Tag Archives: Gates

Recreate-68 versus the City of Denver

Posted on by
1

Preparing for police brutality
DENVER- Glenn Spagnuolo of RECREATE-68 held his own against Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown at a symposium held today at the University of Denver about the upcoming DNC in August. Asked whether providing instruction for the use of shields truly constitutes advocating non-violent protest, Spagnuolo told of the permanent injuries which Police inflicted at previous demonstrations like the FTAA, and he described Denver’s newly requisitioned equipment such as shotguns which fire long distance tasers (XREP) and ear-piercing weapons systems (LRAD). Councilman Brown stressed the importance of protecting the upcoming DNC, its delegates, its protestors, the people of Denver, and the reputation of Denver, from the threat of terrorism.

The City of Denver refuses to release its security plan, to preempt a timely legal challenge. According to Spagnuolo, the city is considering a mile wide perimeter around Pepsi Stadium. Spagnuolo also clarified that Recreate-68 is not calling for repeating the violence of the 1968 Chicago convention, but instead hopes to re-activate the public to the level of engagement it exhibited in 1968, when the same Democratic Party refused to heed the will of the people to stop funding the illegal war in Vietnam. As history repeats itself forty years later, the anti-war movement has yet to summon the courage of the American people.

A couple of Recreate-68 innovations: Doc’s Place, a 24-hour people’s health clinic, to provide free conventional and alternative medical care for all for the duration of the DNC, “to deliver the promise no candidate has: Healthcare for all.” AS WELL, Recreate-68 is planning large FOOD NOT BOMBS events, to feed the homeless of Denver, to counter the efforts of the city to sweep its streets of the homeless in advance of the convention.

There did appear to be a conflict about how best to secure Denver’s image with the eyes of the world upon it.

Glenn Spagnuolo comes to Recreate-68 with experience leading to arrest and acquittal in demonstrations in 2005 and 2007 against the Columbus Day parade. He’s worked with the South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, ACT-UP, and against the FTAA in Florida.

Most recently, Denver held a lottery to allocate the choice protest venues for the duration of the DNC. Recreate-68 received some locations and time slots, but lost the prime spot and prime time to another candidate: the Democratic Party! Oddly, although the Democrats are going to be center-stage at the convention hall, they applied, and won, the right to occupy the main protest stage adjacent the Pepsi Center on the first evening of the convention.

Manitou Springs tribute to my mother

Posted on by
Reply

Lifetime achievement awardMANITOU SPRINGS- (Last night my mother Kathy Verlo was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Open Space activists at the Manitou City Council. I was overcome by their gracious tribute. Here are the notes I prepared in thanks.)
 
I’d like to thank you so much for this recognition of my mother, and assure you that my father very much wanted to be here today. He intended to be here, but inadvertently scheduled a trip, and as an afterthought realized the conflict. He asked me to relay his gratitude and apology.

It is actually fitting that my father is missing this meeting by being away on a trip, because travel was always a bone of contention he shared with my mother. They both liked to maintain their connections around the world, but my mother’s sense of obligation to the local community was very strong, and when she served on the city council, her responsibilities became more regimented. When my father would propose an idea for a trip, my mother would agree, so long as she could be back to Manitou by the next Tuesday City Council meeting. This posed an interesting challenge for their travels. Sometimes Mom would have to return early, often she would not go along at all. So it is hardly a coincidence that after her death, my father has been away with more frequency.

I relate this detail about my mother, not to reflect on her dedication to this city, but to illustrate the determination she showed to make a difference, and the effort she knew it required. I can imagine that all of you serving on the council right now know full well this task. I’m sure a number of you are very reluctant to miss a single meeting, less the interests of opposing parties take advantage of your absence. This was how my mother was able to hold steadfast to the ideals she believed in. This was the strategy required to stand firm against the development of areas now celebrated as open space. She lost plenty of battles, but with a great deal of help from you, won some important ones, and that’s why we are here today.

Now… in Kathy’s spirit, I would like to divert my remarks for a moment. I’ll confess straight off I’m barely brave enough to do it without this preamble, but I’d like to take advantage of this podium to address an important issue, and I hope some of you recognize this as vintage Kathy. No matter the occasion, it was never about my mother, but about what could be accomplished with each given opportunity. You could be discussing last week’s flier, but at the same time, she would be handing you another flier.

I have to rush from this meeting, to another scheduled at the same time, the annual meeting of the ACLU, where we are discussing free speech and the limitations being considered at the State Democratic Convention to be held in Colorado Springs in May. There are plenty of issues to protest, relative to what neither major party is doing, and I hope any or all of you seize this chance to advocate for your particular concerns when the state delegates arrive to put together their party platform.

As well, I’ve passed out fliers to many of you already about an event happening this Sunday at Colorado College, related to KRCC 91.5 on the radio. Amy Goodman, of the news show Democracy Now, is paying a visit, and will speak about the current state of the nation at 3 o’clock on Sunday. Please come. We worked very hard to bring Democracy Now to KRCC, my mother included, but they’ve put the show in a terribly unpopular time-slot, 7pm weekdays. Are you able to listen to Amy Goodman at that time? Undoubtedly not. In fact, she’s on right now, and we are attending a meeting. One of many.

Democracy Now is a wildly popular news program, wherever it’s carried. Many people stream it off the internet, and it keeps everyone so much better informed than the usual corporate media sources, including NPR. Public radio listeners think they are well served by NPR until they hear Amy Goodman, and then they become just sick about how they are being betrayed by corporate spin.

We have to spread that sickness to as many people as possible. If we can convince KRCC to reschedule Democracy Now to the morning drive hour, many more people will, not by accident, become immediately better acquainted with world events. There will be no more uncritical interviews with only government spokesmen or think-tanks to hear “the surge is working” or to keep placing a question mark after “global warming.”

If more of your friends and neighbors get to hear more than the corporate-interest-only news, you won’t have to do as much proselytizing yourself. You will more readily find agreement on issues that benefit our community. Like the environment, and health care, and social inequity, and peace. Instead of the media diverting us with issues like Free-Tibet, more of us will question “hey, is the CIA behind the unrest in Tibet?” Fewer of us might advocate for militarized intervention to Save-Darfur if we are asking “hey, is this about our oil companies fighting with China over who gets their hands on the Sudan?” The list goes on.

The opportunity Democracy Now presents is an urgent one. All of you, I know, have interests in bettering our community and in particular issues you’d like to become better understood. Your biggest hurdle is an uniformed public, and your biggest adversary by far is the media which keeps them that way. We can seize hold of that media, locally, by making it more responsive to the people. Like any enterprise, there will be so much less to do later, if we do more now. Please come on Sunday and lobby KRCC to do this for the community.

I’m going to make this same appeal tonight to the ACLU folk, and other ensuing gatherings this week, so I hope we can bring some real support this weekend.

I impose on you like this with the full confidence that my mother would support this plea, as she was fully supportive of every of my efforts –like any good mother, and so I should add– in particular those that advocated for the benefit of all.

I thank you for this opportunity. I apologize if I’ve taken undue advantage, but in the spirit of my mother I remind you –and you know this– the struggle lives on. Thank you on behalf of my father, and my sisters. As much as my mother would have quickly turned to re-gift this award to the nearest person in the room who she considered more deserving or perhaps someone who she suspected would grow by the encouragement, I accept it on behalf of her family. Your recognition of my mother really does mean a great deal to us.

Freedom of Speech in America IMO

Posted on by
Reply

Free Speech -use it or loose it.Reprinted from vol 30, no 2
Active For Justice:
 
As one on the receiving end of a rather abrupt truncation of free expression in last year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, and having participated this year with a toned-down message calculated to least offend, I don’t offer healthy prospects for Freedom of Speech as this nation progresses forward.

Even as the populace gets excited about a potential Obama victory, the candidate himself has been aligning with the disasterous policies of the current administration. Indeed Barack Obama has voted with Bush thus far. I predict therefore that voices for social justice will still feel the call to protest, and likewise the government’s need to silence dissent will continue.

More and more headlines tell of Americans deprived of their voice. Most recently a man was denied entry to a shopping mall on account of his t-shirt, despite courts deciding people have that right. Such indignant citizens are regularly arrested and detained, to be released without filing charges. The pattern has become to keep activists from public view until after whatever they are protesting has passed. Municipalities weigh the risk of incurring civil suits against the imperative to obfuscate criticism.

The PPJPC will have an interesting opportunity to test its members’ First Amendment protection with the 2008 Democratic State Convention coming to Colorado Springs. This will be no mere protest of a visiting dignitary, nor a picketing of a military facility. The convention will bring thousands of delegates together to the World Arena on May 16 and 17, where they will formalize the platform for their state party. The delegates will be skirting a panoply of issues, all of them relevant to the populace outside, many dear to us. Social justice groups from all over will be well served to take this opportunity to communicate with these delegates on the sidewalks and in front of TV cameras.

Citizens expect the Democratic Party to be more responsive to their constituents than Republicans, but the Democrats certainly haven’t
shown it. The state convention will be exactly the place to address such representative responsibility loud and clear.

The Colorado Springs city manager and CSPD have already begun expressing what they’d like to see, or not see, by way of public
demonstrations. They approve of the minimal turnout for the Bush protest of 2005, where activists were kept to Venetucci Boulevard. The
city is offering to host a forum to listen to public opinion while the convention continues without interruption. As yet there has been no
public mention of restrictions.

The World Arena sits on land stewarded by the El Pomar Foundation. Certainly the facility was built with participation from the city. The
street which connects Cheyenne Meadows Drive to Frontage Road, though it is marked “private,” has city curbs, signs and culverts. Whether the grounds are public or private could bear to be challenged in court. But as trends go, the police could feel safe in designating Free Speech Zones at certain areas of the grounds.

We don’t have to push it that far. The World Arena parking area is surrounded by several well situated public egresses from which to
demonstrate a message. We can choose to be seen by cars entering and exiting, or by pedestrians walking to and from their nearby hotel accommodations. There are places to hand out fliers and places visible to the convention doors. There is even a location prominent to where a national candidate, or two, could arrive, if the party deems it strategic to make a show for the Colorado delegates.

Efforts are underway to coordinate activist groups from Denver and Boulder to join us, to push the convention goers toward more
progressive, and in our case, moral ideals. This should prove a good measure of what Coloradans retain of their Freedom of Speech, and will be a good exercise for refining a message if we choose to participate in Denver demonstrations planned by our national colleagues at the Democratic National Convention this August.

PROTESTCOLORADO targets the 2008 Colorado State Democratic Convention

Posted on by
Reply

The City of Colorado Springs has interesting plans for you if you feel inclined to raise a citizen’s voice at the 2008 State Democratic Convention to be held May 16-17 at the World Arena. The city is hosting a public forum or two, scheduled to run at the same time as the convention, for the public to vent its concerns without having to disrupt the Democratic Party activities. Possible demonstration areas for the 2008 Democratic State Convention As for protest, they are hoping to see no more than the 2005 Bush visit demo which police contained to the west side of Venetucci Boulevard. This time however, there will be no presidential secret service prerogative to commandeer public property.
 
You may be excited about Obama, but has he promised anything substantive on issues dear to you? Come let the Democrats know what you think of their centrism –when it leaves unresolved immigration, economy, labor, environment, health care and war. Join the fun on Friday evening, May 16, as the delegates arrive, and all day Saturday May 17.
No permits are needed. Check PROTEST COLORADO for updates on logistics. Make this Representative Democracy a Participatory Democracy!

Jim Hightower speaking in the Springs

Posted on by
2

SWIM UPSTREAM by Jim HightowerThe Independent is sponsoring a lecture by populist champion Jim Hightower of the HIGHTOWER LOWDOWN on
April 1st. No joke!
 
Gates Common Room, Palmer Hall, Colorado College, Tues. 4-5pm.
 
I confess for some reason I had ex-agricultural commissioner Hightower confused with Texan kill-joy Marvin Zindler of Chicken Ranch fame, but I loved him all the same.

Big Dems don’t want another McGovern

Posted on by
Reply

Superdelegates were conceived to avoid the problem which George McGovern presented as the popular democratic nominee for the 1972 election. Power to the people my ass. As an icon, this graphic says blank-faced joe has his toes stepped on.Without political guidance, the hoi palloi delegates selected a candidate, the best ever really, who promptly lost to Richard Nixon in a landslide. Since then the party has appointed superdelegates to temper future wayward exuberance. Perhaps the Democrat heavyweights who threw some of their fund-raising clout around –to suggest that the 2008 nomination be left to the appropriate authorities– are worried that Obama looks to be a similarly naive choice.

As indignant as the reaction has been to the apparently undemocratic influencial Democrats who sent the letter to Pelosi, why do the big donors go unmentioned by the news outlets? Capital Eye calculated their cumulative throwing weight at 24 million dollars in donations. They are, in dollar order, from 10M to 80K:
  Haim & Cheryl Saban
    Bernard L & Irene Schwartz
      Robert L. Johnson
        Mark & Susie Tompkins Buell
          Steve & Maureen White Rattner
            Jay T. & Tracy M. Snyder
              Alan J. & Susan Patricof
                Hassan & Sheila Nemazee
                  James R. & Mary K. Pritzker
                    Stanley S. & Sydney R. Shuman
                      Marc & Cathy Lasry
                        Pradeep R. & Amy J. Rao
                          Sim & Debra S. Farar
                            Clarence A. & Jacqueline A. Avant
                              Lynn Forester de Rothschild
                                Christopher G. & Irene Korge
                                  Mark A. & Judith M. Aronchick

Protest the State Dem Convention here

Posted on by
Reply

State Democratic Convention 2008A plan is brewing to protest the COLORADO STATE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION held on May 16-17 at the World Arena in Colorado Springs. Demonstrations will be restricted to a distant Free Speech Zone, do you suppose other opportunities will present themselves? For example, state delegates will be staying at the DoubleTree Hotel.

Senior Democrats eat their young

Posted on by
Reply

Help the Dems out, just this once. The County Assembly last Saturday was overrun with excited delegates and alternates. Palmer High could hardly support the numbers, or more notably, the DP was unaccustomed to such a turn out. I’d like to insinuate that the DP did not know how to keep the usual lid on everyone’s enthusiasm. But they tried. A line formed around the block while volunteers at the door held newcomers at bay. Some were told they couldn’t enter, many were kept waiting until beyond the posted 10:30am time limit to have submitted their ballots.
I know who was at the door. Do you?

Democratic organizer Bob Nemanich wrote this in a 2/26 email to his
Fellow Obama Supporters!:

Jay Ferguson, the vice chair of the El Paso County Democratic Party and I have been receiving numerous reports of curious and even worse descriptions of attempts, by some party volunteers managing the entrance doors last Saturday morning, attempting to turn rightfully elected delegates away from the convention. This is serious stuff. If any of you witnessed or experienced an attempt by someone telling delegates who were in line Saturday morning and told to go home because; of “the crowds were too big”, “no more room inside”, “they had enough delegates”, “the fire marshal was going to close us down” or were told “their name was not on their lists” or other intimidations.

You need to contact us immediately! We will need the description of the person who was at the door making these or other statements or intimidating anyone, which line you were in, the time, and other circumstances which might further identify this person and activity of attempting to suppress the vote.

Blow the whistle on the unscrupulous gatekeeper and whoever he got his instructions from. Write Bob at rwnemanich at gmail.com

‘Super Delegates’ make the corporate party super undemocratic

Posted on by
Reply

Corporations have one big problem in controlling political expression in that all they have is money, not numbers. Tons of money get spent on fabricating false images, manipulating sentiment, and plastering everything with advertisements for the top dogs the corporate world has running in the arena.

Still, sometimes the rabble voters get out of hand, and that’s where the so-called ‘super delegates’ come in as the ultimate corporate trump card. American ‘elections’ are not a democratic system at all, and its design is just to appear to be democratic without actually being so. ‘Super delegates’ are mere icing on the cake of undemocracy that we suffer with every 4 years.

Go figure, what’s is democratic about the government financing all the primaries for the 2 corporate parties in the first place? Nothing. As if the corporate world is not already buying the elections before hand, the corporate government moves in with hundreds of millions of corporate dollars to show its favoritism to the 2 official corporatized parties. It is one thing for the government to finance the real election, but the primaries are not that at all since they are just party functions. In short, they are a facade of procedure that the 2 corporate parties (with a big push from the corporate media and corporate government) put out to pretend to being democratic, when in reality they are no such thing at all.

To many, electing a Black American will represent ‘change’. To many, electing a White woman will do so. And to many, just getting George out of office will be all that is needed for them to think that the country is moving forward once again. Wrong. Until we establish a political system that has more than the most pathetic pretense of being functionally democratic, we are all on the super-highway to getting screwed yet even more than Bush has already done to the country. Corporate looting of our nation and to the world as a whole cannot stop without us beginning to construct a democratic system where none now stands. We need a democratic America, and that is not an America led by either the Democratic or Republican parties.

Eye now on undemocratic nature of the Democratic Party

Posted on by
4

Super delegates or not, the public eye will still be turned on the totally undemocratic nature of the Democratic Party, since there is nothing about Barrack Obama that will bring about any real change long term. Still, the question of the moment though is whether the Clinton part of the DLC machine can still manipulate the entire DP or not? The Obama part certainly could… short term.

There is no doubt though that the corporations can manipulate the party since they totally own it. This is no people’s party at all. Rather, The Democratic Party is owned by the military industrial complex every bit as much as the Republican Party.

Nothing will be gained election time with a Barrack Obama as the new president. The only long term gain can only come about when the US population gets angry and totally fed up enough with the corporate 2 parties that act as one con. Unfortunately though, the American people still think that their corporate rulers have some God given right to rule everybody on the planet. Stupid, very stupid. No personality change in the front office will bring about change as long as the American people still are enamored of their country’s nationalism….The Empire.

The You Make My Day Award chain letter

Posted on by
5

You Make My Day AwardSo begins each post: “My friend so-and-so surprised me with a You Make My Day Award. Thank you! (You should really check out their wonderful blog!) I’m to post this with the following proviso,” etc, etc.

Nothing wrong with a little guerrilla marketing, in this case lighting a back fire up the social network where blogroll links and reciprocal courtesy comments were just not keeping everyone’s interest. Internet blogging has set into motion a real-time one hundred monkeys experiment, but of course someone has to address the task of monitoring the output. We won’t know if even a blogosphere of monkeys typing away can produce Shakespeare unless somebody is diligently evaluating the gibberish.

It didn’t take long tracing the roots of the You-Make-My-Day-Award givers to find someone who explained the rules as: “You have to pass this on to ten people” etc. And there it is. The YMMDA is a chain letter. And like so many viral emails, its driving force is a smile over coffee, pass it on.

Chain emails, whether they promise warm and fuzzies or anticipation that Bill Gates will personally pay you a quarter of a million dollars, are disseminated to chart social networks, yours. They plot connections between people, particularly the veracity of those connections measured by the speed and frequency with which you give your friends priority. Such information is valuable to anyone wanting a bead on you. Use your imagination.

So the You-Make-My-Day-Award is netting bloggers, internet users who may have moved on from circulating those clever email chain letters. I’m perhaps most disappointed that people using their blogs as creative outlets, can’t be creative enough to praise each other on their own initiative. They have to borrow a concept, a graphic and a blurb, and admonish each other to keep it up. These monkeys are getting tired.

Bill Gates and a better class of friends

Posted on by
Reply

“There is nothing that indicates more clearly the magnificence
of great princes than their superb palaces and their precious
furniture.” -Louis XIV (1638-1715)
Grand staircase of the 60sq ft mansion

I saw the Artisans and Kings exhibit at the DAM. A veritable cornucopia of gilded age, literally. A picnic basket comprising a chocolate warmer and a bell to summon the servants was considered a “necessaire.” Many of the collected paintings and drawings were never even seen by the King. Two of the most ornate chairs are known to have been delivered after the royals were guillotined.

We can only yet dream of serving justice upon our latter day robber barons. Until then we can have a laugh at their attempts at gilded trappings. US News & World Report features a virtual tour of the Bill Gates mansion. Have a look-see at his palatial compound of wood, glass and stone. I was amused by the indoor/outdoor pool which featured “guest lockers.” I can imagine having a home big enough to host lots of friends, but if they need lockers I shouldn’t invite them.

On not inciting a lynch mob

Posted on by
Reply

Do you know about the atrocities being committed in Darfur? Is the extent of your reaction being weighed as evidence about how much you know (ie. not enough)? If you are not calling for UN peacekeeper intervention, does it mean you have not exposed yourself sufficiently to the suffering of the Sudanese?
 
This would appear to be the logic of those advocating action/intervention. Surely you are a heartless do-nothing if you are not urging the tugging of every heartstring until a collective decision can prompt swift action. Cool heads might not prevail against a revenge-driven mob mentality, but why split hairs, they are hairs on the necks of Arabs.

When agitators urge action, if even they caution it to be non-violent action, the challenging endeavor of creating non-violent dialog and diplomacy can easily appear to stagnate in the “inaction” category.

The bigger picture about Sudan is that Europe and the US now face an eastern power vying for Africa’s remaining resources. To continue to dominate Africa, they have to mobilize opinion to favor a reversal of what has been a de-colonization consensus granting indigenous peoples their regional autonomy. To this end, grassroots activist mechanisms are being co-opted to manufacture public consent for re-shouldering the white man’s burden. A critical distinction for those concerned for the Sudanese is that western intervention is not the only solution. TO SAY NO TO MILITARY INTERVENTION IS NOT TO ADVOCATE DOING NOTHING. It is fine to raise awareness about the suffering in Darfur but maybe not if the common denominator response is an agitated public crying for blood.

You’d be the odd man out, trying to talk a lynch mob out of meting out justice to the Jesse James Gang. Where would you stand as you saw tempers becoming raised in response to heightened emotional manipulation? No one wants to deny the crimes committed, but what of the mechanisms of a civil society meant to preempt our baser compulsion to vigilante justice?

What if as well, the James Gang members the crowd was after were only the small fry? What if incredibly, the chief mob rouser was Jesse James himself? Perhaps even Jesse James would not have such gall, he would have to work through deputies like think-tank and media mouthpieces, or more insidiously through funding-starved non-profits, and tragically through unknowing surrogates with the best of intentions.

Ideologically it shouldn’t make a difference who is behind justice or before it. No one should be victim to a mob’s wrath. That’s not the point. What if you were working the crowd, trying to build an awareness that the Jesse James Gang was in their midst wreaking disaster of unfathomable consequence? Meanwhile the attention of that populace was being diverted to a humanitarian crisis which was in fact entirely a symptom and not a cause.

The Darfur crisis, begun in 2003, far from being ignored by our media, has successfully been used to obscure the million people killed by the US in Iraq, and the Israeli incursions into Lebanon and Palestine, both of which have been labeled genocides. Neither the ethnic cleansing in Lebanon nor in Palestine have drawn criticism from the lobbyists behind Save Darfur or the Genocide Intervention Network. What outlaws!

Lee Bollinger- who is this attack dog for Bush?

Posted on by
1

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came and went from New York City with his message for a just Peace in the Middle East, and the US media went into a hysteria. Lead attack dog for going to war against Iran was Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, who invited Ahmadinejad into his den so that he could barrage him with a Right Wing temper tantrum for the US corporate press to disseminate.

Why would such a nice ‘liberal’ do this work for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney? After all, isn’t Lee Bollinger a free speech champion as he is most often portrayed in the US press?

Well it turns out that this description of him doled out time and time again by our bullshit press is just a bunch of crap. Bollinger has no liberal credentials other than being a lawyer. He took a case or two that dealt with some ‘free speech’ questions but that hardly makes this guy Mr. Free Speech at all. It seems that he never exercises ‘free speech’ except to encourage invasions and bombardments of countries like Iran?

Try to find anything critical of Bush and his regime made by Bollinger over the last 7 years on the last 7 years via a search on the Internet? Good luck…. Here is what you will find though. You will find that Mr Liberal is actually a corporate hack on the board of the establishment Right Wing Washington Post along with Warren Buffett and Melinda Gates, amongst other corporate criminals now parked there. The Post is not liberal at all, so why can’t the press correctly identify Bollinger as being a Right Wing hack rather than calling him a champion of free speech? In fact, Lee Bollinger is your garden variety Zionist inside the US Establishment.

The President of Iran surely knew who he was dealing with when he decided to accept the speaking engagement at Columbia University. Despite the stupidity and disingenuousness of his remarks about gays in Iran, it was he who came off as advocating peace though. Something that neither Bush nor Bollinger do.

The US has to mislabel and hide who and what Lee Bollinger really is from the public and even then his belligerence was so open and obnoxious that he actually hurt the US government case that going to the war with Iran would be solely defensive in nature. It most certainly would not be, and Zionist Lee Bollinger personalized this aggressive desire and tendency toward committing mass murder by a government (the US) much more than Ahmadinejad.

Our country’s ‘leaders’ over and over are demonstrating themselves to be a bunch of power hungry, violent and even genocidal group of thugs. Lee Bollinger is case in point. He was pushing for the US to start a war with Iran but we should resist the call. And if Bollinger wants to champion ‘free speech’ then he should take his carnival to the Occupied Territories and champion tearing down The Wall. Israel would take his ‘free speech’ and shove it back down his throat for sure.

Sisters speak out about all US war zones

Posted on by
Reply

Loretto CommunityThey come together from different states, Benedictines, Dominicans, the Loretto Community, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of St Francis, Pox Christi, the Christian Peacemakers, even a nun visiting from Guatemala, to pray a silent vigil at the gates of Peterson AFB in remembrance of the two greatest war crimes ever perpetrated, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Not only against the use of nuclear weapons, but all weapons, and not just to sit idly by in prayer. The sisters asked for inspiration and guidance to address the violence our country is directing in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Latin American and Colombia.

The heaviest words were for Iraq. Here is the latter part of the prayer ceremony:

We ask forgiveness for our complicity
in the violence now unleashed in the world
and we repent of the violence in our hearts.

Forgive us, we pray

For initiating war         Forgive us, we pray
For believin in untruths         Forgive us, we pray
For resorting to torture         Forgive us, we pray
For wasting resources         Forgive us, we pray
For shattering innocence         Forgive us, we pray

For trampling diplomacy         Forgive us, we pray
For the death of US military in Iraq         Forgive us, we pray
For the Iraqi civilians killed         Forgive us, we pray
For trusting in weapons         Forgive us, we pray
For exporting arms         Forgive us, we pray

For needing to dominate         Forgive us, we pray
For failing to trust         Forgive us, we pray
For failing to act         Forgive us, we pray
For valuing oil over life         Forgive us, we pray

For failing to love         Forgive us, we pray
For our arrogance         Forgive us, we pray
For our pride         Forgive us, we pray
For our silence         Forgive us, we pray

Change our hearts

That we learn compassion         Change our hearts
That we practice mercy         Change our hearts
That we embrace nonviolence         Change our hearts

That we may act in justice         Change our hearts
That we love tenderly         Change our hearts
That we do your will         Change our hearts
That we will be peace         Change our hearts

The real targets of perpetual US war making are China and Russia

Posted on by
3

President Putin and Gorbachev have been in the news, both denouncing the US’s military expansionism and encirclement of Russia. Also in the news, is the increased US government interventionism into Africa. Assisting them in this effort, is the interventionist liberal Left that helps hype the US government case against ‘Arabs, China, and genocide’, linking all 3 into excuses for supporting their own government’s imperial interests in Africa.

China gets one third of its oil from Africa, and the US wants to lock that off. White American and British liberals want to help Blacks out, just not so much in the home countries. It’s a touchy feely thing for them, and especially also for the Hollywood types, that seem so drawn to the liberal interventionist cause. And liberal think tanks like the Carter Center and Bill Gates Foundation, too. Darfur is now celebrity cause #1, edging out Tibet, celebrity cause from the past.

Of particular comic interest, has been the Condi Rice response to Putin’s and Gorbachev’s remarks against NATO and the US government. Rice accuses them of being locked into prolonging the past’s antagonisms, and chides them for not still believing that the US Right Wing imperialists are just mighty good friends of Russia!

This sort of line shows how determined that the US is to crush Russia, and is believable only to American six packers watching Fox for their propaganda feeds. And maybe some of the nitwits that work for the Gazette management team, perhaps? There, they are locked in a heroically stupid battle to convince their readers that the earth’s environment is being well protected by corporate interests. Good luck, Nitwits. lol…

Meanwhile at home in the proPeace camp, all seemed to be hypnotized by concentrating all their attention on just 2 things: Iraq and Darfur. That’s good prep for the coming elections for them no doubt. Then, the Media and the Democratic Party will turn that focus into trying to get us to cheer lead Hillary against Rudy, or some other such nauseating carnival. Activists around cheer leading a DP candidate will try to convince all the Peace Movement that the best hope for Darfur and Iraq will lie in voting into office the Democratic Party pushed Saviour.

All this makes one wanna weep, as the Pentagon, CIA, and legions of US/ British/ Israeli mercenaries continue their project of winning the destruction of China’s and Russia’s future in our new and drained corporate-led world ecological fall.

Mad Max beyond belief, and even Biblical in proportions. Yet another Great Flood perhaps is under way? This time with toxic and radioactive waters, too…

The New Colossus

Posted on by
2

I met an otherwise conservative old gentleman yesterday with a refreshing answer to the immigration question. Said he: “I’d welcome them!”

“This nation was built on immigration, we’re all immigrants -except the Native Americans- and I believe there’s room for plenty more. There’s obviously work so let them come.”

That’s the kind of empathy I think is necessary before we can address the real problem of immigration: what is driving refugees to cross our borders?

If Iowans suddenly started flooding into Kansas, only the most self-centered xenophobe would conclude it was for Kansas’ superior character. The rest would wonder, what is happening in Iowa to drive all those people from their homes? What industry is destroying the farms and businesses leaving Iowans no choice but to move off? More than likely it would be the same culprits that are at work in Mexico.

Big Agra and the usual multinationals, aided by the traditional ruling elite, have been raping Mexico and Central America for years, forcing the populations to move north, not for greener pastures, but any pasture at all. Mexicans are not coming to America because they want to be Americans. They do not embrace American culture, even our language. They are a displaced people. Let’s welcome them into our system and together we can address what powers are at work which have stolen their homelands. The forces are multinational, but the tools are American. They are the World Bank and friends. Our government.

It wasn’t always thus. I chanced to look up Emma Lazarus’ poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty where there are more words than form the fabled phrase we know by heart. To me they reflect a grand ideal that today serves only to inflate the American sense of self-importance. Time to go back to school lest The New Colossus (Mother of Exiles) become like the old.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Pelosi and Olmert together support Bush’s planned attack on Iran

Posted on by
Reply

Much fanfare has been made about how Nancy Pelosi’s recent trip to Damascus was somehow contrary to White House policy. ‘Oh don’t go, Nancy’, shouted the Republicans. Then they called her a traitor for when she did visit Syria. And now Israel’s Olmert has gotten into the act (and I do mean act) as he met with the US Secretary of Imperialist War, Robert Gates, and the 2 of them did a DC photo op with Israel’s Olmert stressing that Israel wants to be friends with Syria. Why didn’t the White House lash out at Olmert as they just had with Pelosi?

The answer is simple. The lashing out in the media at Pelosi was just a media cover offered to the Democrats by Bush, while Pelosi got to pretend that the Democrats oppose Bush’s foreign policy of pushing for an extension of war from Iraq into Iran. Syria is an ally of Iran and all Pelosi was trying to do with her visit to Damascus was to try to split the 2 allies, Syria and Iran, by offering one the ‘carrot’, if only Syria would abandon its ally, Iran, who will then get the US-Israel ‘stick’.

Divide and Conquer is an ancient US government policy that both Pelosi and Bush are totally in agreement on. Take Syria to the side and offer it relief from the coming US-Israel attack on Iran, but only if Syria’s government abandons its alliance with Iran? There is no split between Pelosi and Bush at all. And both parties are absolutely ready to now have the US military attack Iran whether Syria accepts their ‘carrot’ or not. What will Syria’s government do? Dealing with the US and Israel in this way is even more suicidal than staying firm in alliance with Tehran.

Investigate this

Posted on by
Reply


While the CSPD investigates reports that its officers employed excessive force at The 2007 John O’Donnell St. Patrick’s Day Parade, you can check out this collection of news segments which feature the St Patrick’s police surge on home-video footage. (Courtesy of Mark Lewis)
Fast forward to these select items:
At the 5:27 mark, Frank Cordero in an illegal choke hold,
At 5:04, Molly Eaves being held by the throat,
At 3:30, Elizabeth Fineron knocked down by two police officers, and
At 3:14, dragged swifty across the pavement.

Mr. Gates, why are we supposed to believe you?

Posted on by
Reply

You and your boss have lied to so many times, but we are expected to just say, OK, this time it’s Iran, so they must be telling the truth?

You picked up a few Iranians in sweeps where no one is convicted in any way an American or British court would accept (and that speaks volumes) without identifying any of them, nor 90% of the dead “militants” from the past 4 years, yet you assure us that each and every one of them was in fact a militant.

You shoot up a pilgrimage of Iranians who, you assure us, were a militant Messianic Cult, during a Shiite holiday where such pilgrimages are commonplace and have been for centuries.

You pick up some Iranian nationals during these same pilgrimages and without making any specific charges, you demand that we accept this as PROOF that the Iranian government is backing the militants in Iraq.

When are you going to stop lying to us, bring the American soldiers back home, resign your commission and take your Commander in Thief with you?

US National Surveillance State issues out the national ID cards to us

Posted on by
Reply

There used to be a lot of worry about the government issuing a national identification card to all of us and then requiring us to carry it all the time so that they could monitor us, The People, all the time. Well now that they are actually slipping that noose half around our neck, the population of the US is without a bleep of protest against it. Maybe it is because the name of the national ID card sounds so familiar and appears as nothing much new? The national ID card is called a passport, and it will soon be required for all travel outside the US, even to Mexico and Canada.

What? Don’t think of the passport as a national ID card? Well that’s what it is becoming in graduated steps. When you apply for one, you are registering with the federal government. They already have a list of grading people on supposed ‘flight risk’, and it will be an easy task to meld this to the passport. And what’s to stop an ‘overland travel risk’ list from being added on now? After all, one can hijack a bus and do some major damage with it if one wants. All America must be protected from that, they will say.

These new passport requirements were slipped in by the Bush Administration without even the most minimal discussion and with zero protest within the House and Senate. Millions of people (Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans) who never had passports are now being herded into having to obtain one. Our whole county is being turned into a gated community, all under the excuse of bettering our own security. In fact, much of the North American continent is being turned into a high security zone, where people will travel between countries while under a secret surveillance pegged to their passports.

This secret surveillance does not now, and certainly will not in the future, have any due process as to who gets to go, and who is made to stop at the series of gates that will be put into effect. That will be a military decision, since the Department of Homeland Security and MIGRA really are part of the military model, not civilian one. If this reminds you of Palestinians within the areas controlled by Israel, then you get the picture of the model being used by this passport system of surveillance. It is all quite arbitrary and beyond the reach of legal rules and observations.

We are only now in the first steps of this new, comprehensive surveillance system being put into place. but the fact that we don’t even recognize much what is really being done is not promising for stopping and reversing course. All the blame for ‘inconveniences’ will be placed on Osama bin Laden, and not our own misleaders. We will be told that it is wartime and that our liberties must be compromised. We will be told that there are certain elements of our society that are high risk to the rest of us. Wait! Did I say we WILL be told that? We are already being told all this, and most of us nod our heads in acquiesence.

An Iron Curtain is Descending is a good article at the counterpunch site about the already occurring effects of this new surveillance system upon people. Check it out!

To: Bush and Gates Re: OUR Plan

Posted on by
1

Dear Messieurs Bush and Gates.
    Today you have once again proposed that anybody who does not support YOU and YOUR War have some obligation to put forth a better plan for victory in YOUR WAR.
   Also Mr Gates has presented the idea once again that LEGITIMATE PROTEST of YOUR WAR somehow emboldens YOUR enemies. Which would be an accusation of Treason, (a capital offense) against the majority of Congressmen and a majority of the people of the United States.

Apparently you are both somewhat confused about what exactly your legal status is.

Mr. Bush, you are at most an elected official. In a Democracy, or if you prefer, a Republic, THE PEOPLE are the ones who are the Decision Makers. You are our employee and NOT our master.

I realize that you have the mistaken notion that as a public employee you have no obligation to listen to the clearly expressed will of the people. You call it “leadership by polls”, and sneer at the prospect that mere mortals can criticize you or tell you what to do. You call yourself the Commander in Chief. Mr Bush, there are somewhat less than 2 million members of the Armed Forces in America. That means 298 million citizens of the United States are in fact Civilians, and therefore NOT under Your command.

   Now, Mr Bush, I realize that Laura will have to read this to you. I would ask Mrs. Bush to point out that 298,000,000 is substantially a larger number than 2,000,000.  In other words, as your Poppy used to say, YOU do the math.

      You and Mr Gates and Mr Cheney are OUR employees. WE are the deciders and WE have decided to support Our Other Employees, the Men and Women of the Armed Forces. Current and Future.

These men and women, and the children your ROTC and recruiters are grooming for future employment in the Armed Forces, have been placed in Harm’s Way by your stupid policies. Your policies are based on deliberate manipulation and deception of the American People, and the Congress, for more than 6 years now.

Apparently you don’t listen to polls. You keep repeating this, so I and others like me will have to repeat our reply: When the American People voted for President in 2000, more people voted against YOU. The only way you managed to attain office was by skillful manipulation of the electoral process by your family and their henchmen. Men like Mr Cheney and Mr Gates. You again failed to get a Majority of the votes in 2004, yet somehow you have represented that failure as a mandate from the people to allow you to lead us.

I know you can not read fast, so I am writing this very slowly… The people who you feel should obey you, are not going to obey you.

Your policy has continually failed since the day you stole your job. It has specifically failed with respect to YOUR personal war against Saddam Hussein. You have, through a long series of Lies, unlawfully targeted the people and government of Iraq as the Enemy, and demanded that we do the same. You have had Mr Hussein killed. You have done what you said you wanted, i.e.; Killed Mr Hussein, been allowed to search for Weapons of Mass Destruction throughout Iraq, been allowed to install a New Puppet dictator in Iraq, taken the Oil Fields of Iraq to give to Mr Cheney and your other Henchmen in the petroleum industry.

    In the 4 years since the unlawful conquest and pillage of the nation of Iraq began, exactly zero none nada zip bupkas of your promised Glorious Victory have emerged. You have murdered more than 3,000 members of the Armed Forces. At the lowest count, you have Murdered 75,000 citizens of the nation of Iraq. The higher count of up to 300,000 Iraqis is disputed by you and your Lying cabinet and lying supporters.

     Your unofficial Spokes Freaks at the FOREIGN owned Fox Television Networks have made the threat, repeatedly, that people who oppose this systematic Murder and Theft and Deception that you have been doing for so long, should be rounded up and punished for their Patriotic defiance of your unlawful policies.

      Today, YOUR henchman Mr. Gates has used the same lie, that not supporting you is giving “aid and comfort” to the alleged Enemies .

These people did not declare war against the United States. The people of the United States did not declare them to be the enemies. YOU and your Chicken Hawk Cabinet and advisors did. By allowing your spokespersons, either the official ones like Cheney and Gates, or the unofficial ones like the employees of Mr Rupert Murdoch, to threaten Americans with nothing short of DEATH for opposing your murderous policies, is Terrorism.

Mr Gates and you, and the people at Fox Networks, and other corporate information media, know very well that threatening Americans with death or in fact any punishment for engaging in conduct which is not only Lawful, but mandated by Our consciences, is unlawful in and of itself.

       Perhaps you believe that Americans who oppose you have no resolve. To cling to that mistaken belief, you would have to neglect and ignore the fact that we have not been cowed into submission, We Have Not Backed Down, but instead grown stronger in our Resistance.

       Many of us are former members of the Military, like you, Mr Bush. However, most of the former military who oppose you, unlike you or any member of your cabinet, are actually combat veterans. The Congressmen you and Mr. Gates say are traitors, AND MAKE NO MISTAKE you have openly accused us of TREASON, are likewise Combat Veterans.

      The fact that we have been using every Lawful Means to resist and defy your so called “leadership” is not an indication of weakness on our parts, it is instead a strong resolve to not destroy our nation further by abandoning Rule of Law.

         This restraint has kept the Opposition to your Dictatorship from taking up arms against our fellow citizens, in spite of you and your henchmen making terroristic threats and in many cases actually carrying out such threats.

The time for such restraint is rapidly approaching its end. If you and your lapdogs insist on making war against The American People, you and your lap dogs will have to be restrained, by force if necessary.

     Your New Plan for Victory, which you have arrogantly commanded us to support or propose a better, is the same Old Plan, which you have insisted on following, at the cost of our National Treasure, in short our relatives and friends who are in the military. Also you have spent the National Treasury and any conceivable payments into that Treasury, for generations to come. You have taken away our ability to respond to Real National Threats, as opposed to Non-existent threats from people like the late Mr Hussein.

Your plan has been given 4 years to work, it is not working and, even though you and your goon squads and lying henchmen keep saying otherwise, We The People are capable of seeing that it has not worked, and will not work.

      We do not owe you a better plan. You owe us your respect, and your obedience to the People. You, and your cabinet, owe us your resignations. You owe our fellow citizens in the military your respect, for their lives and for their service.

You can no longer hide behind the lies that a dictatorship is somehow a guarantee of freedom.

    Your incompetent dictatorship is instead a guarantee of slavery, but ONLY if we fail in our real duties, to bring your dictatorship to an end.

The people who you and Mr. Gates threaten, are quite capable of forcibly ending that threat. Mr. Bush, Mr. Gates, I strongly caution you not to make the rash mistake of continuing in your terroristic campaign.

The US & Britain are profoundly undemocratic forces in the world today

Posted on by
Reply

If it is not enough to give Israel the free reign and financial aid to terrorize Palestianians and steal their lands at will, the US and Britain also try to disrupt and tear up the governance the Palestinians try to arrange for themselves.

For years they made demons out of Arafat and Fatah, but today the US & its allies are politically supporting Fatah by trying to force new Palestinian elections early and pumping money into Fatah and its leader Abbas, so that this group will be able to buy the new elections at will and destroy their opposition, Hamas. The US and Britain are profoundly undemocratic forces in the world today, though this in effect is nothing new, and this is just the most recent example of this. Our corporate government leaders no more support democracy in placxes like Palestine and Iraq, than they do in our own workplaces if we try to organize unions.

We can go back to the US’s coup against Allende where Washington DC installed Pinochet into power. We can go also to examine Algeria, where in 1991 the US and Europe supported a military coup after the elections were won by an Islamic coalition. Subsequently, several hundred thousand were slaughtered down, and repression there continues to this day. Hardly an incentive for Muslim groups looking for national independence and liberation to take a peaceful course of action, as opposed to crashing planes into the Pentagon and elsewhere.

We can also see today, the US and its allies pushing to keep an undemocratic and unpopular Lebanese government in power. One that opened the gates to a foreign power (Israel) to wage war once again inside Lebanon against the majority sector of that country’s population. We can see it in the US and European’s support for the fraudulent and unpopular president just installed in Mexico, that provoked the largest demonstrations in the history of that country. And we can see it in the longterm US and Brit support for the Saudi Arabian monarchy, the Musharraf dictatorship in Pakistan, and the repressive Egyptian government, that has merely the sheerest of mirages of having any democratic trappings to it.

Everywhere we look, the US and its allies are supporting tyrants and thugs, but can anybody really claim that this is something new? But this latest example of the US and Britain trying to force new elections on the Palestinians, is a new low of sorts, I think. It is forcing upon the Palestinians the type of factional violence that the US and Britain have already forced upon Afghanistan and Iraq. Could the Nazis themselves have taken this strategy of fomenting inter factional fighting to a form more detrimental to its victims?

Princess Diana and the end of civility

Posted on by
12

Princess Diana on Dodi Fayed's yacht a week before her deathThe Queen is the first film to be made about the woman who has presided over England for half a century. The story deals with the days following Princess Di’s fatal crash in 1997 and the personal challenge her death might have posed for the monarchy’s public relations. The same period saw Prime Minister Tony Blair’s ascendancy to power. The story gives Blair credit, where the queen appeared to faulter, for recognizing Diana as being the “People’s Princess.” And then some.

Asked about his fawning depiction of Tony Blair as man of the hour, director Stephen Frears thought it “a mark of my incredible maturity” to cast Blair in the light of his glory days, this at a time when Blair and his government have fallen irrecoverably, adding that “it’s preposterous that he’s not in jail.” In the interview Frears also makes light of whether Queen Elizabeth II is possibly really as bright as her character portrayed by Hellen Mirren. The Queen celebrates the resolve of royal blood facing a crisis. Elizabeth is both humanized and lionized, by sticking to the stiff upper lip “the world expects of us.” Frears interweaves real news footage of celebrities and the flowers flooding the Buckingham Palace gates, counting the days from Lady Di’s death to the climax when the queen finally makes her long delayed statement.

That’s when Frears lies. He lays the behind the scenes personal anguish which might have explained the dishonor the royals paid to Diana, leading to the Queen’s famous address, but then rewrites the ending. As if Mighty Casey, his vainglorious ambitions thwarted in the minor leagues, stays true to his character that day in Mudville, and now because we can all feel a little sympathy for the self-centered fella, he swings and DOES NOT strike out!!

We all were there when Queen Elizabeth took to the microphone, and no close-ups of a fictional Tony Blair’s tearing eyes, proud of his stalwart sovereign, are going to recast the disgraceful blue-blooded reaction for what it was.

And what of lingering accusations of the royal family being behind Diana’s death? What of the rape tape which Diana posited with a servant for safe-keeping which tells, it’s conjectured because the British press are forbidden to tell us, of Prince Charles interrupted sodomizing a valet. What of Lady Diana being, not even arguably, by the power of her personality, the most powerful woman in the world? But unlike Oprah or Martha Stewart, Diana was a loose cannon championing the cause of AIDs in Africa, and the fight to ban land mines, both subjects the powers that be, certainly in America, did/do not want highlighted.

The Queen‘s smartest character, Tony Blair’s advisor who supposedly coins the term People’s Princess is let to murmur early on, “It wasn’t the press that killed her.” But the subject is dropped there. Instead Blair and his crew seize upon Diana’s death like Mayor Giuliani to 9/11, being seen offering bedside comfort to a traumatized populace, and reaping the accolades. Except director Frears offers nothing behind such scenes. Blair is shown as the earnest surrogate, standing in for his monarch until she can regrasp the helm.

With the ensuing years having shown us Blair’s true colors, what do you think was the more likely scenario? A self-effacing Danny Kaye Pauper Prince or a Rudy Giuliani? I find Frears’ characterization of Blair even more disingenuous, showing Tony living in a modest flat strewn with children’s messes, taking the dinner plates to do the “washing up,” and keeping watch on world events on a television with a Nintendo game atop it. This coming from a “labor” minister who was leading the conservative counter-revolution to restructure the British economy for the elites. Perhaps Frears’ adopted class.

The Queen owes its entire first act to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911, the music, the build, the black out of the familiar awful moment, and the protracted montage we needed to absorb the tragedy and understand how it’s changed us.

The great disservice that Stephen Frears does to history, and to all of us because we are still living it, is amplified by the fact that he did get Diana’s death right. Princess Di’s sudden death did change the world, perhaps more than did 9/11. The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was a comeuppance. If the American people did not see it coming, the world did. That such a terrorist act was bound to happen was attested to the fact that the same people had already tried it and at the very same location.

But Diana’s death marked the end of civility, and people felt it. The third world may have been fit to burst under the weight of its post-colonial oppressors, but a great English civility had prevailed since the days of Ghandi. This was a sense that disagreement could be visceral, but apart from the brutality of the unwashed French or the uncouth Americans, a British sense of decency would rule out. Britain, not long ago the Empire, was where we got the rule of law, our rights, and everyone’s concept of a representational parliament.

The circumstances around Diana’s death would present an incredibly interesting lesson in power usurped from the people; Tony Blair’s arrangement with Rupert Murdoch for starters, instead of showing Blair reacting to the newspapers and coaxing his old queen along. The Queen is a marvelous story of two people facing adversity introspectively. Fine, except those personages were at the center of the unification of global corporate power and could not have been idle participants. As if Frears had made a film about the Titanic and chose to focus on the captain’s preoccupation with feng shui.

The 1990s saw a decline in every aspect of benevolent leadership, and I believe the premature death of Lady Diana was the curtain. It was hard those days after her death to imagine a world without her, and indeed events have proved that we were to face the worst. The turn of the century marked the ascendency of the Neocons, the political face of the globalization overlords. It meant corporate overseers with gloves off, Zionist zealotry unabashed, banks with no limits on their usury, and the world media watchdogs in the hands of the wolves.

The ruling few have their hands bloody in genocides the world over, endless wars, massacres, slavery, epidemics, poverty, famine and reckless abandonment. Before Diana’s death at least I believe they would have been concerned to wash the blood off.

Bush, just who is it that is destabilizing the Lebanese government?

Posted on by
Reply

The Bush Adminstration has been making statement after statement claming that Iran and Syria are in a subversive campaign to destabilize the government of Lebanon. But wasn’t it just some few months ago that so many hundreds of thousands of Lebanese were in the streets demanding that Syria remove its troops from inside Lebanon’s borders? And Syria did pull them out, too.

But now, many of the same Christian Lebanese that demonstrated then, are now back in the streets of Beirut together with Hezbollah Muslim Lebanese, and both groups are demanding that the present government resign and dismantle itself. What happened? How did this Lebanese government, clinging desperately now to the reins of power, lose such previous popularity? Commander in Chief Bush, inquiring minds would like to know?

The answer is pretty simple and obvious, though apparently the entirely whorish US press refuses to answer it, or in fact, to even ask this question. How did this current Lebanese government clutching to power by its little finger held so tight, lose its credibility within a few short months? Simple, they opened up the Cedar-lined Lebanese national gates, per US government request, and let Israeli troops rampage unrestrained (except by Hezbollah) across Lebanese national territory. The Lebanese beaches became clogged with a thick oil slick, the fields got strewn with land mines for children to blow themselves up with, and hundreds of thousands became refugees, lost their property, and even lost their lives. Who the hell would want a government that allowed this to happen and stood by passively?

So whose strategy was it, to undermine this government? Was it Syria and Iran that came up with the idea, Dubya, to give the green light to Israel to go on its Jewish pogrom against Muslim Arabs? Or was it the twin US GeneralisiMoes, Dick and Donald Duck?

The people united, never Hamas will be defeated, it seems. One, two, three, a thousand officious ‘Iraq Study Groups’ need to be Christened now. Baker and Hamilton to study Afghanistan, Lebanon, Colombia, and the Balkans, too! Time to play, neocon domino!

Oh yeah. And one more US study group about the ‘Palestinian problem’, too. Duh? Just who destabilized the Lebanaese government?