Saturday, June 24, 2006

To Whom Do We Owe Our Destiny?

"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society."
-- Thomas Jefferson to P. Dupont, 1816

=
"Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful,
must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
-- Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801

=
"...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing."
-- Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837

===
Read this newsletter online
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
...from back in 1851. In a debate over women’s suffrage, Sojourner Truth took on one of the conservative religious voices of her day in her "Ain’t I a Woman?" remarks at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention:

Then that little man in black there [a clergyman], he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

How could anything be added?

Excerpt from
FDL

Sunday, June 18, 2006

This, is serious...

On the Effectiveness of Aluminum Foil Helmets:

An Empirical Study

...no more tin foil hats for me!

(thanks to Lasthorseman on TruthOut)

Relocated...

Dubya has forgotton where his heart is...no surprise.



Thanks to
Blogmanac for this telling pic.

Friday, June 16, 2006

A Terrible Subject Put Beautifully in a Terrible Kind of Way...

"A ban on speech and a shroud of secrecy in perpetuity are antithetical to democratic concepts and do not fit comfortably with the fundamental rights guaranteed American citizens ... Unending secrecy of actions taken by government officials may also serve as a cover for possible official misconduct and/or incompetence." - Judge Richard Cardamone, explaining his decision to uphold the unconstitutionality of the Patriot Act's National Security letters provision.

Describing James Madison's belief that an absolutely essential condition for the American republic be that "no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause," Gary Wills writes, in Explaining America,

No king, no legislature, no body at all should be put in a situation where interest has no overseer. The virtuous man will not want to be put in that situation. He welcomes the scrutiny of fair men. His virtue is not private, but public; on display, and asking to be tested.

Could the presidency of the Bush administration possibly be further removed from that ideal of “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"? Having its "virtue" displayed in public, to be judged by "the scrutiny of fair men" is the last thing that the administration wants. Indeed, since the President took office, it has been a matter of policy that this administration ask to be put in a situation where it would be a judge in its own cause, while also asking us to trust that it is privately virtuous.

The administration has claimed that neither Congress nor the Courts can review its actions. Congress doesn't seem to mind very much, and the administration avoids the courts whenever it appears that it might be challenged. It claims "state secrets" would prevent a court from judging its actions. But this administration has lost the right to the benefit of the doubt. The right to keep secret the President deciding that laws no longer apply to him, that he can be a judge in his own cause, can not be a matter of national security.

As Thomas Paine put it:

In America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king.

It has become apparent that "national security" is used by the administration as a synonym for its own private political interests, private political interests that would make George W. Bush king ... Madison's nightmare.

It is not transparency and openness that threatens our security, but obsessive and excessive secrecy. Removal of oversight of the government is a threat to our security. When our government operates in the shadows we have no idea whether or not what they are doing is in our interest. The sad, likely truth is that the events of September eleventh, 2001 could have been prevented if better analysis of the existing intelligence had taken place - intelligence that was gathered without the Patriot Act, without the NSA being authorized to spy on Americans without a warrant, without secret CIA prisons, without "enhanced interrogation tactics", without President Bush asserting the right to unilaterally decide when the Constitution is applicable.

This administration, full of ideologues, immune from consideration of reality, deliberating in secret, hiding their motives from us, is what threatens us. Look at their track record. They were warned that their abandonment of the Geneva Conventions would invite abuse, they did it anyway. They were warned invading Iraq would require more troops, they claimed otherwise and fired the general who told them that. They were warned the invasion would cost over two hundred billion dollars, they claimed otherwise and fired the person that told them that. They were warned that there was no evidence linking Iraq to WMD's or al Qaeda, they claimed it anyway. They were advised to plan for a post invasion occupation, they decided not to for ideological reasons. They were warned that an insurgency would soon grow out of control in the newly occupied Iraq, they removed the CIA agent responsible for the report. Et cetera.

Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment to prohibit flag burning. So maybe it's fitting that, if we're going to be a police state, we may as well start acting like it. After all, as Ed Brayton notes:

One of the very first things that Hitler did upon seizing power in Germany was ban the burning of the German flag; the punishment was imprisonment. In China, where we all watched the student protestors at Tiananmen Square burn the Chinese flag, their actions result in a minimum of 3 years in prison. The other two nations that punish those who burn their flag at the moment: Cuba and Iran.

Read it all here: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/06/secrecy-and-security.html

Kevin Drum on Tom DeLay

Monday, June 12, 2006

I — like many others — will always remember DeLay best for his reaction to the Columbine shootings in 1999:

“Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills.”

The man who said this has been one of the most powerful leaders of the Republican Party for over a decade and was treated seriously by the DC press corps the entire time. Never forget that — about either the Republican Party or the press. All the rest is trivia.

Kevin Drum, Washington Monthly

(Note: If you want to see Tommy in action, check out The Big Buy. Great film of the wingnut's hero.)


NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the
National Security Agency may have read this email
without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this
without any judicial or legislative oversight. You
have no recourse or protection save to call for the
impeachment of the current President.

Quote of the Day

America owes most of its social prejudices to the
exaggerated religious opinions of the different
sects which were so instrumental in
establishing the colonies.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

Thursday, June 15, 2006

What Would the Prince of Peace Do?

You may think me quite radical for agreeing with Pip, but I really do think we must take responsibility for the creation of our own monsters. Al-Zarqawi paid with his life. What will we pay with? It sure won't be peace.

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

The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the big news of the week.
While I hold no brief for this apparently loony extremist and callous murderer of innocents, I've been sickened by the whole deal and the reactions of some politicians.

According to ABC Radio National, some witnesses have claimed that there were women and children killed in the raid that killed al-Zarqawi. If this is so, how can anybody be "delighted", to quote from Aust
ralia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer?

In the USA, Rumsfeld said that al-Zarqawi was probably the one person with the most blood on his hands in the whole world. Now there is a textbook example of the pot calling the kettle black. Dastardly al-Zarqawi was not responsible for the deaths of scores of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq. Rumsfeld and Bush are.


They killed al-Zarqawi with a 500-pound bomb. They didn't drop a 500-pound can of sleeping gas or MACE, which would have done the trick. No, in true Bush-macho horror style, they used a massive explosive weapon, no doubt obviating the possibility of the world hearing al-Zarqawi in court condemning America's cruel State-sponsored terrorism perpetrated on the people of Iraq.


It seems to me that Jesus Christ (
aka Prince of Peace), who is apparently a member of the current USA administration, used to have quite a different take on what to do with one's enemies.

Wilson's Blogmanac

Monday, June 12, 2006

Support Senate Joint Resolution 36

Here is a great opportunity to make our voices heard...loudly! Please call your Senators.

It's as simple as this. Most members of Congress, myself included, share some responsibility for getting us into Iraq. We've got to take responsibility for getting us out.

Since April, hundreds of thousands of you have joined me in calling for a change in policy, a change in course -- for Iraq, and for Americans here at home. Now let's turn the volume up higher. Washington needs to hear your voice.

The violence continues to spiral in Iraq. But, instead of a deadline to bring our troops home and put the future of Iraq in the hands of Iraqi leaders, we get half-hearted comments about past mistakes, and cynical political calculation.

Last month, I introduced Senate Joint Resolution 36 which calls for the withdrawal of our combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year. In the next few weeks, I am urging the Senate to take a strong stand on Iraq and pass this Resolution. It's time to put the future of Iraq where it belongs - in the hands of the Iraqi people and their leaders. Our valiant soldiers have done their job.

Tell your Senators: support Senate Joint Resolution 36 to bring our combat troops home in 2006.

President Bush wants to stumble along, perpetuating his mistakes for the remainder of his time in office. He's even suggested that decisions about withdrawing all of our troops from Iraq will be for the next president to make.

And, instead of statesmanship, the president's top advisor, Karl Rove, is worrying that the war has put voters in a "sour mood" for the 2006 elections. He should be worried about the safety of our troops, not the job security of Republican congressmen.

It took President Bush three years to admit he was wrong to say 'bring it on.' We can't afford years to go by until he admits the standstill in Iraq today is wrong.

Tell your Senators: support Senate Joint Resolution 36 to bring our combat troops home in 2006

After months of squabbling and delay, we now hear that the new Iraqi government will complete its cabinet in a matter of days. So, it's time to act -- time to keep the pressure on.

Iraqi leaders have only responded to deadlines -- a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, a deadline to hold three elections, and their own constitutional deadline to establish a unity government.

Now we must set another deadline to get our combat troops out and get Iraq up on its own two feet. We must agree with the new Iraqi government on a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by the end of this year.

Doing so will empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country, and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country.

Tell your Senators: support Senate Joint Resolution 36 to bring our combat troops home in 2006.

Our soldiers have done their job, and America is grateful to them for their honor and sacrifice. Now it's time for the Iraqis to do their job of securing and governing their country and it is time to get our combat troops home in 2006. Only troops essential to finishing the job of training Iraqi forces should remain.

We need blunt talk and clear plans -- and only pressure from you can force Washington to change course.

I am committed to forcing Congress to speak out on Iraq. Yesterday in Los Angeles I made it clear that I'm not going to stop fighting until we have a change in policy. I urge you to keep supporting our efforts to force action when lives are on the line and leadership is desperately needed.

Sincerely,
John Kerry

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

To email your senators, go here.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Special Needs Buns

May 24, 2006 : 12:00 AM

Three more bunnies jumped the coop at the Rescue Ranch in Reno, Nevada.

Anita (featured left), Miles and Queenie are currently enjoying the run of a run behind Debby Widolf's home here in Kanab, Utah. And Debby's enjoying watching the three hop around in drunken stupors.

Well, they're not really drunk, but because of a permanent head tilt to one side, they look like they regularly imbibe in three-carrot martini lunches.

Debby, who is the manager of the Bunny House here at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, said their condition is due to a parasite, but that it isn't really serious and even makes them look "kinda cute."

She took them home with her because they need continuing medical care. Debby feeds them liquid medicine (yuk!) mixed in with fruity baby food (yum!) twice a day. After two months, they'll be done with the medicine and can then look forward to being spayed and neutered. And from there, hopefully, the three lopsided bunnies will find loving homes.

According to Debby, their favorite treats are cilantro and cheerios.
Petting is good for them, too.

"Miles is a little shy, but I think once he gets a chance to be around other bunnies, he'll come out of his shell," said Debby. "Otherwise, they're really fun, funny, loving rabbits."

Article by Amy Abern. Photos by Molly Wald.

And, yes, I DO take it personally...


Blog post from Think Progress...

  1. Suicide: desperation or an act of war…?

    so, for admiral harris, when the bank robber stands in front of the teller cage with a gun pointed to his own head, demanding all the money under the threat of killing himself, that would be an act of war…

    They are smart. They are creative. They are committed. They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but rather an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.

    — Rear Admiral Harry Harris, Commander, Joint Task Force Guantanamo

    what drives human beings to take their own lives, whether it be through suicide bombing or just plain suicide, is desperation, fueled by a belief that nothing less could possibly make a difference… [italics mine]

    And, yes, I DO take it personally

    Comment by profmarcus — June 11, 2006 @ 11:17 am

Thursday, June 01, 2006

A Lesson on Life



This matters....

















this does not...












this matters...











this does not...











this matters...
















this does not...












this matters...








this does not...











this matters...













and this does not...













the end.




Tuesday, May 30, 2006

...A type of aristocracy rules America, which has more than one feature in common with the ancien régime that presided over pre-revolutionary France. This vast accumulation of wealth at one pole of society is incompatible, in the long run, with even the trappings of democracy. The super-rich own everything in the US, including the political parties and the political process. They allow the population to vote at this point, more or less. But for how long? As resistance to the policies of the elite mounts and the two-party monopoly threatens to crumble, why should the riffraff be permitted a say in such important affairs as elections?

The Very Rich In America: "The Kind Of Money You Cannot Comprehend"

By David Walsh

19 April 2006

Friday, May 19, 2006

TV Free

Friends, Sienfeld, Cheers!
The place where everybody knows your name..

Why are the best selling programs always about friends or families? Big, fun groups of people who hang around together and tell jokes? Is your life like that? Nah. You probably stayed in last night, watched some TV and went to bed.

Do you ever wonder if TV is just selling back to us the kind of friends it took away from us in the first place? What if you turned on Sienfeld, only to see Jerry and the gang locked in their seperate apartments, watching television. Would that be a good show? Think about it: that's how you are living now.

Jerry and Elaine, Kramer and that whole loveable bunch on Friends, none of them know you. They don't care whether you live or die. Why don't you get yourself some real friends?

http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_front.asp

Thursday, May 18, 2006

This Day in History

1966 The Communist Party of China issued the 'May 16 Notice', marking the beginning of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, in which up to 20 million people were killed and many millions more tortured and abused.

Wise Words

"...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. ...Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing." Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Just Too Funny...

http://tinyurl.com/gemzx

... in a nightmarish way...

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Now I Am Become Death

by Maryscott O'Connor
myleftwing@gmail.com
May 15, 2006 at 18:26:02 America/Los_Angeles

Osama racked up his kill total on one day -- on September 11, 2001: 2,986 dead Americans.
George took the longer route, but he has matched and exceeded Osama's total.
Including military fatalities in Iraq, civilian contractors, military suicides and accidents, journalists and hostages, George W. Bush is now responsible for the unnecessary and avoidable deaths of at least 3,166 Americans:

(Obviously, he is also responsible for the countless -- literally, we have not counted -- deaths of Iraqi citizens, in addition to the significant numbers of dead "Coalition" countries' military and non-military personnel. But for our purposes here, we'll stick with Americans.)

2,443 official military deaths of Americans in Iraq
318 civilian contractors dead in Iraq
150 aid workers
210 suicides
45 journalists

I have not included Americans who died of illness in or after Iraq -- only because I can't find the statistics. But obviously many of them wouldn't have died, either, if they hadn't been in Iraq.

Clearly, George W. Bush had help killing over three thousand Americans -- but then, so did bin Laden.

Osama had 19 pals to make the plans, and carry them out; and they graciously agreed to kill themselves in the bargain, leaving Osama with all the glory and none of the, you know, self-immolation.

George had so many little helpers -- heck, let's just be generous and call them "co-conspirators." Karl Rove, Dick "Dick" Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz -- and that's just the ones in his Administration. When you factor in all his sycophantic, weaseling, mendacious media minions, heck, you've got one HELL of a coalition of the willing!

And then there's PNAC -- my, my, how could I forget PNAC? Deserving special mention: Bill "Scum of the Earth" Kristol, of The Weekly Standard and Fox News, so recently feted by the incomparable Stephen Colbert for his ineluctable contribution to the invasion and subsequent occupation and, oh, let's call it... total fucking destruction of Iraq, and along with it any hope of the United States ever being respected, let alone loved, by the rest of the known world.

(Notable facilitators of the Iraq Quagmire include: The Family Scaife; the John M. Olin Foundation; and many, many more.)

But George W. Bush isn't finished yet, no, sirree, Bob. Heck, by the time this is all over, he might just surpass the American death toll of Vietnam -- and ain't that one heckuva way to make up for not participating in that quagmirical war at all? (Yeah, I made up that word -- but don't it just sound like somethin' Georgie might say?)

And the future's so bright, he's gotta wear shades, our Georgie do; Iran, oh, JOY, the possibilities are ENDLESS! Why, one day, and maybe not so distant a day at that, George might just put himself in the history books for good and certain -- you know, if there is any future left in which to write history books -- by being the only world leader since the first one did it to use nuclear weaponry against human beings. Oh, irony, how sweet, sweet, sweet it is -- the man who started a war based on the lie that his enemy had "Weapons of Mass Destruction" could be the one who actually USES weapons of mass destruction. He just might rack up bigger numbers than Hitler, when all's said and done, eh?

But, you may be asking yourselves, what's the point of this little missive, Maryscott? We all KNOW the man is a vicious, devious, sociopathic little lying fuck. Aside from updating us on his belt notches of American dead, is there any point to this would-be rant, and one rather disappointingly thin on profanities, at that? After all, what good does it really do to remind ourselves how good and truly fucked we have been by this lunatic imbecile and his cabal of incompetent co-conspirators?

(Incompetent? Well, doesn't that depend on their intent? Maybe the whole idea was to destabilise the world and make the United States the most hated and feared bully on the international playground since Hitler's Germany, you ever think about that? Maybe they don't CARE about all this collateral damage, as long as they get their booty and their artificially inflated sense of penile worth...)

My point -- and I do have one, I just know I do -- escapes me at the moment. Forgive, please -- I am an embittered "moonbat," for far too long blinded and, now, driven half-mad with rage and grief by the meaningless suffering, dismemberment, disfigurement and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in service to the evil ends of a few despicable assholes.

I do not offer a solution to this madness, I haven't the faintest idea what to do. A call to arms? A rush to the streets? To do what, pray tell, that we haven't already done? Violently riot in the streets where we had heretofore only protested peacefully, albeit loudly? Against whom should this violence be done? The only people who deserve violence are untouchable by us, at least in the corporeal sense. Taking to the streets for anything but peaceful vocal protest will only hurt the cause and each other. So, no, that is not my point.

Long ago, in Western civilisation, when a man committed nefarious deeds, his entire family suffered the ignominy and shame of it in the eyes of their society. In some parts of the world, this is still the case. It's brutally unfair to the blameless, who could no more have been expected to prevent their relative from committing the heinous deed than they could have harnessed the energy of a split atom. But there is a tiny flint of logic in it, sometimes. The parents of a vicious serial killer are often held up to scorn and derision by society, for how could they be entirely blameless in the nurturing and release of such a monster into the world?

Today, as an American, I feel like the pitiful, helpless distant relative of a mass murderer, guilty by association with his basic genetic structure and a shared family name. The blame for the obscenities perpetrated by the Bush Regime and their countless enablers and co-conspirators and stooges and useful idiots lies not just in them, but in me and every American of every age.

Our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will suffer the wrathful scorn, if not outright violent revenge, of those whom we, the People of the United States of America, have harmed -- and that number includes every human being on earth besides ourselves. They will not distinguish between the Bush voters, the Gore voters, the Kerry voters, the Nader voters or the non-voters; eventually, disgusted with our seeming inability or unwillingness to take measures to punish the evil-doers and prevent further evil-doing, the world will wash its hands of us all.

And though we may protest our individual innocence, in the end, we have only ourselves to blame.

http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/8590127.html

Could Lunacy Explain Bush's Policies?

I hate to raise such an ugly possibility, but have you considered lunacy as an explanation? Craziness would make a certain amount of sense. I mean, you announce you are going to militarize the Mexican border, but you assure the president of Mexico you are not militarizing the border. You announce you are sending the National Guard, but then you assure everyone it’s not very many soldiers and just for a little while.

Militarizing the border is a totally terrible idea. Do we have a State Department? Are they sentient? How much do you want to infuriate Mexico when it’s sitting on quite a bit of oil? Bush knows what the most likely outcome of this move will be. He was governor during the political firestorm that ensued when a Marine taking part in anti-drug patrols on the border shot and killed Esequiel Hernandez, an innocent goat herder from Redford, Texas. That’s the definition of crazy—repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result…

But right-wingers are very unhappy with Bush right now, and this is a strong, red-meat gesture that will make them happy, even if it does nothing to shut down the border. You want to shut down illegal immigration? You want to use the military as police? Make it illegal to hire undocumented workers and put the National Guard into enforcing that. Then rewrite NAFTA and invest in Mexico…

The consistent pattern that runs through all these problems is the failure to distinguish fantasy from reality. Mexican immigrants keep crossing the border because they can get jobs here—and most of those jobs are provided by companies whose CEOs support George W. Bush. That’s where he can have an impact on the problem, should he choose to do so...

Posted on May 15, 2006
By Molly Ivins

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060515_molly_ivins_lunacy/

Monday, May 15, 2006

Dehumanizing the Undocumented

…The US needs an immigration reform that both takes into account the country's role in encouraging migration and assumes responsibility for that role by granting immigrants legal status.

The current flows of immigration into the United States are a result of the actions of the US government and US-based corporations. As Midnight Noters and Friends point out, US neoliberal policies open the global economy "to the free entry and exit of foreign capital" which results in the decline of income for most workers and the use of force and repression, especially in some countries where the workers are already impoverished (See: midnightnotes.org/). Blau and Moncada note that, "Multinationals such as Wal-Mart, Sears, and Tarrant Appeal Group first set up operations in Mexico, where workers are paid $1.00 per hour, then moved to China, where workers make $.50 an hour, and then to Bangladesh, where workers make $.30 an hour, and then to Mozambique, where they make even less" (Human Rights; Beyond the Liberal Vision, 2005, p. 102). Each time a transnational corporation moves its factories from one country to another, a displaced worker population is created, which is more likely to become transnational itself…

What these reform bills are missing is a recognition that undocumented immigrants are not in the United States simply because they chose to break US law and cross borders. The idea that undocumented immigrants are criminals is a pernicious one; it portrays US citizens as dignified human beings with full political and economic rights, and immigrants as undignified others who do not deserve very much at all. Of course, entering the country without proper documentation is against the law, but so is jaywalking or driving without a license in one's possession. The question of how serious a crime it is to cross the border without permission or to overstay your tourist visa is highly subjective, and the criminalization of this particular law-breaking behavior is unwarranted. It is telling that the employers who employ undocumented immigrants are also breaking the law, but they have not been portrayed as criminals.

Another portrayal of undocumented immigrants is as people "willing to do jobs that Americans do not want." This, too, is dehumanizing and fails to hold employers accountable for low wages, bad working conditions, and the lack of benefits. This portrayal also characterizes undocumented workers as lesser beings who have lower standards for their jobs than people with proper documentation. A more appropriate description would be that the lack of proper documentation allows employers to abuse workers, to pay them lower wages, and to keep them in unsafe working conditions…

This is not to say that there is not an issue of border security. There is. As much as the US and other western countries are responsible for the hatred which Islamic terrorists have for us because of the ongoing efforts to maintain some control over oil in the Middle East and for other reasons, the terrorist groups are sending their warriors to western countries to inflict harm on civilians. New York, London, Madrid and other locations have already been attacked by terrorists. There is a need for defense systems against those who would smuggle in through ports or land borders dirty bombs, chemical or biological weapons or hydrogen bombs. Fences will not keep terrorists or other well-organized groups out; they can fly planes over them or dig tunnels under them…

But poor immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, or other countries in the Global South that walk across deserts, swim across rivers, or climb over fences are a different population. They have families, they need jobs, and they do not want to steal. Very few of them, if any, are terrorists. We do ourselves as well as the immigrants an incredible disservice if we allow western governments and their corporate sponsors to portray them as inferior and inhuman. We must go on record as being against all efforts to denigrate undocumented immigrants…

If we ask ourselves why undocumented workers are so easily dehumanized in the US, we can remind ourselves of the legacy of racism of this country. Although undocumented workers are of many colors and creeds, and, although more than half of the undocumented workers in the US are not from Mexico, and about a quarter are not even from Latin America, the image that is most often portrayed in the media of an undocumented worker is that of a brown person. By criminalizing and dehumanizing undocumented workers, we are creating a society in which all brown people will be seen as potential criminals, as not worthy of the same rights as other Americans. In the US, just as the post 9-11 legislation in the US made it almost a crime to look like an Arab, the current US proposals could make it almost a crime to look Mexican.

for the full article see: http://counterpunch.org/golash05152006.html

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Letter to Feinstein 06/11/06...beyond the pale...

Monday, May 08, 2006

Helpful Democrats run to Bush's rescue

Numerous Republicans have strongly objected to the president's nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to be CIA Director, so it's a good thing there are Democrats around like the always-accommodating Dianne Feinstein to help the President out…

http://tinyurl.com/oswsa

------

JP said...
Oh I don't know maybe it has something to do with this:

War brings business to Feinstein spouse
Blum's firms win multimillion-dollar defense contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan

http://tinyurl.com/nz7hp

Harman
http://tinyurl.com/nph8h

http://tinyurl.com/nyqua

I live in LA - these sellouts aren't getting my vote ever again.

------

Amen. You just sunk your ship. You will most certainly see me actively campaigning for ANYONE who runs against you (even a centrist Republican or the Green Party or an Independent...)

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Colbert's Historic Feat


Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner the other night is quickly gaining mythical status in liberal popular lore. As well it should. As I watched it on C-SPAN, I could hardly believe what I was seeing and hearing. The most powerful man in the world was being mercilessly skewered, in person, in front of a live television audience, for over 20 minutes. And he had to just sit there and take it.

I'm no historian, but I'm willing to wager that what I saw the other night has never happened. Ever.

Human beings have been around for quite a long time, and during that time, the title of "most powerful man in the world" has been held by a great many people. George W. Bush is merely the latest. But he may be the first to ever have been mocked so publicly and so personally (and so hysterically) while holding that title.

That in itself is a testament to how far we've come as a species. I'm pretty sure that for most of human history, a quick and painful death would have awaited anyone who tried to pull such a stunt.

But it's also a testament to Colbert's fearlessness. As John Stewart put it tonight, Colbert's performance was "balls-o-licious." Though most of us never have the opportunity to deliver a keynote speech before the leader of the free world, we all have fleeting moments in our lives where, looking back, we wish we had said what we really thought, that we had spoken truth to power, so to speak. The vast majority of us end up chickening out and then regretting our missed opportunity. We relive in our heads what we might have said if we had the chance to do it all again. How many other speakers at events like these have day-dreamed about what they were going to say, only to give in eventually to intimidation and fear of public embarrassment? Hundreds? Thousands?

Stephen Colbert was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime. Everyone who his life has been devoted to mocking (and justifiably so) was going to be in one room, and he was going to be the featured entertainment. He knew he had 20 minutes where all of these people would be a captive audience, including the leader of the free world seated just a few feet to his right. Sure, he could have delivered some light-hearted but forgettable Leno-esque performance and called it a night. But he knew he would have regretted it for the rest of his life. He knew that for the rest of his days he would be replaying jokes in his head that he wished he'd had the courage to say at the time.

A lot of people--mostly conservatives--have accused Colbert of misjudging the audience. But the truth is, Colbert never intended to play to that stuffy self-important crowd. They, after all, were the butt of his jokes. I think Colbert's true target audience was himself in 20 years. He's going to look back on that performance and feel nothing but pride. He's going to know that he left it all out on the table, that he seized his opportunity and made the most of it. And, like me, he's going to laugh his ass off.

So congratulations, Stephen Colbert, you may have become the first person in history to mock the most powerful person in the world--to his face, for over 20 minutes--and live to tell your tale.

And in a perfect bit of irony, the very press corps that Colbert so perfectly skewered that night seems totally oblivious to the fact that history was made right before their eyes. They couldn't spot a story if it openly mocked them.For what it's worth, I thought this was Colbert's funniest line:

Sir, pay no attention to the people who say theglass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is mypoint, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third isusually backwash.

posted by A.L. at 12:16 AM
From: Anonymous Liberal.

Well done.


Feingold and now you. I hope to god this works. You have my undying gratitude.

To join others in saying thanks to Stephen Colbert, here's the link .

Dubya's World

Main Entry: DUBYA
Pronunciation: 'duhb-"yah
Function: noun
Etymology: Old Texan variation of the English letter "W"
Date: circa 1836
1. Presidential nickname
2. Usurper, pretender
3. Media Event, figurehead

"Fascism should more accurately be named corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
-- Benito Mussolini

from: http://www.dubyasworld.com/home.html

Monday, May 01, 2006

The recent public fervor...

Confusing Whiteness With "Americanness"
LibrariesLife News (Pop Culture)

Newswise — STORY: The recent public fervor over immigration and the future of undocumented or illegal immigrants is a recurring theme in U.S. history and culture, says University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Associate Professor of English Linda Frost, Ph.D., author of the 2005 book “Never One Nation: Freaks, Savages and Whiteness in U.S. Popular Culture: 1850-1877.”

Frost argues that in the 19th century, depictions of minorities and immigrants in popular magazines illustrated who was and who was not considered American and played a major role in fusing “Americanness” with whiteness.
WHAT: “In fact, the actual status of ‘Americanness’ – who gets to claim it, and of course, who gets to reap the economic, political, and social benefits of that claim – is linked quite emphatically to notions of racial whiteness. Today, the non-American group most visibly seeking American status is a Latino and predominantly Mexican one, but in the 19th century, the Irish and Chinese were the two groups who most clearly fit this category. The larger and more visible the number of immigrants – despite their usefulness, their contribution to society, etc. – the less white they seem to be.


“In 1869, for instance, popular writer Ned Buntline described a group of Chinese workers in a story of his in the San Francisco Golden Era as ‘dirty, opaque-eyed Chinamen’ who grin ‘like ring-tailed baboons’; another short piece more transparently notes that a group of Chinese have been driven away by ‘the white people of Unionville, Nev.’ largely because ‘it was feared that the superior industry and intelligence of the Chinese would effect a monopoly of trade and labor in that locality.’ The ability to designate whiteness here bespeaks a deeper anxiety – one about maintaining control of resources.

MORE: “The conversation about immigration and the rights of immigrants in the United States, despite our national mythologies of a racially blended society, ultimately says much more about how fragile and insecure the nation's members feel about themselves as authorized ‘Americans’ and the strength of that identity than they do any truth about the immigrant group in question. This is certainly not surprising in a time of tremendous fear about ‘homeland security’ and the ability to shore up our economic and physical safeties.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Our Man of Virtue

Indeed, in recent weeks word has circulated among Washington conservatives that [William Bennett's] wagering could be a real problem. They have reason for concern. The Washington Monthly and Newsweek have learned that over the last decade Bennett has made dozens of trips to casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, where he is a "preferred customer" at several of them, and sources and documents provided to The Washington Monthly put his total losses at more than $8 million...

..."I don't play the 'milk money.'"

Bennett has been a high-roller since at least the early 1990s. A review of one 18-month stretch
of gambling showed him visiting casinos, often for two or three days at a time (and enjoying a line of credit of at least $200,000 at several of them). Bennett likes to be discreet. "He'll usually call a host and let us know when he's coming," says one source. "We can limo him in. He prefers the high-limit room, where he's less likely to be seen and where he can play the $500-a-pull slots. He usually plays very late at night or early in the morning--usually between midnight and 6 a.m." The documents show that in one two-month period, Bennett wired more than $1.4 million to cover losses.

...the [Washington Times] reported that Bennett had been spotted at the new Mirage Resorts Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, where he was reputed to have won a $200,000 jackpot. Bennett admitted to the Times that he had visited the casino, but denied winning $200,000. Documents show that, in fact, he won a $25,000 jackpot on that visit--but left the casino down $625,000.

Bennett--who gambled throughout Clinton's impeachment--has continued this pattern in subsequent years. On July 12 of last year, for instance, Bennett lost $340,000 at Caesar's Boardwalk Regency in Atlantic City. And just three weeks ago, on March 29 and 30*, he lost more than $500,000 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. "There's a term in the trade for this kind of gambler," says a casino source who has witnessed Bennett at the high-limit slots in the wee hours...


"We call them losers."

Saturday, April 15, 2006

It Always Come Back to Bite Us...We Should Know Better By Now.

"The CIA officers that Yousef worked with closely impressed upon him one rule: never use the terms sabotage or assassination when speaking with visiting congressmen."
-- Steve Coll, Ghost Wars

Gunboat diplomacy had been defeated by car bombs in Lebanon, but the Reagan administration and, above all, CIA Director William Casey were left thirsting for revenge against Hezbollah. "Finally in 1985," according to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward in Veil, his book on Casey's career, "he worked out with the Saudis a plan to use a car bomb to kill [Hezbollah leader] Sheikh Fadlallah who they determined was one of the people behind, not only the Marine barracks, but was involved in the taking of American hostages in Beirut… It was Casey on his own, saying, ‘I‘m going to solve the big problem by essentially getting tougher or as tough as the terrorists in using their weapon -- the car bomb.'"

The CIA's own operatives, however, proved incapable of carrying out the bombing, so Casey subcontracted the operation to Lebanese agents led by a former British SAS officer and financed by Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar. In March 1984, a large car bomb was detonated about 50 yards from Sheikh Fadlallah's house in Bir El-Abed, a crowded Shiite neighborhood in southern Beirut. The sheikh wasn't harmed, but 80 innocent neighbors and passersby were killed and 200 wounded. Fadlallah immediately had a huge "MADE IN USA" banner hung across the shattered street, while Hezbollah returned tit for tat in September when a suicide truck driver managed to break through the supposedly impregnable perimeter defenses of the new U.S. embassy in eastern (Christian) Beirut, killing 23 employees and visitors.

Despite the Fadlallah fiasco, Casey remained an enthusiast for using urban terrorism to advance American goals, especially against the Soviets and their allies in Afghanistan. A year after the Bir El-Abed massacre, Casey won President Reagan's approval for NSDD-166, a secret directive that, according to Steve Coll in Ghost Wars, inaugurated a "new era of direct infusions of advanced U.S. military technology into Afghanistan, intensified training of Islamist guerrillas in explosives and sabotage techniques, and targeted attacks on Soviet military officers."

U.S. Special Forces experts would now provide high-tech explosives and teach state-of-the-art sabotage techniques, including the fabrication of ANFO (ammonium nitrate-fuel oil) car bombs, to Pakistani intelligence service (or ISI) officers under the command of Brigadier Mohammed Yousaf. These officers, in turn, would tutor thousands of Afghan and foreign mujahedin, including the future cadre of al-Qaeda, in scores of training camps financed by the Saudis. "Under ISI direction," Coll writes, "the mujahedin received training and malleable explosives to mount car-bomb and even camel-bomb attacks in Soviet-occupied cities, usually designed to kill Soviet soldiers and commanders. Casey endorsed these despite the qualms of some CIA career officers."
~~~~~

This is an excerpt from the fascinating account, History of the Car Bomb, by Mike Davis as a preliminary sketch for a book-length study.

Found at History News Network (I always find interesting stuff there.)

[italics mine]

Friday, April 14, 2006

This Day in History

April 14, 1955: First McDonald's opened by Ray Kroc. On this day in 1955, American fast-food pioneer Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, launching an enterprise that would eventually become the world's largest fast-food chain.

The first McDonald's restaurant opened by Ray Kroc, now a museum in Des Plaines, Illinois, U.S.Sandy Felsenthal/Corbis


Comment: And we owe everything we are today to that lowly 15 cent hamburger...

Brought Back to the Truth...

Sometimes, we lose focus and must be forcibly be brought back to the truth of the War in Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was an act of aggression. Iraq posed no threat to the United States, there was no humanitarian crisis afoot in the country, and no international body like the UN or NATO sanctioned the invasion. In short, Bush's Doctrine of Preemption was and remains an excuse for military aggression. The invasion of Iraq was a war crime.

Unfortunately, imcompetence and corruption do not explain away the immorality and yes, the sinfulness adherent in the invasion and destruction of a nation, its people, its property and its treasure.

Evidently discussion and plans are now underway that could conceivably lead to the most extreme example of military aggression in the history of the world: A preemptive nuclear strike.

These folks are war criminals pure and simple no matter how their supporters try to otherwise frame their actions.

Posted by Mo (thank you. thank you, wherever you are.)

Read More of an Excellent Post on Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory

This day in history

John Wilkes Booth Shoots Lincoln (1865)

When John Wilkes Booth, an American actor and ardent Confederate sympathizer, learned that President Lincoln planned to attend a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington, he plotted to assassinate the President. Shortly after 10 PM, he entered the presidential box unobserved, shot Lincoln in the head, and vaulted to the stage (breaking his left leg in the process) shouting "Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!" How did Booth gain access to the theater?
More...

Thursday, April 13, 2006

If Thomas Jefferson had Worked in the Corporate World

10 October 1776

Mr. Thomas Jefferson
c/o The Continental Congress
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Dear Mr. Jefferson:

We have read your "Declaration of Independence" with great interest. Certainly, it represents a considerable undertaking, and many of your statements do merit serious consideration.

Unfortunately, the Declaration as a whole fails to meet recently adopted specifications for proposals to the Crown, so we must return the document to you for further refinement. The questions which follow might assist you in your process of revision:

1. In your opening paragraph you use the phrase "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God." What are these laws? In what way are they the criteria on which you base your central arguments? Please document with citations from the recent literature.

2. In the same paragraph you refer to the "opinions of mankind." Whose polling data are you using? Without specific evidence, it seems to us the "opinions of mankind" are a matter of opinion.

3. You hold certain truths to be "self-evident." Could you please elaborate. If they are as evident as you claim then it should not be difficult for you to locate the appropriate supporting statistics.

4. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" seem to be the goals of your proposal. These are not measurable goals. If you were to say that "among these is the ability to sustain an average life expectancy in six of the 13 colonies of at last 55 years, and to enable newspapers in the colonies to print news without outside interference, and to raise the average income of the colonists by 10 percent in the next 10 years," these could be measurable goals. Please clarify.

5. You state that, "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute a new Government ..." Have you weighed this assertion against all the alternatives? What are the trade-off considerations?

6. Your description of the existing situation is quite extensive. Such a long list of grievances should precede the statement of goals, not allow it. Your problem statement needs improvement.

7. Your strategy for achieving your goal is not developed at all. You state that the colonies "ought to be Free and Independent States" and that they are "Absolved from All Allegiance to the British Crown." Who or what must change to achieve this objective? In what way must they change? What specific steps will you take to overcome the resistance? How long will it take? We have found that a little foresight in these areas helps to prevent careless errors later on. How cost-effective are your strategies?

8. Who among the list of signatories will be responsible for implementing your strategy? Who conceived it? Who provided the theoretical research? Who will constitute the advisory committee? Please submit an organization chart and vitas of the principal investigators.

9. You must include an evaluation design. We have been requiring this since Queen Anne's War.

10. What impact will your problem have? Your failure to include any assessment of this inspires little confidence in the long-range prospects of your undertaking.

11. Please submit a PERT diagram, an activity chart itemised budget and manpower utilization matrix.

We hope that these comments prove useful in revising your "Declaration of Independence." We welcome the submission of your revised proposal. Our due date for unsolicited proposals is November 30, 1776. Ten copies with original signatures will be required.

Sincerely,
Management Analyst to the British Crown

[Author unknown; found in widely circulated email. If it's your copyright, tell me and I'll remove.] From Blogmanac

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

This George is No Washington

"George Washington was the Father of His Country. George W. Bush could be the Destroyer of His Country. To preserve our freedoms, America must return to the ideology upon which the United States was founded, and Americans must demand that our elected leaders adhere to those ideals."

"Each was elected president of the United States, but George the 43rd possesses none of the courage, intelligence, or wisdom of the first.

"George Washington was born into a respectable planting family in Virginia. His father died when he was 11, leaving a widow and seven children. The young Washington received a grade-school education; however, he was unable to attend college. He had to go to work at age 16 as a surveyor and ultimately conducted more than 190 surveys on the Virginia frontier. When Washington was 20 years old, he petitioned the governor for a military appointment, and began to lead a series of military expeditions into the Ohio Country, where he engaged in battles with the French and their Indian allies. He was ultimately appointed a colonel, and in 1755 he became an aide-de-camp to the British General Braddock, who was leading an invasion into the French-held Ohio region. Braddock was killed and his army defeated during an Indian ambush; however, Washington was able to rally the troops and saved the lives of many soldiers. Two horses were shot out from under him, and four bullets pierced his coat as he maneuvered in the thick of the battle.

"Only 23 years of age, Washington was appointed as Commander in Chief of the Virginia Regiment. He learned lessons from Braddock’s defeat and trained his troops in both the rigorous discipline of British troops and the “bushfighting” tactics of Indian warriors. For the next three and a half years, he led his thousand “Blues” in constant combat operations on the Virginia frontier in the war against France. He knew most of his soldiers personally and was viewed as a father figure, even though most of the soldiers were older than him. He resigned his commission in 1758 to get married and to attend to his family’s estate.

"George W. Bush was born to high privilege; his great-grandfathers helped establish and earned enormous profits from the military industrial complex and, his grandfather helped finance Hitler’s war machine. His parents were both raised in wealthy households attended by servants, and they spoiled George Jr., their first born. He was allowed to abuse his siblings, to torment and kill animals and to sustain mediocrity in his education. He required his father’s “legacy” to get into Yale, where he organized physical hazing described in newspaper reports as “degrading, sadistic and obscene.” He was arrested for theft, disorderly conduct, drunk driving and possession of cocaine.

"In 1968, 296,406 American boys were drafted into military service, and6,332 came home from Vietnam in body bags. Although he was 22 years old, a college graduate, and physically fit, Bush’s father pulled strings to jump him over 500 waiting applicants and into the Texas Air National Guard, even though he could only answer 25 of the 100 questions on the pilot aptitude test. Bush declined to volunteer for Vietnam service, choosing instead to patrol the skies over Houston, Texas on weekends, until he grew bored and went AWOL ...

"The war did not immediately go well for the Americans, and during the battle of Long Island, the siege of Fort Washington, and the Forage War, the British and Hessian troops often provided no 'quarter' in putting to death all rebels who fell into their hands. The wounded had their brains dashed out, were run through with bayonets and their bodies were mutilated. American prisoners were imprisoned under conditions of great misery, including the holds of prison ships in New York harbor, where large numbers died after great suffering. In spite of these war crimes, Washington never denied quarter to the enemy and ordered that all prisoners be treated as human beings with the same rights that the rebels were fighting for. He wrote, 'Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren.' Washington particularly ordered that Hessian soldiers were 'innocent people in this war, and were not volunteers, but forced into this war.'

..."Bush presided over a failed presidency and his public approval ratings were barely above 50 percent when al Qaeda attacked on September 11,2001, much like lighting striking the well-insured building of a bankrupt company. As a 'war president,' Bush established an outdoor prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where POW’s were confined in chain-link cages open to the elements and denied the rights guaranteed by the Geneva Convention; he illegally held hundreds of undocumented immigrants in prison without access to counsel; he denied all due process to American citizens imprisoned as an 'enemy combatants;' he established secret prisons in other countries; he ordered the kidnaping and 'extraordinary rendition' of individual into other countries where they were brutally tortured; and he authorized the illegal use of torture in the questioning of prisoners in places such as Abu Ghraib, as long as it didn’t produce organ failure or death, or was done in accordance with 'military necessity.' ...

"In January 2006, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $385 million contract to a Halliburton subsidiary to construct detention centers in the United States to cope with “an emergency influx of immigrants into the US, or to support the rapid development of new programs.” Each detention center is designed to hold up to 5,000 detainees, should Bush decide to declare martial law in the event of another terrorist attack or a natural disaster, such as another Katrina or an Asian Flu epidemic ...

"This George is no Washington. George Washington was the Father of His Country. George W. Bush could be the Destroyer of His Country. To preserve our freedoms, America must return to the ideology upon which the United States was founded, and Americans must demand that our elected leaders adhere to those ideals."


By William John Cox Media Monitors Network (MMN)
Tuesday April 11 2006

Full text at MediaMonitors; courtesy of South News

First Knights Templar are Discovered

The first bodies of the Knights Templar, the mysterious religious order...have been found by archaeologists near the River Jordan in northern Israel.

British historian Tom Asbridge yesterday hailed the find as the first provable example of actual Knights Templar.

The remains were found beneath the ruined walls of Jacob's Ford, an overthrown castle dating back to the Crusades, which had been lost for centuries.

They can be dated to the exact day -- August 29, 1179 -- that they were killed by Saladin, the feared Muslim leader who captured the fortress.''

Never before has it been possible to trace their remains to such an exact time in history,' Mr Asbridge said. ''This discovery is the equivalent of the Holy Grail to archaeologists and historians. It is unparalleled.''

Source: The Daily Telegraph (Australia) (4-11-06)
From: History News Network