delicacy is being cooked once again.


Stirring the pot are a diverse range of actors from pro-democracy student activists and academics to taxi drivers and rural supporters of Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party. Discontent over imposition of martial law, the composition of the new ‘handpicked’ National Assembly and contradictory policies introduced by the new regime are providing the heat required to complete the cooking process.


All this is still happening on a slow, burning fire but once in a while the flames leap upward.


On October 1, for example, as soldiers posted on a key Bangkok thoroughfare following the coup watched with disbelief, one of the city’s ubiquitous taxis broke through their check post and rammed into a tank stationed there. Both sides of the taxi were sprayed with messages in black reading "the destroyers of the country", and "martyr" was written on the taxi's boot.


Later on talking to reporters Nuamthong Praiwan, the 60-year-old taxi driver, who broke three ribs in the high-speed crash and was put on a respirator said, “ I will do it again if I get another chance”.


To understand the poignancy of this suicidal act of defiance one has to consider that displays of such extreme passion even on personal issues, let alone political ones, are very rare in Thailand. Sustaining physical injury deliberately for a cause is quite out of the question normally.


But these are not normal times in Thailand and that Nuamthong chose to do what he did is just one small indication of the simmering social volcano the country is sitting on – never mind the guns ‘n roses images flashed around by the global media.


Even more ominously, in some districts of northern and north-eastern Thailand, strongholds of the Thai Rak Thai, there have been reports of several state-run schools ‘mysteriously’ burning down. Nobody has claimed responsibility but the arson is believed to be the work of Thaksin’s supporters or simply those who have bad memories of the Thai military’s long history of misrule in the country’s past.


Protests against the coup, though not as dramatic as ramming a taxi into a tank or schools on fire, have also been steadily picking up steam among the Thai intelligentsia.

 

In Bangkok student protestors demanding civil and political freedom recently burnt a copy of the new interim charter announced by the coup makers in place of the popularly framed 1997 Constitution. The protest was the fifth by the group since the coup and defiantly staged outside the headquarters of the Thai Army. Under martial law, political assemblies of more than five people are banned in Thailand.

 

"The military dumped the constitution drafted by the people, so we are burning the charter issued undemocratically by them," Chotisak On-soong from the Students Activities Information Resource group told Thai media. A dozen labour representatives also showed up later in black clothing to denounce the military.

 

The Council for Media Reform (CMR), a platform of academics, journalists and activists who fought for greater media freedom under the previous Thaksin Shinawatra regime, also held a protest at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument demanding restoration of the 1997 Constitution.

 

The CMR has also criticized the presence of military ‘monitors’ at television stations imposed after the coup and the resulting climate of fear among media personnel.

 

In the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, five scholars led by well-known historian Nidhi Eawsriwong, publicly tore up an imitation of the interim charter announced by the military junta to symbolise their opposition to the coup makers.

 

A day after the protest, the website of the ‘Midnight University’, of which all the five academics were members, was shut down by the Information and Communications Technology Ministry. Their six-year-old website, had became a platform for people who disagreed with the coup d’état to exchange their opinions.

 

The Midnight University is a unique initiative by progressive Thai academics in Chiang Mai to take their lectures directly to interested members of the public.

 

The National Security Council (NSC), as the military junta calls itself has asked for a ban on political web boards found to contain ‘provocative’ messages. Other anti-coup websites have also been closed for containing criticisms of the new military regime.

 

There is obviously quite a diversity of motives among those opposed to the coup, though what binds all of them is a clear rejection of dictatorship in any form as a ‘solution’ for the problems of a budding electoral democracy.

 

Taxi drivers, who number a couple of hundred thousand in Bangkok, have many reasons to be upset about the ouster of the Thaksin administration by the Thai military.

 

Early on after getting elected to power in 2000 for example the Thaksin government cracked down hard on urban mafias that collected ‘protection’ money from the capital city’s motorcycle taxi drivers, helping them increase their monthly income. For regular four-wheel taxi drivers it offered easy loans to buy their own vehicles and cushioned the impact of rising oil prices by making available cheaper substitutes like liquefied petroleum and natural gas.

 

All this together with the fact that Thaksin – attempting to create an electoral base among the rural poor- poured money into health, education and employment schemes in Thailand’s impoverished northeastern provinces, from where most taxi drivers hail, made him a hero among them. After all – none of the numerous regimes that held power in Thailand before Thaksin thought of taxi drivers as worth paying any attention to - let alone helping them.

 

Far from the world of ordinary taxi drivers, for the protesting academics in Chiang Mai and student groups in Bangkok, the military coup, is a severe blow to the development of a mature democratic polity in the country. Many of them were strong critics of Thaksin but now the feel the coup, justified by its backers in the name of preventing ‘social divisions’ and ‘restoring democracy’, is a throwback to the dark old days from Thailand’s authoritarian past.

 

The new interim Charter imposed by the military for instance does not provide at all for accountability of the new regime to any independent body let alone the general public. The coup makers have also unilaterally announced several decrees that have a big impact on the freedoms of the population.

 

Coup orders, like the ban on any political gathering with more than five participants, have become law without any debate and can be undone only by fresh legislation passed by a future Parliament. The current interim charter and the various decrees issued by the military junta will remain in place for another year, at the end of which the coup makers have promised to hold national elections.

 

A few words are due here about the 1997 Constitution, which was written with wide public participation and is easily Thailand’s most democratic charter to date (the country has had 17 constitutions in seven decades and is now preparing to write the 18th one).

 

Among other progressive clauses it allowed the public to recall members of parliament, initiate impeachment of bureaucrats, ministers and even officials of the Supreme Court. It also set up a variety of institutions that were supposed to provide independent oversight of government functioning with substantial powers to make corrections wherever required.

 

There were some serious flaws with the 1997 Constitution though, an important one being the disbarring of candidates without a university graduate degree from becoming members of parliament. In a country where a majority lives in the countryside but only a privileged few have the means of going to college that clause more than anything else gives away the deep bias that the ‘liberal’ framers of the Constitution had against ordinary ‘illiterate’ Thai folk.

 

The disdain of the urban middle classes in Bangkok for rural Thai folk- whom they contemptuously call ‘village fools’ - comes from the highly elitist nature of Thai society under which only a handful of ‘educated’ and ‘cultured’ people are supposed to know what is ‘best for the country’. While Thaksin was rightly accused of trying to ‘buy’ support from the poor, his conservative opponents - as a matter of traditional ‘right’- expect the masses to keep them in power without getting anything in return.

 

(The new government of retired General Surayud Chulanont and the 250-member National Assembly handpicked by the coup makers for example, has hardly any representation from among rural Thais or urban workers and is instead packed with military men, bureaucrats and sections of Thai civil society who opposed the previous government.)

 

Another problem with the 1997 Constitution was it never took into account the possibility of the emergence of a powerful political party with a charismatic leader who could dominate all democratic institutions. The rise of Thaksin Shinawatra in 2000 created precisely such a situation, unprecedented in the usually fragmented Thai political scenario.

 

Thaksin, with full domination of both the parliament and the senate, of course took full advantage of the situation by packing all supposedly independent institutions with his own people. Few things that Thaksin did were ‘unconstitutional’ because those interpreting the text were very often under his government’s influence.

 

Despite such loopholes and flaws the 1997 Constitution, many activists in Thailand feel, can be the only basis for any new Constitution that the military rulers may have in mind. The prospects of getting anything even like the old one however appear remote.

 

The coup makers have proposed a complicated plan of handpicking a Constitution Drafting Assembly that will come up with a new Constitution within six months, hold public hearings and even a national referendum. The catch is that if the Thai people say ‘No’, the authority to decide the shape of Thailand’s 18th Constitution reverts back – quite ominously- to the military junta.

 

Irrespective of how the new Thai constitution finally looks like it is becoming clear that mere tinkering with the paperwork is not going to solve the problems of Thailand’s fledgling and highly unstable electoral democracy. One of the less discussed reasons for such fragility of democratic institutions is the complete absence of any left political party in the country.

 

Anyone surveying the spectrum of political parties in Thailand currently can easily see that every one of them is a right of centre front for one business lobby or the other. This has led to an obvious imbalance in the country’s electoral democracy, which stands on just one – right- leg and falls down at the slightest political or social provocation.

 

A popular left party – even garden-variety social democrats – openly taking up issues of the rural and urban poor, youth, women and workers will not only provide a much-needed counterweight to the forces of conservatism but also put Thai democracy on a much stronger foundation. Thailand can learn a lot from the South Korean struggle against authoritarian rule over the past three decades in this regard.

 

However anything ‘left’ is still a sensitive subject in Thailand, which has a long history of anti-communism dating even prior to the US war on Vietnam, which obviously shifted policies further rightward.

 

Thailand’s first Prime Minister Pridi Banomyong, was ousted by the Thai military way back in the late thirties for advocating an allegedly ‘communist’ economic policy of land reforms and state planning.

 

Thailand did have a communist party, like many other countries in the region, but it turned into a low key armed insurgency only in the early fifties after being banned and prevented from functioning openly. The threat of a ‘communist takeover’ has been a bogey for the Thai military and conservatives to murder their opponents, suspend democratic rights and stay in power ever since.

 

In October 1976 a right-wing coup killed hundreds of students accusing them of being ‘Marxists’, an event that ironically succeeded in pushing them into the arms of the underground Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) that till then had very limited presence among the urban intelligentsia. The CPT, however collapsed in the late seventies under the weight of its own contradictions, a pro-China organization operating from pro-Vietnam Laos.

 

Interestingly the lack of a functioning left party has not meant the complete absence of a left agenda or activities in the country’s politics either. For what Thailand got in the absence of an organized left is what can only be called a ‘dispersed’ left.

 

There are former left activists for example, in academia, in the media, among artists and in the dozens of NGOs that have mushroomed in the last two decades. Many of them are doing outstanding and very creative work to further the rights of ordinary Thai people and create greater democratic space.

 

There are left-wingers in some of the mainstream political parties also, either there as pure opportunists or misguidedly trying to ‘manipulate’ the system for public good. Several former student radicals for instance were among the advisers driving Thaksin’s populist schemes, whose success clearly shows the need for organizations that systematically take up issues of the poor. (The new military appointed government, in an interesting imitation of Thaksin’s much-criticised ‘populism’ has announced free healthcare for Thais in place of the earlier of scheme providing medical treatment at just 30 baht (80 US cents) per visit.)

 

Of course there were left wing critics of Thaksin and his advisers too, many of whom took to the streets against his government’s authoritarian behaviour and alleged corruption. On many other occasions in the country’s past also the ‘dispersed left’’ has played a key role in fighting for democratic norms.

 

Even sections of Thailand’s traditional institutions take up left issues from time to time. After the 1997 Asian economic crisis that hit Thailand hard the Thai monarch for example promoted the concept of a ‘self-sufficient economy’ and criticized growing consumerism and economic policies that desperately sought export-led growth without considering it social consequences.

 

In other words Thailand is faced with the amazing situation where there seem to be leftists of different shades all over the place but not a single left party to give electoral expression to their ideas and aims.

 

A new left party in Thailand (more than one is also welcome to add some diversity!) need not of course be a copy of anything that existed in the past but one based on a better reading of the social, economic and very importantly – cultural- setting of Thailand. Maybe it could even be something like what the Buddha, the world’s best known social revolutionary before Jesus Christ, would have set up if he were around in Thailand (he is certainly missing from the local monasteries!).

 

As public opposition to the Thai military grows over the next year and its illegitimate new regime dissolves into a slow cooking soup, some of Thailand’s more visionary activists can work on making sure it turns – with the right ingredients and temperature- into a very tasty Thai dish.

 

Satya Sagar is a writer and video maker based in New Delhi. He spent over a decade in Thailand during the nineties and can be reached at sagarnama@yahoo.com

The Forgiven: Clint Eastwood's Good War
 
 November 01, 2006
 

In the midst of our current, perpetual war against evil, America is yet again reflecting upon the "good war." If Clint Eastwood is allowed to recycle those images in "Flags of Our Fathers", as the author of an alternative history of WWII, why shouldn't I state my case yet again?
 
The U.S. fought that war against racism with a segregated army.
 
It fought that war to end atrocities by participating in the shooting of surrendering soldiers, the starvation of POWs, the deliberate bombing of civilians, wiping out hospitals, strafing lifeboats, and in the Pacific boiling flesh off enemy skulls to make table ornaments for sweethearts.
 
FDR, the leader of this anti-racist, anti-atrocity force, signed Executive Order 9066, interning over 100,000 Japanese-Americans without due process. Thus, in the name of taking on the architects of German prison camps became the architect of American prison camps.
 
Before, during, and after the Good War, the American business class traded with the enemy. Among the U.S. corporations that invested in the Nazis were Ford, GE, Standard Oil, Texaco, ITT, IBM, and GM (top man William Knudsen called Nazi Germany "the miracle of the 20th century").
 
And while the U.S. regularly turned away Jewish refugees to face certain death in Europe, another group of refugees was welcomed with open arms after the war: fleeing Nazi war criminals who were used to help create the CIA and advance America's nuclear program.
 
The enduring Good War fable goes well beyond Memorial Day barbecues and flickering black-and-white movies on late night TV. WWII is America's most popular war. According to accepted history, it was an inevitable war forced upon a peaceful people thanks to a surprise attack by a sneaky enemy. This war, then and now, has been carefully and consciously sold to us as a life-and-death battle against pure evil. For most Americans, WWII was nothing less than good and bad going toe-to-toe in khaki fatigues.
     
But, Hollywood aside, neither Ryan Phillippe nor John Wayne ever set foot on Iwo Jima. Despite the former president's dim recollections, Ronald Reagan did not liberate any concentration camps. And, contrary to popular belief, FDR never actually got around to sending our boys "over there" to take on Hitler's Germany until after the Nazis had already declared war on the U.S. first.
 
Films like "Flags of Our Fathers" and Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" teach us that even if war is hell and the good guys sometimes lose their way, there is still no reason to question either the morality of the mission or the stature of that particular generation.
 
Revolutionary pacifist A.J. Muste said in 1941, "The problem after war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson?" Precisely how and when such a lesson will be taught is not known, but it can be safely assumed that this lesson will never be learned from a standard college textbook, an insipid bestseller, or a manipulative box office smash. The past six decades have also shown that without such a lesson, there will be many more wars and many more lies told to obscure the truth about them.
 
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.

Work From Home Best Business Opportunity Home Workers Needed! Full training provided, no previous experience is necessary. Full or part time positions available. Visit us at:-
http://www.clicknearn.net/affiliate/affiliate.php?id109&group=2

This very interesting and informative article by our Washington friend Jeff Steinberg fits well with our latest transmissions. It appears in the Nov. 17, 2006 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Cheney and Neo-Cons Plotting More Wars

by Jeffrey Steinberg

 

On March 11, 2003, as final preparations were under way for the neo-cons' greatest triumph--the invasion of Iraq--New Yorker magazine investigative reporter Seymour Hersh exposed an extortion scheme by neo-con Richard Perle, to extract tens of millions of dollars out of the Saudi royal family, in league with the infamous Iran-Contra arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. The scheme involved a Perle company, Trireme Partners LP, which wanted a piece of the billions of dollars in homeland security contracts soon to be issued by the Kingdom. The proposal, according to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, smacked of a quid pro quo: Perle, a leading critic of the Saudi regime, would drop the propaganda barrage and the calls for regime change, coming out of his Defense Policy Board, and the Saudis would cough up.

Several senior U.S. intelligence officials recently told EIR that some higher-ups in the Saudi royal family, perhaps including Prince Bandar, who is now the national security advisor to King Abdullah, regret that they didn't take the bait and pay off Perle and his partners back in January 2003. A few million dollars might have saved them several years of headaches, as the neo-con propaganda Wurlitzer waged a non-stop regime-change campaign against them. But even more to the point, suddenly, the Saudis, along with several other Sunni Arab regimes, find themselves as strange bedfellows with Washington's neo-cons and with the Ehud Olmert government in Israel--in common cause against Iran.

A Nov. 3, 2006 teaser from Vanity Fair magazine revealed that the neo-cons are going through a major retooling--wiping their hands of the entire Iraq fiasco, and placing the blame for the failure squarely on the shoulders of President George W. Bush and his team of national security incompetents and nincompoops. In a preview of a story to appear in the January 2007 Vanity Fair, author David Rose delivered excerpts from interviews he conducted in October 2006 with some of the cream of the neo-con crap--starting with the ``Prince of Darkness,'' Perle himself, and also including Kenneth Adelman, who gained infamy by proposing that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq would be a ``cakewalk''; Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, and Michael Rubin.

Lovers of Iraqi faker Ahmed Chalabi, and Iraq warhawks to a man, these neo-cons are now saying that if they had it to do over again, knowing that the Bush-Cheney-Rice team was the most incompetent national security management group in the post-World War II history of America, they would have opted for an alternative to war.

In a scene worthy of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, these modern-day Brutuses have stabbed President Bush and Condi Rice in the back. As far as the neo-cons are concerned, according to a number of informed Washington sources, both Iraq and George W. Bush are yesterday's news. They are now preparing to survive the fall of the House of Bush, and are already making plans for the next confrontations: against Iran and Russia, to name the top two targets du jour.

While the Bush Presidency is flaming out in the aftermath of what has been dubbed the ``Nov. 7th Massacre,'' the neo-cons are still a formidable force inside the Republican Party, with some leading neo-con superstars, like John Podhoretz, already touting Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as the elephant they intend to ride back into the Oval Office. Across the aisle, another crew of hardcore neo-cons is preparing to surface within the Democratic Party, should a donkey take the Presidency in 2008. It is reminiscent of the Jimmy Carter era, when scores of life-long ``Scoop Jackson Democrats,'' led by Perle, Stephen Bryen, Ledeen, Gaffney, and Elliott Abrams, slithered over to the GOP as ``Reagan Democrats,'' and, after Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1980 over Jimmy Carter, occupied top civilian posts at the Pentagon, and cushy consulting jobs with the Reagan National Security Council.

Whichever party lands in the White House come January 2009, the neo-cons hope to be there to share in the spoils. Either way, they are busily organizing a ``Get Iran'' war alliance with frightened Sunni regimes in the Persian Gulf and Arab world and Israel--to make sure that the Bush-Cheney regime commits one more fatal atrocity--a military strike on Iran's purported secret nuclear weapons sites--before leaving office (see preceding article).

To make sure that this Iran war happens before Team Bush leaves office, the neo-cons are working through their one reliable partner remaining inside the regime--Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney's office remains Neo-con Central, with David Wurmser and John Hannah still on staff. Elliott Abrams remains the Cheney ``mole'' at the National Security Council.

According to Middle East and Washington sources, this crew was responsible, earlier this year, for trashing all efforts by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad to reopen direct peace talks with Israel, talks that no Israeli regime prior to that of Ariel Sharon, would have flat-out rejected, no matter how much pressure came down from Washington.

More recently, they are reportedly pushing a covert weapons-smuggling operation into the West Bank, arming Fatah factions to launch what would rapidly become a full-scale civil war against Hamas. The noted retired Israeli general, Shlomo Brom, in a recent paper for the Jaffe Center at Tel Aviv University, warned that such an outbreak of communal violence among the Palestinians would be bad for Israel, provoking a likely split between a Fatah-controlled West Bank and a Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Both sides would be vying to prove that they are more effective in terrorizing Israel, through suicide bombings and rocket attacks, the general warned, and this would make life unbearable in the Jewish state.

Arab sources have added that in his recent trip to Washington, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt was given a similar offer of ``covert military aid'' to take on Hezbollah inside that war-ruined nation, which still hasn't recovered from its 15-year civil war (1975-90). Such covert operations, aimed at provoking the neo-cons' beloved perpetual warfare throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region, do not depend on Pentagon muscle, so the departure of Donald Rumsfeld from the scene, and his replacement by former CIA Director Robert Gates, a Brent Scowcroft and James Baker III ally (and presumable a Dick Cheney enemy), does not necessarily interfere with the game.

In fact, as the Democrats prepare to take back control of the U.S. House and Senate in January 2007, they face a world map of hot-spots, all set to blow, with the slightest provocation (see accompanying map).

Several senior Washington intelligence veterans, and one regional vice president of a major U.S. defense firm, say that their greatest fear--between now and the New Year when the Democrats take the keys to Capitol Hill back--is a ``Gulf of Tonkin'' incident, a provocation covertly arranged originating from Washington, that would provide the pretext for war. The most likely target of such a scheme: Iran. The most likely architect of such an operation: Dick Cheney and his remaining coterie of neo-con troublemakers and whatever assets they have recruited from within the Special Forces community and the ``black operations'' side of the intelligence community. One burning question is whether President Bush has already signed a Presidential Intelligence Finding, authorizing these covert tricks.

On Oct. 10, 2006, the web-based magazine World Politics Watch ran a provocative story, echoing the new neo-con scheme, under the headline ``Mideast Realignment: Could Iran Unite Arabs and Israelis?'' Noting the rumors, officially denied by both sides, that Prince Bandar had secretly met in Jordan with a top Israeli government official, Frida Ghitis wrote that ``a handful of Middle East observers were not surprised to hear of possible talks between Israel and the kingdom. That's because they predict a major realignment will reshape this region. The cause,'' she continued, ``of this gradual but far-reaching political transformation is fear of Shi'ite Iran by Sunni Arabs. As a result, the traditional enemy of Arabs, Israel, could gradually begin developing a subtle but powerful alliance with Sunni Muslim regimes in the Arab world.... It is this natural convergence of interests that has the potential to recast the political landscape from the traditional one of Arabs versus Israelis, which has dominated the Middle East since the late 1940s, into a Sunni vs. Shi'a alignment, with Israel and Sunni governments on the same side.''

This, Washington sources emphasize, is the latest neo-con wet dream. For years the neo-cons have been preaching their own brand of Leon Trotsky's ``Permanent Revolution,'' masked in the cry for ``democracy.'' From the start of the Bush-Cheney regime up to recent months, the number one target of these latter-day Jacobins had been what Middle Eastern historians referred to as the ``Sunni Stability Belt,'' the ruling combination of hardline monarchies and dictatorships that kept the oil patch safe and stable from the time of Sykes-Picot (1916) on. Now that the neo-con ``Shi'ite Card'' has turned Iraq into Hell-on-Earth, the flexible neo-con fantasists have modified their rhetoric, to suddenly find common cause with the very Sunni Arab monarchs and dictators whom they targeted only months ago, with such schemes as their 1996 ``A Clean Break.''

The neo-cons are shameless sophists, who have no problem distorting the truth beyond recognition--if it suits their goal of perpetual power. Will the Sunni Arab lions and the Israelis be so stupid as to walk into this trap?

Stay tuned.

MAN'S BEAST FRIEND
A FISHERMAN'S DOGS
by Marlow B


A good day on the river was often more enjoyable when spent with a good dog. There are many kinds of dogs, regardless of the breed, bear dogs, young dogs, old dogs, annoying dogs and pleasant dogs, bad dogs and good dogs.

Most of us have enjoyed owning a good fishing dog at one time or another. Some people, well, lets say they never want another dog along on a fishing trip, ever again. Some dogs just aren't cut out to be fishing dogs. My first fishing dog was my constant companion in the '40's. We hunted and fished almost constantly during our summers in foothills of Southern California. We fished for Catfish, Crawdads and whatever would take my crude offerings. Almo was always there, watching for Rattlesnakes and killing them often but Almo died young. I never knew why but I had my suspicions. He was the smartest of a litter of 13, born on my sister's bed. That was cool, she hated dogs. I had other dogs after Almo, not a lot of dogs, but none was quite the dog Almo was. I have been lucky though. I suppose that's because most of my dogs have been mongrels so we understood one another and nobody else would give them any attention.

Most of the dogs I have fished with belonged to others and often I never knew who the "others" were. The dogs would show up wanting me to throw their stick or to get a pat on the head. There is a dog on one of my favorite drifts that plays in the water I'm fishing when I'm not quiet enough to sneak past him on my way to the river. He's a nice friendly dog and I like him but for god's sake he just won't leave me alone. Another drift is called "The Two Brown Dog Drift. Just like the other dog, in duplicate. I think I may have out lived those dogs though.

Dogs often lay their head in your lap on the long drive to the river. That's nice. On the way back, they can just ride in the back of the truck because they're either wet, smell like dead fish or both. Dogs can get you in trouble too. Some steal fish and the rightful owner of the fish never believes it's not your dog, whether he is or not. In this circumstance, never call the dog by name, unless his name is Dog.

Dogs have taught me a lot over the years. I have learned to never lay a rod where my dog might want to lay. Dogs chew holes in things like waders and rain jackets. Puppies like to chew cork for some reason. They also eat what ever is handy when hungry and can open the cooler to make it handy. They know what you keep in there. When storing jerky in my jacket pocket, I have learned not to zip it shut. You should train a black dog not to sleep in the path between the bed and the bathroom unless the path is well lit. Never assume your dog knows the way back to the truck. It took a couple of bad experiences before I learned better.

It's a good idea to put a dog snack in your pocket (don't zip it) when scouting new territory. That's an easy way to make friends with a dog that doesn't think you belong there. It has worked for me many times, not always. I learned not to hold the snack for the dog while he "gently" takes it, just in case. Then I did encounter a dog that didn't understand when I ran out of snacks. That was a bad experience. Just disregard this whole paragraph on snacks.

I don't have a dog at present. My last dog was really my daughters dog. Rhea wanted to name the dog after herself and her two friends, Kristin and Sylvia. She came up with Krisilry. Fortunately I was able to convince her that Silkry would represent the three of them just fine. Rhea left her behind when she moved in to town. We called the dog Sil. As is always the way, Sil didn't last as long as I had hopped. I decided to enjoy other people's dogs for now and, when I'm old enough, I'll get another dog that will hopefully out last me. I know, "that's selfish, the dog will morn", but I plan to get even more cantankerous and ornery as time goes by and the dog won't miss me at all. Than again, all dogs don't turn out to be good dogs. I guess I'll just ponder the whole idea for a while longer.

*********************************************
Marlow B
Writer, genealogist, co-editor and writer for
http://margotbworldnews.com
email:marlowb@verizon.net

HindustanTimes.com
                       RETURN TO GRASSROOTS

by Tyler Walker Williams
November 25, 2006
        
To many Americans, and to some Indians as well, the recent win of a radical Left group like AISA in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) elections probably seemed like an anachronism: according to the logic of the current neo-liberal regimes in both countries, Marxist and Communist thought and political relevance died with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc in the early 1990s.

The spokespersons of neo-liberalism and free market policies in the Bush government, as well as their counterparts (or agents) in the UPA government here in India, clearly agree that US military and economic hegemony — for they are two sides of the same coin — are unavoidable, and are close to being established in every last corner of the globe. (The Indian public has not forgotten the statements by not only the UPA but earlier the NDA that one must cater to the demands of a world-power like the US on everything from nuclear policy to domestic economic initiatives.)

Elite ideologues in both countries try to give support to this theory: Francis Fukuyama and company have declared the ‘end of history’ and that ‘the last man’ has been reached — i.e. capitalism has triumphed as a world system leaving no viable alternative. The cult of globalisation seems to have gripped every intellectual and policy-maker in every country: talking heads babble about some amorphous angel of globalisation that will open every market, flood it with knowledge and products, and liberate the stupefied masses of the developing world from their ignorance and backwardness.

Why then do we suddenly see a resurgence of Left thought and political action across every developed and developing nation from India to France to Venezuela? It would seem that the more blatant American imperialism becomes and the more exposed its relationship with the ruling classes of developing countries like India becomes, the more clearly the working masses of these countries understand the nature of their exploitation and who is responsible for it. The complicity of the ruling elite in India with the Bush government in implementing anti-worker, anti-people policies has at this point become so naked that no fig-leaf can hide it: the signing of nuclear agreements, creation of Special Economic Zones, and imposition of new patent laws in recent months have only reinforced the public’s conviction that India’s rulers are only looking out for their own.

In the US, decades of conservative rule have been slowly eating away at the rights of workers, minorities and women, rights that were won after long and hard battles culminating in the victories of the 1960s and 70s. The social welfare programmes that were created through their struggles have been gradually dismantled by the successive administrations of Reagan, Bush Sr, and now Bush Jr, with the Clinton administration allowing them to be further eroded during its tenure, dissolving any remaining doubts in the public mind that the ruling elites of both the Democratic and Republican parties could not care less about the working classes of the country.

Interestingly, however, the explicit imperialist designs of the current Bush administration and its anti-worker, anti-poor policies have provided conditions in which a united pro-people movement can take shape.

Abroad, the Bush government sends the young women and men of the working classes to their graves in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan so that corporate partners of the administration can profit from contracts to ‘rebuild’ these decimated countries, while at home it lets the poor of Louisiana drown under flood waters, tries to take basic reproduction rights away from women, and cuts spending on education and healthcare while giving tax cuts to the richest of the rich.

The more severe the anti-people, anti-democratic policies of the Bush administration become, the more aware the American people become of their repression and exploitation. The more tyrannical and fascist the Bush administration reveals itself to be, the more clearly the American people see who their real enemy is.

The cult-like discourse of pro-globalisation forces has also backfired in a certain sense: it has made the working poor of various countries more aware of their common exploitation and their common enemy. It has shown the working poor of countries like India and the US just how much they have in common. The standardisation of multinational corporations’ anti-human work culture across the globe gives us all a first-hand experience of how we’re all being equally exploited.

The workers in Costa Coffee outlets are not even allowed to choose the music playing in their restaurant, whether it’s in London or Delhi; call centre workers from the US who lost their jobs to outsourcing come to India to find their replacements are being subjected to the same long hours and inhuman working conditions that they endured in the US.

One thing has also become clear: we cannot rely upon the elite ideologues of any of our countries to lead us out of our poverty and exploitation; we will have to do it ourselves. The workers of all nations are realising that policy discussions between heads of state and their elite intellectuals in air-conditioned five-star boardrooms will not render any solutions to their problems. It is for this reason that people are beginning to re-discover the power of grassroots mobilisation.

Whether it be the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the protests in the North East against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, or the protests of adivasis and peasants in Kalinganagar and Singur against the government-brokered usurpation of their lands by corporations, we see a return to grassroots mobilisation, to the belief that the only thing that will stop the state or the private corporations it patronises from treading on our rights is a large-scale movement of common people.

Not only that, but these separate groups are beginning to see the necessity and benefit of joining together to pursue a larger pro-people agenda, as evidenced by cross-cooperation of pro-student, pro-worker, and pro-minority groups. In the US too, the anti-war movement has provided a space in which students, workers and minorities have united and begun to develop a broader agenda. For the first time in several decades, the workers, students, and minorities of America are talking about systematic inequalities in US democracy, and about how to pursue a common agenda of economic and social equality for all.

The recent election of Left parties, especially of a radical-Left party like AISA of which I am a part, is a sign of a shift in the consciousness of students and the student movement as a whole in India. It is a sign that students see their destiny as inter-linked with the destiny of workers, farmers, the poor and the marginalised. It is a sign that students are becoming aware of their responsibility as educated, privileged members of society to be the voice of those who have none in government. And it is a sign that across the world, students, workers, and the oppressed have awakened to their common bonds and their common programme of establishing true equality and democracy across the globe.

(The writer is the first foreign national to be elected vice-president of JNUSU.)

 Our wonderful Polish philosopher-friend Marek G wrote this interesting report about changes in Eastern Europe. Despite some difficult language, it's worth to be read with attention, as Marek explains otherwise unexplainable problems there. See full version including some theological points on Marek's site.
Dr Marek Glogoczowski

 

Eastern Europe: Manufacturing of a „Catholic” Docility
 

The principal feature, which characterizes, already for the second decade, the life of the “won to freedom and democracy” post-Soviet part of the world, is its aggressive Americanization. This truly global phenomenon starts from most elementary nutritive habits, symbolized by Mac Donald’s “junk food refueling stations”, and runs through the whole spectrum of both “plebeian” and “high” culture, ending up in the installation of American citizens at the leadership of nations leftover from the former Soviet Union. In Baltic states actual presidents (Estonia, Lithuania) and Prime Ministers (Latvia), are bearers of American passports, in Ukraine the actual wife of its president is the former worker of the Department of State, in Georgia its aggressive, loving to speak in English, president is the graduate of Columbia University, and in Poland the actual Minister of War, Radek Sikorski, which is the bearer of the British passport, is the member of so-called “neo-conservative think tank” in Washington, D.C. (I wrote purposefully “Minister of War”, not of Defense, for the Polish Army become “miniaturized” to the size hardly over 100 thousand soldiers, for a country of nearly 40 millions of inhabitants. This mini-army is officially trained only for “antiterrorist missions” in distant countries and seas. In particular the Polish “mini Navy” is supposed to defend the Southern Pacific, as told us, during a meeting at my Pomeranian Pedagogical Academy, the freshly formed in USA commandor of Polish Navy.)

 

It is thus evident, that also the political life in these post-socialist (but not “post communist”, as propaganda insists) countries ever more resembles the political spectrum existing in USA. Of course we witness here the development of a typically Anglo-Saxon “bipartisan” system, diverging in its programs in the same manner as the American Democratic “Pepsi Party” diverges in its political taste from the USA Republican “Coca Cola Club”. The most recent, slightly funny example, up to which point the realm of the sociopolitical – or rather sociopathological – life in Poland started to imitate the “cultural spirit” present in USA, gave the proposal, of the minister of Education Roman Giertych, to introduce into the biology course the “science of Creationism”, this at the image of educational practices of certain American “fundamentalist Christian” states. (Of course, on the “science market” in Poland, with creationism competes only the (neo)Darwinian paradigm of “the creation of species, by the means of extermination of not competitive sub-species”; Polish scientific establishment dutifully ignores the more mature “Euro-Continental”, Lamarckian approach to the problem of evolution, present in J-P. Grassé’s book “L’évolution du vivant” and J. Piaget last work “Le comportement, moteur d’évolution”.)

 

All these, truly innumerous, examples of the direction of “development” of Eastern European societies, suggest that in order to see better what is happening in the space from Elbe/Oder to the Pacific Ocean, we have to focus our attention at the development of the American society, which has become a “beacon of nations” to be imitated everywhere. Here of a great help for us is the book, published in 2002 by English journalist Clifford Longley, under the title “Chosen People – the big idea that shapes England and America”. In this voluminous work its author points out that the American populace has become so well “drilled” to behave in a docile manner that whatever the ruling class of this “super” country decides, the populace dutifully obeys. According to Longley, “USA is God”, so no one dares to challenge the Almighty, for such an action is considered not only to be futile, but also noxious to the “Darwinian” social survival of an individual. In particular this “God in form of USA” demands that all remnants of “godless”, collective ownership shall be privatized – in USA only National Parks and the Army remain truly national, and even these “leftovers of the collectivist past” are planned to be privatized too (1). This at the image of the privatization of the rapidly expanding American Penitentiary Complex (in Russian “Gulag”), which at present “hosts” one quarter of all population of prisoners of the world.

 

If we consider the “imperative of privatization”, to be the goal of “God” acting upon our (?) Planet, all major geopolitical events are becoming transparent. I will limit myself to an enumeration of only most visible aspects of these “divine acts of the Lord in form of USA”:

1/ Both the lasting for more than a decade “mole’s war” of USA-NATO against Yugoslavia, and the even more prolonged and bloody war of “axis” USA-GB-Israel against Iraq, were wars for “privatization” of all valuable for invaders riches of these formerly socialist countries.

2/ Also so called “color revolutions”, which finally destroyed the Yugoslavia, and transferred Georgia and than Ukraine into USA semi-colonies, were immediately accompanied by massive privatizations, changing these countries into the New Frontier of greed-minded foreign “investors”.

3/ At present old countries of the European Union are more socialized than its new members like Poland, so quite a number of “Foundations”, localized in principle in England and in USA, are industriously trying to convince the populace of Europe that it urgently has to drop all, remaining from times of the Cold War, social protections. I have in mind in particular the “missionary activity” of this famous Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovski, whom I had a displeasure to meet “face to face” already twice in last 3 decades. He is incessantly touring the Europe, trying to convince its elites that the European Union is a “horrible copy” of the defunct Soviet Union. (Which Bukovski’s “revelation” makes out of USRR a quite prosperous and friendly country!)

4/ There is a continuos “underwater” (as say it in Minsk) war of these Judeo-Anglo-American “foundations” against Bielorussia. This relatively small country, with only ten millions of inhabitants, after the fall of Yugoslavia remains the last “island” in Europe, which stays beyond the grip of “God’s” Kingdom of Private Enterprise Only. Despite that Bielorussia practically has no natural riches, in recent years it started to play a “mini-counterweight” to “God’s” planetary ambitions, especially once it found the common language with other “anti-Western” entities, namely Venezuela and Iran. An interesting fact is that after the failure of “color revolution” in Minsk this spring, the relay in efforts to “domesticate” Bielorussia took Russia, which ultra-rich elite remains hostile to economical and cultural successes of its tiny “white” (bielo) Russian brother.

 

More details what is happening in deteriorating at present relations between Minsk and Moscow provides an article “From the integration dead end towards the Greater Russia”, written by Jurij Tsarik, a collaborator of the “Party of Development” lead by Jurij Kroupnov, and published in October at www.km.ru/magazin/view.asp?. According to Tsarik, in Russia of today prevails the idea of a “liberal empire”, which hopes to maintain its super-state position by the means of a “terror of an owner of energetic resources” only. Such “cultural” concept was formulated already in 2003 (the year of the sharp rise of prices of petrol due to the war in Iraq), by the chief organizer of Russian “liberal reforms” of 1990ies, Anatolij Tchoubais. This hated by Russian nationalists and communists magnate is at present the owner of an enormous Russian Electricity Complex. His simplistic conception of New Russia, as an “energetic super-power”, was presented, by several Russian politologues, during the meeting of G-8 in Petersburg in summer 2006 (2). As Tsarik observes, such a “Russian” conception has lead to the situation that practically all other goals and interests, in the process of integration of post-Soviet sphere of influence, have vanished. The further integration of Russia with Bielorussia was abandoned, out of a fear that the super potent Russian energy corporations will quickly “swallow” the Bielorussian economy, with the repetition of the known already to Bielorussians, since early 1990ies, sinister scenario of “shock dezindustrialization” of the country.

 

Tsarik observes that such “radious future” is of course not desired by Bielorussian government, and even more it is not desired by the Belarus nation: thanks to the “anti Western” economical politics of Lukashenko, Belarus today has become the local industrial super-power, with practically full employment and relatively (in comparison with Russians and Ukrainians) high standard of living. The state owned Bielaz factory in Minsk produces (and sells) at present more tractors than all machine industries of the immense Russia together. In order to understand where from come these “Moscow” pressures, aiming at the privatization and dezindustrialization of Bielorussia, it is worth to recall that the dictating the energetic policy of Russia, magnate Anatolij Tchoubais is linked, via the “Case” Foundation and its Polish secretary Ewa Balcerowicz (the wife of the president of the Polish National Bank, Leszek Balcerowicz), with the whole Anglo-Saxon group of Soros and Carnegie Foundations, as well as with IMF and the World Bank, all of them being “arms” of the “God”, known as the (lead by USA) G-8 assembly of super industrialized states.

 

Tsarik notices that the recent “gas war”, of the state owned Russian Gasprom against Bielorussia, has managed to built up in Bielorussia the feeling of hostility towards Moscow, which until now was considered as Minsk’s closest ally. Earlier the same “Moscow” has managed to make enemies in Ukraine, in which country nearly the half of the population uses Russian as the first language. During the conference at Feldkirch (Austria) this year I had an occasion to speak with a former Soviet secret service agent, who at present lives in New Zealand, trying to stay away both from Russia and USA. He told me that one of reasons, which make the people of Ukraine reluctant to join the Greater Russia, is the fact that this immense country is run at present by “criminals”. This opinion was somehow confirmed during a conference held at Kiev’s MAUP University two years earlier, when the former chief of the Ukrainian police told us that at the beginning of 1990, the Ukrainian police observed – with no possibility to react against – how from Moscow were arriving “police commissaries”, which were organizing the criminal element in Ukraine! (The same happened in Poland too, where the head of Polish Police was murdered at the end of 1990; the “commissioner” of this murder still remains in USA, only very recently apprehended by FBI.) These stories, of a planned criminalization of post-socialist countries, converge with the politics, which USA practiced in occupied by its army territories of Europe after the WW2. At that time the chief of FBI, Edgar Hoover personally brought the Sicilian Mafioso Lucky Luciano back from USA to Italy, in order to revitalize the suppressed by fascists Mafia. This crime syndicate subsequently furnished an efficient protection of Italy against the democratic takeover by communists.

 

The praised by “liberals” privatization of all aspects of social life (see texts of the “guru” of liberals, A. F. von Hayek), automatically destroys all positive aspects of a socialist state: once an enterprise falls into private hands, its owner, seeking to maximize his profits, without any scruples is ready to transfer the production towards distant regions of the globe, which offer to him better gains than industries he “inherited” in his native country. Such process of “alienation” of production from local population is even more accentuated once new owners happen to be foreigners. This is the case in particular in Poland, wherefrom already millions of young people migrated towards more affluent centers of the Western Europe. In short, the abandonment of Marxist “dogma”, demanding the nationalization of means of production, has automatically resulted in the substantial dilution of all local ethnic and national cultures, this due to mass migrations imposed by capitalist free enterprise: at present the Slavic nation of Sorben, whose culture and language survived relatively well in DDR, is risking a rapid disappearance due to the trivial fact that in Eastern regions of Germany there are scarcely jobs, and its population massively emigrates westwards. The desolate at present industrial centers of Silesia in Poland, the rusting cable cars of situated at high altitudes wolfram mines in Northern Caucasus, and the not cultivated since a decade fertile farmlands of Western Ukraine, resemble similar sinister landscapes I’ve seen forty years ago in Northern America, in particular the abandoned industrial cities of the East Coast state of Vermont, and falling into ruins, beautiful wooden villages, which Ukrainians exiled from the early Soviet Union have built in Canadian British Columbia.

 

The similarity, between post-industrial and post-agricultural regions of North America, and desolate at present regions of former USRR, indicates that these immense territories are victims of the same illness. The name of this illness is “the liberal civil society”, which term is an euphemism hiding the reality of the Global Mafia dominant in all G-8 super-states. Such diagnosis implicates that in order to make “a more human future” (a title of the Feldkirch’s “Mut zur Ethik” conference last September), we have to reverse the general convictions what is good and what is evil in human affairs. The “evil people” today are of course these innumerable at present “money dancers”, which form the bulk of not only western, but also eastern politicians, journalists, and bishops-businessmen. As wrote it recently David Montoute “From the true origins of the Gulf War, to the pre-planned dismemberment of Yugoslavia and Iraq, from Wall Street money laundering to the murder of David Kelly, from depleted uranium to ‘false flag’ terrorism, there is now an open-ended list of taboo subjects that the mainstream (i.e. Global Mafia controlled) media and the foundation-funded ‘alternatives’ cannot address. (...) According to Michael Ruppert, the emerging American-led global police state is not merely about private control over the legal system, but is rather a crisis-induced transition from a deeply compromised legal system to a society where force and surveillance completely supplant that system.’” (3).

 

Does the possibility of a humanization of the liberal “civil society” exist?

 

Does any social movement have the chance to revolt against this, laboriously woven at present, “American-led global police state”? Here, as a Pole grown in the very catholic environment of my semi-native Kraków, I have to point out that even the Church has been maneuvered into a role of a docile apologist of a “catholic” – it means generalized, universal – society, which is entirely devoted to the worship of a transnational divinity called Mammon. In Kraków we have even an influential among intelligentsia, “Catholic Weekly” (Tygodnik Powszechny), which specializes in binding together beings formally opposite, namely the Christian credo with the overtly “mammonist” ethics of a liberal, cosmopolite and philo-Semite bourgeoisie. This relatively new for Catholics, philo-mammonist attitude, in case of Protestant churches has a long tradition. Here is sufficient to recall that in 19 century, in order to corrupt the noble Chinese spirit, Englishmen, together with the forced by the British Navy “opening” of China for the commerce of opium, demanded the opening of this country for the penetration of Christian missionaries. It is since these “Opium Wars” dates the Marxist slogan “religion is the opium of people”. As someone observed recently in the Swiss “Zeit-Fragen” weekly, the USA rulers of today give the full credence to this Marxist observation, and their agents are engaged worldwide in spreading this, despised by Marxists, “religious opium”. These agents became so successful in this task that the very recent history, of mass intoxication with various forms of Old Testament based religion, started to remind the not so distant history of the success of sterilization of American farmlands by DDT, in which campaign not only insects, but also consuming these insects birds have been nearly totally exterminated.

 

The presence of ordinary opium in brain centers makes people “soft” and insensitive to their, ever uglier, environment. Moreover, it makes them dependent from this narcotic providers. Seen from this commercial perspective, the present renaissance, at the scale of the entire planet, of various sects and religions, is a sign that their “pushers” expect to make profits comparable to these made by merchants of ordinary drugs. Is it thus possible that also the Christian religion, in its more camouflaged cognitive layer, has been “manufactured”, in Antiquity, as a tool of conquest and subjugation of “weak” and ignorant souls? Such hypothesis finds a kind of a confirmation in practices of contemporary Anglo-Saxon secret services. As relates it Noam Chomsky in one of his numerous books, in the period between two World Wars, the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs have worked, in secrecy, at the project aiming at the invention of an ideology, with which will be possible to intoxicate the population of the entire planet, subjugating it to egoist interests of rulers of the British Empire. The invented at this occasion “opium of intellectuals” turned to be the “gospel” of economical liberalism, preached at the beginning only by professors of London School of Economics, in particular by A.F. von Hayek. Then, at the second stage of “underwater” (as say it in Minsk) war against all possible collectivist “totalitarian” regimes, missionaries of “private enterprise” – like this Vlad Bukowski – were sent to nations, announcing them their liberation by the means of mass privatization of literally everything.

 


References:

 

1. Dr. Robert Hickson “The Crescent Phenomenon of the Privatization of Warfare and Security-Services: New Oligarchic Feudalities, Special-Operations Networks, and Ambiguous Mercenaries in a Time of Borderless Economies and Finance” Oct. 30. 2006. (To be published at www.culturewars.com , Indiana, USA)

 

2. www.kroupnov.ru/pubs/2006/08/31/10412/

 

3. David Montoute “Beyond the Seal of Approval”,http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Contributor40.htm;

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Israel Shamir

 

The villain kills innocent people in order to frame Roger Rabbit, that much I remember of the marvellous Zemeckis 88’ cartoon. The movie spoofs Hitchcock private eye films where the hero wades waist-deep in dead bodies, all killed to frame him. Chandler and Hammett developed this genre being bored by always-safe violin-playing Holmesian detectives: their heroes unravel murders while being accused and pursued by police.

The Russian president Vladimir Putin found himself in the uncomfortable position of Roger Rabbit. Soon after the murder of Anna Polikovskaya, an investigative journalist, the defected spy died in London – and accused him on his death bed. The third death, that of obese ex-Prime Minister Gaidar, was avoided but not a new accusation. It appears that every violent or suspicious death is automatically placed at the doorstep of Putin, in the best Chandleresque tradition. Roger Rabbit was framed in order to take over the Toon Town; Putin is framed in order to take over Russia’s policies and resources.

Only a very young, innocent and sincere person may believe that media owners and editors, the Masters of Discourse care about minor Russian political figures like Politkovskaya and Litvinenko. They put Putin on the hot seat so he’ll surrender Iran to the US bombers and Sakhalin-2 to the Western oil companies, sell gas and other national assets at cheap price, forget about his independent political course. They show him and us the impressive might of mass media machine, this unique device built to zombify millions. They can establish the world agenda and present Putin as a killer, Clinton as a sex offender, Chavez as an antisemite, Ahmadinejad as a new Hitler, Palestinians as the offenders and Israelis as victims. Not even the Popes had such power in their best days: whatever they say, goes.

They never fail to mention the KGB career of Putin, though CIA past of Bush and Mossad past of Tsipi Livni is never referred to in a polite society. They remind us of a killed 20 years ago Bulgarian defector, but they do not refer to the greatest organised assassin of our days, of the Jewish state, unless with admiration moderated by political correctness as in Spielberg’s Munich. However, Israel kills, kidnaps and jails its political opponents on daily basis: all Palestinian leaders active 20 years ago were since then assassinated by the Jews. They use poison as well as guided missiles and bunker-busting bombs, and Nes Tsiona centre for chemical and biological warfare produces poisons and other tools for 007, like “bionic killer wasp”

They used their poison in assassination attempt on Khaled Mashal, the Hamas leader; the assassins were apprehended and caught red-handed. There is no doubt they used poison to assassinate Yasser Arafat: the Haaretz published a clear hint to such an effect; and intelligence-related Israelis are convinced of it. And here we come to the most interesting part: Arafat’s post mortem revealed presence of Polonium-210, the same poisonous medium that killed the Russian defector. However, the Masters of Discourse and their world-opinion-producing machine pooh-poohed this discovery and connected it to chemotherapy treatment possibly given to the Palestinian leader. Now they say this isotope points to Putin, though Polonium-210 is sold over internet in the US freely.

Everything points to Putin. In today’s Israeli paper, a Russian demand of reciprocity in treatment of arrested criminals (quite an ordinary and usual request) is described as “Putin’s blackmail”; a Russian desire to own petrol stations in the West, not only to sell oil at the well, is described as “Putin’s world dominance drive”. Putin is not made of iron like the old Bolsheviks, and he is liable to submit to pressure, to allow Israel to bomb Iran, to let the western oil companies a free run in his land, like Gorbachev and Yeltsin did. Then he will become a darling of the mass media and his alleged crimes forgotten.

This was the case with Muammar Qaddafi – he was personally accused of every mishap and his country was forced to pay zillions for the Lockerby disaster though they had no connection to it, as admitted international observers at the trial. Qaddafi surrendered to the supreme will of the Masters of Discourse, and all attacks on him ceased immediately. It will happen to Putin, too, if he will just fulfil the desire of Israel and expose Iran to bombs.

Wonderful Indian writer Arundhati Roy wrote that all our leaders are awful; but as long as they let the West to steal their assets they are safe. Only when they object to it, they become monsters in the eyes of ever so docile public opinion. We should try to stop this trend; we can’t fight off the US cruise missiles, but we may and must sabotage the Masters of Discourse’s most powerful weapon, their mass media brainwashing machine by never accepting their line.

________________________________________

In bed with Russophobes


The Litvinenko murder is being used by neocons in their campaign against Putin's national revival

Neil Clark
Monday December 4, 2006
The Guardian



Three weeks on, we are still no closer to knowing who was responsible for the death of the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko. The use of polonium 210 as a murder weapon could point in entirely opposite directions. It might suggest that the killing was carried out on behalf of the Russian security service as a public warning to others who might think of betraying it. But it could also be read as an attempt by President Putin's rich and powerful enemies to discredit the Russian government internationally. Whatever the truth, it has been seized upon across Europe and the US to fuel a growing anti-Russian campaign.

There are certainly grounds for criticising the Russian government from a progressive perspective. Putin has introduced a flat-rate income tax, which greatly benefits the wealthy, and plans the partial marketisation of Russia's education and health systems. He has pursued a bloody campaign of repression in Chechnya. And while some of Russia's oligarchs have been bought to justice, others remain free to flaunt their dubiously acquired wealth, in a country where the gap between rich and poor has become chasmic.

Even so, those on the centre-left who have joined the current wave of Putin-bashing ought to consider whose cause they are serving. Long before the deaths of Litvinenko and the campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Russophobes in the US and their allies in Britain were doing all they could to discredit Putin's administration. These rightwing hawks are gunning for Putin not because of concern for human rights but because an independent Russia stands in the way of their plans for global hegemony. The neoconservative grand strategy was recorded in the leaked Wolfowitz memorandum, a secret 1990s Pentagon document that targeted Russia as the biggest future threat to US geostrategic ambitions and projected a US-Russian confrontation over Nato expansion.

Even though Putin has acquiesced in the expansion of American influence in former Soviet republics, the limited steps the Russian president has taken to defend his country's interests have proved too much for Washington's empire builders. In 2003, Bruce P Jackson, the director of the Project for a New American Century, wrote that Putin's partial renationalisation of energy companies threatened the west's "democratic objectives" - and claimed Putin had established a "de facto cold war administration". Jackson's prognosis was simple: a new "soft war" against the Kremlin, a call to arms that has been enthusiastically followed in both the US and Britain.

Every measure Putin has taken has been portrayed by the Russophobes as the work of a sinister totalitarian. Gazprom's decision to start charging Ukraine the going rate for its gas last winter was presented as a threat to the future of western Europe. And while western interference in elections in Ukraine, Georgia and other ex-Soviet republics has been justified on grounds of spreading democracy, any Russian involvement in the affairs of its neighbours has been spun as an attempt to recreate the "evil empire". As part of their strategy, Washington's hawks have been busy promoting Chechen separatism in furtherance of their anti-Putin campaign, as well as championing some of Russia's most notorious oligarchs.

In the absence of genuine evidence of Russian state involvement in the killings of Litvinenko and Politkovskaya, we should be wary about jumping on a bandwagon orchestrated by the people who bought death and destruction to the streets of Baghdad, and whose aim is to neuter any counterweight to the most powerful empire ever seen.

Neilclark66.blogspot.com
neilclark6@hotmail.com

My condolences to the people of Iraq with loss of Iraq’s faithful son President Saddam Hussein, viciously murdered by the American Occupation Forces and their local collaborators. He was the first Arab leader who cared for Palestine and Palestinians, who brought war home to Jews, and he will be remembered in Liberated Jerusalem and Liberated Baghdad. He was murdered, and his sons were murdered to extract a cruel revenge for his bombardment of Tel Aviv in 1990 and for his refusal to surrender. It is better to die standing rather than live on one’s knees, and the President died standing. He joined many, many great independence warriors murdered by the Empire. Bush and his henchmen will be held responsible for this cowardly murder, and they will pay for it in this world, and in the next world. Glory to the fallen heroes.



www.israelshamir.net

Please do not trust wisincome.com or ongoingprofit.com. These are not genuine sites. They squeeze you of your money and then not answer. Please don't belive them.

just posting
just posting

15 Things You Should Never Buy Again
* * *
For a better world, boycott dangerous products
 
   
For more informations:
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/shopun...opping/neverbuy.cfm
  

1. Styrofoam cups
Styrofoam is forever. It's not biodegradable.
Alternative: Buy recyclable and compostable paper cups.
Best option: Invest in some reusable mugs that you can take with you.

2. Paper towels
Paper towels waste forest resources, landfill space, and your money.
Alternative: When you do buy paper towels, look for recycled, non-bleached products. Search the National Green Pages™ for recycled paper products.
Best option: Buy dishtowels or rags to wash and reuse.


3. Bleached coffee filters
Dioxins, chemicals formed during the chlorine bleaching process, contaminate groundwater and air and are linked to cancer in humans and animals.
Alternative: Look for unbleached paper filters.
Best Option: Use reusable filters such as washable cloth filters.

4. Overpackaged foods and other products
Excess packaging wastes resources and costs you much more. Around thirty three percent of trash in the average American household comes from packaging.
Alternative: Buy products with minimal or reusable packaging.
Best Option: Buy in bulk and use your own containers when shopping.

5. Teak and mahogany
Every year, 27 million acres of tropical rainforest (an area the size of Ohio) are destroyed. Rainforests cover 6% of Earth’s surface and are home to over half of the world’s wild plant, animal, and insect species. The Amazon rainforest produces 40 percent of the world’s oxygen.
Alternative: Look for Forest Stewardship Council certified wood.
Best Option: Reuse wood, and buy furniture and other products made from used or salvaged wood.

Learn how to become WoodWise at home and in your office »

6.Chemical pesticides and herbicides
American households use 80 million pounds of pesticides each year. The EPA found at least one pesticide in almost every water and fish sample from streams and in more than one-half of shallow wells sampled in agricultural and urban areas. These chemicals pose threats to animals and people, especially children.
Alternatives: Buy organic pest controllers such as diatomaceous earth.
Best Option: Plant native plants and practice integrated pest management. Plant flowers and herbs that act as natural pesticides.

7. Conventional household cleaners
Household products can contain hazardous ingredients such as organic solvents and petroleum-based chemicals that can release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into your indoor environment, positing a particular danger for children. The average American household has three to ten of hazardous matter in the home.
Alternative: Look for nontoxic, vegetable-based, biodegradeable cleaners.
Best Option: Try making your own green cleaner using vinegar, water, and castile soap.

Find safe, green cleaners in the National Green Pages™»

8. Higher octane gas than you need
Only one car in ten manufactured since 1982 requires high-octane gasoline. High-octane gas releases more hazardous pollutants into the air, and may be bad for your car.
Alternative: Buy the lowest-octane gas your car requires as listed in your owner's manual
Best option: Make your next car purchase a hybrid. Or ditch the car and take public transportation, ride a bike, or walk.

Learn more about green transportation »

9. Toys made with PVC plastic
70% of PVC is used in construction, but it is also found in everyday plastics, including some children’s toys. Vinyl chloride, the chemical used to make PVC, is a known human carcinogen. Also, additives, such as lead and cadmium, are sometimes added to PVC to keep it from breaking down; these additives can be particularly dangerous in children’s toys. PVC is also the least recycled plastic.
Alternative: Avoid plastics that are labeled as “PVC” or “#3.” Look for #1 and #2 plastics, which are easier to recycle and don’t produce as many toxins. Use sustainable construction materials.
Best option: Take action to tell manufacturers to stop using PVC plastics, especially in children’s toys.

See animation about PVC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpmE_b90XTU

Find safe toys in the National Green Pages™ »

10. Plastic forks and spoons
Disposable plastic utensils are not biodegradeable and not recyclable in most areas.
Alternative: Use compostable food service items. Companies such as Biocorp make cutlery from plant materials such as corn starch and cellulose.
Best option: Carry your own utensils and food containers.


Learn more:

Five more things you should never buy again »
Get our free email newsletter
Find everyday green living tips in the Real Money newsletter
Information updated from 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth, The EarthWorks Group, The Green Consumer. John Elkington, Julia Hailes, and Joel Makower.

 

* * *

5 More Things You Should Never Buy Again



 


 

1. Farm raised salmon. Several studies, including one performed by researchers at Indiana University, have found that PCB's and other environmental toxins are present at higher levels in farm raised salmon than wild salmon.

Pregnant women, women of child-bearing ages, and children should be very careful when choosing fish due to high levels of environmental toxins including mercury found in many fish. Check out our Safe Seafood Tip Sheet to see what the environmental and health risks posed by different fish.

2. Rayon. Developed and manufactured by DuPont as the world's first synthetic fiber, it is made by from liquefied wood pulp. Unfortunately, turning wood into rayon is wasteful and dirty, because lots of water and chemicals are needed to extract usable fibers from trees. Only about a third of the pulp obtained from a tree will end up in finished rayon thread. The resulting fabrics usually require dry cleaning, which is an environmental concern as well as an added expense and inconvenience.

Much of the our rayon sold comes from developing countries, such as Indonesia, where environmental and labor laws are weak and poorly enforced. There is mounting evidence that rayon clothing manufacturing contributes to significant forest destruction and pollution in other countries. Learn more about WoodWise clothes »

3. Beauty/Body Care with Phthalates and Parabens. Phthalates are a group of industrial chemicals linked to birth defects that are used in many cosmetic products, from nail polish to deodorant. Parabens are preservatives used in many cosmetics that have been linked to breast cancer though more research is needed. Phthalates are not listed on product labels and can only be detected in laboratory tests. To be safe, choose products from companies that have signed on to the Compact for Safe Cosmetics. Learn more in our Real Money article, "The Ugly Side of Cosmetics" »

4. Cling Wrap. Many people don't realize that cling wrap may be made with PVC. #3 PVC (polyvinyl chloride) leaches toxins when heated or microwaved and it is an environmental problem throughout its lifecycle. Read more about problems with plastics »

5. High VOC Paints and Finishes. Volatile organic compounds or VOCs can cause health problems from dizziness to lung and kidney damage and are infamous for polluting both indoor and outdoor air. VOCs are found in products including paints as well as finishes used for wood, such a stains or varnishes. There are now a wide array of low or no-VOC paints on the market. Look for paints certified by Green Seal (www.greenseal.org). Or, look for natural paints made by green businesses listed in our National Green Pages™.
  
Learn more ...

Get our free email newsletter
Find everyday green living tips in the Real Money newsletter
Check out our original list of ten things to never buy again
 
Source: http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/shopun...opping/neverbuy.cfm

Published on Friday, February 2, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Game Over: Thirty-Six Sure-Fire Signs That Your Empire Is Crumbling
by David Michael Green
 

So. You’ve built yourself an empire, eh?

Well, bully for you!

What’s next, you ask? Well, now you’ve got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course. You’ve got to worry about it falling apart, mate!

But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind, thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:

You know your empire’s crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don’t bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.

You know your empire’s crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you’re spending your grandchildren’s money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).

You know your empire’s crumbling when it’s considered an achievement to pretend that you’ve halved the rate at which you’re adding to the massive mountain of debt you’ve already accumulated.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you weaken your currency until it looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you’re still setting record trade deficits. (Hint: Because you’re not making anything anymore.)

You know your empire’s crumbling when “the little brown ones” (thank you George H.W. Bush – certainly not me – for that lovely expression) in country after country of “your backyard” blow you off and proudly elect anti-imperialist leftist governments.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you can’t topple those governments and replace them with nice puppet regimes – like in the good old days – even if you wanted to. And you badly want to.

You know your empire’s crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking about smelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks cringe, everybody laughs.

You know your empire’s crumbling when just about your entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less – not more – secure from external threat.

You know your empire’s crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries, and you don’t dare institute a draft.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, four and five rotations.

You know your empire’s crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil.

You know your empire’s crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can’t win, but also can’t lose.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you’re too dumb to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, ‘extraordinary rendition’ (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you blow off international law that you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international governance that you once helped build.

You know your empire’s crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month you’re more and more despised throughout the world.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you can’t even pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you’re the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don’t have basic health care coverage.

You know your empire’s crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th ‘best’ in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.)

You know your empire’s crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you’re making it harder and more expensive.

You know your empire’s crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.

You know your empire’s crumbling when the so-called ‘opposition’ party can’t even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst emperor in your history.

You know your empire’s crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.

You know your empire’s crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still the gap between the rich and the rest.

You know your empire’s crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.

You know your empire’s crumbling when you’re spending tens of billions of dollars you don’t own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don’t work, to be used against an enemy you don’t have.

You know your empire’s crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your government does next to nothing before, during and after.

You know your empire’s crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is looming around the corner, and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it isn’t real while taking steps to exacerbate it.

You know your empire’s crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words: “All right. You've covered your ass, now.”

You know your empire’s crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single family.

You know your empire’s crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.

You know your empire’s crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around.

You know your empire’s crumbling when your political leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules of succession.

And you especially know your empire’s crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one.

Rome? Britain? Spain?

At this rate we’ll be lucky to end up like Belgium.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.

 
hey just dropping a line to say waht's up. new girl on site and in america...was out of the country for a few years.
hi!

Conspiracy Theories and Plain Old Lies.
We hear a lot of what we assume are conspiracy theories and don't have time to check them out as well as not paying that much attention to the news anyway. We don't have time for that and by most of those around us, we're considered a bit obsessed if we spend too much time on it. Before I retired I got most of my news from the mainstream media and newspapers. When I did retire I spent my time catching up on all the things I had been putting off or had always wanted to do for so many years and never had time. Getting that out of my system, I began researching some of the conspiracy theories floating around at the time. I was surprised to find that I was fairly good at recognizing the truth, or am I? I have been taken-in a time or two only to find that I resent it when I learn the truth. "Research" is the answer. I read everything I can get my hands on and, as time would allow, have as far back as I remember. Not much fiction but that's enjoyable too. The Internet is an excellent source for news.

On line, I read the NY Times, Fox news and Washington Post almost daily, occasionally more. Fox News and some of the other conservative rags are far too often not verifiable. Of course I read two local papers for the gossip. As a student of the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the remainder of the Amendments, what led up to the whole experiment and what followed, I find it odd that some reporters make false statements about what is in those documents. Are they not aware that most people know better, that we don't only read what the church, Rush Limbaugh or Bill O Riley, the phone sex guy, tells us to read? But that's another story.

Considering one subject, September 11, 2001: There has been a lot said about what happened on that date but our media doesn't seem to be reporting it well. Most of what had been covered supports the administration and the corporations, but not lately. Now we are hearing that some of what we suspected were "conspiracy theories" are often what really happened. There is an excellent web site, 911Timeline.net, which covers the timeline of that day quite well. I find what they have to say, or what I have checked of it, is based on public record. That's unusual. Of course it continues to be nonexistent in some of the media. You should check it out when you question what you read or hear a conflicting report. Much of the information on 911 Timeline site never hit the news or was buried toward the back of section B of the paper.

Can you remember the reporters who were posting columns produced by the administration's writers and claiming to be the authors? I remember that, they admitted it. They were paid handsomely for their efforts, or lack of efforts. A similar deception has been uncovered in reports from Iraq. In this case the Pentagon or military writers in Iraq are the authors and the reports are passed off as being filed by reporters. There is a fundamental difference between a theory and a lie. A theory is just that, a theory. A lie is a deception, spinning the truth and rewriting scientific data to show a different result, then passing it off as the scientific finding that supports a lie. Much like what happened with the government's own scientist's reports on global warming. Exxon/Mobile was happy to produce the editor for that job. That put the entire world and all its creatures in jeopardy. The burning of fossil fuels is the main contributor to global warming and it would look bad for the producers of them if it were known. It could cut into profits if we did anything to curb their use.
The 2004 Ohio election produced both conspiracy theories and lies. This is an example of a theory becoming fact through public documentation. For example: a claim was made that over 600% of a party's registered voters voted for George W Bush in one precinct. That was easy to verify. Count the number of votes cast for Bush, than count the number of registered republicans. Count the votes for Kerry and the number of voters registered as members of his party. This happened in many Ohio precincts in '04 but to a lesser degree. In each case the exit polls showed results easily reconciled with the number of registered voters of each party. Did you hear much about people going to prison for tampering with the process? Well it happened and was reported toward the end of section B of some newspapers. I must, at this point, say that many papers are better at reporting the news but only after a good old-fashioned public outcry and a lot of letters to the editor.

When we find that the government is lying to us, we must speak out and there are organizations that give us a voice. Moveon.org, among others, is a good place to go for that voice, as are many of the blogs on the net. I suggest we use them.

It is possible to delete all this slip?

yes

Sixty Days from the Night of Sacrifice


'Evil is wrought by want of thought..' Surah 30, Verse 41

A few days ago, one who is dear to me asked an intriguing, almost surreal question. She said : 'Did they really hang him, or was it all a dream?'

No dream, for every cardboard Caesar requires a slain Vercingetorix to show as part of his triumph. No dream, for while Heads of State may go to the gallows, CEOs and banksters do not. The occupier presides precariously over a disintegrating Iraq at the cost of massive repression - 600,000 slain Iraqis is the commonly accepted figure - while the one who was lynched held Iraq together with much less force.

While, in an ideal world, no repression at all would be the preferred option, which of the two will go down in history as the bloodthirsty tyrant? The Arab world will not easily forget or forgive the sight of the bacon-rind banner flying near acres of charred rubble and shattered golden domes.

The cliché had it that he murdered his own people ; does no-one realise that the government of the USA did exactly that at Waco and elsewhere? Not to mention Britain's deployment of state-sanctioned assassination squads in Northern Ireland. Nor does this include the victims of economic sabotage, accounting to some 80,000 excess deaths under Thatcher*. Huh, people shredded without any non-existent people shredder!

The town of Baquba in Iraq now boasts a university in ruins : surely as good a sign as any of a society that's been wrecked for profit and PNAC. Bodies of civilians killed in 'crossfire' litter the streets. That's 'crossfire' à la Jenin, Nablus and Gaza, of course. You all know what I mean.

But, hey, it's OK as we're bringing democr-acy to these people. But is so great about 'democracy' anyway, even when it doesn't involve mass murder?

Invariably, the word is most often to be heard upon the lips of deceivers. Art Garfunkel neatly summed up this American democracy, 162 years after someone else came to exactly the same verdict:

'We still have only one value system here : 100 dollars is twice as good as 50. In America, that's what our life is all about. The money god has been such a blight on American culture.'

In Eastern Europe, as in Iraq, democracy is hardly as advertised. Would that it were a simple matter of freedom and apple pie. Instead democracy is usually shorthand for the enthronement of the money god, bringing in its wake drugs, unemployment, sky-high property prices, porn, organised crime and other delights.

I recently passed up the opportunity to buy an authoritative guide to post-1945 sculpture for hardly more than pennies. The reason? Apart from Vuchetich's Treptow memorial, all the sculpture depicted in the book resembled low-grade trash. On deeper reflection, surely the sign of a society that has lost its moorings, its grounding in reality. An analogy with the alleged Anglo-American democracy also suggests itself, for we are asked to 'buy' into a system which is superficially glossy, but is also trashy and worthless.

Those who have more than pennies buy up the whole process, including the worthless trash that floats uppermost in it. What does it now cost to buy up the American Presidency? $150 million? $200 million?

In Britain they call it New Labour, maybe as some sort of private jest. Decaying late capitalism I call it, rancid with corruption and crookedness. It flushes billions away turning Iraq and Afghanistan into even greater hell-holes, while hospitals at home crumble, patients contracting diseases unseen for over a hundred years. In most cases this is due to sheer filthiness and neglect. Mist and desolation; inner cities the haunt of drug gangs; cannon fodder recruits on their way to Helmand; the sour smell of fear due to financial squeeze and semi-dismantled economy; churches padlocked, demolished or turned into carpet warehouses; a population controlled by debt and the peer pressure of neurotic consumerism.

I am by no means an expert in all the complexities of Iraqi politics, but I like think that I can submit a situation to rational analysis. The Iraqi resistance would never have got into the position of having 'broken' - Colin Powell's expressive term - the most powerful military force on earth had it not observed certain simple and basic rules.

These rules are simple and have been handed down from predecessor organisations. The French resistance, for instance, tried to include every viewpoint, from monarchist to communist. Additionally, any guerilla group must never antagonise the people it relies on for shelter, succour and support.

Therefore, we can understand attacks on the occupiers and those who collaborate with them. But how can one explain all those bizarre, motiveless bombings of footballers or market women? How could any resistance outfit gain from that?

Is it not a truly sinister, malevolent pantomine that is played out in 'the hell that is Iraq'?

We should study real history, not the history that's approved by authority. Then we'd find out that one participant in the Iraqi tragedy has a prior record of such clandestine operations, both in Central America and Vietnam.

In the good old days - when America was respected, and not the most hated country on the globe - there was a American healer and thinker called William Bates. Mark his words well, for had more heeded these words, the myth of 9/11 would have been universally exposed, and tragedy prevented both in Iraq and Afghanistan :

'The fact is that, except in rare cases, man is not a reasoning being. He is dominated by authority, and when facts are not in accord with the view imposed by authority, so much the worse for the facts. They may, and must, win in the long run; but in the meantime he gropes needlessly in darkness and endures much suffering that might have been avoided.'

* For those unfamiliar with recent British history, Thatcher was the less effeminate version of Blair, run by many of the same wealthy businessmen as her equally demented successor.

"He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,

Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.

He shall peep and mutter;

and the night shall bring Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King"

- Rudyard Kipling

Dianne Feinstein resigns committee post amid scandal; accused of war profiteering

Source: www.metroactive.com/metro/03.21.07/dianne-feinstein-resigns-0712.html

Posted by Joshua Holland at 12:52 PM on March 30, 2007.

SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.

    As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects, some of which were contracted to her husband's companies, Perini Corp. and URS Corp.

    Perhaps she resigned from MILCON because she could not take the heat generated by Metro's expose of her ethics (which was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute). Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?

    The MILCON subcommittee is not only in charge of supervising military construction, it also oversees "quality of life" issues for veterans, which includes building housing for military families and operating hospitals and clinics for wounded soldiers. Perhaps Feinstein is trying to disassociate herself from MILCON's incredible failure to provide decent medical care for wounded soldiers.

    Two years ago, before the Washington Post became belatedly involved, the online magazine Salon.com exposed the horrors of deficient medical care for Iraq war veterans. While leading MILCON, Feinstein had ample warning of the medical-care meltdown. But she was not proactive on veteran's affairs.

    Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were surfacing in the media, and as it was becoming clear that her subcommittee left grievously wounded veterans to rot while her family was profiting from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't have much to add. For background, check out Joshua Frank giving it to the Senator with both barrels, here.

I'll just say this. Even if you think this criticism of Feinstein is unfair -- as I know some do -- you have to acknowledge that this kind of stuff sends the message that all of Washington is the same. It allows Republicans to hold onto the delusion that their brand of corruption over the past decade was run-of-the-mill -- just Standard Operating Procedure for the party in power -- and it just demoralizes progressives.

Two Items on Iran, a satire by Monty Python and a knockout "must read and spread" by Ed Herman:
 
 
Call that humiliation?

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch
 
Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2046991,00.html
 
I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.
It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Of course they'd probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn't be humiliated.
 
And what's all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It's time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That's one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.
The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn't rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it's just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!
 
What's more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting "stress positions", which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It's all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.
 
And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is "unhappy and stressed".
What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her "unhappy and stressed". She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.
 
As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer - whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq.
 
· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net
_________________________________________
 
ZNet | Foreign Policy
 
Beyond Munich: The UN Security Council Helps Disarm a Prospective Further Victim of U.S. Aggression [*]
by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson; March 31, 2007
 
    Imagine that when Hitler was threatening to invade Poland, after having swallowed Czechoslovakia—with the help of the Western European powers' appeasement of Hitler at Munich in September 1938—the League of Nations imposed an arms embargo on Poland, making it more difficult for the imminent victim to defend itself, and at the same time suggested that Poland was the villainous party. That didn’t happen back in 1939, but in a regression from that notorious era of appeasement something quite analogous is happening now.
    Here is the United States, still fighting a brutal war of conquest in Iraq, which it is now doing with UN Security Council approval, with open plans and threats to attack Iran and engage in “regime change,” gathering aircraft carriers off the coast of Iran, already engaging in subversive and probing attacks on the prospective target, and the UN Security Council, instead of warning and threatening the aggressor warns, threatens and imposes sanctions on the prospective victim!
   The way it works is that the United States stirs up a big fuss, proclaiming a serious threat to its own national security, and expressing its deep concern over another state's flaunting of Security Council resolutions or dragging its feet on some point of order such as weapons inspections—we know how devoted the United States and its Israeli client are to the rule of law!
 In the Iraq case, this noise was echoed and amplified in the media, often splashed across headlines and drummed up in editorial commentary. In turn, elite opinion in the United States and Britain coalesced around the beliefs (a) that a WMD-related crisis really existed in Baghdad and (b) that it required the Security Council's special attention. Straight through March 19-20 2003, Iraq, the prospective target of a full-scale attack, decried the absurdity of this U.S.-U.K. noise, and filed regular communiqués with the Security Council and Secretary-General documenting the U.S.-U.K. aerial strikes on its territory,[1] including the "spikes of activity" period from September 2002 onward.[2] The vast majority of the world's states and peoples also rejected the war propaganda—including the largely voiceless U.S. public, where in the weeks before the war, two-thirds of non-elite opinion stood firmly behind multilateral approaches to defuse the crisis, foremost of which was permitting the UN weapons inspections to take their course.[3] But then, as now, pretty much the entire world recognized the U.S.-U.K. hijacking of the Security Council, and its strategic misdirection away from a defense of the actual target of the threats (Iraq) onto the execution of the policy of the states making those threats while playing the role of Iraq's potential victims (the U.S. and U.K.).
 So the aggression planning proceeded then and does now with the cooperation of the UN and international community. In the Iraq case, the Security Council allowed itself to be bamboozled into restarting the weapons-inspection process, accepting this as the urgent matter, rather than the war-mobilization and threat of aggression by the United States and its British ally. Although the Security Council did not vote approval of the U.S.-British attack, it helped set it up by inflating the Iraq threat and failing to confront the real threat posed by the United States and Britain. Then, within two months after “shock and awe,” the Security Council voted to give the aggressor the right to stay in Iraq and manage its affairs, thereby approving a gross violation of the UN Charter after the fact.
  Now, four years later, the Security Council has outdone itself. Not only has it failed to condemn the U.S. and Israeli threat to attack Iran—the threat itself a violation of the UN Charter,[4] and one made ever-more real by the U.S. invasions of neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq during this decade alone, now followed by a huge U.S. naval buildup near Iran's coast to levels not seen since the U.S. launched its war on Iraq four years ago in what the New York Times just called a "calculated show of force."[5] But even worse, the Council has aided and abetted these potential aggressors by adopting three resolutions in the past eight months under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, each of which affirms that Iran's nuclear program is a threat to international peace and security, and reserves for the Council the right to take "further appropriate measures" should Iran fail to comply—that is, should Iran not cave-in to U.S. demands on exactly the terms demanded.[6]
 
Since July 31, the Council has demanded that Iran “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development"[7]—despite the fact that Iran's right to engage in these activities is guaranteed under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.[8] Since December 23, it has identified the existence of Iran's nuclear program with so-called "proliferation sensitive nuclear activities"[9]—despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency has never shown Iran's program to be engaged in any kind of activities other than peaceful ones. Indeed, in the December 23 resolution, the Council used the phrase "proliferation sensitive nuclear activities" no fewer than eight different times to describe Iran's nuclear program, the clear—and perfectly false—allegation being that for Iran to do research on and develop its indigenous nuclear fuel capabilities places Iran in violation of its NPT commitments.
  But perhaps most egregious of all, the March 24 resolution prohibits Iran from selling "any arms or related material" to other states or individuals (par. 5), and calls upon all states "to exercise vigilance and restraint" in the sale or transfer of a whole list of weapons systems to Iran, "in order to prevent a destabilizing accumulation of arms…" (par. 6).[10] As the editorial voice of The Hindu immediately recognized, the first term is critical "not so much because the Islamic Republic is a major vendor of weapons even to Hamas or Hizbollah but because it gives the U.S. an excuse to intimidate or interdict all Iranian merchant shipping under the guise of 'enforcement'."[11] Likewise with the second term, which, if history is any guide, Washington will interpret as a strict prohibition on weapons sales to Iran, thus depriving the potential victim, faced with attack by one or more nuclear powers, of the right to obtain even non-nuclear means of self defense. This of course has been a standard U.S. tactic over many years, even against puny victims—Guatemala in 1954 and Nicaragua in the 1980s, among other cases. But now the United States has succeeded in getting the Security Council to help it impede the self-defense of yet another target of aggression. In this truly Kafkaesque case, the state targeted for attack (Iran) has been declared a threat to the peace by the Security Council, at the behest of a serial aggressor openly mobilizing its forces to attack the “threat.”[12]
 It should be recognized that the treatment of Iran’s nuclear program, and the Security Council’s cooperation in this treatment, is the ultimate application of a global double standard, enforced by an aggressive superpower now able to get away with both hypocrisy and murder. Only the United States and its allies may possess nuclear weapons. They alone may threaten to use nukes. They alone may improve their nukes and delivery systems. Only client states such as Israel may remain outside the NPT indefinitely and without penalty. The United States may ignore its NPT obligation to work toward nuclear disarmament. It may even renege on its promise never to use nukes against nuke-free states that joined the NPT. But no matter. By sheer fiat-power, no other state may acquire nukes without U.S. consent. Nor as the case of Iran shows may a state engage in its "inalienable right" to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes unless and until the United States approves.
  We are in the midst of a crisis within the post-war international system, as a serial aggressor is now able to mobilize the Security Council, tasked with the maintenance of international peace and security, to declare the state that it threatens with war a menace to the peace and to help the aggressor disarm its target. This carries us beyond Munich.
 
      ---- Endnotes ----
      * A shorter, standard op-ed length version of this commentary was drafted and submitted very widely across the major U.S. print media—and found to be 100 percent unpublishable.
      1. For an extensive list of documents filed at the United Nations by the Iraqi Government over the period August 29, 2001, through March 26, 2003, see David Peterson, "No Memo Required," ZNet, July 1, 2005.
      2. See David Peterson, "'Spikes of Activity'," ZNet, July 5, 2005; and David Peterson, "British Records on the Prewar Bombing of Iraq," ZNet, July 6, 2005.
      3. See Steven Kull et al., Americans on Iraq and the UN Inspections, Program on International Policy Attitudes, January 21-26, 2003.
      4. See, e.g., Chapter I, Article 2: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nat ions" (par. 4).
      5. "USS John C. Stennis Now Operating in Persian Gulf," Navy Newsstand, March 27, 2007; "Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border," RIA Novosti, March 27, 2007; and Michael R. Gordon, "U.S. Opens Naval Exercise in Persian Gulf," New York Times, March 28, 2007.
      6. See Chapter VII. —We believe it essential to understand that for the Security Council to adopt a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter means above all that either a threat t o the peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of outright aggression has occurred. Otherwise, there is no point to the Council's resort to its Chapter VII functions and powers. Regardless of what the Council's other members may believe about the import of the Iran resolutions, their assent to these resolutions grants an enormously powerful and dangerous tool of coercion to the United States.
      7. Resolution 1696, July 31, 2006, par. 2.
      8. See the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Preamble, and Articles I, II, and IV.
      9. Resolution 1737, December 23, 2006, par. 2.
      10. Resolution 1747, March 24, 2007, par. 5, par. 6.
      11. "Stepping towards the precipice," Editorial, The Hindu, March 27, 2007.
      12. See Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Hegemony and Appeasement: Setting Up the Next U.S.-Israeli Target (Iran) For Another 'Supreme International Crime'," ZNet, January 27, 2007.
 
    [Edward S. Herman is an economist and media analyst, co-author with Noam Chomsky of Manufacturing Consent; David Peterson is a Chicago-based researcher and journalist.]

May 7. Raymond Chandler said you know you're washed up as a writer when you start reading your own old stuff for inspiration. Tony just reminded me about my most under-appreciated essay, Troubleshooting America, which only works if you're sympathetic to the critique of civilization, know some stuff about computer repair, and enjoy metaphors and puns. Also it fits well with the post below.

May 7. The 2008 presidential race is getting interesting! Basically, the framing of the whole discourse gets deeper in bullshit year after year, until all it takes is one candidate who stands up and talks straight, and the internet goes wild and the dominant media have to suppress it. This happened to some extent with Nader in 2000 and Dean in 2004. This year the Democrat to watch is Mike Gravel (pronounced gravEL), who is apparently the only Democrat -- the only Democrat -- to pledge not to start a nuclear war, or in propaganda-talk, "preemptively use nuclear weapons," or in extreme propaganda-talk, "leave all options on the table with Iran."

And the Republican to watch is Ron Paul. You might have seen that ABC news put up a debate poll that listed every candidate except Paul, and when they were swamped with complaints, they added Paul and he blew the other candidates away. He's pretty bad on the issues, but I would probably vote for him over the leading Democrats just because he owes nothing to the ruling powers. In reality, I expect not to vote but to endorse the batshit crazy Rudolph Giuliani over Hillary Clinton, so he can finish Bush's job of destroying the American Empire and making the right look bad.

The same thing is now beginning in France, with the election of Nicolas Sarkozy. The European system is much better than the American system, but both of them are circling around the same whirlpool. Socialism is a temporary compromise between central control and benevolence, which ultimately cannot exist together. The only spiritually sustainable system is one that rises organically from activities that individuals and tribes find intrinsically rewarding. And the easiest (but most painful) way to get there from here is to elect right wingers to run the control system off the rails.

May 7. And a general comment on the below: "Conspiracy theorist" is a propaganda term, a big lie built around a tiny kernel of truth: that a few people are religious about it, and always find a way to believe the most paranoid side of every popular controversy. At the other extreme, you've got people who are equally dogmatic in defending the dominant side on every question of fact. Most of us are in between, and the difference between those of us who accept (not believe) weird things, and those who don't, is not a matter of right and wrong but a matter of how people with different political and intellectual motives deal with reasonable doubt. When I don't have enough information to be sure one way or the other, I always put the burden of proof on the story that backs up the ruling system, and give slack to the story that undermines it; and I always put the burden of proof on the story that provides closure, and give slack to the story that creates openings.

ON RESPECT: http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com:80/blog-CplNAyIlc6PRvYisHBVo9PYIUEpJ

Submitted by Luc Majno
 

 

Respect means no interruption.
Respect means no confrontation.
Respect means no accusation.
Respect means no "mocking,"
Especially, no mocking of elders.

Respect means no lies between us.
Respect means no betrayal of confidence.
Respect means no "ripping off."
Respect means no hoarding.

Respect means no "Lording it over" someone.
Respect means no ordering around.
Respect means no yelling in anger.
Respect means no bad language.
Respect means no name calling.
Respect means controlling yourself.

Respect is not a commodity.
Respect is a way of being.
Respect is in our chest and not in our hand.
Respect is for all life.

Respect is for every species in the world,
including all four races.
Respect is for all our relations.
Respect is focusing on and dealing in "issues"
and not "personalisms."
Respect is focusing on "what” is right
rather than "who" is right.

Respect means owning our own negativity
and not being a "Blame Shifter."
A "Blame Shifter" is one who projects or shifts
his own negativity onto someone else.
This is the process of bigotry, war, and genocide.

Respect is keeping all lines of communication open
with those who have a different opinion, and making a sincere attempt to let them be heard and understood.

Respect means listening until everyone has been heard and understood, only then is there a possibility for

"Balance and Harmony,"
The goal of Indian spirituality.

Respect - The Key To Life by Dave Chief,
Grandson of Red Dog, Crazy Horse's Band

"Sell a country? Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth?
Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?"
--Tecumseh, SHAWNEE
 
The White Man's (non-Native) way is to possess, control and divide. It has always been difficult
for Indian people to understand this. There are certain things we cannot own that must be shared.
The Land is one of these things. We need to re-look as what what we are doing to the Earth.
We are digging in her veins and foolishly diminishing the natural resources.
We are not living in balance. We do not own the Earth; the Earth owns us.
Today, let us ponder the true relationship between the Earth and ourselves.

Luc Majno

Governmentium

Friday, June 15, 2007

A major research institution (MRI) has recently announced the
identification and classification of the heaviest chemical element
yet known to science.

The new element has been tentatively named Governmentium.

Governmentium has --

1 neutron,
12 assistant neutrons,
75 deputy neutrons,
and 224 assistant deputy neutrons,

giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which
are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be
detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes in contact.
A minute amount of Governmentium causes one example reaction to take
more than four days to complete when a similar normal reaction would
take less than a second.

Governmentium has a nominal half-life of two years; however it does not
actually decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion
of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact,
Governmentium’s mass actually increases over time, since each reorgan-
ization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate
that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity
in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.

So far, scientists have been able to discover almost no useful function for
this intriguing and ubiquitous element.

 
Gratitude

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale
who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that
caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body-her tail, her torso,
a line tugging in her mouth.
  
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in
and untangle her-a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in
what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed
them gently around-she thanked them.
  
  
Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth
says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
  
May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate----to be surrounded by people who will help you
get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving
 
[Luc Majno]

 Sorry please :(
Wrogn categgoyr...
 
will be carefil

Hi
 
Looks good! Very useful, good stuff. Good resources here. Thanks much!
 
G'night

The Unexpected Nature of Paradigm Shifts

Man, is this a great time to be alive ...

One day you can have one view of the world, and then the next day have that same view totally turned on its head by a new discovery.

Take, for example, the burgeoning field of "Epigenetics" ...

Epigenetics is the study of how environmentally or behaviorally acquired traits can be passed on to future generations - without any change in the DNA of that organism.

Huh?

Yeah ...

Anyone paying attention to what's been happening in biology over the last 150 years just did a double take.

If this sounds to you like "Lamarckism" (the Lamarckism that you learned in High School was "disproven" by Darwinian/Mendelian genetics) you're exactly right.

Despite what has been believed as irrefutable biological truth, there is now a body of evidence that suggests that we didn't have the full picture. The study of Epigenetics shows that changes which occur to you as a result of your environment and behavior can be passed on to future generations. We don't fully understand "the how" yet, but the evidence of this phenomenon seems quite clear.

And no, these changes don't have anything to do with the way you treat your kids. They have everything to do with how you treat yourself.

For example, a cancer you get today could have been triggered by your great grand-mothers exposure to an industrial poison.

The passing of these non-genetic traits has been observed now across multiple generations of mice.

The implications are huge.

If these findings are right, then everything you do ...

... what you eat, your use of recreational chemicals (including alcohol and tobacco), where you live, your moods, your stress levels ...

All of these things can not only affect your health, but any adverse (or favorable) affects could be passed on to future generations as well.

If you've been looking for an excuse to change your lifestyle, I don't think you'll find a better one than that.

Stunning, isn't it?

Also stunning is the way new discoveries can completely up-end everything we think we know.

This unexpected nature of paradigm shifts makes the hubris and arrogance we seem to revere in our popular media all the more absurd.

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” -- James Madison, the father of our Constitution

Hi all!
 
Excellent work... much respect dudes...
 
 
Bye

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."
- Lord Acton

Edited by author 08-19-2007 05:34 PM
"If the people are not convinced (that the Free World is in mortal danger) it would be impossible for Congress to vote the vast sums now being spent to avert danger.

With the support of public opinion, as marshalled by the press, we are off to a good start. It is our Job - yours and mine -- to keep our people convinced that the only way to keep disaster away from our shores is to build up America's might."

-- Charles Wilson, Chairman of the Board of General Electric and Truman appointee to head the Office of Defence Mobilization, in a speech to the Newspaper Publishers Association, 1950

Hello
 
I really appreciated and say thank you for Keep up the great work online
 
 
Bye

Hello
 
Sorry for that:( but my kids need to eat.
 
 
Bye

Hi all!
How are you?

Hello
 
Thanks for the ifnormation you provide. It's great to see an agency site with usefull information. The site is not bad either.
 
 
Bye

A Real Work at Home Opportunity as an Independent Advertising Executive. We offer home workers the opportunity to earn extra money from the comfort of their own home. Visit Us at http://www.clicknearn.net/idevaffiliate/id...liate.php?id=2996_9

Link Directory Submitter (2996)


Link Directory Submitter is the perfect solution for sending your sites to a multitude of pre-configured online directories. Link Directory Submitter comes with 2700+ link directories to submit to, more than half ranging from PR4 to PR7. Visit us at: http://www.clicknearn.net/2996-53.html

 
WANTED Angel Investor to finance my fishpond business for its start - up capital, lucrative Return Of Investment.

Angel Investor
WANTED Angel Investor to finance my fishpond business for its start - up capital, lucrative Return Of Investment.

Hiring home based workers (3136)

A Real Work at Home Opportunity as an Independent Advertising Executive. We offer home workers the opportunity to earn extra money from the comfort of their own home. Visit Us at http://www.clicknearn.net/idevaffiliate/id...liate.php?id=3136_9

Need Quick Income??... Need Traffic To Your Website or Blog? Then You Need Twitter Cash!! Earns $726 in 24 Hours! . Sign up Today at http://www.clicknearn.net/3152-69.html

Hiring home based workers (3136)

A Real Work at Home Opportunity as an Independent Advertising Executive. We offer home workers the opportunity to earn extra money from the comfort of their own home. Visit Us at http://www.clicknearn.net/idevaffiliate/id...liate.php?id=3136_9