What is this for a photograph? Obama in the dark. Obama speaks in a vacuum. Facing nothing. Abandoned. An opinion of one. Actually, this is the composition which the NYT used to frame Kim Jong-il of North Korea addressing provocations by the South Korean navy. An opinion which the western media wants to suggest has no friends: Oh yeah? You and whose army?
Here’s the original photo. Put yourself in this manipulative frame. Do you look irrelevant? Hello? Where have you been, outer space?
This weekend marks the 150th anniversary of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, an attempt to appropriate from the US armory to defend a slavery free territory. The already notorious anti-slavery evangelist had lost the earlier Free State sanctuaries Palmyra and Osawatomie. On October 16-17, 1859, the band of 22 abolitionists and free men, held off the townsmen and US Marines, until ten were killed and five escaped. The seven survivors were hanged, including Brown, who said at the scaffold: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”
The raid on Harpers Ferry set into motion the fight in earnest to emancipate the southern slaves, ending 305 years of American slavery. Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Central America, Mexico, Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela, and all British, French, Danish, Dutch, and Portuguese colonies, had already abolished slavery between 1811 and 1863. The US was followed by Cuba then Brazil in 1888.
Osawatomie Brown‘s band were fanatical and violent, but were hailed as heroes by the Union in the Civil War. This statue was erected in 1911, inscribed “erected to the memory of John Brown by a grateful people.” It stands in Kansas City, in a neighborhood which once was the town of Quindaro, a major stop along the underground railway.
Brown’s fellow domestic terrorists were:
Killed: Jeremiah G. Anderson, Oliver Brown, Watson Brown, John H. Kagi, Lewis S. Leary, William H. Leeman, Dangerfield Newby, Stewart Taylor, Dauphin Thompson and William Thompson.
Executed: John E. Cook, John A. Copeland, Edwin Coppoc, Shields Green, Albert Hazlett, and Aaron D. Stevens.
Escaped: Osborne P. Anderson, Owen Brown, Barclay Coppoc, Francis J. Merriam, and Charles P. Tidd.
Photo essay by Chris Jordan: a visit to Midway Atoll, remains of albatross chicks dead by plastic.
With all of Israel’s gesticulation about Iran, you might think the axis of evil bordered on Israel. Especially given reports that Israel plans to launch ground assaults on Iran after December. Oddly it does not.
At minimum, Israeli forces would have to cross Jordan or Syria, then Iraq or Turkey, to reach Iran. French newspaper Le Canard Enchainé reports that the IDF has ordered combat rations and is assembling elite commando units. On whose sovereign land will Israel mobilize?
In defense of Balloon Boy’s parents not looking too hard for him in the garage, can you imagine their eyes weren’t riveted like everyone’s on the television images of the soaring balloon? The spectacle was not a mere stray weather balloon, but a 6-year-old aeronaut aloft. Theirs.
If viewers have cause to suspect a hoax, it’s the corporate news and whatever their owners/sponsors would rather us not be pointing at.
Of course little Falcon Heene’s prime-time onscreen debriefing revealed he’d concealed himself, or wasn’t answering his parent’s calls, or thought his parents might have been play-acting, “for the show.” No doubt taping two episodes of reality TV for “Swapping Wives” had taught the Heene household about stage-managed reality. I can imagine there were lots of scenes where the kids had to learn to stay out of the shot until the cameras were ready for their closeup.
America, this is reality TV, the play at home game.
Perhaps we’ll learn later if network producers were in the house today making sure their footage, the entirety of it, from action to personal interest, would make good television. Little Falcon grinning from under a box in the garage would render the aerial footage about nothing but a runaway Chipotle float. A child’s escaped balloon is something you see everyday at the state fair, hardly TV Worth Watching. Not to mention the anti-climax for the rescue posse chasing on the ground for the big payoff reveal, the Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault on a barren Eastern Colorado field.
I find it hard to believe, actually, that Falcon’s father, couldn’t tell at a glance whether his helium borne backyard project was carrying the significant extra weight of a child. That was no UFO to the balloon’s engineer, who’d have to have noticed if ballast had been dropped at the takeoff point to compensate for a supposed passenger.
Similarly, police helicopters are equipped with infrared sensors which would have revealed immediately if a human body was aboard. The entire media distraction was a fabrication.
At what line in the sand will we be able to say for certain that President Obama’s hope bubble is a bust? Half of you are laughing at my naivety, the others are hushing me with your fingers crossed. Will it take a nuclear attack on Iran? More bailout? Less health? For example, when will we know whether Obama will be more a Kissinger Peace Laureate than a Mandela? A decision on Afghanistan? We have it already.
The BBC is reporting that as the US thanked Britain for recommitting forces to NATO in Afghanistan, it assured its British allies that Obama would soon be substantially increasing our own military forces. The announcement is to be made next week, the surge, 45,000 more soldiers. The White House emphatically denies this story, stating that President Obama “had not yet made a decision on troop numbers” and “would make up his mind in the coming weeks.”
And there’s your answer. And we’ve had it for awhile.
I’ll bet as a supporter of Barack Obama, you had made up your mind on Iraq and Afghanistan before you elected the hope candidate. You probably based your support for Senator Obama on the intuition that a young man smart as that had already made up his mind too, certainly on the moral issues.
What does it mean now, that Obama might be still thinking on it?
If Obama had made up his mind, or has, he’s struggling now to make up his mind about how to tell you.
Withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan is not ethically complicated. Financially it’s a tough move because you’ve got all those war contractor profiteers who’ve got to be weened cautiously. But there is no intermediary way. So long as the US retains authority, it’s an occupation. So long as one US company is collecting reconstruction funds, the US is serving its own interests. Rationalizations to remain as peacekeepers are just excuses to keep our hand in the till. There is no peacekeeping role for the US. We must get out, and proffer gobs of restitution.
You know who should get the Nobel Peace Prize? The Nobel committee. For their valiant hopeful effort, at the risk of looking foolish. They merit at least a nomination for Time Magazine Persons Of The Year.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has summoned Israel’s ambassador in Ankara to complain that a TV series on Turkey’s state television station TRT1 is inciting anger at Israeli human rights abuses in Palestine. The drama series AYRILIK (“Farewell”) is set in current day Gaza, against a backdrop of the brutality 
of the occupation and military incursions. Israel most objects to scenes of IDF forces shown killing civilians and children. One might ask, what would you have the IDF shooting?
What crimes have not been substantiated by numerous humanitarian groups? Only Israel and the US have been blocking the Goldstone Report at the UN, which urges scrutiny of the 2009 incursion into Gaza.
Vandana Shiva will speak at Boulder’s Unity Church on Sunday, October 18 at 7pm. Dr. Shiva’s speaking tour coincides with World Food Day, October 16. The internationally celebrated physicist and activist is a leading proponent of SLOW FOOD. Among her books, are STOLEN HARVEST and EARTH DEMOCRACY. This event is a fundraiser for KGNU Community Radio. Unity Church is located at 2855 Folsom.
Were the Brazilian squatter settlements destroyed by Oct 13 fires located too far west of expected 2016 Olympic beautification projects? Not all of Brazil’s Olympic venues will be in Rio. But before we accuse neighboring metropolis Sao Paulo of slash and burn redevelopment, we’ll have to see if the displaced poor of Diogo Pires are permitted to rebuild their shantytowns, or whether they will be part of migration programs into the Amazon.
KRDO‘s Eric Singer called today’s health care reform rally “very one sided,” so much so, seeing it, “you might have done a double-take.” Because it wasn’t our backwater’s customary Teabag Pity Party where agitated ignorants throw their own hopes for adequate health care into the drink; but KRDO doesn’t report those anti-rallies as one-sided. Of course, KRDO’s advertisers are the medical system conglomerates, pharmaceuticals, and big insurance! Greed. We are sick of it!
The Gazette repeated their usual mantra that health care reform is unaffordable, but offered a refreshingly frank representation of Pattie’s nuanced address to the energized crowd.
The full Gazette article:
Health care reform activists rally in Springs
October 13, 2009 3:45 PM
MARIA ST.LOUIS-SANCHEZ
THE GAZETTEPatti Mulkey wants to work and be a productive member of society. Unfortunately, she says, her health insurance doesn’t cover all of the extensive treatment she needs for her chronic kidney disease. She said her insurance plan keeps her alive, but doesn’t provide enough care that would let her go back to work.
“They make decisions without knowing how this affects everyone’s lives,” she said to a small, but vocal group of people at a rally Tuesday for health care reform in front of Colorado springs’ City Hall. “People who are ill don’t want to be ill. They want to be working and well.”
The “Rally Against Greed” attracted about 40 people carrying signs that read “Greed Sucks” and “Jesus Didn’t Charge Premiums.” The rally was organized by the group Change that Works, a liberal organization that endorses a public option for health care.
While protestors were vehement Tuesday, the rally wasn’t close to the size of other local rallies against the proposed reforms. Instead of focusing on the cost of expanded health care, organizers blamed insurance companies for the high costs in relating the stories of people coping with illnesses.
Like Mulkey, many of the people who attended the rally said they had health insurance, but it didn’t pay for their care. Pat Hill said that even with health insurance, she was paying $750 a month in medical bills stemming from complications from cancer treatments.
James Tucker, a local activist, said the people who reject the proposed reforms may regret it.
“If they don’t get involved and join us, they will pay a price when they need the care,” he said.
For centuries, we’ve had only engravings to depict the Christopher Columbus discovery of the New World. With the moving pictures of today (a growing number in color according to IMdB), you’d think by now one or two would have caught the real Admiral Cristóbal Colón in blood-red technicolor, terrorizing his new minions with cruel Spanish steel.
Today is still celebrated by the US as Columbus Day. Elsewhere, October 10 is designated International Indigenous Peoples Day.
Accounts in Mexico say the Maya predicted the European invasion which was to plunge the Americas into eternal darkness. They foretold when, 1492 and how, bearded white men delivering uncompromising savagery. Based on the accuracy of this prediction, supposedly, many now have begun to scrutinize another pre-Columbian calculation, the end of the world in the year 2012. It’s odd we accept an unflattering characterization of our scourge, without embracing our inheritance and ongoing role. The villains were our ancestors. We are our fathers.
It’s not just the Italian Americans who cling to the heroic myth of Christopher Columbus. Every white immigrant, and let’s be fair, the hispanic are white too, has an interest in soft-pedalling over the Columbus genocides. The European program of enslavement and pillage continues on these continents today, even as the North American colony serves as platform for the exploitation of all the developing worlds. Every Anglo-Iberian is complicit in extorting indigenous peoples of their well-being and heritage. It would probably be no exaggeration to say that the modern equivalent is not far removed from forcing native populations to slave for gold on pain of dismemberment. Columbus’s men grilled the Indians slowly over spits, or cut off both hands so victims couldn’t staunch their own bleeding. Today’s conquistadors on Capitalism’s wild frontiers use much the same methods.
To re-frame Spain’s discovery with a genocidal agenda is to understand how the competing French and English enterprises redoubled the brutality. Western expansion was invasion. Manifest Destiny was promised land rationalization. Settlements were occupation, and are occupation. To see Columbus in his true horror is to see today’s Indian reservations for what they are, concentration camps for the last embers of the American insurgency. We Anglos and Iberians are inheritors of stolen destinies. Lives stolen 500 years ago and futures we are stealing still.
Meanwhile, Westerners distract their consciences with THE END IS NIGH prophesies. Has there been a lifetime since creation when mankind didn’t fear the end of the world? In recent decades it wasn’t the Rapture, it wasn’t Y2K, so now it’s the end of the Mayan Calendar, whose schedule of events ends in 2012. New Age astrologists have pinpointed a specific date, December 21, 2012. Really. To me that date bears a suspicious resemblance to the symmetric time events which thrill digital watch wearers. December 21 is of course the Day After the end of time, the unknowable vacuum which follows the end: 12-20-2012. On a metric calendar, that’s 20.12.2012. Spooky.
Found this on the web, will try to retrace provenance, worth a read: The United States have a well known history of providing military support to countries in need. But from time to time, the US Government has provided secret forces. While many are successful, there have also been a number of failures. This is a list of the ten top secret armies of the CIA.
1. Ukrainian Partisans
From 1945 to 1952 the CIA trained and aerially supplied Ukranian partisan units which had originally been organised by he Germans to fight the Soviets during WWII. For seven years, the partisans, operating in the Carpathian Mountains, made sporadic attacks. Finally in 1952, a massive Soviet military force wiped them out.2. Chinese Brigade in Burma
After the Communist victory in China, Nationalist Chinese soldiers fled into northern Burma. During the early 1950s, the CIA used these soldiers to create a 12,000 man brigade which made raids into Red China. However, the Nationalist soldiers found it more profitable to monopolise the local opium trade.3. Guatemalan Rebel Army
After Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz legalised that country’s communist party and expropriated 400,000 acres of United Fruit banana plantations, the CIA decided to overthrow his government. Guatemalan rebels were trained in Honduras and backed up with a CIA air contingent of bombers and fighter planes. This army invaded Guatemala in 1954, promptly toppling Arbenz’s regine.4. Sumatran Rebels
In an attempt to overthrow Indonesian president Sukarno in 1958, the CIA sent paramilitary experts and radio operators to the island of Sumatra to organise a revolt. With CIA air support, the rebel army attacked but was quickly defeated. The American government denied involvement even after a CIA b-26 was shot down and its CIA pilot, Allen Pope, was captured.5. Khamba Horsemen
After the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet, the CIA began recruiting Khamba horsemen – fierce warriors who supported Tibet’s religious leader, the Dalai Lama – as they escaped into India in 1959. These Khambas were trained in modern warfare at Camp Hale, high in the rocky mountains near Leadville, Colorado. Transported back to Tibet by the CIA operated Air American, the Khambas organised an army number at its peak some 14,000. By the mid-1960s the Khambas had been abandoned by the CIA but they fought on alone until 1970.6. Bay of Pigs Invasion Force
In 1960, CIA operatives recruited 1,500 Cuban refugees living in Miami and staged a surprise attack on Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Trained at a base in Guatemala, this small army – complete with an air force consisting of B-26 bombers – landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 19, 1961. The ill-conceived, poorly planned operation ended in disaster, since all but 150 men of the force were either killed or captured within three days.7. L’armee Clandestine
In 1962, CIA agents recruited Meo tribesmen living in the mountains of Laos to fight as guerrillas against Communist Pathet Lao forces. Called l’armee Clandestine, this unit – paid, trained, and supplied by the CIA – grew into a 30,000 man force. By 1975 the Meos – who had numbers a quarter million in 1962 – had been reduced to 10,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand.8. Nung Mercenaries
A Chinese hill people living in Vietname, the Nungs were hired and organised by the CIA as a mercenary force, during the Vietnam war. Fearsome and brutal fighters, the Nungs were employed throughout Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Nungs proved costly since they refused to fight unless constantly supplied with beer and prostitutes.9. Peruvian Regiment
Unable to quell guerrilla forces in its eastern Amazonian provinces, Peru called on the US for help in the mid-1960s. The CIA responded by establishing a fortified camp in the area and hiring local Peruvians who were trained by Green Beret personnel on loan from the US army. After crushing the guerrillas, the elite unit was disbanded because of fears it might stage a coup against the government.10. Congo Mercenary Force
In 1964, during the Congolese Civil War, the CIA established an army in the Congo to back pro-Western leaders Cyril Adoula and Joseph Mobutu. The CIA imported European mercenaries and Cuban pilots – exiles from Cuba – to pilot the CIA air force, composed of transports and B-26 Bombers.11. The Cambodian Coup
For over 15 years, the CIA had tried various unsuccessful means of deposing Cambodia’s left-leaning Prince Norodom Sihanouk, including assassination attempts. However, in March, 1970, a CIA-backed coup finally did the job. Funded by US tax dollars, armed with US weapons, and trained by American Green Berets, anti-Sihanouk forces called Kampuchea Khmer Krom (KKK) overran the capital of Phnom Penh and took control of the government. With the blessing of the CIA and the Nixon administration, control of Cambodia was placed in the hands of Lon Nol, who would later distinguish himself by dispatching soldiers to butcher tens of thousands of civilians.12. Kurd Rebels
During the early 1970s the CIA moved into eastern Iraq to organize and supply the Kurds of that area, who were rebelling against the pro-Soviet Iraqi government. The real purpose behind this action was to help the shah of Iran settle a border dispute with Iraq favourably. After an Iranian-Iraq settlement was reached, the CIA withdrew its support from the Kurds, who were then crushed by the Iraqi Army.13. Angola Mercenary Force
In 1975, after years of bloody fighting and civil unrest in Angola, Portugal resolved to relinquish its hold on the last of its African colonies. The transition was to take place on November 11, with control of the country going to whichever political faction controlled the capital city of Luanda on that date. In the months preceding the change, three groups vied for power: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). By July 1975, the Marxist MPLA had ousted the moderate FNLA and UNITA from Luanda, so the CIA decided to intervene covertly. Over $30 million was spent on the Angolan operation, the bulk of the money going to buy arms and pay French and South African mercenaries, who aided the FNLA and UNITA in their fight. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, US officials categorically denied any involvement in the Angolan conflict. In the end, it was a fruitless military adventure, for the MPLA assumed power and controls Angola to this day.14. Afghan Mujaheedin
Covert support for the groups fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began under President Jimmy Carter in 1979, and was stepped up during the administration of Ronald Reagan. The operation succeeded in its initial goal, as the Soviets were forced to begin withdrawing their forces in 1987. Unfortunately, once the Soviets left, the US essentially ignored Afghanistan as it collapsed into a five-year civil war followed by the rise of the ultra-fundamentalist Taliban. The Taliban provided a haven for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.15. Salvadoran Death Squads
As far back as 1964, the CIA helped form ORDEN and ANSESAL, two paramilitary intelligence networks that developed into the Salvadoran death squads. The CIA trained ORDEN leaders in the use of automatic weapons and surveillance techniques, and placed several leaders on the CIA payroll. The CIA also provided detailed intelligence on Salvadoran individuals later murdered by the death squads. During the civil war in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992, the death squads were responsible for 40,000 killings. Even after a public outcry forced President Reagan to denounce the death squads in 1984, CIA support continued.16. Nicaraguan Contras
On November 23, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed a top secret National Security Directive authorising the CIA to spend $19 million to recruit and support the Contras, opponents of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. In supporting the Contras, the CIA carried out several acts of sabotage without the Congressional intelligence committees giving consent – or even being informed beforehand. In response, Congress passed the Boland Amendment, prohibiting the CIA from providing aid to the Contras. Attempts to find alternate sources of funds led to the Iran-Contra scandal. It may also have led the CIA and the Contras to become actively involved in drug smuggling. In 1988, the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations concluded that individuals in the Contra movement engaged in drug trafficking; that known drug traffickers provided assistance to the Contras; and that ‘there are some serious questions as to whether or not US officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war effort against Nicaragua’.17. Haitian Coup
In 1988, the CIA attempted to intervene in Haiti’s elections with a ‘covert action program’ to undermine the campaign of the eventual winner, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Three years later, Aristide was overthrown in a bloody coup that killed more than 4,000 civilians. Many of the leaders of the coup had been on the CIA payroll since the mid-1980s. For example, Emmanuel ‘Toto’ Constant, the head of FRAPH, a brutal gang of thugs known for murder, torture, and beatings, admitted to being a paid agent of the CIA. Similarly, the CIA-created Haitian National Intelligence Service (NIS), supposedly created to combat drugs, functioned during the coup as a ‘political intimidation and assassination squad.’ In 1994, an American force of 20,000 was sent to Haiti to allow Aristide to return. Ironically, even after this, the CIA continued working with FRAPH and the NIS. In 2004, Aristide was overthrown once again, with Aristide claiming that US forces had kidnapped him.18. Venezuelan Coup Attempt
On April 11, 2002, Venezuelan military leaders attempted to overthrow the country’s democratically-elected left-wing president, Hugo Chavez. The coup collapsed after two days as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets and as units of the military joined with the protestors. The administration of George W. Bush was the only democracy in the Western Hemisphere not to condemn the coup attempt. According to intelligence analyst Wayne Madsen, the CIA had actively organised the coup: ‘The CIA provided Special Operations Group personnel, headed by a lieutenant colonel on loan from the US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to help organise the coup against Chavez.
Local progressive agitator Rita Ague takes issue with a scolding homily delivered at Manitou’s Our Lady of Perpetual Help:
I’m sorry, Father Corbley, but I’m unable to attend your sessions.
I’m one of many cafeteria Catholics and former Catholics who find spirituality in avoiding “spiritual masturbation.” Instead, I work as best I can for justice and peace, and don’t worry about what makes me feel spiritual.
Guess this qualifies me as one of those you cited in your sermon as operating “outside the box” I actually call myself a “Cathepis” – sounds a bit vulgar, but actually stands for a Catholic who agrees with the direction the Church of England has gone in allowing priests to marry, women to be ordained, gay priests with partners to come out of the closet and actually become bishops, etc.
No, I’m not gay, but am a strong supporter of civil rights and Christian, humanistic love and respect for all. I attend both Catholic and Episcopal services, but must admit to leaning more toward the Episcopal, insofar as I’m absolutely turned off with the oh so unchristianlike behavior of so many RC’ers, such as the current pope, our local bishop, the blatantly manipulated “good Catholics” who see my “Healthcare not Warfare” button and signs, and scream at me that I’m going to hell because I support health care reform. They yell that health care reform, including the public option and/or single payer approach, is all about abortion. And I develop my own spirituality by refraining from screaming back at them.
Good luck to you, Father, and God be with you in your journey on a less traveled road.
Rita Ague
Then our Nobel Laureate can restore Habeas Corpus, stop rendition and torture, repeal the Patriot Act, confess to illegal wars, war crimes and crimes against humanity, end all occupations, smash the weapons trade, pursue antitrust action against banks and multinational monopolies, abolish the Fed, IMF, World Bank and WTO, renounce globalism and free trade neoliberalism, own up to climate change and third world plunder, initiate restitution for US misrule, and #prosecutebushnowgoddamnit!
Did you hear that Coke has partnered with the American Academy of Family Practitioners to offer nutritional advice about how Coca-Cola products can be part of a child’s healthy diet? What, with a side order of stomach pump? Have they developed an anti-venom for High Fructose Corn Syrup? How about superglue for the bottle caps? This reminds me of the malarkey on sugar cereal boxes about being “part of a balanced breakfast.” How many children do you know eat a heaping bowl of cereal with eggs, toast, and fruit? What would be the point of serving the cereal? Remember the scene in Supersize Me when nutritionists were asked what percentage of a regular diet can come from fast food? The answer: zero. 
Can a moral nutritionist speak favorably of processed food? These AAFP doctors probably think family dentists still give out hard candy.
Today’s antiwar movement wants for 60s marketing flair. This example comes by way of embittered sixties chronicler Todd Gitlin, the student for a Democratic Society eclipsed by the Radical Youth Movement and future Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn, later the FBI’s “most dangerous woman in America.” Gitlin complains that Dorn titillated followers by proclaiming herself a “Communist with a small c.”
A new Levi’s commercial overlays Walt Whitman’s O PIONEERS on scenes of fashion-conscious youth, distilling substance like just another stylizing element. It reminds me of the false portraits our society is content to hang over its radicals. This week, a statue of Helen Keller was unveiled at the US Capitol. Commemorated safely for being an advocate for the disabled, Keller is represented at age seven, before she became the notorious socialist and antiwar crusader. The reverse fate befalls Whitman, who is always represented as a massively-bearded authority figure, and not the authority-challenging reprobate.
I’m seeing a sea of pink gloves as receivers and defensive backs vie for the long bomb; on the sidelines, pink shoes, pink caps, pink jerseys and pennants; on the players’ helmets, pink ribbon decals next to the other patriotic flair. Have you seen the breast cancer awareness t-shirt which reads “Save the Ta-Tas?” When childbearing-age ta-tas are threatened, maybe American men will do more than commemorate cancer. Then we’ll see pink smokestacks, pink chemical tankers, and pink mammogram machines. This industrial pink-wash is as unfunny as pinkeye.
What was NASA’s unmanned drone codenamed L-CROSS? A Cape Canaveral thrillcraft? A military space fighter? After the moon dust has cleared –the moon dust that didn’t plume as expected– LCROSS was all of the above. The US space program is administered by the Department of Defense. What happened yesterday on the Dark Side of the Moon depends on who you believe.
Critics on both sides of Barack Obama’s premature Nobel Prize peddle the same cynical caricature of our new president, as messiah figure likely overburdened by our expectations. It’s a self-defeating setup that didn’t fool the Nobel panel. Obama is not Jesus, he’s Caesar.
I don’t mean to belittle the Son of God, but Obama’s throne has a far greater vantage point to deliver this world from the yoke of the evil empire. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize is a sort of Pay It Forward award to the man who holds the fate of so many in his hands.
You don’t have to believe Obama is the Second Coming, nor even that he’s a good man. So far he’s played Dubya’s apprentice to a tee. But what can you do? Obama’s vainglourious Basterds have everyone by the throat. The Afghans, the Iraqis, the Pakistanis, live but by the grace of his drones, or the whim of his rendition interrogator-torturers. American activists abut his militarized police, American sick expire while on hold with his third party death panels.
The Nobel Prize could be another medal to pretend this American Emperor heralds a break from injustice as the US redoubles wreaking havoc. Or, it could be mankind’s last best only hope to appeal, if not to Obama’s sense of humanity, to his vanity. Is the 2009 Nobel Laureate going to escalate killings and predations on the poor? The choice is Obama’s.
The growing criticism of Barack Obama’s record of inaction furthers the misconception that Obama is a mere figurehead, an affirmative action spokesman to give the US a kinder, gentler image. In fact, Obama sits in the little dictator’s seat. It’s lost no power since the days of Bush.
You might argue that Bush was mere Howdy Doody to powerful oligarchs behind the scenes. Obama may be pulled by the same strings. But unless the puppet masters choose to reveal themselves, a puppet can pretend they don’t exist. And a real flesh and blood man puppet can utterly efface them. I believe the Nobel committee is hoping to appeal to just that man.
Obama doesn’t need Congress, majority or no, nor the American People, nor the corporate media, to decide what he wants to do. He’s not stuck to overturning the tables of the money-changers, or leading by example by dying for us on a cross. Obama doesn’t have to render unto Caesar, he is Caesar. The most powerful there ever was, although I can’t think now if there ever was a good one. The Norse were in no position then to bait one with a peace prize. Here’s hoping.
ADDENDUM:
Barack and Michelle Obama sent out this response to the surprise honor, trying a little false flattery of their own. Here’s the last paragraph:
This award — and the call to action that comes with it — does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.
Most of all, the men and women of America? Oh My Gosh Honey, Obama is talking about you and me.
?
This week’s count of friendly responses was eighty-four in a half-hour, up from 62 for the last children’s vigil.
Here’s the plan. After the Tuesday noon RALLY AGAINST GREED on the city steps, dash up to the city council chambers where ex-Gazette editor, now Teabag charlatan, Sean Paige will be attending his first meeting. Before 1PM, sign up to speak during the public comment period, you’ll be allotted three minutes. What is there to say about Paige’s appointment over qualified candidates to replace Councilman Jerry Heimlicher? Just say “You’ve GOT to be freaking kidding me.” Leave a long pause as you look each of them in the eye. Repeat. Make it a long 3 minutes.
COLORADO SPRINGS- Local non-confrontational peace activists held a protest today where they knew no one would see them, and to be doubly sure, they timed it so that no commuter traffic would be passing either. Schriever AFB administrates world GPS systems, critical for military drone attacks. Local protesters feel the drones are immoral, but shhh, don’t tell anybody!?
?The action was the latest of the PPJPC antiwar pacification agenda to ensnare well intentioned students and exasperated members. The program, which holds civil disobedience at a reverential arms-length, comprises regular tutoring by liberation theologists, martyr eulogists, CIA-sewn “democracy movements” and AIPAC-directed “humanitarian campaigns.”
COLO. SPRINGS- It took three hours for over a dozen students from Colorado College and Palmer High School to chalk the names and ages of the 869 US casualties of the war in Afghanistan.
Mark made an excellent video at CSAction.
Thursday Oct 8 is Cuba’s Day of the Heroic Guerrilla. By a brilliant coincidence perhaps, Colorado Springs is currently plastered with fliers of the heroic guerrilla himself, smiling from the windows of the least likely businesses, courtesy of the Smokebrush Gallery’s current exhibit. The sketch of Che is by artist/poet Antonio Guerrero, member of the Cuban 5 and inmate 58741-004 of the Florence Supermax. Che’s image has been successfully trivialized as a commercial icon, thanks to the Gap et al, but when Che jumps off the T-shirt, in the incarnation of Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales, the revolution lives.
