Tag Archives: Mexico

Mexico’s headless Drug War soldiers

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Mexico’s current Right Wing government has been duped into fighting a US ‘war on drugs’ inside Mexico. Actually it has been paid money big time to do so. Mexico also is fighting D.Cs war on immigrants, too, as its own treatment of Central American immigrants entering Mexican territory is abysmal, and yes it too is mainly being paid for by US dollars. The daily casualties in Mexico just yesterday from this war were 33 nationwide, 14 of them in Ciudad Juarez alone, the city right across from El Paso, Texas. And then there were Mexico’s headless Drug War soldiers.

If the US wants to give Mexico a Christmas gift of a different type, it might ought to call off this nonsense, and change the whole way it deals with drugs? If not, we may soon see headless American soldiers from this war, not from the idiotically US government named ‘Global War on Terrorism’. How many wars against shadows can the Right Wing nuts running the US lose at one time? On to Afghanistan, Obama! You’ll be bigger losers than even Cheney and Dubya were when it’s all said and done.

The press doesn’t cover in the US the real results of the US sponsored and run Drug War on Mexico soil. There’s basically nothing about the headless Mexican soldiers this week in the papers here, but instead we get treated to pictures of the photos of the Sinaloa beauty queen busted for supposedly riding in a vehicle full of gang members and guns. The stop was made by Mexican soldiers who still have their heads attached. MESSAGE- The Drug War is effective. REALITY- The Drug War is a ongoing disaster.

US racially motivated murders post Katrina investigated by Nation Magazine

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black woman, New OrleansA.C. Thompson at the Nation Magazine has done a fine bit of investigative journalism published this last week titled, Katrina’s Hidden Race War. In it he investigates the murders of Blacks by Whites in that city after Hurricane Katrina hit, and speculates about how nobody at either local, state, or federal governmental levels seems in the least bit interested in investigating the White racist vigilante violence there, which left some untold number of Blacks murdered or severely injured.

This violence was in the first place really fomented by the news media and these same governmental bodies, and now America is basically expected to forget all that? Should we though?

The violence that is reported on here is quite parallel to the violence of hundreds of Mexican and Central American immigrants being murdered by US governmental immigration policies, usually out in the hot deserts of California and Arizona, but often times in Mexico itself. Then we get down to the racial murder of Arabs in Iraq, and the deadly bombings of Pashtun civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Then let’s not forget the racially motivated pogroms against the Somali people. What unfolds to us as we contemplate all this, is just how genocidal the mentality really is up in Washington D.C., take a Cheney or give a Barack as it be. Seems like little changes in the USA through the decades? Oh, and did I mention Gaza?

Just a thought about Jet Jockeys….

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I’ve noticed they’ve been flying low over the west-side pretty much every day for the past couple of years. Used to be that was called “hot-dogging” and they weren’t allowed to do it.

See, the lower your altitude, the less room you have to recover when you fuck-up.

Flying the speed of sound (a fraction of what any of the F-series of jets goes) and at a thousand feet above the ground you would have approximately one second to pull out if something goes wrong.

That’s not a lot of time.

They used to do low-altitude practice way the hell out in the ocean off Dago, or over White Sands in New Mexico or the kids at Sheppard would be flying over the Tank Playground at Fort Sill/Altus AFB Oklahoma.

Over MILITARY property, really cleared out areas to begin with and with Fast Response emergency crews on alert when you were doing it.

Did the Navy put the Civilian fire departments cops and ambulance crews on alert when they were hot-dogging over San Diego?

How about when they’re zooming up 24 toward the Ute Pass?

Ultra-Violent US Drug War creeping back North towards America

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getting highThe US ‘Drug War’ is a spectacular international failure, whether it be Afghanistan, Colombia, Central America, or even the US-Mexico Border towns. In fact, the whole country of Mexico is being eaten alive by this so-called Drug War and the US population is hardly aware of what’s going on! How soon will it be before this newest bloodshed and carnage crosses to this side of the Border?

Fear keeps Americans out of Mexican sister city/ Nogales’ tourism-dependent economy paralyzed by gun, drug battles This is much worse than Prohibition ever was, and yet there is hardly a sign of a forthcoming intelligent decision to stop the carnage by stopping the ‘War’ now. Very sad. Will the US soon become a land of common beheadings and dumped bodies, too? Americans thought they had already seen Drug War violence, but what is headed our way soon will be much worse.

The US depression torpedoes the US medically sick ‘Health Care’ System

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doctor doomToday, Wall Street broke 8,000 going the wrong way… DOWN. Tomorrow will it be 7,500 on the road to national bankruptcy? Who knows. But one thing is for sure, the already sick US Medical System is going down alongside the US stock market and companies like Fannie Mae and General Motors. Report: Economy is sickening US hospitals. Data shows decline in admissions and increase in patients who can’t pay. Don’t get sick!

And don’t get old either… since Uncle Sam will now just let you flounder if you do. The US economic depression is torpedoing the US For-Profit Medical System and so far nobody in government has much of a plan to do anything about it. How much ‘bailout’ money is there left from your taxpayer’s money?

So what are the more alert companies doing about staying afloat? Why they’re heading to Mexico! See Newsweek’s report Ultimate Outsourcing Now, Mexican medicine What a deal, right? If you or somebody in your family gets hit by a car and don’t have insurance because you don’t have a job, then take a trip Far South! If you have any savings still? A big IF????, I know.

You might want to check out the US’s Christus Hospital Chain for where to go to a hospital in Mexico? They’re a US outfit building new hospitals all over Mexico like mad, to help take in those fleeing American citizen refugees from the lack of a functioning US Medical System! That’s right! Not only are the American patients running off to Mexico, but so are the US chains of For-Profit hospitals, too! Que bueno! Y que pendejada tambien… Isn’t this all rather sick?

Why not win the ‘Drug War’ by creating a Peace with Drugs?

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junkieAs a professional drug pusher, I have seen the worst abuse with drugs comes most often from the doctors. Society doesn’t seem to much mind that though, because these doctors are considered esteemed members of society. On the other hand our Christianity influenced hate filled world does despise ‘self abuse’, whether it be masturbation, self medication for depression (often called alcoholism), or filling prescriptions without a doctor’s order. As a result of this madhouse way of thinking, people’s heads are being decapitated (in Mexico and other countries) and little babies and small children are getting shot down through apartment building walls. Is there not another approach other than the ‘Christian’ one of punishment?

Yes there is, and Vancouver, BC seems to be at least partially taking a different route toward winning the ‘Drug War’. It has declared Peace! Vancouver’s Radical Approach to Drugs: Let Junkies Be Junkies Good for them! For their approach to truly win the ‘War’ though, it must be made national, and not just local. Otherwise junkies in Canada will just migrate West until they reach Vancouver. Hey, they did that for years even before the change in local law! Even junkies like good scenery, it seems. And good Chinese food, too!

The officials in New York State help murder immigrants in Suffolk County

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marcello luceroWhen it comes to murderous racism, Louisiana doesn’t have anything up on Suffolk County, New York State. Here on Long Island, officials have a long history of acceptance and promotion of racial intolerance leading to murder. The latest case started out like this…

A friend who said he had been hanging out with the seven defendants in the park that night said there had not been much in the way of a plan before the group set out.

“We were just chilling, having a few beers,” said the friend… and then they set out to ‘fuck some Mexicans up’.

These racists were quite typical in that they didn’t know their ass from a hole on the ground. The Latinos living in their area are mainly Ecuadoran and are not from Mexico at all. So their victim, as in many of these same sort of hate crimes, was a person from a totally different group of people than from the supposed target group…. Mexicans. These teenagers murdered Mr. Lucero, who had come to the United States to help support his family in Gualaceo, Ecuador. They knifed him in the street in cold blood without any provocation at all.

So what do the scum bag local officials do? They admit that it was in fact a hate crime, but in Suffolk County these officials turn premeditated murder into ‘first degree assault’ and ‘first degree manslaughter’ charges. See Hate-crime death highlights racial tensions in Suffolk for additional information about this.

Notice if you read the news article, that a certain County Executive Steve Levy is at the center of the racism in Suffolk County, but won the majority of the Latino voters. How did that happen? It happened because he is from the Democratic Party though the Democratic Party has anti-immigrant policies as bad as the Republicans. Hispanic voters had to choose their County Exec from the locked up and undemocratic, supposed lesser of 2 evils. Actually, he last ran unopposed except for the Green Party candidate, and the Democratic Party and the Sierra Club have promoted this guy as being Mr. Green.

But there is another side to Steve Levy, and it is his racist campaigning against the immigrant community, a campaigning that animated these teenagers who wanted to ‘fuck up some Mexicans’. Ramirez: Levy has blood on his hands So did Steve Levy, if it helped get him elected?, which it did.

Steve Levy says that he did not want murder to occur, but with the long history of racist violence in Suffolk County, this is just a tad disingenuous on his part. Murder could easily be foreseen, but Levy chose not to give a damn. He hated immigrants too much. Here is what the New York Times had to say about him a year ago… Long Island The Riddle of Steve Levy

In some ways, Democratic Party politicians Steve Levy is a microcosm of the entire Democratic Party, one which has gone along with the Bush Administration racism for a long, long time. Yes, the party is embarrassed by it, but they are addicted to the racism and share it, too. Meanwhile, Mr Lucero is dead. Long Island ‘lynch mob’ killed our American Dream

Amy Goodman looks at Barack Obama

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Amy GoodmanAmy Goodman gives Barack Obama a fair lookover during a discussion with investigative journalist John Pilger in Britain, Columbia University professor and Africa scholar Mahmood Mamdani, Laura Carlsen of the Center for International Policy in Mexico City, Iraqi analyst Raed Jarrar, Pakistani author Tariq Ali, and Palestinian American Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada.
President-Elect Obama and the Future of US Foreign Policy: A Roundtable Discussion The focus is on foreign policy and the conclusions are rather gloomy about what 4 years with Barack as the Great Helmsman in the White House will actually soon begin to look like.

What a breath of fresh air Amy Goodman gives America with this program. It is nice to see intelligent discussion of reality as opposed to adulatory and adolescent fantasies about the new president that border on worship services at a Pentecostal Church. It is clear that all of these people who participated in this round table discussion on Goodman’s program understand that Barack Obama is not alone at sail on The Seven Seas, but is clearly part of a leadership teem astride an American aircraft carrier armed to the teeth. None of them seem to be very positive about what the future will bring from this sad perspective.

Since the focus of this discussion with Amy is Obama’s future foreign policy, there is little mention of what his future domestic policies will probably be like. It would be great if she continues the dialog with yet another round table discussion that examines just that question! I rather think that the conclusions from an informed group of Leftists about the future Democratic Party’s agenda under Obama will be just as dreary if she does look at his plans on the domestic front as well. After all, we have already seen just what it will appear like with the bipartisan giveaway to the companies from the Federal Treasury that the Democrats and Republicans worked out together that is currently continuing to contribute to sinking the world economy, not to mention just ‘our’ own.

Without Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, alternet, counterpunch, and antiwar.comm, we would only be left with a group of totally abject Democratic Party cheerleaders now. Each and everyone of these websites is worthy of any financial donation that you can make? We rely on all of them for informative reporting. Let’s hope that they keep up the good work and hope that other important sources of discussion and reporting can be developed, too.

Dixie got ditched for now

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dixie-bitch-bikini-blondDixie is a mean bitch and she got ditched for now. That’s all it is. All you got to do is check out the electoral map for the election results some. See what happened to Dixie?
 
Congratulations to New Mexico, Colorado, and Florida for not backing Dixie up, too. Virginia don’t count because these days she’s DC, not Dixie.

It was the Hispanics that did Dixie in eventually, too. Even the Cubans just got fed up with her bitchy ways and together with the other Latino groups helped put holes into Dixie Land! Look away…look away… look away. Even Cubans in the US don’t like losing their houses and homes, and South Florida is suffering terribly from that credit crunch hurricane that we all read about and fear coming our way.

Poor Old Dixie! She needs reconstruction and beware!

Just another meaningless election day

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exciting dayExpect the cheers of delight to begin tonight, as many Americans begin to celebrate what the corporate media tomorrow will call a historic event. However, they will be wrong. There will have been no major change in America at all.

In July 2000 I was in Mexico, and got to see the jubilation as Mexicans were celebrating what they thought would be the final end of the world’s longest running dictatorship over them. They believed that all Mexico’s problems had been merely the product of having this one capitalist ruling party in place, and that by implementing 2 capitalist ruling parties that all would soon turn into a rainbow road ahead for Mexico. Wrong they were, and it should have been self evident to them at the time. However, the corporate media of that country began to bombard all Mexicans with nonstop commentaries that all had the same refrain… Mexico had now become a new country! Wrong they were.

Similarly today we will see the same delusions spread by corporate media talking dead heads and Democratic Party voting delusionary souls alike, who often like to call themselves ‘Progressives’. Wrong. They simply are not that at all, and can only marginally be called much improvement over the typical Republican voting clowns they always oppose so fanatically. And just like the Mexicans who were taken in by the believe that Mexico had turned some sort of corner in the year 2000, so too will they initially spread that very same false optimism throughout the general population. A crescendo of optimism will be built up between now and January as the Republican President is allowed to do his final corrupt actions in virtual silence from this new ‘hero’, Barack Obama.

Like Mexicans today, 8 years later from their election of 2000, we in the US will soon see how meaningless this meaningless election day actually will be for the US. Real Change must come from the furious anger of people down below and not from the manipulations of rich people up high, as certainly will be the case with Barack Obama’s cruise into power. We’re getting Obama because the US super rich finally begin to just get fed up with the poor results of what continuing to keep Dubya-like clowns in the White House for all of another 4 years would actually bring to them.

Colorization of the Grapes of Wrath

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migrant-motherI think it’s time to colorize The Grapes of Wrath. And I don’t mean the Turner Classics process exactly. It may help to dumb down the artistic contrast of the black & white for a contemporary audience palate of splashy Disneycolor, but how about trying to make Steinbeck’s theme more accessible to today’s spoon-fed viewers? Let’s colorize the skin of the poor migrant workers to reflect the inhumanly-treated populations of today’s displaced im-migrants of color.

I can’t remember where I come down on colorizing the old movies. No one’s insisted on infusing CMYK into Ansel Adams or Picasso’s sketchbook, why are masterpieces filmed in black and white supposed to be pigment deficient? We don’t presume to dub dialog over the silent movies made before the age of the talkies. As yet. Of course, Ted Turner was concerned for reviving interest in old intellectual properties, many of which were already in-artful. And perhaps his salesmanship maneuver has been proven effective. When my family sat down to watch Grapes of Wrath, the grey image tuned a number of youthful eyes away.

Like Dorothea Lange’s famous photographs, John Ford’s film depicted disadvantaged Okies with whom the American audience could identify. We may not know what it feels like to be forced off our homes, but how the families cope with the hardship, we all can recognize. I’m curious how the film was received by Californians in 1940, coming less than ten years after the original plague of destitute Oklahoma refugees. How would the characters have faired with our sympathies if they had been played as coarse hillbilly Crackers with guns and a poor person’s chip-on-the-shoulder desperation?

The poor protagonists of The Grapes of Wrath were weakened skinny po-folk, who staked their relief on the strength of a single hopeful job listing flyer, who protested their oppression without resorting to violence, and who accepted hardship as their lot. Seeing into their daily lives, viewers were shown a dignified, earnest people who treated others with respect and compassion. Antagonist characters in the film were less charitable, taking advantage of the hard-luck migrants with guile, violence and authority. People into which the Oklahoma refugees traveled, New Mexico, Arizona and California, treated the migrants like vermin. Even as onlookers might express admiration for the Okies’ determination to cross Death Valley, the better fed Californians held them in disdain for not knowing enough to be in such a predicament. The Okies were blamed for their own poverty. They threatened to burden everyone’s already depleting resources. Only the viewers understood the unfair actions which had landed the otherwise self-sufficient sharecroppers to have to leave their livelihoods.

The circumstances of the Dust Bowl cum great depression era forced removal of the small Oklahoma farmers is eerily familiar to today’s economy and its foreclosures. Homesteaders find themselves made homeless, as a consequence of business decisions between corporations, banks and regulators. The Oklahoma farmers wanted to point their shotguns to warn the financial disruptors from their land, but found the conduits of the dirty work were their own neighbors and relatives. Everyone was merely following orders from someone higher up. That the system could be at fault, left the victims with no clear recourse.

Here’s the classic eviction exchange.

THE MAN
I can’t help that. All I know is I got my orders.
They told me to tell you you got to get off,
and that’s what I’m telling you.

MULEY
You mean get off my own land?

THE MAN
Now don’t go blaming me. It ain’t *my* fault.

SON
Whose fault is it?

THE MAN
You know who owns the land–the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company.

MULEY
Who’s the Shawnee Land and Cattle Comp’ny?

THE MAN
It ain’t nobody. It’s a company.

SON
They got a pres’dent, ain’t they?
They got somebody that knows what a shotgun’s for, ain’t they?

THE MAN
But it ain’t *his* fault, because the *bank* tells him what to do.

SON
All right. Where’s the bank?

THE MAN
Tulsa. But what’s the use of picking on him?
He ain’t anything but the manager, and half crazy hisself,
trying to keep up with his orders from the east!

MULEY
Then who *do* we shoot?

THE MAN
Brother, I don’t know. If I did I’d tell you.
But I just don’t know *who’s* to blame!

There was a lot more in The Grapes of Wrath which could inform a modern world view. The dreaded “Cats” for example. These were the Caterpillar tractors which were shown ravaging the land like locusts, arriving to demolish the houses of the reluctant dispossessed. Bulldozers are still used for that function today. In fact, Caterpillar manufactures armored versions to deploy in war zones for the destruction of houses. Palestinians have shown to be less reluctant than the poor Okies about trying to shoot the bulldozer drivers who are taking aim at their homes. Israel is expanding its settlements in Palestine with the aid of Caterpillar tractors which clear the land of its recalcitrant invadees.

Likewise, the union busting strategies portrayed in Grapes of Wrath are the same used today. Police officers are called in when work supervisors encounter workers who show too much skepticism for the employer’s scam. Troublemakers are arrested lest the workforce succeed in organizing itself. Instigators are paid to infiltrate a social event and start a fight, to give law enforcement the excuse to break in and make its calculated arrests. Casual viewers may think the famous 1939 film depicts a bygone age. Not at all.

Director John Ford made sure that the Okie migrants were deathly skinny, while everyone else, from gas station attendants to deputized union-busters, was immaculately dressed and well fed. But the audience could identify with both sides, because both were white. Imagine if the displaced peoples were not the same color.

Today’s migrant workers are hispanic. They are illegal immigrants, just like Okies passing through the Arizona checkpoint in Steinbeck’s novel.

GUARD
Where you going?

TOM
California.

GUARD
How long you plan to be in Arizona?

TOM
No longer’n we can get acrost her.

GUARD
Got any plants?

TOM
No plants.

GUARD
Okay. Go ahead, but you better keep movin’.

Could a modern audience appreciate the travails of a Mexican family in an exact same predicament? Mexican farmers have been forced from their land in an even less polite manner today. They have similar claim to their homesteads, some of them even have indigenous claims. But American and Mexican corporate interests have been forcing the Mexicans to flee. The migration north is not about seeking fortune; picking lettuce it most certainly is not. The work our illegal immigrants are willing to do is out of desperation and subsistence. Corporate America reserves our agricultural work for migrants because it’s cheaper. Otherwise American citizens have devised unions to ensure that workers are paid an honorable wage. Exploitation of the illegal immigrant is simply a bypass of decent labor practices meant to protect everyone.

In selfish, protectionist terms, hiring illegal immigrants undermines the strength of unionized labor. Ultimately the exploitation of others dehumanizes us all.

I wish Americans could see The Grapes of Wrath as a projection of the ongoing injustices suffered by all exploited migrants. As well-fed American citizens leading prosperous lives, wouldn’t it be our responsibility to help the victims of our system? Instead, we are those cold-hearted leather-jacketed Californians herding them into lives of slow death by hard labor and starvation.

The Grapes of Wrath offered a strong Socialist message, disguised in a protagonist who did not yet have all the answers. Before setting out to light the way, Henry Fonda’s character says this to his mom:

TOM
…maybe I can do sump’n. Maybe I can jus’ fin’ out sump’n.
Jus’ scrounge aroun’ an’ try to fin’ out what it is that’s wrong,
an then see if they ain’t sump’n could be done about it.
But I ain’t thought it out clear, Ma. I can’t.
I don’t know enough.

MA
How’m I gonna know ’bout you?
They might kill you an’ I wouldn’t know.
They might hurt you. How’m I gonna know?

TOM
Well, maybe it’s like Casy says, a fella ain’t got a soul
of his own, but on’y a piece of a big soul–the one big soul
that belongs to ever’body–an’ then…
Then it don’t matter. Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark.
I’ll be ever’where–wherever you look. Wherever there’s
a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.
Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.
I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad
–an’ I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re
hungry an’ they know supper’s ready.
An’ when our people eat the stuff they raise,
an’ live in the houses they build, why, I’ll be there too.

I had to see The Grapes of Wrath in high school. It was required. Are schools today trying to infuse students with social wisdom? How about a Grapes Redux starring people of color? Imagine this closing line, spoken by a dark skinned mother, about the hardship that is her people’s fate:

MA
…Maybe that makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an’ they die, an’ their kids ain’t no good, an’ they die out. But we keep a-comin’. We’re the people that live. Can’t nobody wipe us out. Can’t nobody lick us. We’ll go on forever, Pa. We’re the people.

October 2, 1968 Tlatelolco – the 40th anniversary

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For an example of what happens when an army is used against its own population, Mexico 40 years ago provides an example. True that Mexico had foreign agents manipulating and penetrating its national political scene at the time of this massacre in Mexico City, but the US has some of the very same subversion today if not to the same extent. Certainly today’s Israeli agents infiltrating into the US military political structure are not totally akin to US agents infiltrating into the Mexican power elite back in 1968 as continues to this very day.

Tlatelolco – the 40th anniversary
Mexico, October 2, 1968: The Night of Tlatelolco; the Death of the Student Movement

Still, many armies have been used against their own populations and there is nothing unique or different about what American troops would do at home than from what Mexican troops did in Tlatelolco, if American troops were called upon by their officers to fire on American citizens. The nature of the military anywhere is to follow orders without any real questions of the leadership. That usually only will happen only if the military in question is disintegrating in total rout. Meanwhile….. they will shoot if called upon to do so.

US drug war export to Mexico is tearing the country apart

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drug war
The US drug war is tearing Latin America apart and nowhere more so than in Mexico. The US government struts around the Americas ordering others to do their dirty work, fomenting civil strife and regional separation (Bolivia), and implementing coups without any regard to the disasters they make for others.

Here is the latest from the US militarization of Mexico… 24 bodies discovered in suspected gang execution And to think that not so very far back that a mayor of Mexico City actually had Rudy Giuliani in his town doing public relations for its crime prevention programs ?!?! See Giuliani’s Mexico City Game Bizarre but true!

Mexico needs to run as far as it can from this US Drug War, rather than get suckered in by US funding for its police and military units. That is a recipe for certain disaster, and that disaster is already well under way.

Pentagon Airlines carries both cocaine and renditioned prisoners

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Cocaine planeThis scandal is being kept pretty much out of the US news. What we are referring to is the Mexico drug plane used for US ‘rendition’ flights: report It really shows the low moral character of the US government torturers. The torturers are connected with cocaine pushing too, though is that really so surprising?

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Shades of Colombia where the US puppet government is connected with the cocaine crowd, too. And brings back memories of Colonel Ollie North in Central America. There is a long history of Pentagon connections with pushers.

‘USA! USA! USA!’

This is the chant that many of the McCainites responded with to the antiwar protesters as these militarism nuts lined up like sheep to go see their clown during his campaign visit yesterday in Colorado Springs, That got met by simply leading their chant in front of them,

‘USA, USA, USA…. USA Stop Torture of POWs Now!’

Shut the fools up real quick, it did. Try it. The Right Wing no longer even tries to muster up its previous effort to deny the reality of US torture of POWs. They are just pathetic as they try to call others out as being UnAmerican, though it is they themselves who support using torture on innocent US held prisoners. Just pathetic they are… And shameless, too.

Targeting the reporters

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video reporterThe police in the US are targeting reporters. At the Democratic Party Convention they went after the ABC reporter, and now in Minnesota at the Republican Party Convention, they have gone after the news team from Democracy Now. It is getting just plain dangerous for any citizen to hold a camera in their hand these days, especially while exercising your Right to Free Speech and filming the police as they go about their daily duty of terrorizing people.

In Iraq, the Pentagon went after al jazeera’s reporters, as they had done previously in Yugoslavia when they bombed the Yugoslav television station during that war. In the West Bank, Israel targets those who do the reporting there about the Jewish abuse of Palestinians. Israeli army targets family over brutality film

Isn’t it always the same with dictatorships? In Mexico, they do the same, also, as in Colombia and all the other US Empire’s stooge states. Is there any real difference between the US government and the Chinese government in how political dissidence is targeted by the police for elimination? Especially when there is a camera in hand alongside a pen.

Mexico fed up with results on their country of US imposed drug war

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Eleven headless bodies were dumped in a small town in the Yucatan peninsula on Thursday and another decapitated corpse was found nearby. Police suspect the Gulf cartel, and Mexican media say the victims were likely alive when their heads were cut off. On Saturday Over 150,000 march in Mexico against crime
zetas
The government of the rich in Mexico took the US money to help militarize further their own country. The results are in, Mexico is becoming another Colombia North. The people pay the price for the corruption of their government of misleaders tied to the Yankees of DC.

Sarah Palin is Dan Quayle in Drag

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Alaskan news media chastised Sarah Palin for “conduct unbecoming a human being, never mind a governor.”

VPILF? ewww. (now, her hubby, on the other hand…) And it only took a few minutes for the nude pictures of her to start showing up. That should turn on the “Family Values” crowd. And, um, Cindy’s actually going to let John spend the next two months traveling around with her?

Mossad website says US to attack Iran before election. Whaddaya’ bet Obama jumps on the bandwagon if they do?

You have the right to remain silent. Refusing to remain silent may result in your being classified as a suspected terrorist. This is “freedom” in the 21st century US of A.

Gestapo raids headquarters of protest group ahead of RNC. 30 cops with guns drawn storm building, detain and photograph 50, for “fire code violation.”

Hurricane Gustav already category 4, (and expected to be CAT5 by Sunday morning) and it hasn’t even entered the Gulf of Mexico, where they usually pick up most of their steam. And it currently looks like it will make landfall where it will cause the greatest amount of damage to New Orleans. [Stormpulse]

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes Aug 30, thomasmc.com.

Your vote just doesn’t count in the two party dictatorship

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Hydra …Dictatorships have gotten wise. It is easier to run a dictatorship when you present the public with two parties instead of one. Dictatorial Power no longer resides in just one single individual in today’s dictatorship, but within one power bloc instead. The public face of today’s dictatorship is a bureaucratic assemble of hacks, not just the face of one Supremo.

Take the current American dictatorship for an example (though Mexico’s current dictatorship is run exactly the same way, and if the American public was more familiar with Mexico would be just as illustrative as the American dictatorship itself is), where dictatorial power resides in a bureaucratic assemble of a bloc of bipartisan DP-RP hacks. We shall look at the present US government drive towards war with Russia as our example.

The public face of the American dictatorship comes in condensed form through the faces of about 6 individuals; Obama, Biden, Cheney, Bush, McCain, Lieberman (very possibly the VP selection by McCain). All have been appointed more than truly elected, and all are united in the need for the US to attack Russia. Russia confronts not El Supremo but rather a six headed hydra of global business domination centered in the US.

A modern day American dictatorship is the viper we can all see publicly, but it is multi-faced, and not that of just one Gran Prepotente (Big Shot). Unfortunately, the public has a hard time truly understanding that the face of America’ modern dictatorship is truly not much different from dictatorship’s of the past, where Mr. Power Hog ruled over all.

In the past, the dictator put on a show election, but that is still how it is done today with the multi-headed Dictator Bloc, too. The show currently is in the pageantry at Denver and St. Paul. In both cases, your vote really need not be bothered to be counted, since the selection was already made for you by raw economic power, which you have none of.

Dictatorship has always resided in ownership, and today’s multi-headed hydra dictatorship for all its apparent differences with the past is no different. The dictatorship owns all; press, soldiers, police, banks, oil, money supply, jobs, the water and air your life depends on. Rebel, and they’ll take off the shirt on your back and the pants you wear, and give you those of their own which they will now own.

Well what about our example of the American dictatorship confronting Russia? It is obvious to see for all that should look and think, that the 6 headed hydra of Obama, Biden, Cheney, Bush, McCain, Lieberman all have obtained ‘consensus’ to rule just like a one headed El Supremo style dictatorship would. They are all for using the Pentagon and NATO to attack Russia. Your vote doesn’t count in the 2 party dictatorship! It’s because the America you live in is a dictatorship. Vote if it makes you feel good but don’t be under any delusions about it.

HYDRA

Thank you Mr. President for all you do

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Beijing beach volleyball bikinisIsn’t it vaguely jarring when someone is asked publicly what would be their fondest wish, and they don’t say “world peace?” I feel that way about athletes and celebrities in these times of great conflict. They could say Impeach Bush, Stop Torture, the Media Is Lying, or at the very least, the Emperor Has No Clothes! Instead they feed the media narrative fretting about their quest for a medal, about which we know already.

Not to say the reporters aren’t eager to run with whatever revelation they get. When Usain Bolt revealed that he fuels his running by eating “nuggets,” the press was quick to announce the Fastest Man on Earth eats McDonalds. It’s an easy conclusion. Where else are nuggets on a menu but the Mc variety? A convenient conclusion too, as McDonalds is a chief sponsor of the Olympics. They’re running adds featuring ex-athletes, in athletic settings, pitching McPhood. Although no Olympic athlete could jeopard his/her health to a McDonalds meal depth-charge. Sports reporters know that too. Shame on them for perpetrating the McNuggets disinfo until Bolt’s father could be reached for an explanation. Usain’s “nuggets” are a concoction of yams, and no doubt something Jamaican that will soon be ruled out as doping.

Reporters did interview an Olympic competitor who’s eating plenty at the Beijing McD’s. He’s an archer, who has no need to move around. Probably his weight stabilizes his aim. Probably too he’s got no aspirations for the Pentathlon. The convenient unofficial unsolicited McEndorser weighs 215 pounds.

I’ve heard Olympic athletes are oblivious to real world concerns. Perhaps I can forgive them for not making political statements, even though they have the forum. They’re forbidden, but as attention hounds, you’d think they’d notice that the athletes now most honored for the 1968 Mexico City Games were the ones who raised their fists.

Instead the 2008 Beijing Olympics has this: heralded to be the best Beach Volleyball duo of all time (The TV announcer kept asking “Can I say it? Can I say this is the best beach volleyball team of all time?!” -even though this sport/spectacle pandering to the NASCAR fans has been part of the Olympics only THREE TIMES BEFORE), the winners had this statement to make, after clearing it with their interviewer.

Said Kerri Walsh: “Can I say something? Thank you Mr. President, for your support. And thank you for all that you do!”

The latest Drug War news from the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez metro area

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At last count, Ciudad Juarez has had 840 people murdered there this year, most of them Drug War victims. Severed head The entire US-Mexican Border area has been turned into a killing battlefield by the US campaign to militarize Latin America as well as our own country. Here is the Narco News report on the latest violence in the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez metro area Masked Gunmen Unleash AK-47s on Drug-Rehab Center; Mexican Soldiers Parked 50 Yards Away Do Nothing

For further recent US-Mexico Drug War news from a little further inside Mexico see Suspected drug hit men dump head in Mexican city

Ossetia South doesn’t want to be West

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Ossetia dividedSOUTH OSSETIA? You might very well ask, where’s NORTH Ossetia? The Republic of North Ossetia-Alania is in the Russian Federation. So the minority enclave of South Ossetia wants to break from Georgia? They’ve watched developments in the increasingly US-controlled Georgian leadership and they don’t want to be pawns of the West. South Vietnam? South Korea anyone?

Bruce Gagnon sent more this morning:

Some old sage once said we learn world geography by tracking American wars – or in this case American proxy wars. I am as certain as I can be that this is a proxy war. The U.S. and Israel have been arming Georgia heavily in recent years. The U.S. and Israel have been sending military advisers to Georgia. There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. has been, at the very least, “encouraging” Georgia to make a grab for the independent territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia knowing that by doing so they would very well provoke Russia to respond. I am convinced the U.S. wants to confront Russia militarily and if they can get someone else to do it then why not. It’s the cold war strategy come back to life.

The corporate media in the U.S. is having a field day promoting Russian aggression against Goergia. One very interesting CNN-TV story detailed Russian destruction of the Georgian city of Gori but then the camera man who took the footage said the film he took was actually of Georgian destruction of Russian peacekeeper forces in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. You can see why the American people are so often confused and misinformed. We are being led with rings in our noses into a new protracted war.

A distant cousin of mine who lives in Massachusetts wrote me saying that when she went to work yesterday the folks there were convinced that Russia had bombed the American state of Georgia. “Why do we bother?” she asked.

Bruce also suggested this article:

Marching through Georgia
By Patrick Schoenfelder

Maybe everyone is already up to speed on this, but if you are depending on the usual drumbeat of warlike bluster from the mainstream media (in the words of Paul Krugman, “real mean don’t think things through”) you are missing most of the news.

Therefore, a brief memo:

South Ossetia and Abkhazia are small areas on the border between Georgia and Russia where the majority of residents belong to ethnic groups other than Georgian. During the Soviet era, both of them were semi-autonomous areas under Soviet control.

In 1990, after Georgia became independent, Georgia claimed both areas as part of Georgia.

Russia opposed this claim as did residents of the areas, and Russia forced Georgia at gunpoint to allow autonomy to both regions in 1992, and both regions have been acting as de facto independent countries since then.

Peacekeepers from Russia commissioned by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been stationed in both countries since then.

After the so-called Rose Revolution and the overthrow of Edward Shevardnadze in 2003 it became a policy of the Georgian government to repudiate the independence of both regions and to work for re-establishment of Georgian control.

In 2006, a referendum was held under OSCE supervision with 34 observers from Poland, Germany, Austria, and Sweden. The referendum drew a 95% turnout and voted 99% in favor of full independence.

Georgia rejected the results, claiming that ethnic Georgians were intimidated out of voting, and arguing that the Russian peacekeepers actually were supporting the Ossetians.

Meanwhile, Georgia developed a close relationship with the Bush administration and cultivated a relationship with the EU, beginning application for membership in both the EU and in NATO. Georgia has the third largest number of troops in Iraq, after the US and Britain. The US has supplied the Georgian army with a large amount of war material.

In mid-July of this year, the US military held a joint war games training exercise in Georgia with the Georgian military.

The US left a number of “military advisers” in Georgia after the exercise.

On August 7, the Georgian army invaded South Ossetia in force, advancing rapidly across the area and killing both Ossetian soldiers and Russian peacekeepers.

On August 8, the Russians moved a large force into South Ossetia, including use of airpower for bombing and support. The Georgian army was rapidly crushed and began to retreat into Georgia. The Russians continued to pursue them into Georgia and used artillery and planes to bombard both military and civilian targets in Georgia as they advanced. They also declared that Georgian troops stationed in Abkhazia must leave or surrender, and sent troops into Abkhazia as well.

The Russians at this point seem to be determined to remove the Georgian leadership and establish independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The extent to which they will occupy or establish control in Georgia proper, and for how long, is not clear.

The Georgians, after starting the war, probably partly at the urging of the US, are now screaming for peace.

The US and the Europeans, while expressing dismay (“I am shocked, shocked I say!”) have exactly zero ability to do anything about the situation, since the area is well within Russian sphere of influence and away from any means of support (think of a US military action in Mexico.) They are hanging the Georgians out to dry (think of the Kurds under Reagan and Bush the elder.)

The Russians have been pointing out the similarity with Kosovo and US activity there. They have also pointed out that the US is in no position to complain about superpower military intervention or occupation of any place, given their record over the last eight years.

The possibility of any meaningful economic or other sanctions against the Russians is slight, since Russia is the number one supplier of oil and natural gas to Europe and an important trading partner, and the Russian bloc has the second largest oil reserve in the world (perhaps even the first, depending on the results of exploration in the Caspian region) and is a huge supplier of mineral resources from metals to diamonds.

IMPORTANT BLOOD FOR OIL FOOTNOTE: The largest pipeline between the Black Sea and Caspian oil fields and Europe and the only one not completely under Russian control is the 1 million barrel a day capacity BP line that passes through Georgia and parts of Abkhazia. Both the Russians and the Georgians would benefit hugely from ability to control this pipeline. Some observers suggest that war efforts on both sides are related partly to the issue of this pipeline.

The US role in Mexico’s ‘Drug War’

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Mexican Army
That’s the Mexican army running amok. Unknown to most Americans the US government is promoting and funding Mexican military terrorism across Mexico. In fact this militarization of our Southern neighbor threatens to turn Mexico into Colombia Part 2.

There are 3 components to the US-made militarization process of Mexico; guns, labor, and drugs, all of which are directed by dysfunctional US government approaches to these 3 human products.

1) Guns The US refuses to limit or control access to high powered arms, which is fed by the militarization of the US itself as the government pushes for continual worldwide warfare to feed the US war and police supply industries.

2) Labor The US plays immigrants both ways, Satanizing immigrants when convenient, and then all the while exploiting the cheap labor bought from these desperate people for next to nothing. In doing so, it encourages an abusive Police State and a corporate traffic in cheap labor.

30) Drugs The US government, by making most drugs and medicines illegal, actually encourages the growth of a gargantuan prison and police industry, a phony so-called National Security Department, and an ongoing brutalization of all US citizens as legal protections against State abuse are thrown to the wind.

Al jazeera has an excellent recent commentary on what is being done to Mexico by the US government as it funds and organizes Mexican military and police terrorism. Video Newsreel: The Drug War and Plan Mexico Check it out!

I wore polka dots today

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polka dots are the new black
…and felt like an idiot. Why? I think polka dots are adorable. They are playful and happy and youthful which are traits I value. And the outfit I had on was classy and cute. So why did I feel anxious that someone might pop over unexpectedly and see my polka dots? I’m not sure, but I changed rather than further contemplate the issue.

I think that maybe polka dots aren’t me. Whatever that means. Like all women, I have a closet full of clothes that I never wear. Truthfully, my closet is a schizophrenic mixed bag pining for psychiatric intervention. I must’ve worn these styles at one time, but I guess I’ve changed. Or, more likely, they were never me. I just didn’t know it, because I was adept at changing me to be a part of the crowd du jour.

I don’t think men are this way. A couple years ago, a friend and I took a getaway to Mexico for a few days. We hung out under a big beach umbrella, two pale obviously-American chubbies in a sea of gorgeous foreigners. The women were thin, tanned, and beautiful, but they couldn’t hold a candle to the men. Unbelievably fit, glistening brown skin, boy shorts. At once holding a cigarette and a partner’s perky breast, we couldn’t stop staring at the men.

When the couples eventually got up and dressed, the guys wore capri pants, silky dark shirts, and closed-toe leather sandals. But even through my drool I knew that, were I given the chance, I probably wouldn’t date any one of them. Seriously! They were not my type.

As pretty as the beach boys were, my type of guy doesn’t spend much time thinking about his hair and wardrobe. A makeover is buying his favorite shirt in another color. I’ve never succeeded in slipping Bruni Maglis over his tennis shoes, nor a man purse over his shoulder. Even the plain front/pleated front battle can rage for days, so sartorial transformation has never been in the cards. Men know what they are comfortable wearing, and are usually unwilling to indulge our female fantasies. Truly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

If men can stay true to form, why do women’s closets suffer from bipolar disorder? Are we multifaceted and complex, or are we being unduly influenced the expectations of our mates, the opinions of our friends, and the daily media mind fuck?

Though my closet doesn’t reflect it yet, my chameleon days are over. I am newly unapologetic about my hairstyle, my yoga pants, and my Doc Martens. When I dress up I usually wear black from head to toe. I don’t show a lot of skin, and hide my few curves. I wear simple earrings, no other jewelry. I no longer worry about fashion trends, because I refuse to be trendy.

My manner of dress is merely an outward manifestation of the natural, unadorned, athletic, private girl that I am. I cover my body in such a way that I’m not constantly mindful of the fact that I’m wearing something. Something that feels foreign and awkward. Like polka dots.