Friday, March 17, 2006
Media Quizz
1 Did the war begin in 1991 with the secessions of Slovenia and Croatia?
2 Did Germany deliberately provoke the civil war?
3 Did the US really remain 'passive and disinterested' during this war?
4 Did the World Bank and the IMF help destroying this country?
5 Did the media give a phony image of 'our friends' Tudjman & Izetbegovic?
6 Did the media hide the essential history and geography of Bosnia?
7 Was the topic 'Serb aggressors, Croat and Muslim victims' correct?
8 Did Serbia initiate a program of ethnic cleansing?
9 Did the media correctly report on Srebrenica?
10 Were the first victims of the war killed by the Serbs?
11 Was the famous image of the 'concentration camps' false?
12 Were we given the true stories on the three large massacres in Sarajevo?
13 Was the largest ethnic cleansing of the war committed by the Croat Army?
14 Did the US use depleted uranium weapons also in Bosnia?
15 Was the war against Yugoslavia the US's 'only good war'?
ANSWERS:
1 1991 OR EARLIER?
Did the war begin in 1991 with the secessions of Slovenia and Croatia?
NO. In 1979, the BND (German CIA) sent a team of secret agents to Zagreb. Mission: to support Franjo Tudjman, a racist former Nazi youth, who actively promoted ethnic hatred and did all he could toward the break-up of Yugoslavia. Germany supported and financed this Croatian holocaust denier, and sent him arms before the war.To what end? Berlin never acknowledged the existence of the unified Yugoslav state which had courageously resisted German aggression in the two world wars. By once more breaking Yugoslavia into easily dominated mini-states, Germany sought to control the Balkans. An economic zone it could annex in order to remove it from local authority, to export German products to it, and to dominate it as a market. And a strategic route toward the oil and gas of the Middle East and the Caucasus. In 1992, the Bavarian Interior Minister declared: "Helmut Kohl has succeeded where neither Emperor Guillaume nor Hitler could." (see the parallel maps 'Yugoslavia in 1941--in 1991', Liars' Poker, pp 68-69)
2 GERMAN WILL?
Did Germany deliberately provoke the civil war?
YES. At the beginning of the Maastricht Summit in 1991, German Chancellor Kohl was alone in wanting to break up Yugoslavia and precipitously to recognize the 'independence' of Slovenia and Croatia, in defiance of both International Law and the Yugoslav Constitution. But the rise of German power would impose this madness on all its partners. Paris and London fell right in line.According to The Observer of London: "Prime Minister Major paid dearly for supporting German policies toward Yugoslavia which all observers said precipitated the war." In effect, all the experts had warned that this 'recognition' would provoke a civil war.
Why?
1. Nearly every Yugoslav Republic was a mix of diverse nationalities. Separating the territories was as absurd as dividing Paris or London into ethnically pure municipal districts.
2. By favouring the neo-fascist Tudjman and the Muslim nationalist Izetbegovic (who also had in his youth collaborated with Hitler), it was certain that panic would be provoked among the important Serb minorities who had lived for centuries in Croatia and Bosnia. Every Serb family had lost at least one member to the horrible genocide committed by the Croat Ustashe and Muslims agents of Nazi Germany in 1941-45.
Only Tito's Yugoslavia had been able to bring about peace, equality and coexistence. But Berlin, then Washington, wanted once and for all to break this country they saw as being 'too far to the Left' (see question 4).
3 A PASSIVE USA?
Did the US remain 'passive and disinterested' during this war?
NO. Lord Owen, special European Union envoy to Bosnia, and later a well-placed observer, wrote in his memoirs: "I greatly respect the United States. But in recent years (92-95) this nation's diplomacy has been guilty of needlessly prolonging the war in Bosnia."
What was its aim? While the Germans were busy taking control of Slovenia, Croatia and, eventually, Bosnia, Washington put pressure on Izetbegovic, the Muslim nationalist leader in Sarajevo: "Don't sign any peace agreements proposed by the Europeans. We will win the war for you on the ground." Washington then prolonged for two years the horrible suffering inflicted on all the people of Bosnia.
By what means?
1. Setting aside all the advantages Berlin had gained in this strategic region of the Balkans.
2. Dividing and weakening the European Union.
3. Installing NATO as the Continental European policeman.
4. Restricting all Russian access to the Mediterranian Sea.
5. Imposing its military and political leadership on all the other wars being prepared.Because the war against Yugoslavia was at the same time a non-declared war against Europe. After the fall of the Berlin wall, US strategies were geared toward stopping, at all costs, the emergence of a European superpower. So everything was done to weaken Europe militarily and politically.
4 WORLD BANK & IMF
Did the World Bank and the IMF help destroying this country?
YES. In December 1989, the IMF imposed draconian conditions on Yugoslavia which forced liberal prime minister Markovic to beg for aid from George Bush Sr. This 'help' was aimed at destabilizing and bankrupting all large state-owned businesses. The World Bank dismantled the banking system, laid off 525,000 workers in one year, then ordered the immediate elimination of two out of every three jobs. The quality of life fell dramatically.
These policies and the growing incidence of work stoppages in solidarity with displaced workers in all the Republics heightened the contradictions among the leaders of the various Republics to whom Belgrade could no longer provide financing. To get themselves out of this mess, the leaders had to resort to divisive tactics and invested greatly in nationalist hatreds. This war was ignited from abroad. Like so many others.The war against Yugoslavia was a war of globalization. All the great Western powers sought to liquidate the Yugoslav economic system which they found too Leftist: with a strong public sector, important social rights, resistance to the multinationals...
The real reason for these various wars against Yugoslavia can be read in this reproach (this threat?) from the Washington Post: "Milosevic was unable to grasp the political message of the fall of the Berlin wall. Other Communist politicians accepted the Western model, but Milosevic went the other way." (4 August 1996).
5 "OUR FRIENDS"
Did the media give a phoney image of 'our friends' Tudjman & Izetbegovic?
YES. The hyper-nationalist Croat and Muslim leaders were presented as the pure victims, great anti-racist democrats. But their past as much as their present should have alerted us:When he took power, Franjo Tudjman declared: "I'm happy my wife isn't a Jew or a Serb." He hurriedly renamed the streets that had carried the names of antifascist partisans, reinstated the money and the flag of the old genocidal fascist regime, and changed the Constitution in order to run off the Serbs.During his 1990 electoral campaign, Izetbegovic reissued his 'Islamic Declaration': "There can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic religion and those social and political institutions that are non-Islamic." He set up a corrupt and mafia-ridden regime based primarily on the lucrative black market and the hijacking of funds from international aid. He called for assistance, with Washington's blessings, from Islamic mercenaries, most notably from al Qaeda (Osama Bin laden himself was granted Bosnian citizenship).
Once the war had started, serious crimes were committed by all three camps, but by hiding these histories, the situation was rendered incomprehensible.
6 HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY
Did the media hide the essential history and geography of Bosnia?
YES. We were made to believe that the Serbs were the aggressors, that they had invaded Bosnia from outside its borders. In reality, three national groups had been living in Bosnia for a long time: the Muslims (40%), the Serbs (34%), the Croats (17%). And one should not forget that 7% of 'Yugoslavs' were born of mixed marriages or preferred to eschew narrow national identities. Dividing Bosnia according to nationalities, as the EU did, was absurd and dangerous. Because this diverse population was completely intermingled: the Muslims lived primarily in the cities while the Serbs and Croats made up the peasantry and were dispersed throughout the sub-regions. Bosnia could not be divided without civil war.
In fact, the Serbs of Bosnia did not fight to invade the territories of 'others', but to save their own lands and establish corridors of communication between them. It was an absurd and bloody situation, with all the ravages of a civil war, but this civil war was provoked by the great powers.
7 "GOOD GUYS" AND "BAD GUYS"
Was the presumption of "Serb aggressors, Croat and Muslim victims" correct?
It is not a question of denying the crimes committed by the Serb forces. The ideology one finds in the writings of Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic is extremely right wing. But in reality, after the break-up of Yugoslavia, on all sides, certain criminal and political forces used the methods of war to seize territory and riches. In the three camps - Croat, Muslim and Serb - militias committed grave crimes. To the detriment of all the people. Thus, in August 1994, the Muslim nationalist leader in Sarajevo, Izetbegovic, attacked the Muslim region of Bihac, controlled by Fikret Abdic, who had distanced himself from Izetbegovic and wanted to live in harmony with his Serb and Croat neighbours. In this offensive, Izetbegovic was aided by six US generals.
Remaining silent to the crimes of 'our friends' but demonizing whoever resists us is classic war propaganda. Numerous media lies were totally fabricated by a US public relations firm, Ruder Finn, Colleagues of the famous Hill & Knowlton, who created the media lie about Kuwaiti incubators stolen by the Iraqis.
8 "ETHNIC CLEANSING"?
Did Serbia initiate a program of ethnic cleansing?
NO. If one believes that ethnic cleansing was actually the program of 'the dictator Milosevic', one has to admit that this program was sadly ineffective. Because throughout the war years and still today, one of every five inhabitants of Serbia is a non-Serb. In Belgrade there are and have always been many minorities living without any difficulty: Muslims, Gypsies, Albanians, Macedonians, Turks, Hungarians, Gorans . . .
In reality, contrary to the image given by the press, Serbia is today the only state of the ex-Yugoslavia, along with Macedonia, that remains 'multinational'. On the other hand, all the NATO protectorates - Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo - practiced an almost total ethnic purification.
Milosevic objected to the excesses committed by the Serb militias in Bosnia. His wife made several declarations against them. An embargo was even applied by Serbia against Karadzic. Certainly, part of Serb public opinion was influenced by racist nationalism. But this was due precisely to Germany and the great powers having plunged the country into civil war and thus into hatred.
9 SREBRENICA
Did the media correctly report on Srebrenica?
NO. Even if it's a matter of condemning abominable crimes, historical truth - necessary for reconciliation - is not served by the propagandistic processes that brandishes the term 'genocide', by the obfuscation of the fact that that some of the victims died in combat or by the systematic exaggeration of the numbers. Inquests have determined that many of the 'victims' were found some months later voting in subsequent elections or even taking part in other battles with Izetbegovic's army. This information was and remains deliberately obscured. From the U.N. Secretary General's 1999 Report on Srebrenica, it emerges that the idea of a "Srebrenica massacre" was already in the air at a September 1993 meeting in Sarajevo between Bosnian Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic and members of his Muslim party from Srebrenica.Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated that President Izetbegovic also told them he had learned that a NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina was possible, but could only occur if the Serbs were to break into Srebrenica, killing at least 5,000 of its people. It is interesting to return to a curious UN report, written a year and a half earlier by Kofi Annan: "Izetbegovic had learned that a NATO intervention into Bosnia was possible. But it would happen only if the Serbs forced their way into Srebrenica and massacred at least 5,000 people [sic]." A massacred predicted a year and a half before it happened! (UN Report of 28-29 November)
General Morillon also informed us that "It is Izetbegovic's people who opposed the evacuation of all those who had asked to be taken out, and there were many." His conclusion: "Mladic fell into a trap at Srebrenica."
The general public did not know that Srebrenica, described as a "safe area", was not in fact simply a haven for refugees, but also a Muslim military base. The general public did not know what Lord Owen knew and recounted in his important 1995 book, Balkan Odyssey (p.143), namely that in April 1993, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was extremely anxious to prevent Bosnian Serb forces from overrunning Srebrenica.
Shortly before the Bosnian Serb attack on Srebrenica, the Muslim troops stationed in that enclave carried out murderous attacks on nearby Serb villages. These attacks were certain to incite Serb commanders to retaliate against the Srebrenica garrison. Meanwhile, the Muslim high command in Sarajevo ordered the Srebrenica commanders, Oric and his lieutenants, to withdraw from Srebrenica, leaving thousands of his soldiers without commanders, without orders, and in total confusion when the foreseeable Serb attack occurred. Surviving Srebrenica Muslim officials have bitterly accused the Izetbegovic government of deliberately sacrificing them to the interests of his State.
Despite unprecedented efforts over the past ten years to recover bodies from the area around Srebrenica, less than 3,000 have been exhumed, more than 50% of these bodies identified are soldiers from both sides, an estimated half being Serbs as well as mass graves of Serbian and Muslim citizens -who died in the vicious combats that took place during three years of war. However only a third have been properly identified.
So why did the media hide the events essential to an understanding of this drama? In the beginning, this region was inhabited by Muslim AND Serbs. The latter were run off in 1993 by an ethnic cleansing committed by the Muslim nationalist troops of Izetbegovic. French general Morillon, who commanded the UN force there, charges: "On the night of the Orthodox Christmas, the holy night of January 1993, Nasser Oric led raids on Serb villages. . . . There were heads cut off, abominable massacres committed by the forces of Nasser Oric in all the neighboring villages." (Documents of information from the French National Assembly, Srebrenica, t 2, pp. 140-154) The desire for vengeance does not excuse the crimes committed later. But why systematically hide the crimes of 'our friends'?
10 FIRST VICTIMS
Were the first victims of the war killed by Serbs?
NO. June 28, 1991, the Slovenian police executed (at least) two unarmed soldiers of the Yugoslav national army who had surrendered at Holmec, a post on the Austrian border. This was acknowledged by the newspaper Slovenske Novice. It has also been 'established from the very beginning' that three soldiers of this same Yugoslav army were executed at a post on the Italian border after surrendering themselves. (Facts and testimony reported to the ICY at The Hague, cfr Forgotten Crimes, Igor Mekina, AIM Ljubljana, 11/02/99).
11 CONCENTRATION CAMPS?
Was the infamous image of the 'concentration camps' false?
YES. Fabricated by Bernard Kouchner and Médecins du Monde, this image showed some 'prisoners' held, seemingly, behind barbed wire. One of them had terribly protruding ribs. Kouchner had pasted beside the photo a guard tower from Auschwitz and the accusation 'mass extermination'. To hammer home the message "Serbs = Nazis". He thus abetted a campaign of demonization launched by the US public relations firm Ruder Finn.But the whole thing was faked and taken from a report by British TV channel ITN. The trickery became obvious when one viewed the footage shot at the same time by a local TV news crew. In reality, the British camera had been deliberately placed behind the two lonely strands of barbed wire that formed a fence surrounding an old enclosure for farming equipment. The 'prisoners' were on the 'outside' of the barbed wire. Free because they were refugees in this camp to escape the war and the militias who would force them to fight. In the complete film, the only prisoner who speaks English declares to the ITN journalist three times that they are being well treated and are safe. The man with the protruding ribs (gravely ill) was called to the foreground when all his mates looked to be in too good a shape. Kouchner's montage was a gross falsehood. (Cfr Liars' Poker, p. 34)
There certainly were camps in Bosnia. Not for extermination, but rather for the preparation of prisoner exchanges. Violations of Human Rights were committed here. But why were the UN reports on this subject hidden from us? They accounted for six Croat camps, two Serb camps and one Muslim camp.
12 SARAJEVO
Were we given the true stories on the three large massacres in Sarajevo?
NO. Three times Western public opinion was shocked by these terrible images: dozens of victims blown to bits in front of a bakery or in the marketplace of Sarajevo. Immediately the Serbs were accused of having killed civilians by bombarding the city. This despite numerous contradictions in official communications.
But never was the public informed of the results of inquiries made outside the UN. Nor of the reports which accused the forces of president Izetbegovic. Furthermore, high Western officials knew about them but kept them carefully hidden. It was only much later that the editor-in-chief of the Nouvel Observateur, Jean Daniel, admitted: "Today I have to say it. I heard, in succession, Edouard Balladur (French Prime Minister at the time), François Léotard (Minister of the Army), Alain Juppé (Foreign Minister) and two 'high-ranking' generals, whose confidence I will not betray by naming them, tell me (. . .) that the shell fired on the marketplace was itself also from the Muslims! They would have brought carnage upon their own people! Was I afraid of this observation? Yes, the Prime Minister answered me without hesitating... "(Nouvel Observateur, August 21, 1995)
Why these manipulations? As if by chance, each massacre took place just before an important meeting to justify some Western measures: an embargo against the Serbs (92), a NATO bombing (94), a final offensive (95). NATO and Izetbegovic applied an essential principle of war propaganda: justify the offensive with a media lie, a 'massacre' to shock public opinion.The official version of the siege of Sarajevo hides several points:
1. The Serb forces certainly committed serious crimes. But the civilians who wanted to flee through a tunnel that permitted them to leave the city were stopped by the Izetbegovic regime. He wanted to maximize the clientele for his black market, hijacking international aid money.
2. It was especially important to present a black and white image of a victim people and their aggressors. In reality, even in Sarajevo, Izetbegovic's snipers regularly killed the inhabitants of Serb sections of the city without anyone ever speaking of it.
3. Some equally grave atrocities went down, for example, at Mostar. But here they were due to fighting between the Croat and Muslim forces that had long before run off all the Serbs.
13 THE LARGEST "CLEANSING"
Was the largest ethnic cleansing of the war committed by the Croat army?
YES. On August 4, 1995, a hundred thousand Croat soldiers, a hundred and fifty tanks, two hundred troop transports, more than three hundred pieces of artillery, and forty missile launchers attacked the Serb population of the Krajina. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs were forced to leave this region which they had inhabited for centuries. The worst atrocities of the war were committed: the Croat forces killed the elderly who could not flee, and burned 85% of the abandoned houses.Clinton called the offensive 'useful'. Madeleine Allbright said: "The retaking of the Krajina could lead to a new strategic situation which might be favourable for us." Worse yet: the United States advised Croatia in carrying out its offensive, according to an admission by the Croatian foreign minister. Furthermore, it was Washington that took charge of the 'democratic' training of this army. (Liars' Poker, pp. 193-194)
14 URANIUM BOMBS
Did the US use depleted uranium weapons also in Bosnia?
YES. At an international conference, "Uranium, the victims speak", organized in Brussels in March 2001, a Bosnian doctor presented a Bosnian Serb forest ranger, a victim like many others of multiple atypical and fast moving cancers after having been exposed to DU in areas of US bombardment. A Bosnian health official laid out some statistics: the population of a Serb neighbourhood of Sarajevo bombed by US planes in 1995, (a population later expelled from that city), showed a five-fold increase in various types of cancer. The weapons using depleted uranium allowed the US - but also France and Great Britain - to get rid of waste materials from their nuclear plants. These by-products seriously pollute the earth as well as the underground water table, causing cancer, leukaemia and monstrous birth defects (including babies born to contaminated GIs). In short, use of these depleted uranium arms transformed several countries into nuclear waste dumps for eternity. (video and brochure "Uranium, the victims speak").
15 THE ONLY "GOOD WAR"
Was the war against Yugoslavia the US's only good war?
NO. The United States tried to make believe that it had fought a “humanitarian war”. And to present itself, for once, as a defender of Muslims. But in reality Washington and Berlin provoked this war. Deliberately. In the selfish interest of conquering certain strategic objectives: the economic colonization of the Balkans, gaining control of the routes for transporting oil, and the fight for world domination.
The USA has never fought a humanitarian war. And it was not the fireman in this war against Yugoslavia; it was the fire-starter. It was guiltiest of inflicting suffering on all the people. The USA can not be, on the one hand, the friend of the Muslims in the Balkans, and, on the other, their worst enemy in Palestine and Iraq. The US is the Muslims' enemy everywhere. And the most dangerous enemy of all the people of the world. It threatens Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and even points to threatening china some day in the not too distant future.
Its war strategy has no other goal than to maintain an unjust economic order, to dominate and exploit every country on earth to the end of further enriching a small handful of super - billionaires.
This is why it is so important to unmask all the media lies and to make the truth known about the war against Yugoslavia: It was a war of aggression.
A very enlightening post!
As usual it is the people that suffer.
I worked in northern Croatia in 2002 and the people I met there could not wait to join the EU, believing that this would improve their lives.
I saw the US fleet on shore-leave in Rijeka, invading the only Macdonalds in the area while all around were the most fantastic restaurants offering all manner of good local food.
The area is rich in heritage (some dark and violent), the people are educated and historically aware. And yet... the lure of the capatist dream is strong.
The old empires do not die, they find subtler and more devious ways to play the game, and in the end the price is paid by ordinary people while we in the west accept what we are told because it is easier to do so.
The truth? We cannot handle the truth.
Thanks Alex. You have shed light on why the US democrats' darling Clinton is known in many parts as "The Butcher Of Belgrade" as well as why Milosevic and not he was on trial for crimes against humanity at The Hague.
See May he rot in peace at http://redwinesblog.blogspot.com. It was too long to post it here. More to come.
Alexandros and Redwine have both been intimately involved with realities behind differing perspectives of their posts. Such generally tend to spring more from realities than later rationalizations offered in explanation and justification. Who is to doubt molding forces another has seen? I wonder in reading the views offered if our attempts at change are to be guided by choice among varying realities of how today became. Or, do we simply encourage striking where able at what we see wrong today, leaving others to later explain, rationalize, and justify.
I dont know but can only try to understand what is going on and i feel soon america will know all this to well in our own yard.To bad we cant call in the marins and set things right in the world and only sword people of the sword and heal all in peace!!!!!!!!!!!!
Casey At The Bat
A political forum might not seem the place for a sports report. But athletics are symbols of local pride and loyalty in that often sustain victories in endeavors yet to come.The United States declares baseball ITS "national pastime" and celebrates what it calls THE "World Series". Millions and millions of dollars are spent paying professional athletes in quest of claiming that championship of US teams.
But the times, they are a changing, and there is a further world out there. Other nations decided they'd like in. This year, a truer World Baseball Classic, which is a round robin competition engaged in by 16 teams of the best from around the world.
Some baseball is played in Mexico but its leagues are characterized by on and off existence. The largest cities have a hard time supporting a team if at all. Excelling at the sport in those few cities that do is not a way to get rich. Last night Mexico beat the best of the all star professionals of the US team and knocked it out of the running for world championship.
Remaining games will be played in the US. Those yet competing are South Korea, Japan, Dominican Republic, and Cuba. US president Bush, experienced as previous owner of a losing team, tried to keep Cuba out but was forced to relent.
Don't hold your breath for a customary presidential TV spot photo opportunity Whitehouse congratulatory gathering should Cuba win it all. Imagine Fidel Castro, a former professional pitcher, showing up to embrace fellow baseball aficionado Bush as handshakes and hugs go all around.
We are one step closer to the dream with one more to go. Cuba just beat the favorite to take it all, Dominican Republic by 3 to 1. Japan and unbeaten Korea take the field in three hours and Cuba will play that winner Monday for the championship honor of waving a one raised middle finger "Hi there" to Señor Bush.
Sometimes you wake up from a dream to find it wasn't quite so. This one was pretty close though. Japan beat Cuba 10 to 6. Still though Castro came out looking better than Bush. The ploy the latter used to try and keep Cuba out was the US law which makes it illegal for US citizens, organizations, or companies to benefit Cuba financially. Cuba gets 7% of the tournaments intake for its second place finish. Castro is donating that to victims of the Katrina hurricane.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Pay Dirt
* "President Vicente Fox on Tuesday announced state-owned oil giant Pemex had hit serious pay dirt in the Gulf of Mexico: a deep-water exploration well known as Noxal had tapped a field off the coast of the southern state of Veracruz that could contain as many as 10 billion barrels of oil. If the field pans out, it would be one of the largest in the nation´s history and go a long way toward bolstering Mexico´s rapidly declining petroleum reserves."
*
Here is an older article claiming this find was not so.
*
Another interesting article on oil and Mexico: "Arizona has approved the construction of an oil refinery based on Mexican oil and a pipeline from Guaymas. The 3 to 4 billion dollar project is bad for Mexico. Jobs and income will be lost and a dangerous dependency on the US will increase."
*
Conflicting stories, scandals and secrets, favors and revenges. Oppression and suppression of the peoples rights. Presidents dividing up what is not theirs to take or give. These things should be looked into, because where there is oil there is greed and corruption.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Rights Vote 170 to 4
The United Nations General Assembly today approved formation of the new U.N. Human Rights Council by a vote of 170 to 4. Those voting against were United States, Israel, Marshall Islands, and Palau. I did not know Marshall Islands and Palau were terrorist nations too.
The UN General Assembly vote on establishing the new Human Rights Council is a fairly devastating comment on current US global prestige as well as the effectiveness of diplomacy as practiced by US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton.
While the US has said much about the human-rights behavior of many UN member states, there is a strong feeling that Washington and its ambassador do not really have the moral standing to hector others.
The three nations the US led in opposing the new council are probably the top per capita recipients of US cash - along with the Federated States of Micronesia, which even Bolton couldn't bully enough.
Bolton's grandstanding played well for domestic audiences - but got nowhere with the rest of the world, not least because the rest of the world had its own sources for what had happened in negotiations and did not rely on Bolton and the US State Department for details.
Read the Asian Times article for how the US as shown by Bolton just doesn't get it but continues dozing in blissful ignorance of its goofy dream and ignoring the rest of the world trying to shake it awake from what appears to them a horrendous nightmare.
Vetos by the usual suspects (axis of inhumanity) and two small nations due to receive large cash donations.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
French Students
by Angelique Chrisafis
March 13, 2006
Guardian (UK)
From behind the makeshift barricade of tables, desks and chairs that sealed off the amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, a 21-year-old philosophy student crawled out and made his way down to the wall of riot police that kept watch outside one of France's most prestigious faculties yesterday.
Florian had been up all night leading angry philosophical debates among the 150 students holding the first "occupation" of the Sorbonne since student protesters took over the building in Paris's Latin Quarter in 1968. On that occasion, it was Vietnam, Algeria and the antiquated rules of their superiors that spurred students to action. These days, it is something far closer to home: unemployment and a hugely controversial government measure to try to combat it.
The prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, wants to force a measure through France's parliament designed to alleviate unemployment, paradoxically by making it easier to fire workers aged under 26 years. The measure would introduce a new form of work contract, le contrat de première embauche (first employment contract), which gives employers the right to let employees go after two years. The hope is it will spur employers to hire young people safe in the knowledge they are not obliged to retain them.
But the move has provoked a vigorous backlash. More than 400,000 people joined street demonstrations across France earlier this week, and by early yesterday about half of the country's 88 universities had been shut down by student sit-ins. Mr de Villepin's popularity has plummeted, and his refusal to back down could dent his ambitions for next year's presidential elections.
On Wednesday night, the cobbled streets around the Place de la Sorbonne rang out with muffled cries from the university's main lecture theatre as students, enraged that the government was ignoring their street protests, overran the faculty and barricaded themselves in. By midnight, the street was filling up with students shouting their support from outside and police riot vans. Sheets painted with slogans against the "CPE" were unfurled from the windows.
"Everyone should have the basic human right to work,"said Florian, who would not give his surname. "But there is no hope for young people in France. The contract is a joke, it protects no one. People are desperate. We feel we have the support of the people in the street but that the government just doesn't care."
Read the full Zmag story.
What autodogmatic doesn't understand is that rights are taken rather than given. Governments sign on to them after comprehending a message to do so in order to continue governing. Sitting in buildings is a nice start and French students should be congratulated for such effort. May it provide learning experience. They might get results however by emulating their Muslim brothers and burning buildings rather than sitting in them.
The 3 basic human rights established after the french revolution (life, freedom and property) can never be reached if people dont have a job, food an home (these are known as positive rights) and were recognized as human rights in the socialist nations, and also in capitalist nations under welfare state after a long struggle of the working class. What French students are doing is protecting the remains of that rights.
Pocho, even when i think buildings burnt by young muslims is legitimate, it's not the best tactic available. In may 1968, there was a students strike, then joined by workers which were about to lead to a revolution. i think thats the path to follow.
This is not 1968, Miguel. Unfortunately or not. Do people know what they want? I'm afraid they don't.
Autodogmatic, the state is not my babysitter. Agreed. But: what are elections for? What is the role of the goverment? Of the state? Please define it. Have you ever heard about the Enlightenment? Shall we go back in time? "In fact, the attempts to provide (and really, to protect) a right to work are what has gotten France into this whole mess in the first place." Explain, please.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Death of Freedom
On Christmas Eve, I dropped in on Brian Haw, whose hunched, pacing figure was just visible through the freezing fog. For four and a half years, Brian has camped in Parliament Square with a graphic display of photographs that show the terror and suffering imposed on Iraqi children by British policies. The effectiveness of his action was demonstrated last April when the Blair government banned any expression of opposition within a kilometre of Parliament. The High Court subsequently ruled that, because his presence preceded the ban, Brian was an exception.
Day after day, night after night, season upon season, he remains a beacon, illuminating the great crime of Iraq and the cowardice of the House of Commons. As we talked, two women brought him a Christmas meal and mulled wine. They thanked him, shook his hand and hurried on. He had never seen them before. "That's typical of the public," he said. A man in a pin-striped suit and tie emerged from the fog, carrying a small wreath. "I intend to place this at the Cenotaph and read out the names of the dead in Iraq," he said to Brian, who cautioned him: "You'll spend the night in cells, mate." We watched him stride off and lay his wreath. His head bowed, he appeared to be whispering. Thirty years ago, I watched dissidents do something similar outside the walls of the Kremlin.
As night had covered him, he was lucky. On 7 December, Maya Evans, a vegan chef aged 25, was convicted of breaching the new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act by reading aloud at the Cenotaph the names of 97 British soldiers killed in Iraq. So serious was her crime that it required 14 policemen in two vans to arrest her. She was fined and given a criminal record for the rest of her life.
Freedom is dying.
Eighty-year-old John Catt served with the RAF in the Second World War. Last September, he was stopped by police in Brighton for wearing an "offensive" T-shirt, which suggested that Bush and Blair be tried for war crimes. He was arrested under the Terrorism Act and handcuffed, with his arms held behind his back. The official record of the arrest says the "purpose" of searching him was "terrorism" and the "grounds for intervention" were "carrying placard and T-shirt with anti-Blair info" (sic). He is awaiting trial.
Such cases compare with others that remain secret and beyond any form of justice: those of the foreign nationals held at Belmarsh prison, who have never been charged, let alone put on trial. They are held "on suspicion". Some of the "evidence" against them, whatever it is, the Blair government has now admitted, could have been extracted under torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. They are political prisoners in all but name. They face the prospect of being spirited out of the country into the arms of a regime which may torture them to death. Their isolated families, including children, are quietly going mad.
And for what? From 11 September 2001 to 30 September 2005, a total of 895 people were arrested in Britain under the Terrorism Act. Only 23 have been convicted of offences covered by the Act. As for real terrorists, the identity of two of the 7 July bombers, including the suspected mastermind, was known to MI5, and nothing was done. And Blair wants to give them more power. Having helped to devastate Iraq, he is now killing freedom in his own country.
Consider parallel events in the United States. Last October, an American surgeon, loved by his patients, was punished with 22 years in prison for founding a charity, Help the Needy, which helped children in Iraq stricken by an economic and humanitarian blockade imposed by America and Britain. In raising money for infants dying from diarrhoea, Dr Rafil Dhafir broke a siege which, according to Unicef, had caused the deaths of half a million under the age of five. The then Attorney-General of the United States, John Ashcroft, called Dr Dhafir, a Muslim, a "terrorist", a description mocked by even the judge in his politically-motivated, travesty of a trial.
The Dhafir case is not extraordinary. In the same month, three US Circuit Court judges ruled in favour of the Bush regime's "right" to imprison an American citizen "indefinitely" without charging him with a crime. This was the case of Joseph Padilla, a petty criminal who allegedly visited Pakistan before he was arrested at Chicago airport three and a half years ago. He was never charged and no evidence has ever been presented against him. Now mired in legal complexity, the case puts George W Bush above the law and outlaws the Bill of Rights. Indeed, on 14 November, the US Senate effectively voted to ban habeas corpus by passing an amendment that overturned a Supreme Court ruling allowing Guantanamo prisoners access to a federal court. Thus, the touchstone of America's most celebrated freedom was scrapped. Without habeas corpus, a government can simply lock away its opponents and implement a dictatorship.
A related, insidious tyranny is being imposed across the world. For all his troubles in Iraq, Bush has carried out the recommendations of a Messianic conspiracy theory called the "Project for a New American Century". Written by his ideological sponsors shortly before he came to power, it foresaw his administration as a military dictatorship behind a democratic facade: "the cavalry on a new American frontier" guided by a blend of paranoia and megalomania. More than 700 American bases are now placed strategically in compliant countries, notably at the gateways to the sources of fossil fuels and encircling the Middle East and Central Asia. "Pre-emptive" aggression is policy, including the use of nuclear weapons. The chemical warfare industry has been reinvigorated. Missile treaties have been torn up. Space has been militarised. Global warming has been embraced. The powers of the president have never been greater. The judicial system has been subverted, along with civil liberties. The former senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who once prepared the White House daily briefing, told me that the authors of the PNAC and those now occupying positions of executive power used to be known in Washington as "the crazies". He said, "We should now be very worried about fascism".
In his epic acceptance of the Nobel Prize in Literature on 7 December, Harold Pinter spoke of "a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed". He asked why "the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought" of Stalinist Russia was well known in the west while American state crimes were merely "superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged".
A silence has reigned. Across the world, the extinction and suffering of countless human beings can be attributed to rampant American power, "but you wouldn't know it," said Pinter. "It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest.
To its credit, the Guardian in London published every word of Pinter's warning. To its shame, though unsurprising, the state television broadcaster ignored it. All that Newsnight flatulence about the arts, all that recycled preening for the cameras at Booker prize-giving events, yet the BBC could not make room for Britain's greatest living dramatist, so honoured, to tell the truth.
For the BBC, it simply never happened, just as the killing of half a million children by America's medieval siege of Iraq during the 1990s never happened, just as the Dhafir and Padilla trials and the Senate vote, banning freedom, never happened. The political prisoners of Belmarsh barely exist; and a big, brave posse of Metropolitan police never swept away Maya Evans as she publicly grieved for British soldiers killed in the cause of nothing, except rotten power.
Bereft of irony, but with a snigger, the BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce introduced, as news, a Christmas propaganda film about Bush's dogs. That happened. Now imagine Bruce reading the following: "Here is delayed news, just in. From 1945 to 2005, the United States attempted to overthrow 50 governments, many of them democracies, and to crush 30 popular movements fighting tyrannical regimes. In the process, 25 countries were bombed, causing the loss of several million lives and the despair of millions more." (Thanks to William Blum's Rogue State, Common Courage Press, 2005).
The icon of horror of Saddam Hussein's rule is a 1988 film of petrified bodies in the Kurdish town of Halabja, killed in a chemical weapons attack. The attack has been referred to a great deal by Bush and Blair and the film shown a great deal by the BBC. At the time, as I know from personal experience, the Foreign Office tried to cover up the crime at Halabja. The Americans tried to blame it on Iran. Today, in an age of images, there are no images of the chemical weapons attack on Fallujah in November 2004. This allowed the Americans to deny it until they were caught out recently by investigators using the internet. For the BBC, American atrocities simply do not happen.
In 1999, while filming in Washington and Iraq, I learned the true scale of bombing in what the Americans and British then called Iraq's "no fly zones". During the 18 months to 14 January, 1999, US aircraft flew 24,000 combat missions over Iraq; almost every mission was bombing or strafing. "We're down to the last outhouse," a US official protested. "There are still some things left [to bomb], but not many." That was six years ago. In recent months, the air assault on Iraq has multiplied; the effect on the ground cannot be imagined. For the BBC it has not happened.
The black farce extends to those pseudo-humanitarians in the media and elsewhere, who themselves have never seen the effects of cluster bombs and air-burst shells, yet continue to invoke the crimes of Saddam to justify the the nightmare in Iraq and to protect a quisling prime minister who has sold out his country and made the world more dangerous. Curiously, some of them insist on describing themselves as "liberals" and "left of centre", even "anti-fascists". They want some respectability, I suppose. This is understandable, given that the league table of carnage of Saddam Hussein was overtaken long ago by that of their hero in Downing Street, who will next support an attack on Iran.
This cannot change until we, in the west, look in the mirror and confront the true aims and narcissism of the power applied in our name: its extremes and terrorism. The traditional double-standard no longer works; there are now millions like Brian Haw, Maya Evans, John Catt and the man in the pin-striped suit, with his wreath. Looking in the mirror means understanding that a violent and undemocratic order is being imposed by those whose actions are little different from the actions of fascists. The difference used to be distance. Now they are bringing it home.
Visit http://www.johnpilger.com/
Bless you and thank you for writing such a heart moving and truthful piece.Sad in the land of the i wana be free that threw long turn hidden aggendias we have lost everything our ancestors died for freedom to be ourselfs with out harming .we have become the worlds leaders in mass posioning DDT and other so called new age wonders now outlawed to bad we cant outlaw uncaring leaders.
Is freedom really dying, or is it just waiting for birth? That depends on who and where one is. Are we talking about universal freedom or just freedom for some but not others less worthy. The debtors prisons, slavery engendered both by selling and buying societies, and genocide of native populations told in history books of colonialist nations certainly do not indicate universal freedom in their own days of yore, They show instead that it was not only in their conquered subject lands that freedom had not then arrived but that it had never existed at home. And the residue of those today? History doesn't go away. It's effects remain and are not changed by defining words such as "freedom" for purpose of obscuring truth rather not seen. The reality of ancestor suffering remains in the lives of many generations later progeny alive today. Freedom will be born when the tattoo "Less Worthy" is erased from the being of all.
So true we do need to become as one in humanitys. No one worthy of more no one haveing a right to say someone else if not worth life over another good point.Seams to me in the land of the free its never realy been free except to report 1/2 truths and teach control to the mass,s.
To elaborate slightly on littlebitofsonshine's first comment above: perhaps we should concentrate less on the words 'freedom' and 'democracy' and attempt to achieve real equality and justice.
The facts remain however, as you say Pocho, the Empires are still powerful and their (ex)colonies are still paying, their status little more than slaves to the those who control the trade agreements and manipulate the currencies.
It remains that citizens of the 'western democracies' need to stand up before it is too late.
The people of Britain (along with millions of other people all over the world)stood up to protest before the invasion of Iraq. Their leaders did not listen but proclaimed to know better (an insult to the intelligence of the people, in my opinion).
Now they pay the price.
Hopefully they will awaken soon.
Evil America and its followers and creators. The word evil echos in my mind as it tries to encompass that which this rouge country does. The Death of Freedom, such chilling words. How has it come to be that this upstart nation has jumped the world and preparing for its worst to come. How did mankind become so blinded. How come we have let our freedoms slip, and for what? We are no better than cattle lead to the slaughter if we can't get in touch with our hate and hate America for all that it is and help to bring it down totally with that force. Look what they do, look what they get away with. Death of Freedom, without it life is worth nothing. Terrorism, the word that will be used against the innocent man to enslave him for any cause, the password to oppression. Why does not the common man raise up in full alarm by these so obvious tactics from this enemy of freedom. Cannot we see what is no longer the future in a nightmare, but our everyday existence as it closes in on us. Death of freedom, let those words ring in your mind and become aware of what we are giving up. Fight for it, fight for freedom, however you can, wherever you are.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
"Mr. Danger"
Mr. Danger, as named by Hugo Chavez, has given people an unexpected hope. As seen in this article translated from the Spanish. "We, Latin-Americans, confirm that something must be right with Mr. George Walker Bush, for in the end, and without him wanting it, he has united more and more people around the globe in solidarity and given them the clarity to know that Earth should not and will not be annexed to his Majesty Bush’s Empire, and that its inhabitants deserve and demand respect. Yes, something must be right with Bush, something wonderful and prodigiously beautiful. The increasing union of people around an achievable hope is the best testimony."
*
Bush has made claims that Bin Laden helped him to win his fraudulent election. In his own words, "I thought it would help remind people that if Bin Laden doesn’t want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush.”
This article goes on to say, "Whenever one is guided by fear, the irrational and rational blend easily. Fear alone could have given Bush an election and there is no doubt that there was fear pervading US. Both Bin Laden’s video and the continuous reiterations by the mass media of attacks and destructive images, along with those anthrax attacks that came and vanished, so effective and at the same time so ephemeral, helped build an atmosphere adequate not only for Bush’s win, but also allowing him to pass the National Security laws; the most far reaching and illegal laws of US history. Today, these laws squash human and civil rights, to include home privacy, freedom of speech, of religion, and academic freedom.
*
Like Umberto Eco said, "We should not pretend that governments are led by philosophers and erudite people, but may rightly expect people with good sense and lucid ideas. Bush demonstrates that is easier and easier for leaders to gain the citizenry’s support by means of fear, distrust and hate, and more and more difficult to attain it through sincerity".
May the people of America soon realize, it is their government itself that should be their main fear.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Kicked Off
The Changes
The Further Left Library has been moved to a new location after being terminated by its Lagunanet hosting service. That is, we've been kicked off. Our users should update saved address links as appropriate.The Library's previous direct link to http://lagunanet.net.mx/pocho will cease to function. At least temporarily however, there is a redirect at that address which connects to the front page of the Library at its new location. I hope but am not sure Lagunanet will continue to allow that. Any connection attempts to individual Lagunanet Library pages which might appear in search engines such as http://lagunanet.net.mx/pocho/somepage.htm will produce a Not Found error.
The addresses http://furtherleft.tk and http://flroominfo.tk redirect connections to the Library and Chat Room information page respectively. They have been modified to link now to the new host. Their annoying pop up advertising is still there. You get what you pay for and the tk domains are free.
The Library's new storage site has the address http://furtherleft.net. It will present no pop ups, advertising, or unexpected connections and should be the preferred Library link. This Forum's left column links to the Library and its separate pages have been modified to reflect the change. The Chat Room and this Forum are hosted on other systems and remain unaffected.
The Background
Lagunanet is a local private internet service provider here in Mexico. It was the only act in town when initiating its business in 1997, at which time I began using it, first by normal phone connection and later by high speed wireless. It is primarily a one person operation in its technical sense. Service reliability depended on that person's physical presence during restricted working hours.The local area is subject to frequent and usually brief power outages during which time neither my computer nor Lagunanet's functions worked and often failed to restart on their own. That Lagunanet tended failing to reinitiate service until the operator attended was of little concern during early use, email, internet browsing, and later chatting in and maintaining existence of the Yahoo Further Left Chat Room. That was the case until the Library was installed on Lagunanet in 2004. It became a greater matter of concern last June when Yahoo shut down chat rooms and we moved ours to the EveryWhereChat system.
Now there was a desire of keeping a presence in the room around the clock and working it in close conjunction with the Library. Telmex, Mexico's national phone service, had by that time installed local ADSL high speed internet service. It was less expensive and more reliable. I moved my internet connection there while the Library's hosting remained at Lagunanet.
The Reasons
I received a phone call from a personal friend who associates loosely with Lagunanet saying it will quit hosting the Library site. The explanation given was that Lagunanet's unreliable service resulted from denial of service attacks directed to them because of hosting our Library. That is a form of disruptive internet hacking which automatically sends multiple connect requests to a service provider with object to flood and overload its devices and thus bring it down. I have differing thoughts about that.
We encountered deliberate disruption attempts when our Chat Room was on Yahoo. They were entirely of a psychologically childish nature such as impersonation, lying, and defaming. There were no instances of technical hacking. They occurred because there was no facility on Yahoo for controlling user access.
That has changed since we moved the chat to the EWC system where destructive intent is recognized and prevented from beginning. We know who our users are and of what they are capable. There are none with either desire or expertise to engage in technically disruptive hacking.
Experience has shown that would be non professional disrupters are primarily interested in playing personal ego enhancing games and always seek credit for nefarious accomplishment. They knowingly or otherwise quickly and obviously give themselves away. That has been true whether motivation was based on political stance or no more than public psychological masturbation. We've yet heard no such cry for credit wafting from the bushes (double intendre intended).
So if it isn't the little boy who lives down the lane, who does that leave? Ah, professionals who know what they are doing and operate in the dark! Think CIA, FBI, PGR, M8, perhaps Mr. Bush himself fresh out of night classes in computer science.
Whomever the attacking hackers might be, they seem to have a pretty good fix on the nature of Lagunanet's and my common local electrical power grid. Their claimed attacks which take Lagunanet out and prevent its return tend to occur at the same time my own household lighting and computer power click off.
There are would be leftists who might like to think they are big enough in schemes of wishful revolution to deserve such attention. We are not among them. All one needs do is take a close look at the full contents of Further Left Library and then cruise comparatively around the web. There are many others than the Library which would make better targets but somehow seem to exist with little problem.
I know nothing of the inner workings of Lagunanet's business or technical operations. Nor have I any information beyond that of a friend's phone call claim of our Library's attracting denial of service attacks. I doubt my phoning friend understands what such are, and the Lagunanet operator has not contacted me. I would like to have details showing how our Library is at fault. That that might help protect us in the future.
The Effects
There are two operative downsides to the move we've made. One follows from many of the Library's internet hits coming through search engine queries which pick up on page content. Those links are to Library pages on Lagunanet which no longer exist. It will take some time before the search engines remove the old and note those pages at the new site.
Another disadvantage of the move is because several of the pdf format files in the Library's Book Exchange section were too large to upload to the new site and that section had to be scrapped. Many of the search engine results were directed to that material. Some of the Book Exchange content might be replaced by html coding portions of it. Doing so would take some time and effort however.
There will be several advantages to the move. A major one should be gain in reliability. The new system also offers several new functions which might be applied to enhance use of the Library.
The Politic
A few weeks ago there was an international business meeting in a Mexico City hotel owned by a United States Company. It included representatives from both the US and Cuba. The US government on basis of US law and contrary to that of Mexico forced the hotel to remove the Cuban guests, refuse them refund of payments, and send their money instead to the US treasury. The incident caused an indignant uproar within Mexican society but the Mexican federal government did nothing about it. If you see yourself as the little guy on the block (and not moving further left), you tend not to disfavor the neighborhood bully.
It is easy to blame overt governmental censorship of US media as behind Americans' apparent blatant ignorance not only of other nations and societies but also their own. It is too easy, and that is its fallacy. Governments and those who structure social constraints don't have to impose restrictions on those who fear them. Assumed fear amid collective ignorance is sufficient for self imposition.
All media outlets including internet service providers are businesses. As that, they rank business success over confronting bullies upset over what is not a business concern. I've cast doubt on the veracity of Library culpability for Lagunanet's unreliability but understand it is a business existing realistically in the world as deemed by the person who runs it. A real estate vendor or a garden club using their services would not come to mind as a hacker target. A leftist web site might.
It becomes again a matter of the little guy shying from a perceived neighborhood bully, even if the bully is imagined. As it effects you and I as users of the Library, the end result, whether through self censorship or that externally forced, amounts to censorship period, regardless of the dynamic of its being.
So, we'll just go elsewhere and continue shouting. If the same should occur again, we'll repeat and keep repeating as necessary. We know the neighborhood bully is naked.
Like water from the dew on high mountain tops, truth will trickle down to nourish the fields below.
They can kick us off but they can't stop us.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
See Dick Loot
Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) have been making hay in the burning Iraqi sun for years now. It is, of course, no coincidence that the man sitting as vice president played a key role with his influence in obtaining the lion's share of contracts in Iraq for the company he was CEO of prior to his self-appointed position. Yet none of this is news.
What is news, however, is that the ties that bind Cheney to Halliburton also link him to groups with even broader interests in the Middle East, which are causing civilians on the ground there, as well as in the US, to pay the price.
Cheney had much more at stake than pure altruism in making sure Halliburton/KBR obtained so many no-bid contracts in occupied Iraq. Despite his claims of not having any financial ties to Halliburton, the fact is that in both 2001 and 2002 he earned twice as much from a deferred salary from his "old" company as when he was CEO.
But that wasn't the beginning. When Cheney was US Secretary of Defense in the early 1990's under Big Bush, Halliburton was awarded the job of studying, then implementing, the privatization of routine army functions such as cleaning and cooking meals.
Following this study, when Cheney was finished with his job at the Pentagon, he scored the job as CEO of Halliburton, which he held until nominating himself for the position of Little Bush's running mate in 2000.
Remember, it was Cheney who was given the task of finding a running mate for Bush. After searching far and wide across the US, Cheney ended up generously offering his own services for the job.
Read more in a ZMAG article.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
9/11 Who And Why
One of the early entries in the Notable Comments section of the Further Left Library (linked in left column) was ''There are so many unanswered questions regarding the events of 9/11 that it is currently impossible to determine exact culpability. But it is the manner in which those questions are being left unanswered and even refused answers that leads to no other conclusion than elements within the US government were not only aware of the events to unfold but were also involved in their planning and execution." I give no source because I wrote it. Now, a couple years later, my mind has not been changed.
The Internet hosts many detailed descriptions of 9/11 investigations, both those bearing mantel of 'official' and many others casting doubt on what we are supposed to believe. Most of the 'official' ones and their regurgitation by establishment pundits have focused on such questions as how the events could have been prevented, how response could have been improved, and how governments and lives will necessarily be changed. Contrarily, the points of most of the doubting investigations limited themselves to offering data in proof the 'official' explanations are based on a pack of lies.
There is one question which has very seldom been brought to the fore in all of these. It is the one which is most obvious and it deals with motive. That is "Why? There is another question which leads to answering that one. It is the standard first step for determining unclear culpability of criminal activity and is to query "Who benefits?" Now of course those questions are never asked if those pointing a finger happen to notice that three others will point back at themselves.
There is help pondering that which might aid the few believers still thinking Lee Harvey Oswald bumped off John Kennedy and all the while acted alone in doing so. A summation article in yesterday's Granma is titled Must we wait for Bush to fall?.
Its first paragraph is "Exactly what happened on September 11, 2001 in New York is still is a mystery. Investigators say that they are just waiting for the Bush administration to fall to demand the declassification of documents that would reveal the truth about what happened that day."
The article's final paragraph is "Meanwhile, the U.S. people are living in a cloud of ignorance, and a half century will have to go by before other generations find out about the secrets kept locked away in safes by the masterminds of the crime."
It is the article's in between where answers to "Who benefits?" and thus the "Why?" will be found.
Your observations are of supreme importance to understanding the nature of the world we are now forced to live in. The 'Why' question is by far the more important one. Not "why are there so many unanswered questions?", but rather "why did this happen?".
The US administration has been unwavering in its refusal to admit the question into the public debate, and for obvious reasons. Anyone who believes that this brutal attack was launched by a bunch of crazy and evil arabs who are jealous of the good ol' US of A needs to take their head out the sand and do a little research into US operations, both Covert and Corporate, in the Middle East (not to mention the Central and South American Continent) over the last century.
And anyone who believes that the US reaction to these attacks has made any difference to the causes for the attacks, is living in a cowboy movie. Citizens of the USA need to realise that the cavalry ain't coming folks, you need to rescue yourselves - get rid of the Corporate government, don't let them pay KBR millions of dollars to build those detention centres lest you find yourself living in one of them.
More i ask why it seams the more whys i get .Why do i care ??Why cant i blindly trust??? Why do you need to know???? Well truth is i want to know why so many will have to die over a lie is why .
Friday, March 03, 2006
So They Say
*If one wants to know the enemy, study what the people of America think among themselves. This is very revealing. American public, being followers, divide themselves into an unimaginable amount of groups. One that has caught on strong and as near as popular as their slave one was, is the Mexican. Their government has manipulated the American minds away from real issues and leaned on bigotry and prejudice and fear to get them to focus on this new imagined threat. These people have always migrated north, long before their lands were stolen and the enemy made that scar of a border they so guard over.
*
Says American Chronicle ,"Our sovereign nation is facing an overwhelming illegal alien invasion by an Hispanic 'migrant army' that has defied our immigration laws and sovereignty.(1) The invasion of America now totals 20 -23 million and rising. Of that number, 90% are Hispanics who balkanize our cities and towns, and arrogantly corrupt our unifying national language while actively disrespecting our culture, society and country! All this is being accomplished while our complicit government shamelessly stands by blatantly ignoring the anarchy, by allowing Mexico's human tsunami of illegal aliens to lawlessly overrun America". The article continues on almost endlessly with the same type of rabblerousing that appeals to those who it was meant for.
*
They call themselves a sovereign nation, which means posessed of supreme power. They think their land taken in a series of wars and rapes and thefts is a fortress for their use only to conquer the world from. They say it is an invasion, these people walking north taking the jobs so willingly and enticingly offered. They use the word balkanize for these workers, when they themselves are fragmented into the rich and the poor, and nationalities that war, and political parties that are enemies, and states they color differently. They say the Mexican is corrupting their culture and their language. Such paranoia. These Mexicans bring back what could have been, a culture with a history. Not just fast food, tv churches, mall clothes and to much money and to little care. And Spanish was spoke long before any of those white invaders disrupted the harmony with their harsh language. They call the Mexican taking the jobs they won't do anarchy when their country is leaving a ruin of nations after nations with its conquest of greed and evil. They say Mexicans are lawless, but they merely want to work. The only law broken is walking across a false line to get the paycheck held out to them. And that is no crime, Americans do far far worse to get their pay. That’s for sure. They speak of their worker and their neighbors like it is a military, calling them an army, and then they say a human tsunami in the same sentence as shamelessly. What an insult to those who suffered so in that storm of nature, then to be compared to people seeking work without a permit on their own continent.
*
American Patrol is a nightmare of a site, revealing the depths of its countries sick mind. It is good to check on it now and again to see what extent these radicals are pushing the issue. And one should be aware of the "rednecks against Bush" groups. They cheer the wall and despise Bush for not ruining his countries labor and his balance with Mexico(not from his good intent tho). All they can see is fear and envy and greed. They fear for their homes and children and sanity, they fear all is lost, their weak little world crumbled by brown faces and walking feet.
*
These sites are part of the war that rages inside America rotting it out. May someday soon all these warring factions bring their own country down and save the world the job. Fight America, and finish your evil self off.
Yes i am thanks now when that usa gets a grip what will i be american or a new name or will i allways be made in america hummmm
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Cost Of War
Who pays it? Everyone who pays taxes in or purchases anything in the United States or any nation which buys anything from it.
Where does it go? In the pockets of everyone anywhere who accepts money from, banks with, or does business in any way with any firm which holds stock in Haliburton, General Dynamics, (...and the long list goes on...), or any entity which does business with or benefits from the military establishment of the United States.
Who keeps it going? Everyone everywhere who benefits from the fruits of the empire rather than doing their damndest to terminate it by toppling the nation that spawns it and opposing its people who allow it either out of desire, fear, or ignorance whether wilful or otherwise.
You can play with this link to get a good up close look at the effect of your own involvement.
and to think we could have stoped world hunger by now with the spending on so call protecting our freedom makes ya think huh
The Far Queue
The posts you see there are all extracts from my attempts at fiction writing. Most of these thoughts and story lines are spurred by my increasing anger at where we are going as a species and my helplessness and anger at my fellow members of 'privileged' status (ie. working people with enough money to feed and educate their children, and in most cases live a life of luxury in comparison with the large majority of people who suffer at the hands of our desires. We are all to blame - not just the leaders who do not listen to our protests. I will continue to visit your sites and see where we go from there.
Posted here by Pisces Iscariot
Thanks go to littlebitofsonshine, who found your blog and tipped me off. They also go to you for following up and contributing. I hope we see more of you.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Cloak-Tonic-Fig Leaf
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering
That was the 1930's. Has anything changed? People's Daily carries an article titled "The Evolving Us Anti-Terror Strategy" It is stolen and reproduced in entirety here.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently signed a new confidential anti-terror document. Judging from what's already known, the US anti-terror strategy hasn't changed much, only for the first time recognized the possible negative impacts of military operations in this regard and asked for more understanding of local culture and religion. This reflects the US embarrassment in its anti-terror strategy.
More than 30 new al-Qaeda branches have appeared ever since the "September 11", the Pentagon says. According to a recent report by Swedish paper Svenska Dagbladet, the black list the US distributed to its airport security staff for checking terror suspects has lengthened from 16 names before the "September 11" to today's 80,000, a stunning growth that fully testifies the "more anti-terror, more terror" theory.
A review of the different versions of US anti-terror strategy published shows nothing wise apart from the habitual reliance on hi-tech weapons and military force. The significance of fighting terrorism, however, seems lying in more on pressing forward the US global strategy and in domestic political strife. In fact, the Bush administration has not only put terror combat a long-term strategic goal and arduous task, but cultivated it into so huge a political capital as to create a subject called "anti-terror politics".
Terror fight has become a golden signboard or a "cloak" under which the Bush administration seeks for strategic advantages globally. It is obviously the top option to rally domestic support and beat off international criticism whether for launching wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, building new overseas military bases and reshuffling global military deployment, or promoting US-style democracy in other countries or even for handling the escalating Iranian nuclear crisis.
Terror combat, for the Bush administration, is also the best political "tonic" when it comes to party strife and public support.
A high approval rating is simply easy as long as one talks glibly about terrorist dangers. This was brought into full play in the presidential campaign at the end of 2004, when George W. Bush won his second term by holding high the anti-terror banner and beat back all kinds of attempts by the Democrats.
What's more, anti-terror efforts naturally served as a fig leaf when the government was dogged by scandals including "fabricated information" in launching the Iraqi war, the "leakage of CIA worker identity", the "abuse of detainees", the "secret prisons on foreign land" and the "eavesdropping" on international phone calls. Bush claimed in early February that al-Qaeda once schemed in October 2001 to attack a building of Bank of America in Los Angeles, but America successfully frustrated the plan.
Bush's dishing out of the terrorist attempt four years later, some media analyzed, is simply out of two considerations. First, to quash strong doubts stirred up by the "eavesdropping" scandal and justify government behavior; second, to guide public opinion so as to fish for political capital for his Republican Party at the mid-term elections in this November.
What else would be left for the US, on top of embarrassment, when the country has reduced its anti-terror strategy into a "cloak", "tonic" and "fig leaf"?
I dream of a wand and the power to make peace thats the LaLa land i live in where people are kind caring and giveing to thouse in need .Like if you need food something to do feed them if thay need work give them if that need love hug them if thay need clothes give them if thay need a home a simple shelter help them why cant we live in harmony and tolerance >?????? someone at least ancer me that ?
Monday, February 27, 2006
Quiet War In Africa
Redwine's blog, which is linked here, leads off today with an in depth article on Dutch Shell Oil's essential ownership of and oppressive control of the Nigerian people and their government. It is well worth reading in entirety. Since about 40% of our Forum readers are from the USA, they, along with those of Europe, might make particular note of the letter on Redwine's post that was written by Ken Wiwa and directed to those of the US regarding their interest and culpability in the matter.
The move of the US into the region is also discussed well in a People's Daily article titled U.S. Steps Up Military Infiltration Into Africa.
"...To ensure the oil supply, the U.S. government has taken many measures of infiltration such as selling weapons to oil producing countries including Nigeria. ... U.S. military presence in Africa has two obvious tendencies: one is to deepen military cooperation in North Africa and the Horn of Africa for anti-terrorism purpose; and the other is to cooperate with West Africa for oil security. From strategic perspective, Washington's Africa policy has combined anti-terrorism, oil and garrisoning."
The rape and plunder of Africa is nothing new - it has been going on for centuries.
As an 18 year old conscript in the SADF in 1981 I was unfortunate enough to take part in one of South Africa's many invasions of Angola. Invasions that were largely funded by the US at Kissenger's behest, with technological support to the SADF by Israel.
I witnessed the brutal and senseless annialation of a whole town, the sight and smell of corpses in the river will stay with me forever.
Since the European 'voyages of discovery' Africa has been nothing more that a bag of goodies from which to pluck whatever we desire, without the slightest regard to those who live there - to the Western mind (overtly and subconsiosly) Africans are, after all uncivilised savages who cannot conform to the holy grail we call Democracy. To the West's system of rampant capitalism Africa is nothing more than a source of wealth. And we alleviate our guilt with charitable donations for the starving masses.
The oil companies (and others) must be forced to renegotiate fair deals with the various states (both in Africa and elsewhere). The corruption perpetuated by the payments these companies make to smooth their way must be stopped at the highest level.
Speak out for Africa - things could be different, and we could all benefit from a free, productive and prosperous Continent.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Sinking Ship
*
"Any businessman with any connection with the US, however tenuous, should think very carefully about the potential peril they face. Right here, right now, I would not advise even to engage in a business relationship with the US."
*
Across the world, friends and free traders are concerned about the course set by the US. They say that while its motives are diverse - national security, energy supply concerns, the protection of investors - there is a single conclusion: it has become riskier, costlier and harder to do business with the US and, unless that changes, fewer people will want to.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Samarra Bombing
I left this comment on Mark's blog "I didn’t see one mention of the C.I.A. on this page. Tendency of history repetition and mathematics of probability beckon me to include it".
Mark's response here included the following. ... Many thanks for visiting and commenting on my posting "Reaction to the Samarra Bombing" actually every single one of those comments I quoted was a reference to the CIA and would be understood to be such by the readers in those fora....".
Mark frequently comments on Nur's blog linked under our User Sites. Both are worth following.
The first question to be asked in attempting to understand events and their culpabilities is "Who benefits?" Possibilities to fit the "who" should look beyond those pointed to by immediate news report pre judgments. Masking possibilities is why some operations are called clandestine.
Is there really much benefit in achieving religious sect revenge, or might there be larger longer term designs of those publicly unexpected? A review of recent history might help. Can you think of a nation known for doing well within and without through de facto strategy of divide and conquer?
Hey, get 'em and keep 'em fighting each other and they'll quit fighting us. Guess we'll just have to stay there to protect them from each other and Iran and Syria and Turkey and yeah even Russia and those kinda guys.
America is dirty. Anything evil on this planet that happens, one better look at America to see their part in it if they want to fight the source.
Marks website tells the story of what did happen from the people it happened too, undisguised by media tampering and the oppressors lies.
more i read more i learn more i just want to cry and do how can people of one people let someone else cause so much pain and death we are all humans DOGGONEIT How can humans in humanity keep allowing so much death and pain???????????
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Boring to Ignorant
The ranking of the top 10 in order of desirability were 1) UK, 2) Switzerland, 3) Canada, 4) Italy, 5) Sweden, 6) Germany, 7) Japan, 8) France, 9) Australia, and 10) United States.
While UK citizens were considered to be the most polite and best educated, they were also rated the most boring. The French were seen as the "rudest". Americans were viewed as the most "ignorant".
No mention was made of "most war like", but that is rather obvious.
Not Made in China
Not Made in China
And.
"Not made in China".
Interesting comparison. I prefer the second. There should be a list of items not made in Usuk. It would help avoid further financing designs for world conquest. Their companies and workers pay the taxes which buy the bombs and pay the invaders.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Hearts Don't Twist
The answer is a simple "No, I know of none and doubt if any exist".
Filling that out depends on probable differing definitions, those assigned to "extreme", "left", "right", and "prominent".
Does "prominent" refer to those noted by public media, audio, visual or written? If so, I doubt we give it the same significance. Media pundits by nature of position cannot conceive of a leaderless movement more dedicated to cause than person. So, they create what they need. It is usually someone of willing acceptance for the wrong reasons, who fits erroneous media concept, and whose value lies in making believable but off the mark stories for media devotees.
The US is a nation of many subcultures mostly unaware of the others except in negative connotation. Media employees are usually from and always controlled by those of the dominant one. Most activists I've known shunned approaches by the media like the plague and let those who accepted media leadership crowns to do their thing just as long as they didn't get in the way, which they almost always did.
We probably also diverge on meaning of "extreme". People of the dominant US culture are easily characterized by extreme stupidity of wilful ignorance. All one has to do is consider knowledge they lack, how they act, what they allow, and what they are. Most of them would probably consider as extreme anyone advocating and advancing overthrow of that government by any means necessary. That such should be categorized as extreme is far from a universally held view.
Concepts of "left" and "right" are vaguely defined and vary between societies. The United States, champion land of propagandized dolts, is hardly the arbiter of labeling propriety. Here in Mexico for example, Ronald Reagan might be called "liberal" and Osama bin Laden "conservative". One would have to get beyond US borders to understand why, but it has to do with literal meaning rather than US distortion. My own view of such words are probably best illustrated by posts on this Forum, material in the Further Left Library, and in particular there, its section titled Radical Activism.
We have a saying in Mexico: "Hay mucho trecho entre dicho y hecho". It is recognition of a long distance between saying and doing. It applies to those who talk a big game of what is thought left and right while remaining in personal security high on the hill tops while expounding on the wounded in battles below. Most of those involved in what I considered "left" paid little attention to such word smiths. Immersion in activity prevented wasting concern talking about it to those who didn't matter.
It is thought by some who never were that the movement is a thing of the past. Not so. It existed long before us and will continue long after. Activity teaches it is not enough to understand the beast fought, to write and yell about it, raise temporary hell in the streets, disrupt establishment meetings, picket businesses, organize in bars and churches, leaflet on sidewalks and front doors, or even fight in fields. There is realization the price of change is devotion of lives to what is espoused. Many I've known determined to direct personal skills more intimately to that end throughout the time they had left. Strategies and tactics shifted in tune with time, situations, and individuals but never did they make the 180 degree turn postulated in the question at hand. Hearts don't twist.
There were some who weaseled into the system to subvert from inside. Others migrated to employment where they’d be more in touch with people most hurting.
Several workers I’d known with SNCC and SCLC rose to begrudging US national prominence and still fight for beliefs while occupying positions as large city mayors and councilmen, members of congress, international emissaries, and even a presidential candidate. Those might be called "prominent" for position but not out of understanding their base dedication.
Though residing in Mexico, I maintain contact with US friends of old still as involved as before with issues of the day. From those I can offer examples. A minister in the civil rights movement becomes an attorney, retires after heading a poverty law center, and now organizes neighborhoods to oppose bank discriminatory lending practices. A publisher of an underground newspaper goes to school after serving prison time, becomes an attorney, heads a large state ACLU office, and vacations in Latin America monitoring rightist response to guerilla struggles. He last visited us in Mexico after escaping as a prisoner of a right wing private army. A professor of English retires to write articles supporting social action and publishes a book to that end.
A NAACP past president once arrested for being a black Santa Claus still fights discriminatory hiring. An SDS militant becomes a nationally known drug rehabilitation consultant. A college student moves to union organizer and now sits on a city council. Another is a social worker who works fighting his bosses rather than clients, knowing the struggle is about power of the people. A black activist and organizer becomes a physician and presses for socialized medicine. Another couple become peace corp volunteers dancing with its CIA sponsor on company time and agitating revolution between the lines. My own twist was to apply a technical background toward agitating in what became computer communication.
The Further Left Chat Room is visited by several from around the world who have and still risk themselves regularly in dedication to the cause of its purpose. You won't hear much about that though. Those who talk are often by nature not those who do and those who do are often by necessity not those who talk.
But come around anyhow and enjoy the company. We'll do our best to help you move toward what is best done away from a computer or a thesis.
Monday, February 20, 2006
It's No Secret
*Here is some of the History of America that shows why their school children do not show an interest in their constitution or their rights.
*
"We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes."
*
"Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth."
*
"Schools should be factories in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products, manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry."
The US Homeland Security department is embarking on a program to train 600,000 school bus drivers as anti terrorist agents. It had to come about. The gimmick will be picked up quickly around the world. The goal of every government agency everywhere in these times is to acquire as many badges and guns as possible.
That's where the money is. More purchase kickback to the buyer and under the table splitting with the seller. Higher department budgets bring money for higher head honcho salary and grift with appropriate dribble down to those who would otherwise blow a whistle. What else is being in government for? Do you know of any who drive old cars?
Our side can quit invoking litany of need for old fashioned armed struggle and let the money gathers shoot themselves for the last buck in sight. Thank you Osama as you sit laughing with us at fools destroying themselves in pretense they are destroying us. Come on kids! Give those 600,000 something to do besides shine badges and learn to walk a John Wayne stroll.
Freedom, Who Cares?
It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence, according to a study of high school attitudes released Monday.
"The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly.", according to a recent article in MSNBC.com.
It's not just highschool kids though. For example - ask any of your friends what the fourth amendment is.
Here is a refresher: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Although there have been a lot of news on this topic (GITMO, extraordinary renditions, NSA spying, Patriot Act, FISA Courts...), the fourth amendment hardly ever gets mentioned. Kids learn by watching mindless TV. But if it's never talked about, how can they learn? How can they understand what this dictatorship is trying to take away?
well my friend just to show you what our talk did i got inspired and added to http://littlebitofsonshine.blogspot.com/. yeah such good info all over dont let it go to waist thanks hitec
Get the young people where they don't know nor care and the government has made their job that much easier as time goes on. These children of this nation now seem to say, who cares about freedom, I have the money to pay for what I want and that is all I care about. It is a sad thing to see America spoil its youth for the sake of oppressing the world.
Finally Honest TV
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Help Stop Iran War
Thursday, February 16, 2006
I'm One. So Are You.
Britain passed a law delineating statements which glorify terrorists as criteria for listing as same. The US terrorist list has grown to over 325,000. Stating that London and 9/11 were deserved response to histories of colonialism and aggression might cause inclusion. I said it. Count me in!
Not content with taking land and life, Zatikia's post below tells how Usukers now consider the internet itself as enemy to be conquered. You are here. You are a terrorist too!
A differing definition of terrorist, one to which I lean, and that acknowledged through much of the world, might be no more than having Usuk citizenship. Given such view, my terrorist list could be compiled by census count. The CIA gives populations of the US and UK as 295,734,134 and 50,441,457 respectively. Those add to 346,175,591 Usuker terrorists.
Ha! My list is a thousand times bigger than theirs. I win! And, I believe there is more truth to that than not.
If it weren't for destruction, death, and ruined lives brought by machinations of the list makers, the short sighted arrogance behind their attempts born of dreams concocted from yesterday's world would be considered silly and laughable. What they don't seem to have completely grasped is the full implication of very recent, profound, and unescapable changes that have effected all societies. Advances in transportation and communication have altered the slant of fields of action between old perpetrators of misery and previously yearning victims who now rise to read the rules of conquest backwards.
Technological shrinkage allows Usukers to rapidly send death dealing bombs, boats, bullies, and bullshit anywhere. No matter the speed or target, it also creates today an appropriate reception which might be properly accompanied with the blues line "You better treat me right or let me be, 'cause I can beat you doing what you're doing to me".
If extremism is right, then so be it. I believe there has to be a space for change.
1. Most men and women of Usuk are innocent and ignorant, unaware what their govts are doing. Not only are they unaware, they have no chance of being aware, that's the kind of control the administration wields.
2. More importantly, this terror empire is not only made up of those in the Usuk. They have their allies, carefully chosen in other nations. Africans, Indians, Japanese...none of the crimes alleged would have been possible if this marriage of the rulers there with the rulers right here had not taken place.
It would appear to me that leaving ones country, opening their minds and learning processes, and coming to the conclusion that the country you thought worth saving is not, is change in ones ideas in the very essence of it. A continuous process. Is it extreme to see it as a whole, not fragmented down, this country that threatens the world? Are we to forgive it and give it a kinder view but because some in it we feel can be excluded from the blame? To long that has been the disguise of America, but we are do gooders, we are but the people, innocent and unknowing in our ignorance. Evil is made of many ingredients to reach the peak it has in America, its not the yeses and the nos that tell the story, it is the whole. America is as it is in order for it to do what America does.
What is this word Terrorist? What has it become in its new glorified position in a society that rallies around such words? The crime with Americans is they are willfully ignorant. They all have the same choices. Should terrorist apply just to a president, or a believer flying an airplane into a tower? Or should it apply to those too who make that a reality by living and acting as they do? Choosing this form of ignorance is accepting terrorism to promote and provide for it. You cannot separate yourself from the source.
It is obvious knowledge that the USUKers are just the show out front and one of the main contributing factors in history, but that each country has its evil men too. That is government and should not be forgiven and is not. I see no forgiveness here on this forum for any of those sort. But time is short and effort important, look at the main source of the threat to the world, America, stop it and you will have a lot clearer playing field to sort the others out as they should be.
Its all in the names we become loyal to a mom .See america is the name of the land i was born the usa goverment in its whole from beging even to now was to become a world leader .The people not of america even friends who say we should have walls when even there own kin came here generations ago what if the natives one this whole place sea to sea and all the way around had put a wall wow not spanish wow not english wow no americans wow just more wars to leave there places of birth to a better place .Old saying the grass is allways greener on the other side Now do i stand on what side of a fence not of my making but a goverments making and people who think mine is allways greener when we all make it brown!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What is "extreme" depends on two ends of a line of sight. Its use often tells more about the user than those it labels.
Another interesting word is "ignorant". Note the root "ignore", an intentional turning aside from harsh truths of life from which others cannot. Its cleansed derivation is often used in vain attempt to shed guilt and qualify those of similar sort as "innocent" while self deceptively feigning craziness of the "How come everybody's always picking on me" syndrome.
Though the illness runs as rampant epidemic in Usuk, it also infects many in other nations, primarily those of northern Europe. Nor, are all elsewhere imune. The causative contagion everywhere is fixation on personal welfare over that of others rather than attention to the common good.
There is a less disingenuous use of those words. They have value to determine whom one regards as enemy and which are selected as friends. My friends and I know ours. I wonder if those crowned inocent by ignorance can get honest about theirs?
The point of the post is that it really makes no difference whether they can or not. Recent world changes have brought about the pay back time during which personal futures will be determined by the collectors' perceptions of which side one has chosen to aid.
While it is true that there are many americans who know and see but refuse to acknowledge, that hardly applies to all of them. The rulers in the Usuk, and those who support them willing to forget the crimes they do, are the terrorists. And there are those in both those nations, working in their fields or farms and not even knowing who their President or PM is, let alone the crimes they are committed to carrying out. Of course it is the job of every person in a country to learn and be aware and critical of those rule. So yes, if that farmer or fieldsman is killed in a terrorist attack, I agree none of us need to shed any tears; he might have been innocent as regards any crime, but guilty of a very big mistake. Political indifference...leading to political detachment. But...please do not call a politically disengaged farmer a terrorist. Though yes, revel and cheer his death in an attack with loads of champagne, he asked for it, no less.
I wonder what the percentage of Americans are who have not heard of Bush, just out on their little plots of land hoeing away in blissful ignorance and no television.
Why the conclusion if one is called part of a terrorist nation that they must die for it and a celebration called for? I do believe you are thinking with the mind of the enemy, not those who want to be free of them. Why is death the answer to be rid of a problem for your sort? Look further for your solutions than that. You build a fantasy here to stand in truths way. Thank you for your thoughts, but I suggest you move along on to someplace that is for protecting America and what it does, not exposing it.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Net War
Full Spectrum Dominance"The Pentagon sees the internet in terms of a military adversary that poses a vital threat to its stated mission of global domination. This explains the confrontational language in the document which speaks of “fighting the net”; implying that the internet is the equivalent of “an enemy weapons system."
I guess im slow i find you can only see from your own eyes to judge people and things and i think the net has helped me so much meet kind caring people all around the world who just want fairness true health and peace.Sad some can only see harm.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
So Needy
Saturday, February 11, 2006
US-Mex Border Crash
please ol please dont try to come to the usa like in days of old now they have spikes in the roads no care to your persion unless you have there proper papers and payed what thay want its freedom here no more so many laws so much lost hope papers papers every where but not a care to freedom ring its a paper thay want now or more paper to set you free.
So many ways to handle the age old migration of people on their own continent. Hunting them down, even to their death must be one of the most uncivilized. Especially when they are courted and welcomed by those who use them and make the laws against them.
yeah but heres the thing look how big usa mexico and below and candia are and how small the areas are that we are helping have war in some name or another looks like we could find the way to have peace and not war shoot most countrys on other contanents are so much smaller and cant find human peace in each others differances what would make anyone think a country of peace in war would ever stop and when will it stop world wide why cant we have peace with no borders world wide why cant we world wide not just usa mexico usa cuba why cant the world find peace and respect in our differances !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ok who teachs world respecat and manners is there a class ????
Left Behind
INTELLIDUNCE BRIEFING
This poem is constructed entirely of actual quotations of George W. Bush, the champion of American education who touted a program better renamed "I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It is a world of madmen and uncertainty.
And potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked.
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet.
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being.
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope.
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Overstepping
*Granma International from Cuba has a revealing article about it also: "Marcela Gonzalez Salas, president of the Chamber of Deputies, affirmed last night that evicting the Cubans on the basis of a U.S. law is totally shameful and asked for the Sheraton to be sanctioned. "I believe that this business of having U.S. legislation in Mexico and applying extraterritorial law is absolutely inconceivable and unacceptable," she stressed. "In Mexico we have to do something because this cannot go unpunished. Just think what we are coming to when a U.S. company can tell us who we can receive and not receive in our country."
From Prensa Latina this article: "Members of the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Cuba appeared in front of the building and closed it symbolically for two hours, during a protest. Closed down, for being servile to the US imperialism and hurt the national sovereignty, read one of the banners. "
Monday, February 06, 2006
Looking South
* The century that will mark the end of US imperialism, says Hugo Chavez of our future, as he accepted The Jose Marti Award from Castro. I read this Cuban article in Granma International this morning with a feeling of hope. Better leaders, better heroes, better people.
*
"Chavez, who recalled the 200-plus years of attempts on the part of U.S. imperialism to swallow up Our America, once again thanked the Cuban Revolution and people".
*
Looking at America looks bleak, like all that is good about mankind could be swallowed up for a profit. But looking away from America, the US of A, to the real Americas, I see such a better view.
*
And here in todays news from Mexico city, El Universal , I read of a program called the "Swap Your Guns for Coupons". A way to thin down the illegal guns in Mexico flowing across the border due to the escalating American war on drugs and migrants. No legal questions are asked. Coupons are good in grocery and department stores. A small positive solution to a massive negative problem. But little by little, or poco a poco as they say here.
*
"Buying a weapon legally is extremely difficult in Mexico. The Secretary of Defense issues all gun licenses after a wait of one year or more, and they cost about US$1,900. Licenses must be renewed every two years, and there are fewer than 2,500 registered gun owners in the entire country".
*
How good it would be if Mexico did not have this constant problem of having a border with a country like Untied States. It is hard to find a balance neighboring with a nation that out of control and so very dangerous and greedy.
*
The last thing I read is about another type of exchange, brought on by Americas actions and needs also. It seems that no matter where you look, there it is, evidence that America is a world plague, all it touches it taints, if not just all out spoils and kills.
*
Fraud Aid reports on "A system by which drug money profits are laundered through the use of international trade and blocked currency accounts". A telling of how "The drug money has thus been moved into the banking system, the broker has his new peso accounts, making money from all sides in the process, the drug dealers have their pesos, the Columbian importer has his foreign products to sell at a cheaper price, and everyone has made out like a bandit."
*
Americas drug policies and their drug needs are a weapon for spreading oppression and domination, and of course, their ever present goal, profit.
*
So I end my news reading for this session, too much of America too early is not good for the heart and soul. There is a better world out there, I hope it wins.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Cows with guns
Now for a brief intermission. Watch the short film Cows with guns to understand why cows and chickens have to stick together.
CODGERS WITH CANES
I have a dream. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. No, this is not about Martin Luther King. He's dead. I'm not...yet. His was a last dream. Mine is a ongoing fantasy.To follow it, you need first know two stories which give it seed. One is the video and song Cows With Guns, linked in Hitek's post above. If you have not yet seen and heard that, you should. Do so again even if already familiar. It will put you in the mood for considering my alternate ending to Chicken With Choppers.
Years ago, I came across a store window display of a cane which secretly encased a sword. I could afford then to purchase only items immediately necessary. I carried away the desire though not the cane.
Our son in law visited here a couple years ago. He is a knife guy who hunts and that sort of thing. Certainly, his affliction would be justifiable reason to drive the 120 kilometers to Sayula, Jalisco. There, in a town out of old Mexican Zoro movies, we were greeted by Don Josito himself and invited into his workshop. It dates from 1550, and he is the 13th generational maestro who works with his children and grandchildren to make collector knifes sold all over the world.
The hand made cutlery were works of art. The son in law could only afford to envy and covet fine crafted pocket knifes. But there was the cane, just the right length and feel, beautifully crafted of heavy dark red straight grained and polished rare tampicerán wood with secretly removable handle bearing a stainless steel sword. What else could I do?
I don't really need a cane, but recent revovery from broken back provides excuse. It is fun, to swing and twirl. People let you on and off a bus first and seem puzzled how quickly an old man with a cane can move. Its hidden core brings fantasy from the last and most remembered line of Cows With Guns, "Came the deafening roar of chickens in choppers". Why not Codgers With Canes?
We will fight for codger freedom, And hold our free fists high, We will hobble free on our (shhhh! he he he) canes, or die, Codgers with Canes.
Children didn't realize it was not only their own grandparents who failed to return unanswered phone calls. Doctors questioned not as they hurried from strangely empty nursing homes for a day of golf. They was no word from poorly paid attendants, gladly vacationing from forced grinning while emptying bed pans. Intelligence services made no analysis of the sudden increase in sales of Celebrex and Viagra.The traffic police were first to notice. Side walks in front of corporate home offices around the world seemed to have a lot of old people, and they all had canes. There were old ladies in tennis shoes, bow legged men with practiced limps, old farts pushing occupied wheel chairs, and they all had canes. No one questioned the need of a wheel chair occupant for a cane. Soon the streets filled and calls were made to police headquarters as codgers hobbled toward building entrances.
A plan was quickly devised. The cops would kick the canes and the codgers would fall. But CCC, the Codger Coordinating Committee, also had a plan based on knowing that bullet proof vests extend downward only to the belt line.
We will fight for codger freedom, And hold our free fists high, We will hobble free on our (shhhh! he he he) canes, or die, Codgers with Canes.
Well i finaly got to watch it and i loved it would like to see more cartoons like that.But i guess im just a big kid woohooo kitty and chins would make a great movie lolor dog with boxs of nails lol what a funny cartoon thay would make
Cows with Guns, Codgers with Canes. I just have to get my Kittens in Boots in on it.
http://www.rathergood.com/laibach .
Absurdity can have a meaningful message.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Shit Heads
A new brand of toilet paper called “Political” will soon appear in Russian and Ukrainian shops featuring the pictures of appropiate politicians including Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President George W. Bush, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Iran Says No
*It is absurd for the United States of America to claim its own leadership to the world and to say only the leader can do these things. The rest of you are followers and do as you are told. This is not leadership, but oppression and abuse. There is no equality or respect in this at all. Just a bully attempt to control. Thug mentality.
*
If it is one countries right, than it is anothers, just like the human race, we all have the same rights. America must be taken out of the position where it thinks it can decide who has these rights, if there is to be any sort of balance that can maintain peace in our world.
From Aljeezera: Iran Vows to Resist Western Pressures
"Iran's president has labeled the US a "hollow superpower" and declared his country would defy Western pressure and complete its nuclear programme".
"Ahmadinejad said that the US is "tainted with the blood of nations" and led by a man who became president through a court ruling".
