The virtual world of the global marketplace

Wow. We’ve been trying for several years, a group of friends and I, to get our local public radio station KRCC to add Democracy Now to their news lineup. Nope, we’re told. Nope. Too one-sided.
 
And then they add Marketplace, a daily homage to the stockmarket.

We tried call-in campaigns, petition drives, we’ve even had Amy Goodman come speak on the campus twice and she filled the venues with audiences of mostly KRCC listeners.

KRCC was not disposed, no space available on the lineup, nope, sorry, no. And the dealings have not been above board. Listeners calling in were not told that they were among a multitude. Mention of the petition efforts, or the speaking engagements, was not made on the air. It’s been such an uphill battle, in this ultra conservative city, that petitioners meet people who’d signed already in years past, who ask “what, didn’t that happen already?” They’re no longer even tuning in anymore to KRCC to know.

I check in on KRCC every once in a while, and this morning at 91.5 on the FM dial, what do I hear? Smack in the middle of morning drive-time, a new show. Marketplace or something. Business Talk. As if the news is not already dominated by corporate press releases and corporate mouthpieces trying to direct stock market consumer confidence! And it was atrocious!

Regular NPR news itself is comprised of stories underwritten and packaged by corporate interests. Listen to any one of them and ask yourself, who wants me to know this? Chances are it’s a military contractor, or someone bidding on a water project, or an oil company hoping to ease your anxiety about Global Warming, or a chemical conglomerate wanting to impress you with the scope of human progress. A whole host of pharmaceutical underwriters give NPR reason not dwell on the 25 millions, entire generations, of Africans dying of aids.

The regular NPR stories are broadcast to give you a sense of the bloodless global economy. I guess the irregular work is done by shows like Marketplace, to pretend to report to stockholders and investors in direct terms.

You very likely do not have stock, but they’re talking to you. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was not for the rich and famous to watch. You can’t afford what they’re showing you, but you enjoy it vicariously, and most important your confidence is boosted by the belief that it’s there should you ever overcome your bills, or win the lottery.

National Public Media’s MARKETPLACE. Wow! Corporate press releases designed to stimulate stock values, and commentary designed to give the stimulation a simulation of being in the investor’s interest.

In five minutes I heard about a $40 million mansion for sale on Rhode Island, a rare occurrence apparently, with a 100k-bottle wine collection; to an airline that says it can’t make a competitive bid without concessions from its union; to the US car industry being criticized for having a $24 disadvantage versus Japanese cars, based on poor pricing strategy (whatever that is, $24 short maybe?) and labor problems.

Add to that, amiable chit-chat about the Dow in terms of “nearly” and “a little bit” with specialist experts who don’t want to commit to any opinion really of whether up means down or vice is versa or verse visa.

America’s Pirates

No, this is not about ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, but about Microsoft and WalMart instead. Every year Forbes Magazine does its glowing presentation about the super-rich who rule us that really should be better called ‘Pirates of The United States of America’. Replace Johnny Depp with Bill Gates, perhaps, and have a great flick! Actually, a lot of liberal Democratic Party romantics already really seem to find him sexy, and if they flutter over Al Gore’s movie then certainly Bill Gates as pirate would be a blockbuster for them, if made into film. And YES go figure about some liberals’ personal taste? Throw in Hillary with Bill for yet more romance amongst the pirate super-rich. And the Democratic Party faithful will swoon.

So the gist of Forbes summary this year is that the top 400 people with big bucks gained another $120 billion over the last year. Yes, all through hard work. That gives these worthy pirates a total value of 1 and 1/4 triillion dollars. It broke my slide rule just calculating all that dough. Where did it come from, Folks? So hard to guess, ain’t it?

Hint, hint, hint, for the really thick. It came from theft. You got your pocket picked and still don’t know it! What could you do with an extra 1 and 1/4 trillion dollars those top 400 US pirates grabbed overall? And shoot, that’s not even talking about any Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, or dark seedy Arab pirates! How many pirates do you think the world’s poor can support? The Mexican poor support quite a few all alone, including ones’ called Hank, and another called Slim! And no doubt, America will turn out yet more next year.

Attention, All Pirates. Neiman Marcus’s Christmas catalog will be out soon! I hear there is even a yacht made out of solid diamonds for sale. How can it float, but it’s quite a sight to see? I love that catalog!

‘Tokyo Rose’ in Retrospect

BBC news has an interesting report about the true history of ‘Tokyo Rose’ on its site right now. Many of the youngsters out there might not remember who she was, so I’ll try to sum it up some. Basically, she was the combination Osama bin Laden/ Jane Fonda hate object for the gungho American militarists belonging to the WW2 generation. An uppity woman and an uppity wayward terrorist mercenary in one bundle!

Or so the American media of the time had it. Here’s the story in retrospect courtesy of the BBC. She may have had more venom once directed at her, than that directed toward Jane Fonda and Hillary Clinton combined. No small accomplishment for one woman one might add. All of it apparently totally undeserved, too.

Wonder how many of the 70 year PLUS generation even know today, that she was actually found innocent and pardoned by the US government? The propaganda built around her was another shameful episode in the witchhunt of the Japanese Americans during WW2.

And this type of hysteria is slowly building against Muslims right now, all under the guise of fighting what Bush and his henchmen have ridiculously labeled ‘Islamic Fascism’. Some who have donated to Islamic charities have already found themselves in Tokyo Rose’s situation. And no doubt there will be other innocent Muslims persecuted in the days ahead. Anyway, it is a worthwhile read at the BBC….

NPR versus Habeas Corpus

I caught a little of National Public Radio today. Here’s what I heard: A news story about a new program of repatriating illegal immigrants: by flying them back their ancestral homes, away from the Mexico-American border. It’s working rather well administrators say. The program interviewed a freshly apprehended Mexican who has been returned to his $12 a day parking lot attendent job in Mexico City. He said through a translator that he is likely inclined to give up his dream of reaching El Norte.

So let’s see, that’s a story about subsidizing airlines, budgeting Homeland Security funds for the tickets, to be clear. And the one-way-trips seem to be along the logic of driving a live-trapped vermint a minimum of five miles away from your home to keep him from coming back. Works sometimes.

So is it working with the persistent Mexicans? Hard to say as yet. And yet, here’s a report about it on NPR.

Switch over online to Democracy Now and what are they talking about?

Holy Shit, the Senate has passed a torture/anti-human rights bill which repeals the right of Habeas Corpus! The Right of Habeas Corpus has been nearly universal in the western world since the Magna Carta, since 1215 AD. Thirteen Democrats joined with the Republicans to pass the bill, including our man Ken Salazar, and everybody’s slippery rodent Joe Lieberman. Commentators have likened this bill to the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII and similar national disgraces. We’ll be struggling to apologize and pay reparations. Many are sensibly embarrassed already.

Next up, a description of the Green Zone in Baghdad. Halliburton is serving pork there, and alcohol, insensitive to the Iraqis who must work and eat there, unclean. And on and on.

Can you imagine an informed American populace without the media telling them what’s happening? Why are your friends and neighbors not able to hear Democracy Now on their radios? Who’s standing in their way from hearing the truth over the public airwaves?

In Colorado Springs the gatekeeper is KRCC, the public radio station with a dedicated community of listeners, most of whom are kept in the dark about Democracy Now. On a day like today, it would seem the difference of opinion about station programming is less about taste and more unthinkably out of touch.

Hussein’s Kangeroo Court Time- days when law is littered

In the last couple of decades, the US Empire has developed a fondness for using show trials following its own violations of international law. The cardinal foundation of international law is that one nation does not have the right to militarily attack another. And of course we know, that the US has violated this maxim time after time. In fact, no other nation can even come close to the US’s sorry record on this account. I believe that even the Hungarians would certainly agree with this statement.

Our citizenry has become so numbed to the sheer number of times that our government continually violates this Principal Number One of international law, that the overwhelming majority of the US feels that it is not incongruent for our leaders to preach constantly about democracy, human rights, and basic humanity to others. In reality, violating the law, while preaching it, is the the central tenet of the advocation of a constant world war that both parties now are in total agreement on. American elites think by giving their constant world war a fancy name, the so-called ‘war on terrorism’, that that somehow absolves them from obeying the central tenets of international law itself. International law is seen as a nuisance,that needs to be buried in a grave somewhere along with those POWs murdered by US troops. If we recall right, the Germans at the height of their Third Reich did away entirely with courts and law, and just loaded their supposed enemies into cattle cars headed for concentration camps to be exterminated. Death penalty, no law. Period.

So one can see easily that elites in general, have little or no respect for the law they often preach to others. Law is seen merely as a codification of their own power, and outside of that, law is simply discarded when inconvenient to the powerful. Which leads to an most cogent recent example of that. I refer to the dismissal of the head judge of the kangeroo court ‘trying’ Saddam Hussein. He was seen as too polite to the guy the Pentagon is getting ready to execute, so they just said “you are terminated.” Our servile corporate press basically just treated the incident as if it was entirely normal and legal! This, much as they had already done with the unusual news of how Milosevic conveniently died, right smack in dab of when he was becoming an indelicate nuisance to American elites. Heck, who cared? Clinton and Wesley Clark maybe? They were going to execute him anyway, so why bother with completiing the trial. But Milosevic thought he was being poisoned. And I don’t find that a bizarre paranoia on his part at all.

So let’s ask another question on our minds right now. Is Osama alive or not? Does anybody really think that it has already been anything other than shoot now, and try him later? But even that seems to be too much for the top dogs to do in obeying some structure of law! How inconvenient a ‘trial’ in a kangeroo court would be for Rumsfield, say. So, Osama’s dead already, IMO. His body buried away in rubble. Only the illusion that he is still alive has lived. The Pentagon finds that illusion necessary to justify themselves for sure, but a show trial? No way. Osama was killed quite some time back it appears. He is dead, and only Pentagon prop-op resusrrects him from time to time. The US is judge, jury, and executioner, and then lies about the whole thing.

Our political bosses now state, over and over, that our government is beyond all legalities, and I think that is something we poltiical Americans need to thoroughly understand. After all, where is the legality of calling for a ‘constant war’ as they do? It’s time that Americans see their elites for what they really are, and not just follow them along as far as the Germans and Japanese once did with their elite misleadership gone wild. Of course most Americans will say that ‘our’ government is not anywhere near as barbarous as our WW2 opponents were. Oh yeah? Well I’m still thinking about how the US suffocated to death in metal containers, POWs ‘our’ troops captured as they successfully invaded Afghanistan. How is that different from the actions of the Nazis with sending their opponents away to the ovens? It’s time to quite dillydallying around thinking that we are dealing with ‘decent folk’ like ourselves when we deal with our elites. They are not like that at all. They hardly even consider their own poor folk human, let alone the rest of the world.

Something we should contemplate, as our government moves toward the possible use of nuclear weaponry against Iran in the coming days, is that they no longer feel the need to obey ANY laws even as they demand that we obey them all. They have legalized for themselves, murder, mayhem, and torture. Before they just did it to The Others in the shadows. Our elites have no plans to turn back from the road they have chosen to move upon. They are just making too damn much money for them to do otherwise. Hussein, long time servant of the US in his war upon Iran, did not understand where our US elites were heading. His fate for his misunderstanding will be? Well, it will most likely be death by Kangeroo Court ala Milosevic. And that is what passes for legality these days. International law has been trashed, and can be found only as litter in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti.

USAFA, I’m glad I knew ya!

pictureAhhh, it’s September again….my favorite time of the year. Lazy Saturday mornings spent in oversized sweatshirts and fluffy slippers, drinking coffee, aspen trees on Cheyenne Mountain clad in autumnal glory, jets practicing for afternoon Air Force football games.

I’ve attended many such games. When the jets fly overhead without warning I feel an incredible patriotic stirring in my loins. The poor unwitting soul seated next to me invariably must endure my tongue in his or her ear and my breathy rendition of Lee Greenwood’s neo-national anthem, Proud to Be An American. Tears stream down my face as I stand up and shout PENIS! PENIS! PENIS! (I think I remember a similarly-named Japanese film from my youth). Could there be anything sexier or more masculine than an F-16 suddenly overtaking me from behind? A Blackhawk helicopter hovering over me quivering, gyrating, rotoring away? A sleek submarine slipping into the murky depths? MY GOD, I don’t even need to sit on the washing machine anymore. The military presence in our town leaves me FULLY SATISFIED.

Unfortunately, I was raised Catholic and was compelled by nuns and priests of dubious character to consider always the plight of my fellow man. Okay….sigh….I’ll give it a shot. I wonder what it costs the taxpayers to bring out the heavy artillery in the name of athletic superiority? How much jet fuel do we have to buy so that the flyboys can do their thing? Is this truly the most expensive pre-game show in the history of college athletics? Shit. At the bottom of my hill are countless families biding their time at Fort Carson while fathers are in Iraq fighting terrorists on behalf of the good ol’ US of A. Families are living paycheck to paycheck….moms are alone making breakfast, lunch, and dinner….helping with homework….singing lullabies….fixing broken cars, peeling paint, fractured bones.

Oh, well. That’s what they signed up for, isn’t it? If it wasn’t military service it would be incarceration. Really. They should just shut their fat yaps and be grateful that Uncle Sam has given them a job at all. Meanwhile I’m going to sit on my deck and watch my protectors doin’ their thing….for you, for me, for the team. Ohhhhh. Mmmmmmm. Ahh, baby….Yes. Yeeessss. TORA! TORA! TORA!

Freudian Ground Zero

Hiroshima Japan
Hiroshima Japan, Aug 6, 1945. Ground Zero.

This is Ground Zero. Five square miles. 70,000 killed. Japanese men, women and children.

Ground Zero is an Operation Research term. Distances to destination can be discussed in relative terms without divulging -or deciding- the actual destination.

Similarly, the D-day Normandy landing was Day 0. Days preparatory to D-day were called D -x. Events to occur subsequent the landing were scheduled for D +x. This way plans could be made relative to a fixed point, which might have to change with the weather.

Actually, ground zero has designated the impact point of every atomic bomb blast from Hiroshima to Bikini Atoll. Distance from Ground Zero was a key vector in measuring an explosion’s effect. Earthquakes require a similar designation. In the 80’s I remember recriminations flying about our nation’s pitiful response to the AIDs epidemic, the original human carrier was called Patient Zero.

Where pray-tell do we get off calling the World Trade Center Ground Zero? What geometry requires a 9/11 “ground zero?” Is the WTC the epicenter of the media lies unleashed on September 11th, 2001? Is it because every news story and every government rationalization points back to “9/11” Ground Zero?

Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

have we become the evil we deploreWe held a protest today at the front gate of Peterson Air Force Base. It was to commemorate the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 61 years ago. It’s an annual remembrance.
 
The event also offers us a chance to reflect on the lunacy of nuclear weapons.
 
The protest was lost on the airmen who drove through the gate leaving the base. None of them seem to know what date it is. Let alone that it represents a tragic milestone for mankind.

Vigils are not kept for the equal number of Japanese civilians killed by conventional weapons, fire-bombed before we had nukes. American bombers annihalated entire Japanese cities, including 60% of Tokyo, in a deliberate effort to kill Japanese civilians.

White Native Americans

A branch of our local library is hosting a discussion about a recent work of popular fiction, One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus. I’m thinking of stopping by to puke.

The novel begins by alluding that its unspeakable historical premise has factual merit. ALLEGEDLY the author’s great great aunt, a “May Dodd”, left a journal about her life experience, hidden all these years in shame by her family. The author takes it upon himself to tell her repressed tale, and because it is the untold fate of 999 nameless more, we infer it to be one of the dark secrets of the American national identity.

The story concerns 1000 white women who were traded to the Indians in exchange for resettlement and peace. One thousand white women. The title does grab you. It has undeniable where-the-white-women-at? appeal.

Another prominant White IndianThe phenomena also shares something with the White Indian Series by Donald Porter. That’s a western series for readers who couldn’t be bothered to know about the lives of the Native Americans unless they were WHITE Native Americans. These readers can’t sympathize with Indians as victims, unless they are white Indian victims, and then preferably of course they should be white Indian victims of Indians.

The mythic white Indian abounds on film, and it’s not just Indians. The story of The Last Samurai had to be about a white man in Japan (Tom Cruise) or who would care?

Here you have the fate of 1000 women sold, sacrificed or let loose down the river to become Indian squaws. One part romantic fantasy, several parts feminist grudge, (1000 parts rape fetish?), all at the hands of red heathen.

To be fair, the author does provide a disclaimer that 1000 white women never changed hands. Fergus implies however that an original Cheyenne proposal to be given 1000 white women was real and asks readers to ponder, what if?

If true, it’s a piercing lesson on the embarrassing legacy that can come from sarcasm.

How deeply insulting is it to suggest that Indian tribal leaders would have asked the army negotiators for white women? And as a condition of laying down their weapons? I think it’s indescribably racist to be susceptible to thinking that Indian fathers and braves sought white mates with whom to raise new generations of their tribe.

Neither in-breeding nor poor education are excuses enough for this prevalent self-centered bigotry.

Sept 11 – America Reaps What It Sows!

By Black Liberation Army prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim.

U.S. International Warfare Initiates World War III Human Rights During Wartime
By Jalil A. Muntaqim

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Americans have displayed their true colors of jingoism, a militaristic spirit of nationalism. Similarly, it was witnessed how the people of Iraq rallied in support of their President, Saddam Hussein, after the U.S. bombed to death 250,000 Iraqis, and continued devastation of that country with collateral damage of 1 million dead women and children. Hence, people rallying in support of their government and representatives is a common phenomenon when a country is attacked by an outsider. The U.S. has been foremost in the world extending foreign policy of free-market economy, to the extent of undermining other countries cultures and ideologies expressed as their way of life. Such conflicts inevitably positions the U.S. as the centerpiece, the bulls-eye for international political dissent, as indicated by demonstrations against the U.S. controlled IMF, WTO and World Bank conferences. The attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon did not occur in a vacuum. The people that carried out the attacks were not blind followers or robots with an irrational hatred of the U.S. peoples. Rather, this attack was part of an overall blowback to U.S. imperialist policy in support of zionist Israel and opposition to fundamentalist Islam.

There are essentially three primary world ideologies or world views: the capitalist free-market economy/democracy; the socialist production economy; and Islamic theocratic government, of which has been in competition for many decades. However, in the last 20 years the socialist economies has been severely subverted and co-opted by free-market economies, the ideals of American style democracy. This isolated, for the most part, Islamic theocratic ideology and system of government as the principle target of the U.S. in its quest for world hegemony. This reality of competing world views and economies is further complicated due to religious underpinning of beliefs that motivates actions, especially as they are expressed by U.S. and Western European christianity and Israel zionist judaism in opposition to Islam. From the struggles of the Crusades to the present confrontation, the struggle for ideological supremacy reigns, as the faithful continue to proselytize in the name of the Supreme Being.

When geopolitics are combined with religious fervor in the character of nationalist identity and patriotism, rational and logical thinking is shoved aside as matters of the moment takes historical precedents. It has often been said that “Truth Crush to the Earth Will Rise Again”. Since truth is relative to ones belief, can it be safely said that America has reaped what it has sowed? The American truth of capitalist christian democracy and its imperialist hegemonic aspirations has crushed both socialist and Islamic world views. It has extended its avaricious tentacles as the world police and economic harbinger of all that is beneficent, in stark denial of its history as a purveyor of genocides, slavery and colonial violence.

The U.S. was the first to use biological-germ warfare on people when it distributed blankets infected with smallpox to Native Americans; it has refused to apologize for Afrikan slavery acknowledging it engaged in a crime against humanity requiring reparations; it is the first and only country to use the atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and intern thousands of Japanese and Italians in this country; it used carpet bombing and defoliates against the peoples of Vietnam; it has initiated embargoes, coup d’etats and assassinations against those it opposes, while propping-up right-wing military dictators; as well as continued military bombing of Vieques. In essence, the U.S. governments hegemonic goals has created the ire of millions of people throughout the world. While domestically, racial profiling, police killing and mass incarceration of Black and Brown people has eroded patriotic sentiments in opposition to white supremacy.

As America weeps and laments its loss, the public find itself joining the torn ranks of those whose heartaches beat opposing U.S. greed and international profiteering. The American public acquiesce to U.S. international folly has cause them to feel the economic pains of those who live daily in poverty. Indeed, Americans should brace for years of economic uncertainty, where the American ideal of freedom and liberty will resemble plight of those who live under the right-wing dictatorships the U.S. has supported. The tyranny suffered by others in the world as a result of U.S. imperialism, has come full circle to visit this country with the wrath of the U.S. own mechanization. Since the U.S. taught and trained right-wing military dictators in the School of the Americas, including the CIA training of Osama bin Laden in the Afghanistan proxy war against the Russians, it will be this same kind of terrorist activist that will be unleashed on American soil, as El-Hajj Malik Shabazz stated after the assassination of John Kennedy, a matter of the chicken coming home to roost. Therefore, American civil liberties and human rights are being garrotted by the yoke of the right-wing in the name of national security. The legalization of U.S. fascism was initiated with the war against political dissent (Cointelpro); the war against organized crime (RICO laws); the war against illegal drugs (plethora of drug laws) and now culminating in the war against terrorism with the American Joint Anti-Terrorist Taskforce and Office of Home Security, further extending police, FBI and CIA powers to undermine domestic civil liberties and human rights.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, recently stated that the U.S. need to create a new language in defining how to combat terrorism. This Orwellian propaganda in the media espouses the U.S. is venturing in a new type of warfare to defend the American way of life. However, what this double-speak propagates as a long-term and sustained initiative against terrorism is essentially a way of embellishing and enlarging U.S. counter-insurgency activity it has been engaged in since the advent of the Green Berets, Rangers, Delta Force and Navy Seals. The U.S. has been involved in counter-insurgency activity in Afrika, Latin America and Asia for decades. But due to the September 11, 2001, attack on U.S. soil, the government has seized the opportunity to offensively pursue left-wing revolutionaries and Muslim insurgents throughout the world. This U.S. military action extends and substantiates its position as the international police.

Since the establishment of the Trilateral Commission that initiated the process for the development of one world government, the U.S. has broaden its capacity to impose and enforce its will on oppressed peoples globally. The FBI and CIA has been operating in Europe, Afrika, Asia and Latin America establishing the long arm of U.S. law and order. Its bases of operations have conducted surveillance, investigations to arrest, prosecute or neutralize left-wing revolutionaries or Muslim insurgents. As the U.S. consolidates its political and economic influence throughout the world, it will seek to protect its overall hegemonic imperialist goals. After the Gulf War, and the air (bombing) campaign in Yugoslavia, the U.S. has employed its military might to ensure its foreign policy are achieved.

Because NATO has evolved into a European military entity that Russia is seeking to join, today, the U.S. has positioned itself beyond the mission of NATO. The U.S. now concentrates its military might in opposing Islamic countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Philippines, etc.) and those the U.S. deem as rogue nations (North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.). The new military initiatives will be directed to towards Southeast Asia as the secondary target, as it continues to direct the Middle East conflict to preserve its oil investments and zionist interest. As the U.S. expand its imperialist military mission, as seen with committing military troops in Uzbekistan to also protect oil interest in the Caspian Sea, it has sought to redefine itself by targeting what it identify as the terrorist thereat wherever in the world it might exist. Hence, with the employment of conventional warfare combined with counter-insurgency tactical activities, the U.S. has pronounced itself as the military guardian of the world.

Although, the U.S. states its actions are in its self-interest, in terms of what is euphemistically defined as defending the free world, the truth of the matter is this action is a prelude to evolving one world government with the U.S. as its governing authority. Once the Peoples Republic of China becomes a full member of the WTO, and North Korea and Vietnam has been compromised, with Russia becoming an ally of NATO, the U.S. political-military influence in the world will be consolidated. The U.S. geopolitical strategy is not confined to the present crisis in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack and targeting Osama bin Laden as the world’s nemesis. Rather, the U.S. strategy is to preserve its capacity to establish one world government as originally envisioned by the Trilateral Commission.

Nonetheless, there are some serious obstacles to this hegemonic goal, of which the world of fundamentalist Islam has become the principle target. Here, it should be noted that Islam condemns suicide or the mass killings of women, children and non-combatant males. Yet, the U.S., Israel, western Europe, Russia, India and China all view Islam as the enemy. Although, there are over 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, the current alliance of economic interest headed by the U.S., are united to vanquish what they consider the growing menace of fundamentalist Islam. It is with this understanding of U.S. geopolitics one is able to comprehend why the U.S. has redefine its military mission, as opposition to globalization and U.S. imperialism metamorph into a political struggle without borders or territorial imperatives.

The ideological struggle between capitalist free-market economy and Islamic theocratic determinates has exploded into an international conflagration of insurgency with the potential of initiating World War III. The Islamic fundamentalist movements throughout the world has the potential to test the U.S. military, political and economic resolve as the world’s leader and authority of an one world government. With over 1.2 billion adherents, Islam has become a formidable foe to contend with for ideological supremacy in the world’s geopolitics. Even without discussing the religious (moral and ethics) aspects that motivates the geopolitics of Islam in opposition to U.S. imperialist hegemony, the call for Jihad/Holy War against the U.S. presents a serious threat that could precipitate WW-III. Therefore, the U.S. find it necessary to redefine its military mission, develop new language to codify warfare and legitimize its international political and economic purpose. Yet, many of the world’s oppressed peoples’ have already experienced U.S. military counter-insurgency tactics (Ethiopia, Somalia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Congo, etc.), including parts of the Islamic world. No matter how or why the U.S. attempts to persuade Americans that it is entering a new type of warfare, in reality it is more of the same, only extending the military arena to further protect its authority to establish one world government.

However, the U.S. is not the homogeneous country that people are deluded into believing exist. Rather, the U.S. has been held together due its ability to exploit the world’s resources and distribute (unequally) the profits amongst its citizens with its culture of conspicuous consumption. But, the recent attack on the U.S., and its aftermath may very well lead to the untangling and unraveling of the U.S. fabric as has been witnessed with the USSR and Yugoslavia. In understanding this true history of U.S. imperialism, outside and within its borders, essentially tells a story of why U.S. imperialism has been and will continue to be attacked.

Ultimately, the U.S. will eventually find itself at war with itself, as the ideology of a free democratic society will be found to be a big lie. This is especially disconcerting as greater restrictions on civil and human rights are made into law eroding the First and Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As during the Vietnam conflict, internal contradictions of racism, poverty and inequality will be exacerbated as a result of the U.S. military campaign and domestic undermining of civil and human rights. It is expected that strife in America will eventually become violent dissolving any semblance of the illusion of America the Beautiful. In anticipation of U.S. progressive activist opposing this claimed war against terrorism, the federal government will pass new laws to severely restrict protest, demonstrations and dissent. In the ’60s, U.S. progressive activists evolved the slogan “Bring the War Home!” – the question is what will be the slogan this time, now that the war has been brought home?

Free the Land!!

Mad Cow is here

Ground cow disease
A third U.S. cow has now been found to have Mad Cow Disease. The refrain remains the same. Have no fear, no part of this infected cow ever found its way into the food supply.
 
Great. But where did that cow come from? Specifically, where did that cow get its BSE? Does it grow on trees? Does it generate itself spontaneously?

No, it is hereditary. Or it is aquired through the ingestion of infected animal parts. In this case they are saying that the animal was old enough to have been fed infected animals before such rendered parts were banned. Maybe. First of all that is to admit that the feeding of rendered mammals to other herbivors was risky behavior, something they have resisted admitting, and second, there’s nothing to say that this third cow got BSE previous to the feed restriction.

What we do know is that the American system of testing only a sampling of livestock is still woefully inadequate compared to everywhere else in the world. When some American ranchers offered to do a more stringent testing themselves in order for their beef to qualify for the japanese market, the U.S. government forbid the ranchers to do it.

It’s as if FDA officials are very nervous that wider tests will find that Mad Cow Desease is prevalent in this country.

In Britain and in Europe, every single cow is tested for BSE. In the U.S. we test less than 1%. In fact, the FDA recently increased the scope of its tests twentyfold, still under 1% of all cattle slaughtered, and as a result discovered BSE in this third cow. Now they want to scale the tests back again because, well, better to let them explain it. Makes sense right? The FDA is not nervous for the American people obviously, they’re nervous for the meat industry.

Meanwhile, let’s find out what those FDA officials are feeding their children.

How to tell the media is lying to you, healthcare

How do you know you are not hearing the straight scoop from the media? Health care.
 
How many industrialized nations are there? Twenty-five or so? And our nation is among them. We don’t have the highest standard of living, nor the second highest, but we’re up there. We’re talking compared to Europe, Britain, Scandinavia, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

How many of those nations have virtually free health care for their people? A few? Several? No. We’re talking all of them. Well, all but one. All but the US.

Yet U.S. health care is the most expensive to provide. It costs a greater portion of our GDP, by twice as much, compared to the next most costly.

Many Americans presume that in exchange, our health care is far superior to that of any other nation. This may be true for the ultra-rich who can afford to fly to see specialists whenever they want. Although, recent studies have shown that in several fields our specialists are no longer pre-eminent.

For the rest of us, reliant on HMOs, or medical care audited by insurance companies, health care is not so great. Most of us cannot see a doctor of our choice, nor make a reasonably timely appointment, nor certainly get a house call. This is not even to mention the millions of Americans who are not insured at all.

The World Health Organization has ranked nations in order of the quality and effectiveness of their health care systems. The U. S. ranked 37th.

That’s not even among the developed nations is it? Our system costs twice as much, one third of which goes to insurance costs, and we rank 37th, just below Costa Rica. Fifteen below Colombia by the way.

Why aren’t you hearing about this in the mainstream media? Because the insurance companies are big advertisers on the mainstream media. Insurance companies make 30% off of American health care bills right now. They don’t want to hear any flowery talk of socialized medicine. Insurance companies insist we call that option a “single payer system,” and they demonize the idea as big government. Yes, bigger government, and in exchange, predatory insurance behemoths gone.

The Colorado Springs 2005 bid committe

The Colorado Springs 2005 hosting bid to host the upcoming U.S. war crimes trials has been officially accepted by INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIME TRIALS .US! We now approach phase II. We must continue to raise awareness for the trials and widen the circle of Colorado Springs citizens who support the calls for reconcilliation to international law.

1.
How can we bring the International War Crimes Trials to Colorado Springs? The advent of hosting war crime trials will be a reality if John Kerry wins the US elections in November 2004.

Kerry has already expressed his intention to make the United States a signatory to the International Criminal Court, at which point the indictments can begin.
President Bush has stated that his objections to ratifying the ICC were to protect American soldiers from facing charges in international courts. But this reason is disingeneous because the prosecution of common soldiers is not the purpose of the ICC.
It is not the intent of the ICC to prosecute regular crimes of war in those cases which already fall under the jurisdiction of military tribunals or domestic courts. As we can see from the ABU GHRAIB cases, the US government has every intention to prosecute the common soldiers it holds responsible for those abuses.

The unique capability of the International Criminal Court is to indict heads of state and otherwise unassailable diplomats, functionaries, administrators and conspirators.
Preparations have already begun with the IWCT to document the charges, gather the evidence, and prepare the briefs. Efforts are well underway in Japan, Greece, Turkey and Belgium to organize the extra-judicial tribunals to supplement the ICC staffs.

Colorado Springs must act as early as possible to offer our city as a potential US host to the trials!

2.
The first objective of the COS2005 bid project is to make the concept of international law more tangible in American minds. Today when someone hears a protester denounce President Bush as a war criminal, it sounds like so much rhetoric.

But the charge is more than an opinion or an academic argument. The war of aggression which the U. S. pursued against Iraq is a war crime by any number of international laws. As a result there is an inevitable legal action coming against the U. S. for waging an illegal war. International law is not hyperbole.
Criticisms between presidential candidates might be political, but charges of war crimes are out of everyone’s hands. No one is exempt from prosecution for war crimes, and there are no statutes of limitation.

The concept of impending war crime trials thus become an election issue. Can we consider re-electing leaders who are guilty of war crimes, chiefly, the war crime of “crimes against the peace?”
An American voter might hesitate to endorse someone who they can imagine will go down in history as having been the bad guy in the black hat. We believe most people aspire to be law-abiding god-fearing citizens, of America, and of the world community as well.

Reprinted from ColoradoSprings2005.com