Tag Archives: Respect

Hateful Hamas and Friendless Fatah

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FatahHamas and Fatah. Do you know which is which? I try to keep abreast of the people’s struggle, so I find it strange and disappointing that in the news I so often cannot differentiate the two. I blame a slanderous media intent on confusing us about which are the Honest representatives of Palestine, and which are the Fake.

Fatah stands for Palestinian National Liberation Movement in Arabic backward, and they came First. Though they emerged from Yasser Arafat’s PLO, they settled into the bureaucracy of the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s Kapos in the occupied territories. Fatah now enforce Western Foreign interests in the Middle East and as concerns representing the oppressed Palestinians, Fatah have become Frauds.

That’s how in a landslide election last year, Hamas came to take the reins, and why Israel which holds the purse strings, refuses to give Hamas its due tax revenues.

Hamas, or Islamic Resistance Movement, may sound like Hotheads to you, but who are we to say what will work best for the Palestinians? Their land has been stateless for going on sixty years, they remain in permanent dislocation, made worse forty years ago under direct Israeli occupation. But I oversimplify. Israelis seem satisfied to create a Palestinian Diaspora same as was done to the Israelites in 500 BC, or let the non-Jews die in refugee camps in the meantime, but for Hamas.

Still uncertain? Watch how the corporate media covers Palestine. If there’s something Favorable to say, it’s about Fatah. If it’s Horrible, it’s about Hamas. Perhaps my continued disorientation grows from the optimism that one day the media will show some respect and Hope for the Palestinian people.

Hamas are considered terrorists, and like the IRA and Sinn Fein, they lead Palestine’s fight for independence from colonial empire. Those who do not want to condone armed struggle should ponder Occupied France under the Nazis, a cakewalk compared to Gaza. With whom would Gandhi or Mandela have sided, the Resistance or Vichy?

Falwell lives!

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It appears that Jerry Falwell died and went to neither Hell nor Heaven. He went to Poland, where he is now once again outing Tinky Winky from the closet. More intolerance of this sort can also be found in Moscow, too. Thank God we live in Colorado Springs, where people and dogs of all types tolerate and respect each other!

My dog sez Moo to Y’all. And she says that we all need each other, so don’t make life hard for others. It’s pretty damn simple., isn’t it?

Raul Castro’s daughter blasts homophobia

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I thought that this news item was of note, so here it is in full. Walter Lippmann’s website is worth visiting, too. See below… Tony

Raul Castro’s daughter blasts homophobia

Havana, May 21 (EFE).- The daughter of acting Cuban President Raul
Castro spoke out in favor of tolerance and against gay-bashing on the
occasion of the International Day against Homophobia.

“The communications media have a big responsibility in the education
of the public, in developing a culture of respect for people due to
their sexual identity and sexual orientation,” said Mariela Castro,
the head of the National Sex Education Center, in remarks broadcast
Sunday by state television.

Castro attended an unusual film-debate held in the “23 y 12” hall in
Havana, where organizers showed the U.S. film “Boys Don’t Cry,” which
tells a story based on real events of the difficulties,
discrimination and violence to which a young transsexual woman was
subjected.

“Starting with the advances we have had on these matters in our
country, it’s that we (are) trying to better visualize the goal of
this international – and in this case national – day,” said the
sexologist.

Castro said that “homophobia and transphobia still exist in the world
in a very strong, very cruel, very distriminatory way against
homosexual, transsexual and transgender people in a general sense
and, above all, as a result of ignorance.”

The government of Fidel Castro, who provisionally handed over power
to younger brother Raul last July after undergoing major surgery, has
in the past displayed marked intolerance for homosexuals, imprisoning
gays and quarantining AIDS sufferers.

The National Sex Education Center, a teaching, research and
assistance institution created in 1989, has proposed in the Cuban
legislature a bill to legally recognize the sex changes undergone by
transsexuals, at the same time it has been pushing for some time an
awareness campaign in the state-controlled media.

The International Day against Homophobia was begun on May 17, 2005, a
decade after the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from
its list of mental illnesses.

Thirteen years after its first showing in movie theaters on the
island, on May 5, Cubans watched the first broadcast on local
television of the 1993 film “Fresa y chocolate” (Strawberry and
Chocolate), an allegory against intolerance and discrimination
against homosexuals. Recently, Cuban TV also showed “La mujer de mi
hermano” (My Brother’s Wife), which also deals with the theme of
homosexuality. EFE

=============================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
writer – photographer – activist

Front Page


=============================

2003 police over-reaction under-revisited

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In March of 2003, as an invasion of Iraq loomed ever imminent, citizens of 800 cities worldwide mounted the largest peace rally in history. In Colorado Springs three thousand people assembled in Palmer Park to urge President Bush to chose diplomacy instead of war. The participants were peaceful, but the police incited frustrations by diverting traffic from Academy Boulevard which prevented drivers from seeing the anti-war banners and eventually used tear gas to prompt the crowd to disperse.

Colorado Springs was one of only two peace rallies in the world where police used tear gas that day. Many Springs families with small children were caught with no way to escape the gas. After a subsequent review, the CSPD admitted it had overreacted. As part of a legal settlement with the people they had arrested, the department agreed to host a public meeting to discuss matters of police conduct with respect to a citizen’s right to assemble peacefully. The meeting would involve a panel discussion on the issues and would be videotaped for public broadcast and for purposes of training incoming police officers. After four years of legal wrangling, the meeting is finally scheduled to happen this Friday, May 4th, at the Senior Center on Hancock and Uintah.

What an unfortunate coincidence that the arrests this Saint Patrick’s Day happened before Friday’s citizen-police meeting. As we are now well familiar, on March 17 at the annual parade, forty five permit-holding participants were prevented from carrying peace banners in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. Ten of them were brutally removed and seven of those were arrested; I was among them. The police and parade organizers still admit no wrongdoing, but bystander videos and photographs captured the police display of excessive force.

In the aftermath of the arrests, the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission has asked the Colorado Springs City Council to hold a public meeting to address police department policy with regard to what happened that day. As yet they’ve only agreed to meet in private, to acquaint themselves better with peace activists.

While we welcome a better acquaintance, the PPJPC is not interested in obtaining a permission slip to exercise our right to self expression. We are interested in every American’s natural rights and civil liberties. We hope to establish an understanding that our city police department will implement a policy to honor and respect those rights. For that purpose we are requesting a public meeting where Colorado Springs residents who were alarmed by the heavy handed law enforcement can voice concern and give their input. The meeting on Friday will only address the police misconduct of 2003.

The Saint Paddy’s Day Seven, as we are being called, currently face charges in Municipal Court for obstructing a public event. The American Civil Liberties Union has agreed to represent us because at play are violations of multiple amendment rights. The police use of illegal choke holds, menacing with a taser and reckless brutality causing physical injury fall under illegal search and seizure and citizenship rights.

We are called called the Seven but in reality we are the Saint Patrick’s Day Forty Five, because forty five of us were deprived our first amendment right to freedom of speech. The parade is described as a private event, but it is held on public property and is underwritten with public resources. “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

We are called the Saint Patrick’s Day Seven, but we are in reality the Saint Patrick’s Day Forty Thousand, who saw that day the attempted abridgment of a fundamental American right. A right which Americans aspire to extend to all people of all nations. Many of us watching that day had no idea we would have to fight for that right here.

Sand Creek No Gun Ri

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This morning will be the dedication of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. The headline of today’s Gazette? “One man’s battle” about whether the 1864 slaughter was a massacre or a battle, and reporting the re-release of a 1925 first hand account written by Irving Howbert who, 61 years after the fact, did not recall the atrocities ascribed to his unit. Whatever kind of near sesquicentenial slap in the face is this? Do you think the prominent placement of this insult could have something to do with blurring America’s vision about current military massacres?

Normally respected Old Colorado City historian Dave Hughes is republishing the book, and wants to repaint the Sand Creek Massacre as, well, not a massacre at all. A quick recap: One early morning in 1864, 700 cavalry volunteers swooped into a village of 500 Arapaho and Cheyenne refugees, killing nearly 200 (the Gazette says 150) committing unmentionable atrocities, following the command “Kill or scalp all, big and little; nits become lice!”

I first heard Dave Hughes talk about the glories of war at, of all places, the traveling Vietnam War Memorial. It reflected a myopic immoral tide change I would never have been cynical enough to foresee, and it presaged our national sanction of the US war of aggression against Iraq and acceptable collateral damage. In the shadow of the traveling wall, remembering the 58,000 American dead, where not often enough did someone mention the millions of Vietnamese dead, Dave spoke of his immense pride of commanding his men, suffering the terrible casualties they did in Korea. The heavier the toll, the deeper his pride, the blustery commander was volunteering, if it weren’t for old-age, to do it again. I kid you not. Though he lost half his men to the battle, he would bravely venture more.

Downplaying massacres seems to be Hughes’ game. If you Google No Gun Ri, the now admitted deliberate massacre of hundreds of Korean refugees in 1950, here’s what do you’ll get: Dave Hughes on record standing up for the actions of American machine gunners. Here too, he wasn’t there, and relies on the recollection of soldiers who might have reasons to be blanking out on those parts. For shame. I know and like Dave Hughes, but he’s got a moral screw loose. And as we’ve seen in this town, that’s catching.

Elsewhere in the news, a play opens in London which retells the tragedy of Fallujah, in the actual words of participants on both sides. Authorities note 70 breaches of international conventions by the US forces. Soldiers like Dave Hughes can explain to themselves the necessity of sniping, gassing and obliterating hundreds of civilians in the regular conduct of war. Luckily wiser soldiers and statesmen before them have already addressed man’s bloodlust and agreed there are crimes that must never be rationalized.

Kurt Vonnegut goes

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Kurt Vonnegut lectures at HarvardM and I just read Harrison Bergeron together two nights ago. I remembered the story from high school, where we also read Slaughterhouse Five to my father’s consternation. I like to think it was just the language he objected to.
 
My favorite essay of KV’s at In These Times was about governance guesswork.
 
Kurt Vonnegut could say it all and I don’t think he was through.

I just came across an excerpt someone posted from Jailbird:

“What could be so repulsive after all, during the Great Depression, especially, and with yet another war for natural wealth and markets coming, in a young man’s belief that each person could work as well as he or she was able, and should be rewarded, sick or well, young or old, brave or frightened, talented or imbecilic, according to his or her simple needs? How could anyone treat me as a person with a diseased mind if I thought that war need never come again–if only common people everywhere would take control of the planet’s wealth, disband their national armies and forget their national boundaries; if only they would think of themselves ever after as brothers and sisters, yes, and as mothers and fathers, too, and children of all other common people–everywhere. The only person who would be excluded from such friendly and merciful society would be one who took more wealth than he or she needed at any time.”

And this from an interview with Joel Bleifuss in 2003:

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”

To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is “The Mask of Sanity ” by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.

What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

Other US peace activists with misdemeanor charges pending

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The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade produced a net total of 7 misdemeanor charges against 7 peace people here in Colorado Springs, but is that typical of the whole US to have this sort of thing happen? After all we are the country where human rights are respected, democracy flourishes in a garden like atmosphere, and habeus corpus is the law of the land. So let’s go to Florida now and see what produced another misdemeanor charge agianst a peacenik to be filed once again by local police?

Instead of the provocative and inflamatory KIDS NOT BOMBS sign that Marie carried, there the peacenik actually carried an even more inflamatory sign! One that demanded FOOD NOT BOMBS! How horrible is that?! These subversives need to show some respect to ordinary Americans, who just want to live in a non-violent society uninterrupted all the time by violent protesters inconsiderately spreading their messages of hate. They should just shut up and get a job.

And all the nice folk upset at the 7 charged here in Colorado Springs should also write to the mayor of the lovely town of Orlando, and let him know that they in Colorado Springs support what he is doing to keep Mickey Mouse safe in America. The nutty Leftist there is lucky the police didn’t use the stun guns on him, when his stew was stolen. Oh well, next time. This ‘peace’ thug certainly will be unable to keep himself out of trouble once again. Why don’t they pass a federal 3 misdemeanors and you are out law?

AMERICA LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT! If you can’t live by the rules I’ll buy you a free ticket to Guantanamo, Peace Dudes…

Bush’s token roundup of ‘legal immigrants’

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It didn’t make The Gazette, but Bush’s announced token roundup of 3 ‘legal’ immigrants yesterday is noteworthy for what it says about the great immigration ‘debate’ the Far Right wants us all to engage in. Their script goes that legal immigration is OK with them, but they just want us all to stop the undocumented from flooding our country with their ‘alien hordes’.

But just who are many of these ‘legal’ immigrants that the US government gives visas to? Do you really want them next door to you, instead of some nice foreign farmworker, janitor, or construction worker and their family, that the US likes to use then discard? If we knew the full details, I think that most of us would be more likely to support supposedly illegal immigration long before we would want to support US government sanctioned legal immigration.

The 3 immigrants arrested and jailed by the government are all 3 ex military in their respective South American countries, who were issued US visas based on they’re having been seen as being CIA assets at one time. Now, since they are giving the US bad press in Latin America, the US government is betraying these murderers, torturers, and war criminals they previously had welcomed with open arms to become your next door neighbors and mine.

But don’t for a minute be fooled. There are tens of thousands more of this type of ‘immigrant’ still living amongst us. I bet a good portion of the Vietnamese restaurants in this country have owners that came from such shady backgrounds as the 3 above did, for example.

So don’t be so quick to jump on the gun about the dangers of the supposed ‘illegal’ immigrant, as compared to the ‘legals’. Thank of who is doing the evaluation of who is to be made legal, and to who is then judging whom are to be made out to be criminals? A criminal government like the one running the US these days is likely to welcome their worst foreign criminal buddies into our country, while hunting down good people who would be true assets to America like they were mere wild animals we have to protect ourselves from.

Treat all the immigrants amongst us with dignity, whether they have paperwork are not. And let’s protest an immigration policy that routinely admits some of the world’s worst criminals to live amongst us, all with legal paperwork totally in order all the while mistreating immigrant families and often tearing them apart, like how was done to the slaves of old.

The price of militarism on the militarists

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What is the price of militarism on the militarists themselves? In the case of Pat Tillman it was death instead of wealth, yet others live and still pay a price. In ‘Torturers Toll‘, another Tony other than myself tells the story of how his torturing of innocent people in Iraq, has essentially destroyed his entire self respect for the duration of his life. How can he ever forgive himself for the cruelty he dealt others, all dictated by picking a ‘career’ inside the US military? He can’t, and many other Americans are also in his shoes, too.

These dehumanized participants in mayhem and abuse of their fellow humans reside throughout our super militarized society now. Take the most interesting case of Zbigniew Brzezinski, former cohort of our peanut farmer pastor President, Jimmy Carter. For years now, Brzenzinski used to brag about how he brought down the Soviet Union by starting the Muslim insurgency in Afghanistan that bogged the Soviet Union into ‘their own Vietnam’. The US threw $2 billion PLUS dollars into a covert war waged by puppet troops of the US led by people like Osama bin Laden. Today, Brzenzinski is singing a different tune though, and he is inow nto warning us about militarism, instead of bragging about promoting it.

The Washington Post carries his thoughts in a commentary titled, Terrorized by the ‘War on Terror’. How bizarre to see a terrorist like Jimmy’s former buddy now taking a stance against the likes of Bush and Cheney. Poor Zbigniew! Tears drop from my eyes even, in sympathy for this Donald Rumsfield of an earlier more..uh….innocent time. The man feels terrorized now by the thought that Bush’s gangsterism is undermining the economic system and imperialism that he did so much to prop up. Yes, there is a price to militarism that the militarists themselves will have to pay. Zbigniew worries about that.

For the overwhelming majority of us though, it will be the economic collapse that we will soon most suffer from. And for Brzezinski and his friends, the price to be paid will come from our anger at what unbidled capitalist corruption does to us all. Ultimately, the rich will become isolated as criminals that must be removed from the power they currently hold over us. The total price we will all pay for Iraq will be in many forms and will be seen differently by all of us American citizens. The returning troops are a first Tsunami wave that is hitting our society today. What will society look like afterwards though? Time will tell the now hidden price for turning away from solving our real problems by creating yet worse ones? The price is enormous.

Miscalculating non-violent for non-litigious

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Not wanting to tell us his name
(Clarification: Esther has just been thrown to the ground. Eric is not on the ground by choice, and Elizabeth is about to be pulled away.)

In the aftermath of our dashed efforts at the St Patrick’s Day parade and the abrupt violence which shocked everyone, the seven arrestees took a conciliatory tact to reflect on the actions and reactions of that day before leveling recriminations. The issue after all was about promoting peace, not fighting back. Where did being gracious get us?

The police seized the opportunity to announce they’ve received no complaints about their manner, going so far even to solicit bystander videos as if to suggest that the documentation will support their conduct.

Though we’d given plenty of interviews, our quiet tone gave the local newspapers leeway to print untruths about what happened that day. The Gazette has now suggested the marchers acted to disrupt the festivities, to obstruct the parade, in a fashion intended to provoke arrests.

The Independent has been able to hide behind offering only the Police Department’s account, that the peace marchers were attempting to participate “without a permit,” and that to an “untrained eye” what might appear to have been a “chokehold” was actually a “pressure-compliant hold.”

Even the local internet jackasses have jumped in on the action to chide us for duplicity in obtaining our permit, giving an uncritical platform for parade organizer John O’Donnell to cry foul.

Well GOD-DAMNIT are you fascists in for a surprise! This treatment is more of exactly what we received on the parade route. And just like the policemen who thought they could set an example and brutalize us unto a side street, this disrespect is not going to stand.

Here’s where it’s going to get you.

Mr. O’Donnell and his partners in City Hall are going to face a civil lawsuit for violating the 1st Amendment rights of 46 marchers. They will face another lawsuit for conducting a public event which discriminated among the participants. You want to throw an all-white, good ol’ boy, pro-war parade these days, you better say so. You can’t of course, and O’Donnell and COS will never put green lipstick on one of these again.

I’m not saying the St Patrick’s Day Parade shouldn’t feature a Marine recruiter’s blow-up doll, or crew-cutted uniformed Pee-wee Killers for Christ, or Hooters sex-workers for gracious sakes. I’m just saying that you’ve got to allow room for another community aesthetic as well.

The Colorado Springs Police Department will face charges for violating the 4th Amendment rights of the seven arrestees, and of three more who were brutalized, with a measure of the 9th Amendment thrown in for the indignity. In the meantime we’ll explore what degree of police brutality is actually sanctioned by the city. I don’t care how much you may hate criminals, all persons have a right to be protected from physical abuse.

We may lobby for special rehab for certain of the policemen. I’d like to see that Officer Erwin “Jimmy” Paladino is not given the authority to remove a kitten from a tree before he’s had counseling.

The Gazette will be charged with slander, plain and simple. You don’t call a 65-year-old woman’s injuries “rugburn” and think you’re going to chuckle your way to market. Ms. Fineron and myself will have our day in court, we’ll demonstrate our actions were not premeditated and for discrediting our integrity we’re going after Hillbilly Gazette editor Sean Paige. Slam-dunk what an asshole.

The Independent’s slander is embarrassing. Michael de Yoanna needs to cover both sides of a story. Our permit was on the books, thank you very much. Quoting a police blotter to say we had no permit, without noting the error, is deliberately misleading. And let me say something about that “chokehold.” Two of our marchers, the very two in fact who were choked, were both corrections department veterans. Both knew precisely the illegality of how they were being handled, and calmly told their respective assailants as much.

The videotapes and pictures will bear out these facts. Perhaps this is the reason that the television media coverage was fairly balanced from the start.

Wanted for questioningSpecial note
The police will need the identity of this man that he can be charged with assault upon Elizabeth Fineron, leading to her fall and subsequent dragging across the pavement. As the Gazette put it, What a drag.

Complaints
Let’s say a word about complaints to the police. If you want to complain about the police conduct, you’ll find they don’t have forms for that purpose. They walk you straight in to see an internal affairs officer and he’ll sit and interrogate you without the aid of a lawyer, or a tape recording that you can keep. Best to write a letter describing your complaint and send it in.

Capitalism- the culture of disrespect to the individual

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One of the most comical aspects of those who defend capitalism, is their idiotic notion that anti-capitalists hate the rights of the individual, while capitalism is supposedly supportive of the dignity of the individual. How patently absurd!

Capitalism is an inherently authoritarian system where most of us get reduced down to a payroll number or code. And if you get sick, see what I mean exactly. Instead of having a name you will then have a patient ID number. Fall in, Number Not #1. Check the wrist band. Follow doctor’s orders, please. At work, do as you are told. We need you to work Tues. night shift, Number Whatever. Be on call on Thursday. Hold up you wrist , Patient #9.

All of our society works to dehumanize the individual. Many identify with this and if you try to assert your dignity as a human being, many other human beings will resent you for it, since they themselves have totally internalized their assigned lack of dignity as individuals under capitalism. How dare you do otherwise?! Who do you think you are?

Children at school, or elderly in the nursing home? Get used to musical chairs, musical beds. Take the Colorado Sap Test and be good. Chew your mush, I got no time. And to think that this is labelled the culture that frees the individual within each and everyone of us? Bizarro World thinking that our society is the epitome of freedom!

Capitalism enhances indiviualism they say! And then they talk of ‘collateral damage’. What a disrespectful to the individual and baldfacel lie. What nonsense. What a pile of total crap. Repeat it a billion times over, and perhaps you might buy it? Without the capitalist you have no freedom, and you have no dignity they chant like mantra. Of course, we all feel the absolute contrary. We see the lack of dignity given people daily in our lives. Capitalism tries to squash the dignity of people at every step. Only money is allowed to buy it. The dollar rules over the people everywhere. And yet they repeat otherwise.

I guess I am writing about this because today I saw the brute force of the police state against the dignity of the elderly. What is there much to say, when you see the police throw elderly, with physical handicaps, to the ground? I had a handicapped parking space permit in my car, while the police were assaulting the person who needed it, my friend and passenger in my car. Such utter and complete disrespect to the dignity of the individual, as they tore off this friend’s clothing by dragging her across the pavement without a thought in the world to the dignity they hoped to destroy. And to think that most in our society cling on to the fantasy, that only through supporting an authoritarian economic system can the individual be protected? What fools our delusions can make us. What cold blooded killers to dignity some become. I hate this culture of disrespect. The capitalist and his portfolio are the antihesis to human freedom.

Vets have to battle nasty US medical system like the rest of us

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The bad conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has brought many US soldiers from killing Iraqis into a new battle with their own US government. Now they and their families are not waving US flags so much as they discover what many of the elderly and sick amongst us already knew. The US government doesn’t give much a damn about Afghans, Iraqis, nor the majority of US citizens either.

Did the youngsters signing up for the US killing machine think they would get something special? Some sort of privileged status for themselves for being hired killers for Dubya, Cheney, or whomever might come along whenever as their top officers?

The whole military medical system has big nasty holes in it much as does the civilian medical system does, too. When you sign up and go abroad to fight people you haven’t a clue about you might want to think you are a big hero/ heroine, but you are not. You are somebody looking to get special treatment, that’s all. You want that spiffy uniform, the perks, the respect by the people in power and their suck ass supporters at the lower economic levels. But once you get hurt all that fades into the background. Now you become much more like the rest of us, and the rest of us have to deal with sorry, don’t give a damn, medical care. So tell any younger sisters and brothers, to deal with the real problems back home, before getting all psyched up to supposedly go solve the world’s problmes by high tech killing. Didn’t make any sense to begin with, but you let yourself get suckered, didn’ you?And now the chickens perhaps have come home to roost, right on top of your own lonesome shoulders?

When somebody tells you to jump off a cliff by joining up as hired killer, you don’t have to go along smirking and thinking how smart you are. Yes, many vets that previously played the fool have to eventually battle the nasty US for-private-don’t-give-a-damn- except-about profits medical system like the rest of us. You’ll not get quality care like the top dogs are sure to give themselves.

It was a dummy thing you did joining up, and we wish you now the best, just like we wish all of us the best in getting the decent medical care that is our human right…. one that our rulers ignore all the time. How many of the wounded vets wish they could frag the same people they signed up to blindly follow? After all, they fragged you did they not? If not yet, then you are one of the more fortunate. Thank your lucky stars up to now. Because the nasty sorry ass US medical system is more likely to kill you in the long run, far more likely than any ol’ Osama. That’s whether you or vet, or not? What you heroes going to do about it? When you fight back (if you do?), at least you’ll be on the right side this time.

Democracy Now’s adulatory interview with Gen. Wesley Clark, war criminal

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America’s ruling elite have split about whether Bush’s decision to expand the War to Steal Iraq’s Oil into the neighboring countries of Syria, Lebanon, and Iran is likely to succeed or not. Wesley Clark, Clinton’s mad war criminal bomber of Yugoslavia, certainly is on the side that fears future failure by the Bush Administration.

He even has his own website dedicated to trying to stop the expansion of US government started warfare into Iran. But in the Amy Goodman interview, it appears that he actually wanted to attack Iran, and not Iraq, first. Now he feels that it is a mistaken strategy to do this attack he previously supported, after 6 years of Bush’s bungling, incompetence, and failure.

Amy Goodman all but begged Wesley Clark to run for president, echoing the incomprehensible stupidity of Michael Moore in the previous election. These liberals seem to be looking for some Dwight Eisenhower type to latch on to? How pathetic, since Wesley Clark is absolutely nothing more than a war criminal who started a war with a sovereign country illegally, and sat quiet as Clinton/ Gore killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi innocents through economic sanctions and continual bombings of Iraq during the 8 years of that Administration. These are the type of imperialist liberals who now talk of helping citizens of Sudan out, when during their time in office they were bombing illegally targets in that country, specifically one of Africa’s largest pharmaceutical factories. Clark, and his Slick Commander Clinton, sat and twiddled their thumbs, while hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were cut down. The US and French could easily have stopped that slaughte, but they were occupied with ‘stopping the Serbs’.

After much of the interview with Clark by Goodman conducted on a chit-chat friendly level, Goodman eventually felt the need to let Clark pretend to respond somewhat adequately to his record of continually bombing Yugoslav civilian infrastructure when he was top general in command of the Clinton war of Aggression Against Yugoslavia. This record includes the deliberate bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, also bombing the Serbian television station in that city killing journalists and and other civilians at work there, and bombing various factories along the Danube River, thereby contaminating that important waterway for years afterwards with toxic chemicals, as well as killing workers and neighborhood residents. The few parts of his miserable terrorist record Clark was asked to account for by Goodman, was predictably blamed on Milosevic and the Serbs themselves. Goodman made no effort to illustrate the dishonesty of his responses.

Further, Clark went on to support the continued US use of nuclear weapons and cluster bombs in US war making. Amy Goodwin let him walk on all of this, absolutely free as a breeze. How very sad to see this desperate desire for allies against the neocons turned into Goodman’s covert prompting of Clark towards a run for US presidency by this war criminal. Shame on you, Amy. I respect your show immensely but felt ashamed for you Friday night. Don’t let these rats off the hook when they try to desert the ship that Bush is trying to run aground. These imperialist just want a better vessel at hand to continue their imperialist aggressions against other countries. Certainly everything about Wesley Clark points towards continued disaster if he were actually to gain the presidency in 2008. Why prompt for more capable imperialists to regain command? Wesley Clark couldn’t even muster up a call for the impeachment of Bush or a description of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as being illegal. I guess not, since that would have been to illustrate how he himself had carried out and commanded an illegal war against Yugoslavia.

It’s a man’s world

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Today’s participation in the Manitou carnivalesque charades left me in a profoundly depressed mood until I saw the video, ‘It’s a man’s world‘, on youtube tonite. Here, James Brown performs with Gerald Ford (just kidding) in a rendition of Brown’s famous lament about how men really ‘rule’ basically nothing. The concert was performed with Pavarroti and James Brown together, and CP’.com linked to it this weekend, so that’s how I got to watch it.

Makes one feel good to know that these 2 opposites, Brown and Pavarroti, were able to respect each other and perform so well together. It gives one hope for man/womankind, unity in action. Wave the Peace flag, Brothers and Sisters! Just not in Carnival never again.

Nigerian Episcopalian hatred leads to draconian homophobic legislation

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How many times have we heard the sorry and hateful Right Wing Christian refrain, that ‘We hate the sin but love the sinner’? Much more honest would be a retort to these people, that ‘we hate the lie, and don’t particularly respect you liars’.

When the British Anglican Church appointed an openly homosexual man to be a bishop, the Nigerian Archbishop Akinola, leader of 18.5 million church sheep, decided to split the entire world Anglican Church last year. Many Episcopalians in the US used their own homophobia to follow along. So just what were they supporting?

Well it turns out, the Nigerian Archbishop was supporting new legislation in Nigeria that would throw people in prison for five years if they openly showed in any way that they were gay! What a loving example of Christianity the archbishop is, NOT.

How absolutely shameful and backward can Right Wing Christianity get? Ask Adolf and Pope Ratzinger, I guess? Though not Episcopalians, they might shed some light on where following Holy Scripture their way might ultimately lead? Not much has really changed it seems. Christian religious hatred is making a big comeback worldwide and this is sad news.

iraqi body count

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 http://www.iraqbodycount.org/names.php

this is an listing of the IDENTIFIED bodies. Of Civilians killed in Iraq since the invasion. Up to February 2006 meaning the list is a year old.

3,670 individuals, including a minority for whom only a PARTIAL name or Familial relationship could be established.

quote 

“In any use of these names please give due honour to the unidentified
dead not in this list whose numbers far exceed these named victims. For
every identified individual on the list there are another 9 confirmed
Iraqi civilians killed for whom we do not have identifying information.
In contrast, virtually every coalition soldier killed can be identified
by name and other biographical information.

There is no
organised effort to name all victims of the war. Only when all have
been identified and duly recorded can there be any talk of respecting
their memory.

To those who knew and loved them, and are in no need of reminding, we offer our condolences.” end quote.

By mentioning that those who are unidentified number at least 9 times as many as are identified, that once again leaves open the Question:

 How can the United States Government and The British Crown both insist that every Iraqi killed has been an Insurgent, When they can’t even identify more than 10% of them?

How would you know for sure that somebody is a radical or enemy if you don’t know who the hell he was?

If your smart bombs are so smart that they can’t possibly kill anybody but the Bad Guys, then you would know exactly who the targets were before bombing them, wouldn’t you?

If your agencies had the intelligence as to who they were bombing while they were still alive why are only 10% of them identified, post mortem?

It would make a sick kind of perverted sense to withhold the Identities of people who you have captive, and are torturing for information, but what harm can it do to disclose the names of the Dead?

Who do you think you’re fooling? Ok so I got that last one from a song by Rhymin’ Paul Simon.

The lists are organized into 2 formats, A4 size and US letter size, .pdf files and about 3 megabytes each.

3 and a half thousand out of one estimate of half a million. That’s more like a half a percentage point. Even at the admittedly low estimate of 150 thousand that only ramps it up to just over 2%.

I am reminded of the fellow from Yahoo answers who said that the American Left were more concerned about the Iraqi civilians than “Our Troops”, and too many cameras recording the killings and somehow portraying the Evil Notion that the Iraqi people are… well… People.

and there were a couple of others who posted in the same Answers question that made the Administration talking point that we are over there to help the Iraqis.

If they are there to help the Iraqi people, shouldn’t they actually BE CONCERNED about the people they are “helping”?

That post was deleted by Yahoo!Answers. They never sent me any answer about why it was deleted.

To: Bush and Gates Re: OUR Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

America’s rolling invasion of Somalia

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The US invasion and occupation of Somalia is like that of Haiti, nobody is paying much attention. And like the current occupation of Haiti, it ‘rolls’. What do I mean by describing this as a ‘rolling invasion’, for it is a term I think that describes the now prototypical US intervention into the affairs of other nations? Lebanon, too, is being violated by an American rolling invasion as yet another example. So let’s take a quick look at Somalia then, to get a glimpse of the US strategy everywhere for its misnamed ‘war on terrorism’.

In Somalia, the US first arranged an invasion of that country using Ethiopian troops. Then it followed by bombing the country from US ships. Just several weeks after the initial assault using another country’s military, that of Ethiopia, the US is switching them out, and moving a contingent of another country’s military in, 1,500 Kenyans troops. In turn, the US is pressuring Uganda, Rwanda, and South Africa amongst other countries, to follow. And without any interest at home what-so-ever, the US bombed Somalia once again just yesterday!

Imagine how the Somalians feel? As a Muslim country they finally get some semblance of government after 15 years of chaos, but then the US returns once again to topple the cart yet one more time. The US sponsored troops? Thousands of Christian Ethiopians! And to follow up this humiliation using a traditional enemy of one nation, the US brings in yet a second nation’s troops. See the roll? Like rolling waves of a heavy surf on the beach. This will then be followed by an eclectic assortment of other nations, none of which have anything in common with the natives, except for their racial coloring perhaps. And that of being sponsored by George W. Bush!

We could go to Iraq or Afghanistan to see the same nonsensical outsourcing of imperialism once again. But let’s look at Lebanon first. US invasion launched using Israeli troops first. Less than successful, so the Jewish forces pull partially back out. The US then has an unwanted UN move into the country as so-called ‘peacekeepers’. The US then threatens Hezbollah. The US then has France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, and others to cajole the country with being given possible funds to rebuild itself some. The US threatens Syria and Iran. What will Bush roll in with next? US troops? Or maybe Polish troops? Don’t joke, they are already in Iraq and Afghanistan in large numbers. How about Japanese? Don’t joke, they are in Iraq! At the end of 2006, Yugoslavia had its area of Kosovo occupied by troops from 30 nations! Talk about a Tower of Babel!

OK, enough of Lebanon. More rolling imperialism, the grand daddy of idiotic imperialism, Haiti! US invades, deposes the legitimate president, and then partially removes itself, bringing in Canadians (some speak French) and Brazilians (many are Black)! Haitians in the streets improve their language skills in French and Portuguese. But wait! Troops arrive on behalf of Dubya from China, Chile, Argentina, France,Nepal, Jordan, Peru, Sri Lanka!, and Guatemala! (80 of them). I especially think the Haitians are impressed with Sri Lanka and Guatemala coming to visit. Those 2 militaries have such great reputations! And Haitians love a circus!

Isn’t all this rolling imperialism reminiscent of the Romans? They would send in all sorts of barbarians from one end of the Empire into the next. Can we even begin to imagine our own reaction if we were ever to be disrespected with such occupations and warmaking against us, as the US uses against so many others? Imagine if the former Soviet Union had won the Cold Ware, and followed it by occupying our country with troops speaking 20 different languages, 30 different cultures, etc.? That certainly would have gotten us into an enduring peace, for sure! lol.

Where will the US invasion of Somalia roll off to? What new group of heathens to trample on? Will any American ever really give a damn about these smaller societies that get run roughshod over by their government? Liberals are too busy trying ot get the US to send troops to Chad and Darfur to notice much where the troops are actually at. Some have yet to figure out that there is a war going on in Afghanistan, for example. Though it is encouraging to see that the latest poll finally finds over 1/2 of Americans are for withdrawal from that country at last. No thanks to the Democratic Party, I might add. Afghanistan is a dirty word for them to mention.

These rolling invasions create nothing but chaos and misery.

Super bowl Janet Jackson and Republican morality.

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This is something I published a couple of years ago. Every bit as relevant as today. And every bit today as then, some things are timeless.
This one contains a “dirty” word, so you might go ahead and set your browser Content Filter to profanity blocking. Better to censor yourself than try to censor me.

But now, once again, we are going to have the hyperbole and rampant commercialism pushed onto our senses, over and over and over and endlessly and I bet you thought I was going to say over again and again and again and repeatedly.

I don’t know the exact date of the Super Bowl. Just that it’s about a couple of weeks. I know the Chicago Bears are going to be one team, because of the hype I got as soon as I opened one of my email servers.

I am sure everybody is going to get lots and lots of Emails saying Bears or ? you choose… or New Poll: Who will it be Bears or ?

There will be jockeying to find out what the commercials are going to be for the half-time show, there will be much breathless wide-eyed awe and stories about what the commercials and so much (ok, I lied, there are more than one “dirty” word in this) all kinds of who-seriously-gives-a-fat-rat’s-ass-about-it bullshit, to lead us up to the Big Game.

A lot of the commercials are going to be for beer. And other drugs, especially alcoholic drugs.

You know the ones, they say at the end of it “(name of brewer/distiller) urges you to DRINK (notice they put this word last) responsibly”.

It is dope dealing at its finest. The crack house and the opium den and the weed corner are blown away (sick dope reference) by this magnum opus of Purveyance of Demon Rum.

And it is on a Sunday, a Pagan holy day, co-opted by Christianity, for worship of our respective God or gods. Pastors in Churches across the land are going to schedule their services, especially the evening services, around this latter-day Circus Maximus. And their morning services too, because the worshipers are going to have to rush to the store after services so they can score their dope and munchies for the BIGGGGG DEALLLLL…….

So I got the Super Bowl part embedded in our consciousness, right?

Now to the Republican Morality part, for a quick tease, then to Janet Jackson and the Infamous Titty Incident, then back to a slightly longer rant on Republican “Morality”.

The owners of the NFL teams, virtually all of them, are supporters of the Republican party. And the R’s pay it back in spades by supporting legislation that makes the PUBLIC TREASURY pay for the stadia, (yes, I spelled that last word right, I’m practicing my Latin, are you?) the security, the traffic control, and in-stadium dope I mean Beer Sales. That last because some stadia, like the ill-fated Cotton Bowl in Dallas, are in dry precincts. Which is the real reason the Cowboys don’t play in Dallas, for decades it has been in Irving, and next year it won’t be in Dallas County even.

The cities have to pay for the construction of the stadia out of bond money, and they are always told that it will boost the local economy.

Also here in Colorado, there was a guy running for Senator, you might recognize the name Pete COORS. And yes, he is heir to the beer fortune.

On to The Titty Incident.

Janet Jackson, during the half-time 3 years ago or was it 4, I lose count of things like football. Got her costume deliberately torn at the end of a song and exposed part of her (gasp! the HORROR!!) breast. Now, I didn’t get to see this. I don’t watch football. The homo-eroticism of 22 very large gentlemen throwing their bodies at each other doesn’t do it for me.

There was much scandal. Much public outcry. Much Breast Beating in the halls of Congress, (yeah, I know, that last joke was horrible but I had to get it off my chest) even the Commander in Chimp of the United States saying that he hadn’t watched the incident, but it was a lovely breast.

Ok so I might have taken a little liberty with that last statement, but I don’t keep abreast of the off the wall statements of Mr Bush, every time I try to watch one of his speeches my brain tries to escape by crawling out my left ear.

The Moral Outrage sweeping the country was amazing, especially in the R party.

Like Mr Coors.

 During the 04 super bowl, and I know I know, the Super Bowl calendar starts from S.B. I and S.B.II and so forth, with the not-very-subtle Roman numerals numbering system. Instead of A.D. or C.E., measured from the birth of Christ or the birth of Christianity, depending on your faith viewpoint. But I don’t worship the oblong ball. So it matters naught to me how the Hell many S.B. there were.

Mr Coors was OUTRAGED about this public impropriety. How dare they interrupt his half time show where he had a commercial or two over the years, with scantily clad women whose costumes showed a substantially higher percentage of overall Breast Acreage than Ms Jackson did, telling the poor saps watching that somehow they would have a shot at touching these breasts if they only buy his brand of Dope. For people who keep up with such things, these are the modern version of the Vestal Virgins performing their religious duty at the modern Circus Maximus, the Cheerleaders, who get paid a paltry amount for their Services on the field, but get much more opportunity working in commercials. Like for Mr Coors.

Since this was an Election Year, when all the Noble Laws about the Half Time show being lagged 4 seconds or so just to protect America from such an awful sight ever again….

And the Republican NFL team owners who pimp out these Vestal Virgins as part of their Circus, were also outraged, that Ms Jackson would Dare To Expose America to a sight of substantially less breast-age than their own cheerleaders and even most of the Female fans and even some of the (ewwweewwww) male fans show during every game. I mean, one team has its fans wear cheese on their heads, and paint their naked upper torsi green and yellow, and show over and over again one in particular a set of udders that would make a topless dancer envious (or nauseous) and who happens to be a guy (I think)

So this year we will be (or you will be, I plan to be out riding my bicycle, while the streets are practically deserted for four or five hours) watching a heavily subsidized, heavily censored, erotic commercial enterprise, knowing that the GOP Big Brother apparatus will be protecting us from such unseemly behaviour ever again occurring.

The other George

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After going over all the official Democratic Party web sites what comes to mind, is how much America needs the other George. I’m talking about the George of RESPECT, not the George of MURDER INC. on this side of the Atlantic. Contrast the best known member of RESPECT, George Galloway, with all the US politicians of the party I will call LACK OF RESPECT though they are better known as the Democratic Party.

If George Galloway’s site above is down, then see Galloway’s Israel’s Lebanon invasion interview at youtube, where he gives the Murdoch media a whipping.

About the only DP presidential contender site I could even begin to stomach, was that of Dennis Kucinich, though what’s he doing in the DP instead of bolting it, anyway? And you certainly won’t hear a peep out of him on his website about the need to get out of Afghanistan or Colombia, say. Still, he’s a saint compared to Hillary, Obama, or Edwards.

If you are sick of all the mealy mouthed, slimy rhetoric from all the officially announced DP presidential candidates, then check out the video section of George Galloway’s web site! You certainly won’t see the likes of Dennis Kucinich denouncing Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, like George does in the lead video there on his site. Or could one imagine Kucinich, or any of the Democrat Party politician slimeballs, standing up like George Galloway did to the US Senate, when a Senate Committee tried to make him out as tied to Saddam Hussein’s regime? This appearance before the Senate can be seen in 5 parts on the website.

Why was Galloway testifying there? Simply because he had opposed the Clinton sanctions against Iraq, that through 8 years murdered about a million Iraqis, mainly children. I am talking about the Democratic Party sponsored sanctions that paved the way to Bush’s invasion, and continued occupation of that country. He had been the most vocal critic for years of Blair and Bush in both the US and Britain, and has always been an outstanding opponent of Israeli Apartheid where all others had feared to speak out. For this, they were trying to besmirch him and his reputation for integrity.

Democrats, you vote for the PARTY OF DISRESPECT, disrespect for you, the liberal. We need an organization like RESPECT here in the US, and if George Galloway ever tries to set up an American branch of the Respect Unity Coalition, then I’d be the first to join. The other George…. We could use some of that spunk here in the US.

Watch parts 2-5 here.

Ho hum, which country did we invade today?

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Where is the John Birch Society when we really need them? For decades they posted big bill boards around the US warning us of the dangers of the UN and ‘one world government’. We have it now for sure, as the US invades and bombs country after country and all pretense of international law has been thrown in the garbage can. The US runs the United Nations which stamps every illegal Bush activity with its followup stamp of supposed legitimization. Except the moral authority of the UN is about at the same level as the honesty of the Bush Adminstration. Low. Very low.

Almost nowhere in the world do any people really see any legitimacy in their rulers. Everywhere it is pretty much the same, with an exception or two to prove the point. Why such lack of faith in the rulers? it’s pretty much because all of them go along with the group of thugs misleading The American Empire. International hate for our own native US ruling thugs rubs off into becoming a growing hate and disrespect for all the local country klans that follow along behind this constant US government terrorism. How much longer will the world just go along silently with all this? They’re going to begin to tear their own local ruling classes of whores to shreds pretty damn soon because this hate can’t just continue to build without any release.

And what is it about our leaders’ addictions to kicking the poor of the Third World in the teeth again and again? They tromp around and pat themselves over and over on the back, but in essence they are the most despicable bullies. The type of bullies whose grandparents murdered off the natives, and held Blacks as property which they treated worse than today we treat our dogs and cats. And everybody knows, too, that America’s ruling class still treats its dogs and cats better than they treat the children of the world. No Humane Society for those kids murdered while I write this commentary, in the very same hours that the US military now rains down its weaponry on its newest found victim, Somalia.

The liberal community here seems numb by this new assault. But it’s time for some indignation instead of prayer. Stop this new miserable escalation of fighting that Bush and The Invertebrate Party are bilaterally engaging in. Always begging, lobbying, and voting for the Invertebrate Party politicians turns the voter him/herself into a spineless jellyfish, too. Get out and demonstrate YOU spineless lazy wimps! I’m talking about the American liberals now. You Tory Republican turds aren’t spineless. Just dumber than shit, that’s all. Not even shit for brains most of you DittoDips. But what’s the excuse for the inability to get indignant and move… for the spineless, lazy Ass kissing liberal?

El Paso Co. to respect the Sanctity of Life

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County resolved to uphold the sanctity of life in Haditha
We got a heads-up from our friends at Newspeak about an impending anti-abortion proclamation by the El Paso County Board of Commissioners. I accidentally read the 2nd page first. If you strike out half the WHEREASes, the resolution is about all human life. And their concluding paragraph dots the i. Those crazy pro-war Republicans are finally speaking out against Bush’s atrocities. It’s about time. We can be proud that El Paso County proclaims an end to war.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the undersigned members of the Board of County Commissioners of El Paso County, Colorado hereby proclaim January 21-28, 2007, as Sanctity of Human Life Week in El Paso County. As we reflect upon the sanctity of human life, we call upon our residents to recognize this week with appropriate ceremonies in our homes and places of worship, to rededicate ourselves to compassionate service, and to reaffirm our commitment to respecting the life and dignity of every human being.
DONE THIS 11th day of January 2007 at Colorado Springs, Colorado

THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
OF EL PASO COUNTY, COLORADO

Dennis Hisey, Chair
Jim Bensberg, Vice Chair
Wayne W. Williams, Member
Sallie Clark, Member

PPJPC Statement of solidarity in support of foreign-born workers

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The Pikes Peak Peace and Justice Commission (PPJPC) condemns the US Immigration & Naturalization Service (ICE-INS) for its Dec. 12 raids at multiple US facilities of the Swift & Co. that racially targetted Hispanic workers for arrest at their place of work. Over 1250 Hispanic workers were rounded up as if they were cattle and not human beings with rights and feelings. Families have been torn asunder, US-born children are being forced to leave for countries they have never known, and an atmosphere of racial intolerance and hatred is being promoted within our communities. This is not the proper role for our government and governmental agencies to be playing.

This raid comes in the context of a president whose foreign and domestic policies are increasing coming under fire for illegally promoting warfare, torture, and military occupations of other countries. It comes also in the context of an increasingly hostile use of laws against other minority groups within the US, such as Arabs and Muslims of varying nationalities, that also has undermined the basis of having a national culture respectful of all of our residents, whether citizens or not.

We at the Colorado Springs PPJPC, are unalterably opposed to reducing certain cultural groups within the US to second class residents subject to abusive, selective, and descriminatory application of US laws. We object to citizens being denounced in block, by federal agencies who allege before trials or convictions, that residents of one ethnic background are guilty as a group of criminal activity, such as “ID theft.” We object to the policy of holding immigrants looking for work in our country subject to criminal prosecution for trying to support their families as best as they can. Most come from countries where the US government has for decades intervened in a hostile and destructive manner. In short, we object and condemn the US government for further persecuting poverty stricken workers looking for a better life in what is a nation of previous immigrants. We condemn the Swift & Co INS raids.

May it also be pointed out, that in the case of Hispanic workers, the overwhelming majority of them are of indigenous Native American background, no matter that they currently speak Spanish as first tongue. To those Anglo-american citizens who shout at these foreign workers that they are breaking the law, and that they should be thrown in jail and never set foot again on Anglo terrain, the PPJPC hopes that they can examine their consciences, examine their souls, and open their hearts to having a more charitable attitude towards others.

Those immigrants with Native American blood were here first before Anglo ancestors chose it upon themselves to ‘illegally’ immigrate to the US shores, often murdering Native Americans and stealing their land and properties. Much of the US territory where Hispanics are now being racially profiled, was land peviously stolen from Mexico by war. It is utter hypocrisy for one racial and language group to call the US borders ‘their’ territory, and theirs alone.

Further, the PPJPC rejects the increased militarization of the US Southern Border, most underlined by the efforts to build a giant impenetrable wall there. This construction runs counter to the desires of the people most effected, citizens of both nations living on both sides of this border. Further, we reject the US govenment support for abusive regimes throughout Latin America. We reject the US war against the people of Colombia, and we reject the US’s imposition of repressive governments across Central America. All these actions create conditions of misery, and a need for people to flee their native lands.

Most of all, we reject the US governmental support to the repressive Mexican government, military, and police. Mexico is the country from which most of the undocumented workers were fleeing when they were caught up in the Greeley Colorado raids of the Swift & Co meat processing facilities. The PPJPC calls on our American government to dismantle US military schools of torture that train members of the repressive Mexican military, stop supporting Mexican government repression in Oaxaca and esewhere in that country, and demand that the Mexican and US governments seek justice for those murdered, tortured, and disappeared in Oaxaca, and elsewhere within Mexico.

The PPJPC, too, is concerned about National Security. But attacking immigrants and foreign nationals on US terrirtory is not the way to make our country more secure.

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Rose Bowl Impeach Bush Parade

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As you can see I’ve been reading and writing a lot. So I was on the pacifism tab. Got to the one about the parade in Manitou.
 
Empire rebellion banner in PasadenaOn New Years, somebody at the Tournament of Roses parade was across from the grandstand, where the cameras would be sure to catch it every time a float or band or whatever passed by, holding up a sign made of each letter on a separate square of cloth, I M P E A C H.
I pointed that out to my landlady, who had oohed and ahhed when the Air Force did a flyover with a couple of fighters and a stealth bomber, right after some insipid songfest about how good and nice everybody in America is, and we should all be so very proud of our goodness and nicene….aaaaaarrrrggggggghhhhhhh!

But for a half hour every float that passed by had the impeach sign flying prominently in the background.

Then the marching Storm Troopers, literally, it was a tribute to Star Wars, and the sign was nowhere in the shot. I noticed that they were keeping the shots kind of tight from there on, so I don’t know if the cops made them take down their banner or if the cameramen had specific orders not to show it ever again.

I mentioned this to my landlady and she said Good,! That’s just disrespectful to put politics into a parade where everybody is just out to have a little fun.

I told her that since we are being shut out by every media outlet there is over the peace marches, she said there is a Proper Time for everything, and some bullshit about working within the system….

And not a word of protest about the government sponsored anti-peace demonstrations.

US gov’t says they had nothing to do

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With the execution of Saddam, the timing or the way it is carried out.

Also the independent and sovereign Iraqi government, which of course takes absolutely no instruction from Washington, announced today that they had arrested a couple of the guards/witnesses at the hanging, charging them with being agitators who infiltrated the lynching party, started the Shiite-oriented harassment of Mr Hussein, the comments which are triggering the latest round of “civil” war, and taking the cell-phone videos of the whole charade.
There was also a statement from the officer in charge of the American jail detail which handed Mr Hussein over to the executioners, that the execution IF IT HAD BEEN CARRIED OUT BY AMERICANS would have been more respectful and professionally handled. This all, of course, from Yahoo news, courtesy of the Associated Press syndicate.

The officer also noted that Hussein, until the Iraqis took control of him from the Americans at the door of the execution chamber, was polite and courteous to the Americans. And that he was ALWAYS polite to them.
heh.
You know, I haven’t seen so much B.S. in one place since living on the ranch when I was 8.