Blog For Free!
Archives
Home
2005 January
2004 December
2004 November
2004 October
2004 September
2004 August
2004 July
2004 June
2004 May
2004 April
2004 March
2004 February
2004 January
2003 December
2003 November
2003 October
2003 September
2003 August
2003 July
My Links
Contact Congress
Casualties in Iraq
National Debt Clock
tBlog
My Profile
Send tMail
My tFriends
My Images
Sponsored
Blog
|
| ... Neither Left Wing Nor Right -- It's The Bush Wing ... |
| 11.30.04 (11:34 am) [edit] |
"Greed is a fat demon with a small mouth and whatever you feed it is never enough." - Janwillem van de Wetering
"Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed." - Bhagavad Gita
"It's time for greatness -- not for greed. It's a time for idealism -- not ideology. It is a time not just for compassionate words, but compassionate action." - Marian Wright Edelman
[b]George W. Bush is a greedy man ... There is nothing particularly [i]unusual [/i]in that fact ... The problem we face is that this vile, greedy man is our President, and moreover, Dubya has committed Treason, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity-- in order to further his own power & wealth for himself; his corrupt corporate cronies; and, the Bush Crime Family ... "We the People" should call upon Congress http://www.congress.org to impeach the gluttonous Bush and Cheney gang for they are [i]all [/i]unfit to hold public office ...[/b]
There has been much throwing about of brains on the subject of George W. Bush's further lurch to the Right since he limped over the election finish line with his tiny, 1 percent, fraud-marred majority. And to be sure, the wholesale purges he has instituted throughout his regime -- replacing a slew of merely cringing sycophants with cringing, drooling, groveling sycophants -- will indeed hasten the United States' degeneration into corpo-religious authoritarianism along the lines of Franco's Spain.
But all the earnest disquisitions about Bush's Franco-U.S. "ideology" entirely miss the point -- and increase the fog that the Regime deliberately spreads over its true interests. For the heart of this slouching beast is neither left-wing nor right-wing; it's strictly Bush-wing. Anyone even slightly acquainted with the history of the Bush dynasty knows what makes these preppy puppies run -- and it has nothing to do with conservative principles or moral values or national security or world freedom. It's not ideology, but investments -- the gobbling up of unearned, risk-free lucre on the grandest scale imaginable.
Naturally, the pursuit of this kind of piratical wealth leads to certain kinds of policies that can at times be mistaken for a political philosophy. For example, the Bush Regime's devotion to Big Oil, the military, tax cuts, corporate deregulation and unbridled executive power could be seen as the expression of a coherent, if repellent, worldview: Social Darwinism -- survival of the fittest, might makes right, winner takes all. Likewise, the Regime's embrace of religious and cultural fundamentalism resembles an ideological stance of unbending zeal and moral certitude, encompassing the whole of reality.
Taken together, these traits present a formidable picture of a thoroughgoing ideological juggernaut, well-plated with philosophical, academic, legal and theological armor. But underneath all this bristling array there is nothing but a tiny white maggot of greed, wriggling and gorging on scraps of rotting meat. No deep beliefs or high ideals inform the Bushist ethos, which can be boiled down to one sentence: Grab your pile and screw anybody who gets in the way. War, energy and corporate finance just happen to be where the money is at. And raw, secretive political power -- unfettered by courts, laws, legislators or public scrutiny -- is the most effective way to safeguard and augment these investments.
That is not to say that the Bushist credo lacks all nuance. There is in fact a very important refinement to their wormy greed: Loot should always be obtained without the slightest risk to your own financial position. The "free market" must be shunned at all costs -- and manipulated by string-pulling, deceit and intimidation when competition is unavoidable. Thus the Bush model is to cozy up to governments -- preferably strongman regimes free to ladle out public money to their favorites with no questions asked.
That's why Bush patriarch Prescott, pa and grandpa to presidents, invested heavily in Nazi war industries throughout the 1930s -- and kept on investing even after the German war machine was grinding through Europe. That's why George I made his mogul bones by pumping oil with repressive royals in Kuwait. Later, when he had a government of his own to play with, George sent U.S. troops to bail out his Kuwaiti partners after another of his business clients, Saddam Hussein, got too frisky in a border dispute. George I would end his career as a corporate bagman, roaming the Earth in search of insider deals and choice "privatizations" from Saudi princes, Asian dictators, African tyrants, South American sleaze merchants and Europork peddlers.
George II's murky road to fortune was likewise paved with insider trading, no-risk loans and mysterious infusions of foreign cash, including a bailout from a firm embedded in the octopus of BCCI -- the renegade banking cartel that the U.S. Senate called the "largest criminal organization in world history," which cloaked drug deals, gun-running, nuke trafficking and "black ops" by the CIA and other intelligence services behind a protective wall of bribes that reached into nearly every government on Earth.
Of course, the best of all possible worlds is controlling the government yourself -- and Dubya has certainly raised crony capitalism to dizzy heights, tearing down whole countries just so his investor pals (and his family) can reap the profits of "reconstruction." But again, it is the maggoty hankering for easy money that truly drives Bushist militarism, not any kind of ideological or religious vision. For such crude minds, the surest way to guarantee that floods of public boodle keep pouring into your private pocket is to scare the hell out of people and keep them scared with war and rumors of war.
The decidedly un-butch Bushes are not really bloodthirsty. They don't sit in dark corners and cackle over the idea of children being chewed to pieces by American bombs. Nor do their nostrils flare with righteous rage at the thought of homosexuality or abortion or nipples on national television. It's just that war profiteering, corporate rapine and cynical pandering to the public's worst instincts are the easiest way to get the unearned riches they crave -- and the perks and power they feel are their birthright as an ancient branch of the American aristocracy.
Perhaps if they could obtain these same privileges as easily by other, less horrific means, they would. As it is, they take the world as they find it, and go about their business without fretting over the consequences -- the dead, the ruined, the spreading hate, the poisoned planet. Why should they care? As the maggot cannot see beyond the meat, so too these men of greed-stunted understanding can see nothing of worth outside their own bottomless appetites.
[b]Source:[/b]
By Chris Floyd, Global Eye - The Moscow Times, http://www.rense.com/general6...
[b]Annotations:[/b]
http://www.publicintegrity.org./pns/printer-friendly.aspx?aid=424" title="http://www.publicintegrity.org./pns/printer-friendly.aspx?aid=424" target="_blank"http://www.publicintegrity.or... ---
Investing in War: Carlyle Group Profits from Government and Conflict
The Center for Public Integrity, Nov. 18, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archi ve/2004/" title="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archi ve/2004/" target="_blank"http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...
11/19/BUGVD9TQA71.DTL&type=printable ---
New Army Chief is Carlyle Man
San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 19, 2004
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1018-01.htm" title="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1018-01.htm" target="_blank"http://www.commondreams.org/h... ---
Bush's Ancestor's Bank Seized by Government
Associated Press, Oct. 18, 2003
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/com-buchanan.html" title="http://www.takebackthemedia.com/com-buchanan.html" target="_blank"http://www.takebackthemedia.c... ---
Bush-Nazi Link Confirmed
New Hampshire Gazette, Oct. 10, 2003
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=" title="http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=" target="_blank"http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-...
detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_ Nazi_2 ---
Bush-Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951: Federal Documents
New Hampshire Gazette, Nov. 7, 2003
http://www.clamormagazine.org/features/issue14.3_feature.html" title="http://www.clamormagazine.org/features/issue14.3_feature.html" target="_blank"http://www.clamormagazine.org... ---
Heir to the Holocaust: Prescott Bush, $1.5 Million and Auschwitz
Clamor Magazine, May/June 2002
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt /bcci/01exec.htm" title="http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt /bcci/01exec.htm" target="_blank"http://www.fas.org/irp/congre... ---
The BCCI Affair
Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Dec. 1992
http://www.sfbg.com/gulfwar/090992.html" title="http://www.sfbg.com/gulfwar/090992.html" target="_blank"http://www.sfbg.com/gulfwar/0... ---
Liberated Kuwait: Rape, Reprisal and Repression
San Francisco Bay Guardian, Sept. 9, 1992
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/saud iara/layne.htm" title="http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/saud iara/layne.htm" target="_blank"http://www.theatlantic.com/un... ---
Why the Gulf War was not in the National Interest
The Atlantic Monthly, July 1991,
http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/20 04/11/17/regime/print.html" title="http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/20 04/11/17/regime/print.html" target="_blank"http://salon.com/opinion/blum... ---
Bush's Night of the Long Knives
The Guardian/Salon.com, Nov. 17, 2004
http://www.greens.org/s-r/30/30-03.html" title="http://www.greens.org/s-r/30/30-03.html" target="_blank"http://www.greens.org/s-r/30/... ---
The Hidden History of America's War on Iraq
Synthesis/Regeneration, Winter 2003
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5503.htm" title="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5503.htm" target="_blank"http://www.informationclearin... ---
The Barreling Bushes
Los Angeles Times, Jan. 11, 2004
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/01/int0 4001.html" title="http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/01/int0 4001.html" target="_blank"http://www.buzzflash.com/inte... ---
The Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
Kevin Phillips interview, Buzzflash.com, Jan. 4, 2004
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9231" title="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9231" target="_blank"http://www.corpwatch.org/arti... ---
Bush's Brother Has Contract to Help Chinese Chip Maker
Los Angeles Times, Nov. 27, 200
http://www.rense.com/general45/more.htm" title="http://www.rense.com/general45/more.htm" target="_blank"http://www.rense.com/general4... ---
Consultant On Iraq Contracts Employed President's Brother
Financial Times, Nov. 27, 2003
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0223-08.htm" title="http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0223-08.htm" target="_blank"http://www.commondreams.org/v... ---
All in the Profiteering First Family
Prince George's Journal, Feb. 23, 2004
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush,
http://mediafilter.org/caq/BushFamilyPreys.html" title="http://mediafilter.org/caq/BushFamilyPreys.html" target="_blank"http://mediafilter.org/caq/Bu... ---
The Family That Preys Together
Covert Action Quarterly, Summer 1992
http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/Book4Ch.1.html" title="http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/Book4Ch.1.html" target="_blank"http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/... ---
Father and Grandfather Bush
The Art of Deception, 2004
http://www.observer.co.uk/magazine/story/0" title="http://www.observer.co.uk/magazine/story/0" target="_blank"http://www.observer.co.uk/mag...,11913,738196,00.html ---
Bush's Texas: Dark Heart of the American Dream
The Observer, June 16, 2002
http://www.linkoregon.com/skeletons.htm" title="http://www.linkoregon.com/skeletons.htm" target="_blank"http://www.linkoregon.com/ske... ---
The Bush Family Saga
The Oregon Coast News-Signal, Nov. 6, 2002
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/ 08/21/conason_four/print.html" title="http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/ 08/21/conason_four/print.html" target="_blank"http://salon.com/opinion/feat... ---
Bush, Inc.
Salon.com, Aug. 21, 2003
http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html" title="http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html" target="_blank"http://www.motherjones.com/ne... ---
Bush Family Values
Mother Jones, Sept/Oct 1992
http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg00776.html" title="http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg00776.html" target="_blank"http://www.casi.org.uk/discus... ---
Bush Secret Effort Helped Iraq Build Its War Machine
Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1992
http://www.fair.org/extra/9505/iraqgate.html" title="http://www.fair.org/extra/9505/iraqgate.html" target="_blank"http://www.fair.org/extra/950... ---
Iraqgate: Confession and Coverup
Consortiumnews.com, May/June 1995
http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=731" title="http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=731" target="_blank"http://www.texasobserver.org/... ---
The Candidate. From Brown and Root
The Texas Observer, Oct. 6, 2000
http://burningbush.netfirms.com/Vidal.html" title="http://burningbush.netfirms.com/Vidal.html" target="_blank"http://burningbush.netfirms.c... ---
The Enemy Within
The Observer, Oct. 27, 2002
http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue108/947.html" title="http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue108/947.html" target="_blank"http://www.redherring.com/mag... ---
Carlyle's Way
Red Herring, Dec. 11, 2001
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0" title="http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0" target="_blank"http://www.observer.co.uk/ira...,12239,919897,00.html ---
[Carlyle Group] Gets Fat on War
The Guardian, March 23, 2003
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020401&s=shorro ck" title="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020401&s=shorro ck" target="_blank"http://www.thenation.com/doc.... ---
Crony Capitalism Goes Global
The Nation, April 1, 2002
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=3999" title="http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=3999" target="_blank"http://www.antiwar.com/news/?... ---
Gitmo Trials Continue Despite Court Ruling
The New Standard, Nov. 18, 2004
http://salon.com/books/feature/2004/01 /27/phillips/index.html" title="http://salon.com/books/feature/2004/01 /27/phillips/index.html" target="_blank"http://salon.com/books/featur... ---
The Bush Dynasty's Dark Magic
Salon.com, Jan. 27, 2004
http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml" title="http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml" target="_blank"http://www.inthesetimes.com/i... ---
Bin Laden Money Flow Leads to Midland, Texas
In These Times, October 2001
http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0" title="http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0" target="_blank"http://www.observer.co.uk/bus...,6903,877668,00.html ---
Spies Hide as Bank of England Faces BCCI Charges
Observer, Jan. 19, 2003
http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/27/04/news1.shtml" title="http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/27/04/news1.shtml" target="_blank"http://www.inthesetimes.com/i... ---
Funding Terror: The Role of Saudi Banks
In These Times, Dec. 20, 2002
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war /akin1112001.htm" title="http://www.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war /akin1112001.htm" target="_blank"http://www.bostonherald.com/n... ---
White House Connection: Saudi 'Agents' Close Bush Friends
Boston Herald, Dec. 11, 2001
http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war /saud12102001.htm" title="http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war /saud12102001.htm" target="_blank"http://www2.bostonherald.com/... ---
US Ties to Saudi Elite May be Hurting War on Terrorism
Boston Herald, Dec. 10, 2001
http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war /saud12112001.htm" title="http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war /saud12112001.htm" target="_blank"http://www2.bostonherald.com/... ---
Bush Advisers Cashed in on Saudi Gravy Train
Boston Herald, Dec. 11, 2001
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/633212.asp" title="http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/633212.asp" target="_blank"http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/... ---
Terrorists, Dollars and a Tangled Web
MSNBC.com, Sept. 24, 2001
http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?030505t a_talk_mayer" title="http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?030505t a_talk_mayer" target="_blank"http://newyorker.com/talk/con... ---
The Contractors: Bechtel and Bin Laden
The New Yorker, May 5, 2003
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0420-05.htm" title="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0420-05.htm" target="_blank"http://www.commondreams.org/h... ---
Ex-U.S. Official Says CIA Aided Baathists
Reuters, April 20, 2003
http://slate.msn.com/id/2089674/" title="http://slate.msn.com/id/2089674/" target="_blank"http://slate.msn.com/id/20896... ---
Rumsfeld's $9 Billion Slush Fund
Slate.com, Oct. 10, 2003
http://slate.msn.com/id/2090725/" title="http://slate.msn.com/id/2090725/" target="_blank"http://slate.msn.com/id/20907... ---
The CIA Goes Corporate
Slate.com, Nov. 4, 2003
http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=1070" title="http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=1070" target="_blank"http://www.nationinstitute.or... ---
Assassins R Us
TomDispatch, the Nation Institute, Nov. 16, 2003
http://www.cjr.org/year/93/2/iraqgate.asp" title="http://www.cjr.org/year/93/2/iraqgate.asp" target="_blank"http://www.cjr.org/year/93/2/... ---
Iraqgate
Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 1993
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt /bcci/24appendic.htm" title="http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt /bcci/24appendic.htm" target="_blank"http://www.fas.org/irp/congre... ---
The BCCI Affair: Matters for Further Investigation
Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Dec. 1992
http://commondreams.org/headlines02/0818-02.htm" title="http://commondreams.org/headlines02/0818-02.htm" target="_blank"http://commondreams.org/headl... ---
Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in Time of War Despite Use of Gas
New York Times, Aug. 18, 2002
http://www.fair.org/extra/9505/iraqgate.html" title="http://www.fair.org/extra/9505/iraqgate.html" target="_blank"http://www.fair.org/extra/950... ---
Iraqgate: Confession and Coverup
Consortiumnews.com, May/June 1995
http://kings.edu/" title="http://kings.edu/" target="_blank"http://kings.edu/~twsawyer/ttguides/docs/w ackenhut-wp-199701.txt ---
Wackenhut: Inside the Shadow CIA
Spy Magazine, Sept. 1992
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story34.html" title="http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story34.html" target="_blank"http://www.consortiumnews.com... ---
Firewall: Inside the Iran-Contra Coverup
Consortiumnews.com, 1997
http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/ 15/hersh/index.html" title="http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/ 15/hersh/index.html" target="_blank"http://dir.salon.com/news/fea... ---
Gulf War Crimes
Salon.com, May 15, 2000
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html" title="http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html" target="_blank"http://globalresearch.ca/arti... ---
Afghanistan, the Taliban, and the Bush Oil Team
Centre for Research on Globalisation, March 23, 2002
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/101100a.html" title="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/101100a.html" target="_blank"http://www.consortiumnews.com... ---
Sun Myung Moon, North Korea and the Bushes
Consortiumnews.com, Oct. 11, 2000
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/010301a.html" title="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/010301a.html" target="_blank"http://www.consortiumnews.com... ---
Rev. Moon, the Bushes and Donald Rumsfeld
Consortiumnews.com, Jan. 3, 2001
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html" title="http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html" target="_blank"http://www.consortiumnews.com... ---
The Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Hooking George Bush
Consortiumnews.com, 1997 archives
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/081400a1.html" title="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/081400a1.html" target="_blank"http://www.consortiumnews.com... ---
The Bush Family Oligarchy
Consortiumnews.com, Aug. 14, 2000
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/092300a.html" title="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/092300a.html" target="_blank"http://www.consortiumnews.com... ---
George H.W. Bush, the CIA and a Case of State Terrorism
Consortiumnews.com, Sept. 23, 2000
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0" title="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0" target="_blank"http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa...,12271,851913,00.html ---
The Bush Dynasty and the Cuban Criminals
The Guaridan, Dec. 2, 2002
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/11/26/120 .html" title="http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/11/26/120 .html" target="_blank"http://www.moscowtimes.ru/sto... ---
|
|
|
| |
| ... Corporate Power: Anti-Capitalistic Control of the Internet ... |
| 11.30.04 (9:25 am) [edit] |
"When we have the courage to speak out – to break our silence – we inspire the rest of the "moderates" in our communities to speak up and voice their views." - Sharon Schuster
[b]What better way to stifle our ability to obtain timely information, organize & express our dissent (involving efficient and effective communications) than to put a stop to the "capitalistic" notion that entrepreneurs can provide low-cost internet services to American citizens??? ... Oh, no-- the corrupt, hypocritical Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] will certainly not permit [i]this[/i] open communications to continue; for there are massive profits to be made by corporate robber-barons and the dumbing-down of America must continue onwards and upwards [[i]sic[/i]] ... The internet represents a [i]real threat [/i]to the brain-washing of America ... "We the People" must fight this tyrannical downwards spiral towards un-American fascism being imposed upon us by the insane whorish Bushies & their neo-con cabal of corporate pimps ... Write to your representatives in Congress http://www.congress.org today and demand that Verizon and other such corporate fascists be stopped immediately in their ugly attempt to gain an immoral (and anti-"capitalistic") monopoly upon the internet ...[/b]
[b][u]CORPORATE POWER[/u]
Verizon's Villainy[/b]
In an attempt to bridge the digital divide and enhance their economic prospects, cities across the nation, including Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis and Philadelphia, are planning to deploy universal low-cost wireless Internet access. Meanwhile, moneyed telecommunications corporations and their army of lobbyists are doing everything in their power to ensure it doesn't happen. In Pennsylvania, for example, the legislature passed a bill with a deeply buried provision – inserted after intensive lobbying by Verizon Communications – which would make it illegal for any city or other "political subdivision" in the state to provide low-cost Internet access to its citizens unless a corporation like Verizon gave them permission. Gov. Ed Rendell has until midnight tonight to sign or veto the legislation. Email Gov. Rendell http://www.americanprogressac... and tell him he should stand up to corporate lobbyists and veto the bill.
[b]VERIZON'S OFFENSIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFENSIVE:[/b] Eager to squelch what is quickly becoming a public relations disaster, Verizon said yesterday that it is considering allowing Philadelphia to deploy its wireless network even if the bill is signed into law. This is a transparent effort to tamp down the controversy while still enabling the company to "handcuff other cities and towns in Pennsylvania." For example, a Verizon representative refused to say whether the company would allow the town of Kutztown, PA to go ahead with plans to offer broadband Internet access over wires. More broadly, the citizens of Pennsylvania – not multinational corporations – should be in charge of their government.
[b]THE $3 BILLION CORPORATE GIVEAWAY:[/b] The language restricting cities from providing low-cost Internet access was a just a small provision in "a 30-page bill drafted by industry lobbyists." While restricting competition, the bill provides massive giveaways for telecommunication companies to roll out broadband networks. These provisions are worth as much as $3 billion to Verizon alone.
[b]THE BROAD EFFORT TO KILL LOW-COST INTERNET ACCESS:[/b] The movement to restrict low-cost broadband Internet access are not limited to Verizon's efforts in Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, BellSouth and Qwest Communications pushed for "severe restrictions on municipal broadband service in Louisiana and Utah." (For more on these corporations' cynical efforts to limit low-cost wireless internet access, check out freepress.net http://www.freepress.net/wifi... .)
[b]CORPORATE BROADBAND ACCESS LEAVES MIDDLE CLASS BEHIND:[/b] Broadband Internet access is "destined to become this century's basic infrastructure – what highways, water systems and power grids were to the last century's development." But corporate control of broadband development has excluded most of the middle class. Among those living in households earning $150,000 and above, nearly 60 percent have broadband Internet access. But among those living in households earning between $25,000 and $34,999, just 13.4 percent have broadband access. Barbara Grant, a spokeswoman for Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street, said the city's efforts were intended "to bridge the digital divide for residents who wouldn't have access to the Internet, particularly school children."
[b]MUNICIPAL INTERNET ACCESS IS COST EFFECTIVE:[/b] In Philadelphia, planners estimate that offering city-wide wireless Internet access will cost taxpayers $10 million to set up and $1.5 million a year to operate. Commercial broadband access provided by companies like Verizon typically costs from $35 to $60 a month. That means if Verizon were to provide broadband access to all 590,000 Philly households, it would charge at least $247 million a year.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
|
|
|
| |
| ... The Fate of Medical Pot ... |
| 11.30.04 (6:51 am) [edit] |
"Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them." - Dr. Martin Henry Fischer
[b]Years ago a very good friend of mine was diagnosed with a deadly cancer that took her life ... She was an old-fashioned, conservative woman who loved and was beloved by her devoted family and loyal friends alike ... She had been married for over 50 years, and took great joy in her grand-children, nature, her religious faith and her artistic projects ... Towards the end of her illness, she stopped taking kemotherapy because it made her so nauseated, sick and tired that she could no longer take any pleasure in being around people ... Her doctor advised her to take medical marijuana to ease her misery... She declined because it [i]was and still is [/i]an illegal substance ...
The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]seems to want to control every aspect of our private lives ([i]except[/i] when it comes to letting gluttonous corporations & greedy plutocrats exploit, abuse and steal from us ...) ... What business is it of the federal government ([i]Big Brother[/i]) to involve itself in medical decision-making? ... Or could it be that the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want patients to obtain relief if they don't make a massive profit? ... "We the People" should insist that medical marijuana be made available to those in pain and who are suffering ... Not to do so is truly cruel and[i] very, very [/i]un-Christian ...[/b]
[b]The Supreme Court is set to rule on whether the feds have the right to arrest medical marijuana patients. But will the justices have all the facts?[/b]
The end of November marks the beginning of what could be the final act for the medical marijuana movement. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to take from Nov. 29 until late spring to decide, in the case of Ashcroft vs. Raich, whether federal agents can arrest medical cannabis patients, even in states that authorize medical cannabis use.
It is an epic states' rights battle, although few in the national media portray it that way. Major media outlets also continue to ignore a growing body of evidence that suggests that cannabinoids, the active ingredients in cannabis, show more healing potential for a variety of illnesses than practically any natural substance known to medical science.
Why is the federal government bent on suppressing cannabis when solid research suggests it can be so beneficial? Ask the members of the U.S. House and Senate, who blindly demonize marijuana while accepting millions of dollars in donations from the same pharmaceutical giants who back cannabis prohibition.
If the Supreme Court also turns a blind eye to the research and rules, as it did in 2001, that cannabis has no medical use unless Congress says it has a medical use, then it hardly matters if cannabinoids turn out to be the cure for cancer, as some European cannabis researchers are suggesting.
In May 2000 I reported that Spanish researchers had shrunk or destroyed deadly brain tumors in rats using THC, a cannabinoid. The Spaniards' study was reportedly the first time that cannabinoids had been administered to tumor-bearing animals. With information provided by Manuel Guzman, the lead researcher in the Madrid study, I uncovered a 1974 study done in the United States in which THC had shrunk breast and lung tumors in rats. The federal government had suppressed the study's results and subsequently shut down all cannabis research at public institutions.
One year later, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its first ruling on medical cannabis, a negative decision against the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club.
The intervening years have seen substantial research on cannabinoids by Guzman and a handful of dedicated European scientists. In 2003 the First European Workshop on Cannabinoid Research produced more than 50 pages of investigative abstracts from the U.K., Italy, Spain, Germany and France that provide the scientific basis for researchers' claims that cannabinoids hold promise for Alzheimer's, cancer, Parkinson's, alcoholism, depression and other illnesses.
In October 2003 Guzman published a review of cannabis research in Nature Cancer that described in detail the anti-cancer properties of cannabinoids. Last August, Guzman reported in Cancer Research how cannabinoids deprive cancerous tumors of the blood they need to survive. The article mentioned the first known trials of cannabis tincture on humans with brain cancer, which reportedly showed positive results.
The research findings of European cannabis researchers receive substantial coverage in Spain, Latin America, the U.K., France and Germany. The U.S. media have been largely silent, until recently. The American Association for Cannabis Research, a 15,000-member group of U.S. cancer researchers, issued a press release in August about Guzman's latest findings, prompting coverage in Scientific American and a smattering of other mainstream outlets.
It is impossible to know whether Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the negative decision in the 2001 Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club case, will be aware that cannabinoids shrink tumors when he makes his decision in Ashcroft vs. Raich. The Supreme Court justices and their legal staff would appear to have a moral, if not a legal responsibility to acquire at least a rudimentary knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the great national issues they decide. In the case of medical marijuana, there is so much evidence about the healing potential of cannabinoids, even on the government's own web sites, that it suggests negligence to ignore it.
If the Supreme Court rules against patients in Ashcroft vs. Raich, it will give the U.S. Justice Department all the justification it needs to resume its persecution of medical pot users and effectively destroy the medical marijuana movement in California and nine other states. Then cannabis clubs will become part of our collective memory, and valuable research on cannabinoids will continue to be ignored.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Raymond Cushing is a writer based in Sacramento, Calif. His article on cannabis research was included in the 2000 Project Censored collection. AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
'Mind-altering national charade to keep patients from the joint', http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
|
|
|
| |
| ... A Moral Civil War ... |
| 11.29.04 (3:09 pm) [edit] |
"Nothing in the world is more haughty than a man of moderate capacity when once raised to power." - Baron Wessenberg
[b]"We the People" have before us a haughty, arrogant and incompetent President Bush:-- an immoral mediocrity-- a disgrace to our nation-- and a disaster for the world ... Both at home and around the world, Bush policies are the moral equivilant to seceding from the rest of the world ... We have a moral obligation to stop this secession from taking place ...[/b]
By continuing to withdraw his administration from the spirit and letter of human rights and global law, President Bush is seceding from the rest of the world. Through a moral equivalent of Civil War, we must prevent this secession from taking place.
If we agree with the terse thesis of Francis A. Boyle – that the Bush movement constitutes "a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the integrity of the international legal order" – then the muscle of the Bush grip at home is connected through sinews of illegality to the trigger finger in Falluja. The bad news about Bushist secessionism is that principles of law are under attack at home and abroad. The good news is that principles of resistance can be welded together. From every node of resistance, we can forge ladders of international law, the better to scale collectively the walls of fortress Bush.
Bush has appropriated enormous power from the government of the U.S. as he belittles "focus groups" at home and "international tests" abroad. When millions of Americans hit the streets pleading with Bush not to pursue a literal war on terrorism, Bush called the protesters nothing but "focus groups." When his campaign opponent said that presidents should respect international law, Bush scoffed at the concept of an international test, saying quizzically, "I'm not exactly sure what you mean ..."
In a moral equivalent of Civil War, Bush's belligerence toward international law is cultural heir to secessionist governors in the American South who once scoffed at federal authority as stridently as they cherished their own authority over others. (No wonder, then, that black voters in America today are 88 percent likely to vote against Bushism. Why Jewish voters also refuse to be drawn into BushWorld speaks to longstanding filiations, I think, between Dixie and Nazi ideologies.) At home and abroad, we can speak with converging voices if we demand reconciliation between the Bush movement and obligations of international law.
At home, Bushist secessionism attacks Constitutional rights and liberties that have won international standing as human rights and liberties. Respecting women's reproductive rights, or the rights of people to form their own families, plain-speaking Bush refuses to speak up. Regarding rights to due process, open records, and free speech, the warm-faced president works with bone-cold hands.
As for Iraq, argues Professor Boyle, laws of war compel definition of U.S. soldiers as "belligerent occupants." So long as these soldiers remain in Iraq, they should take no actions that would contravene Articles 42-56 of the Laws of War as adopted at Hague II.
Yet, Globelaw editor Duncan Currie notes with concern that, "incidents have been reported to have been initiated by the coalition forces involving civilian casualties, including the bombing of a Syrian bus, use of cluster bombs, destruction of electricity supplies leading to disruption of civilian water supplies, attacks on Iraqi television stations, on Al-Jazeera and on the Palestine hotel, on markets at Al-Shaab and Shula, on civilians at Nasiriya and Hilla, on a van at Najaf, shooting at ambulances, and shooting of protesters."
"In addition," continues Currie, "there have been reports of a failure to restore water, electricity and other humanitarian needs and encouragement, toleration and failure to avoid looting, including of nuclear installations. State responsibility and individual criminal liability for these and other actions has yet to be determined. Any responsibility or liability assistance after the fact of other States or individuals or the adoption of these acts by other States, or the actions of States as belligerent occupants in Iraq, could be determined by the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice or an ad hoc or arbitral tribunal."
Currie's allegations were made in May 2003, within weeks of the invasion. During that same month, Leah Wells of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation questioned U.S. intentions for Iraq's water. She worried about water privatization. More recently, Daniel O'Huiginn in behalf of Cambridge Solidarity with Iraq (CASI) has documented allegations that water cutoff has been used as a weapon. Yet, people have rights to water. Here is another area where Bushist secession from international law must be stopped.
Naomi Klein also appeals to international law in her muckraking review of the Bremer administration, published in Harpers. When international law declares that belligerent occupiers are supposed to treat occupied properties as "private" – that means treat the properties as if they belong to the people who live there. But in sinister misappropriations of legal spirit, the Bremer occupation "privatizes" Iraq and puts it out for bid. The legal obligation to "usufruct" is replaced with a license to usurp. As a result, writes Klein, "where economic reforms were introduced at their most shocking and most perfect, they created, instead of a model free market, a failed state no right-thinking investor would touch." International law (go figure) may offer a better structure for doing business than Bushist secessionism.
Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) brings news that one American innovation in Iraq involves "a system of monopoly rights over seed." The FPIF discussion paper appeals to international rights of "food sovereignty" – the right of a nation, "to define their own food and agriculture policies, to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade, to decide the way food should be produced, and to determine what should be grown locally and what should be imported."
Since Americans have been told very little about the privatization of Iraq, the population of the U.S. is little prepared to empathize with righteous indignations that Iraqis feel as they witness their own country sold out from under their feet. Neither can the average American understand the aggravation that must be provoked among Iraqis watching Bush play to global cameras with his schtick about American gifts of freedom and democracy. For Iraqis, a big schtick, indeed.
At least 56 million Americans, however, are open to suggestion that something about the Bush agenda is headed in the wrong direction. Bushist secessionism declares a civil war that we have no choice but to stop. Both at home and abroad, a unifying theme of struggle may be found in a call to restore BushWorld to a global sovereignty of rights and laws.
[b]Source:[/b]
By Greg Moses, AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org.
|
|
|
| |
| ... Aiming for ANWR ... |
| 11.29.04 (1:09 pm) [edit] |
"We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can't speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees." - Qwatsinas [Hereditary Chief Edward Moody], Nuxalk Nation
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]is greedy, arrogant and short-sighted-- with cynical disregard for the dire consequences of its' criminal actions upon others ... Bush and his ugly cabal of neo-con thugs and neo-fascist goons care nothing about life: neither the lives of human-beings (i.e. Americans, Iraqis, etc.) that they are responsible for slaughtering wholesale in Iraq, nor for the life of our planet ... "We the People" have an obligation to protect the environment and safeguard the natural world for the well-being of all,[i] as well as [/i]for the sake of future generations ...[/b]
George W. Bush accepted http://www.opensecrets.org/in... $2.9 million from the energy and natural-resources sector in 2000 and then made drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a centerpiece of his closed-door energy policy http://www.disinfopedia.org/w...'s_Energy_Task_Force .
The House narrowly passed http://www.wilderness.org/Our... Bush's energy bill last year while the Senate tried and failed on two occasions. Last March Democrats and moderate Republicans succeeded in blocking http://capwiz.com/awc/issues/... a pro-drilling amendment to a budget bill by a slim 52 to 48 margin. This past election the energy sector gave http://www.opensecrets.org/in... an added $4.4 million to Bush and seven new conservative Republicans joined the Senate http://www.thenation.com/blog... , signaling even larger payoffs for the energy industry.
Democrats can still filibuster most drilling attempts--requiring 60 votes to override. Yet Republicans say they plan http://abcnews.go.com/Politic... on attaching the drilling provision to a comprehensive budget bill in 2005, needing only a simple majority vote to pass. That would likely result in a 51 to 49 victory for drilling advocates. The fate of ANWR is once again in jeopardy.
"The arguments against drilling are as strong as they were before the election," says Elliott Negin of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Drilling in "America's Serengeti"--as conservationists dub the wildlife refuge--would increase world oil reserves by only 0.3 percent http://www.nrdc.org/land/wild... , a margin too miniscule to significantly lower US oil imports or reduce the world price. It will take ten years for that oil to reach http://www.nrdc.org/land/wild... the US market. At peak projection levels in 2027, ANWR would satisfy less than 2 percent of America's expected oil consumption http://www.nrdc.org/land/wild... . Americans consistently oppose http://www.defenders.org/wild... more drilling in poll after poll.
Meanwhile, raising fuel efficiency standards in cars to forty miles per gallon over the next decade would save ten to fifteen times more oil http://www.nrdc.org/land/wild... than the Refuge could yield, according to government data. A clean energy policy would create 1.4 million new US jobs and save the average household $1,275 in annual energy savings by 2025, a recent report http://www.sierraclub.org/glo... by a coalition of union leaders and environmental groups found.
With oil now hovering near $50 per barrel, the Republicans--while annointing themselves "the party of ideas"--are still proposing tired 19th century drilling solutions to critical 21st century energy problems.
[b]Source:[/b]
Ari Berman, [i]The Daily Outrage[/i], TheNation, http://www.thenation.com
|
|
|
| |
| ... A Hypocritical, Blithering Idiot -- Morally Speaking ... |
| 11.29.04 (8:35 am) [edit] |
"A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint." - Francis Bacon
"Clean your finger before you point at my spots." - Benjamin Franklin
"How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! How horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite." - Voltaire
[b]Isn't it about time for "We the People" to clearly see and denounce the false prophets, hypocrites and blithering idiots for the ruthless opportunists, blood-sucking money-grubbing gluttons and cynical con-men that they[i] really [/i]are??? ...[/b]
"I don't believe God loves war…everybody hates war." - Rev. Jerry Falwell, 11/28/04
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"God is Pro-War." – Falwell commentary, 1/31/04
Yesterday on [i]Meet the Press[/i], http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... Reverend Jerry Falwell reaffirmed the Christian Right's narrow focus on two issues: gay marriage and abortion. Asked by progressive religious leader Jim Wallis to engage in a "broader and deeper" conversation about values, Falwell and fellow conservative preacher Dr. Richard Land resorted to bigotry and misdirection, lashing out against gays, women and religious progressives. Falwell's priorities fly in the face of the "moral values" most often cited (though not most often reported) on Nov. 2, where polls showed voters were more concerned with "greed and materialism" (33 percent) and "poverty and economic justice" (31 percent) than they were with issues like gay marriage (12 percent). Nevertheless, Christian conservatives around the country are following Falwell's lead, dismissing concerns about separation of church and state and setting out to refashion the federal courts around a narrow agenda which conflicts with the values of most Americans.
[b]FALWELL DEMEANS RELIGIOUS PROGRESSIVES:[/b] Falwell went out of his way on Sunday to divide America, saying those who voted for John Kerry did not "take the bible seriously." Wallis shot back, saying, "Jerry, there are millions and millions of Christians who want the nation to know that you don't speak for them...that Jesus, our Jesus isn't pro-rich, pro-war and only pro-American. We don't find that Jesus anywhere in the Bible."
[b]FALWELL REAFFIRMS BLAME FOR 9/11 ON GAYS, FEMINISTS:[/b] Falwell refused to back down from his comment that 9/11 had been caused by "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians [and] all of them who have tried to secularize America." He reiterated that, "when we defy the Lord, I think we pay a price for it."
[b]FALWELL FLIP-FLOPS ON GOD, WAR:[/b] Falwell contradicted himself on the war in Iraq, cited by 42 percent of respondents as the moral issue which most influenced their vote on Nov. 2. When Rev. Wallis asked him why he had said God was "pro-war," Falwell said, "I don't believe God loves war…everybody hates war." The name of Falwell's 1/31/04 commentary? "God is Pro-War."
[b]SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON CIVIL RIGHTS:[/b] Falwell and Land tried to cast their anti-abortion crusade as similar to the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. But Al Sharpton reminded Land it was his own church that fought against King. "What [King] did was fought against the Southern conservative values of those days," said Sharpton. "He fought the Southern Convention that you represent. Dr. King fought that convention. Let's not rewrite history." Wallis added that King had served as a model of how religion and values could play a part in political life: "He reminded us of this wonderful vision of a beloved community where no one gets left out and those who are always left out have a front-row seat."
[b]RELIGIOUS RIGHT SETS AFTER COURTS:[/b] The Palm Beach Post's George McEvoy reports Congressmen pandering to the Christian right wing are planning ways to strip federal courts of "their right to hear cases involving the separation of church and state." Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN), addressing a special legislative briefing of the Christian Coalition last month in Washington, said he planned to introduce a bill that would "deny federal courts the right to hear cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, which bans same-sex marriage." Unimpressed by America's system of checks and balances, Hostettler inveighed, "When the courts make unconstitutional decisions, we should not enforce them. Federal courts have no army or navy...At the end of the day, we're saying the court can't enforce its opinions." Rep. Robert Aderholdt (R-AL), recently advocated "court stripping as a means to protect state-sponsored Ten Commandment displays."
[b]KENNEDY WARNS BUSH:[/b] Another conservative religious leader, Dr. James Kennedy, whose sermons are broadcast in 3 million homes, has warned that God will "be angry" if President Bush does not act soon on abortion and gay marriage. "He said he knows of no timetable for God's wrath, but wants results fast." Asked about the millions of Americans who are not Christian, or have a different interpretation of Christianity, Kennedy recommended they "repent" and said he "couldn't care less" about their views.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Ah, I See. In That Case, It Makes Perfect Sense!!! ... |
| 11.28.04 (8:50 am) [edit] |
"The failure to ensure that the nation's classrooms, especially those in disadvantaged schools, are all staffed with qualified teachers is one of the most important problems in contemporary American education." - Why Do High-Poverty Schools Have Difficulty Staffing Their Classrooms with Qualified Teachers?, http://www.americanprogress.o...
Nothing is more important than investing in the education of our children and young people in order that they may participate in our democracy as well-educated, responsible and properly informed citizens ... Tragically, "We the People" are failing miserably in funding and supporting this top priority: Education should come [i]BEFORE[/i] Insane Warmongering ... Unhappily, the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has put enriching their corporate cronies (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) via illegal and immoral warfare, before education and before our nation's well-being ...
[b]"[i]What's the Matter With Kansas[/i]?" http://www.powells.com/cgi-bi... is a great book and a fascinating socio-political question. But a more visceral "what the bleeding hell is the matter with Alabama?!?" was the cry of many a Kossack when we learned that Alabama voters had narrowly rejected a constitutional amendment http://www.washingtonpost.com... that would have "erased segregation-era wording requiring separate schools for 'white and colored children' and eliminated references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks." To repeat: a majority of Alabama voters freely chose to keep segregationist language (long since unenforceable due to its federal unconstitutionality) in their state constitution.[/b]
[b]Now, you might have thought -- as I did -- that this stunning rejection of basic 1950's civil rights achievements was -- perhaps -- somewhat indicative of a teeny eensy bit of racism in Alabama. That's why I was glad to learn from today's [i]Washington Post[/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com... that the real reason Alabamans voted in favor of state-enforced segregation and poll taxes was because . . . well . . . here -- read it yourself:[/b]
... "Some say it was not about race but about taxes. The amendment had two main parts: the removal of the separate-schools language and the removal of a passage -- inserted in the 1950s in an attempt to counter the Brown v. Board of Education ruling against segregated public schools -- that said Alabama's constitution does not guarantee a right to a public education. Leading opponents, such as Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles, said they did not object to removing the passage about separate schools for "white and colored children." But, employing an argument that was ridiculed by most of the state's newspapers and by legions of legal experts, Giles and others said guaranteeing a right to a public education would have opened a door for "rogue" federal judges to order the state to raise taxes to pay for improvements in its public school system." ...
[b]So there you go. I feel much better now, knowing that Alabama's vote for segregation had nothing to do with race, and everything to do with denying children the right to public education. That's fantastic. [/b]
[b]Sources:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
DailyKos, http://www.dailykos.com
|
|
|
| |
| ... Mandate, Schmandate ... |
| 11.27.04 (2:04 pm) [edit] |
"In the pregame highlights for the next two years of Republican one-party rule, rightwing radicals dropped their towels and exposed themselves in all their naked ambition last week. It wasn't a pretty sight." - Desperate Republicans, http://www.thenation.com/edcu...
The [i]New York Times/CBS [/i]poll released this week finds that Americans are "at best ambivalent" about Bush's plans to privatize Social Security, rewrite the tax code, cut taxes and appoint conservative judges to the bench. Read more here http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... , including an interactive poll feature.
[b]"We the People" must make our voices heard and write to our representatives in Congress http://www.congress.org , demanding greater accountability for decision-making by our governmental institutions; immediate repeal of Bush's immoral tax cuts for the hyper-rich, greedy plutocrats and gluttonous corporations (while the[i] rest of us [/i]bear the brunt of record-level deficits/debts); a stop for Bush's neo-fascist plans to privatize Social Security (i.e. embezzlement scheme for corporate rapists); and, other outrages perpetrated by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] in our name ...[/b]
Refer also to [b]"Bull's Eye"[/b] by[i] Rajinder Puri [/i]on http://www.outlookindia.com/b... ...
|
|
|
| |
| ... The U.S. Dollar: Deficit Disorder ... |
| 11.23.04 (12:32 pm) [edit] |
"INFLATION is one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation." - Milton Friedman
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]has all but bankrupted our nation, as these neo-con thieves and neo-fascist embezzlers have wrecked our economy ... The dollar is in free-fall and the world banks are abandoning it in favor of the Euro and other currencies ... This spells the beginning of horrendous I N F L A T I O N inflicted upon "We the People" ... Inflation hurts Middle Class Families; and, hits working people, the poor-and-vulnerable, and fixed income retirees the hardest ... Meanwhile, Bush has greedily given himself, his Crime Family, and his hyper-wealthy gluttonous corporate cronies massive tax cuts for the rich (inflation won't hurt [i]them[/i]) ... This spells T R E A S O N ... Please call upon Congress http://www.congress.org to impeach Bush/Cheney for reckless malfeasance in mismanaging our economy (for their own profit), in addition to wanton criminal activities related to taking our nation to war based upon false pretences (also, for their own profit) ...[/b]
"The deficit certainly remains a concern, but it's one that is manageable and it's one that we are addressing."
– White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, 7/15/03, http://www.cbsnews.com/storie...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"Right now, our whole country is on life-support from Beijing and Tokyo."
–Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff, 11/21/04, http://www.signonsandiego.com...
President Bush's reckless fiscal policies, combined with a dollar edging towards a dangerous "free fall," are imperiling America's economy. The weak dollar would be little cause for alarm had President Bush's first term tax cuts not "driven the government's budget deficit to record levels." But if foreign bankers, who finance most of America's debt, continue to lose confidence in the Bush administration's ability to pay down that deficit, they could stop investing in our economy. Once that happens, the market for U.S. dollars would dry up, causing the dollar's value to fall further and faster. At that point, to attract investment, America would be forced to raise interest rates, slowing America's economy and making it even harder to pay down the debt. (Put the dollar's decline in perspective http://www.americanprogress.o... with this new column from American Progress's Christian Weller.)
[b]FOREIGN LEADERS SKEPTICAL OF BUSH:[/b] To minimize the risk of an abrupt crash in the dollar, President Bush needs to convince the world he is serious about reducing the debt. But the world is skeptical. Last week, as Congress finalized plans to raise America's debt ceiling for the third time in three years, Bush told a summit of CEO's in Chile that he was committed to reducing the deficit. The remarks were not well-received. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder "openly criticized the U.S." for its inability to trim its "twin deficit…the current account deficit and the budget deficit." London currency specialist Monica Fan said Bush's pledge didn't "amount to anything more than political posturing." Another European economist said the dollar's accelerated decline since the Nov. 2 election reflected concern that Bush's "emphasis on tax cuts" would prevent him from reining in deficits.
[b]GREENSPAN WARNS DEFICIT COULD DESTABILIZE ECONOMY:[/b] The complaints haven't all come from foreign economists. The administration's own Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, warned this week that "The persistence of bloated U.S. trade deficits over time can pose a risk to the U.S. economy." So far, Greenspan said, foreigners have been willing to lend the U.S. money to finance the current account imbalances, but "at some point foreigners might suddenly lose interest in holding dollar-denominated investments. That could cause foreigners to unload investments in U.S. stocks and bonds, sending their prices plunging and interest rates soaring."
[b]MADE IN CHINA:[/b] The Bush administration's inability to pay down the deficit is subjecting America's economy to the whims of foreign leaders. "Right now, our whole country's on life-support from Beijing and Tokyo," said Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff. As the dollar continues to weaken, Schiff said, "China might decide it's best to cut us off this welfare scheme and start spending the money on their own citizens." Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach adds, "The day will come when foreign investors simply say 'no' to this arrangement. That's when the dollar collapses, US interest rates soar, and the stock market plunges. Under such a crisis scenario, a US recession would be all but inevitable." The Guardian reports the Chinese – the number one financer of American debt – are already "losing their appetite for US holdings."
[b]BACK TO THE FUTURE:[/b] Some experts insist the current decline of the dollar is "eerily similar to a decline in the 1970s that touched off the worst period of growth the United States experienced since World War II." Then, as now, the dollar declined at a time of "high budget and trade deficits, low interest rates, high oil prices and ever-increasing military spending." By the end of that decade, "the nation was suffering double-digit rates in inflation, mortgages and unemployment."
[b]Sources:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
Morgan Stanley Chief Economist Predicts Economic "Armageddon", http://business.bostonherald....
Central Banks Begin to Move Away from U.S. Dollar, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps...
China Tells U.S. To Put Its House In Order, http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f16a...
|
|
|
| |
| ... "Something Was Not Right" ... |
| 11.23.04 (7:21 am) [edit] |
"As an experienced war correspondent, who was aware of possible mitigating circumstances, it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right. I was not watching from a hundred feet away. I was in the same room. Aside from breathing, I did not observe any movement." - 'Something was not right': Cameraman goes public on video footage of marines, http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
While both the main-stream media and the Bush administration do their best to present Americans with an air-brushed picture of war, a site http://fallujapictures.blogsp... called "Fallujah in Pictures" reminds us of the high price of an occupation gone wrong. Though contrary to the title, the images are from different parts of Iraq, including Ramadi and Mosul.
You can read reactions http://www.dailygrail.com/nod... to these pictures over at a blog authored by Cernig, who also sent AlterNet the link.
[b]To Devil Dogs of the 3.1:[/b]
Since the shooting in the Mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw or explain the process by which the world came to see it as well. As you know, I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat. I've spent most of the last five years covering global conflict. But I have never in my career been a 'gotcha' reporter -- hoping for people to commit wrongdoings so I can catch them at it.
...[Read the whole post: http://www.kevinsites.net/200... ] ...
I interviewed your Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Willy Buhl, before the battle for Falluja began. He said something very powerful at the time-something that now seems prophetic. It was this:
"We're the good guys. We are Americans. We are fighting a gentleman's war here -- because we don't behead people, we don't come down to the same level of the people we're combating. That's a very difficult thing for a young 18-year-old Marine who's been trained to locate, close with and destroy the enemy with fire and close combat. That's a very difficult thing for a 42-year-old lieutenant colonel with 23 years experience in the service who was trained to do the same thing once upon a time, and who now has a thousand-plus men to lead, guide, coach, mentor -- and ensure we remain the good guys and keep the moral high ground."
I listened carefully when he said those words. I believed them.
So here, ultimately, is how it all plays out: when the Iraqi man in the mosque posed a threat, he was your enemy; when he was subdued he was your responsibility; when he was killed in front of my eyes and my camera -- the story of his death became my responsibility.
The burdens of war, as you so well know, are unforgiving for all of us.
[b]War brutalizes people, [i]all people[/i]: those fighting the war, the innocent victims of war, and those civilians who support the war ... "We the People" should in good conscience, demand the truth about the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]insane, illegal and immoral neo-con war in Iraq waged in order to profit their neo-fascist corporate pimps (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ...[/b]
[b]Sources:[/b]
'Something was not right': Cameraman goes public on video footage of marines, http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
Pictures from Fallujah, [i]lakshmi[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
Kevin Sites, http://www.kevinsites.net/200...
|
|
|
| |
| ... The Myth of Compensation Culture ... |
| 11.21.04 (9:47 am) [edit] |
"Biggest profits mean gravest risks." - Anon
"Consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness." - John Adams
"Life without the courage for death is slavery." - Seneca
[b]"Freedom" is a word that requires qualification-- for civilized peoples around the world recognize that there is no such thing ([i]nor should there be[/i]) as absolute freedom without restraints, constraints, and/or regulations to ensure that one man's "freedom" does not destroy another man's "freedom" ... For example, enshrined in our laws: "We the People" [i]do not permit [/i]our fellow men the "freedom" to kill other men with impunity (... Bush is the [i]exception[/i] to the rule of law, as we seem to permit [i]him [/i]to commit mass-murder ...) ... Nor [i]do[/i] "We the People" permit ([i]in principle[/i]) the rich to have the "freedom" to cast other human beings down into slavery ... Nor [i]should [/i]"We the People" permit corporations the "freedom" of exploitation, abuse and defrauding of working people ...[/b]
[b]Big business is seeking the freedom to kill its workers
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 16th November 2004[/b]
It was the most impressive exercise in democracy the world has ever seen. Hundreds of millions came out to vote. The dollars queued for hours in the rain and sun. The result was indisputable: the candidates with the most money won.
No constituency gained more from the US election than the dollars belonging to a company called WR Grace. On November 3rd, its shares rose by 14%. By November 5th they were up 26%: the highest they had ever been. ( 1 ) It wasn’t Bush’s victory the stockbrokers were celebrating as much as the defeat of Tom Daschle, the leader of the Democrats in the US Senate.
One of the few courageous things Daschle did was to oppose a law restricting the amount of compensation companies will have to pay to the victims of asbestos. Daschle believed that firms like WR Grace, which used to manufacture asbestos insulation, should have to pay the full cost of the deaths and injuries they caused. Big business exercised its democratic rights to the tune of $14m, and the Republican John Thune was duly elected. Now the law will almost certainly be passed, and sufferers from one of the modern world’s nastiest diseases – mesothelioma – will be paid roughly half the compensation they were due. ( 2 )
This is universally recognised as a Good Thing. Over the past few years, the press in the United States has presented us with the heart-wringing spectacle of bed-ridden multinationals gasping for money. On this side of the Atlantic, where companies which used asbestos are facing a new round of lawsuits, the result was greeted as a defeat for something we call “compensation culture”.
Compensation culture has usurped political correctness, welfare cheats, single mothers and new age travellers as the right’s new bogeyman-in-chief. According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the Conservative Party and just about every newspaper columnist in Britain, it threatens very soon to bankrupt the country.
That there is no evidence to support such a claim, is, as always, irrelevant. Despite the legalisation in 2000 of “no win, no fee” lawsuits, the total cost of compensation cases in Britain has remained, in real terms, static since 1989. ( 3 ) The two biggest claims marketing companies – the great beneficiaries of compensation culture – have both gone bust. ( 4 ) Last year the number of accident claims fell by 9.5%. ( 5 ) The government’s Better Regulation Task Force, which at other times has taken the part of big business, bluntly reports that “the compensation culture is a myth”. ( 6 )
None of this should surprise us. It is no easier to win a case brought under the no win, no fee system than it was to win a case brought with the help of legal aid. You still have to convince the judge that the other person had a duty of care towards you, that they were at fault, and that they should have foreseen the risk. Because awards are made by judges, not juries, there’s very little chance of winning one of the vast settlements people seem to secure in the US for bumping into a lamp post or setting fire to their own hair. Under the new system, the claimant’s lawyers get stung for all the bills racked up by both sides if he loses. They are not going to take his case to court unless it’s pretty certain to succeed.
Of course, there are malingerers who try to play the system, and of course private companies and public services have to respond to the frivolous suits they bring. But while the newspapers delight in telling us about people who sue the Church for acts of God, they don’t report that in the United Kingdom such cases almost always fail.
But compensation culture is a convenient bogeyman, because it allows big business to associate its victims – such as the 3500 people who die every year in Britain as a result of exposure to asbestos ( 7 ) – with scroungers and conmen. It also opens a new front in their perpetual war against regulation.
Last week John Sunderland, the president of the CBI, thundered that “Britain’s greatness was built on risk-taking.” Today, thanks to the compensation culture, we suffer from a “reduction in personal responsibility” and a “collective aversion to risk.” We need to learn from China, whose businesses enjoy the same “fearlessness about risk” as Britain’s did during the Industrial Revolution. ( 8 )
What Sunderland has done is deliberately to conflate two kinds of risk: the risk to which we expose ourselves, and the risk to which we expose other people. In the heroic age of industrial accidents, the “risk-taking entrepreneurs” might have lost their money if their products did not find a market, but their profits were dependent upon the risks of losing limbs, eyes, lungs and lives they imposed on their workforce. China’s “fearlessness about risk” means that Chinese bosses are allowed to kill their workers. Sunderland is calling for precisely the “reduction in personal responsibility” he affects to despise. The entrepreneur shall not be held responsible for any of the risks he dumps on other people.
The shadow chancellor, Oliver Letwin, gave an almost identical speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in September. ( 9 ) “The call to minimise risk is a call for a cowardly society”, he said. “If we are to have a courageous society rather than a cowardly society, we need to abandon the rhetoric of risk minimisation”. Letwin failed to explain why it is courageous to expose your workers to asbestos. Or why it is courageous meekly to lie down and die when your lungs have been trashed by your brave employer.
In opposing our mythical compensation culture, Sunderland and Letwin are creating something much uglier: a risk culture. They are glorifying the risks which the powerful impose on the weak.
The government, to its credit, has refused to join in. On Wednesday, Charles Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, warned that “schools, hospitals, local authorities are beginning to feel they are more at risk from litigation than they really are … we can’t afford to leave this impression unchecked. ... As strongly as we resist spurious claims, we should also robustly defend the rights of people to make genuine claims. Rights and responsibilities would be meaningless if they could not ultimately be enforced.” ( 10 )
This seems odd: the government seldom misses a chance to butter up big business and assist the tabloids in their witch hunts. But there are two interest groups at play here. Falconer is a lawyer. So is the Prime Minister. And his wife. And the foreign secretary, and the defence secretary, and the transport secretary, and the chief secretary to the Treasury. Had the Democrats taken power in the US, the world would have been run by these people: both Kerry and Edwards are known lawyers. It’s unfortunate that our best hope of redress against one set of greedy bastards is to enlist the help of another.
Of course there is another way, and that is to stop big business exposing people to risk in the first place. But the state enforcement of health and safety laws is in the interests of neither businessmen nor lawyers: the money won’t vote for it. Without regulation, compensation is often the only protection we have.
[b]Source:[/b]
By George Monbiot, http://www.monbiot.com
[b]References:[/b]
1. Jerry Knight, 8th November 2004. Asbestos, Defense Firms Win Lottery. The Washington Post.
2. The asbestos companies, under the bill, would contribute to a $140bn fund, rather than face lawsuits of $275bn. See Jerry Knight, ibid.; and Clare Dyer, 5th November 2004. Firms Challenge Asbestos Claims. The Guardian.
3. The Better Regulation Task Force, May 2004. Better Routes to Redress. http://www.brtf.gov.uk/docs/p...
4. These are: The Accident Group and Claims Direct.
5. Clare Dyer, 11th November 2004. Ambulance-Chasing Claims Firms Get Last Warning to Self-Regulate. The Guardian.
6. The Better Regulation Task Force, ibid.
7. Rupert Jones, 2nd November 2004. Surge in British Asbestos Claims Will Cost Billions. The Guardian.
8. John Sunderland, 8 November 2004. Speech to the CBI Annual Conference.
9. Oliver Letwin, 3rd September 2004. Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained. Speech to the Centre for Policy Studies.
10. Charles Falconer, 10th November 2004. Compensation Culture. Speech to the Insurance Times Conference.
|
|
|
| |
| ... Absolute Power Erupts ... |
| 11.21.04 (6:33 am) [edit] |
"Begun as an ideological crusade, the war has now settled into something bloody, murderous and crude, with no "exit strategy" in sight. The war's beginning, built on the threat of weapons that did not exist, and its ending, which flickered to life so temptingly on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Lincoln 18 months ago, have disappeared, leaving American troops fighting and dying in a kind of lost, existential desert of the present. We may not have yet reached Colin Powell's vision of "half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand." But we are well on the way." - A Doctrine Left Behind, Mark Danner, http://nytimes.com/2004/11/21...
[b]"We the People" have been betrayed by the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]with their insane neo-con hubris and neo-fascist deceptions leading to corruption; warmongerings; and, a heinous embezzlement of our treasury and the lives of our fellow citizens to enrich the few hyper-wealthy plutocrats ...[/b]
They're fragile and frazzled, depressed and self-doubting.
Trapped in their blue bell jar, drowning in unfulfilled dreams, Democrats are the "Desperate Housewives" of politics.
The image of Republicans as the Daddy party and Democrats as the Mommy party came roaring back in 2004, with a chesty President Bush and Dick Cheney prevailing by making the case that they could protect America from vicious terrorists and uxorious gays better than the Brahmin they painted as a sissy. In politics, as on TV, political correctness is out and retro is in. Hillary's bid to be president suddenly appears more wobbly, and the class of new senators looks like a throwback - with half a dozen white male conservative Republicans front and center.
At the Republican governors' conference in New Orleans, Ken Mehlman, the Bush campaign manager, answered the question, Who's your daddy party? "If you drive a Volvo and you do yoga, you are pretty much a Democrat," he said. "If you drive a Lincoln or a BMW and you own a gun, you're voting for George Bush."
Of course, W. was swaddled by three strong women - Laura Bush, Karen Hughes and Condi Rice - who cleaned up after his political messes.
Yet Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney boldly projected the image of confident - if overbearing - husbands who would guard the family home from intruders, while casting John Kerry as the feminized guy who couldn't get his sports references straight, the sort who would sashay about in Yves St. Laurent pajamas, dithering, whither-ing, and fetching bottled water for Teresa while the burglar alarm rang.
Democrats were furious to learn last week that Mr. Kerry had squirreled away $15 million in primary donations that he could have spent turning out the vote in Florida and Ohio. Once more trying to have it both ways, Mr. Kerry wanted a nest egg in case of a recount or legal challenges - not exactly the killer mentality that Democrats need.
Having gutted their opponents, Republicans are pretending to patch up divisions as they ruthlessly consolidate their gains. Democrats are turning the other cheek. At the opening of his presidential library, Bill Clinton assured the audience that Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry were "good people" who "just see the world differently."
The Republican Visigoths are crushing checks and balances and driving Democrats (and moderate Republicans) into subservient, obedient roles, sticking antiabortion provisions into major spending bills. Even the suggestion that Congress has an advise-and-consent role on judges caused the Visigoths to slap Arlen Specter into stocks, until he whimpered he would do their bidding.
The party of moral values deemed that crime pays, shielding Tom DeLay with a rule that someone facing a felony charge can still be a leader.
The ultracreepy Mr. DeLay de-pantsed Democrats on Friday, sneering: "I understand the Democrat Party's adjustment to their national minority status is frustrating, but their crushing defeat ... should show them that the American people are tired of the politics of personal destruction."
Well, yeah. Watching Bush supporters shred a war hero into a war criminal was tiring.
This most secretive administration wants to stop the public from getting any facts that might challenge its story line.
The Department of Homeland Security is making employees and contractors sign pledges barring them from telling the public about sensitive but unclassified information.
Porter Goss has warned C.I.A. employees that they should support the administration and "scrupulously honor our secrecy oath" by letting only the agency's public affairs office and Congressional relations branch talk to the media and Congress.
Senate Republicans have voted to allow Bill Frist, the majority leader, to fill vacancies on powerful committees, rather than abiding by the seniority system - a sword over moderates and mavericks.
The White House says it wants greater harmony, but it's acting like the thought police. Having run into resistance in their bid for global domination, the president and vice president are going for federal domination, pushing out anyone with independent judgment who puts democracy above ideology.
It's a paradoxical game plan: imposing democracy abroad while impeding it here.
[b]Source:[/b]
Maureen Dowd, New York Times, http://nytimes.com/2004/11/21...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Over On The House Side, Intelligence Reform Fails (Rumsfeld Wins, We Lose) ... |
| 11.20.04 (3:47 pm) [edit] |
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams
[b]Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is a dangerous demagogue who is now consolidating tremendous power for himself, and who has demonstrated extraordinary corruption, incompetence, arrogance, disdain for the rule of law, and contempt for the American people ... Cheney used to work for Rumsfeld, and perhaps [i]still [/i]does ... Bush is [i]too stupid[/i] to comprehend the power-grab going on in his own corrupt regime by the neo-con, neo-fascists led by Rumsfeld who [i]pulls-his-strings [/i]... "We the People" should be very, very concerned ...[/b]
Consider that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week won his fight to install his man, Francis J. Harvey, as secretary of the Army.
In the midst of two and a half wars, at a time when the Army is struggling to transform itself and must use extraordinary methods to find enough soldiers to fill the rotations to Iraq, Rumsfeld selected a man who's never served in the military or in government to be the Army's CEO.
Rumsfeld told the man he's passing over for the job - acting Army secretary Les Brownlee, a retired Army infantry colonel and a highly decorated combat veteran - that he ''wanted a businessman'' to run the Army. Harvey, a longtime Westinghouse executive, was Rumsfeld's second choice in 18 months of bitter wrangling with some powerful senators.
[i]Continued[/i] ... http://www.sltrib.com/opinion...
Bob Graham is talking about this now on CSPAN2:
... "[i]In a defeat for President Bush, rebellious House Republicans on Saturday derailed legislation to overhaul the nation's intelligence agencies along lines recommended by the Sept. 11 commission.
"It's hard to reform. It's hard to make changes,'' said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who sought unsuccessfully to persuade critics among the GOP rank and file to swing behind the measure.
Hastert's decision to send lawmakers home without a vote drew attacks from Democrats, and capped an unpredictable day in which prospects for enactment of the measure seemed to grow, then diminish, almost by the hour. He left open the possibility of summoning lawmakers back in session early next month[/i]." ...
This is Pentagon/Rumsfeld foot-dragging. Their centralized power was questioned and thus the bill had to go.
... "[i]But Reps. Duncan Hunter and Jim Sensenbrenner, chairmen of the Armed Services and Judiciary committees, raised objections. Officials said Hunter, R-Calif., expressed concerns that provisions of the bill could interfere with the military chain of command and endanger troops in the field. Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., wanted additional provisions dealing with immigration, these officials said.
``I am very disappointed that these objections have been raised at the 11th hour and temporarily derailed this bill,'' said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the primary negotiator on the measure for Senate Republicans[/i]." ...
Not clear enough? Let's make it clearer:
... "[i]Harman, D-Calif., said the Pentagon has worked to scuttle the bill.
``The forces in favor of the status quo are protecting their turf, whether it is in Congress or in the bureaucracy. And at a time when we are in a war we can't allow turf concerns'' to triumph, Collins said[/i]." ...
Do you feel safer now? And do contact your Reps and Sens (especially Hunter and Sensenbrenner) http://www.congress.org and tell them how pleased you are about how and why they screwed America.
[b]Sources:[/b]
DailyKos, http://www.dailykos.com
Rumsfeld gets his (non-military) man in as Army CEO, http://www.sltrib.com/opinion...
Rumsfeld Isn't Showing Signs That He Is Leaving, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...
|
|
|
| |
| ... The Blind Strategists, Blunt Talk about Bush, the United States and the Middle East ... |
| 11.20.04 (1:19 pm) [edit] |
"Truth springs from argument amongst friends." - David Hume
[b]"We the People" would do well to remember that France ([i]not [/i]Great Britain) was our ally in our own War for Independence ... France has been our great friend and ally throughout history; and, indeed their own Republican Constitution is [i]more [/i]akin to our own than [i]any[/i] other nation on earth ... France is trying to warn us not to be dupes for the same Marches of Folly that Europe fell prey to, by virtue of having installed insane fascist dictators in the 20th Century ... Tragically, instead of listening to our best-friend, many neo-con, neo-fascists calling themselves "Americans" are demonizing them ... Interestingly, the following article is published by Le Figaro, a leading pro-conservative French newpaper:[/b]
From the nation that through its own force and the force of circumstances enjoys a quasi-planetary hegemony, we could expect that particularly wise and sensible geo-strategists be its leaders. Alas! Alas!
Geo-strategy, which must not be confused with geo-politics, is undoubtedly the most difficult and formidable of all the human sciences. It must allow its practitioners to provide simple answers immediately translatable into action to infinitely various and complex questions. Apart from the possession of both global and detailed knowledge of geography, it rests on the twin pillars of history and information. It is quite obvious from any observation that Americans are gifted in neither of these two areas.
Their history is much too short for them to really know and understand peoples with millennia under their feet. Their past begins with the Mayflower. To them, Cyrus's Persia, Confucius' China, Pericles' Athens, Caesar's Rome, and even Charlemagne's Europe, Charles V's Spain, Suleiman's Turkey and Richelieu's France all seem buried in the same abysmal antiquity, the same archeological dust. I remember the stupefaction of American tourists at Stratford-on-Avon, when they learned from the inscription on Shakespeare's tomb that he was born in 1564.
For Americans, civilizations anterior to their own are subjects for often remarkable university studies, but never elements that must be taken into consideration for political reflection. In consequence, the characters and behavior of old world countries, including "Old Europe", generally escape their understanding.
As for information...It has been reported that the United States has fifteen military or civilian information agencies. Not a single one seems to have ever deserved the title of "intelligence" which the British confer on their secret services.
I have also read that the American government had only four agents in Iraq before they started the war there, and that on top of that, these four were all double agents. It's too immense to be believed. However, it must be acknowledged that the information it had over there was particularly weak to have caught a glimpse of weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, and to have asserted that the American Army would be received as a liberator with open arms and bouquets of flowers. Who could have presumed that ten years after the first devastating Gulf War - that one approved by the UN in response to a flagrant violation of international law -, a new, unilaterally-decided invasion would provoke enthusiasm among the trampled populations?
American leaders have demonstrated the most perseverance in their magnificent blindness in the Near and Middle East. By preventing France and Great Britain in 1956from bringing down Nasser, whose advent they had supported, they put an end to the cosmopolitan, multi-confessional, tolerant, and Westernized society that was Egypt's. At the same time, they contributed to making the Nasser regime a too frequently copied model among African countries, where power was often seized by senior officers, and even sergeants.
It was CIA agents who assisted the government of the colonels, the stupidest Greece has ever known, to mount the operation against Cyprus in 1974, resulting in the brutal and spoliatory occupation of half the island by the Turkish army, an occupation that still persists thirty years later.
One must read the Secret Notebooks of Houchang Nahavandi (1), former rector of Teheran University and a particularly well-informed Iranian minister, to learn how American authorities, starting in 1974-75, for reasons to do with oil, had planned the overthrow of the Shah. In this at once precise, moving, and pitiless book, you will discover the maneuvers of American and British diplomats, the pressures they exerted on the sick monarch, and the support they supplied for the 1978 Islamic revolution, which they believed to be liberal and republican. You will also learn how the CIA occupied the house next door to the one in Neauphle-le-Château where the personage of Ayatollah Khomeini was being constructed, his sermons and his cassettes transported in diplomatic bags. This is not the most glorious page in French history. It's difficult to understand why President Giscard d'Estaing accorded such kindness and so many resources to this false prophet. The Pahlavis' Iran was certainly not perfect, but it was right in the middle of full modernization and expansion. Was it necessary to push for its replacement by a backward regime animated by a bloody fanaticism? The surge in radical Islam dates from that.
The only monarchy that the United States has supported was Saudi Arabia's, without noticing that behind the oil barrels, colossal fortunes were being built up, fortunes that distributed handfuls of gold to everywhere construct mosques that invite hatred of the West.
Let's not forget the support given to Israel's "hawks", who push back indefinitely the creation of a Palestinian state, the only way to extinguish this hearth of misfortune which has ignited so many others. Yasser Arafat's incredible obsequies have just proven how unquestionable and urgent the Palestinian nation's gratitude was.
A short term perspective and a lack of information led the Americans to find it a good idea to rally the Taliban to combat the Soviet advance and to enroll, or to believe they had enrolled, Osama Bin Laden, whose sinister organization they largely helped to establish. The September 11 attacks are, in a certain sense, an abominable return of the boomerang.
Are so many failures punishment for dark designs, perverse plots, or appetites for conquest? Not at all! And that's what makes things so difficult when one tries to enlighten American decision makers or when one refuses to go along with them down their wrong roads. They are persuaded they are doing good. They believe that what works for them must work for all of humanity and that it is their duty, their mission, to use their economic and military power to give all these peoples the compulsory gift of the principles, systems, and procedures that have brought them their own grandeur. In this regard, their leadership teams demonstrate a naiveté that could seem touching were naiveté in geo-strategy not a mortal sin.
This disposition is not brand new. Already at the end of the nineteenth century, President Theodore Roosevelt asserted: "Americanization of the world is our destiny." Donald Rumsfeld's recent declaration, which I have already cited elsewhere: "Freedom is on our side and we will impose it," answers Roosevelt like a long echo. George W. Bush's reelection proves that the majority of the American people share this scheme.
So there is little doubt that Mr. Bush wants to put back on track the project he talked about so much: creating a democratic and unified Greater Middle East, stretching from Mauritania to Afghanistan. If ever we've seen a monument to naiveté surface, that's it. First of all, you might wonder: if the Middle East begins at Nouakchott, where does the Near East begin. In the Azores, perhaps.
But above all, does Mr. Bush take himself for Trajan or Marcus Aurelius and does he imagine he'll succeed in doing in four years what the Romans didn't achieve in three centuries? Is he aware that his greater Middle East is an immense crescent that stretches over five meridians, soon to be inhabited by a billion people, of very different origins, customs, morals, and temperaments, divided between rival religious tendencies, whose only common problems are misery and illiteracy? Empty bellies and empty heads are the recruits for aggressive emigration and terrorism. Before "imposing freedom", it would be better to feed and instruct.
It would also be appropriate to remind ourselves that in Islamic countries, in spite of their particularisms and their divergences, civil law is controlled by religious law. The primary aspiration of all these peoples is not to don the laws that apply in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Trying to force them to will effectively unite them, but against the West. I am very afraid that we are advancing into that dark night.
( 1 ) Editions Osmondes, Paris, 2004.
[b]Source:[/b]
Maurice Druon is a Member of the Academie Francaise. Translation: [i]t r u t h o u t [/i]French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher, http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Teaching Torture ... |
| 11.20.04 (7:47 am) [edit] |
"You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind." - Mahatma Gandhi
[b]The barbaric Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]is guilty of Crimes Against Humanity ... Bush is a War Criminal responsible for the massacre, torture, and brutal atrocities committed against innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians ... The US is employing the use of torture in contravention of international law and in violation of human decency ... Please write to Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that impeachment hearings be called for Bush and Cheney, and that we demonstrate to the world that we will stop all such inhumane treatment of human beings ...[/b]
More than 10,000 activists from across the US--including actors Martin Sheen and Susan Sarandon and musicians Amy Ray and Utah Phillips http://www.thenation.com/doc.... --will gather at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, this Saturday and Sunday to call for the closure http://www.soaw.org/new/index... of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas.
A combat training facility for Latin American soldiers, the school has served as a de-stabilizing force in Central and South America since its formation in 1946-- having trained more than 60,000 soldiers in courses such as counter-insurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Graduates of the facility return to their countries to utilize their training domestically and are consistently cited for human rights violations throughout Latin America on behalf of repressive rightwing, US-supported governments.
From the slayings of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador in 1989 to the continued human rights abuses in Colombia, many of the most atrocious crimes of the past 50 years have their roots in the US-operated School of the Americas. The inhumane--and in some cases illegal--tactics taught at the institute have repeatedly been used against union organizers, educators, and religious workers.
Many American eyes were opened this past year with the Abu Ghraib revelations to the fact that the US does indeed use torture http://www.thenation.com/doc.... . The activists at SOA Watch have been in the vanguard of trying to halt the United States's role in propagating torture globally since the organization's founding in 1990. A grassroots group working in solidarity with the people of Latin America to close the military institute, SOA Watch stages an annual demonstration and rally and organizes lobbying, letter-writing and public awareness campaigns all year long.
Click here http://www.soaw.org/new/artic... to learn more about SOA Watch, click here https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr to make a contribution to support the group's efforts, click here http://www.soaw.org/new/artic... if you'd like to join SOA Watch's Research Working Group and click here http://www.soaw.org/new/type.... if you'd like to volunteer on one of the organization's campaigns.
[b]Sources:[/b]
[i]ActNow[/i]!, Peter Rothberg, TheNation, http://www.thenation.com
Torture by Proxy, http://www.tblog.com/template...
ICRC Slams 'Utter Contempt' for Humanity Amid Fierce Fighting in Iraq, http://www.commondreams.org/h...
|
|
|
| |
| ... America's Health Care: The Feckless FDA ... |
| 11.20.04 (6:36 am) [edit] |
"To betray you must first belong." - Harold Philby
"Merck has promptly disclosed the results of Merck-sponsored studies of Vioxx to the FDA, physicians, the scientific community and the media."
– Merck CEO Raymond V. Gilmartin, 11/18/04, http://finance.senate.gov/hea...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"Long before drug was removed, risks were known to Merck and the FDA, senators are told."
– LA Times headline, 11/19/04, http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,6906905.story?coll=la-headlines-n ation
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]is comprised of traitors who live [i]in the bulging pockets [/i]of gluttonous corporations, special interests, and greedy plutocrats, [i]who get their way[/i], irrespective of the death, sickness, misery and damage caused to Americans ([i]and[/i] other peoples around the world) ... The regulatory standards so vital to ensure that consumers are not harmed have been systematically undermined by the traitorous Bushies in order to deliver massive profits to top-dogs & fat-cats in the pharmaceutical ([i]and[/i] other) industries ... It is [i]past time[/i] to [i]put a stop [/i]to their treason ... Please write to Congress http://www.americanprogress.o... demanding that tighter regulations be put back in place and that an independent investigation commence immediately into the White House abuses to pressure the FDA to betray Americans in favor of corporate interests, [i]and[/i] to hide information from "We the People" vital to our health ...[/b]
Yesterday, additional evidence emerged that, in the Bush administration, the Food and Drug Administration is more concerned about its relationship with the drug industry than the safety of the American people. Dr. David Graham, who has worked at the FDA for more than 20 years, told the Senate Finance Committee that the agency had become "feckless and far too likely to surrender to demands of drug makers." The hearing's primary focus was the recent withdrawal of the pain reliever Vioxx, produced by Merck. Graham estimated that – based on Merck's own studies – 139,000 Americans suffered from a heart attack or stroke as a result of taking the drug. Of that group, "30 percent to 40 percent probably died. For the survivors, their lives were changed forever," according to Graham. He called the Vioxx scandal "the single greatest drug safety catastrophe in the history of this country or the history of the world." (For more details on the Vioxx scandal, see last week's Progress Report http://www.americanprogressac... .)
[b]TOP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS ATTACK THE MESSENGER:[/b] Not surprisingly, the Bush administration attacked Dr. Graham for speaking honestly. Before his testimony yesterday, FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford called Dr. Graham "a maverick who did not follow Agency protocols." But Graham's supervisor at the FDA said the paper that formed the basis of his testimony was "an excellent study and analysis of a complex topic." Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) said Crawford's comments were "intended [to] intimidate a witness on the eve of a hearing." Grassley recommended Crawford spend time "on the problem rather than going after congressional witnesses who helped identify the problem in the first place."
[b]MERCK CEO'S DISHONEST DEFENSE:[/b] Raymond V. Gilmartin, the CEO of Merck, also appeared before the Finance Committee. Gilmartin adamantly defended the company's conduct. He claimed that "Merck has promptly disclosed the results of Merck-sponsored studies of Vioxx to the FDA, physicians, the scientific community and the media." Gilmartin cited the fact that, after a study it conducted in March 2000, the company "immediately issued a press release providing its conclusions." But that press release didn't include the conclusions of Merck doctors who believed the data indicated that an increased risk of cardiovascular events among those taking the drug was "clearly there." The following month, Merck issued another release titled, "Merck confirms favorable cardiovascular safety profile of Vioxx" and claiming the data shows "NO DIFFERENCE in the incidence of cardiovascular events." Merck didn't release the data to the FDA until June 2000.
[b]MERCK'S SHAMEFUL ADVERTISING BLITZ:[/b] Long after it was aware of the dangers associated with the drug, Merck continued one of the largest direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns ever, spending $160 million dollars. Millions more was spent marketing Vioxx to doctors. Last year, Vioxx sales totaled $2.5 billion.
[b]VIOXX IS A SYMPTOM OF A LARGER PROBLEM:[/b] According to Graham, "it is important...the American people understand that what happened with Vioxx is really a symptom of something far more dangerous to the safety of the American people." Graham named five major medications already on the market – "the anti-cholesterol drug Crestor, the pain pill Bextra, the obesity pill Meridia, the asthma drug Serevent and the acne drug Accutane" – whose safety needs to be "seriously looked at."
[b]BEXTRA – THE NEXT VIOXX?:[/b] Bextra, produced by Pfizer, is a painkiller similar to Vioxx that is still on the market. Studies have shown that Bextra "increase the risks of heart attacking patients undergoing cardiac surgery [and] in rare cases...can also cause a fatal skin reaction." Moreover, it "has never proved to be any more effective at reducing pain or protecting the stomach than older medicines like ibuprofen that are a fraction of the price and pose none of these suggested or proven risks."
[b]THE PRICE OF SAFETY:[/b] How can the pharmaceutical companies get away with it? Over the past four years the industry has contributed over $68 million to federal candidates – including almost $1.5 million to President Bush. Pfizer, the manufacturer of Bextra – a drug still on the market but singled out by Graham as potentially unsafe – contributed over $120,000 to President Bush.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Patronage: The Bush Foreign Policy Stratagem ... |
| 11.19.04 (1:53 pm) [edit] |
"Hundreds of President Bush's 2000 campaign Pioneer fundraisers http://www.whitehouseforsale.... were rewarded with parties, overnight stays at the White House and Camp David, and trips on U.S. delegations during his first term; fully one third received ambassadorships or appointments to agency positions or advisory committees http://www.kentucky.com/mld/h... ." - Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]When Bush first ran for the office of President of the United States of America, he promised to restore dignity, honesty and integrity to the White House ... Bush broke his promise, as he has broken so many promises, cynically made with no intention of keeping his "word" to the American people ... Now, we find that Bush is awarding key positions in government that require honest, competent and bright people, with dishonest, incompetent and dangerously ideologically, short-sighted people ...
"We the People" should remind ourselves of Thomas Jefferson's wise admonition regarding the dangers of patronage: "We are endeavoring, too, to reduce the government to the practice of a rigorous economy, to avoid burdening the people, and arming the magistrate with patronage of money, which might be used to corrupt and undermine the principles of our government." ... Bush has betrayed us, [i]yet again [/i]...
The following thought-provoking article entitled "The Bush Foreign Policy Stratagem" by Randall Risener, The Washington Dispatch, http://www.washingtondispatch... , elucidates the dangers of corrupt patronage:--[/b]
It is almost an article of faith in many foreign capitols that American presidents spend their first term trying to get reelected but in the second are aimed at securing their place in history and, therefore, often change or modify their course including at times alienating parts of their electoral base.
President Ronald Reagan is one example cited. In his second term, he pushed the Neocons aside and pursued a course of multilateral cooperation with European allies and reaching out to the Soviet leadership. End result: He secured his place in history as having made a significant contribution by helping end the Soviet empire and all without firing a shot.
Today’s Neocons are bound and determined to not let anything like that happen again.
The real story regarding the naming of Condoleezza Rice as the next Secretary of State may not be as much about her – important as that is – as two other collateral and directly related appointments.
But first, a few words about the man she is to replace – Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
Those 16 unfortu | |
