I am not a great fan of Medea Benjamin as a general rule, but she certainly got this one right at the Correspondents Dinner! Medea Benjamin on hand to love former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Libya reports prison suicide of top Qaeda man this week. Translated form CIA Arabic speak, that means he was murdered. Sure… so much has changed with Obama in office! I’m being facetious here. This man was murdered simply because he knew too much about how the Bush Administration tortured POWs in order to try to get them to fabricate ‘evidence’ about a Saddam Hussein-al Qaeda connection to justify their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.
A hit by the Libyans for Barack to help put a lid on this scandal? Well you speculate some… (Oh, Tony! Barack is not like that at all!) Sure he is. Certainly the government he heads is! I don’t doubt it for a second.
This reminds me of the President of Guatemala who has been just accused by an assassinated dead man of having murdered him. Luckily, unlike this victim of the CIA and Obama, he taped his accusation on youtube and it begins…
‘if you are hearing this, then I am already dead.’ And he is! See the video The Unspeakable Murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg (English subtitles) and the second part The Unspeakable Murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano (English sub.) part 2/2
A side note to this report about the CIA murder of this tortured American-held POW, is the last words this man made to Human Rights Watch which were…
“Where were you when I was being tortured in American prisons?”
Good question, Fakhiri. I went to the Human Rights Watch website again and it is amazing how this group never sees wars of aggression as being human rights violations. There’s nothing about US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan there! Seems to simply have escaped their interest or concern! They, at best, have been like a gnat to the US government at times, but in the meantime, they usually are absolutely MIA. Fakhiri’s murder case is case in point.
Now you see them, now you don’t! The Magician, Mr CHANGE, is playing the American liberal public as a motley gang of rubes and is getting away with it. All is silent on the liberal front. So that is why the Obama U-turn on abuse photographs can happen as liberals sit by with thumbs up their rear ends as their president escalates GWOT (the so-called global war on terrorism) into Pakistan. He has now put up to 1,500,000 people out of their homes and on the road to nowhere.
Barack Obama is a BOMB guided by Democratic Party politician hack drones like Biden, Pelosi, and Hillary and meanwhile the pogrom will fly overhead against the Pashtuns. All an economic stimulus to the war industries. Barack has started an American called pogrom against the Pashtun people.
1200 bodies counted, hundreds seriously injured, aerial bombing continues and nobody really cares, do they? More to come. Where are all the Western imperialist liberals who usually wax so eloquent when it comes to giving their precious support to what they always refer to as ‘self determination’? That is when it involves using Western military hardware against ‘the baddies’. Apparently they are asleep in the case of the Tamils of Sri Lanka? It says a lot about where our supposed liberals’ heads are really at?
The banks have ‘failed their stress tests’ and now need at least $75 BILLION dollars from taxpayers! See Ten US banks fail ‘stress tests’ …Doesn’t your heart just bleed for them? And not to be outdone the grocery store chains, led by Kroger (KING STUPID), Safeway, and Albertsons are out there trying to convince the general public that they are being beat up bad by union workers, most of who make less than $15 per hour. They just can’t take it anymore! So their solution?
It looks like it might be to lock out the workers and use the government’s police to try to force these people into unemployment lines! Destroy their pension plans. Work them to death and then discard them! This all is on hold for now, but the companies may begin this assault within days?
DON’T SCAB if they do lock out the grocery workers. Support union labor and they will support you! Workers have Rights, but only if you solidly back them up with Your Solidarity instead of giving in to these crappy food grocery chains by vacantly walking past union picket lines if they are forced to go up.
Eat right! Do right! Don’t cross picket lines. Write Management a note and tell them how you feel! And tell the workers you support them, too.
“Some three dozen public school students have been murdered since the school year began, most of them shot to death. These children and teenagers have been killed in a wide variety of settings and situations while riding a city bus, playing in parks, sitting in the back seats of cars, in gang disputes, in robberies, in the crossfire of sidewalk shootouts. Which is why we’ve heard so little about an awful story out of Chicago.” What Color Is That Baby? What color indeed?
What does it mean for Africa when right wing end-of-the- world-is-near evangelical Christians join forces with the Robert F. Kennedy Center For Human Rights? What does it mean for African Americans when Bush, Obama, and nearly all last year’s presidential candidates from both parties encourage the continuation of an African civil war rather than a political settlement between the parties? What does it mean when 21st century PR firms employ FaceBook, slick viral marketing and millions of dollars to create a simple, satisfying, feel-good excuse for military intervention on the African continent? –from Is There a Save Darfur Industrial Complex?
But Save Darfur has gotten into hot water with aid groups helping the refugees of the conflict.
In February it began a high-profile advertising campaign that included full-page newspaper ads, television spots and billboards calling for more aggressive action in Darfur, including the imposition of a no-flight zone over the region.
Aid groups and even some activists say banning flights could do more harm than good, because it could stop aid flights. Many aid groups fly white airplanes and helicopters that may look similar to those used by the Sudanese government, putting their workers at risk in a no-flight zone.
Sam Worthington, the president and chief executive of InterAction, a coalition of aid groups, complained to Mr. Rubenstein by e-mail that Save Darfur’s advertising was confusing the public and damaging the relief effort.
“I am deeply concerned by the inability of Save Darfur to be informed by the realities on the ground and to understand the consequences of your proposed actions,” Mr. Worthington wrote.
He noted that contrary to assertions in its initial ads, Save Darfur did not represent any of the organizations working in Darfur, and he accused it of “misstating facts.” He said its endorsement of plans that included a no-flight zone and the use of multilateral forces “could easily result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of individuals.”
Another aid group, Action Against Hunger, said in a statement last week that a forced intervention by United Nations troops without the approval of the Sudanese government “could have disastrous consequences that risk triggering a further escalation of violence while jeopardizing the provision of vital humanitarian assistance to millions of people.”
Aid groups also complain that Save Darfur, whose budget last year was $15 million, does not spend that money on aid for the long-suffering citizens of the region.
from the New York Times June 2, 2007 Darfur Advocacy Group Undergoes a Shake-Up
‘The “Save Darfur (Coalition) was created in 2005 by two groups concerned about genocide in the African country – the American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum…
‘The coalition has a staff of 30 with expertise in policy and public relations. Its budget was about $15 million in the most recent fiscal year…
from The Washington Post at http://www.overbrook.org/newsletter/06_07/pdfs/AJWS_Washington_Post.pdf
Hillary Clinton on Darfur as she calls for more Pentagon intervention and wars abroad. This is a woman that has no problem with genocide when committed by the US and/ or Israel.
Biden calls for military force in Darfur speaks for itself as he directly calls for a US military assault on Sudan See Joe Biden: Darfur as he calls for US troops to attack Sudan
Happening in Las Vegas this week: the Armed UAS Unmanned Aerial Surveillance Conference,
May 12-13, where military brass can catch up on the latest remote killing devices proving so, so popular with Pakistanis right now. (I heard a correspondent relate that the US drone attacks in Pakistan were making the people there “very, very, very, very angry.”) Wouldn’t what happens in Vegas –at a conference center or a climate controlled, video-console barcalounger at a base nearby— be akin to a terrorist training camp in the remote Hindu Kush mountains, where militants made plans to terrorize a civilian populace from afar?
American TV reporter Roxana Saberi overstayed her welcome in Iran, despite the revocation of her press credentials, continuing to tape segments for pro-US-military propaganda outlets such as NPR and Fox News. She was detained, charged, convicted and sentenced earlier this year, which is more than the US has done for any of the detainees it has held for eight years, most of whom have turned out to be guilty of no crime, and all of whom the US also tortured. After much indignant hue and cry from the US, Iran has released Saberi to what may resemble the hero’s welcome given Jessica Lynch, another white girl rescued from uncivilized Islam. Will the US media bat an eyelash at the irony?
Comedienne Wanda Sykes can joke that Rush Limbaugh would have been the 20th hijacker on 9/11 but for his Hillbilly Heroin addiction, but if Rush were ever to fly commercial, having to eschew his cigars and Oxycodone, I’m sure there would be no end to complaints, even if he did stuff his ugly corpulence into the obligatory two seats, from whoever had to sit in his sweaty vicinity. Sykes joked that she hoped Limbaugh died of liver failure. The media pundits who think she went too far pretend there is honor among thieves.
Ward Churchill called them Little Eichmanns, but if that’s giving the World Trade Center workers too much credit, at minimum they were human shields, masking the Command & Control Center of America’s economic war machine.
The US military is quick to blame its foes for using human shields, to explain the collateral damage we always inflict –Iraq, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah– but who more deliberately than the USA? The huge weapons industry makes all fifty states legitimate military targets, and now because armed drones are piloted from US soil, the homeland war zone extends into our homeland, for which the American public is the human shield.
Local UFCW members decide this weekend whether to accept Safeway’s contract cuts. Who is that masked man?
“..where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? … if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. … He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.” -V
I mentioned in my last post that I’d had a visceral negative reaction to Sedona — undeniably one of the most beautiful places on earth — which surprised and dismayed me. I had a vague sense that I was offended by the opulence and pseudo-spiritualism of the place, but that didn’t completely explain my snarky attitude which, I’ve come to understand, usually masks a deeper response to perceived injustice or dashed hopes.
I found an answer in the form of a book I happened to pull from my brother’s bookshelf: An American Child Supreme — the education of a liberation ecologist, by John Nichols. It’s a memoir of sorts, and tries to decipher how any of us — born into a culture that very nearly ensures that we become bigots, greedy consumers, warmongers, and environmental parasites — develops a social conscience.
John Nichols tells of the life-changing — often seemingly innocuous — events, people and books that transformed him from a product of a privileged upbringing and Mayflower pedigree to a liberation ecologist (as opposed to naturalist or environmentalist), a more radical superstratum of social ecology.
I won’t go into any of that, although it was fascinating to me. I’ll just write the words that I scratched frantically into my little notebook so I’d not lose them or allow myself to forget them. I wasn’t sure how they related to Sedona, but somehow they did.
Myself, I do not have the courage or the fanaticism that motivated Diana Oughton (of the Weather Underground) to build bombs, but I cannot envision the changes we need without some sort of apocalyptic reaction against the current levels of violence generated by the daily economic activities of the multinationals that feed and clothe us.
Territorial shooting wars are only a small fraction of the greater (and more horrific) violence of a world market that levels forests, pollutes the oceans, impoverishes people and toxifies topsoil in order to bring us our hamburgers, polyester golf slacks, and Marlboro cigarettes. “The human murder by poverty in Latin America is secret,” writes Eduard Galeano. “Every year, without making a sound, three Hiroshima bombs explode over communities that have become accustomed to suffering with clenched teeth. This systemic violence is not apparent but is real and constantly increasing: its holocausts are not made known in the sensational press but in Food and Agricultural Organization statistics.”
Environmental collapse is now universally caused by monopoly capital plundering earth’s biological and human resources for profit. The profit is generated by the labor of those underdogs, whose energy is thus co-opted to destroy the environment. This means that our most destructive environmental problems are tied to their inequality. . . . That inequality is causing a downward social spiral on earth and eco-devastation. Profit requires demolition. The racism that deforms our nation (and the globe) is a tool used by a capitalist society to maintain class divisions for profit-making reasons, so racism is also a main component of biosystem toxicity.
John Nichols sums up the philosophy of a liberation ecologist when he quotes Tom Athanasiou’s book Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor, whose words are directed at environmentalists:
“The time for such political innocence is over. . . .it is past time for environmentalists to face their own history, in which they have too often stood not for justice and freedom, or even for realism, but merely for the comforts and aesthetics of affluent nature lovers. They have no choice. History will judge greens by whether they stand with the world’s poor.”
That must be it. I distrusted Sedona because it quite obviously doesn’t stand with the world’s poor, nor even the nation’s middle class. It is an enclave for affluent nature lovers whose social consciences are buried in crystals and energy forces, $4 iced teas and expensive gauzy skirts.
Sedona seems to care not a whit about social or economic justice nor — I’d wager a guess — about wreaking environmental havoc in Utah and New Mexico to keep its own little slice of Eden energized and enflowered. There is no need for Sedona to worry about the larger world, neither liberation for its people nor the sustainability of its global environment. Sedona exists unto itself and its wealthy denizens — to be owned, developed and distributed and enjoyed at their directive.
The Pentagon is now saying “OOPS” and while they’re not retracting yesterday’s LIE, they’re modifying the statement to say that there were “more” civilians being killed and wounded in Afghanistan (and Pakistan with “unofficial” U.S. assistance) than they expected.
Still recycling their dogma that the “insurgent” Resistance groups are “hiding behind civilians”.
Well, let’s see, the Brooklyn Naval Yard, the Chicago Great Lakes Naval Station, the Joint Reserve Base in the DFW metroplex, the 18+ Military installations in the Denver area, (including us) the El Paso/Juarez metro area with its more than 3 million people…
I guess the U.S. Military is “hiding behind civilians” too.
The doctrine the U.S. and its Puppet States are using to justify murdering civilians in Georgia, South Ossetia, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, the list goes on and on…
Could just as easily have been used by the Redcoats to justify burning down Boston and shooting any who tried to escape, (if they had so chosen) with the bullshit that “Samuel Adams and Paul Revere and Thomas Jefferson are ‘hiding behind civilians’…”
Or Baltimore, or Richmond, or Philadelphia, or New York City…
They DID use that rationale to attempt to exterminate American Indians with biological warfare, and the United States Army did the same thing using the same rationale.
Sand Creek, the Little Ouachita, the Little Big Horn (only Custer got his murdering Bitch Ass and those of his men EXECUTED in that one… Eat it and smile, racist Bitches!!) and even several repeats of the Smallpox Blanket bio-terror attacks perpetrated by the United States Army against AMERICANS.
All of them targeting “unlawful combatants”.
And all the murderous Corporate Terrorists say “Amen”…
As usual…
The quicker we get Sean Hannity waterboarded the better. But we can hope for better than merely shutting him up about whether or not waterboarding is torture. Let’s figure out WHAT we can waterboard him for!
Is there a secret we want to extract from Sean Hannity? Or is there just something he’s done for which America could feel comfort in exacting redress? Wouldn’t that be the real point of torture? And actually, not to draw Hannity’s blood, but to extrude the shit from his colleagues looking on, who might fancy themselves next, O’Reilly, Limbaugh, et al.
I understand Hannity already has a volunteer to administer the procedure, what we really need is the person to direct it. To issue the thumbs up or thumbs down, irrationally, to heighten the torment.
Hannity has volunteered to subject himself to what he considers no more than fraternity hazing. Olberman has offered $1,000 for ever second Hannity lasts. Which I predict will be calculated in fragments of the first second. A subject of waterboarding can hold his breath, but the torturers will start the clock by forcefully expelling that reserve. Waterboarding begins when the victim gasps for air, and inhales water instead.
The media debate around waterboarding asks two questions. Is waterboarding torture? And does torture work? Both questions are flawed. The first is simply an insult, the second is misdirected.
Perhaps the average American is disconnect enough from reality to question whether the unimaginable can be. If you’ve never stepped into the sea, you can speculate that water is not really wet. Fast-food eating television viewers can wonder, does the stove burn?
Does torture work? Of course it does. To wonder if torture is an effective method of interrogation is to get the question entirely wrong.
In one debate about the efficacy of torture, the FBI claims the with one terror suspect they were making gains with psychological methods until the CIA seized custody in order to give the waterboard a try. Apparently with no success, after which the FBI had another promising run interrupted by another CIA inter-department rendition. Sound like the ol’ good agency, bad agency interrogation ploy to you?
Ignored in the torture efficacy assessment is the absence of a control sample. Did the subject have anything to reveal? How unfair to judge an interrogator if his subject doen’t have a secret to crack. And even that misses the point. What is the purpose of torture? Is it to extract information, such as learning of ticking time-bombs to save innocent lives, or is it about preemptive subjugation of people?
To torture someone is to terrorize them with their own helplessness under the thumb of brutal inhumanity. Torture is directed less against the terrorized subject themselves, than the public looking on. Torture is terror. It get the predicate reversed in the phrase “Global War On Terror.” Terror is the subject not the object; actually the objective. It’s the Global War OF Terror. In our GWOT, torture is an important weapon in the US arsonal, and of course it works. Against brave people, it “works” solely to provoke them.
I’d envisioned myself hiking alone in Sedona for three magical days, vortexed into a frenzied energy, taken by wizened hippies to a hillside lair for impromptu meditation. Instead, in spite of the brazenly gorgeous Sedona landscape, I felt the whole place to be a pseudo-spiritual, wildly affluent, corporate-run and supremely phony tourist trap. I was slightly horrified to feel this way about such a beautiful place, and tried to lecture myself into giving further consideration, but to no avail. I got the hell out of Nirvana Dodge after a single (albeit lovely) hike.
That was yesterday. Today I headed north out of Flagstaff on Highway 89 with no particular plan. Shortly after the city faded from the rearview and I was facing the open road, I turned on the radio and heard “You’re listening to Indian Public Radio.” This heralded a perfect Tony Hillerman-esque adventure, I was sure of it, and I was flooded with good cheer.
From the radio came gentle Indian flute sounds, haunting-dancing-with-wolves-vision-quest sounds, which had the hair on my arms standing instantly at attention. Within thirty seconds, however, a techno track and a Navajo-accented rapper barged into the song, resulting in a somewhat bizarre Eminem/Kokopelli kind of thing. I was enthralled.
A retrospective about Harold Drake’s radio show “The Church in Your Hogan” was next, followed by a short discussion of cultural taboos associated with Indian suicide, and an admonition to speak openly about such things. Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton, and then this song by some sweet-voiced Hopi girls:
Hey, Cousin! Nice to see you again!
Do you have any duck tape, Cousin? Because my muffler fell off again.
Duck tape. Sigh. Indian glue.
I was becoming giddy.
I took the Navajo Trail (Highway 160) east onto the Navajo reservation and soon came upon Tuba City, a dusty little town of 8,000 residents and seemingly little else. I drove down Main Street and saw house after house boarded up and nothing but dry dusty fields all around. I don’t know where the actual people live, but the town seems reserved for ghosts. In front of the elementary school, at two in the afternoon, were twenty long yellow school buses awaiting what couldn’t possibly be that many kids. In fact I didn’t see any kids, yet one after another the buses pulled slowly away from the curb. Maybe each rural denizen has his or her own bus.
I went into the trading post/interactive Navajo museum ($9)/internet café hoping to find authentic Indian crafts. The store had some very nice moccasins which, on closer inspection, were made by Minnetonka Moccasins — a big corporation headquartered in Minnesota. I tried on a cute black straw cowboy hat made by some beachwear company in Oregon. Then I spied a truly adorable backpack purse of Indian-patterned wool and leather, manufactured — big sigh — by Pendleton, the company responsible for the boiled wool jackets of my Junior League days.
I couldn’t find anything else to do in Tuba City, so I ate some trail mix in the car, drank some warm water from my CamelBack, and did some research on Tuba City. Here are some fun facts:
1. It is the Navajo Nation’s largest community.
2. It was founded by the Mormons in 1872.
3. It was a uranium boom town in the fifties, and regional headquarters for the Atomic Energy Commission.
4. Songwriter-musician Glenn Danzig got his ass kicked in a Tuba City nightclub. It was caught on tape and can be seen on YouTube.
5. SPC Lori Piestewa of Tuba City was the first woman killed in the current war against Iraq. She died in the same ambush that injured her best friend, Jessica Lynch.
Of course, that describes most of the Pseudo-patriotic crap infesting the airwaves now…
But there’s one I heard “that’s the way things were and still ought to be”
Like honoring our preachers, leaders, teachers and heroes and believing everything they said
Charlie Manson was a preacher. Preached Armageddon really really strong.
Cotten Mather was a Preacher who gets quoted a lot by the Reich Wing, (Like Chuck Norris and Dawg the Bounty Hunter, just another couple of Wannabe Pigs) whenever they say that America should be a Religious Dictatorship…
Who also said that Native Americans were a construct of Satan because we’re not specifically mentioned in Genesis, that we had no souls and should be exterminated.
And that the people who allowed their kids to play with dolls were practicing witchcraft and should be killed.
And the Kiddoes themselves…
Imagine, if you will, somebody offing your rug-rats because you gave them a Teddy Bear or let them watch Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny….
And the Good Pastor Mather also owned Slaves.
Leaders? McCarthy, for instance, with all the Liars, Murderers and Thieves who were and are his Fellow Travelers, like Reagan, Nixon, Bush (all the Bush Klan), Billy Sunday who was one of Their Crowd and also a Nazi Sympathizer (and, leave us not forget, a Preacher), People who could feel at ease at a Country Club or a Klan Rally?
We should believe everything they said or say?
Really?
We’re supposed to (here in Colorado Springs) Revere and Honor “heroes” like Custer and Chivington and Palmer…
Racist SCUM who tried to wipe a whole race of Americans from the face of the world.
When Custer is quoted in the book (and film) Little Big Man as saying
It’s more important to kill the women and children, because if we let them breed there wouldn’t be any point killing the men
It’s an accurate representation of what the punk murdering bastard actually DID say.
And we’ve got an Idol of his disciple William Jackson Palmer parked right in the middle of a busy intersection.
By the way, Custer and Chivington and Palmer also believed in and quoted Cotten Mather…
And the “War on Christmas” loudmouths should remember this, Cotten Mather was a Puritan… whose family had been run out of England for criticizing their Religious Dictatorship and, importantly, pissing off King James by opposing the celebration of CHRISTMAS because it’s a Catholic holiday
I don’t remember the name of the singer, but it’s one of those redneck punks who offers to beat up on anybody who disagrees with him.
Yep, real Role Model for a working Civilization.
The kid who sings the song is (to me) a youngster. Mid twenties, maybe thirties.
No way in HELL could this dude remember anything at all about the 70s even.
Far Less the 40s, 50s and 60s that’s he’s so nostalgic about.
When Apartheid was the Official Law of the Land in 20 states. People of “color” could be arrested or even hanged for not stepping off the sidewalk to let the Master Race walk past.
THAT’S the way things were, and I for one actually remember some of it…
So, is the stupid bastard really sure “that’s the way it still should be”?
Or is he merely hoping that WE are simple-minded enough to believe that?
“Get your hands off my country” said Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on April 26, announcing that he would not be returning to the US because he could no longer play in a country whose military wants to control the world. When several dozen audience members rose and walked out, Zimerman responded “some people, when they hear the word military, start marching.”
A group of “hippies” including a retired Judge get beaten by the CSPD at a parade where the entrance fees and requirements are fulfilled, the Gag-Zette and all it’s Sieg Heil readership say “well, Free Speech, yes, but there have to recognitions of Consequences of that Speech (In other words, we’re “Free” to say whatever we want as long as the Local Gestapo isn’t offended in any way) Ward Churchill…
Sues because a Government Agency, (state college) machs mit der Sieg Heil and obeys the orders of UnterFuhrer Bill Owens and fires him on made-up charges…
The jury agrees but only awards him a dollar.
One Juror says the same thing, “Free speech, yes, but there has to be recognition of Consequences of Free Speech”
Meaning, once again, that the Local Gestapo can crack down on Free speech…
An American journalist gets arrested in Iraq and it’s a “Hostage Situation” according to the Same Right Wing Freaks who think we should be beaten, impoverished or imprisoned for “free” speech.
The Right Wing FigPuckers like our Regular ChickenHawk Trolls say WE should be docile and accept punishment for Free Speech but not their Right Wing Accomplices.
They say WE should be punished for Civil Disobedience but that THEIR War Criminal “heroes” should go unpunished for THEIR murders and Tortures and other Violent Crimes.
Like the Blackwater Goon Squads.
I’m not for the death penalty, but the four Blackwater Goons who got hacked up and hanged on the Fallujah bridge, while nobody deserves death, they DID get exactly what they and their Comrades in and out of the Official Military dish out routinely.
But again, we should be punished for objecting.
Some of the Right Wing Freaks have suggested that I should be beaten up or even murdered for pointing out these things.
Since they have no MORAL objections to those suggested actions, and their Leaders say that there’s no LEGAL objections, and the Local Gestapo like the EPCSD and the CSPD would look the other way or perhaps even participate in such actions, I guess the only REAL reason they haven’t comes down to Simple Cowardice.
UCFW Local 7 workers, the people who look after you at Albertsons, Safeway and King Soopers, may have to go on strike on Saturday in a bid to save their retirement, benefits and hours. As it is they’ve already conceded to wages and work schedules much worse than yours. Do you support them in this fight? Well, you’ll have to figure out where to get your groceries for the next little bit. The more we deny the supermarket chains our business, the shorter the strike will inconvenience us.
Meanwhile however, the search for alternate sources of provisions just might expand your horizons. After you’ve found natural food, fresher produce, or more variety, the big three will have to offer us more of that to lure us back. There are plenty of more traditional grocery stores in town, specialty, natural and discount, where we could be shopping for our food. Check them out.
SPECIAL NOTE: DO NOT go to Walmart, Sam’s Club or Costco, because that’s who’s driving the wages down and giving the supermarket chains the idea that they can treat their workers as terribly.
As a rule too, do not use the auto-checkout machines because they are taking jobs from everyone.
Alright here’s an incomplete list:
GROCERS
Asian Pacific Market, 615 Wooten Rd, at Powers and Platte
India Bazaar, 3659 Austin Bluffs Parkway #35
La Cusquenita, 2031 E. Bijou
Rancho Liborio Market, 1660 S. Circle
Little Market, 749 E. Willamette
Mountain Mama Natural Foods, 1625 W. Uintah
New Han Yang Oriental Supermarket, 3835 E. Pikes Peak
Sammy’s Organic Natural Food Store, 830 Arcturus Dr
Seoul Oriental Grocery Mart, 2499 S. Academy
Thai Orchid Market, 2485 S. Academy
Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers, (2 locations) 1780 E. Woodman
+ 1825 S. Nevada Ave, Southgate
Whole Foods Market, 7635 N. Academy, Briargate
Whole Foods Market, 3180 New Center Point
SALVAGED GROCERIES
Extreme Bargains, (3 locations) 3112 E. Platte
+ 3190 N. Stone + 2727 Palmer Park
Westside Bargain Mart, 3135 W. Colorado Ave
Community Market, 56 Park Ave, Manitou
SPECIALITY
Ceres’ Kitchen, 9475 Briar Village Point, Briargate
Staff of Life, 65 Second St, Monument
Carniceria Leonela, 3736 E. Pikes Peak Ave
Carnizeria Y Taqueria La Eca, 216 E. St. Elmo Ave
Arirang Supermarket, 3830 E. Pikes Peak
Back to the Basics Natural Foods, 2312 Vickers
Briar Mart, 1843 Briargate Blvd
Carniceria La Trigena, 217 N. Academy
Euro-Mart & Deli, 4839 Barnes
Wimberger’s Old World Bakery & Deli, 2321 Bott
Mollica’s Italian Market & Deli, 985 W. Garden of the Gods Rd
FARMERS MARKETS
Nana Longo’s Italian Market, 1725 Briargate Blvd
Spencers, 1430 S. Tejon St
MEAT MARKETS
All Natural Meat and Fish Market, 1645 Briargate Parkway, Briargate
Ranch Foods Direct, 2901 N. El Paso, Fillmore/El Paso
Andy’s Meat Market, 2915 E. Platte, Platte & Circle
Rocky Mountain Natural Foods, 2117 W. Colorado
DAIRY
Farm Crest Milk Stores, (7 locations) 4095 Austin Bluffs Parkway
+ 5050 Boardwalk Dr + 2105 W. Colorado Ave + 5510 S. Hwy 85/87
+ 3945 Palmer Park Boulevard + 2129 Templeton Gap Rd
Robinson Dairy, (delivery) 120 S. Chestnut, 719.475.2238
Royal Crest, (delivery) 1385 Ford St, 719.596.1986
BAKERIES
Great Harvest, (2 locations) 101 N. Tejon St + 6942 N. Academy
La Baguette, (4 locations) 2417 W. Colorado + 117 E. Pikes Peak
+ 4440 N. Chestnut + 1420 Kelly Johnson
Boonzaaijers Dutch Bakery, 4935 Centennial
Entenmann’s/Oroweat Bakery Outlet, 4715 Flintridge
Wonder Hostess Thrift Shop, 847 E. Platte
With attention now drawn on the evangelical skinheads running amok with the US military’s Big Stick, reporter Jeff Sharlet relates a story in this month’s Harpers, which showcases the fundamental irreligiosity of the capital “C” Crusaders.
The episode Jesus Killed Mohammed takes place in Samarra, Iraq, in 2004, where rascally US Christ fans succeed in goading their crosstown rivals into taking a shot at them, the sooner to be dispatched to the Islamic hereafter by the Christ Gang’s overwhelming firepower. The operation involved painting “Jesus Killed Mohammed” across the side of their Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and having their translator poke his megaphone out the top, giving Arabic voice to the insolent taunt, shouting it up and down the neighborhood until no one was left to speak up for Mohammed.
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The affair reminded me of the Monty Phython skit about the world’s deadliest joke being appropriated for military use across the WWI trenches, which was, if you remember, immediately fatal, combined with the sacrilegious 2005 GWOT strategy which drew so much flak to US special forces in Afghanistan when soldiers burned Taliban corpses to draw enemy ire. The Intelligence Service calls it “tickling:” provoking your opponent into an emotional response to reveal his position. In the Afghan case, the US team violated Geneva Conventions against mutilating the dead. In Sammara the only code protecting the sensitivities of the indignant Muslims was probably the boxing rule forbidding blows below the belt. Perhaps it was the very indecency of the concept which most elicited snickers from the American perps.
In operation JESUS KILLED MOHAMMED, the 1/26 Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division led by Lieutenant John D. DeGiulio, under instructions from the 10th Special Forces Group who called themselves “the Faith element,” drove their Bradleys along the streets drawing fire, one shot at a time, from virtually every door. After each shot rang out, the Bradley would summarily aerate each residence and its inhabitants until “Jesus Killed Mohammed” did not offend anymore.
As Sharlet noted, every Iraqi home is permitted one AK-47 for self defense, so answering the US force’s insolence did not reveal you to have been an insurgent. The infidels were biting their thumbs at the Iraqis from behind impregnable armor, to respond with small arms fire was entirely a matter of honor, and suicide.
From the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition: “HB 1274, the bill that would abolish the death penalty, died in the Senate this afternoon by one vote, 17 in favor and 18 opposed. All the Republican Senators voted against the bill and were joined by Democrat Senators Morse, Hodge, Isgar, and Tochtrop. The bill had earlier passed in the House on a one-vote margin, 33-32.” That’s Colorado Springs own, accountable to only himself, returning from legislative session, District 11 Senator John P. Morse, making sure everyone knows what the “P” stands for.
Do you wonder why US criticism hasn’t been more pronounced, as Sri Lanka’s military keeps bombing the Tamil Tiger rebels in spite of disproportionately high civilian casualties? Collateral Damage is our M.O.! From Afghanistan today come reports of Truckloads of dead civilians after Afghan battle, specifically a US aerial bombardment. As always, US Commander: Afghan Civilian Casualties Not from US Forces.
That was last year’s official response to the 90 Afghan civilian deaths after a US air raid on Azizabad.
The Independent is reporting that the Farah Province civilian casualty is closer to 120 than the US DoD’s reported five. We are left only to check with Google to learn what will turn out to have happened, irrespective of what US-NATO media relations eventually confirms. Google the village of Ganj Abad, in the Bala Baluk district.
Here come the stormtroopers with their American made caterpillar. Jewish Human Rights Activist Ezra Nawi now tries to stop this nasty American bug! Ezra then goes to jail as the stormtrooper gang has a jolly good time.
Doesn’t all this remind you of the American fun and games crew over at Abu Ghraib? See it and weep, Kids.