Two and a half for Scooter

Poor Scooter, fall guy for Bush and Cheney’s record setting criminality. He got a 2 and 1/2 year sentence for something you and I might have gotten life, and yet, he will probably not even have his golf games interrupted. He now faces a likely pardon or time at a country club ‘prison’. Such disgrace!

The funniest part of the whole thing, is who gave him personal references in front of the judge. They were Paul Wolfowitz, Henry Kissinger, and Donald Rumsfeld! Write your government representatives and ask that his time be spent at Guantanamo instead. They say he looked red eyed and ashen faced when he left the courtroom. Let him look like Padilla when he comes out Guantanamo. That would teach the bum a lesson, would it not?

Otpor and the US made coup attempts against Chavez in Venezuela

As a leader of Otpor (now called Canvas) meets with people in Colorado Springs and at Colorado College, it might be of interest to follow the trail of Otpor to Venezuela, and efforts of the US to overthrow Hugo Chavez there.

Contrary to how Otpor represents itself, it is not just a group of nice Serbian student leaders from Belgrade, that through Gandhi inspired tactics non-violently overthrew Milosevic in the wake of a very violent US war on Yugoslavia. The story is quite a bit more complex than that, so we follow their trail to Venezuela.

To understand the following Reuters report dated back in 2003, though, one must first realize that Otpor is connected with ‘The Albert Einstein Institute’ of which Colonel Robert Helvey is an integral part of. This is a US government run operation designed to link Gandhian methods of nonviolent protest to Pentagon and US State Department efforts to overthrow foreign governments. Hence, we move from Belgrade to Caracas as the US government goes after Hugo Chavez. It’s Gandhi in the service of the Pentagon to help make a coup!
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US democracy expert teaches Venezuelan opposition
By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 30, 2003 (Reuters) – Retired U.S. army colonel Robert Helvey has trained pro-democracy activists in several parts of the world so he knows something about taking on military regimes and political strongmen.

Now he is imparting his skills in Venezuela, invited by opponents of President Hugo Chavez who accuse the leftist leader of ruling like a dictator in the world’s No. 5 oil exporter.

Helvey, who has taught young activists in Myanmar and Serbian students who helped topple the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, is giving courses on non-violent opposition tactics this week at an east Caracas university.

Secrecy surrounds the classes. A sign outside the door, apparently there to deflect the curious, reads: “Seminar on strategic marketing.”

But the strategies Helvey is sharing with some of Chavez’s foes focuses not on balance sheets but on how to resist, oppose and change a government without the use of bombs and bullets.

After initially declining to answer questions, Helvey, a former U.S. military attache in Burma and now a consultant with the private U.S. Albert Einstein Institution that promotes non-violent action in conflicts, told Reuters non-violence was the key to the tactics he taught.

“In every political conflict, there is a potential for violence, and it is incumbent on leaders to make sure they don’t cross the threshold of violence,” he said.

Organizers of the seminar did not welcome journalists. “This is a private meeting of friends,” one said.

The attendees included representatives of Venezuela’s broad-based but fragmented opposition, who are struggling to regroup after failing to force Chavez from office in an anti-government strike in December and January.

Chavez, a fiery populist first elected in 1998, survived a brief coup last year by dissident military officers who now form part of the opposition movement, which also includes labor and business chiefs, politicians and anti-Chavez civic groups.

CHAVEZ, DEMOCRAT OR DICTATOR?

Opposition sources said Helvey was invited to Caracas by a group of businessmen and professionals. They in turn organized the course involving a broad cross-section of the opposition.

Helvey’s presence comes at a time when a debate is raging inside and outside Venezuela about whether Chavez is a democrat or a power-hungry autocrat. That debate is important for the United States, which is a major buyer of Venezuelan oil.

Chavez’s critics portray him as a dangerous, anti-U.S. maverick who has extended his personal political control of the country’s political institutions, judiciary and armed forces.

They say he has strengthened his country’s ties with anti-U.S. states like communist Cuba, Iran, Libya and — until the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein — Iraq.

Since the April 2002 coup that briefly overthrew him, Chavez’s relations with the United States have remained edgy. The U.S. government has fiercely denied accusations from some Venezuelan officials that it encouraged or supported the coup.

Chavez fiercely condemned the invasion of Iraq. But Venezuelan oil shipments to the U.S. have kept on flowing.

The Venezuelan leader, who was elected to office six years after failing to seize power in a botched coup, denies he is a communist, says his government is democratic and regularly pillories his opponents as “terrorists” and “coup-mongers.”

His foes have staged huge, anti-Chavez street protests over the last 18 months. He portrays them as a wealthy, resentful elite opposed to his self-styled “revolution” which he says aims to benefit the oil-rich nation’s poor majority.

Neither Helvey nor the organizers of the Caracas seminar would give details of exactly what opposition tactics were being taught. But in his work in Serbia before Milosevic’s fall, Helvey briefed students on ways to organize a strike and on how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime.

In the mid 1990s, he traveled to the Thailand/Myanmar border to give classes in non-violent resistance to exiled Burmese students opposing the military junta in their country.

His former students remember him as “Bob.”

“He used his military skills in strategic planning for non-violent protest methods … Everybody was fascinated by Bob, because he was a military man and was applying that to non-violence,” Aung Naing Oo, former foreign secretary for the All Burma Students Democratic Front, told Reuters.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Caracas told Reuters the embassy knew nothing about Helvey’s visit and had nothing to do with the secretive seminar.
———————————————-

Oh, yes, for sure. lol… This article, interestingly enough, is from ‘Burma Related News’. It’s a small world it does appear.

http://www.burmalibrary.org/TinKyi/archives/2003-05/msg00000.html

Holding your breath is a powerplay?

The Democrats want a timetable to end the war, the President is threatening to veto any such measure. The media describes it as a power face-off. The Legislature has The Power of the Purse, the Executive Branch has The Veto. Bureaucratic weapons of equal strength we’re told. Ooooh. Are you sure? The power to cut off funding for the war versus the power to, to decline, to decline what funding the Congress does offer?

Whatever kind of false analysis is that? If Congress wants to give Bush something, yes he can refuse it. But then he gets how much of nothing? Why is the press suggesting that our representatives must negotiate against a veto?

Congress holds all the marbles. Bush has lost every last one he’s been given. Now we’re being told the Democrats must be careful how they authorize the next 100 billion lest Bush turn up his nose. No sir, that’s a false choice.

The power of the purse does not mean you’re stuck with the bill you’re given. It means you decide the purchase. The child in the cart can scream and threaten to hold his breath. Does the media think they are fooling anyone to advise that parents they must give in to that tactic? Go on Sonny, hold your breath.

Washington DC’s Torture International at work in Somalia

The US has succeeded in taking a relatively quiet and tranquil situation in Somalia and converting it back into yet another human rights disaster. Now, Somalia is another country occupied by brigades of foreign troops all led by the Pentagon. And where the Pentagon goes, the use of torture soon follows. Has anybody heard of their supposed representatives, Democratic or Republican, opposing this US terrorism underway in Somalia? MIA once again…..
————————————————————————————————————
Rights group slams ‘rendition’ of Somalis
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Monday, April 02, 2007

NAIROBI: Human Rights Watch on Saturday accused the governments of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and the United States of secretly detaining hundreds of people fleeing the deadly conflict in Somalia. “Each of these governments has played a shameful role in mistreating people fleeing a war zone,” said Georgette Gagnon, HRW’s deputy Africa director. “Kenya has secretly expelled people, the Ethiopians have caused dozens to disappear, and US security agents have routinely interrogated people held incommunicado,” he added. In a statement, the rights panel detailed “arbitrary detention, expulsion and apparent enforced disappearance of dozens of individuals who fled the fighting” between Ethiopia-backed Somali troops and the powerful Islamist movement from December through January 2007. HRW said since late December, Kenyan security forces arrested at least 150 individuals from some 18 different nationalities at the Liboi and Kiunga border crossing points with Somalia.

“The Kenyan authorities then transferred these individuals to Nairobi where they were detained incommunicado and without charge for weeks in violation of Kenyan law,” it said. The rights body said the US and other national intelligence services interrogated several foreign nationals while they were being detained in Nairobi, where they were also denied access to legal counsel and their consular representatives. “At least 85 people were then secretly deported from Kenya to Somalia in what appears to be a joint rendition operation of those individuals of interest to the Somali, Ethiopian, or US governments,” the statement said. – AFP

Give Founding Mothers a chance

Aunt Sally wants you to think about peaceIt’s about time we integrate some “Founding Mothers” into our political process! Let’s make it a requirement that henceforth any official gathering whose purpose it is to pass judgment, make laws, determine patriotism, set political agendas or put into effect national security measures, should have to include at least three mothers. Better yet, three of the gathered officials’ own mothers.

These mothers would be required to be part of the review board, or sit in key positions in the assembly, in such a manner that their opinions and positions would be factored into the process.

Imagine that! Mothers, guardians of life, standing side by side with our elected representatives deciding legal limits on pesticides, cutting funding for education, re-appropriating money for defense spending, or voting on whether to go to war.

These mothers would, by their mere presence, alter the dynamic of any male dominated, testosterone driven group. These mothers couldn’t help but change the course of history. True to their very nature, these mothers would stop the next war now!

Apple and the PC image

I saw the actor who plays “PC” in the Mac versus PC commercials in a bit part on a television show. Odd, I thought, that he would be permitted a role outside of his corporate representative commitment.
Apple's popular PC and Mac mascots
Usually mascots like the Maytag repairman, the Dunkin’ Donuts and Frito-Lay guys, even Juan Valdes and Mr. Goodwrench, sign exclusive contracts to prevent them from diluting their brand identity with competing entertainment images. What distinguishes Apple’s PC guy is that he is a defamation of himself. The Mac strategy seems positively libelous.

It could be that since “PC” doesn’t represent an Apple product, whatever other screen time the actor got would matter little to Apple. But let’s not be so naive. More probably Apple has a say over which acting gigs PC can take. As long as PC portrays a feeble, emasculated frump like his Mac versus PC persona, Apple’s campaign is extended beyond its ads, right into the world of television. But is that playing fair? Can you create a straw man to represent your competitor, just to take the Mickey out of him at every opportunity, outside of the scripted ads, even in real life possibly. PC in real life could be painted to be quite the Wally if Apple if so desired.

The brilliance too of Apple’s singular circumstance is that “PC” represents no actual corporate rival. PC is not an IBM anymore, he’s part Windows, part Intel, and part PC clone maker. Microsoft would have to join Dell, HP, Gateway, eMachine, et al, to sue Apple for defamation.

Microsoft is trying some of Apple’s medicine pitting the Zune against the iPod, using representatives cleverly similar to the original actors, but my favorite adaptation of the me-better-than-you genre was Nintendo’s fun with Sony.

PPJPC condemns US bombing of Somalia

Instead of admitting that the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are immoral violations of international law, the US government has extended their war into more and more regions of the world. The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission opposes the most recent US bombing strikes in Somalia. These bombings are acts of war that have not been discussed or voted upon by anyone in the US congress. Further, they follow US government approval and encouragement of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, in itself a violation of international law.

The American people are asked to believe that only ‘terrorists’ are being killed and injured when the US conducts bombing raids in countries such as Somalia and Pakistan. In fact, the US is killing many innocent civilians and those casualties are being considered acceptable collateral damage by the Pentagon and the Bush Adminstration. We do not agree.

There is no way to pinpoint targets without unacceptable civilian bloodshed, especially when American forces do not even speak the local language, as is most often the case. We must not sit by and passively accept the resulting carnage without raising our voices in protest and condemnation. Essentially, the American people are being asked by their government to condone a policy of political assassinations that convicts others without trial or jury, and also maims and kills scores of innocent bystanders.

We at Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission reject these illegal acts of war and call on all our elected representatives to help stop this continual warmaking. We encourage everybody to do what they can to actively oppose the US military intervention in the Horn of Africa. Stop the bloodshed, do not feed into it. Do not encourage regional and ethnic conflict.

Download PDF

The Move-On mugshot collection

Move-On is making a mug-shot collection to send to Congressional Representatives. It’s asking everyone to hold up a placard expressing the issue of your choice, to prompt this new congress along. Although the uniformity of the placards make the photographs resemble jail house mugs.

The pictures are being collected physically, so as to be delivered physically, it also assuages the fear that these mugs are being collected for Homeland Security. But I wouldn’t be surprised if these will be our NSA file headers and they’ll find a way to link them to our fingerprints.

Bush gives early Christmas gift to racists- turns INS loose on Latino workers

With Bush’s press affairs going so badly for the Iraq Holy Christian Crusade againsts Arabs and Muslims, how to rally the kore Klan klowns around the flag once again? If the Middle East holy war for oil appears to be sputtering along on only one cylinder, why not jumpstart another holy crusade somewhere to distract people with? You know? What about the one that Anglo racists have going against the Spanish speaking? What a thought!

What a nice Christmas gift for the White, English speaking, America First, hate all the rest crowd, too! Turn INS loose in droves around the country at meatpacking plants! Kick America’s most exploited workers in the teeth, too! Fuck the unions! They thought they won a victory in Houston by raising Latino janitors salaries a dime or two in the SEIU Justice for Janitors effort. We’ll teach those mojados a lesson! Si, no se puede, pendejos! That’s the Bush way! He’s such a compassionate conservative.

And for the kids of the parents to be rounded up? Well Uncle Dubya has a nice lump of coal for them for Christmas! He’s a sweetheart, he is. And such great photo ops for the press! Anglo dittoshits just love to see those minorities hauled away in shackles! Their only regret is that more aren’t shot down like dogs.

In Greeley, Colorado alone, the INS goon squads hauled away over 300 from the Swift meatpacking plant there alone. Nationwide the total hauled off to be deported is sure to go over 1,000. See the map locator at the end of the Greeley paper’s article above to see where the other Swift plants are. Apparently Hyrum, Utah needed over 150 stormtroopers on hand to do the dirty work at that plant.

Here is a Denver paper slideshow of the pigshow at Greeley

To add insult to injury, the INS cops decided to loudly and publicly accuse the rounded up with being all involved in Identity Theft crimes. How better to make Spanish speaking people really be labelled hardened criminals amongst Anglos than to throw this stuff into the stew? So our latest messages from the authorities is, Don’t be Muslims and pray in airports and don’t be talking Spanish in public, if you know what’s good for you, that is.

Since Democrats are also on board this Holy Crusade, we can expect much more of this tax paid hatemongering ahead of us. Our political representatives from both parties suck totally on immigration issues. They both entirely support this sort of witchhunt against the working poor, all under the guise of ‘keeping our borders safe’ and ‘protecting the native workforce’.

Close the School of the Americas

Click for more pictures on SOA press conferenceDennis Apuan and Genie and Bill Durland, pictured at right, head to Fort Benning Georgia to make an annual plea to close the S. O. A. aka School of Assassins, where Central and South American military death squads are known to receive their training.

Here is the address which Dennis Apuan delivered:

Friends in the struggle,
For almost 60 years, the School of the Americas has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in tactics that are used to wage war against their own people. Courses taught at the school include counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for human rights.

Despite this targeting, large social movements throughout Latin America fight for justice and have successfully brought popular change to their countries. For 15 years, tens of thousands of people in the United States have worked in solidarity to close the SOA through a variety of means.

On November 17-19, 2006, at least three Colorado Springs residents will converge with tens of thousands on Fort Benning – one of the largest military bases in the world and home to the notorious School of the Americas – to confront injustice, to speak out for peace and to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy. This is a time of great change in our world, and justice is within our reach when we stand up in numbers too big to be ignored.

We will close this school that has created so much death and suffering.

History is made by movements – mass movements of people who organize themselves to struggle collectively for a better world. An increasing number of people have realized that U.S. government policy is out of alignment with their values. The movement for justice and against war and exploitation is growing stronger.

So many around the world continue the struggles for justice and human rights: peasants, indigenous and black communities, trade unionists and students are taking to the streets. By standing up and standing together, we can overturn any injustice. By standing up and standing together, we can change the world.

The movement to close the School of the Americas is a nonviolent force to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy as represented by institutions like the SOA. It is made up of people from many backgrounds who work towards a positive and fundamentally different alternative to the racist system of violence and domination.

We at the peace movement have been tremendously successful. The SOA issue has educated thousands about the reality of U.S. intervention in Latin America and U.S. foreign policy in general. Thousands have mobilized and engaged in nonviolent direct action. Because, as Arundhati Roy writes, “the trouble is that once you see it, you cannot unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.”

SOA Watch made history on June 9, 2006 when the House of Representatives voted on our amendment to cut funding for the SOA. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Rep. John Lewis of Georgia introduced an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that would have cut funding for the notorious school.

While the amendment failed by a vote of 188 to 218, this vote was a major victory for our movement. After 6 years without a vote in Congress, we gained ground with bipartisan support for opposing the school despite the vote occurring in one of the most conservative Congresses in recent memories. Some more of our victories include:

Securing support of 29 Republican Members of Congress.

Attracting the interest of powerful members of Congress to speak in favor of our amendment including Rep. Lee (CA), Meehan (MA), Lowey (NY), Kucinich (OH), and Schakowsky (IL).

Forcing the opposition to win by only 218 votes; the bare minimum to win the majority of the House.

Gaining the support of many new members of the House, as well as retaining previous supporters.

Surprising the opposition with the amendment, and forcing them to concede time in the House floor debate due to a lack of support on their side

These victories have undoubtedly energized our movement. We are grateful to our sisters and brothers in Latin America for their inspiration and the invitation to join them in their struggle for justice. The Americas have a strong legacy of resistance. As activists and organizers in North America, we have a lot to learn from our companeras in Latin America who have been fighting oppression for the past 514 years. To do so, we must come to grips with our own privilege and recognize how it shapes our assumptions about struggle and the future.

-Dennis Apuan, Colorado Springs, November 14, 2006

Colorado Springs Left Behind

Tim LaHaye’s prophesy came true in reverse. A Democratic revolution swept the national elections, even the State of Colorado, but the Colorado Springs faithful were left behind.
 
Republican congressman Doug LambornAmerica now has a Democratic House of Representatives and Senate. Colorado has a Democratic house, senate and governor. El Paso County even has more Democratic representatives. But who did Colorado Springs elect to fill GOP Congressman Joel Hefley’s seat? A screaming idiot of a Republican, the ninny-voiced former state senator Douglas P. “Pea-brain” Lamborn. In the midst of a sea change of reform, area voters opted for not just another throwback, but a candidate even Hefley and fellow Republicans could not stoop to endorse.

Colorado Springs constituents seem to be angling for a merit badge in consistency, even if it costs them their economy, jobs, health, security, lives, everything. They’re dyed in the wool, against-their-own-self-interest conservatives. Not easily differentiated from pure idiots. While the rest of the class learned the lessons of Bush and the GOP, graduating to the next stage, throwing the bums out, Colorado Springs, proud Republicans, are held back.

How the city council ‘Supports the Troops’ and their families- adding insult to injury

The Gazette today headlined their Sunday Metro section with an update about how a local family was doing with their lawsuit against the city. It is a case where a single dad was having a nervous breakdown and was breaking out the windows of his apartment in the nude, and his three children fled the apartment and called the police to get help for their dad. This was on May 2, 2003. And like so many of the cases where relatives have called the police in cases of this type, the help they asked for turned out to become their personal nightmare. The police came and murdered their dad.

Enter the sister of the dead single father, who took in the three children even though she was already caring for 8 of her own, PLUS caring for her mother who had a stroke shortly thereafter. She had a husband, but he was off in Iraq being paid to help destroy another people’s country. Still, despite all the work she already had piled up on here, she went out and sought justice for her murdered brother, and his now parentless children. She initiated a lawsuit against the City of Colorado Springs, whose police officers had so absolutely mishandled their work, work they are paid to do by our tax money.

Enter Mayor Lionel Rivera and the Colorado Springs city council. Rivera was elected just one month previous to this event. Rivera likes to pose himself as supporter of the troops. Here he had a chance to walk the walk, and not just talk the talk. What has he done for this military family and the 3 children now being raised by their aunt? Nada. He is in charge of the Colorado Springs police, and it was the police that murdered this man. Instead of assisting to right a terrible wrong, he has had the city fight the lawsuit on behalf of these children! And the entire city council has sat by, too.

Enter the settlement. The aunt, Carolyn Moore, decided that she had to settle rather than continue to fight for justice. She says that the settlement is an admssion of the police’s guilt, and she is right. What did the city of Mayor Lionel Rivera payout to the three now fatherless children? A grand total of $19,500! Well thank you Rivera! You know, as well as the entire city council does, that that amount for the wrongful death of one’s dad is an insult, and little more. Carolyn Moore says that it is not enough even to pay for the attorney fees. First, you head up the police force that caused the ‘injury’, and then you preside over the ‘insult’ of throwing peanuts out to the children. You think that quite generous, no doubt, since you have even tried to do less. And how gracious you are in helping out troubled families of our US soldeirs. Not. Instead, it is rather evident that you are merely a cheerleader for the corporations that make their profits off the misery that the Pentagon speads. When it comes to assisting the troops, we have to count you out.

Even now, Rivera, you have the ability to right this wrong. Prove us wrong about how we have stated your character as being. And The Colorado Springs city council as a whole, has the ability to right this wrong, instead of hiding in Rivera’s shadows. I don’t think that one can easily put monetary amounts to compensate for the wrongful death of a family member. But certainly, the amount should be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, and not just $19,500 for three aggrieved children to supposedly get, instead of being raised by their dad. Have you guys no shame? Do the right thing now, and move to have these children compensated in a more just manner for their unjust loss.

No doubt, our representatives are just hoping that this issue goes away. Luckily for the injured children, there is a decent reporter at The Gazette newspaper that has followed up on their actions of denying recompense for this murdered man’s family. Once again, I would like to think our local paper for doing the right thing and publishing this report. Write to the city council and the mayor and encourage them also to do right, instead of continuing on their current sinful path. And write to the papers and show concern for this family. They deserve your help.

Reach Out And Touch Someone Inc.

Do you have an internet business which ships its product to regions outside the reach of your delivery van? Are you experiencing difficulties with customers beyond your physical reach? Let the friendly agents at R.O.A.T.S. be your representatives in the area. We’re a long distance, internet fulfillment service with contract agents in every major metropolitan city. Need a housecall? We’ll make the housecall.

ROATS INC is a service for long distance transactions gone awry. Let’s say you’ve delivered on your end of the order, but your customer now wants to take advantage of the geographic distance that separates you. If you have a customer who’s UNJUSTLY initiating credit card charge-backs, enlisting the service of buyer-guarantee programs, taunting you via email, leaving negative feedback, or demanding a refund yet refusing to return the product, let us be of assistance!

We offer two types of Reach Out And Touch Someone TM service. First, we can assist your transaction by visiting your customer to facilitate the return of your merchandise. At this stage we can also negotiate a resolution with the leverage that comes exclusively from a personal visitation.

Our secondary service is offered for transactions already transpired. At this point there are several levels of options, dependent upon the degree to which you feel wronged. Naturally these options are intentionally designed to deter customer misbehavior.

Our service is billed per-action. However there is no charge for merchants to post our transaction protection logo on their website. the ROATS Reach Out And Touch Someone long distance transaction protection and enforcement logo will deter the internet buyer who intends to defraud you from outside your reach. Reassure those customers that you can, if they require it, touch them.

Rove wants to project a sense of humor

Bushies laughing at Fundies? What a strange story. We learned recently that the Bush White House has been referring to its right-wing fundamentalist base as “nuts.” Rove leaked it, but denies it. Sixty Minutes interviewed an Evangelical leader who professed concerted offense. The GOP biting the hand that feeds it? And right before the election? For whose ears might this story be intended?

Evangelical Christians may be grievously put off, but who else are they going to vote for? Will this gaffe be enough to drive them into the arms of Democratic representatives? Do you think so? The nuts are no doubt used to being called plenty worse by their own grandmothers.

As long as Bush delivers the Evangelical goods, expanding the reach of Christianity by conquest or by killing the heathens outright, the Fundies couldn’t care what names Bush calls them. By gosh, the foul-mouthed idiot has practically delivered Armageddon, that crafty little dry-drunk bastard, who is he calling “nuts?!”

This bit of Rovean egg-on-self is for the benefit of disaffected conservative voters. Voters who might be drawn back to the Bush cabal with even this weak hint of common sense in the Republican administration.

Of course there are signs of intelligence in the GOP. They’re slick as foxes. Unfortunately, they’re in the henhouse and we’re the hens.

Justice delayed, denied, for now

Not to worry, not to worry. The Bush and GOP plan to indemnify themselves from responsibility for their war crimes will be to scant avail. Let them pass whatever bill they want.

It’s true, justice delayed is justice denied. And it is depressingly ungratifying to see criminals legislate themselves legitimacy. But the representatives at the United Nations have settled for this delay before.

Not long ago our nation was at war with the people of Vietnam. Our imperialist interventions eventually turned toward the people of Cambodia and Laos in illegal acts of aggression. There was absolutely no other nation powerful enough to bring us to account, and because of our veto power on the Security Council, any number of Nations United could not condemn us or stop us.

The U.N. delegates settled for delayed justice. They said, in effect, we may not stop you now, but that doesn’t make what you are doing right or legal. They agreed that there would be no statute of limitations for breaches of international law, neither should any nation be able to exclude itself from the law’s jurisdiction.

In 1968 the U.N. General Assembly made explicit the universal jurisdiction of the war crimes conventions. The Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity ensured that nobody could consider themselves beyond the reach of international rule of law.

Article 1, part (b) defines the universal illegality of war crimes, “even if such acts do not constitute a violation of the domestic law of the country in which they were committed.”

Article 4 reads that no nation’s laws can redefine what are understood to be war crimes, that “statutory or other limitations shall not apply to the prosecution and punishment of the crimes referred to in articles 1 and 2 of this Convention and that, where they exist, such limitations shall be abolished.”

The torturers and warmongers can delay their appointment with the hangman, but the scurryng around to jerrymander the law is a good sign. Bush and co are showing the discomfort of knowing that justice awaits.

Colorado Springs IQ ranking

This weekend’s Gazette reported that Colorado Springs ranked 16th among America’s brainiest cities.
 
Although that may not be saying much in light of the US intelligence quotient these days, I still find the story hard to believe.

Other indicators: driving aptitude
According to local traffic systems professionals, the traffic lights at Colorado Springs intersections are adjusted by CDOT to a very slow rate. This setting provides for longer yellow lights in general as well as a longer gap between stop and go. They do not call this a remedial measure, but it is the lapse from when one direction is given red to when the perpendicular direction is given green, basically the space of time during which both directions sit simultaneously before a red light. Engineers set the timing according to local driving proficiency. Perhaps it’s just me linking that factor to IQ.

Colorado Springs level of idiocy is reflected in other local regulatory agencies. Although the area receives considerable revenue from Pikes Peak or Bust tourism, residents oversee everyday the ongoing destruction of their mountain view, their single natural resource.

Visual reflex impairment
The Snake Canyon Quarry continues to deepen and widen, within everyone’s focal range of their famous single peak. The Springs even has an older depleted mine, a similarly shaved mountain a couple foothills north which is tersely called “the scar.” It’s supposed to be a reminder of what we don’t want to do again. But Snake Canyon continues to dust our furniture and pit our windshields yet we refuse to seek our simple aggregate elsewhere. Other cities don’t have mountains to appropriate to sand their streets in the winter. They have to dig discrete pits at the outskirts of town instead. Apparently we don’t mind looking at our open pits. It’s more expensive to dig than it is to shave.

Likewise, El Paso is the only county in Colorado which permits building on mountain ridgetops. Ridgetop homes create erosion problems for everyone beneath, from the silting of the creeks to landslides to flash floods to lost vegetation. And it spoils the Pikes Peak viewshed. Within plain sight.

Foresight
Colorado Springs residents have also accepted recent cuts to their parks services. Park toilet facilities have been boarded or demolished and replaced with Port-a-let plastic outhouses because they’re cheaper to maintain. So are latrine trenches, but would we abide them? Well, maybe.

City officials have also decided they cannot afford to maintain the boulevard medians. They are selling the opportunity to local businesses in exchange for a posting “maintained by” advertisement. This at the same time the city utility overpays its executives and installs televisions in their elevators.

Impaired empathy
Colorado Springs has demonstrated its simplemindedness to the nation at large. We’re famous for our idiocy, though your judgement might depend on your politics. Our city was the epicenter of the Amendment Two debacle. This was where religious extremists attempted to deprive homosexuals of their right to minority protection. The measure was overturned in state court, but it got its healthy start here.

We are home to Dobson’s child spanking doctrine, Ted Haggard’s military-theocracy incubator, and multiple christian fundamentalist publishing houses. Anyone can open these books or tune into the TV broadcasts to sample our inanity. Again I’m equating inanity to IQ.

Cuckoldry
Colorado Springs is also staunchly Republican. We excuse this to mean Conservative, but Bush’s run of things in DC has put the lie to that claim. Colorado Springs’ Republican representatives have supported the most cockeye, transparently thieving policies that our corporate lobbyists have concocted. Colorado Springs voters are dumb, perhaps the percent that vote are not the percent winning accolades for being brainy.

To be accurate, I should admit that by “brainiest,” the Gazette meant the most educated. They were citing a CNN Money Magazine study based on census records which ranked cities of over 250,000 by the percentage of their populations which held Bachelors Degrees. Maybe this doesn’t indict Colorado Springs exactly. Maybe this says something more about the accreditation of our colleges, I’d guess the Colorado party schools. Go in dumb, come out dumb too. Of that, Colorado Springs is proof.

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!!

Hee Haw rides again

Hee Haw rides again!
Reprise: Junior Samples, Grandpa Jones, Buck Owens and Roy Clark.
 
No I’m messing with you. This is the cast of Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again or something like that. Three funny guys who make an enormous living by speaking for the common man, plus the Cable Guy, their greek chorus, in this case impersonating the common lower common man. Really, when Larry The Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy and Ron White appear in promotional pictures, CD covers or movie posters, they are never shown in any other order than where their fans have seen them sit on their Comedy Central special. What an interesting opinion of the intellectual incapacity of your target audience.

I caught a little of this popular act on TV and I knew I’d seen it somewhere before. HEE HAW! It was funny then, and it’s funny still. But back then we didn’t have hicks for country music stars and for race car drivers and for president of the United States. Is this where you get when you idolize people who behave like they were schooled in a barn?

We make multi-millionaires out of people who talk like hayseeds. Nothin’ wrong with hayseeds, on tractors naturally. And clearly country music stars, like redneck comedy stars and like NASCAR driving stars have a lot more going for them upstairs than your average service station gofer. Most of the time we can tell that politicians and preachers who pander to the lowest common denominator, are not themselves so gullible. However, we don’t want our doctors to be hayseeds, nor our scientists, nor our news reporters, nor even customer service representatives. Why are we looking for comedic wisdom from hayseeds?

Lauding a hayseed for comedic wit seems to me to set a terrible example. We’re supposed to laugh at what stupid thinks is stupid? It’s terrifying to me that there’s even an entire auditorium full of stupids who want to hear country dumbkins opine about life. This is misogeny and gay-bashing and oversimplification of everything. Sure it’s funny to laugh at political correctness, until you consider why something is thought correct or incorrect in the first place. Life is a little bit complicated, and we don’t mind admitting that we like the most qualified person to be driving the bus. What is so funny about an idiot sounding off? Especially in a world where the court jester resembles the radio commentator and worse our presidential dauphin.

These guys tell the same jokes to each other, even work in ad libs for each other from their own original routines. This would not be so bad except that the good ol’ boys give each other kudos for their clever repartees, even though the audience would know from the CD they’ve already memorized that even the joviality is canned.

Most of us, when retelling a story in the presence of someone who we might have told already, will begin by saying “I was telling such-an-such…” so awkward are we about repeating ourselves. Performers naturally have to repeat themselves, and have to act among each other like the material is fresh. But to give each other credit for extemporizing a put-down is pretty damn lower denominator.

Our democrats are wusses

I have the opportunity to attend the $75 per head Democratic Party fundraiser at the Patty Jewett Country Club this Friday. Max Cleland will be the featured guest. It sounds like an interesting affair, well-to-do Democrats might make for interesting folk. The trouble is, the featured benefactor of the fundraiser is the Democratic candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, a certain Jay Fawcett. So I’m not going.

Much is being made at the national level of the cowardice and incompetence of the Democrats. As Russ Feingold makes his case against the President’s illegal wiretapping, it appears, through the lens of the national press, that Feingold’s fellow Democrats are not standing by his side. In fact the argument given highest visibility is not about the merit of Feingold’s efforts, but rather: “why are the Democrats so spineless?”

I’m not prepared to say that the Democrats are spineless. After all, what we know about the actions of any Democrat is only based on how it is reported by the media. I’m suspicious of a media which reports its own opinion on the story as the story. Spineless is for the audience to decide. You report. We don’t need a media to ask: why does Republican shit smell so good? Show us the shit and leave your Neocon ass-kissing opinions to yourself.

A friend of mine just reported that he’s been calling congressional offices to urge their support for Senator Feingold. He’s being told that they would prefer to wait until all the facts are in. “What facts are you waiting for? he yells, Bush has admitted to the wiretapping!”

Which leads me to tomorrow night’s Democratic event. We may or may not know what Democrats are doing on the national level, but each of us in our own neighborhood can see what our politicians are doing here. I’ll tell you what they are doing here: jack shit. Oh, they’re fighting the good fight, but more like movie stuntmen. The fight is orchestrated, the moves were choreographed by labor unions long ago, and our Democrats know their role: they take the fall. They talk about health care, they talk about needing to put smarts back into governance, then they take the bullet, writhe around for a three minute death scene pining about the nobility of our cause, then fall.

Jay Fawcett is a pro-war revolving-door military careerist. What in hell is that for a Democratic candidate? We need another war-mongering Democrat like we need a hole in the head. Oh, excuse me, is that our part?

Give the Democrats your money on Friday night only if they’ll let you stand up and ask “what the hell are you boys doing? Get up there with some real ammo and shoot to win you chicken-hawk lily-livered pansies!”

Address to the Democratic Party

I went to a Democratic party fund-raiser last night, the TRUE BLUE AMERICAN RALLY. I stood by the door most of the night and handed out fliers about tomorrow’s meeting to reclaim the media. I knew all of the politicians who spoke, I knew the evening’s organizers, somehow it didn’t occur to me until that evening to ask to make an announcement for the Monday meeting. Here are my notes:

Hello, my name is Eric Verlo. You may recognize me from my involvement with Camp Casey, the persistent little peace camp on North Nevada Avenue. Hello.

This organisation was gracious enough to let me come up here and talk to you tonight. I’m speaking on behalf of another organization, the Pikes Peak Media Alliance. We’re a little group, started three years ago, which has been trying to raise awareness about media literacy. A number of my fellow members are here tonight. We recognize that the media landscape is, and has been, slanted against the little guy, the average American actually, and we’ve undertaken the challenge to change that imbalance.

I’m here tonight to tell you of our latest effort, I’ll try to be brief. We’ve been fighting to try to bring more of a community voice to the local public radio station, you love it, we love it, our own KRCC. The effort is going to culminate -thus far- into a town-hall public forum which we’ve scheduled for Monday night at All Souls Unitarian Church. We’re hoping to see as big a turn-out as possible of course. This will be a chance for Joe and Jane Public to express something of the direction they hope to see from KRCC, to express it directly to its regents, its owners, Colorado College.

This effort to seek community input into KRCC programming arose from a more specific attempt to lobby KRCC to air the news program Democracy Now. If you haven’t heard of it, ask the person beside you, it’s an award winning news program whose popularity is growing station by station all over this country, it’s on 400 radio stations nation wide, including more than a dozen communities in Colorado, all the big ones, except Colorado Springs and Pueblo, because it’s not on KRCC.

You may have heard of our efforts. For three years we’ve been trying to petition Colorado College to overrule KRCC’s decision not to carry Democracy Now. For years before that, individuals had been calling KRCC to request it, only to be turned down flat. That went on so long, we decided we had to go over the station manager’s head.

You may have signed one of our petitions. Did you hear anything back? No one did. Well a friend of mine submitted his letter directly. He did receive an answer to his request for Democracy Now: a hand written note saying “Thank you for your thoughts on democracy.”

We tried it several times and this year we made a concerted effort and gathered over 250 petition letters, individual letters signed and personalized by members of our community. A number of times people told us, “I signed one of those a couple years ago. What, they still haven’t given us Democracy Now?” That statement reflects not just their incredulousness, but it reflects a disconnect about what’s happening on KRCC. A lot of the community -on our side of the issues- is no longer listening to KRCC.

This year we delivered those 250 petition letters, along with another 200 Colorado College student signatures to Colorado College on our knees. On our knees! Yes it was a dumb idea, we got the idea because we were starting from Camp Casey and it was only a short distance to the college president’s office. Well on your knees that distance becomes quite a bit more than a little! We did it for the publicity of course, but ideologically we did it to represent the desperate urgency we felt for the people of the world who are not represented by or in the media, the suffering majority whose voices go unheard, whose plight goes unabated in large part because the media ignores their fate, a media who is on the side of their oppressors, who is owned after all by their oppressors.

And so we made this impassioned public plea, Dave was there with me on his bare knees, Gary was there, we handed over our petitions, and heard nothing. Not a thing. No one who signed any of those letter received a reply. We heard through the grapevine that Colorado College was basically standing in support of the KRCC station manager’s decision. Only just a week ago or so, we all saw in the Independent, the article about KRCC and some confusion about its funding, where on the issue of Democracy Now, the college declared that it considered the request to have come from only a “small faction.”

So the meeting tomorrow night, excuse me, Monday night is going to be the showdown between the community represented by its small faction, and Colorado College. We’ve dropped the explicit request for Democracy Now in hope that the meeting will represent more voices from the community about what its concerns may be about KRCC. The issue isn’t so much about Democracy Now, it’s about how does a community express itself to one of its representatives, in this case a station manager who insists that Colorado Springs is populated by nothing but conservatives and easily-offended Luddites.

One of the ideas which could come up at Monday’s meeting will be the popular local news show Western Skies. Some thought by the recent funding disinformation circulated by KRCC, that Western Skies is on the chopping block. Nothing could be further from the truth, as attested by Colorado College president Dick Celeste’s letters to both the Gazette and the Independent. Western Skies puts together a half-hour news show twice a week. It’s very popular. Let’s hear how many of you like Western Skies! Well why not have that show on every day? Can you imagine the kind of coverage we could get for local happenings, local non-profit efforts, partisan efforts, even locally owned businesses, if we had local news on a daily basis? Let’s hear how many of you would favor that idea!

Okay, so I’m here tonight to ask you to bring that voice to the meeting on Monday. Colorado College is looking to see how serious we are about speaking as a community. We’ve got to show them on Monday night.

Let me just say that I believe that the political battle begins with the media. We’ve got to reclaim the media if we are to achieve even a portion of our political goals this year, or ever. And by political goals, I’m talking about saving our country of course, about an agenda to tackle social inequality, to provide a safety net, to save our civil rights, to rescue really is what I mean, to rescue our right to elect a government which represents us. All those things. We are not going to win on those issues if we cannot take our case to the American people. It doesn’t matter how much money we raise to pay the media to carry our message, if the media wants to spin our message in the favor of its owners, of the upper business corporate class, there’s nothing of our message that is going to get through to the people.

A friend of mine was telling me tonight, she’s not very political. She doesn’t see much point to political parties. They’re divisive she says. She would prefer that politicians would brush aside political affiliations and sit down together to work out solutions for the American people.

Now you being fairly active, or activated, political Democrats probably see the naivety of her argument. Let me explain why I think she’s being idealistic and I’d like to see if you agree with me.

If politicians were civil servants indeed sitting down to work out solutions, that would be one thing. But we know that’s not the case. With the division of Republicans and Democrats are two groups sitting down, one of whom has their hands at the levers, making the trouble, and the other side, our side, is trying to undo it. Am I right on this point? The Republican, let’s call them the corporate cheap-labor, landowner party is trying to get away with whatever it can, and the Democratic party is left to try to to fight for the diminishing power of the rest of the world’s population. Is that right? Do I have that right?

Now accusations can be made that a number of the Democrats are fighting on the side of the landowners. And frankly I believe it. I know just enough about how politics does not work, to ask the silly question, can’t we get rid of those Democrats? Can’t we just expel them? Let ’em be Republicans if they want to so badly. We don’t need to be putting our grassroots efforts into backing their turncoat behavior. Anyway, that’s my opinion. I feel that way about torture, about the war, about health care, about the environment, about civil rights, about judicial review and the balance of power keeping the executive branch from acting like a dictatorship.

Now I will assert that we need a media which will reflect this battle for what it is. If we want to preserve this democracy, we have to have a democracy. We have to reach the American public, and we need to reach them with a level, balanced message.

I’ve spoken passionately, but you know that I haven’t spoken out of line, I haven’t exaggerated the situation, have I? Have I? I believe I’ve represented an objective concern for where this country is going. We need a media which will do that.

We have to reclaim this media, and we can start with the only place we have even a toehold and that’s public radio. Please come on Monday night to speak out for the reform we need. The airwaves belong to us. They’re like the public libraries, like the public lands set aside to preserve -in England they’re called the Public Trust. The public airwaves belong to us, and they need to speak for us. Please come!

Thank you!

The white Olympics

Smokestacks of TurinToday I watched the opening ceremonies of the White Olympics in Torino.
 
Yes, White Olympics. Virtually all the athletes are white. White because winter sports take place in northern climes where most everybody is white. White because winter sports require equipment beyond what tropical non-developed countries can afford their athletes. White because that is the color of the world aristocracy.

But the Summer Olympics were very much the same. Compared to World Soccer, or the NBA, or the NFL, or the AFL-CIO, the Summer Olympics are lily-white.

So everyone at the Winter Olympics is white, the entire South African team is white. The few dark faces among the white are citizens of white countries who trace their roots elsewhere.

When the American team made its entrance, I wondered, where were the boos? The American athletes were smiling and waving, many were hamming for the camera, one was talking on her phone. An audience was never shown, either booing or applauding.

But there would not have been booing at this pageant. This was a fete for the developed countries, presently at war with darker skinned countries. This was a white man’s club. The few delegates from dark countries were vestiges of the old colonial representatives, cousins of the western nations, returned home having lost their lands and authority to land-reform and indigenous efforts to reclaim territorial autonomy.

So this celebration was the bi-annual gathering of the ruling class, their athletes who can afford to practice their athletics full time, and the spectators who can jet around the world and attend the events.

And the symbol of power from which the ruling classes owe their supremacy was visible in the Olympic flame. Some might also find it was appropriate for the industrial city of Torino.
 
I thought it looked right out of Antonioni’s stark 1964 film Red Desert about industrial ennui, the multiple-funneled smokestack that is this year’s Olympic cauldron.

Who’s afraid of the Christian Peacemaker Team?

Motley crew
Lock up your daughters, it’s the Christian Peacemaker Team delegation!
 
By now the story is out about our visit to Senator Allard’s office today, particularly the effort we encountered to thwart our visit.

I’ll recap. After holding our daily noon vigil for the four CPT hostages being held in Iraq, a delegation of vigil keepers went downtown to visit the offices of three local congress members as part of the national SHINE THE LIGHT campaign. We walked with three yard signs and another sign of similar size held aloft. One among us wore a black hood over his head, to remind onlookers of the Abu Ghraib captives.

After a pleasant walk down Tejon Street, we first visited Congressman Hefley’s office where we received a warm reception. They’d seen the TV news report the night before. They also confirmed having received our emailed press releases.

When we tried to find Senator Allard’s office, our reception was quite a different matter. We nearly didn’t make it to his office.

Senator Allard’s office is located in the Plaza of the Rockies, a mid-sized office building with a large atrium. The building is home to many financial service companies such as Morgan Stanley, RBC Dain Rauscher, Booz Allan and Hamilton, Stewart Title, and Vectra Bank among others.

Finding ourself on the second floor of the atrium, unable to get to the floor above, our group fanned out to find a stairwell or alternative elevator. We were no longer parading with our poster boards, carrying them instead under our arms. But our identity as war malcontents was probably apparent enough and we could tell that a couple of the occupants of those glass offices appeared to grab their phones on seeing us walk by.

After my own fruitless search for Suite 300, I returned to find our group being confronted by two men in suits. We were being asked to leave the building. This was private property they explained and we were not permitted to protest on their property.

We answered that we were not protesting, but were merely trying to reach Senator Allard’s office. Could they tell us which way to Suite 300? They would not, “he’s not there.” They insisted instead that we leave. Private property and all that.

We countered that Senator Allard’s office was a public space, and certainly the conveyance to his office must be considered public. They did not agree. When we asked with whom we were speaking, the first identified himself as “Larry,” the chief security officer, the other was the property manager.

Finally we offered to relinquish the offending signs and take them outside the building. I ran the signs down to Pat and Esther who were waiting outside the front door.

I got back in time to hear the property manager arguing “if you knew your bible, you’d know why we have to be in the Middle East!” I learned afterward that I had missed him accusing the leader of our delegation, CPT member Bill Durland, of being “Taliban.”

Eventually the two building representatives agreed to conduct us to the Senator’s office, but only on the condition that Peter remove his hood. Though again we made our case that the Abu Ghraib hood represented an important message we were trying to communicate, in the end Peter agreed to take it off. He would be able to put it back on in the Senator’s office.

In the Senator’s office we were greeted by his assistant who offered to talk with us. But she insisted that the security official remain in the room, and she insisted that Peter remove his hood.

There followed a polite exchange whereupon members of our group spoke from their hearts about the illegality of the war in Iraq, the immorality of torture and other crimes related to the taking of captives without just cause, etc. Senator Allard’s assistant pulled out an old chestnut that Allard is still using at fund raising speeches. Apparently 9-11 caused more casualties that our fighting in Iraq, and that if we hadn’t fought the war in Iraq, the war would have come to us here.

Throughout this discussion, police officers were arriving. The first two arrived at the heels of another Allard staffer. They walked in the door without saying a thing, walked through the reception area where we were having our exchange, and went to stand in the office just inside the reception area.

The odd thing was that no one was addressing these officers, they were merely shown the inside office where they could hear our discussion and interrupt presumably if they were needed. A third officer arrived shortly, and then a fourth. We could see them waiting unsupervisez in the other room. One of the police officers wore the typical tight black gloves and left them on.

When asked who had called for the police officers, Allard’s assistant repeatedly declared that she did not. Although she also did not question any of the officers as to what was the purpose of their visit, and why there came another and another. Instead she proffered that the police were merely a routine measure of building security.

In the end, our visit felt more fruitless than constructive. I don’t know what we would have expected to communicate to one of the few senators who voted against the anti-torture bill. Allard’s assistant defended her boss by telling us that his opposition to the anti-torture bill was because he wanted a stranger one. We interjected that simultaneously Allard had expressed his approval of President Bush’s signing exemption.

In the end we saw the soft underbelly of the beast. and should have taken greater advantage of it. The Neocons may be formidable adversaries, but their supporters, the underbelly, are about as soft as they come.

Senator Allard’s office help kept insisting that they welcomed our visit, yet they seemed quite in step with the actions taken on the part of building security, actions which were not welcoming in the least.

Had our confidence not been boosted by the knowledge that our lead negotiator was an ACLU lawyer, we might not have been persistent enough to reach Allard’s office.

The routine scrambling of police officers certainly surprised us. Afterward I longed to have questioned one of the police officers in the next room. What was the nature of the disturbance described to them? What trouble were they fearing might errupt from a christian(!) peacemaker(!) team visiting their senator’s office?

Democrats stand for naught

There is a point to partisanship after all.
 
Senator Diane Feinstein takes a curious stand regarding Judge Alito and the Supreme Court. “I do not see a likelihood of a filibuster,” said Feinstein. “This might be a man I disagree with, but it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be on the court.”
 
Well, what would be a reason why he shouldn’t be on the court?

A friend of mine constantly makes excuses for the actions of Colorado Senator Salazar. “I may not agree with some of his decisions, but I honor his right to make decisions as he sees fit.”

Isn’t that just asking for constituents to be shat upon? My friend thus excuses Salazar for approving Gonzales, he of the torture memo. I can see giving our leaders the leeway to act upon complexities of governance which the population may not understand, but there should be a line draw when it comes to moral issues such as civil rights and torture.

Now Diane Feinstein recuses herself from trying to stop Alito’s nomination. Everybody can smell what will be a disasterous appoinment to the nation’s highest court. Who else but the Democratic representatives are supposed to stop him?

Give it ALL back

Jack Abramoff is indicted and suddenly everyone in Washington is scrambling to return whatever money he may have been known to have given them.
 
When we catch a shoplifter, they always offer to pay for what they’ve tried to take. We tell them it doesn’t work that way. What kind of a deterrent is that? You pay only if you get caught?

With lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleading guilty, to charges of what amounts to the bribing of government officials, suddenly all sorts of politicians are offering up the monies he contributed to them. Even President Bush returned something of what he’d received from Abramoff for the Bush reelection campaign.

Will these gestures suffice to reform these waylaid politicians-for-hire? No. Not at all. It don’t work that way.

Let’s see what else they might offer in atonement. Let’s see if they can offer to give it all back.

If they want to give the contributions back, they need to return more than just the monetary value of the goods and services they received. We don’t want their golf game in Scotland for example, we want what they gave of ours in exchange for that game.

The wayward politicos should rescind whatever vote they gave in exchange for Abramoff’s payments. Give that legislation back. Take it from the special interests and give it back to the people.

As well, the politicians should return their public office to whoever had run against them in the election. Their opponent might have won if the miscreant had not had the advantage of Abramoff’s contributions.

And last, where did the money go? It didn’t simply disappear. It went to the media companies in exchange for campaign ads. Shouldn’t the media conglomerates consider returning the dirty money? They knew where it was coming from.

This is no time to let each of these parties off the hook. It will not be enough that they return their bribes. Do we want to set an example, or do we want to accept government representatives selling out our system to the highest bidder?

What authoritarian rule looks like

Several recent events have lead me to some dots that need connecting. The dots may seem wildly disparate: the kidnapping of peace workers in Iraq and Palestine, the recent NYT revelations of counter-protest tactics employed be the NYPD, and a French film about heavy-handed manipulation of political prisoners.

Part One: Les Yeux des Oiseaux
I saw a movie two decades ago called EYES OF THE BIRDS. It depicted a prison in Uruguay for enemies of the state. They were making preparations for an inspection by the Red Cross. The story told of repercussions suffered by the political prisoners as a result of the long anticipated visit.

A couple of recent news items made me recall the film. In an early scene the prison warden ordered one of his men to do something irrational. Without provocation the warden ordered a guard to begin shooting at the prisoners who were assembled in the yard. At the same time, the warden filmed how the prisoners reacted.

That night the prison staff studied the footage to determine who among the political prisoners were the troublemakers. They weren’t looking at who was the more provoked, who was the quickest to run for cover, or even who was the most defiant. They weren’t looking for the strongmen or cellblock Kapos, they were looking for the leaders. They noted who shielded the others with their own bodies, who shepherded fellow prisoners to cover, and who sought to defuse the chaos by urging everyone to remain calm.

Those persons were then sequestered from the rest of the population, kept from contact with the Red Cross inspectors, and promptly dispatched with bags over their heads and buried. The film was fictional, but based on many corroborated accounts from Uruguay’s long years of repressive rule and disparados.

Part Two: NYC undercover cops
A recent New York Times article describes how NYPD officers infiltrated a number of peaceful street protests to incite the crowds to react. Tactics like this are nothing new for union-busters. The Pinkerton Security Agency for example got its start by hiring thugs to disrupt early efforts to organize strikes.

But do we expect such behavior from our men in blue? They’ve sworn to protect and serve us “with honor!” It used to be against the law for law enforcement to infiltrate political organizations.

Here’s what the NYPD was doing. Perhaps so as not to risk charges of false arrest, the police would plant, not drugs, but arrestees! The police would confront a crowd of protesters and arrest their own undercover officers. Immediately one of the arrestees would reveal himself as being under cover. This would divert suspicion from the ones still playing the victims and serve to incite the crowd to anger. They were angry for having been infiltrated, and then for seeing several among them arrested without apparent provocation.

With the crowd sufficiently distracted from its non-violent mantras, uniformed officers could move in from the sidelines and make their selective arrests.

Three fake protestorsFrom video taken by an IndyMedia reporter.
Number 36 cried out
“I’m under cover.”
The two behind him
pretended to be arrested,
only to be spotted later
at another protest site.
Real arrests followed.

Does this authoritarian maneuver resemble the M. O. used in Uruguay? To work, the perpetrators count on two things. First, that the heat of the moment will wrong-foot even the most defensive strategist. The tactic is after all nothing new.

That the targets feel the heat counts on a second, very cynical, assumption: that peace activists, like political dissidents, like freedom fighters, have a not easily repressed sense of humanity. They’ll betray their own goodness sooner than bear witness to injustice.

Probably you can see where I’m going with this.

Part Three: CPT Peace activists in the Middle East
When we hold vigils for the Christian Peacemaker Team members still held hostage in Iraq, we wonder how can those nasty insurgents threaten the lives of people who are so plainly on the side of the Iraqi people? It does seem particularly godless of those rebels doesn’t it? And absurd. I offer four thoughts.

A. Peace workers held in high regard
A friend of mine went to Iraq before the first Gulf War as a human shield to try to prevent the U.S. bombing campaign against Iraq. He wore a t-shirt which proclaimed his purpose there.

He told me that after a while, his journalist friends were begging to buy his t-shirt from him. So revered were the peace activists, they could walk into the worst areas in the middle of the night, and fear nothing. The few reporters and photographers who remained in Baghdad were so jealous of the access the peace workers had to ordinary Iraqis as a result of the deference shown to them.

B. Iraqi treatment of captured U. S. soldiers
Without exception, American soldiers captured by Iraqi forces have been returned to us safe and sound, neither hooded, tormented, tortured, nor humiliated. The extent of the “interrogation” of the captured supply line crew was to ask them to put truth to a lie: “had they been greeted with flowers and candy?”

Americans captured by IraqisFootage banned in the US: Iraqis ask them “were you greeted with flowers and candy?”

Not far from there, Iraqi doctors were already trying to return the captured Jessica Lynch to the American lines, but American soldiers kept shooting at their ambulance, forcing them to turn back. (Later American doctors would accuse the dumb-founded Iraqis of having raped Jessica’s limp body. In fact Lynch had earlier been forceably sodomized by a fellow U.S. soldier.)

Indeed Iraqis have shown a greater sense of compassion and humanity than our feeble representatives have ever shown them. From cluster bombs to DU to acceptable collateral damage to Free-Fire Zones to Kill Boxes to indiscriminate savagery to dehumanizing protocol. Americans have proven to be as barbaric as the Iraqis are cultured and forgiving.

What about the suicide bombers and the beheadings? The Iraqis are a divided people, and they have been driven to desperation. Execution by beheading, so horrifying to us, is more commonplace in their traditions. And then again, all may not be what it appears…

C. The mysterious beheading of Nick Berg
Nick Berg was a young do-gooder who traveled to Iraq on his own dime to try to take part in the reconstruction. He supported the war apparently, but it would be hard to paint him as an opportunist or profiteer. Nick Berg went to Iraq without a contract, nor much prospect for getting one. He went there to help.

The last people to see Nick Berg alive were CIA, a fact they denied at first. Nick was being detained by the U.S. military before his disappearance into the hands of his executioners. Though he was horribly decapitated on a video distributed all over the world, no reporter is quite ready to say who did it. Behind Nick Berg in the video, the figures under the robes did not look quite right.

The U.S. military immediately said the voice on the tape was that of AL-ZARQAWI. Robert Fisk, one of the most respected and senior reporters of Middle East affairs is not prepared to say that he even believes there exists such a person as Al-Zarqawi.

The timing of Nick Berg’s beheading was also very strange. World outrage was at an all time high from the photos just out of Abu Ghraib prison. Nick Berg’s gristly death seemed to provide a counterpoint to Lindy England’s sorry pose.

If I were suggesting that U. S. Forces were behind the Nick Berg execution, the case has been made by many already, I would be going off track. It certainly reflected poorly on the insurgents. But making the other side look bad is no clever trick. We trained Central Americans to do it all the time. Take off your uniform, dress up like rebels, and make it look like they massacred the village and not you.

When the Iraqi police in Basra apprehended two British black-ops this summer and then refused to release to them to British custody, the British forces immediately organized a prison break by driving a tank into the police station. They rescued the captured brits before they would be made to explain why they were dressed up like insurgents and what they were planning to do with a carload of live Improvised Explosive Devices!

It is suggested that those who killed Nick Berg took Abu Ghraib off the front page. I would suggest that the abduction of westerners serves a motive more closely related to the Uruguayan – NYPD gambit.

Why aren’t these hostages taken from the ranks of American soldiers? Some of the hostages have been contractors, and I’m sure many of their abductors have been criminals. Large ransoms are being paid for these hostages, it stands to reason that organized crime wants a piece of it. And whether these abductions are sanctioned or renegade, they achieve the same result, for whomever.

For the most part, the highest visibility hostages have always been people sympathetic to the cause of righteousness. It makes the insurgent/resistance fighters look bad, but more importantly I bet it makes them feel bad. Whichever it is, the Iraqi people probably scramble as desperately as we do to save the lives of the hostages.

D. British aid workers kidnapped in Gaza
Peace workers go to Palestine for one purpose, to save Palestinian lives. Palestinians are being shot left and right by Israeli soldiers, it is only when they are accompanied by western volunteers that the Israelis are deterred from shooting them and that Palestinians have a chance of being permitted through checkpoints so that they can reach medical care, or so that their children can reach school unmolested.

Activists Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall died putting themselves between Palestinian civilians and Israeli rifles. Activists brave tough Israeli travel restrictions to get into the occupied territories so that they can try to save innocent lives.

Certainly only the most heartless of Palestinians could be threatening the lives of these altruist activists. Maybe the Israeli military is counting on the fact that most Palestinians will not be heartless enough to sit idly by.

If there are Palestinians who believe the kidnap scenario, perhaps they are trying to contact resistance members whom they believe might have some influence. Perhaps resistance members themselves are hurriedly trying to ferret out possible miscreants in their ranks.

Regardless of who is in possession of the captives, the Israeli military is no doubt studying everyone’s movements very carefully. Normally a resistance network has to communicate between cells very sparingly. But with the clock ticking, with international pressure, and the life of a selfless non-combatant at stake, resistance fighters might eshew the risks of disclosing their activities in their effort to facilitate the search for an unjustly jeopardized fellow human being.

What does Palestine have to do with Iraq?
More on that another time. It is fashionable to argue that the liberation of Iraq was less about democracy and more about oil. What are you now paying for gas? This war is even less about oil than it is about global dominance. In the Middle East our colonial presence is called Zionism.

Could the Americans be orchestrating the kidnapping of sympathetic westerners in an Uruguayan style provocation of the Iraqi resistance? Have our other military actions been any less dastardly?

Let’s pause for a moment of silence for the hostages. May both sides unite to save the lives of the captive Christian Peacemaker Team, and of Kate Burton and her parents in Palestine. And please Lord, may too many Iraqis not jeopardize their own lives trying to help save a handful of ours.