Monthly Archives: March 2006

Handcrafted aggrandizement

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I’ve always been irked by the Starbucks invented term “Barista.” It’s the equivalent of Walmart calling their workers “associates.” It means nothing except to delude the workers that they are something more than slave-wage, unskilled workers.

Barista might imply that someone who serves coffee has a cultural legacy, shielding the subject from their more relevant historic socio-economic legacy: low man on the totem pole.

Recently I’ve been hearing a locally owned coffee joint using some of this psycho-syntax to its own advantage. “Handcrafted coffees.” They’re made by hand, obviously. But unlike a parking ticket, or a shaken welcome mat, a “handcrafted” coffee inplies the work of a craftsman.

While it’s certainly a nice sentiment, wouldn’t we all like to be thought craftsmen of our own realm? It doesn’t matter that it’s a delution of what it means to be a craftsman. Rather, it’s a lie. Shit by any other name would smell as sweet.

War On Idiocy

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The WAR ON expression has come to mean what any more? War On Drugs. What did that mean? Trying to address the drug addiction problem, obviously. Wouldn’t it have been better to call it: “addressing the drug addiction problem?” Declaring a war on the noun drugs has meant thousands incarcerated for being victims.

Similarly, the War On Terrorism is having a disasterously misguided effect on the world. Horribly hilarious, if the world was made of words. Instead of addressing the problems that lead to terrorism, we are fighting a word. As if there is a culture of people whose highest ideology is terrorism.

The WAR ON expression began with President Lyndon Johnson, not with the War On The People Of Vietnam, but with the War On Poverty. That description fit. The problem at base level was poverty.

The idiocy-mongers at the helm of our national shipwreck, at their most disingenuous, are inventing other fictional wars against which they hope to rally public support. There was a War On Christmas apparently, and now they are rallying defenders against the War On Christianity. The attack is coming from the godless left, from the culture elites, etc.

Was there a War On Christmas? Is there a War On Christianity? I’d add a few more and let you decide. Is there a War On Republicans who vote against their own self interest? Is there a War On Corporations who deny Global Warming? Is there a War On Union Members who continue to vote for free trade and globalization and slave labor? Is there a War On Religious Revelers who believed there was a War On Christmas?

There for damn sure is! It’s called the WAR ON IDIOCY. It’s the effort to make Americans into less mal-informed, less mal-educated global citizens, for everybody’s good, especially their own. To paraphrase an early American patriot: it wasn’t the idiots who got us our democracy, it won’t be the idiots who help us keep it.

And you capital “C” Christians who think the end of the world is nigh -and you are trying to hasten it- if you don’t want “idiocy” to define “Christianity” it’s going to be up to you to behave yourself.

The War On Idiocy is a bastard of a fight. It’s the front of the class finally having to turn to the back of the class and say “Shut the fuck up you moron, you’re holding all of us back with your inanity! Believe what you want to believe, whatever, but kindly leave the curriculum to Miss Hillhoople and sit down, PLEASE!”

And then, because this is a war after all, can we help but add: “IDIOT!”

New banners for Camp Casey

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Time for some spring cleaning at Camp Casey, an opportunity to hang out some fresh laundry. We’ve sewn new colorful sheets and here are prospective banner slogans:

STAND
AGAINST
WAR
STOP
THE
KILLING
HANDS
OFF
IRAN
9/11
BUSH
KNEW
GLOBAL
JUSTICE
NOT WAR
FREEDOM
IS NOT A
FREE RIDE
STAND UP
COLORADO
SPRINGS
WAR  IS
TERRORISM
PEACE IS
PATRIOTIC
TROOPS
OUT NOW
NO WAR
FOR ISRAEL
END THE
OCCUPATION
WHAT DID
JESUS DO ?

Here’s an interesting banner we may opt not to fly just yet.

Hee Haw rides again

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Hee Haw rides again!
Reprise: Junior Samples, Grandpa Jones, Buck Owens and Roy Clark.
 
No I’m messing with you. This is the cast of Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again or something like that. Three funny guys who make an enormous living by speaking for the common man, plus the Cable Guy, their greek chorus, in this case impersonating the common lower common man. Really, when Larry The Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy and Ron White appear in promotional pictures, CD covers or movie posters, they are never shown in any other order than where their fans have seen them sit on their Comedy Central special. What an interesting opinion of the intellectual incapacity of your target audience.

I caught a little of this popular act on TV and I knew I’d seen it somewhere before. HEE HAW! It was funny then, and it’s funny still. But back then we didn’t have hicks for country music stars and for race car drivers and for president of the United States. Is this where you get when you idolize people who behave like they were schooled in a barn?

We make multi-millionaires out of people who talk like hayseeds. Nothin’ wrong with hayseeds, on tractors naturally. And clearly country music stars, like redneck comedy stars and like NASCAR driving stars have a lot more going for them upstairs than your average service station gofer. Most of the time we can tell that politicians and preachers who pander to the lowest common denominator, are not themselves so gullible. However, we don’t want our doctors to be hayseeds, nor our scientists, nor our news reporters, nor even customer service representatives. Why are we looking for comedic wisdom from hayseeds?

Lauding a hayseed for comedic wit seems to me to set a terrible example. We’re supposed to laugh at what stupid thinks is stupid? It’s terrifying to me that there’s even an entire auditorium full of stupids who want to hear country dumbkins opine about life. This is misogeny and gay-bashing and oversimplification of everything. Sure it’s funny to laugh at political correctness, until you consider why something is thought correct or incorrect in the first place. Life is a little bit complicated, and we don’t mind admitting that we like the most qualified person to be driving the bus. What is so funny about an idiot sounding off? Especially in a world where the court jester resembles the radio commentator and worse our presidential dauphin.

These guys tell the same jokes to each other, even work in ad libs for each other from their own original routines. This would not be so bad except that the good ol’ boys give each other kudos for their clever repartees, even though the audience would know from the CD they’ve already memorized that even the joviality is canned.

Most of us, when retelling a story in the presence of someone who we might have told already, will begin by saying “I was telling such-an-such…” so awkward are we about repeating ourselves. Performers naturally have to repeat themselves, and have to act among each other like the material is fresh. But to give each other credit for extemporizing a put-down is pretty damn lower denominator.

Cindy Sheehan, taking the fun out of war!

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Cindy Sheehan dons our Camp Casey Colorado Springs cap.
Kelly, Pallas and Cindy.
 
Camp Casey Colorado Springs own Pallas Stanford and IVAW co-founder Kelly Dougherty marched with Cindy Sheehan from Mobile to New Orleans. Also marching from Colorado Springs were veterans Joe Hatcher, Jeff Peskoff, Ethan Crowell, Alan Skinner, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War co-founder Terry Leichner.

The March 14-19 Vets Gulf March marked the third anniversary of the war in Iraq and was meant to highlight the relationship between the misappropriation of resources for the illegal war and the woeful assistance given to the Katrina Hurricane victims. The Colorado Springs delegation left from Camp Casey on March 12.

Cindy Sheehan had sent her greetings through Andy Braunstein when he was in DC, now she’s got our peace cap. The TAKING THE FUN OUT OF WAR cap from Colorado Springs’ ragtag peace camp!

Tal Afar out of the bag

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President thinks he has glommed unto an Iraq War success story, the American suppression of Tal Afar. Americans had hardly heard the name Tal Afar before Bush mentioned it in his recent address. Ergo must be a quiet town, at peace. Think so?
 
Tal Afar has been off the radar because there are no unembedded journalists there. There has been no one to report back about the usual American practices against the Iraqi population, no one but the usual military liasons. Now 60 Minutes is adding their voice to Bush’s refrain.
 
Well Tal Afar is in our neck of the woods actually. The last of Colorado Springs’ own Third Armored Cavalry has returned from duty at Tal Afar, and the stories circulating already will make your hair stand on end. Over the next weeks, I’ll document a number of 3rd AC eyewitness reports.

Tal Afar is the story of a Fallujah-like siege and bombardment, outside of the view of western TV cameras. Soldiers tell of levelling the Saria District, inhabitants and all. In the meantime, you can read an excellent account here.

2.
Not wishing to be surpased by Bush’s war is peace, violence equals progress logic, the media is criticising itself for not reporting more good news from Iraq. Right wing shills are arguing that network reporters should step out from the protection of the Green Zone and report on more than IEDs and bedlam. What a perversion of the hotel journalism argument! Reporters cannot step out into the real Iraq without getting killed. Some success story.

CPT captives released

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CPT memorials on postThe three remaining CPT captives, held hostage since Novemember 27 have been freed.
 
On DAY 119 of their captivity, on DAY 106 or so of the vigil which we’ve kept every day at noon, the BBC has just reported that the three CPT hostages, English Norman Kember and Canadians Jim Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, have been freed.

The news so far reports that they were liberated from their captors by a join military mission, the details and repercussions of which remain to be revealed. But it’s a happy day, the three CPT members are safe.

A little over a week ago, we learned that the fourth captive, American Tom Fox, had been killed. This was a fate which seemed improbable considering the mission of the Christian Peacemaker Team. They had been working without protection in Iraq to help families there negotiate for the release of their loved ones detained without due process in American prisons.

The memorial post we had erected for the CPT members will remain to shine the light on persons all over the world who are held in unlawful detainment. The post is still draped in black because of the death of Tom Fox, but soon we will raise another backdrop which will read: HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL CAPTIVES.

The noon vigil has proved itself to be an excellent touch stone for organizing our myriad other actions. It’s been an opportunity to stay apprised of the latest developments and strategies, and we’ve had occasion to be interviewed for three separate documentaries: one about American conscientious objectors who’ve removed themselves to Canada, another about the concept of Constantine’s Sword, and another about grassroots activism.

Come to a book burning!

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The Bookman would like to announce, on the eve of its 15th Anniversary, a long overdue, grand attention-getting idea: A GET WITH THE PROGRAM- BOOK BURNING!
 
Let’s draw national attention and put Colorado Springs on the map for what it is: the Mecca of modern American fundamentalism. You hear it from world citizens more and more, they’re less worried by Islamic Fundamentalists than they are by American Fundamentalists!

Doesn’t Colorado Springs embody this scary Modern America? Teach creationism, perpetuate bigotry, all children left behind, screw their education with CSAPs, pump their ears with pornographic rap, trap their attention with Xboxes and Playstations, fill them with fat, sugar and BGH, send no one overseas to see the rest of the world unless they are carrying M16s and shooting everyone especially women and children.

In light of current times and the local uneducated landscape, we’re hosting a community book burning! We invite everyone to cast your votes for which books to destroy. We have a ton of them to burn, they’re not selling. Oh the crappy ones sell just fine, but the intellectual titles, who wants ’em?

Contrary to popular wisdom, the lauded, feted, quickly gentrifying westside, our home neighborhood, is as uneducated and uncultured as the rest of Colorado Springs. And that’s amazingly ignorant by any standard! We may as well be South Dakota Springs for as backward as we are. And those folks don’t know their asshole from, well, from your asshole apparently.

In keeping with local ordinances against open fires, we’ll actually destroy the books by conducting book baptisms instead of burnings. We’ll use large trash containers full of water. Same effect, same religious significance, book destroyed. Plus we’ll be keeping the idiots away from fire.

Kerry 2004 deja vu

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Speaking at IWY3 rally
Where are the Democrats on Anti-War? Why are they not standing at the forefront of this issue? The PPJPC held a well-attended Iraq War Year III rally in the park downtown and we saw not one politician in attendance.

Why do Democrats not recognize the visceral strength of the opposition to war? Americans may not vote in their own self interest for the simple matter of pride. Social issues are often too selfish for Americans to see themselves supporting. And the American Dream, if even just the Lotto, keeps Americans thinking about the interests of the priviledged as perhaps someday their own.

But the plight of the Iraqi people, a people we’ve terrorized and decimated, that’s a selfless cause. Americans join the world in their abject remorse for our actions. This is the issue which ignited the American populace in 2004. This is what can motivate the American voter again.

2.
In my humble opinion, knowing nothing about politics, I’d like to suggest that the Democrats have not a chance in hell in the next election unless they differentiate themselves from the reigning asshole party.

It’ll be Kerry all over again. Except this time I don’t think anyone will get too excited at the prospect of electing someone who’ll merely betray us.

Is there any reason to believe that there is any difference between Republicans and Democrats in DC? You can’t get Democrats there to move for impeachment, for censure, to investigate anything, to repudiate the Patriot Act, or to end the illegal war in Iraq. What good would it do necessarily to send Washington more Democrats to supplement the morally retarded ones they have already?

I don’t think you’re likely to entice Americans to support a party of do-nothings, especially when those losers are looking more like cohorts of the Republican kleptocrats.

Prizefight fixed

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Autist-in-chief snickering
We are watching a prizefight. Bush is swaggering and staggering around with his arms in the air having declared himself winner before the bell has rung, as he’s done through every round. This time he’s looking deliriously vulnerable. He’s got the typical bad guy aura of a smug WWWF villain. He could be in a wheelchair and the crowd would cheer to see him clobbered.

We are yelling at the top of our lungs for Bush’s opponent, any opponent, to knock him down! A child could do it! Go up there and push him over with the pinkie finger of your left hand! Now! Get in there you bum! Do it! Impeach! Censure! Ask him a tough question!

But his opponent won’t touch him. Won’t even get in the ring. Won’t even look us in the eye. You bum! Worse, the opponent won’t let anyone else get into the ring either. It’s becoming clear that we are dealing with a ringer who’s being paid not just to lose, but to keep other challengers out of the ring. This bum’s job is to ensure that Bush comes out on top no matter what. This bum is on the same payroll as the rampaging little tantrum.

Let’s not forget that as terrible as the fight has been to watch, everything’s going swimmingly for those who are paying the bills. The Iraq war has paid off handsomely. Katrina relief a windfall. Tax cuts for the rich a wet dream. The promoters could not have imagined such success. Their little dictator is stomping roughshod around the ring and the Democrats are pulling their punches, doing a remarkable job making it look difficult to take a swing at Bush the autist-in-chief. The bums!

Why ask Bush?

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The media are showing themselves for the shills that they are. The story would seem to be President Bush’s ever lower approval ratings. Yet the media are working overtime to quote bush left and right. As if to prove the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.
 
Why we looking to Bush for any answers at all? Greenland is melting yet Bush denies global warming. Iraq is disintegrating into fearsome indescriminate violence yet Bush calls it victory.
 
Bush sets up a straw man argument by saying he can understand why Americans are disheartened. Try disgusted. Explain that.

Intellectual property rights in the bathroom

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You can get a calculator for 99 cents. Glossing over for a moment the issue of the third world child/slave/prison exploitation that goes into these cheap products, consider that we can manufacture incredibly complex and intricate gizmos for pennies.
 
Why then do razorblades based on a patented design cost nearly two dollars a pop? They’re also made in China for pennies. Why do blades for electric razors cost six dollars? Why do brushes for electric toothbrushes cost four dollars? If the design of those products were in the public domain, their consumer price could be in the pennies.
 
That’s the cost to you in the bathroom of intellectual property rights.

Plague upon Iraq

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Swarm of locustsNevermind that this operation appears to have been a diversion.
 
This is a picture of U.S. locusts launching the largest airborn assault on Iraq since the U.S. invasion. The attack upon a suspected resistance stronghold north of Samarra was called OPERATION SWARMER.

Where have you seen this imagery before? How about in A BUG’S LIFE, the nasty grasshopper gang, swarming the little ant colony to terrorize them and take their food.

If you missed A Bug’s Life, perhaps you recognize the malevolant silhouettes taking to the air in geometric formation from THE WIZARD OF OZ. The flying monkeys unleashed by the Wicked Witch.

An article from Time about the airborn assault ended with this description:

Before loading up into the helicopters for a return trip to Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers and some reporters helped themselves to the woman’s freshly baked bread, tearing bits off and chewing it as they wandered among the cows. For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they’d found all day.

Neverland vs. Disneyland

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Michael Jackson kid collectionOf course Michael Jackson is closing Neverland, his kid-themed estate in Southern California, he doesn’t need it, he’s gone to Disneyland!
 
(Caution: this article may get a little gross.)
 
The California Disneyland where children run around unattended? The Florida Disney world
with its similar kid-sized attractions? No, it’s just an expression. Jocko’s gone to the proverbial ne-plus-ultra destination for those who’ve hit the jackpot. Well you be the judge.

Michael Jackson got off charges of child molestation, statutory rape, contributing to the delinquency of minors, kidnapping, unlawful detainment, all now curiously summarized as “child abuse.” After which he immediately scooted out of the country! Despite the most unbecoming of evidence, Michael Jackson got away without being declared a sex offender. Maybe he knows something we don’t because he decided he didn’t want to stay within reach of U.S. law enforcement, and he obsconded to… Bahrain.

Where’s Bahrain? What’s Bahrain? Michael Jackson says he has friends there who he feels are more simpathetic to his inner whatever he is. His friend is a sheikh in Bahrain with oil to pay for harems.

Bahrain is like the United Arab Emirates, which are small sultanates set up by the British in such a way that the oil wealth would not have to be shared by national populations but rather by simply the occupiers of each particular stretch of desert. The Dutch did the same thing in Brunei, carved out of Indonesia. These are artificial borders meant to exclude the actual indigenous inhabitants who might require the traditional colonial investments in infrastructure and social welfare.

Imagine if instead of launching the California gold rush, Sutter had walled up his Mill, declared it an autonomous Sultanate, and all the gold wealth had gone only to fund vast automobile collections, Manhattan real estate investments, decadent harems and orgies, ad vomitum, leaving the rest of Californians to a tribal existance outside the flow of the gold largess.

What do Middle East sultans do with themselves which Michael Jackson finds so simpatico? It’s probably not to do with subjugating their populations with poverty and repressive religious dogma. Maybe it’s speedboat racing, who knows? More likely it has to do with the secretive harems, collections of captive sex partners lured and trafficked from all parts of the globe, reputedly the “white slave trade” which what do you wanna bet includes children?

To recap, how did the various pedophelia behaviors so graphically documented by Jackson’s prosecutors, from the Jesus Juice to the predatory grooming, come to be summarized as “child abuse?” Mere balcony-baby-dangling by comparison. This mirrors the current media subversion of the word rape, and all the horror it conjures, by using the more ambiguous term “sexual assault.”

Critical Mass Rally 3/17

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pictureSeventy riders joined the monthly CRITICAL MASS ride through downtown on Friday, St Patrick’s Day, seen by hundreds of revelers and commuters. Our special IWY3 gathering rode down Tejon, crossing on Bijou, Kiowa, Boulder, St Vrain, Pikes Peak and Colorado Ave, doubling back on Cascade, Nevada and Weber St.
 
Peter put together a fantastic hybred for me just in time for the occasion. Chants of WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS were mixed with BIKES NOT BOMBS and SUPPORT THE TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME which became SUPPORT THE TROOPS, RIDE A BIKE!

Our democrats are wusses

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I have the opportunity to attend the $75 per head Democratic Party fundraiser at the Patty Jewett Country Club this Friday. Max Cleland will be the featured guest. It sounds like an interesting affair, well-to-do Democrats might make for interesting folk. The trouble is, the featured benefactor of the fundraiser is the Democratic candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, a certain Jay Fawcett. So I’m not going.

Much is being made at the national level of the cowardice and incompetence of the Democrats. As Russ Feingold makes his case against the President’s illegal wiretapping, it appears, through the lens of the national press, that Feingold’s fellow Democrats are not standing by his side. In fact the argument given highest visibility is not about the merit of Feingold’s efforts, but rather: “why are the Democrats so spineless?”

I’m not prepared to say that the Democrats are spineless. After all, what we know about the actions of any Democrat is only based on how it is reported by the media. I’m suspicious of a media which reports its own opinion on the story as the story. Spineless is for the audience to decide. You report. We don’t need a media to ask: why does Republican shit smell so good? Show us the shit and leave your Neocon ass-kissing opinions to yourself.

A friend of mine just reported that he’s been calling congressional offices to urge their support for Senator Feingold. He’s being told that they would prefer to wait until all the facts are in. “What facts are you waiting for? he yells, Bush has admitted to the wiretapping!”

Which leads me to tomorrow night’s Democratic event. We may or may not know what Democrats are doing on the national level, but each of us in our own neighborhood can see what our politicians are doing here. I’ll tell you what they are doing here: jack shit. Oh, they’re fighting the good fight, but more like movie stuntmen. The fight is orchestrated, the moves were choreographed by labor unions long ago, and our Democrats know their role: they take the fall. They talk about health care, they talk about needing to put smarts back into governance, then they take the bullet, writhe around for a three minute death scene pining about the nobility of our cause, then fall.

Jay Fawcett is a pro-war revolving-door military careerist. What in hell is that for a Democratic candidate? We need another war-mongering Democrat like we need a hole in the head. Oh, excuse me, is that our part?

Give the Democrats your money on Friday night only if they’ll let you stand up and ask “what the hell are you boys doing? Get up there with some real ammo and shoot to win you chicken-hawk lily-livered pansies!”

Truth in camouflage

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M1-A1 tank in new urban camouflage
What’s the point to the U.S. camouflage scheme on armored vehicles in Iraq? If opposing forces do not have an air force, nor any mechanized cavalry, nor any artillery, nor any optical sighting devices to speak of, what exactly is the benefit of military camouflage?
 
No really, how does camouflage conceal you from IEDs or suicide bombers? And in an urban, peopled environment, against what backdrop can you even hope to blend in? Truth in advertizing might suggest that a best camo scheme should reflect the real battlefield, filled with the real casualties.

Zacarias Moussaoui and US blood thirst

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Are we really contemplating hanging Zacarias Moussaoui for plotting to participate in 9/11? Even though he didn’t do it, nor was he even thwarted for trying, but simply for talking about it and expressing his enthusiasm? He’s not even guilty of conspiracy because he didn’t even contribute to the 9/11 effort.
 
Usually the small time hood who decides not to get up in the morning and go rob a bank, is not regarded as a bank robber. You can’t plead guilty to wanting to commit a crime because that is not a crime. Moussaoui’s behavior should land him into the care of psychiatrists certainly, but no more.
 
But such is the blood lust of the U.S. government that even though Moussaoui already faces life in prison, lawyers are making every effort, including tampering with the witnesses, to see Moussaoui hanged.

Let me tell you that such blood lust is very unbecoming, but it invites a heart-warming hope. If Moussaoui can be prosecuted for racketeering, for doing nothing, then the racketeering laws will be plenty broad enough to prosecute every last participant in the Bush kleptocracy. Easily. When this cabal falls, its every last minion can be prosecuted for its crimes. And it looks like this can include everyone who even just crows about their enthusiasm for the new world order fascism. This includes the media pundits, every backwater yahoo, and the cretins behind the Progess for America ads.

Most heart-warming of all to this very reluctant pacifist, is this administration’s lust for capital punishment. That blood lust is going to make it all the easier -once the trials begin for war crimes, sedition and treason- to justify seeking the death penalty for every last republican criminal. Après nous le déluge.

2.
Take away the big picture, and there’s still the matter of 9/11 justice to salivate over. Imagine if Moussaoui can be prosecuted for conspiracy for playing no part in 9/11, for not even knowing about it.

Imagine how many truly culpable parties we could hold accountable for conspiring to let 9/11 happen!

Mad Cow is here

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Ground cow disease
A third U.S. cow has now been found to have Mad Cow Disease. The refrain remains the same. Have no fear, no part of this infected cow ever found its way into the food supply.
 
Great. But where did that cow come from? Specifically, where did that cow get its BSE? Does it grow on trees? Does it generate itself spontaneously?

No, it is hereditary. Or it is aquired through the ingestion of infected animal parts. In this case they are saying that the animal was old enough to have been fed infected animals before such rendered parts were banned. Maybe. First of all that is to admit that the feeding of rendered mammals to other herbivors was risky behavior, something they have resisted admitting, and second, there’s nothing to say that this third cow got BSE previous to the feed restriction.

What we do know is that the American system of testing only a sampling of livestock is still woefully inadequate compared to everywhere else in the world. When some American ranchers offered to do a more stringent testing themselves in order for their beef to qualify for the japanese market, the U.S. government forbid the ranchers to do it.

It’s as if FDA officials are very nervous that wider tests will find that Mad Cow Desease is prevalent in this country.

In Britain and in Europe, every single cow is tested for BSE. In the U.S. we test less than 1%. In fact, the FDA recently increased the scope of its tests twentyfold, still under 1% of all cattle slaughtered, and as a result discovered BSE in this third cow. Now they want to scale the tests back again because, well, better to let them explain it. Makes sense right? The FDA is not nervous for the American people obviously, they’re nervous for the meat industry.

Meanwhile, let’s find out what those FDA officials are feeding their children.

Banners make the news

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See stills from the TV spotThe local NBC affiliate 5/30 did an excellent story involving Camp Casey. See the video clip here.
 
They covered our Sunday morning send-off of IVAW members who were leaving to join the March 14 peace march along the Gulf Coast. And they also gave our banners some visibility.

THERE IS NO WAR ON TERROR flies in the face of the Media worldview. Let’s dispell a couple of other media reported fallacies, too verbose for banners.

Dubai port scandal
The problem with a port takeover by a Dubai owned company has nothing to do with U.S. security, not as concerns terrorists. The takeover is part of the larger globalization move to privatize world infrastructure and enforce “free trade” subjugation.

The only tie-in with terrorism has to do with Dubai’s involvement with the 9/11 hijackers. Whoever let 9/11 happen, under the nose of the FBI, could make something happen again, out of reach of American security agencies, facilitated with Dubai’s complicity.

Samarra mosque bombing
Who is it that wants a civil war in Iraq? The quick and mutually diffused tensions following the mosque bombing suggests that Iraqis do not want a civil war.

Evidence is pointing to U.S. involvement in the destruction of the Golden Dome Shrine in Samarra. Residents are fighting US and UK efforts to begin rebuilding the dome before the forensic evidence can be analyzed to determine the real culprits behind the explosives.

Experts doubt that Sunnis were behind the destruction of a mosque which is revered by both Shia ad Sunni alike. Pious peoples do not behave that way. Even the troubles in Ireland never devolved to exploding each other’s churches.

Where in the world are there peoples so uncultured, so spiritually callous, so uneducated, insentitive and irreverant that they destroy their brother’s places of worship?

St. Patrick’s Day Parade peace infiltration

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Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Sarah, Mimi, Amy, Evie, Lara, Ryan, Devon, Marie, David, Peter, Diann, Amber)
 
Our peaceful infiltration of the Old Colorado City St. Patricks Day Parade was great fun. We had to scale back our original plans for using the Peace Snake and the Blue Lady in favor of giving more visibility to our green peace t-shirts. Turnout for our peace contingent was affected by the cold and more specifically by a flu going around which hampered a number of families.

We were also handicapped by having to gather participants by word of mouth only. Our fear was that had any fliers been brought to the attention of parade organizers, we might have been thrown out of the parade before it even began. As it was, we waited to the last minute to don our t-shirts and to unfurl the banners. To the parade marshall’s credit, no one found our message objectionable, least of all the crowd.

The Old Colorado City crowd in attendance was very receptive to our march for peace. We carried two messages, the first in keeping with the bookmobile cover: “Education is the key to peace.” Lest that message have been thought too radical, we brought up the rear with a sentiment meant to sound familiar: “Peace on earth, good will to men.”

Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Eric, Mark, Pattie, Amy F., Pallas)

Why were we so cautious with our message? The terms of the contract for participating in the parade read: ABSOLUTELY NO PROMOTION OF SOCIAL ISSUES. Stated in two places, the second time underlined. The final condition made clear that all decisions by the parade organizers would be final.

The parade was full of politicians, candidates, military recruiters and veterans groups. In fact this year there was more red white and blue than there was green. We did not anticipate that they would dare to take issue with advocates for peace, but we were taking no chances. An effort days earlier to solicit participants from a local elementary school met with resistance. Our intention to wear peace signs was deemed too political. On that basis we were not allowed to distribute fliers there about the event.

Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Dennis, Steve, Amy and Hannah)