The guard towers of Camp Amache, CO, Japanese-American internment camp

Visitors to what remains of the WWII-era Granada Relocation Center located on Highway 50 past Lamar, are tempted to conclude that the remote location was isolation enough to restrict the movement of its 7,000 Japanese-American internees. Gone are all 560 buildings except their concrete foundations; the few remaining photographs depict a vast layout of spartan barracks, playing host to ordinary civilian lives, minus the atmosphere of incarceration. Were there cyclone fences and watch towers? The answer should not surprise you. Of course. Camp Amache was ringed by the usual multiple perimeters of prison fences, including six watch towers manned by military police, who were there, it was explained, for the internees’ protection. I think plans to further restore Amache need to begin with the security fortifications. If such blights on American history as these race-based detention centers are memorialized in the hope that our nation not do it again, it dishonors our victims, and blunts the lesson, not to illustrate our heavy hand.

I attended a recent screening of a documentary made of Camp Amache, attended by its producers, who expressed the usual motivation: in remembrance, never again. Special emphasis was placed on the contributions made by Japanese-Americans during the war, and on the magnanimity with which the internees accepted their lot. Survivors were not to receive an official apology until 45 years later, given $20,000 restitution for their livelihoods and families destroyed. It would be safe to say the audience felt well beyond the prejudice that had motivated their parents. Against Japanese-Americans.

Unfortunately both the documentary and the filmmakers’ commentary left the impression that “never again” describes a successful holding pattern. Of course, America has been at it again and as usual, its citizens have been obliviously complicit.

Look at the War on Islam, which has necessitated the internment of Muslim-Americans and Muslims worldwide. Guantanamo is not much different from the Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA) special Isolation Centers such as Dalton Wells, near Moab, where the WRA sent internees profiled as potential insurgency threats.

America has been building a network of fresh detention facilities to house Hispanic-Americans who run afoul of the country’s illegal labor market. Most of the detainees are promptly deported, but many languish while immigration issues and family ties are sorted out. While ICE pretends to protect the American people from the security-threatening unlawfulness of illegal aliens, in reality its detention centers enforce the successful abuse of a Hispanic-American slave labor pool.

You need only visit a traditional prison or jail to see that an overwhelming disproportion of its inmates are African-American and Hispanic-American, far exceeding what can be excused as representative of America’s poor. The American judicial system is still stacked against non-whites, and motivated by the same racist premise of protecting the security of white Americans.

And of course there are the open air prisons which still incarcerate the Native-Americans, the internment camps we call reservations, the original Wartime Relocation Centers.

Crowd builds in Al Tahrir Square, Cairo, two million defy Mubarak intimidation

Al Jazeera has reasserted live footage in Cairo today, for the Friday demonstration billed as “Day of Departure” meant to depose dictator Mubarak. Already gone are the US major network talking heads, fleeing in advance the predicted mayhem as if to dot the exclamation point of their Chaos in Egypt meme. Alas, they won’t be here to offer color commentary on the hundreds of dozens of demonstrators of indeterminate religious-political orientation massing for Egyptian on Egyptian rioting. For the rest of us, this is a veritable revolution before our eyes. Perhaps the monumental event of our lifetime. Regardless the outcome, most of us are probably so estranged from reality to recognize it. This is what Democracy looks like.

We only know representative democracy, warped beyond recognition by an electoral college system only a statistician’s mother could love. Switzerland is the only direct democracy we’re taught in school. But democratic participation in Switzerland is not much more complicated than a homeowners association in an affluent neighborhood. People power taking to the street, denouncing the illegitimacy of its authoritarian masters, leaderless, allied, that’s real democracy.

What a shame the American celebrities are missing the party. Williams and Couric fled with the expat community, Amanpour is already giving her veneer of respectability to the next interviewee, Zuckerberg not Assange, because the corporate media wants to call this a Facebook revolution sooner than Wikileaks’. Anderson Cooper is cowering on the hotel floor of an undisclosed location, unafraid to confess that he’s fearing for his life, working that [brown] people-are-revolting angle.

On the heroic independent media side, Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous spent the night in Tahrir Square, sleeping among the activists, half of them with bandaged heads, waking at intervals by the alarm sounding for anticipated stone-throwers.

None of the network journos showed any hesitation to criticize the harassment they encountered on the streets, though blaming Mubarak’s thugs was never explicit, and none of them veered from celebrating the riots as “Egypts killing each other.” Even Al Jazeera pretended to confuse the Pro and Anti sides, failing to discriminate between the side which was armed from the side taking cover, the knife wielders from desperate stone throwers trying to keep their attackers at bay.

Finally this morning an AJ text crawl mentioned 300 fatalities since the protests began January 25th, otherwise there has been scant mention of innocent civilians killed, some of them shot in the head by nighttime snipers.

All of the networks, even Al Jazeera express their incredulity that the demonstrators project no central leadership, failing to speculate why that may be.

Al Jazeera takes care to mention, every time they consult one of their three correspondents on the ground, that they omit speaker identities “for their own safety.” Even when they interview activists, the AJ anchors thank them for being brave enough to reveal their real names. Not discussed is the certain probability that calling out a demonstration leader will direct the security apparatus to deploy their snipers, summary arrest, or detention of family members. As the media wax horrific the barbarity of Cairo’s street culture chaos, they maintain a rudely unrealistic civil pretense to mask Egypt’s cruel police state.

My nightmare scenario, now that I’m looking over millions of peaceful undaunted Egyptians chanting for deliverance from their uncaring dictator? I worry about the US advisors reported to have flown into Cairo this morning, reassuring their cabby, it was reported, that everything was going to be fine.

I worry that Washington has spot on advice to offer Mubarak about how to respond to a “million man march.” After all, that’s old hat for DC. Let ’em eat waffle cake.

American protesters get the same response from Obama as they did from Bush 43. Praise for the glorious display of citizens exercising their constitutional rights. Talk away, shout it to the rooftops. Feel better? I hear you America. Thank you for your faith in the system. You are the change you’ve been waiting for. Please collect your refuse on the way out. Be sure to leave something in the hat to cover the expense of the Port-a-Johns. Thank you America, I’m honored, really. Yes we can, see you at the polls in 2012. Thank you for flying Air of Democracy. Bu’bye.

Liberating Egypt over Hosni Mubarak’s dead body, if they must


Besieged Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak refuses to step down. He told the 2 1/2 million strong demonstration in Tahrir Square that he intends to die in Egypt. If the protesters likewise promised to accede only over their dead bodies, I’m certain the Western press would report it as a provocation and in the interest of stability Mubarak would dutifully comply. So what’s a peaceful flash-mob to do? The spontaneously united Egyptian public may not see themselves as revolutionary avengers, but Mubarak seems resolved to play the doomed despot. First the shameful digital blackout, then unleashing his plain-clothed thugs –not counting his 30-year reign of torture and corruption– the more than a hundred peaceful petitioners killed outright this past week may already warrant calls for his head.

While you may think Mubarak has plumbed the depths of despicable last acts, the protesters are still vulnerable to his clutches. His looter/saboteurs can be unmasked as security agents, his pro-Mubarak counter-protesters revealed to be armed strike-breakers, the army soldiers can be lured over to the people’s side, but Mubarak retains the facility to direct pinpoint arrests and detentions.

Many key protest organizers are missing, and there’s time for the remainder to fall prey.

An interesting fracas has been playing out on Twitter, where help is being solicited to confirm who’s been arrested. The appeals come from alarmed participants, worried for their comrades, but curiously there is disagreement over who is or isn’t missing. That’s clue one that something’s amiss. At first glance, disinformation agents might be trying to spread confusion, but the probability is more sinister. By pretending to want confirmation of the whereabouts of particular key organizers, Mubarak’s police state can locate and pounce on them. In the chaos of the demonstrations, it won’t even look methodical. Similarly, unsuspecting protest participants are volunteering to help identify faces in particular arrest videos, in an innocent accounting of heads, without thinking it’s the sate who wants to know.

The Egyptian youth spearheading the protests are laying siege to Cairo, hoping Hosni Mubarak will eventually capitulate. Every day has presented the expectation that the massive public display would shame the dictator to resign. The planned march to his palace today was meant to be a one way storming of the Bastille.

Curiously, opposition spokesman Mohamed ElBaradei, the only prominent voice at hand, gave President Mubarak until Friday to step down. “D-day” it’s being called, which stands for departure, presumably for the English hearing media. Rome wasn’t built in a day, baby steps, etc, but I can’t help but worry that the endurance of the demonstrators will be the more sorely tried. They, not Mubarak, have to face the counter-revolutionary public reaction to the disruptive effects of a prolonged stalemate. They have to face the long knives of Mubarak’s thugs, rumored to outnumber the million man number. And they the protest leaders will disappear with the regularly of their bathroom visits, as Mubarak’s security apparatus discovers one by one who and where they are.

The Western media is already complaining that the revolution has no ascending leadership. The organizers are wise to keep their heads down. Wait and see who survives until Friday.

It’s the 9th anniversary of our illegal prison: Close Guantanamo Asshole!

Is that disrespectful? IS THAT BEING TOO IMPOLITE? Is that showing INSUFFICIENT DEFERENCE TO THE TORTURER-IN-CHIEF? –who promised to close Guantanamo two years earlier but avers now because he was not allocated the funds to lock-up the prisoners elsewhere, or can’t find courts for his kangaroos, because this president thinks don’t do illegal detention, rendition and torture means don’t do it where we can see you. CLOSE IT. Take Gitmo’s remaining operating budget and fly the whole camp home. THEN, then hold a huge gala fundraiser, several million dollars a plate, where all your warmonger and torture cronies and their spouses can hold a raffle for one lucky couple to MAYBE be granted amnesty against charges of war crimes. How’s that for an exit strategy? Last chance. THEN take the sum raised as an offering to the freed detainees, prostrate yourself to beg their forgiveness –how could you not mean it?– and dare not begrudge even one of the unfortunate souls who might demand your heads on a platter in the bargain. IN THE MEANTIME, I’ll think on whether I’m showing disrespect.

Ghailani innocence proves Guantanamo can’t trust US civilian courts to uphold terrorism threat charade

Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was acquitted of all significant terrorism charges. The victory/defeat is being hailed as a setback to efforts to close the illegal US detention facility. Come again? Apparently President Obama can end torture renditions to Guantanamo if he can be assured that kangaroo courts elsewhere can keep the alleged evildoers from roaming free. OR Ghailani’s acquittal could cement the precedence set by the hundreds of innocents already released from US extrajudicial detention, that not even a court of law will assert these men are guilty. America’s Islamic-blood-thirsty press, led by NYT, WP & LAT, are whining that Ghailani’s confession was determined inadmissible because it was obtained under torture, or as they put it, “torture.”

Are FBI raids on activists focused on UNAC strategies?

The UNAC is claiming that recent FBI raids on the offices of various antiwar organizations are linked to those which attended its July conference, an attempt to coordinate national antiwar activities.

Even the title of the conference was never pinned down. Here are the 28 action points decided for the upcoming year, which reads like a clearinghouse of ideas.

Action Program Adopted by the National Conference to Bring the Troops Home Now!

Albany, New York, July 25, 2010

1.
The Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the United Auto Workers (UAW) have invited peace organizations to endorse and participate in a campaign for Jobs, Justice, and Peace. We endorse this campaign and plan to be a part of it. On August 28, 2010, in Detroit, we will march on the anniversary of that day in 1963 when Walter Reuther, president of the UAW, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders joined with hundreds of thousands of Americans for the March on Washington. In Detroit, prior to the March on Washington, 125,000 marchers participated in the Freedom Walk led by Dr. King. At the march, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech for the first time before sharing it with the world in Washington. This year, a massive march has been called for October 2 in Washington. We will begin to build momentum again in Detroit on August 28th. We also endorse the August 28, 2010 Reclaim the Dream Rally and March called by Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network to begin at 11 a.m. at Dunbar High School, 1301 New Jersey Avenue Northwest, Washington D.C. .

2.
Endorse, promote and mobilize for the Saturday, October 2nd “One Nation” march on Washington, DC initiated by 1199SEIU and the NAACP, now being promoted by a growing coalition, which includes the AFL-CIO and U.S. Labor Against the War, and civil rights, peace and other social justice forces in support of the demand for jobs, redirection of national resources from militarism and war to meeting human needs, fully funding vital social programs, and addressing the fiscal crisis of state and local governments. Organize and build an antiwar contingent to participate in the march. Launch a full-scale campaign to get endorsements for the October 2 march on Washington commencing with the final plenary session of this conference.

3.
Endorse the call issued by a range of student groups for Thursday, October 7, as a national day of action to defend education from the horrendous budget cuts that are laying off teachers, closing schools, raising tuition and limiting access to education, especially for working and low income people. Demand “Money for Education, not U.S. Occupations” and otherwise link the cuts in spending for education to the astronomical costs of U.S. wars and occupations.

4.
Devote October 7-16 to organizing local and regional protests to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan through demonstrations, marches, rallies, vigils, teach-ins, cultural events and other actions to demand an immediate end to the wars and occupations in both Iraq and Afghanistan and complete withdrawal of all military forces and private security contractors and other mercenaries. The nature and scheduling of these events will reflect the needs of local sponsors and should be designed to attract broad co-sponsorship and diverse participation of antiwar forces with other social justice organizations and progressive constituencies.

5.
The U.S. military is the largest polluter in the world. Therefore, we endorse the “climate chaos” demonstration in Washington D.C. on October 11, coordinated by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance.

6.
Support and build Remember Fallujah Week November 15-19.

7.
Join the new and existing broad-based campaigns to fund human needs and cut the military budget. Join with organizations representing the fight against cutbacks (especially labor and community groups) to build coalitions at the city/town, state and national level. Draft resolutions for city councils, town and village meetings and voter referendum ballot questions linking astronomical war spending to denial of essential public services at home. (Model resolutions and ballot questions will be circulated for consideration of local groups.) Obtain endorsements of elected officials, town and city councils, state parties and legislatures, and labor bodies. Work the legislative process to make military spending an issue. Oppose specific military funding programs and bills, and couple them with human needs funding issues. Use lobbying and other forms of protest, including civil disobedience campaigns, to focus attention on the issue.

8.
Mid-March, 2011 nationally coordinated local teach-ins and protests to mark the eighth year of the Iraq War and to prepare for bi-coastal spring demonstrations the following month.

9.
Bi-Coastal mass spring mobilizations in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles on April 9, 2011. These will be accompanied by distinct and separate non-violent direct actions on the same day. A prime component of these mobilizations will be major efforts to include broad new forces from youth to veterans to trade unionists to civil and human rights groups to the Arab, Muslim and other oppressed communities, to environmental organizations, social justice and faith-based groups. Veterans and military families will be key to these mobilizations with special efforts to organize this community to be the lead contingent. Launch a full-scale campaign to get endorsements for these actions commencing with the final plenary session of this conference.

10.
Select a week prior to or after the April actions for local lobbying of elected officials at a time when Congress is not in session. Lobbying to take multiple forms from meeting with local officials to protests at their offices and homes. We will attend the town hall meetings of our Congresspersons and confront them vigorously on their support for the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and sanctions on Iran. We also will press them on the unconstitutional diminution of the civil liberties of all Americans and targeted populations.

11.
Consistent with the call to include broad popular sectors of society in our efforts and to contend with the challenges of opposing U.S. wars and occupations while also rejecting attacks at home, National Peace Conference participants will join May Day actions on May 1, 2011, so as to unite all those standing against war and for rights. U.S. military and trade wars force millions of refugees and migrants to the U.S., where they face growing repression, including mass detentions and deportations. Many immigrants, including youth, are forced into the military, through the economic draft as well as under threat of deportation and using false promises of citizenship. By standing together as one on May Day, the antiwar and immigrant rights movements make clear their united stand against U.S. wars and for the rights of all at home and abroad.

12.
National tours: Organize, over a series of months, nationally-coordinated tours of prominent speakers and local activists that link the demands for immediate withdrawal to the demands for funding social programs, as outlined above. Encourage alternatives to military/lethal intervention, relying on research and experience of local and international peace team efforts.

13.
Pressure on Iran from the U.S., Israel and other quarters continues to rise and the threat of a catastrophic military attack on Iran, as well as the ratcheting up of punitive sanctions that primarily impact the people of that country, are of grave concern. In the event of an imminent U.S. government attack on Iran, or such an attack, or a U.S.-backed Israeli attack against Iran, or any other major international crisis triggered by U.S. military action, a continuations committee approved by the conference will mount rapid, broad and nationally coordinated protests by antiwar and social justice activists.

14.
In the event of U.S.-backed military action by Israel against Palestinians, aid activists attempting to end the blockade of Gaza, or attacks on other countries such as Lebanon, Syria, or Iran, a continuations committee approved by the conference will condemn such attacks and support widespread protest actions.

15.
In solidarity with the antiwar movements of Japan and Korea, each calling for U.S. Troops to Get Out Now, and given the great increase in U.S. military preparations against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, National Peace Conference participants will organize immediate protests following any attack by the U.S. on Korea. U.S. war preparations include stockpiling hundreds of bunker-busters and conducting major war games near the territorial waters of China and Korea. In keeping with our stand for the right of self-determination and our demand of Out Now, the National Peace Conference calls for Bringing All U.S. Troops Home Now!

16.
Support actions to end the Israeli occupation and repression of Palestinians and the blockade of Gaza.

17.
Support actions aimed at dismantling the Cold War nuclear, biological, radiological and chemical weapons and delivery systems. Support actions aimed at stopping the nuclear renaissance of this Administration, which has proposed to spend $80 billion over the next 10 years to build three new nuclear bomb making facilities and “well over” $100 billion over the same period to modernize nuclear weapons delivery systems. We must support actions aimed at dismantling nuclear, biological, radiological and chemical weapons and delivery systems. We must oppose the re-opening of the uranium mining industry, new nuclear power plants, and extraction of other fossil fuels that the military consumes.

18.
Work in solidarity with GIs, veterans, and military families to support their campaigns and calls for action. Demand support for the troops when they return home and support efforts to counter military recruitment.

19.
Take actions against war profiteers, including oil and energy companies, weapons manufacturers, and engineering firms, whose contractors are working to insure U.S. economic control of Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s resources.

20.
Support actions, educational efforts and lobbying campaigns to promote a transition to a sustainable peace economy.

21.
Develop and implement a multi-pronged national media campaign which includes the following: the honing of a message which will capture our message: “End the Wars and Occupations, Bring the Dollars Home;” a fundraising campaign which would enable the creation and national placement and broadcast of professionally developed print ads as public service radio and television spots which communicate this imperative to the public as a whole (which would involve coordinated outreach to some major funders); outreach to sympathetic media artists to enable the creation of these pieces; an intentional, aggressive, coordinated campaign to garner interviews on as many targeted national news venues as possible which would feature movement voices speaking our nationally coordinated message to the honed; a plan to place on message op-ed pieces in papers around the country on a nationally coordinated schedule.

22.
We demand the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq, and an end to drone attacks on Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries and call for self-determination for the people of all countries. In this demand is the necessity for full truth and transparency regarding all U.S./NATO actions and an expanded development of independent news sources for broad public knowledge of the state of the wars and occupations. We demand an end to censorship of news topics and full democratic access to freedom of information within the U.S. NATO Military Industrial Media Empire.

23.
We call for the equal participation of women in all aspects of the antiwar movement. We propose nonviolent direct actions either in Congressional offices or other appropriate and strategic locations, possibly defense contractors, Federal Buildings, or military bases in the U.S. These actions would be local and coordinated nationally, i.e., the same day for everyone (times may vary). The actions would probably result in arrests for sitting in after offices close. Entering certain facilities could also result in arrests. Participants would be prepared for that possible outcome before joining the action. Nonviolence training would be offered locally, with lists of trainers being made available. The message/demand would be a vote, a congressional action to end the wars: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Close U.S. bases. Costs of war and financial issues related to social needs neglected because of war spending would need to be studied and statements regarding same be prepared before the actions. Press release would encourage coverage because of the actions being local and nationally coordinated.

24.
We will convene one or more committees or conferences for the purpose of identifying and arranging boycotts, sit-ins, and other actions that directly interfere with the immoral aspects of the violence and wars that we protest.

25.
We call for the immediate release from Israeli prisons of Mordechai Vanunu and for ending restrictions on his right to speak. We also call upon the Israeli government to let him travel freely and to leave Israel permanently if he so desires.

26.
We oppose the prosecution for Bradley Manning for being the source of the Wikileaks leaks. Manning has done what all GIs should do when they see war crimes: expose them! Bradley Manning’s prosecution sends a message that if you expose illegal activity in the military, you will be prosecuted. We call for the unconditional release of Bradley Manning and an end to all war crimes.

27.
We call for building and expanding the movement for peace by consciously and continually linking it with the urgent necessity to create jobs and fund social needs. We call for support from the antiwar movement to tie the wars and the funding for the wars to the urgent domestic issues through leaflets, signs, banners and active participation in the growing number of mass actions demanding jobs, health care, housing, education and immigrant rights such as:

July 25 – March in Albany in Support of Muslims Targeted by Preemptive Prosecution called by the Muslim Solidarity Committee and Project SALAM.

July 29 & 30 – Boycott Arizona Actions across the country as racist Arizona law SB 1070 goes into effect, including the mass march July 30 in NYC as the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Mets.

All the other mass actions listed above leading up to the bi-coastal actions on April 9, 2011.

28.
The continuations committee elected at this conference shall reach out to other peace and social justice groups holding protests in the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2011, where such groups’ demands and tactics are not inconsistent with those adopted at the UNAC conference, on behalf of exploring ways to maximize unity within the peace and social justice movements this fall and next spring.

Accounting for IDF missing intelligence

The results of Israel’s self-investigation of the Mavi Marmara Massacre are in: surprise, the IDF commandos did no wrong, but were set back by a deficiency of intelligence. It’s what many of us were already thinking, but there’s another punchline which Israel invites by pairing the deadly raid with IDF “intelligence” assets gone missing.
Infiltrators aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, seen on thermal video purporting to depict Israeli commandos being beat by Turkish peace activists
Six passengers of the humanitarian convoy are still unaccounted for. Rumors spread they may have been tossed off the ship, or languish in Israeli detention, but the trouble is, the six are also lacking for anyone missing them. Without friends or families registering concern, the convoy organizers can now deduce that the six were agents of Israel, who elected obviously to stay behind in Israel. Might this be because they were the principal provocateurs brandishing the pipes to give the IDF boarders pretext to fire upon the activists?

That would be a “pretext” in hindsight of course, because the record is emerging that the Israeli commandos were firing on the ship well in advance of attempting a boarding party. One of the objectives Israel had in detaining the activists was to prevent their account of the raid from reaching public eyes before the IDF could inundate Youtube with clips of what it planned to pretend had happened.

From the video spread round by the IDF, one gets the impression the Israeli soldiers were pummeled to within an inch of their lives. But in reality the soldiers emerged nearly unscathed. Is it possible the pipe-wielders were striking against the deck and serving also to keep the genuine activists at bay?

In fact the video footage which the activists succeeded in spiriting past their IDF jailers show the same scene devoid of what Israel described as a “lynch.” What may have looked like beatings, from Israel’s thermal camera aimed from beside the Marmara, did not register at all from up close. Curiously stealthy choreography.

While we look for the incriminating names, here are the US senators and congressmen who’ve signed on to letters drafted by AIPAC to show their support for Israel’s raid on the humanitarian convoy, and to urge President Obama to use the Security Council veto power to block any effort to investigate the killings.

Signatories to the Reid-McConnell Letter
on the Gaza Flotilla Incident

Total Number of Signatories: 85

As of June 18, 2010

Senator State Party
Alexander, Lamar TN R
Barrasso, John WY R
Baucus, Max MT D
Bayh, Evan IN D
Begich, Mark AK D
Bennet, Michael CO D
Bennett, Robert UT R
Bond, Christopher MO R
Boxer, Barbara CA D
Brown, Scott MA R
Brown, Sherrod OH D
Brownback, Sam KS R
Burr, Richard NC R
Burris, Roland W. IL D
Cantwell, Maria WA D
Cardin, Ben MD D
Carper, Tom DE D
Casey Jr., Bob PA D
Chambliss, Saxby GA R
Coburn, Tom OK R
Cochran, Thad MS R
Collins, Susan ME R
Conrad, Kent ND D
Corker, Bob TN R
Cornyn, John TX R
Crapo, Mike ID R
DeMint, Jim SC R
Dorgan, Byron ND D
Durbin, Richard IL D
Ensign, John NV R
Enzi, Mike WY R
Feinstein, Dianne CA D
Franken, Al MN D
Gillibrand, Kirsten NY D
Graham, Lindsey SC R
Grassley, Charles IA R
Hagan, Kay NC D
Hatch, Orrin UT R
Hutchinson, Kay Bailey TX R
Inhofe, Jim OK R
Inouye, Daniel HI D
Isakson, Johnny GA R
Johanns, Mike NE R
Johnson, Tim SD D
Kaufman, Ted DE D
Klobuchar, Amy MN D
Kohl, Herbert WI D
Kyl, Jon AZ R
Landrieu, Mary LA D
Lautenberg, Frank NJ D
LeMieux, George FL R
Levin, Carl MI D
Lieberman, Joseph CT I
Lincoln, Blanche AR D
Lugar, Richard IN R
McCain, John AZ R
McCaskill, Claire MO D
McConnell, Mitch KY R
Menendez, Bob NJ D
Mikulski, Barbara MD D
Murkowski, Lisa AK R
Murray, Patty WA D
Nelson, Ben NE D
Nelson, Bill FL D
Pryor, Mark AR D
Reed, Jack RI D
Reid, Harry NV D
Risch, Jim ID R
Roberts, Pat KS R
Schumer, Charles NY D
Sessions, Jeff AL R
Shaheen, Jeanne NH D
Shelby, Richard AL R
Snowe, Olympia ME R
Specter, Arlen PA D
Stabenow, Debbie MI D
Tester, John MT D
Thune, John SD R
Udall, Mark CO D
Vitter, David LA R
Voinovich, George OH R
Warner, Mark VA D
Whitehouse, Sheldon RI D
Wicker, Roger MS R
Wyden, Ron OR D

Colorado’s on board!

Signatories to the Poe-Peters Letter
on the Gaza Flotilla Incident

Total Number of Signatories: 292

As of June 21, 2010

House Member Party State
Ackerman, Gary D NY
Aderholt, Robert R AL
Adler, John D NJ
Akin, Todd R MO
Alexander, Rodney R LA
Altmire, Jason D PA
Andrews, Rob D NJ
Arcuri, Mike D NY
Austria, Steve R OH
Baca, Joe D CA
Bachmann, Michele R MN
Bachus, Spencer R AL
Barrett, Gresham R SC
Barrow, John D GA
Bartlett, Roscoe R MD
Barton, Joe R TX
Berkley, Shelley D NV
Berman, Howard D CA
Biggert, Judy R IL
Bilbray, Brian R CA
Bilirakis, Gus R FL
Bishop, Rob R UT
Bishop, Sanford D GA
Bishop, Tim D NY
Blackburn, Marsha R TN
Blunt, Roy R MO
Boccieri, John D OH
Boehner, John R OH
Bonner, Jo R AL
Bono Mack, Mary R CA
Boozman, John R AR
Boren, Dan D OK
Boswell, Leonard D IA
Boyd, Allen D FL
Brady, Kevin R TX
Brady, Robert D PA
Bright, Bobby D AL
Broun, Paul R GA
Brown, Corrine D FL
Brown, Henry R SC
Brown-Waite, Ginny R FL
Buchanan, Vern R FL
Burgess, Michael R TX
Burton, Dan R IN
Buyer, Steve R IN
Calvert, Ken R CA
Camp, Dave R MI
Campbell, John R CA
Cantor, Eric R VA
Cao, Anh “Joseph” R LA
Capito, Shelley Moore R WV
Cardoza, Dennis D CA
Carnahan, Russ D MO
Carney, Chris D PA
Carter, John R TX
Cassidy, Bill R LA
Castle, Michael R DE
Castor, Kathy D FL
Chaffetz, Jason R UT
Chandler, Ben D KY
Childers, Travis D MS
Coble, Howard R NC
Coffman, Mike R CO
Cohen, Steve D TN
Cole, Tom R OK
Conaway, Michael R TX
Cooper, Jim D TN
Costa, Jim D CA
Crenshaw, Ander R FL
Critz, Mark D PA
Crowley, Joseph D NY
Cuellar, Henry D TX
Culberson, John R TX
Davis, Artur D AL
Davis, Geoff R KY
Davis, Lincoln D TN
Davis, Susan D CA
DeLauro, Rosa D CT
Dent, Charlie R PA
Deutch, Ted D FL
Diaz-Balart, Lincoln R FL
Diaz-Balart, Mario R FL
Djou, Charles R HI
Donnelly, Joe D IN
Dreier, David R CA
Driehaus, Steve D OH
Ehlers, Vern R MI
Ellsworth, Brad D IN
Emerson, JoAnn R MO
Engel, Eliot D NY
Fallin, Mary R OK
Flake, Jeff R AZ
Fleming, John R LA
Forbes, Randy R VA
Foster, Bill D IL
Foxx, Virginia R NC
Frank, Barney D MA
Franks, Trent R AZ
Frelinghuysen, Rodney R NJ
Gallegly, Elton R CA
Garrett, Scott R NJ
Gerlach, James R PA
Giffords, Gabrielle D AZ
Gingrey, Phil R GA
Gohmert, Louie R TX
Goodlatte, Robert R VA
Gordon, Bart D TN
Granger, Kay R TX
Graves, Sam R MO
Grayson, Alan D FL
Green, Gene D TX
Griffith, Parker R AL
Guthrie, Brett R KY
Hall, John D NY
Hall, Ralph R TX
Halvorson, Debbie D IL
Hare, Phil D IL
Harman, Jane D CA
Harper, Gregg R MS
Hastings, Alcee D FL
Hastings, Doc R WA
Heinrich, Martin D NM
Heller, Dean R NV
Hensarling, Jeb R TX
Herger, Wally R CA
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie D SD
Higgins, Brian D NY
Himes, Jim D CT
Hodes, Paul D NH
Holden, Tim D PA
Holt, Rush D NJ
Hoyer, Steny D MD
Hunter, Duncan D. R CA
Israel, Steve D NY
Jackson, Jesse, Jr. D IL
Jenkins, Lynn R KS
Johnson, Sam R TX
Johnson, Tim R IL
Jordan, Jim R OH
Kagen, Steve D WI
Kildee, Dale D MI
King, Peter R NY
King, Steve R IA
Kingston, Jack R GA
Kirk, Mark R IL
Kirkpatrick, Ann D AZ
Kissell, Larry D NC
Klein, Ron D FL
Kline, John R MN
Kosmas, Suzanne D FL
Kratovil, Frank D MD
Lamborn, Doug R CO
Lance, Leonard R NJ
Langevin, Jim D RI
Larsen, Rick D WA
Larson, John D CT
Latham, Tom R IA
LaTourette, Steven R OH
Latta, Bob R OH
Lee, Christopher R NY
Levin, Sander D MI
Lewis, Jerry R CA
Linder, John R GA
Lipinski, Daniel D IL
LoBiondo, Frank R NJ
Lowey, Nita D NY
Lucas, Frank R OK
Luetkemeyer, Blaine R MO
Lummis, Cynthia R WY
Lungren, Dan R CA
Mack, Connie R FL
Maffei, Dan D NY
Maloney, Carolyn D NY
Manzullo, Donald R IL
Marchant, Kenny R TX
Marshall, Jim D GA
Matheson, Jim D UT
McCarthy, Carolyn D NY
McCarthy, Kevin R CA
McCaul, Michael R TX
McClintock, Tom R CA
McCotter, Thaddeus R MI
McHenry, Patrick R NC
McIntyre, Mike D NC
McKeon, Howard “Buck” R CA
McMahon, Michael D NY
McMorris Rodgers, Cathy R WA
McNerney, Jerry D CA
Meek, Kendrick D FL
Mica, John R FL
Miller, Candice R MI
Miller, Gary R CA
Miller, Jeff R FL
Minnick, Walt D ID
Mitchell, Harry D AZ
Moore, Dennis D KS
Moran, Jerry R KS
Murphy, Patrick D PA
Myrick, Sue R NC
Nadler, Jerrold D NY
Neal, Richard D MA
Neugebauer, Randy R TX
Nunes, Devin R CA
Nye, Glenn D VA
Olson, Pete R TX
Ortiz, Solomon D TX
Owens, Bill D NY
Pallone, Frank D NJ
Paulsen, Erik R MN
Pence, Mike R IN
Perlmutter, Ed D CO
Peters, Gary D MI
Peterson, Collin D MN
Pitts, Joseph R PA
Platts, Todd R PA
Poe, Ted R TX
Polis, Jared D CO
Posey, Bill R FL
Price, Tom R GA
Putnam, Adam R FL
Quigley, Mike D IL
Radanovich, George R CA
Rehberg, Dennis R MT
Reichert, Dave R WA
Reyes, Silvestre D TX
Roe, Phil R TN
Rogers, Harold R KY
Rogers, Mike R MI
Rogers, Mike R AL
Rohrabacher, Dana R CA
Rooney, Tom R FL
Roskam, Peter R IL
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana R FL
Ross, Mike D AR
Rothman, Steve D NJ
Royce, Ed R CA
Ruppersberger, C.A. Dutch D MD
Ryan, Paul R WI
Salazar, John D CO
Sanchez, Linda D CA
Sarbanes, John D MD
Scalise, Steve R LA
Schakowsky, Jan D IL
Schauer, Mark D MI
Schiff, Adam D CA
Schmidt, Jean R OH
Schock, Aaron R IL
Schwartz, Allyson D PA
Sensenbrenner, James R WI
Sessions, Pete R TX
Sestak, Joe D PA
Shadegg, John R AZ
Sherman, Brad D CA
Shimkus, John R IL
Shuler, Heath D NC
Shuster, William R PA
Simpson, Mike R ID
Sires, Albio D NJ
Skelton, Ike D MO
Slaughter, Louise D NY
Smith, Adrian R NE
Smith, Christopher R NJ
Smith, Lamar R TX
Space, Zack D OH
Spratt, John D SC
Stearns, Cliff R FL
Sullivan, John R OK
Sutton, Betty D OH
Teague, Harry D NM
Terry, Lee R NE
Terry, Lee R TX
Thompson, Glenn R PA
Thornberry, William R TX
Tiahrt, Todd R KS
Tiberi, Pat R OH
Titus, Dina D NV
Tonko, Paul D NY
Turner, Mike R OH
Upton, Fred R MI
Walden, Greg R OR
Wamp, Zach R TN
Wasserman Schultz, Debbie D FL
Waxman, Henry D CA
Weiner, Anthony D NY
Westmoreland, Lynn R GA
Whitfield, Edward R KY
Wilson, Joe R SC
Wittman, Rob R VA
Wolf, Frank R VA
Yarmuth, John D KY
Young, C.W. Bill R FL
Young, Don R AK

Israeli yacht club sends Anti-Freedom Flotilla to protest Gaza relief convoy


PICTURES! -Some very expensive yachts sailed from Herziliya Yacht Club in a feint of indignation that an international social justice effort was showing favoritism toward Palestinians. No Gaza yacht club could be reached for a response. Commodore Guy Bechor, an outspoken Zionist, led the ostentatious flotilla in protest of the humanitarian aid convoy attempting to break the siege of Gaza, which he belittled as “rusty tin cans.”

The banners for their private regatta? TURKEY=IRAN? and FREE GILAD, an interesting conceit. 1.5 million Gazans are being blockaded to coerce the release of one Israeli POW. That’s a ratio similar to the disproportionate casualties of the 2008 Gaza “War.”

While soldier Gilad Shalit is considered a hostage of Hamas, he was an IDF soldier captured by the resistance. Israel holds 8,000 Palestinians in detention, not counting all the residents of Gaza.

The Gaza Massacre, like the ongoing siege itself, is recognized as an illegal act of collective punishment. A fact apparently lost on the Yerziliya skippers. Likewise the disconnect they display in presuming to insult the Turkish leader by associating him with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Though the yacht flotilla raised fears of creating an embarrassing confrontation with the humanitarian fleet, in reality it was a single day affair. The Israeli counter protesters were informed that the entire coast of Gaza has been cordoned by the Israeli navy. The pretext it will use to try to arrest the Freedom Flotilla blockade runners.

Bechor’s website G-planet celebrates all the press they received, I don’t see the harm in giving them more. These pictures speak a thousand words, almost as many days as Gaza has been under illegal siege.

See more pictures at Bechor’s Facebook album. The irony of the singular concern for Gilad Shalit might have caused Bechor to think twice about the message. All photos of yachts featuring the banners about Shalit have been curiously scrubbed, but they remain on some Turkish news sites.

Bechor list dozens of Turkish media outlets which covered his anti-relief regatta, demonstrating a strategy of aiming to undercut Turkish public support for what it predominantly its humanitarian effort. While several of the outlets might be Hasbara properties echoing Israel PR, most of the articles about the Israeli counter-protest make as much fun of it as we.

For the record, here is the port at Gaza, absent of yachts. The relief convoy will even have to improvise docks for unloading their supplies.

ACLU defends Freedom of Speech: that of yours, mine, Nazis or corporations

COLORADO SPRINGS- The local Springs ACLU chapter is challenging the national office’s position on the recent Citizens United victory and I’m torn. I am as anti-corporate as the next rabid class-war insurgent, but the longstanding corporate personhood abomination is a separate abuse than the oppression of civil liberties. It’s clear that one impacts the other, but until we clarify who’s a “who,” the ACLU is determined to exclude no one from First Amendment protection. Make sense?

When and if the immortality advantages of corporate trusts can reigned in, the political power of the individual will be more secure. But an opposite Citizens United verdict would have left American individuals with limits on their speech. You don’t pass respiratory restrictions in Pigville just because the Big Bad Wolf is in town. You charge him with threatening illegal acts, etc, before you abridge the rights of all citizens in the name of security.

In social justice type affinity groups, I certainly believe there are times when the grassroots have to wag their dog gone somnolent. More often however, dissension generates from a malignant insurrection against the founding principles with which the provincial members have lost sight. My experience has been that local ACLU groups, Denver included, are exaggeratedly vigilant about asking “is this a civil liberties issue?” for fear of being seen to address a problem that has become politicized.

Defenders of the last administration for example were desperate to prevent activists from getting the support and sponsorship of established advocacy groups like the ACLU.

Lamentably, believe it or not, some ACLU self-obstructionists differentiate human rights abuses from civil liberties. They see the issue as “partisan.” Because critics of the Patriot Act are often Democrats, Republicans find themselves tasked with defending it. Likewise, illegal war, war crimes, rendition, illegal detention, etc, are also too partisan to address, even as they constitute affronts to the civil liberties of all.

It’s become very clear to me that both Denver and Colorado Springs chapters are dominated by conservative voices who restrict local ACLU activities to conducting public discussion groups, as opposed to speaking out about federal and local abuses which are usual targets of the national office.

The upcoming forum on Corporate Personhood, this Thursday night at Shove Chapel at Colorado College, is clearly outside the purview of civil liberties, but may have escaped our local ACLU’s conservative corporatists explicitly because it goes against the ACLU leadership.

To my mind however, the event will serve two goods. One, we take on corporations, and two our action alerts ACLU Washington about the rotten apples in our midst. Obstructionists are perhaps ever present, but headquarters might generate some guidelines about how to further root them out. A simple essay test about “what are civil liberties” would suffice for me. The next member who points to an ACLU talking point and avers “I don’t see how this is a civil liberties issue” gets the boot.

The most pathetic recurring argument is that the ACLU should only concern itself with the Civil Liberties of “Americans.” The National ACLU has of course argued for the rights of foreign nationals, even those living overseas who have been targets of extradition, as well as peoples of foreign lands under the jurisdiction of American authority; leased properties such as oversees bases for example, and entire nations we’ve invaded. Where should borders demarc free-of-liberties-zones?

The same critics of course show no qualms about US military forces subjugating other peoples in the name of “Freedom” without thought that our liberation of capitalist forces should come with some protections. Pax Americana minus the Americana Bill of Rights.

Challenged about its public support of the Citizens United case, the ACLU offered this unapologetic explanation:

“The ACLU has consistently taken the position that section 203 is facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it permits the suppression of core political speech, and our amicus brief takes that position again.”

The fallout has been heated, but I’ve enjoyed the parallels drawn to the infamous occasion when the ACLU protected the right of Nazis to march in the predominantly Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie Illinois. Yes the ACLU will fight for NAMBLA, Nazis and corporations, and no one bats an eye at the affinity of the three.

The 2009 Amicus Brief which the ACLU filed in support of Citizens United is viewable online (PDF), here are the preface sections:

AMICUS CURIAEBRIEF OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL

LIBERTIES UNION IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANT

ON SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTION

INTEREST OF AMICUS

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nationwide, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with more than 500,000 members dedicated to the principles of liberty and equality embodied in the Constitution and our nation’s civil rights laws.

For the past three decades, the ACLU has been deeply engaged in the effort to reconcile campaign finance legislation and First Amendment principles, from Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), where we represented our New York affiliate, to McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93 (2003), where the ACLU was both co-counsel and plaintiff, to Randall v. Sorrell, 548 U.S. 230 (2006), where we were lead counsel. In addition, the ACLU has appeared as amicus curiae in many of this Court’s campaign finance cases, including FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (“WRTL”), 551 U.S. 449 (2007).

As framed by the Court’s reargument order, 2009 WL 1841614 (2009), this case presents fundamental questions concerning the constitutionally permissible scope of campaign finance regulation that this Court first confronted in Buckley and subsequently revisited in McConnell and WRTL. The proper resolution of that delicate balance remains an issue of substantial importance to the ACLU and its members.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The broad prohibition on “electioneering communications” set forth in § 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), 2 U.S.C. § 441b(b)(2), violates the First Amendment, and the limiting construction adopted by this Court in WRTL is insufficient to save it. Accordingly, the Court should strike down § 203 as facially unconstitutional and overrule that portion of McConnell that holds otherwise.

This brief addresses only that question. It does not address the additional question raised by this Court’s reargument order: namely, whether Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990), should be overruled. However, if Austin is overruled and the ban on express advocacy by corporations and unions is struck down, then the ban on “electioneering communications” in § 203 would necessarily fall as a consequence.

Even if Austin is not overruled, § 203 is unconstitutional precisely because it extends beyond the express advocacy at issue in Austin. The history of the McConnell litigation, as well as campaign finance litigation before and after McConnell, demonstrates that there is no precise or predictable way to determine whether or not political speech is the “functional equivalent” of express advocacy.

The decision in WRTL correctly recognized that the BCRA’s prophylactic ban on “electioneering communications” threatened speech that lies at the heart of the First Amendment, including genuine issue ads by nonpartisan organizations like the ACLU. But the reformulated ban crafted by this Court in WRTL continues to threaten core First Amendment speech. Its reliance on the hypothetical response of a reasonable listener still leaves speakers guessing about what speech is lawful and what speech is not. That uncertainty invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. It will also lead many speakers to self-censor rather than risk sanctions or undertake the expense of suing the FEC prior to speaking, especially since most suits will not be resolved until long after the speech is timely and relevant.

In short, § 203 was a poorly conceived effort to restrict political speech and should be struck down.

Is Haiti America’s Gaza?

OSPAAAL posterAs the US military descends to throttle Gaza’s -excuse me- Haiti’s points of entry, as it prepares detention facilities at Guantanamo to intercept and repatriate the expected rush of Haitian refugees, as the US protects its business interests in the Dominican Republic and Haiti which profit from the kept-poor labor market of captive Haiti, there are fewer differences than parallels. One difference, Israeli medics are willing to come help the injured of Haiti.

How did they get in, when every other charity has been forced to queue for the opportunity? Other national and private efforts had to wait behind US military convoys bringing soldiers before food, reinforced borders before help. By the time most medical care was allowed to reach the earthquake victims, surgeons were left with only the option of amputation. I’m curious how a captive labor population of amputees is supposed to benefit their Western overseers.

It minimizes the acute circumstances in Gaza to paint Haiti as a concentration camp with settlers waiting outside the fence for the inmates to exterminate themselves. I’m not aware that our white religious zealots are after anything but Haitian children, their souls or supplicant bodies. But the same prison population control strategies apply. When the Haitians elect populist leaders, we fund goon squads to assassinate them, or we kidnap them into exile. Where is that different? There is a Haitian diaspora as there is for the Palestinians. There is our exploitation of their resources and their labor. How fitting that America’s closest cohort sent medics in for the photo op, and quickly aborted their work before the same darker-skinned unchosen got wise.

New ICE building is half windowless

ice offices in pueblo bank trust buildingAs reported by the Gazette on Nov 30, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security has opened an office in Colorado Springs in the Pueblo Bank and Trust Building. The implication is of a lonely field office to monitor the busy I-25 corridor, but the Nation Magazine is reporting that ICE locations nationwide are being used as unmarked and unmonitored detention facilities for undisclosed detainees. I can’t vouch for ours. Anyone up for a photo field trip? Bring your papers.

According to the Gazette, the office has been a pet pork project of Congressman Doug Lamborn. Their description of the new facilities:

The downtown office in Colorado Springs is the ninth ICE office in Colorado and houses several cubicles and conference rooms as well as a cache of secure rooms to be used for interviews, confidential paperwork and holding weapons.

Detentions have been until now subcontracted with El Paso County. Currently the county holds approximately 150 detainees for ICE.

Did you catch this choice segment of the story? County Commissioner Jim Bensberg apparently confuses “to have a chilling effect” with crime deterrence:

“The presence of the federal office will have a chilling effect on a wide variety of activities,” he said, without elaborating.

“There were days I thought this would never happen,” he said. “If I had a tail right now, I’d be wagging it.”

Anti-Castro blogger Yoani Sanchez hears from Obama ahead of Fidel

Havana pseudo-blogger Yoani Sánchez has the ear of President Obama, what a surprise. In the wake of not being able to travel to the US to receive an astroturf accolade from Columbia University, then a much ballyhooed —but uncorroborated— story of Cuban police making her late for a counter-revolutionary “pro-democracy” rally, the ordinary Cuban who wires her posts to her Miami-based anti-Castro blog posed “my seven questions” for President Obama, and lo, received his answers. She showed up Fidel Castro himself, who posed seven questions to candidate Obama in May 2008, because he’s still waiting.

Read Ms Sánchez’s dismissible PR tracts elsewhere. Let’s look at what Comrade Fidel was asking. Why would Obama have trouble summoning answers to these questions?

Is it right for the president of the US to order the assassination of any one person in the world, whatever the pretext?

Is it ethical for the president of the US to order the torture of other human beings?

Should state terrorism be used by a country as powerful as the US as an instrument to bring peace to the planet?

Is an Adjustment Act, applied as punishment to only one country, Cuba, in order to destabilize it, good and honorable when it costs innocent children and mothers their lives?

Are the brain drain and the continuous theft of the best scientific and intellectual minds in poor countries moral and justifiable?

Is it fair to stage preemptive attacks?

Is it honorable and sane to invest millions and millions of dollars in the military-industrial complex, to produce weapons that can destroy life on earth several times over? Is that the way in which the US expresses its respect for freedom, democracy and human rights?

Although condemned by US diplomats, the brief detention of Ms Sánchez may yet prove to have been a fabrication. Wanna wager the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is funded by Zionists? I’m always puzzled by what horse Israel could have in the South America or Caribbean races, but they do.

NY trial no threat for Guantanamo 5

BUSH REGIME ENGINEERED 9-11Whatsa matter Mayor Giuliani? Are you afraid if the 9/11 suspects come to trial in NYC, that these 9/11 TRUTH fellows might turn up? It was your Ground Zero hero’s launchpad, this time it may be theirs.

You and the media paint the Guantanamo 5 as guilty, without a trial. Sarah Palin would like to see them executed before a trial, allegedly. We can grant her the benefit of the doubt to not have said something so callous, but there’s no charity left for ragheads. Maybe a drone outfit could target Guantanamo, and we’d be spared having to incarcerate its inmates elsewhere. The detainees have already served eight years of inhumane detention and torture. I’m very enthused to see them get a day in court. They’re what, innocent until proven guilty, so that makes them suspects, at best alleged terrorists. You call them terrorists, but at worst they are terror conspirators. Neither are, after all, the nineteen hijackers.

Speaking of which, if you could get your hands on the hijackers who were mistakenly identified to have been on the plane, who are taunting you from their homes in the Middle East, if you could extradite them, what charges would you bring? Conspiracy to impersonate phantom bogeymen?

Normally high profile defendants plead to be tried away from the population center of their victims. For NINE ELEVEN there may be a case to make either way. The “9/11 terrorists” may face a tough crowd sourced from NY’s bitterly racist civil servants. On the other hand, the aftermath of Ground Zero has ruined a whole lot more people than were killed in the twin towers and were bought off handsomely to ask no questions.

Speaking of the 9/11 victim families, when are we going to quit asking the families about this, that, and how to proceed in Afghanistan?! We’re ALL OF US VICTIMS OF 9/11 NOW! None more than the Iraqis and Afghans, and poor people everywhere the US is prosecuting its War On Terror. They’re offered a pittance for their loses, Americans are losing sons and daughters, husbands and wives, and sometimes the survivors get a favorable insurance payout, but the rest of us get zilch, that much credit, and a broken economy. The 9/11 family survivors were compensated for the lost expected income of their darling WTC financiers, plus a little extra to stay away from the 9/11 Widows, the true patriots. Of course the war industry and its corporate media look to the 9/11 families when the public needs a booster shot of embittered venom, but why are the rest of us not laughing in derision? Come on, you fathers and mothers of bitches. You took your silver, now beat it to Cancun. No more innocents need to die because you can’t come to terms with the fact that your Little Eichmanns got their due.

The GOP culpables are wondering aloud if NYC trials for the terror suspects would in reality put America on trial. You betcha!

Usually when the posses returns with the wanted men, the deputes have to protect them from the angry mob trying to break into the jail to have a lynching. Rudy Giuliani and his GOP can see the mob already converging for the trials, and they know it’s not the Guantanamo Five they’re after.

Obama ate a fish who knew Lincoln

bottom feederFishermen have always called it the Slimehead fish. It’s sorta-scientific name is Darwin’s Slimehead. But when bottom-of-the-barrel scraping began for the ocean’s remaining fisheries, fishmongers created a market for the never-thought-palatable deep bottom feeder by renaming it the Orange Roughy.

That much you’ve probably heard before.

Really, what’s in a name? A fish by any other name will smell too. Is there a fish story without hyperbole, that does not smell fishy? The idiom comes from the experience-honed doubt that the fishmonger’s catch is not fresh. People know steak is dead cow, so does it matter that Orange Roughy is Slimehead, Monkfish is Goosefish, Rock Salmon is Spiny Dogfish, or Tilapia is Mouthbrooder?

Actually Israeli exporters wanted to give Tilapia a biblical makeover, asserting the Tilapia from the Sea of Galilee, should be called St. Peter’s Fish, but US regulators intervened. In the Gospel of Matthew 17:27, apostle Peter tells tax collectors where they can go. In more than that many words he tells them to go fish, and from the mouth of the “first fish they catch,” they will find the four drachmas he owes them. The FDA didn’t buy it either. By the way, if you doubt Wikipedia has Zionist preoccupations, sniff the first paragraph of their entry for Tilapia. Maybe we are about to see whether Wiki momentum can surfeit the vernacular.

The US government also intervened when fish wholesalers wanted to rename the Patagonian Toothfish as Chilean Sea Bass. It’s not a Bass. And the poor Teethfish, like the Slimehead, are now endangered.

Because man’s traditional food fishes have become depleted, we’re having now to make meals of the dregs. And the populations of these deep sea dwellers have less resiliency than the coastal stocks. In the case of the Toothfish and the Slimehead, it’s because they grow very slowly. The Slimehead can grow to be 150 years old. They don’t become sexually reproductive until they are 33, and that’s not in dogfish years. Fishing operations which harvest entire sea mounts decimate every generation at once, leaving none who can spawn.

Would it give you an unsettled feeling to consume something so ancient? If we’re talking a pre-Phylloxera wine, it could be a great thing. But a fish that old has been absorbing mercury from the height of the industrial revolution onwards. So there might be a health benefit for showing deference to your fish elders.

It recently upset me to learn that with modern agriculture we eat cattle before they’re two, when they’re barely adolescent. Now I wonder what’s too old. We revere elephants and tortoises for their longevity, such ancient beings we don’t eat.

I’m old enough to remember learning about the old carp in the fountains of Paris, who also lived quite long. French schoolchildren could marvel that some carp still lived who might have glimpsed Napoleon.

A Slimehead Orange Roughy caught today could have lived in the time of Lincoln. Certainly those fish drag-netted in the 1970s, when the Orange Roughy exotic star was contrived to rise, were contemporaries of John Wilkes Booth. Though swimming many thousand feet below sea level, Roughy might have encountered a fresh shipwreck of Lincoln’s era, carrying gold sent from the west coast to finance the Civil War.

Today finds Americans awaiting their and their fellow man’s emancipation from war, torture, illegal detention, economic enslavement, usury, exploitation, impoverishment, enfeeblement and poisoning. Since just the new millennium Americans learned quick to participate again in their political system. They elected what many thought impossible, an African American president. The voters placed all their hope in Barack Obama, and their faith in party politics foretold that Obama’s majority would deliver the mandate he was given. Obama’s first days were anticipated to rival FDRs. Obama’s legacy could already be measured for laurels because it meant simply reversing the calamity of his predecessor. By such a deliverance alone, it was visualized, Obama would stand beside Abraham Lincoln, America’s greatest president.

Abraham Obama may be an unjustly loft comparison, as wanting to believe Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. But what else was an expectant public to do? They put him in office, they believed his promises. He spoke of change, they wanted change. What swiftly Bush had done, they wanted undone. And Obama assured all that he heard them.

And has it worked out that way? Obama’s speeches begin where the last one ends. They’re long, they’re reasoned, but where at first Americans reveled at a suddenly well-spoken president, now they wish he’d stop talking and start doing. Apparently “yes we can” meant “you can wait” –more likely “hi Mom” or “cheese.” Now the hand which Obama raises so famously to give assurance, is looking more like just the hand.

It may be dawning on many that this junior senator from Illinois didn’t have to debate Frederick Douglas, build a log cabin, read Aristotle by candlelight, or climb a long leadership ladder to get to Washington DC. It may be occurring to them that Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, was the only accomplishment they’d seen of this unknown senator from the land of Lincoln.

An Orange Roughy served on fine porcelain may turn out to be the only thing our President Obama shares with Abraham Lincoln.

And very likely, you ate one too. So if stone-carvers are already bidding on the project to add someone’s face to Mount Rushmore, your likeness may be as appropriate as any.

Illegal Alien costume has a Green Card

Illegal Alien Costume manufactured by Forum novelties, Avery Schreiber mustache not included
It’s called the Illegal Alien Costume, available at Target, Walmart, et al. And look– he’s tendering a Green Card! That means he’s overqualified to work the night shift cleaning super center floors. Immigrant rights activists are calling for the retailers to pull the costumes. No human being is illegal, certainly not #1 enemy of the state, which most Americans associate the Gitmo jumpsuit. Halloween party planners say, lighten up! Political Correctness goes too far to ask us to show sensitivity for the thousands of undocumented workers being rounded up by ICE, incarcerated indefinitely in privately operated Wackenhut detention centers, who may or may not be wearing orange Guantanamo prison garb. When Abu Ghraib type snapshots emerge from these DHS funded facilities, next year’s Halloween xenophobic gag may be for adults only.

Afghan Taliban set high POW standard

Army private bowe bergdahlThere it is. The Afghans have captured a POW, we’ve been sent his image in RGB with a personal message to the American public. US military spokesmen are calling the video a violation of the laws of war. Secretary of State Clinton is calling it “just outrageous and a real sign of desperation and inappropriate criminal behavior.” She’s probably right about the desperation. But showing no signs of nudity, degradation, brutalization or rigor mortis, Army Private Bergdahl is faring better than any US detainee.

And think of the example we’ve set for the Taliban. Bagram AFB, and other unlisted US detention centers in Afghanistan, are purportedly even worse than Club Guantanamo. What happened in 2001 to Taliban forces who surrendered to the Northern Alliance is still trying to come to light, despite a desperate US cover-up. You’ve heard it by now, although the graves have been moved, the shell casings disappeared, and the witnesses killed. Over two thousand Afghan POWs were suffocated in shipping containers, those who survived were finished off by US special forces as they hastily emptied the containers at Dasht-e Leili.

Free those illegally imprisoned at Gitmo

Close Guantanamo and end military CommissionsWhen human rights organizations have called for CLOSING GUANTANAMO, they don’t mean AND CARRY ON ELSEWHERE. “Gitmo” is about the illegal detention and torture of human beings. What kind of rubes are we dealing with?

Guantanamo is an illegal entity. It’s location outside US dominion, and outside Cuba’s border, on technicalities, has been used to pretend there’s a gray area outside the rule of international law. What’s being done inside Guantanamo, holding people indefinitely without bringing charges against them, torture, military commissions, is expressly illegal. Calls to shut Guantanamo down are calls to end the charade of a legal loophole, but they are primarily demands that the immoral behavior be stopped.

We don’t shut down brothels while arranging for their captives to work elsewhere. Polluters aren’t expected merely to shift their poison pipelines into other streams. We don’t make arrangements for drug dealers to relocate before we close a crack house or meth lab.

Blackwater changing name to “Xe”….

Blackwater XE logoErik Prince, Killing Korporation CEO and founder, is Allegedly a Christian.
 
Throws in gratuitous references to “Knights Templar, USA” on his website.

Nothing new in all of that.

Speculation is rising that “Xe” means Christ Everlasting.

They’ve got a training base near the intersection of Teller (county) One and Teller Eleven, on the western downslope from Cripple Creek.

It’s only secret in that they don’t acknowledge it, either Blackwater or the Army.

They are probably also the contractors guarding Peterson AFB who threatened to have Miss Johnnie arrested when she went to get her ID card a year and a half ago…

And they’re reported to be the staff at the new ICE “detention” center at Ft Carson.

You’ve just got to use your Magic Decoder Ring to see it but Jesus said in The Sermon on the Mount

“…fook ’em all, kill imprison and torture them and make money doing it. And contributions to the Republican Party count as your Tithes…

Suffer, little children, SUFFER!!”

You’ve also got to be wearing your X-Ray glasses…

And an amulet on a necklace made of human hair and half a box of Lucky Charms cereal.

And the skin of a human baby…

And nothing else…

And at a Corner Shrine dedicated to John Wayne.

With black and purple candles.

While saying the Lord’s Prayer sideways.

Human Sacrifice is optional.

But recommended.

Rolling on the ground, smearing yourself with feces and foaming at the mouth means you’re doing the incantation correctly.

The Fly in the Ointment…

That’s a bad misquote of the full proverb.

Actually IN the Book of Proverbs and attributed to Solomon.

“as a few dead flies causeth the ointment of the Apothecary to stink, so is a little Foolishness in a man reputed for Wisdom”.

There’s a County Jail, Prison, Detention and Torture Facility whatever… saying that’s much the same…

“Doesn’t matter what else you do in life, if you suck one cock you’re always going to be nothing but ‘that dirty cocksucker’…”

Or even more to the point, “You kill ONE baby and for the rest of your life you’re gonna be called a Baby-Killer”.

See, one of the arguments the Trolls are putting on us is that not ALL of the victims of their various Warmonger Enterprises were innocent.

But you see, “hang for a penny, might as well hang for a pound”

Because just ONE Murder makes you a Murderer.

If the guilt is spread out over a Lynch Mob or the Imperial Stormtroopers and their Entire Chorus of Supporters, that simply makes each and every one of those who support the action to be Murderers.

In Texas, California, Colorado… every accomplice of a crime is equally as guilty of that crime.

Especially if it’s Capital Murder.

I know of one case in Texas where Every person involved in the murder got the Death Penalty except for the guy who actually pulled the trigger….

Because he testified against the others.

But the argument that “only a few” of the victims were completely innocent, well, Legally, and more importantly MORALLY that argument is Bullshit.

If the only profit you get from the Murders done by the Imperial StormTroopers is a condescending pat on the head from your Masters for being such a good little unquestioning Slave and cheerleading and defending the Torturers and Murders, you still were rewarded.

And more importantly you’re complicit in the Murders and the Tortures and just as guilty as the ones who pulled the trigger or strapped the prisoner to the table to be waterboarded.

That’s the fly in THAT ointment.

Barack Obama resembles Gerald Ford more than he does Lincoln

Gerald FordToday’s Denver Post print edition headline reads U.S. closes door on Guantanamo, torture. Of interest is how their internet version of this headline has changed the verb tense from ‘closes’ to ‘closing’. Yes, well it amounts to about the same thing, kind of? Well but is it a closed book, or not? That question has to be asked because Gerald Ford supposedly closed the book on Watergate, which was where a President acted in a criminal manner but was left entirely free from facing any criminal charges! The President will be stopped (after his criminal acts become just too obvious and exposed) but is simply above the law, was how the message was left later to be read by the likes of Dubya Bush and Dick Cheney.

Yes, Barack Obama wants to clean America’s image up and closing Guantanamo’s detention unit down is key to that. But he also wants to sweep the dirt under the rug and get on with it, so to speak. There is no evidence that he plans to prosecute anybody for the crimes they committed by running this Federal torture camp, and this is what makes us look on these seemingly positive moves with a huge amount of scepticism.

Eisenhower, too, eventually stopped the McCarthyite witch hunt from going further forward, but then continued to wage the Korean War that resulted in millions going to their deaths. He kept the Cold War going full tilt, and much of the world worried that the ‘cold’ would become a hot war with nuclear weapons begin launched. In fact, Eisenhower’s military command thought long and hard about nuking China. So looking at the edicts coming out from Barack Obama on his first day about supposedly moving to end the torture regime of the Bush Administration should not be looked at with rose tinged glasses on.

Suspected U.S. missile attacks kill 18 in Pakistan At the same time as Barack is supposedly ending US government torture of POWs, his Administration is continuing the bombing of targets that hit civilians in Pakistan as often as not. Further, the bombing raids are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, same as the continued now Barack Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are, too.

While nobody can expect Barack Obama to reverse all that Bush’s Klan instituted with DP loyal assistance in just one or two days, let alone one or two weeks, there still is really no reason to assume that Barack has any plan to do so… EVER. In this sense, Barack Obama resembles Gerald Ford much more than he resembles Abraham Lincoln. Eventually this will become rather obvious but for now the liberal euphoria continues. They are being led around on their leashes by the corporate media and Barack, but what we are actually seeing so far is Barack Obama pardoning Bush and his gang for crimes committed.

Where to put the Guantanamo detainees

Billboard on Colfax Avenue urges CLOSE GUANTANAMO
A major sticking point which prevented President Bush from closing Guantanamo, purportedly, and which we hear Barack Obama has been hastening to address, is what to do with Guantanamo’s inmates after the island prison is closed. I can offer only this rather obvious suggestion:

Are you FREAKING KIDDING ME?! Free every last one and PUT THEM UP AT THE WALDORF! What the fuck do you think we should do to make amends for six years in cages at Camp X-Ray?!

Are you pretending to grasp only one half of the Guantanamo violation? The Gitmo purgatory beyond the rule of law was wrong, but so too was the indefinite detention of “illegal combatants.”

Closing Guantanamo, together with the whole network of US covert prisons will be a step toward restoring America’s image as a law abiding nation. But if you’re simultaneously searching for alternative jailers to take the Gitmo detainees, you’re not showing much understanding of what you’re doing wrong.

Seriously. We hear this nation or that will not accept the nationality-appropriate of our detainees. Thus far I believe, we are objecting because our would-be partners can’t guarantee that they will continue to hold the subjects for the indefinite period we require.

And that wouldn’t compound the wrong?

Close Guantanamo. Free everyone. If there are particular men you want to charge, put them in a US prison and give them every right accorded anyone else. Give them lawyers, and recourse for redress.

Otherwise put them up in posh digs. Prostrate yourselves before them, hopefully they will someday forgive us. And they are by no means obligated to do so.

Getting the short hard end of the baton

police state
Say the bailout for bankers reaches Five Trillion, while your holdings and your livelihood are let to evaporate to nothing. Say all social services are trimmed back, offices closed, and you have nowhere to turn.

Say voters in November are turned away in record numbers and Republicans are let to steal the election. Abetted by the Supreme Court.

Say there’s no ending the carnage in Iraq. Instead, more soldiers are sent there, and to Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and Sudan, and South America.

Say the next president grants indemnity to Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Goldman Sachs, Blackwater, Exxon and Carlyle.

Say Guantanamo and torture and rendition and unlawful detention and surveillance and intolerance persist despite court orders to stop. Say your representatives in Congress won’t listen, no matter how many times you call. How exactly do you propose bringing your government to heel?

What is… illegal immigration

uighur
Game show question… ’17 Wee’ gurz is?’
 
Answer- ‘What is US illegal immigration promoted by Republican and Democratic Party politicians alike.’ Judge: Let Chinese Muslims in Gitmo into U.S.

That’s right! Isn’t the Guantanamo concentration camp something that both unconscionable groups fully supported running? Didn’t they support that use of US torture on Pentagon held POWs, illegal detention of them, and what can only be called ultimately illegal immigration of them into this cursed land called America?

The all powerful America, a country which trots itself around the world waving its own flag, wrecking other people’s countries, and then tries to build a wall up to keep its victims out of the US itself. It’s the Department of Pompous, Self Serving Security in Homeland Stupidity.

Let these 17 Chinese citizens in! Maybe they can help educate Americans on why they are hated so?

What does 9/11 have to do with this?

soldier praying9/11 has become the essential cornerstone of the new fusion of US imperialism, US Christian neo-theocracy, and US racism. God supposedly has chosen a victimized nation to become his Chosen People, etc. and so on. Evil Muslim Arab Devils lurk in the shadows and want the blood of good Christians and their Jewish servants. God Bless America!

Eric and I got a first hand glimpse of this current political theocracy in action at the Colorado Springs municipal government meeting this Tuesday, where 9/11 served to serve up an even bigger than normal dose of Pledge of Allegiance loyalism, pre-meeting prayer, and verbal hypocrisy. They even had a giant harp there on hand to make it all even more heavenly, I guess for the theocrats that run the city government here in the city? It was surreal and I stayed outside in the halls to keep from churning my lunch back up.

Eric proposed that the city look into why it’s police removed him and Peter illegally away from a political activity they and others were protesting, and then later harassed him and Peter legally for several months all in order to finally drop the framed up charges altogether? He linked it to the same sort of abuse of police power used against Democracy Now and Amy Goodman at the Republican Convention.

I used my time to ask that the city council members take their responsibility seriously as government leaders to pass a municipal resolution condemning the federal torture of US government held POWs, their illegal detention for years without charges, and their transport to foreign countries for torture there, too. All I got for my efforts was total silence as Republican Mayor Lionel Rivera chimed in about how he supported these abuses by the US military, while the other city council people sat by stupidly.

These Right Wing Americans, both Democratic and Republican Party leaders, use 9/11 to justify everything these days, no matter how backward and unconnected from 9/11. For example, what does 9/11 have to do with re-arming Georgia or putting missile systems into Poland and The Czech Republic? What does 9/11 have to do with the US government supporting and fomenting civil war in countries as diverse as Pakistan, Bolivia, the Caucasus region, Iran, China, and Ukraine? But 9/11 is the catch word for all of this, as the vacuous Global War on Terrorism forgets to target terrorists at all, but instead moves against everybody, everywhere, and at everytime!

Yes, 9/11 is also the excuse to move against the US population itself, as the stop terrorism line got reduced down to accusing protesters of planning to use urine and shit to terrorize just who at the ruling parties conventions? It doesn’t matter any more just how stupid and illogical and unbelievable all this really is anymore. We’re on Green light, Yellow light, Red light bullshit all the time.

So on this 9/11 worship day, ask yourselves….

Are you still proud to be an American?

If you are, then you are a real nitwit. This country is on the wrong track and you know it!

Mainstream media ignores RNC arrests

(Masked civilian below is a reporter who didn’t report what he saw.)
Reporter watches RNC park arrests
RNC protesters in St. Paul are coming up against preemptive arrests and arbitrary detentions. Do you hear about these events? Houses raided, suspects held without Habeas Corpus, a prominent journalist arrested. These are getting no coverage from the mainstream media. TO THROW SALT ON THAT: On Public Radio International’s news-lite program THE WORLD, a correspondent lamented the Gustav-upstaged convention and so filed a story decrying his and his fellow international journalists’ dearth of news to report!

Let’s see, the Republicans raised money for those threatened by Hurricane Gustav. Senator McCain kicked off the GOP fund with a $25,000 contribution. In proportion to he and Cindy’s net worth, that’s a tithe of 0.025%.