Tag Archives: Bears

Nuclear power versus nuclear powers

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Thirty one nations have nuclear power. Three more are building their first nuclear plants. They are Lithuania, Mongolia, and the one we’re worried about, Iran.

Of all places, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Armenia and Kazakhstan are able to generate nuclear power, but we deny Iran?

Why Iran? Because we don’t want nuclear technology in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists.

Thirteen countries are considered to be contemplating first nuclear facilities, among them, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. And Iran looks scary? The list also includes Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population. Turkey and Egypt rank above Iran in number of Muslims. Saudi Arabia is home to Mecca and the 9/11 hijackers.

The list of countries which have nuclear weapons bears listing entirely. United States, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Israel, and Pakistan.

Like Israel, Pakistan is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. It is also home to the world’s second largest population of Muslims, somewhere among them, Osama bin Laden.

American liberal intellectualism in crisis

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The IntellectualsAmerican liberal intellectualism is in a state of crisis today. The intellectuals that guide liberalism keep shouting to the Democratic Party to stop collaborating with the Republican Party and to be a true opposition as today’s liberals have thought they always were.

The post World War II outlook of American liberal intellectuals is beginning to crumble and Barack Obama marks the line for a new transformation in American liberal politics. Obama simply is not going to do as the liberal intellectuals demand he act. Liberals can scream and wail and shout and it will all be for naught. The Democrats and Republicans are merely two branches of the same entity, which is that of being the American Corporate Party. And Barack Obama and thee Democratic Party leadership will continue to act as Republican collaborationists.

Barack Obama comes to the forefront precisely at the beginning of the great breakup in the appearance of American Empire. For the last six decades, the American Empire has posed itself as a benign world enforcer, a cop for the public good. Today, that image is all in shreds, and Barack will not be able to put it back together again. Certainly not with his plans to attack Iran, continue to oppress Afghanistan with a USA occupation, and continue to lie and fudge about US occupation and genocide in Iraq. And not with the coming global capitalist economic meltdown.

Yes, American liberalism is in crisis and it bears to take a look at how it has reacted to such crisis in the past.

‘…the record is plain that from the twenties to the forties the majority of anti-capitalist intellectuals passed through three phases which were marked out by the mighty national and world events of the time. From the stock market crash to Hitler’s victory and Roosevelt’s, assumption of office they were torn loose from their previous moorings and swung sharply to the left. From 1933 to the Spanish civil war and the Moscow trials they deepened their commitments and produced the initial differentiations. From 1937 through the crushing of the Spanish revolution, the Stalin-Hitler pact and the Second World War they began the flight from radicalism which was consummated in the wholesale recanting characteristic of the cold war.’

The author, George Novack, is talking about how American liberal intellectuals of his time went from being much like they are today, to becoming radicalized and anti-capitalist, and then beaten back and conservatized once again. The entire history as told by him can be read at Radical Intellectuals in the 1930s

What we get over a period of time, is that America’s liberal leaning intellectuals most resemble a giant bowl of Jello not quite congealed in the refrigerator. They are not the most steadfast citizens amongst the general population. They like to go with the flow more than anything else, so they will be torn asunder when the times change once again.

Look for many of the liberal intellectuals to walk around in circles acting stunned in the next coming years. They just don’t have too many intellectual (or societal) resources to do much anything of else. Despite being the foremost world authorities on everything, they don’t have the real power in their hands, and as such, like servants everywhere, most will do as the Patron dictates while griping about it in the shadows.

Will the levees fail once again with Hurricane Dolly?

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Social drinkers In the US it’s all money all the time for war and big business bailouts, but what about the bailouts the little people have to do when American levee systems fail from lack of proper maintenance? Hurricane Dolly is due to come ashore in the next few days and the lower Rio Grande Valley may well go under water just like what happened in New Orleans and the upper Mississippi region. Dolly Bears Down on Texas, Mexico

How many strikes like this are Americans prepared to let go by? This is not nature alone responsible here because it is not nature that maintains protective levees but your government that does.

Though it is the US military that will be mobilized if failure of these levees occurs, this time it is not the US Corps of Engineers directly in charge of maintaining the levee system, but an agency called The International Boundary and Water Commission with another Bush appointee in charge there. Good luck, People, you will need it.

Whose turn is it on Afghanistan’s plains?

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It was a hard lesson for the Soviets, and before them the Soldiers of the Queen. I think Kipling’s advice bears repeating as we consider that American casualties are on the rise in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the Forgotten Campaign of the GWOT, where we’re still taking a victory lap in a pool filling with crocodiles.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
and the women come out to cut up what remains,
jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
and go to your gawd like a soldier.
    -Rudyard Kipling, The Young British Soldier

John McCain the maverick unfavored filly

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CNN ignored Cindy McCain 100 million beer fortune to paint husband as lowest income underdog
John McCain isn’t just a maverick TM, he’s that unfavored horse in the Kentucky Derby!

They made a movie about him. America’s favorite underdog, a Heratio Alger story, T-Bone Pickens, poor boy makes good, Beverly Hillbillies, overcoming odds, Everyman, a dog’s life, Because of Wynn Dixie, Benjie, Fire House Dog, Rudy, boy struggling against disability, custodian math whiz, Pay it Forward, Sling Blade (didn’t see either), Bad News Bears, Rocky, mongrel saves world, Ugly Betty, what was that damn horse’s name? Old Stewball?

McCain kisses Bush 18% approval Ass, embraces Neocon war fiasco as his own, dons Yarmulke despite growing brazenness of Israeli crimes, and eclipses Keating Five savings and loan corruption infamy. Try as he might, McCain can’t paint himself dumber than good ol’ boy, how-bout-a-beer, George Dubya. But it makes him look pretty dumb, doesn’t it?

The maverick label was a whole cloth invention and Rockford should take it back for trademark infringement. McCain is no more a lone maverick than he is the poor-boy candidate on CNN’s income comparison. McCain’s wife beer-heiress Cindy is worth 100 million. What’s the income/ dividend/ interest on that kind of fortune, and why isn’t it included on this joint income survey? Oh my goodness. Are you getting any sense that our media is going to represent the election with any honesty? If John McCain mounts a mechanized Trojan horse at polling stations in predominantly Democratic districts, and personally tramples black voters, are we going to hear about it?

Taxes, a public service announcement

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Taxes Buy Bombs
TAXES BUY BOMBS!
 
It might seem taking the antiwar fight to the IRS would be to enmesh your energies with a tar baby. But it bears considering that if you want the killing to stop and the Legislature won’t tighten purse strings, it may be up to you. The government can print the money it needs, but ultimately the funding is going to come from you.

Reverse ChickenHawk…

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I know, I’ve written this theme before…
Just sometimes it bears repeating.

But there’s a certain consistency to the inconsistency of War Regime rhetoric.

You’re allowed to SUPPORT killing, unconditionally, if you yourself are not one of those who kill and are, in turn, killed, but to OPPOSE killing you’re supposed to have experience in the mass murder that is War.

Only murderers can say that murder is wrong, only rapists can say that rape is wrong, only thieves can say that stealing is wrong, everybody else has to STFU about it.

There’s a catch to it, though… the screams of STFU! and “How Dare You TRAITORS speak against The Leader!” and other verbal diarrhea
aren’t just directed against for instance, Jane Fonda… who did something her right wing counterparts wouldn’t do… she actually went to a war zone, to the DRVN, at a time when people like John McCain were carpetbombing Hanoi.

But also against people who fit into the category of Actual Experienced Killers.

A short (extremely) list would include
Max Cleland, who was “swift-boated” before the term was invented,
“Country” Joe McDonald,
(“and it’s one, two, three,
what are we fightin’ for?
Don’t ask me,
I don’t give a damn,
next stop is VietNam”)
John Kerry
and the rest of the VVAW,
and now the IVAW…

Mothers and fathers who have lost sons and daughters are allowed to SUPPORT the war, but get a Gold Star Mom like Cindy Sheehan, questioning the war, How Dare She Dishonor the sacrifice of her son… Right?

The Right Wing Freaks question her loyalty, her patriotism, her sanity and even her love for her son.

People who have lost pieces of themselves “over there” are allowed and encouraged to PROMOTE the war(s) but if they OPPOSE it,

Well, think “Born on the 4th of July”

The Stupid Squad take to screaming that anybody who lost a leg or arm or ability to move should be proud to have done it… then if you don’t immediately apologize to them for not groveling to the War Regime in a timely manner, they spread outright LIES that somehow your injury was caused by your own incompetence.

I’ve come to the unnatural conclusion that these guys are only happy if they’re bitching and whining… so, let’s make them happy…

Satisfy their appetite for Things Which Make Them Scream Like The Bitches They Truly Are.

Another log on that fire, just to build it up nice and HOT…

I know the natural reaction of the ChickenHawk and the Reverse ChickenHawk is to scream that somehow They Gave Me the right to free speech, so how Dare I criticize them…

If you fellas care to look over to the sidebar, (either one) you’ll see pictures of Noble Policemen “protecting” our rights that you “gave” us by beating on us for the so-called crime of actually using those rights.

And, in that incident, while all the soldiers in the crowd wisely didn’t jump right in and help the pigs violently deny us the very existence of our rights…

Not one of you stepped up and used your Uniform and the automatic level of influence it would give you… to actually DEFEND our rights.

You never gave us our rights, not on the battlefields of the Imperial Warz, and certainly not on the Streets of America.

Pushing PAUSE button while on SURGE

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They share three letters. SURGE. PAUSE. First our military wanted a surge, now they want a pause at the height of the surge, making the temporary amplification something more like an escalation. In fact, it’s forecast that US troop levels in Iraq will actually rise by the summer, as we head into the election. Probably for “the surge is working” refrain. So our surge has surged. This surge shares no similar properties to its namesake in electronics. Just as pause bears no similarity with the button on the TV remote. Hitting pause on a controller would halt the fast-forward mode. This pause actually locks us into the higher setting. General Sonofabitch is asking us for a LOCK on the troop gains he’d secured, from which he’ll be able to call a next surge.

Co-opting the peace movement

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Look for images on Google of crowds amassed to save Darfur and you get a paltry result. But google for posters and you get a flood. Quite the reverse when you google anti-war. The dearth of evidence of popular support for SaveDarfur caught me unexpected, particularly after watching George Clooney’s documentary on HBO. He showed shot after shot of supporters, the same assemblage it now appears, of a DC rally at which he spoke, from diverse angles to make it look like a mass movement. Then his voice-over declared that “the American People had spoken,” and it was now our government’s turn to act.
Clooney addresses a DC wellwishers

Far be it for me to denounce enthusiastic hype, but let me tell you where the fabrication took me. Even now, knowing that Darfur efforts are in fact proliferating on campuses nationwide, I see that it is not a fait accomplit, I see the Save Darfur objective, and why it is supported by establishment advocacy groups: they mean to co-opt the peace movement.

The people who will turn out to demonstrate for peace and against injustice, who will plead emphatically with the media and fellow citizens, who have hope for a better world, who trust in man’s better nature, who believe that one, ten, or several thousand can make a difference against the odds, these people are a limited population segment. Idealists, altruists, with a heavy conscience and usually an education which guides their belief that social progress lies in man’s common destiny.

Peace activists for DarfurHow best to diffuse the efforts of altruists where there emerge too many to incarcerate? Misdirect their focus. Preoccupy them with victims of your choosing. Tie up the media outlets and the limited public attention span with a crisis that will serve you, not a crisis you might be perpetrating.

Clooney defines the Darfur Crisis as “the 21st Century’s first genocide.” Does that strike you as omitting a genocide or two? Americans have killed five times as many Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israelis have been cleansing the Holy Lands of their original Muslims for sixty years. Both efforts ongoing. Who are the agents decrying “genocide” in Darfur? Israel and the US. Nobody else. But plenty have all along criticized our ethnically motivated attack on Muslims and Arabs. And it bears repeating: from whom, by chance, are we asked to Save Darfur? Islamic Arabs.

The “genocide” distinction matters such that according to a UN resolution, intervention on the part of the international community becomes mandated. It’s a hammer wielded by those on the Security Council and withheld from those who are not. The US and Israel veto any attempt to label their aggressions as “genocide.”

It’s a thankless task to be a nay-sayer cautioning against “action” to “save” Darfur. In the end to what result? We might have tried to halt America’s revenge-driven invasion of Afghanistan. But had we prevented that tragedy, would the common citizen have recognize the danger averted? Even now those who supported the illegal US extra-judicial attack of Afghanistan can be excused as misinformed, those who advocated it accepted for being misguided. All forgiven, not counting the millions of Afghan lives overturned. Those who cried foul at the start, remembered as unpatriotic and recalcitrant, not at all given credit for being right, certainly not as the next opportunistic Neocon aggression presents itself.

Landmarks in memoriam

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Mount Rushmore public cafeteria
A past love of mine spent a couple summers working at Mt Rushmore at the visitor’s center. She longed for me to see it and eventually she took me there. I had already formed a vivid image of her youthful days there, serving food to plaid-clad tourists, taking her breaks sunning on the rocks between the ponderosa, chasing boys with her friends, away from home at this summer camp for Dakota high-schoolers off soon to college and new autonomous lives.

Her farm country heritage was a mystery to me, but her descriptions of the Black Hills and Mt Rushmore I could see clearly. When we finally made it there, the atmosphere was as charming as I had envisioned, aided too by preconceptions of the familiar dark wood trimmings of a US National Park with Yogi Bear. The restaurant really was a cafeteria, the workers dressed in white like nurses and the food was like they served in school. Except that visitors would carry their fiberglass trays to tables beneath huge plate glass windows with a view of the granite presidential face of Mt Rushmore.

Years later I would recognize the unchanged lunch room and viewing deck as filmed in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Nothwest. I could watch that scene and recollect our visit, especially the tour Kim gave me through the staff-only area, climbing paths around the workers’ dormitories which led us to the swimming hole. We watched squirrels and bears -I mean birds- and recalled her earlier days. She might have been thinking of earlier beaus, what would it have mattered? Now my recollections are of recollections.

Now many years later, another love asks me if revisiting the site of a cherished memory would diminish it. I said no, and I still believe it, but I have to add one caveat. It’s not that you erase one memory with another, you jeopardize the memory tape itself.

I thus revisited Mt Rushmore, without of course my making any todo about a past significance, and I came away changed and less happy because the visitors center is gone.

Well, it’s changed, the wooden building is replaced by a bigger, improved center of granite, very attractive and swarming with more people, the grounds are now entirely covered in cement, comprising amphitheater, museum, Grecian monument and vast parking structures. No amount of smooching with a new love would have effaced my earlier nostalgia, but the physical anchor of my memory is broken away. It’s like the difference of a grandparent passed on, being cremated versus interred. You can visit your loved one in a cemetery, even if only in your mind, because you know where you can find them, still there.

My Mt Rushmore in not “there” anymore. I retain my memories, themselves of memories, but they have become intangible.

The same was done to our Garden of the Gods. We used to be able to goof off on its roads and paths, now they are paved and redirected into an uncompromising giant roundabout. And there’s now the giant visitors center, with its big window and stepped-back view, replacing the Hidden Inn which used to nestle right against the rocks.

In fact, I took a favorite photograph of a girl I liked very much on the weathered railing of the Hidden Inn looking out on the upended rock formation extending along the Front Range. But the historic inn is no more, just a few cuts into the red stone, now just a point-of-interest on a marker. At least the original foundation was meticulously removed, not buried under concrete. I lament never having kissed that girl, and I guess now the opportunity seems all the more gone.

CSPD Officer Erwin Paladino of 2003

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Come to papaHas it been made clear enough in the multitude of retellings of the events of St. Patrick’s Day 2007, that an Officer Erwin Paladino was the chief agitator in the police camp? He directed the arrests and handled most of them with two chief accomplices, guy with taser and guy of choke-hold. (Maybe not coincidentally the three men in blue in our T-shirt advert image at right.) The other of the fourteen policemen on the scene stood in the wings to receive us as we were removed from the parade route.

If the police had been interested in removing us efficiently from the street, the officers could have handled it on one swoop. Instead Paladino was let to do the dirty work, dirtily, throwing me to the ground, yelling at us pell mell, acting over-taxed when in fact the police outnumbered us.

Police misconduct, 2003
Imagine our surprise when Mark Lewis, reviewing the videotapes from the wrongful arrests of peace activists in 2003, discovered that the chief police bully in that case was the same Officer Paladino! You can hear him on the tape telling a woman she could walk to Boulder because he was impounding her car, then handcuffing her before she could even do that. She and friends were standing outside of a Dairy Queen, where they’d parked, after the tear-gassing of the antiwar rally.

The Dairy Queen Dozen won a settlement from the city of Colorado Springs, an admission that the police had acted improperly. And yet four years later, here’s the same wrongdoer, Officer Paladino, pulling the same uncivil behavior, the same abuse of authority, the same escalation of brutality, worse actually, in the midst of children and elders.

We’re told that any admission of wrongdoing on the part of CSPD could never include a reprimand of a particular officer, certainly not one like Paladino who wraps himself in a flag whenever there’s a fallen officer memorial.

To tell you the truth, I got the very strong impression, on St. Patrick’s Day when we were trying to learn his name from the other officers, that they weren’t too proud of his actions either. Most of the police bent over backward to treat us with consideration, as something of an apology for what went wrong on the street. Paladino would not tell us his name when we requested it, and when it came time to record it on most of our arrest forms, the officers filling out our paperwork pretended amnesia it seems, they didn’t want to betray his name either if he wasn’t brave enough to give it himself. That’s a man not likely respected by his colleagues.

Until our trial, until criticism can be brought on police misconduct, who might Paladino be mishandling today? We were fortunate to have cameras focused on us at the parade, and to have a large crowd protecting us with its gaze. What of the hapless vagrant in a dark side street? He bears the brunt of the policemen’s abuse of authority, regularly beaten and harassed by officers with aggressive personality disorders and the means and opportunity to vent them.

Israel obstinate

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PLOMore nations gave formal recognition to the PLO, a terrorist group, than to Israel. Thus more people thought the Palestinian Liberation Organization had a “right to exist” than did Israel, a chunk of Arab land appropriated to make a Jewish State. To date Israel has rejected 70 UN resolutions against its actions. I think it bears repeating them, lest typifying Israel’s behavior as illegal, be dismissed as a rant.

# 1. General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947): the 1947 Partition plan of Palestine and the creation of Israel.
# 2. General Assembly Resolution 194 (1947): Palestinian Refugees have the right to return to their homes in Israel.
# 3. Resolution 106 (1955): condemns Israel for Gaza raid.
# 4. Resolution 111 (1956): condemns Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people.
# 5. Resolution 127 (1958): recommends Israel suspend its no-man’s zone’ in Jerusalem.
# 6. Resolution 162 (1961): urges Israel to comply with UN decisions.
# 7. Resolution 171 (1962): determines flagrant violations by Israel in its attack on Syria.
# 8. Resolution 228 (1966): censures Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control.
# 9. Resolution 237 (1967): urges Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees.
# 10. Resolution 242 (1967): Israel’s occupation of Palestine is Illegal.
# 11. Resolution 248 (1968): condemns Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan.
# 12. Resolution 250 (1968): calls on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem.
# 13. Resolution 251 (1968): deeply deplores Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250.
# 14. Resolution 252 (1968): declares invalid Israel’s acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital.
# 15. Resolution 256 (1968): condemns Israeli raids on Jordan as flagrant violation.
# 16. Resolution 259 (1968): deplores Israel’s refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation.
# 17. Resolution 262 (1968): condemns Israel for attack on Beirut airport.
# 18. Resolution 265 (1969): condemns Israel for air attacks for Salt in Jordan.
# 19. Resolution 267 (1969): censures Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem.
# 20. Resolution 270 (1969): condemns Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon.
# 21. Resolution 271 (1969): condemns Israel’s failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem.
# 22. Resolution 279 (1970): demands withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon.
# 23. Resolution 280 (1970): condemns Israeli’s attacks against Lebanon.
# 24. Resolution 285 (1970): demands immediate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
# 25. Resolution 298 (1971): deplores Israel’s changing of the status of Jerusalem.
# 26. Resolution 313 (1972): demands that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon.
# 27. Resolution 316 (1972): condemns Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon.
# 28. Resolution 317 (1972): deplores Israel’s refusal to release.
# 29. Resolution 332 (1973): condemns Israel’s repeated attacks against Lebanon.
# 30. Resolution 337 (1973): condemns Israel for violating Lebanon’s sovereignty.
# 31. Resolution 347 (1974): condemns Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
# 32. General Assembly Resolution 3236 (1974): affirms the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine to self-determination without external interference and to national independence and sovereignty.
# 33. Resolution 425 (1978): calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon.
# 34. Resolution 427 (1978): calls on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon.
# 35. Resolution 444 (1979): deplores Israel’s lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces.
# 36. Resolution 446 (1979): determines that Israeli settlements are a serious obstruction to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
# 37. Resolution 450 (1979): calls on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon.
# 38. Resolution 452 (1979): calls on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories.
# 39. Resolution 465 (1980): deplores Israel’s settlements and asks all member states not to assist its settlements program.
# 40. Resolution 467 (1980): strongly deplores Israel’s military intervention in Lebanon.
# 41. Resolution 468 (1980): calls on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return.
# 42. Resolution 469 (1980): strongly deplores Israel’s failure to observe the council’s order not to deport Palestinians.
# 43. Resolution 471 (1980): expresses deep concern at Israel’s failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
# 44. Resolution 476 (1980): reiterates that Israel’s claim to Jerusalem are null and void.
# 45. Resolution 478 (1980): censures (Israel) in the strongest terms for its claim to Jerusalem in its Basic Law.
# 46. Resolution 484 (1980): declares it imperative that Israel re-admit two deported Palestinian mayors.
# 47. Resolution 487 (1981): strongly condemns Israel for its attack on Iraq’s nuclear facility.
# 48. Resolution 497 (1981): decides that Israel’s annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights is null and void and demands that Israel rescinds its decision forthwith.
# 49. Resolution 498 (1981): calls on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon.
# 50. Resolution 501 (1982): calls on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops.
# 51. Resolution 509 (1982): demands that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon.
# 52. Resolution 515 (1982): demands that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and allow food supplies to be brought in.
# 53. Resolution 517 (1982): censures Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon.
# 54. Resolution 518 (1982): demands that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon.
# 55. Resolution 520 (1982): condemns Israel’s attack into West Beirut.
# 56. Resolution 573 (1985): condemns Israel vigorously for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO headquarters.
# 57. Resolution 587 (1986): takes note of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw.
# 58. Resolution 592 (1986): strongly deplores the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops.
# 59. Resolution 605 (1987): strongly deplores Israel’s policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians.
# 60. Resolution 607 (1988): calls on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
# 61. Resolution 608 (1988): deeply regrets that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians.
# 62. Resolution 636 (1989): deeply regrets Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians.
# 63. Resolution 641 (1989): deplores Israel’s continuing deportation of Palestinians.
# 64. Resolution 672 (1990): condemns Israel for violence against Palestinians at the Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount.
# 65. Resolution 673 (1990): deplores Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the United Nations.
# 66. Resolution 681 (1990): deplores Israel’s resumption of the deportation of Palestinians.
# 67. Resolution 694 (1991): deplores Israel’s deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return.
# 68. Resolution 726 (1992): strongly condemns Israel’s deportation of Palestinians.
# 69. Resolution 799 (1992): strongly condemns Israel’s deportation of 413 Palestinians and calls for their immediate return.
# 70. Resolution 1397 (2002): affirms a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders.
# 71. General Assembly Resolution ES-10/15 (2004): declares the wall built inside the occupied territories as contrary to international law and asks Israel to demolish it.

Iraqi Freedom Bear

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Limited Treasures commemorative teddy bearThis is Sam(TM) The All American Bear(TM). The tag reads: THIS IS NOT A TOY. Please keep away from children. For decorative and collector use only.
 
For sale only at the PX to US soldiers and their families, Sam is part of The Hometown Heroes Collection which commemorates Operation Iraqi Freedom among other presumably cuddly Defense Department outreach programs.
 
Now I don’t begrudge the military needing to plan its offensives ahead of time, but this souvenir teddy bear bears a copyright 2002.

Super bowl Janet Jackson and Republican morality.

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This is something I published a couple of years ago. Every bit as relevant as today. And every bit today as then, some things are timeless.
This one contains a “dirty” word, so you might go ahead and set your browser Content Filter to profanity blocking. Better to censor yourself than try to censor me.

But now, once again, we are going to have the hyperbole and rampant commercialism pushed onto our senses, over and over and over and endlessly and I bet you thought I was going to say over again and again and again and repeatedly.

I don’t know the exact date of the Super Bowl. Just that it’s about a couple of weeks. I know the Chicago Bears are going to be one team, because of the hype I got as soon as I opened one of my email servers.

I am sure everybody is going to get lots and lots of Emails saying Bears or ? you choose… or New Poll: Who will it be Bears or ?

There will be jockeying to find out what the commercials are going to be for the half-time show, there will be much breathless wide-eyed awe and stories about what the commercials and so much (ok, I lied, there are more than one “dirty” word in this) all kinds of who-seriously-gives-a-fat-rat’s-ass-about-it bullshit, to lead us up to the Big Game.

A lot of the commercials are going to be for beer. And other drugs, especially alcoholic drugs.

You know the ones, they say at the end of it “(name of brewer/distiller) urges you to DRINK (notice they put this word last) responsibly”.

It is dope dealing at its finest. The crack house and the opium den and the weed corner are blown away (sick dope reference) by this magnum opus of Purveyance of Demon Rum.

And it is on a Sunday, a Pagan holy day, co-opted by Christianity, for worship of our respective God or gods. Pastors in Churches across the land are going to schedule their services, especially the evening services, around this latter-day Circus Maximus. And their morning services too, because the worshipers are going to have to rush to the store after services so they can score their dope and munchies for the BIGGGGG DEALLLLL…….

So I got the Super Bowl part embedded in our consciousness, right?

Now to the Republican Morality part, for a quick tease, then to Janet Jackson and the Infamous Titty Incident, then back to a slightly longer rant on Republican “Morality”.

The owners of the NFL teams, virtually all of them, are supporters of the Republican party. And the R’s pay it back in spades by supporting legislation that makes the PUBLIC TREASURY pay for the stadia, (yes, I spelled that last word right, I’m practicing my Latin, are you?) the security, the traffic control, and in-stadium dope I mean Beer Sales. That last because some stadia, like the ill-fated Cotton Bowl in Dallas, are in dry precincts. Which is the real reason the Cowboys don’t play in Dallas, for decades it has been in Irving, and next year it won’t be in Dallas County even.

The cities have to pay for the construction of the stadia out of bond money, and they are always told that it will boost the local economy.

Also here in Colorado, there was a guy running for Senator, you might recognize the name Pete COORS. And yes, he is heir to the beer fortune.

On to The Titty Incident.

Janet Jackson, during the half-time 3 years ago or was it 4, I lose count of things like football. Got her costume deliberately torn at the end of a song and exposed part of her (gasp! the HORROR!!) breast. Now, I didn’t get to see this. I don’t watch football. The homo-eroticism of 22 very large gentlemen throwing their bodies at each other doesn’t do it for me.

There was much scandal. Much public outcry. Much Breast Beating in the halls of Congress, (yeah, I know, that last joke was horrible but I had to get it off my chest) even the Commander in Chimp of the United States saying that he hadn’t watched the incident, but it was a lovely breast.

Ok so I might have taken a little liberty with that last statement, but I don’t keep abreast of the off the wall statements of Mr Bush, every time I try to watch one of his speeches my brain tries to escape by crawling out my left ear.

The Moral Outrage sweeping the country was amazing, especially in the R party.

Like Mr Coors.

 During the 04 super bowl, and I know I know, the Super Bowl calendar starts from S.B. I and S.B.II and so forth, with the not-very-subtle Roman numerals numbering system. Instead of A.D. or C.E., measured from the birth of Christ or the birth of Christianity, depending on your faith viewpoint. But I don’t worship the oblong ball. So it matters naught to me how the Hell many S.B. there were.

Mr Coors was OUTRAGED about this public impropriety. How dare they interrupt his half time show where he had a commercial or two over the years, with scantily clad women whose costumes showed a substantially higher percentage of overall Breast Acreage than Ms Jackson did, telling the poor saps watching that somehow they would have a shot at touching these breasts if they only buy his brand of Dope. For people who keep up with such things, these are the modern version of the Vestal Virgins performing their religious duty at the modern Circus Maximus, the Cheerleaders, who get paid a paltry amount for their Services on the field, but get much more opportunity working in commercials. Like for Mr Coors.

Since this was an Election Year, when all the Noble Laws about the Half Time show being lagged 4 seconds or so just to protect America from such an awful sight ever again….

And the Republican NFL team owners who pimp out these Vestal Virgins as part of their Circus, were also outraged, that Ms Jackson would Dare To Expose America to a sight of substantially less breast-age than their own cheerleaders and even most of the Female fans and even some of the (ewwweewwww) male fans show during every game. I mean, one team has its fans wear cheese on their heads, and paint their naked upper torsi green and yellow, and show over and over again one in particular a set of udders that would make a topless dancer envious (or nauseous) and who happens to be a guy (I think)

So this year we will be (or you will be, I plan to be out riding my bicycle, while the streets are practically deserted for four or five hours) watching a heavily subsidized, heavily censored, erotic commercial enterprise, knowing that the GOP Big Brother apparatus will be protecting us from such unseemly behaviour ever again occurring.

Lions and foxes and bears oh my!

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this one is a follow up to the Neighborhood Fox thread I commented about.
We had a cougar. of course. He (or she, I ain’t getting close enough to check its genitals) is apparently coming around more frequently, our neighbor across the alley, not living there any more, but the low roof of the house, had cougar tracks in the snow. On the roof.
We had the large deer maybe elk but I’ll go with deer, a buck, was in the yard New Years. Does are more regular, the bucks are usually up the mountain somewhere.

But yesterday, on the Midland bicycle trail, my landlady was checking on the welfare of some feral kittens who have more or less adopted her. Looked down and saw bear tracks. Big ones. Fresh ones. Then she looked up and saw the bear in person, about a couple of blocks away.

Now, this is very bizarre. I remember somebody telling me once that bears actually hibernate in the winter? You probably know the story.

But with large animals down in the Springs, a cougar who seems to not be wandering far, a buck or possibly elk, and now an extremely out of season bear….
In the middle of what has been told to me is the harshest winter in the last 10 years or so.

Something is going very wrong and the animals seem to know it.

PFOA & Mermaids’ Tears

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All the talk nowadays is about the threat that terrorism supposedly has on National Security. But reality is that Americans are more likely to be taken down by cancer or heart disease instead. Perhaps, companies like Dupont and 3M actualy pose much greater threats to our personal security than does al quaeda? Cheney would disagree, I am sure, but the evidence is not on his side.

Dupont, especially, is a company that has been engaged most recently in a tobacco industry style campaign of disinformation and cover-up about the dangers of PFOA, an artificial substance that has accumulated in 95% of us Americans. It’s produced by Dupont (and was also by 3M previously) for use in making fabrics and non-stick cookware, amongst other items. We’re talking Teflon and GorTex now. This is big moneymaker for Dupont, and they have been just a s stubborn about the reality that it causes cancer as Exxon-Mobil has been about denying that global warming is a world threat.

The headlines this week get yet worse about capitalist driven, factory production’s effects on life here on earth. It appears, too, that microscopic pieces of plastic are in ocean water in greater and greater concentrations and in the life forms that live in salt water, too. These are called mermaids’ tears. See the BBC article, Plastics Poisoning World’s Seas. Humans are filling up with PFOA, and sea life is collecting just plain old plastics in their bodies. Oh, along with mercury and numberous otehr toxins. I guess polar bears get it all, since they are finding PFOA in them, plus they also eat the fish filled with mermaids’ tears besides. Lesson. Don’t eat polar bear!

Both articles I linked to illustrate that capitalism does not self-regulate its production. To the contrary, capitalist enterprises deliberately produce harmful products that destroy the environment and destroy your health. The corporate management attitude is simply that if the product does not knock you over seconds after it you consumed it, then who cares about the longer term consequences? That can be hidden away from public view forever, or at least for centuries, oops but maybe only decades. But it can be hidden for the longest time, and by then, the consequences to public health have become enormous.

There simply is no effective observation of the dangers that these ‘free enterprises’ routinely put us in. It is if the meth lab next door was subject to no observation, no requirements to cease production, and the operators of it were also to be held in the highest public esteem even as they were cooking up a poisonous vapor for all the neighborhood. In fact, the neighborhood I lived in last before moving here, had both meth labs in the neighborhood, and a film production facility that did its dirty production at night, as vapors were then vented to float through our streets. Could I have called the police to check them out for safety and health? I think not. Our ‘botanical gardens’ there were run by the Benzene producing company that dominated the regional business community. Our big marine aquarium had a display where the enormous tank was filled with miniture oll derricks to explain to us the suppopsed benefits that the offshore oil rigs gave to sea life! The people effected by these criminal enterprises are nobodies, while the rich owners strut around as if they were the communities’ patron saints of benevolence.

The mermaids cry, the fish do die, and meanwhile, us humans keep dying of cancer. What a stupid way of ‘life’. All because we are taught to adore the rich, and to never, ever question them.

The ecology of America’s rotting food

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A lot has been written about the ecology of America’s rotten food. The book and movie, Food Nation, for example centers in on this American phenomena of bad factory food, leading to bad American taste, leading to bad American health. Fat city. If we keep gaining weight at the present rate our country’s population is doing, one perhaps can figure that the per capita weight per American will be about 10,000 tons apiece in the year 10,000. Holy hippopotamus! But what about the ecology of America’s rotting food? Just how much food does get thrown out? Here is what the food industry itself has to say. Half of US food never gets eaten.

If one looks closely at these statistics, we can see that the majority of the food waste does not come at the family table. According to this study, only 14% of what is bought gets wasted here. A family of 4 spends over $4,000 a year, and could save almost $600 in food costs, if only none of it went to waste. But since the supermarket actually passes much of its waste to the family home, really 14% is not that bad to throw out. Don’t blame the consumer then.

So how does the supermarket force waste on the consumer? Answer; by its constant promotions. For example, why buy 3 lbs of potatos at $0.59/ lb, if the grocer is pushing for you to buy 10 lbs for $1.29? What often happens, is that the consumer buys 10 lbs, then overeats to keep from throwing the food out. So he eats 5 lbs, and then tosses the other half of the then rotting remainder of potatos into the trash. Do we call all this efficiency of the capitalist system, liberty ,and democracy? Or do we call it a big rotten, rotting shame?

So where is all the other waste happening? When I lived in Oregon, I was amazed at how much rotten fruit was hanging in so many trees. At one time, the small family farm had produced orchads all over the state. But all those farmers got driven bankrupt, so their trees still produced fruit, but nobody was around still to pick it. Even the highways had both sides filled with ripe blackberries when in season. The bears were all bankrupt, too, so these delicious berries everywhere just rotted in the sun. All throughout the countryside, food is left to rot.

And look at our public schools. The kids get served about 3 times they could possibly consume, so that food gets thrown out in bushels. All under the guise of making sure nobody goes hungry. Yeah, but then again, all the kids grow fat. And they grow wasteful and slovenly, too.

Have you ever looked at the grocers themselves. High prices everywhere, but is it because what you consume is expensive? It’s more like what they throw away is what costs. You pay for the grocers’ inability to manage the transport of decent food at a decent price. Ever gone into Whole Foods on Academy Blvd.? Look at how many shopping carts are mostly empty. Why? Simply because the prices are too damn high. What do you think happens to all that unsold, high priced ‘organic’ food then? It just gets tossed into the garbage can. You pay for that with their higher prices. It’s all organic, though.

What a disaster all this is ecologically. The liberal sites were all carrying an article last week about the problems that high tech waste was causing ecologically. Computers, cell phones, compact discs, sex toys, tvs, etc. True enough. But to not eat half of the food produced in America is quite an ecological tragedy, too. The soils get worn down, blown away, and the rivers fill up with pig poop. And as grandma used to say,

“Eat all the food on your plate. There is a kid in India that is starving.”

I care, but I don’t think your average American business man gives a damn. He’s proud thinking about how efficient ‘free enterprise’ is in America, for making all of us grow so fat and growing mountains of food in double quantities we don’t really need.

An Inconvenient Truth; Al Gore in the Balance

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This last Friday I headed over to see a herd of well-fed liberals that rodeoed themselves into the Unitarian Church for a free showing of the film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. The corral was packed and after we were informed that a pastor was on the way from Denver to moralize to us later, the film began to roll. Another showing of ‘Al Gore, the Intellectual Politican’ was under way. Hey, it kinda of reminded me of the repeated US`showing of ‘Jimmy Carter, Born Again Liberal Christian’, too. Holy Mackeral. Why buy a used car from the other guys, when we got such a sincere team over at Slick’s Used Cars Emporium?

My daughter was one of about 5 church-like kids dragged into the Unitarian Church that evening. And she lasted only 30 minutes, and then I had to go. She had to go that is, since I actually kind of wanted to stay. The film had a ‘Don’t Feed the Bears’ ambience to it, that made me feel like I was watching a Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo Bear rerun from my youth. Plus, it had that feel of those professional ‘Why You Need to Join Your Local Union’ stuff the AFL-CIO occasionally puts out. But my daughter was demanding that I rent her some obscure foreign film from over at Toons Video instead of staying and watching more of the freebee.

So how the Hell can I review a film when I watched only 30 minutes of it? Easily. I have been watching Al Gore for much longer than just the 90 minutes the film lasts. Here is Mr Environmental Guru as I have seen him over the years.

1) Supported Poppy Bush’s so-called Desert Strom that resulted in the deployment of Depleted Uranium radioctivity across the region. It also led to further environmental catastrophe as Hussein retaliated by incinerating the oil refineries of Kuwait.

2) As VP, he later went on to head up an Adminstration that deliberately targeted Yugoslavia’s civilian infrastructure through a US bombing campaign. As a result, the Danube was totally polluted with highly toxic waste. He also supported 8 years more of continued bombing of Iraq during that time, which certainly did not improve the ecology already destroyed by US warmaking he had supported even when a Republican had been directing the effort.

3) He supported the invasion of Afghanistan, which has left entire regions there decimated by so-called ‘bunker busting’ weaponry. Hardly a major ‘green’ effort on the part of Gore.

4) Gore has sat quiet as Israel bombed a civilian installation in Lebanon, which is a country invaded with total Bush support and complicity. Result?… a tidal wave of petro pollution that is the worst spill ever experienced in the Eastern Meidterranean. It will take decades to repair the damage, yet ‘Green’ Al Gore is silent.

5) Al Gore holds large number of shares in Occidental Oil, the company that polluted the Love Canal in New York State. It is also a company heavily invested in Colombia where Gore has helped have tons of isecticide dropped onto rural areas under the guise of waging a Clinton made ‘drug war’. The company sold off its holdings from the area after their drilling in U’wa tribal lands came up negative. Despite U’wa protests against this drilling, the Gore family held its shares in the company. Too bad the U’wa’s note to Gore was not part of the movie.

We could go on, but why should anyone believe Al Gore is doing anything other than image restructuring for himself, and the Democratic Party? If you are depending on him to be pro-environmental, then I got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. If you are depending on the Democratic Party to stop the Pentagon (which is the main danger to global environments), then you should have your head examined.

A rational assessment

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A guy friend of mine said to me not long ago, “Even when I’m falling in love I’m still aware of the rational assessment I am making.” Really? I’m sure I’m wrong but it seems to me that rational thought and love are polar opposites…unable to understand each other…mortal enemies even. Isn’t love supposed to be an affaire de coeur? Isn’t the rational mind supposed to be balancing the checkbook in the next room while the heart pursues its passion?

I picture my friend in a hip martini bar clutching a clipboard. He carefully approaches each possible “love recipient” with his Rational Assessment Rubric. On a scale of 1 to 10…Physically fit? 8. Clear skin and decent teeth? 7. Reasonably fashionable? 8. Correct eye color? 9.

Next, the home visit. Good floor plan? 8. Interesting decorative touches and finishes? 6. Acceptable lighting? 9. View? 9.

If the assessment is going well, a document inspection follows. Please provide bank and mutual fund statements for the past three years and any other relevant financial information that might help me make my decision. Hmmm, looks quite good. Yes! I’m in love!

After the initial test is passed, I wonder if the score is adjusted periodically. Uh oh, a little thickening at the waistline. Minus 2. Small inheritance from Aunt Edna. Plus 1. How low do the numbers have to fall before it becomes a rational imperative to fall out of love?

I may be mistaken but I thought love was supposed to be unconditional. I thought that to be loved was to be known and accepted, supported, trusted. I believed that it was as much about giving as receiving. Isn’t love supposed to be a sanctuary…a safe haven? This “rational” love feels about as safe as the time I walked on a tightrope drunk in the dark over molten lava (CU-Boulder, 1982 Spring Break). It’s something that I might be able to pull off for a minute or two…certainly not for a life time.

I wonder where my concept of love became so twisted. I think it may be traced back to my days spent in parochial school, memorizing Bible passages, learning that a function of the Holy Ghost is to remind us of what we’ve learned in case we should need it at some point. Maybe that’s why I keep waking up with 1 Corinthians 13 on my mind. Love is patient, love is kind….Love does not brag and is not arrogant….does not seek its own…is not provoked…does not take into account a wrong suffered. Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love endures all things. Love never fails.

I imagine that many, if not most, relationships are based on mutual self-interest. I know that I’ve been a party to many such relationships myself. Indeed, a very rational assessment is made at the outset. Perhaps all along the way. Maybe every single day. And there’s nothing wrong with that if it works for both participants. I think we should call these relationships what they are … friendships, partnerships, pacts, contracts, arrangements. But I hope you’ll agree with me–we should reserve the word love for something more sublime.

Not My Tribe

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NMT. It bears discussing I think, and I hardly know what I’m talking about. Not My Tribe. It’s racist, it’s ethnocentric, it’s xenophobic, it’s human nature.

Avoiding males of another tribe coming your way is self preservation. Being attracted to a person whose physical traits match yours is self-propagation. Looking out for your brother is serving your blood line. Favoring others who look like you, who may be kin from somewhere back, is racism yes, it’s also tribal.

This TV season’s Survivor is catching flack for grouping its contestants into tribes by skin color. Is that appropriate? If the other aspects of Survivor reflected the human struggle, perhaps the tribal groupings would be intriguing. Instead I find the stunt rather distasteful.

For one, the “tribes” will be competing against each other. Is there any doubt that skin color has shown itself to be a statistical predictor of aptitude? Not human potential, mind you, physical aptitude. Are not the fastest runners dark-skinned? Are not most chessmasters light-skinned? In climates where people grow fair-skinned, do they not spend more time reading? Under the sun where people grow dark-skinned, is physical conditioning not more imperative? We should get over the platitude that all men are created equal. They are not. It’s doesn’t mean we can’t respect one another.

Second, what are called “racial” distinctions have little to do with tribe. Black Africans are no more from the same tribe than are whites. We all practice tribal eugenics when we size each other up. Eye color, skin texture, hair type, nose, shape, build. These are the traits which mark our tribes. That’s how we recognize our kin. We compete, but not in dead heats. We assert hierarchies over time, we do not breast-beat about far-reaching superiority. We co-exist.

I wonder if Not My Tribe has a place anymore in modern society. At last the planet has become too small to accomodate elements in the melting pot which resist dissolving. In the process however, I don’t see any benefit to lying about our differences. They’re there, they represent our personal culture, to celebrate and assimilate.

A condemnation of Yellow Journalism

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Everybody recognizes Hearst CastleDoing some wiki research I learned not enough about yellow journalism.
 
You and I know about yellow journalism, the subject rose through the cracks of our otherwise expurgated American history texts. Yellow Journalism. Jingoist press rousing the rabble to war. Leading example, REMEMBER THE MAIN! rallying us to fight Spain and liberate her colonial possessions, Cuba and the Philippines. Chief villainous yellow barron, William Randolph Hearst.
 
We all know about Hearst and his newspaper empire. We know of Marion Davies, Xanadu -I mean San Simeon Castle, Fallen heiress Patty Hearst. We believe Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane was about Hearst, and thus we have a vague notion that Hearst suffered a tragic fall. But did he?

What I was hoping to learn about yellow journalism wasn’t there. History records nothing about a reprimand. Hearst may have lost his childhood Rosebud, but not his media empire and blood-soaked gains. In fact the other chief Yellow miscreant was Joseph Pulitzer. His name is lionized because of the newspaper award that bears his name. A Pulitzer represent integrity in reporting. Isn’t that ironic? It’s akin to Alfred Nobel the father of modern explosives being remembered for peace. Nothing unusual really. Rockefeller and Carnegie are remembered for philanthropy.

Unfortunately we’ve got similarly omniscient barrons today who are blazing new onslaughts with their brazen yellow banners. Rupert Murdock and the xenophobes at Disney have taken Hearst and P.T. Barnum several adages further. Leave no sucker alone.

I’d like to propose that Congress at long last address the villainy of Yellow Journalism. Let our lawmakers consider a proclamation, nay condemnation, a posthumous censure of William Hearst for his unpatriotic, bilious fearmongering with the intent to provoke war.

Let’s propose that should anyone BE TRYING it again, let them face fines and civil liability the likes of which will bankrupt their empires. Let State Reservists sue them for lost resources, let class action suits represent survivors and victims.

War profiteers must be made to turn over their ill-gotten billions to the victims of their yellow-baited wars. The military-industrial complex is guilty, but so too is its mouthpiece the MSM.