Beware of Hillary Care!

The local business idiots’ rag here in Colorado Springs (The Gazette) has been warning us all about something they call “Hillary Care’. It’s socialized medicine they scream!

The editors of the Right Wing chain mislabeled ‘Freedom Publications’ of which The Gazette is one sheet of, even hate enrolling the poorer of the nation’s children into a government paid health care plan. That would be the first step toward a World Communist government in their opinion. But just what is Hillary Care anyway? In fact, it’s the same thing it was the first time around, or in other words, it’s a sucker punch to the general public.

The original health care proposals by Bill Clinton and wide were a band aid meant to get infected, and infected the American public’s wound became. Things just got worse and the Clintons walked away playing like they were visionaries before their time. Hardly. What their proposals did was set into motion yet further cannibalization of American medical and nursing care by the insurance companies. And they sat by and sat by and sat by.

Hillary has no plan for a single payer system guaranteed by the government such as today vets and some senior citizens get, and a few kids under Chips programs, too. She is not going to propose that the nation be put under one umbrella of equal care equally applied. She is just as much for tiered care under corporate control as George W. Bush is. But she is running her campaign as if this were not true.

Do not get sucker punched by the Clintons again. If you vote for her thinking that at least she will reform the way medical care is delivered in the US you will be voting for change, all the while guaranteeing that it will not come in a way you will like or want. She wants insurance control over your health, not taking away their control over you and your family.

Here is a well written article about the Clintons’ proposals. What went wrong with the Clinton plan? Health Care non-reform the last time The answer is that nothing really went wrong from ‘the vision’ that the Clintons had back then. The insurance companies kept running the entire show.

After opposition to reform quickened as surely it had to, while still in office they dropped any opposition to the big medical corporations they might have ever had, just like it was one big hot potato for them. Hillary is not about to oppose the insurance companies today any more than back then, and is a poor, poor choice to hang hopes on for even the most meager reform of the US Lack of Health System. Vote for her if you want a dirty band aid to be applied while actually wanting and needing major surgery. Hillary is quite a little sugar pill.

Academy Boulevard sounds off

Demonstration against 911 profiteers
Unqualified success! Turnout was light -BUT- we sustained banners at all four corners of the intersection for the full duration of the event, so we received honks of encouraging from traffic flowing in every direction. Participants were able to come and go as their schedule allowed. We tied up five security vehicles, two private foot patrolmen, someone watching through binoculars, two photographers, and one D.o.D. auditor who came out to say “THANK YOU!” We demonstrated neither a security threat, nor a safety risk, but simply that fellow citizens who every day drive past this military-industrial-complex turned out to be squarely, and loudly, in the peace camp. We knew it, now the defense contractors know it. They heard it in the steady cacophony of car and truck horns!

911 profiteer protest -SW corner

People doing military service apologize to us because they’re stuck following orders. Can those who market death for a profit make the same excuse?

More pictures at csaction.org.
Looking East toward Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and 21st Century Tech

UPDATE: WEAPONS MERCHANTS ON ACADEMY LOOP

1050
DESE Research
Intecon
Lockheed Martin Corp
SYColeman, Suite 120

1150
Allied Signal Technical Corp, Suite 100
Aerospace Corporation, Suite 136
Alliant Techsystems, ATK Thiokol Propulsion
BAE Systems, Suite 111
L-3 Communications Corporation, Suite 240
Lockheed Martin Corp
Overlook Systems Technology, Suite 114
RS Information Systems
SDS International, Suite 119

1155
MITRE Corporation, Suite 212

1250
ANSER, Suite 223
Applied Research Associates, Suite 235
Boeing Company Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), Suite 134
CACI, Suite 202
Harris Corp, Suite 242
Lockheed Martin Corp
Scitor Corporation, Suite 208
System Technology Associates (STA), Suite 116

1330
21st Century Technology
ANSER, Inc., Suite 100
Applied Research Associates
Boeing-Autometric, Suite 330
DigitalNet , Suite 335
Dynetics, Suite 412
General Dynamics C4 Systems, Suite 160
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Raytheon, Suite 140
Schafer Corporation, Suite 450
Sigmatech, Inc. , Suite 120
Spectrum Astro Inc., Suite160
SYColeman, Suite 440
Teledyne Bown Engineering, Suite 350

1450
General Dynamics Electronics Systems & Advanced Information Systems

Demonstrate Americans want peace

Today (One O’Clock is looking to be the peak time) at the intersection of Academy and Fountain Boulevards. We’ll show Colorado Springs’ merchants of war that its citizens don’t want 9/11 used as an excuse for permanent war.

people say no to warIf you’re worried about offending defense industry workers with accusations of war mongering and profiteering, recall our PPJPC tradition of non-confrontation. Ask yourself what local actions have ever been “somber” vigils or “angry” protests? We usually have to suppress our laughter and enthusiasm for standing up for peace and justice. Remember the main message we’re going to get across today will be conveyed by the passing cars, honking in support of ending war. Those are the voices which will carry into the offices of Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Alliant Techsystems, L-3 Communications Titan Group, Caci International, Mitre, etc, etc, etc.
 
Today outside their windows will be a demonstration that it is not just us peace-mongers wanting to slow this gravy-train, it is Colorado Springs and America who want peace.

Call out America’s 9/11 profiteers

Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, General Dynamics, Raytheon profit from WAR FOR 911
SEPT 11 is not reason for permanent warBanners for TUESDAY 9/11.
 
Why protest Sept. 11? Because the WTC attack is being used to justify a perpetual war against a ambiguous foe [TERROR].
 
Why at Academy and Fountain Blvds in Colorado Springs? Because that intersection is just beneath the office windows of the people who earn billions by sustaining the 911 war.

Taking to the streets just an expression

Reaction so far to the 9/11 [General Strike] Vigil at Academy & Fountain is less concerned with the no working, no shopping, no going to school aspects and worried more about the hit-the-streets talk. Let’s give them that one, because no one has any intention of obstructing any street, of blocking the flow of traffic or endangering anyone’s safety. Taking to the streets is just an expression. It means go outside and play with your friends, it’s good for you.
Flier for 911 vigil, minus mention of taking to the streets

COS military-industrial complex HQ

Almost all of the defense industry giants earning the largest profits in this war on terror have offices in Colorado Springs.
Raytheon Northrop Grumman General Dynamics Lockheed Martin Mitre CACI BAE Intec
Here’s a cluster at the intersection of Academy and Fountain Blvds:
    Lockheed Martin, 1150 Academy Park Loop #1
    Boeing, 1330 Inverness #2
    Northrop Grumman, 1330 Inverness #3
    General Dynamics, 1330 Inverness #4
    Raytheon, 1330 Inverness     #5
    Mitre, 1155 Academy Park Loop
    Intecon, 1050 South Academy Boulevard
and the ill-reported Iraq War opportunists:
    Alliant Techsystems, 1250 Academy Park Loop (depleted uranium)
    BAE Systems, 1150 Academy Park Loop (armor)
    CACI International, 1250 Academy Park Loop (Abu Ghraib)
    L-3 Communications TITAN Group, 1150 Academy Park Loop (Abu Ghraib)

State senator John Morse the little shit

Opposition to PCMS expansion not allowed inside City Hall chamber
We stood outside City Hall today, holding our banners against the Pinon Canyon expansion. We watched the pro-military-business suits stream past us. Most were cordial, some pretended we were not there. A fully uniformed OIF soldier greeted us warmly, explaining that he’d been in Iraq twice and would go again in a heartbeat. He loved “killing the Iraqis and stacking them up like cord-wood. An enemy is an enemy” he said laughing as he ascended the steps.
 
But the worst was Colorado state senator John Morse, Democrat.

I’d seen John Morse a few months back, addressing a house full of his Democratic constituents, 90% of whom were very angry about the stand he’d expressed publicly in favor of the PCMS expansion. We were all incredulous to hear him say that he hadn’t received a single complaint in opposition until that evening. Really?! We all vowed to be more vocal in the future.

I greeted Morse as he approached City Hall, I asked him if he was going to represent the people he’d heard from that night. He looked at me blankly. I asked him if he’d heard since that night from more citizens vehemently against expansion of Fort Carson and the Maneuver Site? He smiled, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and smiled again. To my face, just as he had the time before, the lying shit. You guys are a minority, he told me. Really? I wish the others had been here today to see him say it. We weren’t PCMS opponent activists that night by a long shot. We were just the Democrats who got Morse elected.

Between that meeting and this one, Morse would have to have kept his phone off the hook to ignore the public outcry against this military land grab. Sure enough in the city chambers meeting, he fawned all over the military and its stooges. As a Democrat, he’s a snake in sheep’s clothing. Morse thinks the military ought to be given the chance to go ahead with the feasibility studies. We say that’s letting the fox in the henhouse. He says give the fox the benefit of the doubt. He’s missing the point of the analogy, but the army hasn’t. With his help, the army land acquisition process will move along, more and more ranchers will be forced to sell, and the resistance will dwindle.
Ft Carson soldier
Fort Carson soldier attending the PCMS expansion session, who stacks the Iraqis up like cord-wood. What’s he going to do after he leaves the service? Forestry or law enforcement?

Sen. Salazar surveys the public opinion

Ken Salazar has called a meeting at the COS City Council chambers Wednesday Aug 29 to solicit the opinion of local area representatives about the proposed Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site expansion. The public is invited to attend (10am tomorrow) but the 15 representatives have already been selected. Invited to speak are:

Mayor Lionel Rivera (introductions).

County Commissioner Chair Dennis Hisey (of Fountain).

State Senator John Morse.

State Representative Bob Gardner.

Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments Chair Commissioner Wayne Williams (military and transportation issues).

Veteran’s Committee Chair Retired Gen. Bentley Rayburn (Vet cemetery and other Vet issues).

Chair of Chamber Military Affairs Council Retired General Wes Clark (defense contractor as President of SAIC near Peterson, will talk about history).

Chair of Chamber Military Affairs Council’s Pinon Canyon committee, Retired General Ed Anderson (former Ft. Carson Commander).

President of CS Chamber Military Affairs Division, Brian Binn (will talk about local economic drivers).

CEO of the Colorado Springs Economic Development Council, Mike Kazmierski (will talk about competition from other cities and BRAC).

Chair of Defense Mission Coalition Tony Koren

CEO of Pueblo Chamber, Rod Slyhoff.

Chair of the Pueblo Economic Council Marv Stein.

Assistant City Manager Greg Nyhoff (will talk about how City Development processes and the Airport relate to encroachment issues at bases).

County Development Director Carl Schuller to talk about processes and encroachment issues in the County.

Talk is the walk

A fellow advocate of peace thinks it’s time to walk the walk. Be the peace you hope to inspire in others. “There’s been enough talk about peace, now walk the walk.” I find this a less than refreshing contortion of the catch-phrase. It’s one thing to speak peaceably, quite another to speak up in support of peace. Policemen are not going to disturb your being peaceful. Keeping peace with yourself does not disrupt their bosses’ war mongering and profiteering. But speak up for peace, and the war industry has a problem with you.

Am I advocating rubbing policemen the wrong way? Not for its own sake. But are you trying challenge authority and stop a war?

I’m all for people walking the walk, paying more than lip-service, or putting their money where their mouth is. But don’t pervert that to mean a peacemaker’s mouth should be kept assiduously quiet. The effort to end war and injustice means speaking up for those who cannot. If I insist it means fighting for what you believe, I do not mean fighting in an other than non-violent sense, I mean putting forth effort. If you are not talking, you’re just walking.

Got health insurance?

Universal healthcare you say? Every civilized nation on earth has it except us? Well, take a look at the average American when compared to a French or Canadian counterpart. Fat, dumb and happy. Chubby hand reaching out….trying to find a Hot Pocket, or an open pocket. Gimme more, gimme more. Fill my yap. I deserve it. Don’t expect me to care for myself, or my family.

We can thank the government and the educational system for creating a nation of uninformed cretins. We can thank the food industry for lining their pockets at the expense of good nutrition and health. We can thank the legal system for stealing Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs….leaving doctors to take the safest path. We can thank the pharmaceutical companies for corrupting our well-meaning doctors and putting profiteering ahead of health.

The truth is that most doctors are saps who care about the average American. I was married to one for many years. Never once did I see him hesitate to help an uninsured individual. He’s a fantastic surgeon who knows little about wellness. You’ve gotta cut to cure. You’ve got pain? Here is Vicodin. You’ve got inflammation? Let me give you a cortisone shot. Depression or anxiety? Zoloft and Paxil. Exercise? Massage? Acupuncture? Herbs? Good nutrition? Safety? Self discipline? Not on the radar. Medical education is driven by those that stand to gain. If there isn’t profit in a particular course of treatment, it is not part of the curriculum. The powers that be do not make money from whole grains, whole foods, supplements, Eastern medicine, helmets, exercise. Thus, our poor students learn nothing about wellness. And they are unaware of their lack.

Enter the greediest of parasites–attorneys. When managed care first came to the fore, every doc I know was willing to forego unnecessary tests, to save healthcare dollars. Dave had great confidence in his diagnostic powers. He knew what his patient needed and had the balls to refuse unneeded and expensive tests. In one year, when the average surgeon ordered several hundred MRIs, Dave ordered 11. Alas, it took only one lawsuit by a fat, diabetic smoker to change his opinion. “Did you order an MRI?” “No, it was unnecessary.” “Isn’t that the standard of care in the community?” “Yes, but it was unnecessary in this case.” Nevermind that an MRI would tell him nothing that he didn’t know. It was an Achille’s heel with a jury of uneducated peers. Now, my idealistic and caring husband has become jaded. Why on earth would he put himself, his family and his reputation on the line to save a few bucks for Centura? Especially when they are taking the “savings” to line the pockets of their top executives.

Let’s also talk about end-of-life issues. Many healthcare dollars are spent in the last two weeks of a terminal patient’s life. To say euthanasia is to belie one’s atheistic nature and to bring brimstone down upon one’s head. To suggest withholding care is to betray an uncaring attitude. Bullshit! Who wants to spend his last days unconscious, hooked up to IVs, soiling the sheets and dragging out the grieving process for loved ones? No one I know. But what doctor is brave enough to make the suggestion? Jack Kevorkian was imprisioned for honoring the requests of the dying. He was a revolutionary. He paid a great price. I won’t encourage Dave to take the same path, although I think it is a noble one.

Until the American public is willing and able to start looking out for their own health and well-being, until they are willing and able to educate themselves and their children, until people are willing to forego expensive testing, until they are willing to see a nurse, a midwife, a physical therapist or a physician’s assistant for their primary care, there will be no moving forward. Any presidential candidate promoting a universal healthcare plan best be prepared to confront not only the corporations who control our food supply and our education, but also the Unhealthy American and his cousin, the Greedy American. I will not support a candidate who doesn’t have the knowledge and integrity to speak truth.

Private Military Contractors

The definitive film so far about private military contractors in Iraq is Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers

Halliburton Energy Services 3445 N. Marksheffel Rd. Colorado Springs CO
Computer Sciences Corporation 1250 Academy Park Loop Colorado Springs CO
Dyncorp 1115 Elkton Dr Colorado Springs CO
Dyncorp Information Systems 985 Space Center Dr Colorado Springs CO
Halliburton Energy Services 410 17th St., Ste. 600 Denver CO
Dyncorp 303 E 17th Ave Denver CO
Dyncorp Inc. 2525 S Dayton Way Denver CO
Computer Sciences Corporation 1726 Cole Blvd Golden CO
Dyncorp Inc. 1711 Illinois St Golden CO
Dyncorp 143 Union Blvd Lakewood CO

Where is the war profiteering Center of Evil located in Colorado Springs? That is located at the well hidden away Lockheed complex at Fountain and Academy Blvd. You might be driving by it every day and not even have noticed the 3 groups of buildings in that area belonging to Lockheed.

Right down the road is the huge Satellite Hotel. There are other ‘defense’ companies located in the same area but easily missed by those driving by.

Blackwater USA out of Sudan!

Last night, some misguided peace activists in Colorado Springs got together at ‘Poor Richards’ to call for more US-UN-EU intervention into Sudan. They want to stop the bloodshed in Darfur but seem oblivious to the actual realities of US global interventionism. Their get together comes just days after Joseph Biden, a Democratic Party presidential candidate, called for US troops to be sent into Sudan.

So what in effect we have, are Colorado Springs pacifists calling for US military intervention into an African country! It is companies like Blackwater USA who will actually carry out this intervention, along with other outfits from the USA like the Louis Berger Group.

US Out of Africa, not further into it! Blackwater USA Out of Sudan!

We lose they lose

On the forbidden sidewalkProtesting at the side of the street does seem futile at times, it certainly seems so just thinking about it. But out there catching each others eyes, you’re reminded of its mysterious power, particularly when you’re shown to what extent those against you are willing to go to keep you from being there.

When we first turned up Monday at the Broadmoor Space Symposium Arms Bazaar, we were quickly moved from a section sidewalk declared off limits to us. The police could not explain exactly what ordinance or why, except that they had orders to keep us off the Lake Circle sidewalk. We complied the way reasonable people do, because the area to which we were confined seemed at first glance perfectly suitable. We occupied the corner of Lake and Lake Circle, where we could hand fliers to symposium attendees crossing to the Convention Center. But this gave us contact with only a fraction of the participants in attendance. The majority of the weapons dealers stayed inside the center, whose windows faced the sidewalk area forbidden to us.

We decided to accept the “free speech zone” given us until we could research the new restriction, mindful of the recent Appeals Court verdict which upheld the Broadmoor’s discretion to cordon off its entire neighborhood as a security zone for the NATO conference some years back. Citizens for Peace In Space lost that appeal.

It took Bill Sulzman until 10pm Wednesday to get someone at the CSPD to speak to the issue of the exclusive use permit granted to the Broadmoor. That representative, a Commander Overton, agreed to meet Bill the next morning to negotiate where protesters would or would not be restricted.

Was this a victory of discourse and civility? It certainly was a victory for the Space Arms Symposium. They effectively kept us off their turf until the last day, then thwarted a legal challenge by deciding to give in. We got to stand on the contested sidewalk for a snowy hour of the last day of the conference.

This is where less confrontational pacifists hinder their protest efforts. It might be well to resolve your differences by arbitration, meanwhile the bad guys hold the real estate. In the end our message does not get out, the war rages on, we are entangled in bureaucratic battles until our rights are upheld. This was the tactic used at the DNC, RNC, FTAA, WTO, and indeed our own St Patrick’s Day: detain the dissidents until their opportunity to be heard has passed. It’s an abridgment of our civil liberties, and the government factors into its budget the liability of likely legal judgments.

But what price lost free speech? What cost for every day the war goes on? We know that number. What cost for each further contract for more WMDs? If protest could stop that, that’s the price the government owes us. Could street protest have that effect? Somebody thinks so.

Last year at the Broadmoor, the reaction to our protest was very telling. The first day we were nearly arrested for trying to walk along the edge of a cordoned area, the same contested sidewalk. The head of Broadmoor security was screaming for officers to arrest us. The next day I was assaulted by an overwrought Marines commander in jogging shorts. He circled right to me and flung his hands around my throat, pushing me back until policemen pulled him off. The next day we rode a bicycle up and down the bike path adjacent the blocked sidewalk, to relentless harassment and endangerment by the security vehicle. Somebody doesn’t like to have to gaze upon our message. We could see military brass last year watching from the windows with arms crossed.

Our banners, then and now, quote Henry Ford “Take the profit out of war and you’ll have peace tomorrow” and President Eisenhower “Beware the military industrial complex.” We also have this haunting question: “will your children survive your work?”

The arms manufacturers in attendance at the Broadmoor are normally well buffeted from the real world. They work in industrial complexes and high rises out of reach of humanist and spiritual voices of conscience. They certainly don’t have to see the results of their work, the suffering or the poverty. They ride high on the war gravy train.

The Broadmoor gathering for me is the rare chance to look these people in the eye, to examine the war profiteers in their insular habitat. They might be bellicose, or proud, or defensive, and they may deride us. If it seems their consciences are not keeping score, the symposium organizers seem to have more faith in them than we do.

On this occasion the military industrial complex beat us, they kept us out of sight for most of their event. But we won too. No we didn’t get to challenge their method in court, but we did get to stand in the forbidden zone of their periphery, if but for a morning, a cold snowy morning. Though I believe the increasing snow fall lent our message the credibility of determination. We got to aim this banner right at them: “Will your children survive your work?”

Bush threatening military intervention into Sudan (thanks to Democratic Party liberals)

Congratulations go out to the ‘Save Darfur’ community of liberals. How pleased you have to be now. Your campaign to send US troops and US directed troops to intervene in the affairs of yet another nation are now bearing fruit, and the Bush Adminstration is now mobilizing itself with Democrats to invade yet another country, that country being Sudan. Oh for sure you never called it a ‘Send in the Troops campaign’, but called it a ‘Stop the Genocide’ campaign instead. How clever! How so ever decent of you.

Funny though that genocide was never used to describe what happened (and still probably is happening) in the Congo, and not once did I hear you sweethearts call for a campaign to stop the US GENOCIDE in Iraq. Since 1991 the US has killed several million Iraqis through war and economic sanctions, yet somehow that never sparked your indignation and labelling of the US as a genocide perpetrator? Why not? Instead you call upon the genocidal US forces to ‘save’ others, all located far outside US borders. How very bizarre. I just don’t get it? Are you liberals total numbskulls. or what?

Yesterday John Negroponte, Ronald Reagan’s master architect of screwing up Central America during the ’80s, was in North Africa threatening US military intervention into Sudan. Joseph Biden, a leading Democratic Party hack, is also calling for US troops to be sent in. Anbd unbelievably in this context, many liberals ac`tually are holding a week of rallies around the planet in 2 weeks to rally support to this cause! Two weeks from Sunday there is one to be held in Denver, and liberals lost in fantasy land here in Colorado Springs also plan to attend the rally! How about using some of that gray matter in your skulls and reconsider what you are actually mobilizing for?

I will be attending this rally, too, with signs calling for the US to get out of Africa, not into it. What a radical concept, ay? I will have signs calling for the US to get out of Somalia, and calling for the US to terminate its new military African command center called, AFRICOM. We need to be calling for the demobilization of US controlled military forces, not calling for further extension of their warfare. Activists working for US and European intervention into Darfur are doing the absolute worst thing possible at this time when they should actually be working to pull US troops out of Iraq instead. Stop getting yourselves lost in space, Space Cadets! If you are against genocide, then at least educate yourselves enough to know which countries perpetrate it. The US would be at the top of the list, FYI.

Liberals sometimes just seem to be totally living in a fantasy world. Just this week I was at a Justice and Peace event where the speaker was actually praising the United Nations! How ass backwards is that? The US controls the UN Security Council and has these military forces doing its dirty work around the globe. The UN is now a thoroughly controlled and thoroughly reaccionary force everwhere. It specializes in mop up operations for the Pentagon, from the Balkans to Haiti to Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be a blissful day in heaven when liberals in the US can begin to put 2 plus 2 together and begin to differentiate reality from their fantasies some little bit. Praising the UN and/ or calling for African Union troops, NATO troops, and UN troops to intervene in places like Sudan is not a move towards world peace and an end to conflict, but are words and actions that will just help increase US military interventionism everywhere.

US OUT OF AFRICA NOW, not into it! Nobody likes the mass deaths inside Africa and that’s why we need the imperialists out, and not in. Demonstrate to withdraw US forces now. Get the US Out of all the foreign places where they are now repressing the world’s peoples. Our government has absolutely no progressive role to play in world politics until we can radically alter it. Since we are not even close to doing that at this point, the call for troops to be used elsewhere is about as backwards as liberal Democrats can be. You should be trying to demobize the military-industrial complex, not use it abroad! Get with the program, Liberals. And I’m not talking about getting with the Bush program for Africa, as you are currently doing.

AFRICOM and the US/ European drive to control Africa’s oil

The Center for International Policy has an excellent report about the newest US push to further militarize the continent of Africa and control the oil supplies located there. All of this is to be done under the propaganda cover of fighting terrorism, and through the establishment of the new African command operation center (AFRICOM) of the US military, which is already the military coordinator of US interventions into Somalia, into Chad and Sudan, and into Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, and where much of the African oil is located.

No area of Africa will actually be free from US military control when these plans are fully put into place, and antiwar activists should be pushing to oppose the expansions of US and European military organizations into the African continent now. That includes opposing the further deployments of African Union and United Nations Security Council troops as well, since these groups are not autonomous or free of Pentagon control. Not in the least.

After literally killing hundreds of millions of Africans through decades and centuries of European/ US colonialism and imperialism on the continent, the new push to control and loot African oil for the industrialized countries promises much more suffering to come to Africa in the years ahead. The real genocide that is taking place throughout Africa has been in march for a very long time through the entire continent, and can only be ended by giving the boot to the US and Europe and their imperialist armies out of the region altogether. African oil for Africans and not for imperialist based multinational oil companies backed up by the Pentagon! Stop AFRICOM now. We need to stop the genocide across the entire African continent, and that can only be done by getting our own US government’s military demobilized.

(You might want to read the entire CIP report and not just the link I provided to the summary of that report. The link to the entire PDF shown article, if you missed it, is at the bottom of the introduction itself. Very interesting material.)

Global Warming leaves The Gazette in dense fog

Funnier than the poor selection of comics that The Gazette carries, are the poor selection of opinion pieces on their editorial page. And on no issue do these Neanderthals post more comedy than on environmental issues. For example, they must be the last people on the entire planet still poo-pooing the idea that global climate has actually been changed by human activity and the overuse of fossil fuels!

Today, right above their pompous “Principles of Freedom’ nonsense ‘We believe that freedom is a gift from God… blah, blah, blah) is media whore Thomas Sowell’s trashpiece titled, “Global-warming gasbags launching an eco-inquisition’. Can’t you just imagine it? Exxon-Mobil execs being burned at the stake, Cheney with his nuts in a vice, and Bush’s rear end lit up as the natural gas is burnt off secondary to oil production? All victims of eco-inquisitors!

Also on the same page, was their editorial piece against ‘social engineering’. What is that in their minds? Well, they call trying to promote less environmentally destructive vehicles ‘social engineering’ by ‘wackos behind the wheel putting the pedal to the meddle.’!
What a group of total nincompoops. Who paved over their brains with such nonsense?

And a week ago, they were saying that endangered wolves in the state were nothing but rats. The extermination of earth species to them is part of a natural process where real estate developers rule over other forms of life, by the survival of the fittest. That type of ‘social engineering’ they totally adore and love. Engineering towards extermination of other life forms on the planet, no problemo.

What a bunch of social retards they seem to favor and collect at Freedom Communications, publisher of The Gazette and other local brands of demented toilet paper!

US out to control Iran’s natural gas

Most thinking people in the world now realize that the US invaded and occupies Iraq in order to control the oil underground there. While other oil producing countries were rapidly depleting their major oil fields of the precious natural resource that lay underground, that was not the case with Iraq. The country lagged far behind in developing their oil fields due to its disastrous war with Iran and the economic sanctions that the US later initiated against them. The oil largely stayed in the ground for about a 20 year period of time. But what about Iran? Why is the US government on the move to try to regime change there?

Iran at first seems to be not as worthy of Iraq to fall victim to a US energy grab. Their reserves of oil are in decline, and that is one reason that the government seeks to develop nuclear energy. However, there are 2 other carbon energy forms that are also of vast importance besides oil. Natural gas and coal. Iran has three and one half times the reserves of the US in natural gas, and is only behind one much larger country, Russia, in underground stocks of that commodity.

As we know, much of Europe is dependent on Russia’s natural gas to get their communities heated each Winter. This is an extremely important fuel resource even if it is not as central to the world’s growing energy crisis as oil is. And just like oil, both India and China are looking to increase their imports of natural gas, too. Being Number 2 in reserves of natural gas in the world is no small matter. And world natural gas supplies are due to peak in several decades, all the more to make Iran’s naturla gas a very important target for other’s greed.

It is true, that the American government’s political desire to destroy Iranian influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Persian Gulf is probably as large a factor to the US drive to engage in war against Iran as just the desire to commit outright theft.. But the drive to rob and control this huge reservoir of natural gas plays almost as prominent a part in the neocon ‘surge’ to fuck Iran over, as does the desire to only politically neutralize/neuter them. Excuse the bad language. But when I discuss the American mafia imperialist strategy, for some reason I begin to talk like Richard Nixon?

Natural Gas. All cause for more war profiteering.

We are weeks, and maybe just days before the US assault on Iran begins. No Blood for Oil! No blood for Natural Gas! This is not the way to begin to deal with the world’s energy crisis. A continued world wide resource war will only make the transition away from the unsustainable excessive misuse of carbon energy forms, even more painful and disastrous than it has to be.

Save Darfur from us

Do you wonder how the word is getting out about Darfur? How is it Americans can’t mobilize a decent opposition to the harm we’re perpetrating in Iraq, but we can -seemingly by grassroots efforts alone- make a case for coming to the rescue of the people of Darfur? It’s because taking action in Sudan means intervention. Taking action in Iraq means ceasing intervention.

With intervention the Western participants get to control the problem nation’s resources. In both Sudan and Iraq that means the oil. Remember how the Coalition of the Willing worked? If you didn’t participate with soldiers, your businesses weren’t allowed to bid on any of the contracts.

The tragedy unfolding in the Sudan is deplorable and must be remedied. But it’s not going to be solved by petitioning President Bush to send US troops there. We’re just inviting the fox into the henhouse. They’re busy with another henhouse right now, but I’m sure they’re pleased as punch that “grassroots” operatives can get them a personal invite into the next one.

George Clooney and so many well-intentioned college clubs are being coordinated by a well-funded PR machine in DC. They are being blinded by the ferocity of the crimes against the people of Darfur, which require urgent policing, but they are ignoring the necessity of an African-managed remedy. Help the Organization of African Nations join with the political players in the Sudan to enforce peace. Any solution will be better than sending in the white vultures who are only after the oil. There are enough regions of the world being kept destabilized for the profit of Western multi-nationals without adding Sudan to the list. Not to mention that Darfur is one of the places where Islamic forces have determined to make a stand against western capitalism.

Judging Decision 2006

I was once a trainee in a work group, where my brash behavior caught the ire of the team. “Don’t you realize Eric that each of us has a voice on your evaluation? Aren’t you worried that your insufficient reverence (I’m paraphrasing) will reflect in each of our assessments?” Everybody stared at me across the conference table. They were high level engineers and each was smiling.

“Well I said, hoping to obscure my fool-hardiness with diplomacy, “I’m not concerned with your evaluations actually.” This was the diplomacy of speaking frankly. ” I’m on the management fast-track program. I’ve already been evaluated, I’m here because the company saw my potential. I believe that administrators are going to look at your observations in terms of whether you recognize the qualities they already like. It will be a test of your management potential more than anything.” Two weeks later, and I can’t say I wasn’t sweating it, my evaluation was filled with unrestrained praise.

I relate this story, of course because I come out fabulous, but too because I’m thinking of the upcoming elections.

If the American public reelects the GOP, reconstitutes in effect the party of lies, corruption, war-profiteering, racketeering, election-fixing, treason, war crimes, and pedophilia, it’s going to reflect on the American voter.

Someone in Europe is going to have to put together a website to answer our “sorry everybody” with “No, we’re sorry, you ignorant, ignoble fools!”

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!!

Town square Citizens Tribunal

It tolls for thee
At the prospect of our nation executing Zacarias Moussaoui for perpetrating his unforgivable evil, conspiring and lying, let’s invite the big league lawbreakers to consider turnabout is fair play.

Let’s hold a preliminary trial and sentencing for our current governing criminals, traitors and kleptocrats. In advance of being able to bring them to account officially, let’s give them a vision of what they can expect for their own fate. Remember the revolutionary tribunals of the French Revolution? Something like that, the wrath of the people, without the guillotine.

Plans are to hold a mock tribunal with accused to be tried in absentia and executed in effigy. The evidence has already been presented and tried in multiple tribunals around the world. The first charge is war crime: the crime against peace, and multiple counts of crimes against humanity. These crimes have already been proven. We will enumerate upon each for the sake of onlookers who may not be as familiar.

The other crimes are treason, based on the betrayal of this nation’s founding principles, its constitution and bill of rights. Support of the Patriot Act alone is treason. Likewise is support for illegal detention and torture. And election fraud.

Other capital offenses are war profiteering, influence peddling and selling one’s vote.

The accused are the leaders, accomplices, and all complicit in permitting these crimes. If Zacarias Moussaoui can be convicted, even executed for conspiring to participate in the alleged 9/11 plot, then our local military commanders, politicians, community leaders and corporate executives can be considered guilty of conspiracy to wage a war of aggression against the nation of Iraq, the ultimate war crime. All Republicans have conspired to betray this democracy.

We’ll get a permit from the city to use the park at the center of town. We’ll hire the park for two days. On the first day we’ll begin to build the scaffold and work overnight so to have it finished by the next midday. At night we will have bright work lights to illuminate our activity. If by noon we are still hammering at the scaffold through the first part of the tribunal, all the better.

The tribunal will begin at noon with the reading of the charges. Next we will read the list of accused. We will dispense with the usual suspects in Washington and focus exclusively on the persons within the jurisdiction of our citizen’s tribunal. Our region’s own culprits.

We’ll have a display with the list of national figures to be attended by a national tribunal.

Next a prosecutor will elaborate on the charges of war crimes. Then an attorney will speak in defense of each accused. At this point we will entertain nominations for further culpable parties and consider their defense. After which the verdicts will be read and sentences announced.

The judge might be a kangaroo teleconferencing from Cheyenne Mountain Zoo through video chat on a laptop. This will be entirely for theatrical purposes. As stated, war crimes have already been proved. The accused have continuously refused to repudiate their expressed public support for the illegal war. The charges of treason and racketeering are already self evident.

A mock hanging will be performed for each of the accused, reading their name and dropping the trap door. Executions will be videotaped and streamed online in real time and archived for friends and supporters to see.

Naturally this citizen’s tribunal will act only as a precurser to the veritable tribunals. Justice will eventually catch up with each and every of these greedy buggers.

Katrina relief: what can you do?

New Orleans

Katrina Relief- What should you do?
Hoist the Federal Governement up on its own petard!
Do not aid and abet the carpetbagger land grab!
Do not aid and abet the displacement and scattering of the Louisiana poor.

The poor are the ones who’ll have to stay and stand up for their rights to their land.
Recovery funds should go to them, not to the reconstruction companies, developers and gaming resorts. I’m sorry but that’s not going to happen if you are helping to ship them out of Louisiana and Mississippi to put them up here.

Immediately after the Katrina disaster, “philanthropists” from Colorado Springs hired buses to go down to the relief shelters. The “philanthropists” plastered the stricken areas with fliers advertizing COME TO SCENIC COLORADO SPRINGS, etc.

The “philanthropists” set up agencies here to allocate the refugees to hotels and then apartments and houses. They helped connect refugees with cars, appliances, furniture and clothing. Those “philanthropists” were also quite visionary, because they foresaw that FEMA would pay for it all!

So what did those “philanthropists” accomplish after all? That FEMA money would flow into Colorado Springs coffers! Apartments and homes that had been empty are now occupied! Colorado Springs goods and services are now getting Federal dollars. And who were those “philanthropists?” Wealthy, well-known, developers! And apartment complex owners! And local business leaders!

Many of the refugees have since returned to the south to be with their families and friends. But it looks like the “philanthropists” foresaw that too, because it didn’t matter, the rents on those now empty apartments are already paid! FEMA paid for a year’s rent on each of them.

That’s taxpayer money, going to those wealthy “philanthropists.” All the less money than can go to help the Katrina victims rebuild their homes and their lives.

What should you do for the Katrina victims? Wish them Godspeed, call your congressman to urge that more support be offered to Katrina’s real victims, then call the U.S. Attorney General and urge him to prosecute the “philanthropists” for profiteering and fraud.

That’s what you can do.

UPDATE
We’ve seen this before in the South. It was called THE RECONSTRUCTION. And the northern opportunists who plagued the Reconstruction? They were called CARPETBAGGERS.