San Francisco -- May 9, 2005. THE GOD WHO WASN'T THERE, the first feature-length documentary to explore the theory that Jesus Christ never existed, will have its theatrical world premiere on May 21, 2005, at 1 p.m. at the Off-Market Theater, 965 Mission Street, San Francisco. It will also screen at 1 p.m. May 22. The world premiere is being hosted by San Francisco Atheists. Theatrical openings in New York, Los Angeles, Birmingham and other cities will follow.
THE GOD WHO WASN'T THERE is directed by internationally acclaimed filmmaker and playwright Brian Flemming ("Nothing So Strange," "Bat Boy: The Musical")and includes interviews with some of the top religion experts in the world. They include Robert M. Price ("Deconstructing Jesus"), Alan Dundes ("Holy Writ as Oral Lit") and Sam Harris ("The End of Faith").
The movie's soundtrack by DJ Madson, available now on CD, includes remixes of songs by David Byrne, Thievery Corporation, Zap Mama and Le Tigre.
"Jesus Christ is almost certainly a fictional character," said director Brian Flemming, a former fundamentalist Christian. "There are no historical accounts of Jesus from the period, and the stories that came later bear a striking resemblance to previous god myths. Even the early Christians did not believe in a human Christ.
"This is the dirty secret of Christianity, and it shouldn't be. THE GOD WHO WASN'T THERE attempts to restore Jesus to his rightful place--as a powerful literary character."
THE GOD WHO WASN'T THERE also explores the modern use of Jesus by the Christian right in the United States, and the rise of the paranoid apocalyptic theology represented by the popular "Left Behind" series of novels. "THE GOD WHO WASN'T THERE not only demonstrates that Jesus is a mythical character, but also shows why it matters that people believe he is something else," said Jim Heldberg, coordinator for San Francisco Atheists, which is hosting the world premiere.
A schedule of theatrical openings, a press kit and high-resolution photos are available now at www.thegodmovie.com. The press kit includes contact information for experts on the Christ-myth theory and others interviewed in the film. Requests for review copies of THE GOD WHO WASN'T THERE and interviews with Brian Flemming should be directed to David Fitzgerald of San Francisco Atheists at 415-939-3043.
ABOUT BRIAN FLEMMING
Brian Flemming's work has been called "a parallel universe" by the BBC, "jaggedly imaginative" by the New York Times, and "immensely satisfying" by USA Today. The Fox News Channel dubbed him "a young Oliver Stone." Flemming won the New York Times Claiborne Pell Award for Original Vision for his groundbreaking feature film "Nothing So Strange," which was released theatrically in 2003. A playwright as well as a filmmaker, Flemming is the co-author of the hit play "Bat Boy: The Musical," which opened in New York in 2001 (Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Off Broadway, six Drama Desk nominations) and has since been produced all over the world, including at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto and in London's West End.
Flemming is a former fundamentalist Christian. He is currently in production on "The Beast," a fictional thriller about a Christian girl who discovers proof that Jesus Christ never existed. "The Beast" is scheduled for worldwide theatrical release on 6-6-06.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Sovietization of America
Excerpt: http://www.alternet.org/story/22057/
One of the Republican party's proudest boasts is that Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Evil Empire. The irony is they are now recreating pieces of that police state here at home now.
Hyperbole? You judge -- while you still can. From The New York Times:
Now, the Patriot Act -- you know, the law that among other things allows federal agents to demand your local library tell them what books you are reading -- is about to be expanded.
Little by little this administration has chipped away at state powers by transferring them to Washington. And nowhere has this process been more pronounced than in the area of law enforcement and the courts. The FBI, which once had to defer to local and state law enforcers when on their turf, can now barge right in and take charge. All they have to do is an investigation a "national security" or "homeland security" matter.
Federal courts, which have acted as a brake on law enforcement abuses, are being systemically stacked with rightwing judges less likely to side with victims of overzealous cops or invasions of personal privacy.
That's why this is going on right now:
The Bushites are on a neocon roll and the federal judiciary is their final obstacle. If they can stack the appellate courts and appoint two rightwing Supreme Court justices before the end of Bush's final term, it will be "game over" for civil libertarians -- and America as we knew her.
Related article here...http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0518-24.htm
One of the Republican party's proudest boasts is that Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Evil Empire. The irony is they are now recreating pieces of that police state here at home now.
Hyperbole? You judge -- while you still can. From The New York Times:
WASHINGTON, May 18 - The Bush administration and Senate Republican leaders are pushing a plan that would significantly expand the F.B.I.'s power to demand business records in terror investigations without obtaining approval from a judge, officials said on Wednesday. "This is a dramatic expansion of the federal government's power," said Lisa Graves, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington. "It's really a power grab by the administration for the F.B.I. to secretly demand medical records, tax records, gun purchase records and all sorts of other material if they deem it relevant to an intelligence investigation."
Now, the Patriot Act -- you know, the law that among other things allows federal agents to demand your local library tell them what books you are reading -- is about to be expanded.
Little by little this administration has chipped away at state powers by transferring them to Washington. And nowhere has this process been more pronounced than in the area of law enforcement and the courts. The FBI, which once had to defer to local and state law enforcers when on their turf, can now barge right in and take charge. All they have to do is an investigation a "national security" or "homeland security" matter.
Federal courts, which have acted as a brake on law enforcement abuses, are being systemically stacked with rightwing judges less likely to side with victims of overzealous cops or invasions of personal privacy.
That's why this is going on right now:
WASHINGTON, May 18 - The Senate plunged into an intense partisan struggle on Wednesday over the fate of stalled federal court nominees and the governance of the institution itself as the two parties locked in a debate over the right of the minority to prevent votes on a president's judicial candidates. "If Republicans roll back our rights in this chamber, there will be no check on their power," said Senator Reid. "The radical, right wing will be free to pursue any agenda they want. And not just on judges. Their power will be unchecked on Supreme Court nominees, the president's nominees in general and legislation like Social Security privatization.
The Bushites are on a neocon roll and the federal judiciary is their final obstacle. If they can stack the appellate courts and appoint two rightwing Supreme Court justices before the end of Bush's final term, it will be "game over" for civil libertarians -- and America as we knew her.
Related article here...http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0518-24.htm
Guantánamo Comes to Define U.S. to Muslims
By SOMINI SENGUPTA and SALMAN MASOOD
From the New York Times
NEW DELHI, May 20 - In one of Pakistan's most exclusive private schools for boys, the annual play this year was "Guantánamo," a docudrama based on testimonies of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, the United States naval base in Cuba.
The cast was made up of students between 16 and 18 years old, each playing the role of a prisoner being held on suspicion of terrorism. To deepen their understanding of their characters, the boys pored through articles in Pakistani newspapers, studied the international press and surfed Web sites, including one that described itself as a nonsectarian Islamic human rights portal and is called cageprisoners.com.
It didn't matter that the boys at the Lahore Grammar School, an elite academy that has sent many of its graduates to study in American universities, lived in a world quite removed from that known by most prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The more they explored, the more the play resonated, the director of the school's production, Omair Rana, recalled Friday in a telephone interview. The detainees were Muslim, many were Pakistani and one had been arrested in Islamabad, the country's capital.
"It was something we all could relate to," Mr. Rana said of "Guantánamo," a play created "from spoken evidence" by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, a Briton and a South African, that was staged in London and in New York last year. "All that seemed very relevant, very nearby - in fact, too close for comfort."
Accounts of abuses at the actual American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, including Newsweek magazine's now-retracted article on the desecration of the Koran, ricochet around the world, instilling ideas about American power and justice, and sowing distrust of the United States. Even more than the written accounts are the images that flash on television screens throughout the Muslim world: caged men, in orange prison jumpsuits, on their knees. On Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, two satellite networks, images of the prisoners appear in station promos.
For many Muslims, Guantánamo stands as a confirmation of the low regard in which they believe the United States holds them. For many non-Muslims, regardless of their feelings toward the United States, it has emerged as a symbol of American hypocrisy.
"The cages, the orange suits, the shackles - it's as if they're dealing with something that's like a germ they don't want to touch," said Daoud Kuttab, director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah, in the West Bank. "That's the nastiness of it."
(More here...)
From the New York Times
NEW DELHI, May 20 - In one of Pakistan's most exclusive private schools for boys, the annual play this year was "Guantánamo," a docudrama based on testimonies of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, the United States naval base in Cuba.
The cast was made up of students between 16 and 18 years old, each playing the role of a prisoner being held on suspicion of terrorism. To deepen their understanding of their characters, the boys pored through articles in Pakistani newspapers, studied the international press and surfed Web sites, including one that described itself as a nonsectarian Islamic human rights portal and is called cageprisoners.com.
It didn't matter that the boys at the Lahore Grammar School, an elite academy that has sent many of its graduates to study in American universities, lived in a world quite removed from that known by most prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The more they explored, the more the play resonated, the director of the school's production, Omair Rana, recalled Friday in a telephone interview. The detainees were Muslim, many were Pakistani and one had been arrested in Islamabad, the country's capital.
"It was something we all could relate to," Mr. Rana said of "Guantánamo," a play created "from spoken evidence" by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, a Briton and a South African, that was staged in London and in New York last year. "All that seemed very relevant, very nearby - in fact, too close for comfort."
Accounts of abuses at the actual American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, including Newsweek magazine's now-retracted article on the desecration of the Koran, ricochet around the world, instilling ideas about American power and justice, and sowing distrust of the United States. Even more than the written accounts are the images that flash on television screens throughout the Muslim world: caged men, in orange prison jumpsuits, on their knees. On Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, two satellite networks, images of the prisoners appear in station promos.
For many Muslims, Guantánamo stands as a confirmation of the low regard in which they believe the United States holds them. For many non-Muslims, regardless of their feelings toward the United States, it has emerged as a symbol of American hypocrisy.
"The cages, the orange suits, the shackles - it's as if they're dealing with something that's like a germ they don't want to touch," said Daoud Kuttab, director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah, in the West Bank. "That's the nastiness of it."
(More here...)
Iraqi Resistance Report
Tuesday, 17 May 2005. from charlievictor
Al-Anbar Province, Saqlawiyah. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter blew up an explosives-laden white Daewoo car amidst a US foot patrol. The fighter driving the car pulled up close to the American patrol and suddenly stopped. He called to the Americans asking them to come over to help him with his car. He did not have the appearance of a militant nor was he armed, but when the American troops gathered around him he blew himself and his car up, killing 20 US troops. Seven of the dead Americans had gathered very close to his car and their bodies were completely charred by the blast.
Rutbah. Iraqi Resistance forces near the border with Jordan fired a rocket scoring a direct hit on the rear of a US Apache helicopter. American troops and Iraqi fire fighters headed to the wreckage of the aircraft burning on the ground in a farm field. No information on the fate of the helicopter crew, since US forces kept the area sealed off.
Al-Qa'im. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter drove an explosives-packed car into a US checkpoint killing nine American troops and wounding five. The Americans called in two Apache helicopters to evacuate their dead and wounded. The American forces arrested an American Associated Press photographer who tried to take pictures of the bodies of the dead and wounded Americans strewn on the ground and smashed his camera.
Ramadi. An Iraqi Resistance Opel car bomb parked on a dirt road as an American patrol was passing, destroying one Humvee and killing four American soldiers. US troops deployed and sealed off the area, raided and searched houses and nearby farms, and arrested four civilians.
Baghdad. US troops attacked the home of the Iraqi lawyer representing President Saddam Hussein, stole his legal documents and Defense Committee papers relating to the case, in addition to money and valuables, in particular jewelry, telephones, and $40,000. The legal defense team for President Saddam Hussein, which the Iraqi President and his daughters selected, consists of 24 attorneys, including the former French Minister of Defense Roland Dumas, and the Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
The Iraqi Resistance bombarded the notorious American Abu Ghurayb prison camp yet again with seven mortar rounds. US helicopters in the air tried to pinpoint the source of the incoming fire, but failed. Later an Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US military patrol in a village east of Abu Ghurayb destroying one Humvee, killing three US soldiers and wounding two.
An Iraqi Resistance car bomb exploded by a US military column as it passed the intersection on the highway from Baghdad to the west, destroying two Humvees and killing seven US troops and wounding two. US forces encircled the area closing the highway to traffic and preventing anyone from approaching. Other American troops hauled away the wrecked vehicles and the remains of the dead and wounded to their base.
Puppet forces are waging a massive sectarian campaign targeted at Sunni personalities in conformity with US "divide and rule" strategy of pitting Iraqis against each other. The so-called Wolf Brigade of the puppet "Iraqi National Guard" over the past two days carried out repressive raids, arrests, torture and murder targetting more than 100 persons in various parts of the country, but especially Baghdad.
The murder took place of Sunni Shaykh Dulaymi during a raid on his mosque and the arrest of Shaykh Nu'aymi, a member of the Consultative Council of the Board of Muslim 'Ulama', along with several worshippers in his mosque, some tortured and then murdered. Their bodies were found near the al-Firdaws Mosque on the outskirts of Baghdad. Relatives of the victims said they had been abducted by members of the Wolf Brigade of the Iraqi puppet regime's "national guard."
Two men were found barely alive among the corpses of the other victims: both were taken to the City Medical Hospital but members of the puppet "national guards" caught up with one of them and took him out of the hospital and no more is known of him. The puppet guards failed to find the other man.
The Board of Muslim 'Ulama' expressed concern over the fate of Shaykh Nu'aymi and Shaykh Razzaq who were arrested several days ago and demanded their immediate release, after prisoners released from the overcrowded occupation prison camps reported that the two religious leaders had been subjected to intensive torture likely to cause death.
"Two days after the arrest by the so-called Shock Forces of the puppet police of Shaykh Nu'aymi, Imam and preacher of the Shahid Yusuf Mosque in Baghdad, his body was identified among the corpses in the Medical City Hospital in Baghdad. The Shaykh had been killed by those forces after his arrest was announced on television by a satellite TV network."
Kazakh Defense Minister, General Altynbayev supports the withdrawal of the Kazakh contingent from Iraq. "It's time to think about stopping the work of our formation in Iraq,' he told reporters. Asked whether he would submit his proposal to the president, he said: "I have expressed my opinion. I think the head of state and parliament will hear about it on TV." Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, of which Kazakhstan was a constituent republic, the country has increasingly been drawn into the orbit of Washington. A 27-man-strong sapper platoon was sent to Iraq in August 2003 to serve the American occupation, clearing mines and working on water supplies. Since its deployment, the Kazakh contingent neutralized 3 million mines, unexploded bombs and shells. One Kazakh soldier has been killed and several wounded.
Diyala Province, Mundhiriyah. Iraqi Resistance forces killed seven Iranians, agents of Iranian intelligence, who infiltrated across the border into Iraq illegally. The Iranians were found in possession of weapons and explosives. Killed along with the seven Iranians was one Iraqi resident of the border area acting as their guide. They intended to commit acts of sabotage in the Land of the Two Rivers, and they "received their just punishment after confessing to their ugly intentions." Later, the Iraqi puppet police found the eight bodies.
At-Ta'mim Province, Kirkuk. A Resistance car bomber blasted a joint US-Iraqi puppet checkpoint, killing six Americans, and three Iraqi puppet troops. US forces evacuated Americans, leaving Iraqi casualties behind. Iraqi stooges showed resentment that the Americans evacuated their dead, but left the Iraqi stooges lying there in their pools of blood. Such behaviour contradicted what the Americans told the Iraqi puppet forces, that the Iraqi puppet army and the American army were united as one in confronting what they call "terrorism" - meaning the Iraqi Resistance.
Al-Anbar Province, Saqlawiyah. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter blew up an explosives-laden white Daewoo car amidst a US foot patrol. The fighter driving the car pulled up close to the American patrol and suddenly stopped. He called to the Americans asking them to come over to help him with his car. He did not have the appearance of a militant nor was he armed, but when the American troops gathered around him he blew himself and his car up, killing 20 US troops. Seven of the dead Americans had gathered very close to his car and their bodies were completely charred by the blast.
Rutbah. Iraqi Resistance forces near the border with Jordan fired a rocket scoring a direct hit on the rear of a US Apache helicopter. American troops and Iraqi fire fighters headed to the wreckage of the aircraft burning on the ground in a farm field. No information on the fate of the helicopter crew, since US forces kept the area sealed off.
Al-Qa'im. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter drove an explosives-packed car into a US checkpoint killing nine American troops and wounding five. The Americans called in two Apache helicopters to evacuate their dead and wounded. The American forces arrested an American Associated Press photographer who tried to take pictures of the bodies of the dead and wounded Americans strewn on the ground and smashed his camera.
Ramadi. An Iraqi Resistance Opel car bomb parked on a dirt road as an American patrol was passing, destroying one Humvee and killing four American soldiers. US troops deployed and sealed off the area, raided and searched houses and nearby farms, and arrested four civilians.
Baghdad. US troops attacked the home of the Iraqi lawyer representing President Saddam Hussein, stole his legal documents and Defense Committee papers relating to the case, in addition to money and valuables, in particular jewelry, telephones, and $40,000. The legal defense team for President Saddam Hussein, which the Iraqi President and his daughters selected, consists of 24 attorneys, including the former French Minister of Defense Roland Dumas, and the Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
The Iraqi Resistance bombarded the notorious American Abu Ghurayb prison camp yet again with seven mortar rounds. US helicopters in the air tried to pinpoint the source of the incoming fire, but failed. Later an Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US military patrol in a village east of Abu Ghurayb destroying one Humvee, killing three US soldiers and wounding two.
An Iraqi Resistance car bomb exploded by a US military column as it passed the intersection on the highway from Baghdad to the west, destroying two Humvees and killing seven US troops and wounding two. US forces encircled the area closing the highway to traffic and preventing anyone from approaching. Other American troops hauled away the wrecked vehicles and the remains of the dead and wounded to their base.
Puppet forces are waging a massive sectarian campaign targeted at Sunni personalities in conformity with US "divide and rule" strategy of pitting Iraqis against each other. The so-called Wolf Brigade of the puppet "Iraqi National Guard" over the past two days carried out repressive raids, arrests, torture and murder targetting more than 100 persons in various parts of the country, but especially Baghdad.
The murder took place of Sunni Shaykh Dulaymi during a raid on his mosque and the arrest of Shaykh Nu'aymi, a member of the Consultative Council of the Board of Muslim 'Ulama', along with several worshippers in his mosque, some tortured and then murdered. Their bodies were found near the al-Firdaws Mosque on the outskirts of Baghdad. Relatives of the victims said they had been abducted by members of the Wolf Brigade of the Iraqi puppet regime's "national guard."
Two men were found barely alive among the corpses of the other victims: both were taken to the City Medical Hospital but members of the puppet "national guards" caught up with one of them and took him out of the hospital and no more is known of him. The puppet guards failed to find the other man.
The Board of Muslim 'Ulama' expressed concern over the fate of Shaykh Nu'aymi and Shaykh Razzaq who were arrested several days ago and demanded their immediate release, after prisoners released from the overcrowded occupation prison camps reported that the two religious leaders had been subjected to intensive torture likely to cause death.
"Two days after the arrest by the so-called Shock Forces of the puppet police of Shaykh Nu'aymi, Imam and preacher of the Shahid Yusuf Mosque in Baghdad, his body was identified among the corpses in the Medical City Hospital in Baghdad. The Shaykh had been killed by those forces after his arrest was announced on television by a satellite TV network."
Kazakh Defense Minister, General Altynbayev supports the withdrawal of the Kazakh contingent from Iraq. "It's time to think about stopping the work of our formation in Iraq,' he told reporters. Asked whether he would submit his proposal to the president, he said: "I have expressed my opinion. I think the head of state and parliament will hear about it on TV." Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, of which Kazakhstan was a constituent republic, the country has increasingly been drawn into the orbit of Washington. A 27-man-strong sapper platoon was sent to Iraq in August 2003 to serve the American occupation, clearing mines and working on water supplies. Since its deployment, the Kazakh contingent neutralized 3 million mines, unexploded bombs and shells. One Kazakh soldier has been killed and several wounded.
Diyala Province, Mundhiriyah. Iraqi Resistance forces killed seven Iranians, agents of Iranian intelligence, who infiltrated across the border into Iraq illegally. The Iranians were found in possession of weapons and explosives. Killed along with the seven Iranians was one Iraqi resident of the border area acting as their guide. They intended to commit acts of sabotage in the Land of the Two Rivers, and they "received their just punishment after confessing to their ugly intentions." Later, the Iraqi puppet police found the eight bodies.
At-Ta'mim Province, Kirkuk. A Resistance car bomber blasted a joint US-Iraqi puppet checkpoint, killing six Americans, and three Iraqi puppet troops. US forces evacuated Americans, leaving Iraqi casualties behind. Iraqi stooges showed resentment that the Americans evacuated their dead, but left the Iraqi stooges lying there in their pools of blood. Such behaviour contradicted what the Americans told the Iraqi puppet forces, that the Iraqi puppet army and the American army were united as one in confronting what they call "terrorism" - meaning the Iraqi Resistance.
Iraqi Resistance Report
Monday, 16 May 2005. from charlievictor
It would seem that Newsweek is being used as a patsy for the obfuscation of the clash of mythologies and ideologies, since it is well-known that the Righteous Holy Crusaders and the New Israelite Warriors routinely desecrate the holy scriptures of the occupied Muslim citizens of Iraq.--Pete
Khalidiyah. Resistance fighters armed with anti-personnel rockets and BKC medium machine guns attacked an American foot patrol near the Citizenship Office, killing or wounding 11 US troops. The Resistance fighters withdrew unscathed towards the old city cemetery. US forces surrounded the scene and closed the old highway linking Ramadi with Baghdad.
Hit. A high-explosive Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a column of four Humvees near the old citadel destroying one Humvee, killing four US troops and wounding two in the vehicle. Two more Americans in the vehicle behind the one that blew up were also wounded by flying shrapnel. US troops surrounded the area and arrested a number of shopkeepers in the area, accusing them of being involved in the attack and not telling the occupation troops that Resistance fighters were planting a bomb.
Baghdad. Iraqi Resistance forces mounted an intensive mortar bombardment with ten heavy 120mm and 80mm mortar rounds on the US 'Ayn al-Asad base causing a series of explosions and flames and rising smoke as American aircraft came in over the area.
Ramadi. Violent combat broke out between 20 Iraqi Resistance forces, equipped with light and medium arms, RPG7 rocket-propelled grenades and pipe rockets, and US occupation forces in a column of five US armored vehicles and three Humvees.The fighting left six American soldiers dead and five wounded. One armored vehicle was set ablaze and a Humvee destroyed.
An Iraqi Resistance explosives-laden Opel car exploded on a road leading to the US al-Warrar base as a column of six US armoured vehicles was passing, destroying one armoured vehicle and disabling a second. Six American troops were killed and four were wounded.
50 US soldiers stormed into the al-Quds Mosque at dawn and "searched" the building. They ransacked the mosque tearing up copies of the Qur'an and beating up worshippers. The Imam of the mosque said : "Americans stormed into the mosque as we were starting the dawn prayer. They trampled all over the mosque with their boots while surrounding us and confining us to one corner while they searched the mosque and the adjoining rooms. A number of the soldiers, in full view of the commander of their group, kicked copies of the Qur'an around on the floor having fun in a game among themselves, until they got to the outer door of the mosque. One soldier pointed to a copy of the Qur'an with his finger while kicking it with his foot and laughing." "Another soldier carrying black paint, drew seven crosses on the pulpit and three on the prayer rug of the Imam who was standing in front of the worshippers. He drew three more crosses on the interior door of the mosque and on the two interior supports. If they desecrated a copy of the Qur'an in Guantanamo, here in Iraq, God's Book is abused every day by the Crusaders and the Jews."
Fallujah. Iraqi Resistance forces fired four Grad rockets into the US base, sending up two plumes of dense smoke. US helicopters hovered over the base.
Baghdad. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter drove a pickup truck loaded with propane gas cylinders used for cooking into a column of US occupation troops destroying a Humvee, killing all aboard. The explosion set a tank on fire from the turret, disabling it and wounding the soldiers aboard. US forces encircled the area and called in two helidopters to evacuate their dead and wounded. The Americans left a small force to guard the disabled tank and the wreck of the Humvee from the cameras of journalists who gathered in the vicinity.
The puppet "Iraqi minister of defense" ad-Dulaymi, who comes from the predominantly Sunni city of Ramadi banned raids on Sunni mosques in Baghdad and the provinces by puppet "national guard", and puppet army troops, the so-called "shock forces." The order stipulated penalties of imprisonment and discharge from the puppet service for any members who violated the order and raided Sunni mosques on the excuse that Resistance fighters might be inside. Several Shi'i collaborator politicians expressed strong reservations with the order. Since the installation of the current Shi'i chauvinist puppet "prime minister" al-Ja'fari, raids by largely Shi'i puppet security forces on Sunni mosques and arrests of Sunni religious and community leaders have sharply increased.
Balad. Iraqi Resistance forces using heavy machine guns shot down an unmanned US reconnaissance plane used for spying on the movements of the Iraqi Resistance and set it on fire, causing it to crash.
Ba 'qubah. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a patrol of four Humvees, destroying one Humvee, killing two US troops, wounding three.
Mosul. An Iraqi Resistance roadside bomb destroyed a US Zil troop transport and killed five American soldiers and seriously wounded one. After the attack US forces opened fire indiscriminately around the area, killing a woman and her husband who happened to be passing in their car on their way home.
Iraqi Resistance forces armed with light weapons and RPG7 rocket-propelled grenades attacked an American truck convoy loaded with fuel for the US occupation forces, setting two tankers ablaze, killing two American drivers and wounding two.
Tall 'Afar. Iraqi Resistance forces fired a barrage of rockets into the US base destroying an observation tower. A number of US troops inside the tower were killed or wounded when it fell to earth.
It would seem that Newsweek is being used as a patsy for the obfuscation of the clash of mythologies and ideologies, since it is well-known that the Righteous Holy Crusaders and the New Israelite Warriors routinely desecrate the holy scriptures of the occupied Muslim citizens of Iraq.--Pete
Khalidiyah. Resistance fighters armed with anti-personnel rockets and BKC medium machine guns attacked an American foot patrol near the Citizenship Office, killing or wounding 11 US troops. The Resistance fighters withdrew unscathed towards the old city cemetery. US forces surrounded the scene and closed the old highway linking Ramadi with Baghdad.
Hit. A high-explosive Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a column of four Humvees near the old citadel destroying one Humvee, killing four US troops and wounding two in the vehicle. Two more Americans in the vehicle behind the one that blew up were also wounded by flying shrapnel. US troops surrounded the area and arrested a number of shopkeepers in the area, accusing them of being involved in the attack and not telling the occupation troops that Resistance fighters were planting a bomb.
Baghdad. Iraqi Resistance forces mounted an intensive mortar bombardment with ten heavy 120mm and 80mm mortar rounds on the US 'Ayn al-Asad base causing a series of explosions and flames and rising smoke as American aircraft came in over the area.
Ramadi. Violent combat broke out between 20 Iraqi Resistance forces, equipped with light and medium arms, RPG7 rocket-propelled grenades and pipe rockets, and US occupation forces in a column of five US armored vehicles and three Humvees.The fighting left six American soldiers dead and five wounded. One armored vehicle was set ablaze and a Humvee destroyed.
An Iraqi Resistance explosives-laden Opel car exploded on a road leading to the US al-Warrar base as a column of six US armoured vehicles was passing, destroying one armoured vehicle and disabling a second. Six American troops were killed and four were wounded.
50 US soldiers stormed into the al-Quds Mosque at dawn and "searched" the building. They ransacked the mosque tearing up copies of the Qur'an and beating up worshippers. The Imam of the mosque said : "Americans stormed into the mosque as we were starting the dawn prayer. They trampled all over the mosque with their boots while surrounding us and confining us to one corner while they searched the mosque and the adjoining rooms. A number of the soldiers, in full view of the commander of their group, kicked copies of the Qur'an around on the floor having fun in a game among themselves, until they got to the outer door of the mosque. One soldier pointed to a copy of the Qur'an with his finger while kicking it with his foot and laughing." "Another soldier carrying black paint, drew seven crosses on the pulpit and three on the prayer rug of the Imam who was standing in front of the worshippers. He drew three more crosses on the interior door of the mosque and on the two interior supports. If they desecrated a copy of the Qur'an in Guantanamo, here in Iraq, God's Book is abused every day by the Crusaders and the Jews."
Fallujah. Iraqi Resistance forces fired four Grad rockets into the US base, sending up two plumes of dense smoke. US helicopters hovered over the base.
Baghdad. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter drove a pickup truck loaded with propane gas cylinders used for cooking into a column of US occupation troops destroying a Humvee, killing all aboard. The explosion set a tank on fire from the turret, disabling it and wounding the soldiers aboard. US forces encircled the area and called in two helidopters to evacuate their dead and wounded. The Americans left a small force to guard the disabled tank and the wreck of the Humvee from the cameras of journalists who gathered in the vicinity.
The puppet "Iraqi minister of defense" ad-Dulaymi, who comes from the predominantly Sunni city of Ramadi banned raids on Sunni mosques in Baghdad and the provinces by puppet "national guard", and puppet army troops, the so-called "shock forces." The order stipulated penalties of imprisonment and discharge from the puppet service for any members who violated the order and raided Sunni mosques on the excuse that Resistance fighters might be inside. Several Shi'i collaborator politicians expressed strong reservations with the order. Since the installation of the current Shi'i chauvinist puppet "prime minister" al-Ja'fari, raids by largely Shi'i puppet security forces on Sunni mosques and arrests of Sunni religious and community leaders have sharply increased.
Balad. Iraqi Resistance forces using heavy machine guns shot down an unmanned US reconnaissance plane used for spying on the movements of the Iraqi Resistance and set it on fire, causing it to crash.
Ba 'qubah. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a patrol of four Humvees, destroying one Humvee, killing two US troops, wounding three.
Mosul. An Iraqi Resistance roadside bomb destroyed a US Zil troop transport and killed five American soldiers and seriously wounded one. After the attack US forces opened fire indiscriminately around the area, killing a woman and her husband who happened to be passing in their car on their way home.
Iraqi Resistance forces armed with light weapons and RPG7 rocket-propelled grenades attacked an American truck convoy loaded with fuel for the US occupation forces, setting two tankers ablaze, killing two American drivers and wounding two.
Tall 'Afar. Iraqi Resistance forces fired a barrage of rockets into the US base destroying an observation tower. A number of US troops inside the tower were killed or wounded when it fell to earth.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Terrorist Network Operating Openly In The United States
By Jane Franklin
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-04/30franklin_.cfm
Three years ago, President Bush said that his War on Terror would pursue terrorists "in any dark corner of the world," but no light has been cast on Miami where terrorists for decades have waged a campaign against Cuba of hit-and run attacks, sabotage, infiltration of armed agents, assassination, etc. After the failure of the CIA's 1961 invasion, using Cuban émigrés at the Bay of Pigs, the CIA tried another plan, Operation Mongoose, which also failed after leading directly to the 1962 October Missile Crisis. Then, for years, about 300 agents operating out of a CIA station housed at the University of Miami, with the code name JM WAVE, employed a few thousand Cuban émigrés in efforts to overthrow the Cuban government. These covert activities and the overt trade embargo and travel ban constitute a continuing State of Siege against the island 90 miles from Florida.
To this day, groups with names like Alpha 66 and F4 operate with impunity. They even brag about their exploits on TV. After a raid on a Havana hotel in 1992, Tony Bryant, the head of Comandos L, announced at a televised news conference plans for more raids on Cuba's tourist industry, which was becoming the mainstay of the Cuban economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bryant warned tourists to stay off the island, declaring, "From this point on, we're at war," adding, "The Neutrality Act doesn't exist."
Last year on Channel 41, Oscar Asa, nephew of former Cuban Dictator Fulgencio Batista, hosted Comandos F4 leader Rodolfo Frómeta, who described continuing plans for armed attacks against Cuba. These days another nation has become a target of U.S.-based terrorists: along with F4 on Asa's program was former Venezuelan Army Captain Eduardo García, who was involved in the 2002 coup that briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. García praised Comandos F4 for their help in his continuing efforts to topple the Venezuelan government. They train together in the Florida Everglades.
Among the earliest Cuban émigrés to become CIA agents were Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, two of the most notorious terrorists in the Western Hemisphere. As Posada boasted in 1998 to New York Times reporters, "The CIA taught us everything--everything." "They taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in acts of sabotage." (more...)
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-04/30franklin_.cfm
Three years ago, President Bush said that his War on Terror would pursue terrorists "in any dark corner of the world," but no light has been cast on Miami where terrorists for decades have waged a campaign against Cuba of hit-and run attacks, sabotage, infiltration of armed agents, assassination, etc. After the failure of the CIA's 1961 invasion, using Cuban émigrés at the Bay of Pigs, the CIA tried another plan, Operation Mongoose, which also failed after leading directly to the 1962 October Missile Crisis. Then, for years, about 300 agents operating out of a CIA station housed at the University of Miami, with the code name JM WAVE, employed a few thousand Cuban émigrés in efforts to overthrow the Cuban government. These covert activities and the overt trade embargo and travel ban constitute a continuing State of Siege against the island 90 miles from Florida.
To this day, groups with names like Alpha 66 and F4 operate with impunity. They even brag about their exploits on TV. After a raid on a Havana hotel in 1992, Tony Bryant, the head of Comandos L, announced at a televised news conference plans for more raids on Cuba's tourist industry, which was becoming the mainstay of the Cuban economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bryant warned tourists to stay off the island, declaring, "From this point on, we're at war," adding, "The Neutrality Act doesn't exist."
Last year on Channel 41, Oscar Asa, nephew of former Cuban Dictator Fulgencio Batista, hosted Comandos F4 leader Rodolfo Frómeta, who described continuing plans for armed attacks against Cuba. These days another nation has become a target of U.S.-based terrorists: along with F4 on Asa's program was former Venezuelan Army Captain Eduardo García, who was involved in the 2002 coup that briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. García praised Comandos F4 for their help in his continuing efforts to topple the Venezuelan government. They train together in the Florida Everglades.
Among the earliest Cuban émigrés to become CIA agents were Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, two of the most notorious terrorists in the Western Hemisphere. As Posada boasted in 1998 to New York Times reporters, "The CIA taught us everything--everything." "They taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in acts of sabotage." (more...)
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Iraqi Resistance Report
Wednesday, 11 May 2005. From Charlevictor
Anbar Province, Al-Qa'im. More than 40 US Marines were killed in bloody battles with the Iraqi Resistance in the villages of Rummanah and Karabilah. Iraqi Resistance forces at dawn mounted a fierce rocket attack on US positions on the outskirts of the villages, killing and wounding dozens of American troops. After the attack, US troops stormed into the houses of local people to sleep there, using the civilians as human shields.
The Iraqi Resistance announced their forces killed the notorious US General "Drinkwine", Commander of US operations in al-Qa'im, observing the situation of his military units in the area. His body was found among the crew of a US helicopter shot down in flames to crash over Rummanah village. The General's name "Drinkwine" seems to be a nickname, as American field commanders have taken to adopting names intended to intimidate or enrage the Iraqi Resistance and raise the morale of the American invader troops. Two days ago a US officer at a press conference in the American occupation HQ in the Republican Palace area of Baghdad, known to the Americans as the "green zone," introduced himself as "Bull" presumably not intended to reflect the officer's limited intellectual abilities or insensate brutality, but his supposed strength and courage. In another example, an American field lieutenant identifying himself as "Thunder" appeared in a communiqué by the 4th Marine Division in the al-Ba`aj area of Mosul in which the Americans boasted they would soon arrest Jordanian Islamist Abu Zarqawi.
Whatever the true name of the American general shot down and killed, he was the same American general who issued an infamous statement during the last American siege of al-Qa'im three weeks ago when he threatened the Iraqi Resistance saying, "we'll beat them even if Muhammad and Muhammad's Lord are with them."
US forces rocketed and destroyed the Great Mosque in the town of Ubaydi, east of al-Qa'im at dawn, claiming Iraqi Resistance fighters were inside. American F-16 fighter bombers fired three rockets into the mosque, causing extensive damage. The attack killed the mosque custodian, an elderly man aged 75, according to his son. Four other people in the mosque also perished. The American attack on the mosque comes amidst a large-scale US offensive on the people of al-Qa'im and surrounding towns.
Iraqi Resistance forces mounted a fierce bombardment of a US concentration point north of Karabilah destroying several US vehicles. Resistance fighters attacked the American position from the south and west, with medium range Katyusha rockets and 120mm mortars. A number of US vehicles were set on fire, sending up clouds of smoke.
Ramadi. An Iraqi Resistance explosives-laden Supra car bomb, parked by the side of the road, exploded by a column of three US armoured vehicles and two Humvees destroying one Humvee and disabling one armoured vehicle, killing four US troops and wounding four.
Hadithah. The US military ransacked and set fire to Hadithah General Hospital causing a humanitarian disaster that now looms over it. US troops, in the name of the American people, barbarously raided the hospital, destroying and burning large parts of the facility. The damage caused by the savage American raids on the hospital destroyed 90 percent of the building, bringing to a halt all of its health services to the population. The American troops smashed doors and windows, wrecked the kidney dialysis machine unit, damaged the maternity ward, and the operating room.
Director Dr. Ubaydi called "on all humanitarian organizations and people of good will to help re-equip the hospital, if only partially, since this was a central hospital where all difficult cases in the whole of western Iraq were brought for treatment." Dr. Ubaydi asked for urgent necessities, such as all types of medicines, especially those used for emergency cases, as well as material assistance in re-equipping the hospital after the devastation wrought by the American forces.
Hadithah. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US patrol column of five US Humvees on the highway linking Hadithah with the city of al-Qa'im destroying one Humvee, killing three US troops and seriously wounding one.
Fallujah. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US patrol opposite the Dept of Civil Defense killing five US troops and wounding one. US forces surrounded the scene and opened fire around the area indiscriminately.
Baghdad. An Iraqi Resistance car bomb exploded outside a puppet police station in the southern suburb of ad-Durah, killing four and wounding dozens.
Tikrit. A car bomb blew up in the middle of a group of Shi`i workers who had been trucked in from the south, leaving 33 dead and 60 wounded. The Partisans of the Sunnah announced: "Today your brothers prepared a booby-trapped car and placed it on the square in the city through which pass dozens of apostate workers who work in the American base there. Those workers are a bunch of apostates have sold their religion and are content to be the servants and tails of the US Crusaders. We do not attack Muslim civilians or anyone who has no connection with this war . . . but we do target workers who work in an American base, helping the Americans who are shedding the blood of Muslims every day."
Mosul. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter drove an explosives-laden Mercedes car into a US armoured column destroying an armoured vehicle and killing four US soldiers and wounding two.
Kirkuk. Iraqi Resistance forces fired a barrage of medium-range Grad rockets and heavy 120mm mortars into the main US base destroying several US vehicles and killing four American troops and wounding nine.
Huwayjah. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter with an explosives belt strapped about him walked into a recruiting center for the puppet military and blew himself up, killing 19 and wounding 25 collaborators.
Samawah. Powerful blasts occurred according to the Japanese Kyodo Tsushin agency, which covers news of the Japanese aggressor contingent based in the city.
Basrah. Puppet security forces arrested four members of Basrah's Sunni community, including the Imam of the Qiblah Mosque and his son and an in-law, as well as the Muezzin of the Rahman Mosque.
A patrol of British troops entered the area to identify houses of Sunnis. The British were involved in a plot to stoke sectarianism in the country with the aim of splitting the Iraqi people on sectarian lines.
11 of the Sunnis arrested in the nearby town of Khasib were released after the invaders could find no evidence against them.
Anbar Province, Al-Qa'im. More than 40 US Marines were killed in bloody battles with the Iraqi Resistance in the villages of Rummanah and Karabilah. Iraqi Resistance forces at dawn mounted a fierce rocket attack on US positions on the outskirts of the villages, killing and wounding dozens of American troops. After the attack, US troops stormed into the houses of local people to sleep there, using the civilians as human shields.
The Iraqi Resistance announced their forces killed the notorious US General "Drinkwine", Commander of US operations in al-Qa'im, observing the situation of his military units in the area. His body was found among the crew of a US helicopter shot down in flames to crash over Rummanah village. The General's name "Drinkwine" seems to be a nickname, as American field commanders have taken to adopting names intended to intimidate or enrage the Iraqi Resistance and raise the morale of the American invader troops. Two days ago a US officer at a press conference in the American occupation HQ in the Republican Palace area of Baghdad, known to the Americans as the "green zone," introduced himself as "Bull" presumably not intended to reflect the officer's limited intellectual abilities or insensate brutality, but his supposed strength and courage. In another example, an American field lieutenant identifying himself as "Thunder" appeared in a communiqué by the 4th Marine Division in the al-Ba`aj area of Mosul in which the Americans boasted they would soon arrest Jordanian Islamist Abu Zarqawi.
Whatever the true name of the American general shot down and killed, he was the same American general who issued an infamous statement during the last American siege of al-Qa'im three weeks ago when he threatened the Iraqi Resistance saying, "we'll beat them even if Muhammad and Muhammad's Lord are with them."
US forces rocketed and destroyed the Great Mosque in the town of Ubaydi, east of al-Qa'im at dawn, claiming Iraqi Resistance fighters were inside. American F-16 fighter bombers fired three rockets into the mosque, causing extensive damage. The attack killed the mosque custodian, an elderly man aged 75, according to his son. Four other people in the mosque also perished. The American attack on the mosque comes amidst a large-scale US offensive on the people of al-Qa'im and surrounding towns.
Iraqi Resistance forces mounted a fierce bombardment of a US concentration point north of Karabilah destroying several US vehicles. Resistance fighters attacked the American position from the south and west, with medium range Katyusha rockets and 120mm mortars. A number of US vehicles were set on fire, sending up clouds of smoke.
Ramadi. An Iraqi Resistance explosives-laden Supra car bomb, parked by the side of the road, exploded by a column of three US armoured vehicles and two Humvees destroying one Humvee and disabling one armoured vehicle, killing four US troops and wounding four.
Hadithah. The US military ransacked and set fire to Hadithah General Hospital causing a humanitarian disaster that now looms over it. US troops, in the name of the American people, barbarously raided the hospital, destroying and burning large parts of the facility. The damage caused by the savage American raids on the hospital destroyed 90 percent of the building, bringing to a halt all of its health services to the population. The American troops smashed doors and windows, wrecked the kidney dialysis machine unit, damaged the maternity ward, and the operating room.
Director Dr. Ubaydi called "on all humanitarian organizations and people of good will to help re-equip the hospital, if only partially, since this was a central hospital where all difficult cases in the whole of western Iraq were brought for treatment." Dr. Ubaydi asked for urgent necessities, such as all types of medicines, especially those used for emergency cases, as well as material assistance in re-equipping the hospital after the devastation wrought by the American forces.
Hadithah. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US patrol column of five US Humvees on the highway linking Hadithah with the city of al-Qa'im destroying one Humvee, killing three US troops and seriously wounding one.
Fallujah. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US patrol opposite the Dept of Civil Defense killing five US troops and wounding one. US forces surrounded the scene and opened fire around the area indiscriminately.
Baghdad. An Iraqi Resistance car bomb exploded outside a puppet police station in the southern suburb of ad-Durah, killing four and wounding dozens.
Tikrit. A car bomb blew up in the middle of a group of Shi`i workers who had been trucked in from the south, leaving 33 dead and 60 wounded. The Partisans of the Sunnah announced: "Today your brothers prepared a booby-trapped car and placed it on the square in the city through which pass dozens of apostate workers who work in the American base there. Those workers are a bunch of apostates have sold their religion and are content to be the servants and tails of the US Crusaders. We do not attack Muslim civilians or anyone who has no connection with this war . . . but we do target workers who work in an American base, helping the Americans who are shedding the blood of Muslims every day."
Mosul. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter drove an explosives-laden Mercedes car into a US armoured column destroying an armoured vehicle and killing four US soldiers and wounding two.
Kirkuk. Iraqi Resistance forces fired a barrage of medium-range Grad rockets and heavy 120mm mortars into the main US base destroying several US vehicles and killing four American troops and wounding nine.
Huwayjah. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter with an explosives belt strapped about him walked into a recruiting center for the puppet military and blew himself up, killing 19 and wounding 25 collaborators.
Samawah. Powerful blasts occurred according to the Japanese Kyodo Tsushin agency, which covers news of the Japanese aggressor contingent based in the city.
Basrah. Puppet security forces arrested four members of Basrah's Sunni community, including the Imam of the Qiblah Mosque and his son and an in-law, as well as the Muezzin of the Rahman Mosque.
A patrol of British troops entered the area to identify houses of Sunnis. The British were involved in a plot to stoke sectarianism in the country with the aim of splitting the Iraqi people on sectarian lines.
11 of the Sunnis arrested in the nearby town of Khasib were released after the invaders could find no evidence against them.
CITGO, THE ANTI-BUSH GAS
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0516-25.htm
JEFF COHEN - Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations. And tell your friends. Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is
Hugo Chavez. Call him "the Anti-Bush."
Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US. By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care,
literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.
NEAREST CITGO STATION
http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/StoreLocator.jsp
JEFF COHEN - Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations. And tell your friends. Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is
Hugo Chavez. Call him "the Anti-Bush."
Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US. By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care,
literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.
NEAREST CITGO STATION
http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/StoreLocator.jsp
How to Succeed in Business, Without Really Succeeding
May 15, 2005
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
HERE'S a pop quiz for you frequent fliers (and disgruntled investors and union members): Who was the highest-paid executive at a major domestic airline last year, taking home $1.1 million in salary and bonus?
Not Gary C. Kelly at Southwest: His reward for running the industry's most profitable company was just $542,000. Nor was it Bruce Lakefield at US Airways, who got $425,000 as his company struggled to avoid liquidation. And forget about Gerald Grinstein at Delta, who earned a mere $250,000 as his airline battled to stay out of bankruptcy protection.
The big payday went to Glenn F. Tilton, the chief executive of United Airlines, which has been operating in bankruptcy since December 2002. Since its filing, it has lost billions, forced its workers to take deep cuts in pay and benefits, and dumped billions of dollars of unfunded pension obligations on the federal government.
And he is still not sure when United will get out of bankruptcy.
Mr. Tilton's compensation has outraged some of his workers, who want him to return his $366,000 bonus. (He did take a pay cut last year, and is taking another this year.) But one could argue that Mr. Tilton is worth every penny of his pay - even if his strategy has not been out of a business school textbook.
In his time at United, which began shortly before the airline filed for Chapter 11 protection, Mr. Tilton has - wittingly or not - used bankruptcy protection as a competitive tool. And he has gained respect in the industry, however grudgingly, for doing so.
If nothing else, United has made itself an airline to be reckoned with - not in the traditional way, through strong operations, but in a completely new way, by leveraging its weakness.
United's bankruptcy, which has lasted longer than any airline case since 1989, has given the company the opportunity to take steps that other carriers have found difficult, if not impossible. Cutting wages and benefits, for one. Renegotiating and rejecting aircraft leases, for another. And the biggest step: terminating its four employee pension plans.
"United has become a much more formidable competitor than we were" when it filed for bankruptcy protection, Mr. Tilton acknowledged in an interview.
(More...)
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
HERE'S a pop quiz for you frequent fliers (and disgruntled investors and union members): Who was the highest-paid executive at a major domestic airline last year, taking home $1.1 million in salary and bonus?
Not Gary C. Kelly at Southwest: His reward for running the industry's most profitable company was just $542,000. Nor was it Bruce Lakefield at US Airways, who got $425,000 as his company struggled to avoid liquidation. And forget about Gerald Grinstein at Delta, who earned a mere $250,000 as his airline battled to stay out of bankruptcy protection.
The big payday went to Glenn F. Tilton, the chief executive of United Airlines, which has been operating in bankruptcy since December 2002. Since its filing, it has lost billions, forced its workers to take deep cuts in pay and benefits, and dumped billions of dollars of unfunded pension obligations on the federal government.
And he is still not sure when United will get out of bankruptcy.
Mr. Tilton's compensation has outraged some of his workers, who want him to return his $366,000 bonus. (He did take a pay cut last year, and is taking another this year.) But one could argue that Mr. Tilton is worth every penny of his pay - even if his strategy has not been out of a business school textbook.
In his time at United, which began shortly before the airline filed for Chapter 11 protection, Mr. Tilton has - wittingly or not - used bankruptcy protection as a competitive tool. And he has gained respect in the industry, however grudgingly, for doing so.
If nothing else, United has made itself an airline to be reckoned with - not in the traditional way, through strong operations, but in a completely new way, by leveraging its weakness.
United's bankruptcy, which has lasted longer than any airline case since 1989, has given the company the opportunity to take steps that other carriers have found difficult, if not impossible. Cutting wages and benefits, for one. Renegotiating and rejecting aircraft leases, for another. And the biggest step: terminating its four employee pension plans.
"United has become a much more formidable competitor than we were" when it filed for bankruptcy protection, Mr. Tilton acknowledged in an interview.
(More...)
HRC, FRIEND OF WAL-MART
WARD HARKAVY, VILLAGE VOICE, 2000 -
Twice in three days last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton basked in the adulation of cheering union members. Her record of supporting collective bargaining, however, is considerably worse than wobbly. Pity the thousands of unionists at last Tuesday's state Democratic convention who chanted her name, and the hundreds of retired Teamsters at Thursday's luncheon in midtown who had interrupted their Founder's Day meal to hear the corporate litigator turned union-loving Democrat deliver a campaign speech.
They would have dropped their forks if they had heard that Hillary
served for six years on the board of the dreaded Wal-Mart, a
union-busting behemoth. If they had learned the details of her
friendship with Wal-Mart, they might have lost their lunches. . .
In 1986, when Hillary was first lady of Arkansas, she was put on the
board of Wal-Mart. Officials at the time said she wasn't filling a
vacancy. In May 1992, as Hubby's presidential campaign heated up, she resigned from the board of Wal-Mart. Company officials said at the time that they weren't going to fill her vacancy.
So what the hell was she doing on the Wal-Mart board? According to press accounts at the time, she was a show horse at the company's annual meetings when founder Sam Walton bused in cheering throngs to celebrate his non-union empire, which is headquartered in Arkansas, one of the country's poorest states. According to published reports, she was placed in charge of the company's "green" program to protect the environment.
But nobody got greener than Sam Walton and his family. For several years in the '80s, he was judged the richest man in America by Forbes magazine. . .
Was Hillary the voice of conscience on the board for American and
foreign workers? Contemporary accounts make no mention of that. They do describe her as a "corporate litigator" in those days, and they mention, speaking of environmental matters, that she also served on the board of Lafarge, a company that, according to a press account, once burned hazardous fuels to run its cement plants. . .
The Clintons depended on Wal-Mart's largesse not only for Hillary's
regular payments as a board member but for travel expenses on Wal-Mart planes and for heavy campaign contributions to Bill's campaigns there and nationally. . .
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart's first lady, who also benefited from Wal-Mart
stock, solicits support from union workers. Which makes her words to the elderly Teamsters last week especially poignant: "You can count on me to stand up for the right to collectively bargain!" Right on, sister!
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0021,harkavy,15052,5.html
Twice in three days last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton basked in the adulation of cheering union members. Her record of supporting collective bargaining, however, is considerably worse than wobbly. Pity the thousands of unionists at last Tuesday's state Democratic convention who chanted her name, and the hundreds of retired Teamsters at Thursday's luncheon in midtown who had interrupted their Founder's Day meal to hear the corporate litigator turned union-loving Democrat deliver a campaign speech.
They would have dropped their forks if they had heard that Hillary
served for six years on the board of the dreaded Wal-Mart, a
union-busting behemoth. If they had learned the details of her
friendship with Wal-Mart, they might have lost their lunches. . .
In 1986, when Hillary was first lady of Arkansas, she was put on the
board of Wal-Mart. Officials at the time said she wasn't filling a
vacancy. In May 1992, as Hubby's presidential campaign heated up, she resigned from the board of Wal-Mart. Company officials said at the time that they weren't going to fill her vacancy.
So what the hell was she doing on the Wal-Mart board? According to press accounts at the time, she was a show horse at the company's annual meetings when founder Sam Walton bused in cheering throngs to celebrate his non-union empire, which is headquartered in Arkansas, one of the country's poorest states. According to published reports, she was placed in charge of the company's "green" program to protect the environment.
But nobody got greener than Sam Walton and his family. For several years in the '80s, he was judged the richest man in America by Forbes magazine. . .
Was Hillary the voice of conscience on the board for American and
foreign workers? Contemporary accounts make no mention of that. They do describe her as a "corporate litigator" in those days, and they mention, speaking of environmental matters, that she also served on the board of Lafarge, a company that, according to a press account, once burned hazardous fuels to run its cement plants. . .
The Clintons depended on Wal-Mart's largesse not only for Hillary's
regular payments as a board member but for travel expenses on Wal-Mart planes and for heavy campaign contributions to Bill's campaigns there and nationally. . .
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart's first lady, who also benefited from Wal-Mart
stock, solicits support from union workers. Which makes her words to the elderly Teamsters last week especially poignant: "You can count on me to stand up for the right to collectively bargain!" Right on, sister!
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0021,harkavy,15052,5.html
BushCo Kills Annual Report On Terrorism
Mid-April, The State Department decided to discontinue its annual report on terrorism. I'm thinkin' it was 'cuz the report concluded that there were more "turrist" attacks in 2004 than at any time since 1985!
If BushCo doesn't like what its own agencies produce, they merely suppress it, like in any good fascist theocracy. Now that's good gummint!
Thanks to the sainted Mark Morford for the assist.
If BushCo doesn't like what its own agencies produce, they merely suppress it, like in any good fascist theocracy. Now that's good gummint!
Thanks to the sainted Mark Morford for the assist.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Iraqi Resistance Report
Sunday, 8 May 2005 from Charlievictor
Al-Anbar Province.Ramadi. Sunday was the second day of a civil disobedience campaign which religious leaders called for in sermons to protest against the continued US occupation. The protests were prompted by continuous provocation by invader troops and their stooges, and continued campaigns of arrests of local residents. The Americans hold so many people that now the city is like a Guantanamo in Iraq, in reference to the notorious prison camp where American jailers operate outside US law and that of the rest of the world.
Anbar University has been frequently raided by US occupation troops who have randomly arrested numerous university students, none of whom has been charged with any "offense." Ramadi Hospital has also been frequently raided by US forces, searching for "wanted" individuals among the patients. In the course of such raids, the Americans smashed equipment and apparatus, and blasted down doors in the hospital, infuriating local people. Schools and government offices remain closed in occupied Ramadi, bringing much of the normal life in the city to a halt.
Hit. Resistance fighters, armed with pipe rockets and anti-personnel rocket-propelled grenades attacked two black GMC vehicles from the American 'Ayn al-Asad base, carrying Zionist Mossad agents and American employees of a "security" company supplying mercenaries to the US occupation command. The two cars were destroyed and nine foreigners in civilian clothes were killed. Identity papers captured in the attack confirmed that four of the dead were Zionist Mossad agents, four were Americans, and one was Australian.
Baghdad. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded in the Abu Ghurayb area, destroying one US Humvee military vehicle and killing four American troops. The bomb had been planted near the Abu Munaysir Bridge and went off when a column of seven US Humvees passed by. US forces removed the bodies and the wreckage after shutting down the highway, forcing local traffic to take a dirt road nearby instead - a road where there are frequent Resistance attacks on the occupation troops.
An Iraqi Resistance roadside bomb exploded by a column of US trucks on the highway in the suburb of Durah setting one American truck ablaze, killing one US soldier and wounding another.
Three masked Resistance fighters opened fire with machine guns and killed the General Director for plan implementation at the puppet "ministry of transport and communications" and his driver in an attack in southern Baghdad as he was on his way to work. The attackers left the scene unscathed.
Iraqi puppet "national guards" raided the Duyuf ar-Rahman Mosque. They opened fire inside the mosque and arrested Shaykh Majma'i, the Imam and preacher in the place of worship. The Board of Muslim 'Ulama', said that the puppet guards used foul language to insult and demean Shaykh 'Ata who is a member of the Board of Muslim 'Ulama'[Scholars], the highest Sunni religious authority in occupied Iraq.
Suwayrah. 'Ali Rida, a deputy of the pro-American Shi'i religious authority 'Ali as-Sistani was shot as he was leaving his home to go to a nearby Shi'i Husayniyah place of worship. US and puppet forces surrounded the scene. No party claimed responsibility.
Hillah. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded next to a Polish foot patrol in the vegetable market killing two Polish occupation soldiers and wounding four. Polish aggressor troops surrounded the area and launched a campaign of raids in the vegetable market and the shops in it but found nothing.
Ba 'qubah. Iraqi Resistance forces fired six heavy caliber mortar rounds at a US checkpoint set up in front of the ar-Razi General Hospital, causing heavy damage to the position, killing and wounding several US troops. American helicopters rushed to the checkpoint and evacuated the casualties. US forces, as usual, closed all roads leading to the scene of the attack and carried out air sorties over the city.
Bayji. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter in an explosives-laden car drove into a column of six US troop transports destroying one troop carrier and disabling a second, killing five US soldiers and wounding six.
Mosul. A high-explosive Iraqi Resistance roadside bomb destroyed one Humvee, and killed four American troops. US forces encircled the area and called in an Apache helicopter to evacuate the bodies. The Americans had to admit the attack, since it took place in a crowded area and was thus common knowledge.
An Iraqi Resistance car bomb exploded by a column of six US military vehicles. The car bomb, parked by the side of the main road destroyed an armoured vehicle and killed five US troops and wounded two. US forces launched a campaign of raids and searches in the neighborhood, arresting three local civilians.
By what right do the American people send their troops armed with deadly weapons to occupy other people's countries and kill them?
Al-Anbar Province.Ramadi. Sunday was the second day of a civil disobedience campaign which religious leaders called for in sermons to protest against the continued US occupation. The protests were prompted by continuous provocation by invader troops and their stooges, and continued campaigns of arrests of local residents. The Americans hold so many people that now the city is like a Guantanamo in Iraq, in reference to the notorious prison camp where American jailers operate outside US law and that of the rest of the world.
Anbar University has been frequently raided by US occupation troops who have randomly arrested numerous university students, none of whom has been charged with any "offense." Ramadi Hospital has also been frequently raided by US forces, searching for "wanted" individuals among the patients. In the course of such raids, the Americans smashed equipment and apparatus, and blasted down doors in the hospital, infuriating local people. Schools and government offices remain closed in occupied Ramadi, bringing much of the normal life in the city to a halt.
Hit. Resistance fighters, armed with pipe rockets and anti-personnel rocket-propelled grenades attacked two black GMC vehicles from the American 'Ayn al-Asad base, carrying Zionist Mossad agents and American employees of a "security" company supplying mercenaries to the US occupation command. The two cars were destroyed and nine foreigners in civilian clothes were killed. Identity papers captured in the attack confirmed that four of the dead were Zionist Mossad agents, four were Americans, and one was Australian.
Baghdad. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded in the Abu Ghurayb area, destroying one US Humvee military vehicle and killing four American troops. The bomb had been planted near the Abu Munaysir Bridge and went off when a column of seven US Humvees passed by. US forces removed the bodies and the wreckage after shutting down the highway, forcing local traffic to take a dirt road nearby instead - a road where there are frequent Resistance attacks on the occupation troops.
An Iraqi Resistance roadside bomb exploded by a column of US trucks on the highway in the suburb of Durah setting one American truck ablaze, killing one US soldier and wounding another.
Three masked Resistance fighters opened fire with machine guns and killed the General Director for plan implementation at the puppet "ministry of transport and communications" and his driver in an attack in southern Baghdad as he was on his way to work. The attackers left the scene unscathed.
Iraqi puppet "national guards" raided the Duyuf ar-Rahman Mosque. They opened fire inside the mosque and arrested Shaykh Majma'i, the Imam and preacher in the place of worship. The Board of Muslim 'Ulama', said that the puppet guards used foul language to insult and demean Shaykh 'Ata who is a member of the Board of Muslim 'Ulama'[Scholars], the highest Sunni religious authority in occupied Iraq.
Suwayrah. 'Ali Rida, a deputy of the pro-American Shi'i religious authority 'Ali as-Sistani was shot as he was leaving his home to go to a nearby Shi'i Husayniyah place of worship. US and puppet forces surrounded the scene. No party claimed responsibility.
Hillah. An Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded next to a Polish foot patrol in the vegetable market killing two Polish occupation soldiers and wounding four. Polish aggressor troops surrounded the area and launched a campaign of raids in the vegetable market and the shops in it but found nothing.
Ba 'qubah. Iraqi Resistance forces fired six heavy caliber mortar rounds at a US checkpoint set up in front of the ar-Razi General Hospital, causing heavy damage to the position, killing and wounding several US troops. American helicopters rushed to the checkpoint and evacuated the casualties. US forces, as usual, closed all roads leading to the scene of the attack and carried out air sorties over the city.
Bayji. An Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter in an explosives-laden car drove into a column of six US troop transports destroying one troop carrier and disabling a second, killing five US soldiers and wounding six.
Mosul. A high-explosive Iraqi Resistance roadside bomb destroyed one Humvee, and killed four American troops. US forces encircled the area and called in an Apache helicopter to evacuate the bodies. The Americans had to admit the attack, since it took place in a crowded area and was thus common knowledge.
An Iraqi Resistance car bomb exploded by a column of six US military vehicles. The car bomb, parked by the side of the main road destroyed an armoured vehicle and killed five US troops and wounded two. US forces launched a campaign of raids and searches in the neighborhood, arresting three local civilians.
By what right do the American people send their troops armed with deadly weapons to occupy other people's countries and kill them?
Uzbekistan Shaken by Unrest, Violence and Uncertainty
And so we learn a bit more...--Pete
By C. J. CHIVERS
MOSCOW, May 15 - Skirmishing between armed Uzbeks and troops along Uzbekistan's border with Kyrgyzstan persisted Sunday, news agencies reported, as uncertainty grew about the circumstances and extent of bloodshed on Friday when the government suppressed a mass demonstration by force.
Reports of the number of deaths since the violence began varied widely, from dozens to hundreds of civilians. The Associated Press reported that residents of the village of Tefektosh had said the latest clashes left several soldiers dead. Uzbekistan's president, Islam A. Karimov, said Saturday that 10 government soldiers and "many more rebels" had been killed.
None of the reports could be verified, and it was difficult to determine who was fighting, and with what ambitions, although in addition to elements of a general uprising against a repressive government, armed and newly freed inmates were in the area of strife. Telephone service has been intermittent, and the Uzbek government has forced many journalists to leave.
Hardened elements of his opposition, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, collaborated with Al Qaeda and trained in camps in Afghanistan. After the attacks in the United States in 2001, the Karimov government presented itself as a Bush administration partner in counterterrorism efforts, and the Pentagon opened a base in southern Uzbekistan...
There has also been evidence that the United States has used the country for interrogations of terrorist suspects seized elsewhere.
Nonetheless, signs of strain in the relationship have emerged since 2003, as uprisings have toppled corrupt post-Soviet governments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, isolating the Uzbek president.
Mr. Karimov, speaking at a news conference on Saturday as journalists reported seeing blood-stained streets and full morgues, made an oblique but unmistakable reference to American interference.
"Attempts by some countries to plant democracy in Central Asia can be used by a third force," he said, according to RIA Novosti. He added, "This force is radical Islam." (more...)
By C. J. CHIVERS
MOSCOW, May 15 - Skirmishing between armed Uzbeks and troops along Uzbekistan's border with Kyrgyzstan persisted Sunday, news agencies reported, as uncertainty grew about the circumstances and extent of bloodshed on Friday when the government suppressed a mass demonstration by force.
Reports of the number of deaths since the violence began varied widely, from dozens to hundreds of civilians. The Associated Press reported that residents of the village of Tefektosh had said the latest clashes left several soldiers dead. Uzbekistan's president, Islam A. Karimov, said Saturday that 10 government soldiers and "many more rebels" had been killed.
None of the reports could be verified, and it was difficult to determine who was fighting, and with what ambitions, although in addition to elements of a general uprising against a repressive government, armed and newly freed inmates were in the area of strife. Telephone service has been intermittent, and the Uzbek government has forced many journalists to leave.
Hardened elements of his opposition, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, collaborated with Al Qaeda and trained in camps in Afghanistan. After the attacks in the United States in 2001, the Karimov government presented itself as a Bush administration partner in counterterrorism efforts, and the Pentagon opened a base in southern Uzbekistan...
There has also been evidence that the United States has used the country for interrogations of terrorist suspects seized elsewhere.
Nonetheless, signs of strain in the relationship have emerged since 2003, as uprisings have toppled corrupt post-Soviet governments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, isolating the Uzbek president.
Mr. Karimov, speaking at a news conference on Saturday as journalists reported seeing blood-stained streets and full morgues, made an oblique but unmistakable reference to American interference.
"Attempts by some countries to plant democracy in Central Asia can be used by a third force," he said, according to RIA Novosti. He added, "This force is radical Islam." (more...)
Corporate College
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Believe or not, there exists a group of homeschooling parents who teach their kids at home because they believe that the public schools have been destroyed by corporations.
The food is corporate junk. The street clothes and sportswear are covered with corporate logos. The curriculum is often sponsored by corporate predators. (The winner of a spelling bee sponsored by the local high school's principal last week won a choice of prizes from Wendy's, McDonald's or Dairy Queen. Can you spell diabesity?). Even the music increasingly is corporate-inspired crapola, driven
largely by payola.
And the morality of the schools is the morality of the marketplace.
But even the most ardent anti-corporate homeschooling parents often give up the fight when it comes to college. At 18, little Johnny has had enough of being at home. And it's time to send him off to -- College. We can only guess at the extent of the corruption of academia by the corporate predators.
But if we are to believe what we read in journalist Jennifer Washburn's
new book, then academia is in it deep. The title of Washburn's book tells it all -- University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education (Basic Books, 2005).
(Disclosure: an old research piece of ours is mentioned in the book.)
If you listen to right-wing radio, or watch Fox News -- as we do -- then you might be under the impression that universities are dominated by left-wing professors, liberals and cranks. If you don't, you might believe that universities are independent non-profits dedicated to education and research.
Not true, Washburn says.
Traditionally, universities were not governed by market forces and were largely independent of commercial interests. But over the past 25 years, universities are acting less like universities and more like corporations. (more...)
Believe or not, there exists a group of homeschooling parents who teach their kids at home because they believe that the public schools have been destroyed by corporations.
The food is corporate junk. The street clothes and sportswear are covered with corporate logos. The curriculum is often sponsored by corporate predators. (The winner of a spelling bee sponsored by the local high school's principal last week won a choice of prizes from Wendy's, McDonald's or Dairy Queen. Can you spell diabesity?). Even the music increasingly is corporate-inspired crapola, driven
largely by payola.
And the morality of the schools is the morality of the marketplace.
But even the most ardent anti-corporate homeschooling parents often give up the fight when it comes to college. At 18, little Johnny has had enough of being at home. And it's time to send him off to -- College. We can only guess at the extent of the corruption of academia by the corporate predators.
But if we are to believe what we read in journalist Jennifer Washburn's
new book, then academia is in it deep. The title of Washburn's book tells it all -- University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education (Basic Books, 2005).
(Disclosure: an old research piece of ours is mentioned in the book.)
If you listen to right-wing radio, or watch Fox News -- as we do -- then you might be under the impression that universities are dominated by left-wing professors, liberals and cranks. If you don't, you might believe that universities are independent non-profits dedicated to education and research.
Not true, Washburn says.
Traditionally, universities were not governed by market forces and were largely independent of commercial interests. But over the past 25 years, universities are acting less like universities and more like corporations. (more...)
America's Drug Plan Collapses In Chaos
By Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Republished from The Indepedent
Washington’s “war on drugs” in Colombia is collapsing in chaos and corruption, and the drug producers are winning. The so-called Plan Colombia, which has cost the US more than $3bn (£1.6bn) in the past five years, is being abandoned, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced.
Last year, the hugely expensive effort to poison coca bushes – whose leaves are the source of cocaine – by aerial spraying ended in failure. More bushes were flourishing in January this year than in January 2004.
Meanwhile, complaints have multiplied about the damage done by the chemical poisons to the health of humans, especially children, as well as to livestock, fish and the environment.
Plan Colombia was designed to eradicate narcotics, control powerful left-wing guerrillas and strengthen the position of the US military in South America. The scheme was eventually expected to cost $7.5bn.
The government of Colombia, the world’s principal source of cocaine, has sent out an emergency appeal to the Bush administration for an extra $130m to supplement the $600m it expects to receive in 2006 under Plan Colombia.
The extra money, the Colombians insist, is needed for more aircraft to increase the government’s capacity to spray poison on the jungle patches where coca bushes grow.
They also want more helicopters to protect the spray planes and stop any more of them being shot down by growers and guerrillas.
The appeal for emergency cash comes in the wake of the details quietly put out by the White House during the Easter holiday about last year’s spraying débâcle. On 1 January 2004 US satellite pictures showed that 281,323 acres in Colombia were under coca. The target was to reduce that area by half, so nearly 340,000 acres were sprayed with poison. But in vain.
In January, the acreage of coca bushes had increased slightly to 281,694 acres. Consequently, as Congressman Bob Menendez, leader of the Democratic caucus in the US lower house and a critic of Plan Colombia, remarked last week, the international price of cocaine has stubbornly refused to rise – as it would have if the anti-drugs effort had dented its availability worldwide.
Corruption in Colombian government service is said by the Home Office in London to cost $4bn a year.
Drug profits have also corrupted US troops stationed in Colombia. This month a US Green Beret lieutenant-colonel and a sergeant were caught selling 32,900 rounds of ammunition to the right-wing death squads who are flush with drug profits.
In March, five US soldiers – supposedly training local troops in anti-guerrilla and anti-narcotics techniques – were arrested after 16 kilos of cocaine were found in the aircraft taking them from a military base in southern Colombia back to the US.
Republished from The Indepedent
Washington’s “war on drugs” in Colombia is collapsing in chaos and corruption, and the drug producers are winning. The so-called Plan Colombia, which has cost the US more than $3bn (£1.6bn) in the past five years, is being abandoned, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced.
Last year, the hugely expensive effort to poison coca bushes – whose leaves are the source of cocaine – by aerial spraying ended in failure. More bushes were flourishing in January this year than in January 2004.
Meanwhile, complaints have multiplied about the damage done by the chemical poisons to the health of humans, especially children, as well as to livestock, fish and the environment.
Plan Colombia was designed to eradicate narcotics, control powerful left-wing guerrillas and strengthen the position of the US military in South America. The scheme was eventually expected to cost $7.5bn.
The government of Colombia, the world’s principal source of cocaine, has sent out an emergency appeal to the Bush administration for an extra $130m to supplement the $600m it expects to receive in 2006 under Plan Colombia.
The extra money, the Colombians insist, is needed for more aircraft to increase the government’s capacity to spray poison on the jungle patches where coca bushes grow.
They also want more helicopters to protect the spray planes and stop any more of them being shot down by growers and guerrillas.
The appeal for emergency cash comes in the wake of the details quietly put out by the White House during the Easter holiday about last year’s spraying débâcle. On 1 January 2004 US satellite pictures showed that 281,323 acres in Colombia were under coca. The target was to reduce that area by half, so nearly 340,000 acres were sprayed with poison. But in vain.
In January, the acreage of coca bushes had increased slightly to 281,694 acres. Consequently, as Congressman Bob Menendez, leader of the Democratic caucus in the US lower house and a critic of Plan Colombia, remarked last week, the international price of cocaine has stubbornly refused to rise – as it would have if the anti-drugs effort had dented its availability worldwide.
Corruption in Colombian government service is said by the Home Office in London to cost $4bn a year.
Drug profits have also corrupted US troops stationed in Colombia. This month a US Green Beret lieutenant-colonel and a sergeant were caught selling 32,900 rounds of ammunition to the right-wing death squads who are flush with drug profits.
In March, five US soldiers – supposedly training local troops in anti-guerrilla and anti-narcotics techniques – were arrested after 16 kilos of cocaine were found in the aircraft taking them from a military base in southern Colombia back to the US.
The Wolfowitz Coup
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Although many thought it was a cruel practical joke when Paul
Wolfowitz's name was first floated to head the World Bank, this was no April Fool's prank: Last Thursday, the executive directors of the World Bank approved the key architect of the Iraq war as president of what is supposed to be the world's largest development agency.
For decades, the World Bank has veered out of control with a
corporate-led development model. The Bank has pushed mega-development projects that have displaced millions of people, failed to improve national well-being and thrown countries into a downward debt spiral. Simultaneously, it has pushed market fundamentalist policies -- including blind support for privatization, deregulation, and marketization and commodification of social services and public goods -- that have benefited multinational corporations, but impoverished hundreds of millions.
Periodically, the Bank acknowledges its past failures -- devastatingly obvious upon objective review of its record -- and promises to start anew. With each renewal, however, the institution manages to repeat the mistakes of the previous era, yet again.
If the Bank is going to continue to exist, it does need a new start, but not the kind that Paul Wolfowitz's nomination portends.
Wolfowitz assumes the presidency of the Bank thanks to colonialist
tradition and craven geopolitical calculation. (more...)
Although many thought it was a cruel practical joke when Paul
Wolfowitz's name was first floated to head the World Bank, this was no April Fool's prank: Last Thursday, the executive directors of the World Bank approved the key architect of the Iraq war as president of what is supposed to be the world's largest development agency.
For decades, the World Bank has veered out of control with a
corporate-led development model. The Bank has pushed mega-development projects that have displaced millions of people, failed to improve national well-being and thrown countries into a downward debt spiral. Simultaneously, it has pushed market fundamentalist policies -- including blind support for privatization, deregulation, and marketization and commodification of social services and public goods -- that have benefited multinational corporations, but impoverished hundreds of millions.
Periodically, the Bank acknowledges its past failures -- devastatingly obvious upon objective review of its record -- and promises to start anew. With each renewal, however, the institution manages to repeat the mistakes of the previous era, yet again.
If the Bank is going to continue to exist, it does need a new start, but not the kind that Paul Wolfowitz's nomination portends.
Wolfowitz assumes the presidency of the Bank thanks to colonialist
tradition and craven geopolitical calculation. (more...)
Monday, May 16, 2005
Gunfire Persists in Eastern Uzbek City-AP
ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan - Gunfire persisted Monday in the eastern city where Uzbek security forces fired on protesters last week — a clash that reportedly left several hundred dead — and new accounts emerged that violence in nearby towns killed hundreds more, further threatening the stability of the government in this key U.S. ally in Central Asia.
Protesters, eh? Hmmm...
When an AP story refers to a nation as a "key U.S. ally", you know something's up. You also know that the death toll will start rising soon.
I warned about Central Asia being the actual next target in the rush to global hegemony two years ago. Their resource-rich soils are of vital importance to the Righteous Holy Crusaders. The CIA dossier on Uzbekistan alone lists natural gas, petroleum, coal, gold, uranium, silver, copper, lead and zinc, tungsten, and molybdenum as the natural resources begging to be liberated by the Empire
Protesters, eh? Hmmm...
When an AP story refers to a nation as a "key U.S. ally", you know something's up. You also know that the death toll will start rising soon.
I warned about Central Asia being the actual next target in the rush to global hegemony two years ago. Their resource-rich soils are of vital importance to the Righteous Holy Crusaders. The CIA dossier on Uzbekistan alone lists natural gas, petroleum, coal, gold, uranium, silver, copper, lead and zinc, tungsten, and molybdenum as the natural resources begging to be liberated by the Empire
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Newsweek Apologizes for Quran Story Errors
The issue here is to get the truth out, to acknowledge as quickly as possible what happened, and that's what we're trying to do
--Daniel Klaidman.
Yes, that is what they're trying to do. In point of fact, however, should the "actual" truth escape its confines to run willy-nilly 'round the Internet, there will always be a member of the corporate media made to publicly apologize for this grievous error with a slap on the wrist and a promise that it will never happen again.
This is also a sure-fire method for verifying that a story is, in fact, true.--Pete
Article here...
Saturday, May 14, 2005
FORD EXEC: JUNK BOND STATUS TODAY, RAPTURE TOMORROW
Whoa...! It gets worse and worse, doesn't it? I think the idea of de-evolution holds more sway now than it did when Devo were preaching it.--Pete
From The Progressive Review Undernews
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?757
GLENN SCHERER, E-MAGAZINE - [Beyond the right's] more obvious
anti-environmental motivations there lies a more deep-seated
inspiration. Difficult as it may be to believe, many of the
conservatives who have great influence in the Bush administration and now in Congress are governed by a Higher Power.
In his book The Carbon Wars, Greenpeace activist Jeremy Leggett tells how he stumbled upon this otherworldly agenda. During the Kyoto climate change negotiations, Leggett candidly asked Ford Motor Company executive John Schiller how opponents of the pact could believe there is no problem with "a world of a billion cars intent on burning all the oil and gas available on the planet?" The executive asserted first that scientists get it wrong when they say fossil fuels have been sequestered underground for eons. The Earth, he said, is just 10,000, not 4.5 billion years old, the age widely accepted by scientists.
Then Schiller confidently declared, "You know, the more I look, the more it is just as it says in the Bible." The Book of Daniel, he told
Leggett, predicts that increased earthly devastation will mark the "End Time" and return of Christ. Paradoxically, Leggett notes, many
fundamentalists see dying coral reefs, melting ice caps and other
environmental destruction not as an urgent call to action, but as God's will. Within the religious right worldview, the wreck of the Earth can be seen as Good News!
Some true believers, interpreting biblical prophecy, are sure they will be saved from the horrific destruction brought by ecosystem collapse. They'll be raptured: rescued from Earth by God, who will then rain down seven ghastly years of misery on unbelieving humanity. Jesus' return will mark the Millennium, when the Lord restores the Earth to its green pristine condition, and the faithful enjoy a thousand years of peace and prosperity.
From The Progressive Review Undernews
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?757
GLENN SCHERER, E-MAGAZINE - [Beyond the right's] more obvious
anti-environmental motivations there lies a more deep-seated
inspiration. Difficult as it may be to believe, many of the
conservatives who have great influence in the Bush administration and now in Congress are governed by a Higher Power.
In his book The Carbon Wars, Greenpeace activist Jeremy Leggett tells how he stumbled upon this otherworldly agenda. During the Kyoto climate change negotiations, Leggett candidly asked Ford Motor Company executive John Schiller how opponents of the pact could believe there is no problem with "a world of a billion cars intent on burning all the oil and gas available on the planet?" The executive asserted first that scientists get it wrong when they say fossil fuels have been sequestered underground for eons. The Earth, he said, is just 10,000, not 4.5 billion years old, the age widely accepted by scientists.
Then Schiller confidently declared, "You know, the more I look, the more it is just as it says in the Bible." The Book of Daniel, he told
Leggett, predicts that increased earthly devastation will mark the "End Time" and return of Christ. Paradoxically, Leggett notes, many
fundamentalists see dying coral reefs, melting ice caps and other
environmental destruction not as an urgent call to action, but as God's will. Within the religious right worldview, the wreck of the Earth can be seen as Good News!
Some true believers, interpreting biblical prophecy, are sure they will be saved from the horrific destruction brought by ecosystem collapse. They'll be raptured: rescued from Earth by God, who will then rain down seven ghastly years of misery on unbelieving humanity. Jesus' return will mark the Millennium, when the Lord restores the Earth to its green pristine condition, and the faithful enjoy a thousand years of peace and prosperity.
CAPITAL CHAOS
As we have noted before, a wise anti-terrorism program would eliminate the costly protection of eminently replaceable figures like George Bush and most of the Congress and assign better security to the irreplaceable like fine musicians, poets, chefs, and scientists.
But that's not how things are done in this war on terror in which an
inordinate amount of funds are spent on protecting the people who
approve the spending of inordinate amount of funds. They are, and
rightfully so given their policies, scared. The devil take the rest of
us.
Thus yesterday the occupants of the White House and the U.S. Capitol were massively evacuated while the mayor of Washington, just a few blocks away, wasn't even told what was going on.
AP - At the Capitol, lawmakers, tourists and reporters raced out of the building, dodging the speeding motorcades of Latin American leaders who had been meeting with members of Congress. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was hustled to a secure location. Police, rushing to get House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi out of the building, lifted her out of her shoes.
Armed security officers raced through the Capitol shouting for people to leave. "This is not a drill!" some yelled as they moved people away from the building. "There's a plane coming," warned another.
WONKETTE - Reporting on today's mass hysteria at the Capitol has done little to clarify whether Hill denizens behaved like bored middle school students during a fire drill (Fox's contention) or if they ran away like little girls scared of some huge symbolic penis. One Wonkette operative reports that "the goddamn cops on the 2nd floor of the cannon building were basically yelling at us to run out of the building.... i tried walking, which just got me yelled at even more."
A second operative writes that others were also above the whole
"running" thing: About 5 minutes before the all clear was signaled,
Brownback and his staff started walking back. A police officer tried to stop him, but Brownback blew him off with 'don't bother me' type of hand wave and continued on. We think our operative my be confusing the "don't bother me" type hand wave with the "Fuck it, I know I'm going to heaven" one. Either way: very smooth. . .
A former FEMA official is saying on Fox News that "the word 'running' is probably inappropriate. . . we have to figure out what language to use in the future." On the other hand, Sen. Lautenberg says that someone came into the hall and yelled, "Come on, you only have two minutes!" and that they did run. Far. "I saw a lot of very tired people. I must tell you, a very heavy woman running next to me."
Our favorite eyewitness description comes from Suzanne Malavaux,
however, who gives this appropriately deadpan account:
"One man told me this is not a joke, and he said run, get off of the
grounds. . . and then the tone changed. At that point, I yelled, I
asked him do we go inside or get off the grounds? We wanted
clarification, and then he started yelling, get out of here, get off of
the grounds, run. And that is when we started moving rather quickly. For what it's worth, the video on CNN shows at least one woman going somewhere between a canter and gallop.
JOE STRUPP, EDITOR & PUBLISHER - "I was standing outside the Senate floor waiting for them to wrap up a vote, and the police said to exit the building," said Anne Gearan of The Associated Press. "Then they started yelling louder and louder so everyone left." She said some people were running, but most veteran journalists calmly walked. "They pulled us down to the park across from [nearby] Union Station, and I didn't hear anyone panic.". . .
(Article here...)
But that's not how things are done in this war on terror in which an
inordinate amount of funds are spent on protecting the people who
approve the spending of inordinate amount of funds. They are, and
rightfully so given their policies, scared. The devil take the rest of
us.
Thus yesterday the occupants of the White House and the U.S. Capitol were massively evacuated while the mayor of Washington, just a few blocks away, wasn't even told what was going on.
AP - At the Capitol, lawmakers, tourists and reporters raced out of the building, dodging the speeding motorcades of Latin American leaders who had been meeting with members of Congress. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was hustled to a secure location. Police, rushing to get House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi out of the building, lifted her out of her shoes.
Armed security officers raced through the Capitol shouting for people to leave. "This is not a drill!" some yelled as they moved people away from the building. "There's a plane coming," warned another.
WONKETTE - Reporting on today's mass hysteria at the Capitol has done little to clarify whether Hill denizens behaved like bored middle school students during a fire drill (Fox's contention) or if they ran away like little girls scared of some huge symbolic penis. One Wonkette operative reports that "the goddamn cops on the 2nd floor of the cannon building were basically yelling at us to run out of the building.... i tried walking, which just got me yelled at even more."
A second operative writes that others were also above the whole
"running" thing: About 5 minutes before the all clear was signaled,
Brownback and his staff started walking back. A police officer tried to stop him, but Brownback blew him off with 'don't bother me' type of hand wave and continued on. We think our operative my be confusing the "don't bother me" type hand wave with the "Fuck it, I know I'm going to heaven" one. Either way: very smooth. . .
A former FEMA official is saying on Fox News that "the word 'running' is probably inappropriate. . . we have to figure out what language to use in the future." On the other hand, Sen. Lautenberg says that someone came into the hall and yelled, "Come on, you only have two minutes!" and that they did run. Far. "I saw a lot of very tired people. I must tell you, a very heavy woman running next to me."
Our favorite eyewitness description comes from Suzanne Malavaux,
however, who gives this appropriately deadpan account:
"One man told me this is not a joke, and he said run, get off of the
grounds. . . and then the tone changed. At that point, I yelled, I
asked him do we go inside or get off the grounds? We wanted
clarification, and then he started yelling, get out of here, get off of
the grounds, run. And that is when we started moving rather quickly. For what it's worth, the video on CNN shows at least one woman going somewhere between a canter and gallop.
JOE STRUPP, EDITOR & PUBLISHER - "I was standing outside the Senate floor waiting for them to wrap up a vote, and the police said to exit the building," said Anne Gearan of The Associated Press. "Then they started yelling louder and louder so everyone left." She said some people were running, but most veteran journalists calmly walked. "They pulled us down to the park across from [nearby] Union Station, and I didn't hear anyone panic.". . .
(Article here...)
Dr. Hager's Family Values
by AYELISH MCGARVEY
[from the May 30, 2005 issue of The Nation]
Late last October Dr. W. David Hager, a prominent obstetrician-gynecologist and Bush Administration appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), took to the pulpit as the featured speaker at a morning service. He stood in the campus chapel at Asbury College, a small evangelical Christian school nestled among picturesque horse farms in the small town of Wilmore in Kentucky's bluegrass region. Hager is an Asburian nabob; his elderly father is a past president of the college, and Hager himself currently sits on his alma mater's board of trustees. Even the school's administrative building, Hager Hall, bears the family name.
When Hager's nomination to the FDA was announced in the fall of 2002, his conservative Christian beliefs drew sharp criticism from Democrats and prochoice groups. David Limbaugh, the lesser light in the Limbaugh family and author of Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging Political War Against Christianity, said the left had subjected Hager to an "anti-Christian litmus test." Hager's valor in the face of this "religious profiling" earned him the praise and lasting support of evangelical Christians, including such luminaries as Charles Colson, Dr. James Dobson and Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham.
Back at Asbury, Hager cast himself as a victim of religious persecution in his sermon. "You see...there is a war going on in this country," he said gravely. "And I'm not speaking about the war in Iraq. It's a war being waged against Christians, particularly evangelical Christians. It wasn't my scientific record that came under scrutiny [at the FDA]. It was my faith.... By making myself available, God has used me to stand in the breach.... Just as he has used me, he can use you."
Up on the dais, several men seated behind Hager nodded solemnly in agreement. But out in the audience, Linda Carruth Davis--co-author with Hager of Stress and the Woman's Body, and, more saliently, his former wife of thirty-two years--was enraged. "It was the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," she recalled months later, through clenched teeth.
According to Davis, Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible." (more here...)
[from the May 30, 2005 issue of The Nation]
Late last October Dr. W. David Hager, a prominent obstetrician-gynecologist and Bush Administration appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), took to the pulpit as the featured speaker at a morning service. He stood in the campus chapel at Asbury College, a small evangelical Christian school nestled among picturesque horse farms in the small town of Wilmore in Kentucky's bluegrass region. Hager is an Asburian nabob; his elderly father is a past president of the college, and Hager himself currently sits on his alma mater's board of trustees. Even the school's administrative building, Hager Hall, bears the family name.
When Hager's nomination to the FDA was announced in the fall of 2002, his conservative Christian beliefs drew sharp criticism from Democrats and prochoice groups. David Limbaugh, the lesser light in the Limbaugh family and author of Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging Political War Against Christianity, said the left had subjected Hager to an "anti-Christian litmus test." Hager's valor in the face of this "religious profiling" earned him the praise and lasting support of evangelical Christians, including such luminaries as Charles Colson, Dr. James Dobson and Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham.
Back at Asbury, Hager cast himself as a victim of religious persecution in his sermon. "You see...there is a war going on in this country," he said gravely. "And I'm not speaking about the war in Iraq. It's a war being waged against Christians, particularly evangelical Christians. It wasn't my scientific record that came under scrutiny [at the FDA]. It was my faith.... By making myself available, God has used me to stand in the breach.... Just as he has used me, he can use you."
Up on the dais, several men seated behind Hager nodded solemnly in agreement. But out in the audience, Linda Carruth Davis--co-author with Hager of Stress and the Woman's Body, and, more saliently, his former wife of thirty-two years--was enraged. "It was the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," she recalled months later, through clenched teeth.
According to Davis, Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible." (more here...)
The Religious Right - An Anti-American Terrorist Movement
Thu, 12 May 2005 18:50:30 -0500
Summary:
Author: “To even attempt to understand the religious right, which many are now naming “Dominionism”, one must grasp the mental duress it holds on its followers. I should know; I was one of them. Axiomatic in the worldview of the fundamentalist, born-again Christian is: “I have the truth, I’m right; you don’t have the truth, you’re wrong.” As a result, critical thinking, research, or intellectual freedom of exploration are not only unnecessary, they are dangerous and potentially heretical.”
[Posted By Ryz]
By Carolyn Baker
Republished from Information Clearing House
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"
When I was in college, I wrote a research paper that changed my life forever. I had grown up in a fundamentalist Christian family living in the buckle of the Bible Belt where I was fed a steady diet of racism and Cold War anti-communism. My grandfather had been a member of the Klan in the 1920s, and as a high school student, I was saving money to join the John Birch Society. Most personally detrimental to me, however, was the denigration by my high-school-educated parents of higher education. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” they exhorted from the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. And, when I insisted on attending college, they reminded me incessantly that the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God. However, getting an education from a fundamentalist, Bob Jones University-like institution would be acceptable. I did not attend Bob Jones, but almost miraculously, given the fact that I was attending a similar institution, I started to think critically, and therefore, from their perspective, my parents’ caveat that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” was validated.
In the second semester of my freshman year, I chose to write a research paper on race. It was 1964, and that summer, the Congress would pass the Civil Rights Act. Throughout my high school years, Martin Luther King was becoming a household word, and few people in my world held anything but contempt for the “colored communist sympathizer.”
As I reflect on my innocence at that age, but more importantly, my thirst for knowledge, I recall the hours of reading and research invested in the topic. Specifically, I set out to discover if African Americans were genuinely equal with whites. Pathetically, I was actually seeking evidence for the humanity of blacks. On the one hand, that I needed to research the topic in order to grasp that African Americans were my brothers and sisters was tragic, but on the other hand, that particular research project at that particular time in my life opened one door and closed another permanently, forever, and there was no turning back. I didn’t get an A on the paper, but it launched for me a journey of social justice that I have been on ever since. (more...)
Summary:
Author: “To even attempt to understand the religious right, which many are now naming “Dominionism”, one must grasp the mental duress it holds on its followers. I should know; I was one of them. Axiomatic in the worldview of the fundamentalist, born-again Christian is: “I have the truth, I’m right; you don’t have the truth, you’re wrong.” As a result, critical thinking, research, or intellectual freedom of exploration are not only unnecessary, they are dangerous and potentially heretical.”
[Posted By Ryz]
By Carolyn Baker
Republished from Information Clearing House
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"
When I was in college, I wrote a research paper that changed my life forever. I had grown up in a fundamentalist Christian family living in the buckle of the Bible Belt where I was fed a steady diet of racism and Cold War anti-communism. My grandfather had been a member of the Klan in the 1920s, and as a high school student, I was saving money to join the John Birch Society. Most personally detrimental to me, however, was the denigration by my high-school-educated parents of higher education. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” they exhorted from the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. And, when I insisted on attending college, they reminded me incessantly that the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God. However, getting an education from a fundamentalist, Bob Jones University-like institution would be acceptable. I did not attend Bob Jones, but almost miraculously, given the fact that I was attending a similar institution, I started to think critically, and therefore, from their perspective, my parents’ caveat that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” was validated.
In the second semester of my freshman year, I chose to write a research paper on race. It was 1964, and that summer, the Congress would pass the Civil Rights Act. Throughout my high school years, Martin Luther King was becoming a household word, and few people in my world held anything but contempt for the “colored communist sympathizer.”
As I reflect on my innocence at that age, but more importantly, my thirst for knowledge, I recall the hours of reading and research invested in the topic. Specifically, I set out to discover if African Americans were genuinely equal with whites. Pathetically, I was actually seeking evidence for the humanity of blacks. On the one hand, that I needed to research the topic in order to grasp that African Americans were my brothers and sisters was tragic, but on the other hand, that particular research project at that particular time in my life opened one door and closed another permanently, forever, and there was no turning back. I didn’t get an A on the paper, but it launched for me a journey of social justice that I have been on ever since. (more...)
Friday, May 13, 2005
ACCU POLL INSTALLS IRV ABILITY
IRV, or Ranked-Choice-Voting, is about the only thing that will renew my faith in electoral politics, sullied after November-December 2000, and completely destroyed after the California faux recall - not to mention the engineered 2004 elections. I would add proportional representation to the mix, but for that to be viable we must actually establish parties outside the corporate duopoly of the Republicrat Party --Pete
ACCU POLL INSTALLS IRV ABILITY
(Article here)
[ROB RICHIE, FAIR VOTE - Accu Poll has a very small share of the market, but seems to be making a very serious push in states around the country. It's a real breakthrough to have it touting the fact that its equipment is ready to run instant runoff voting elections.]
Accu Poll Inc. a developer of direct recording electronic voting
systems, today announced receipt of certification under the 2002 Federal Election Commission voting system standards. As a result, Accu Poll becomes the first vendor of an end-to-end voting system featuring a voter verified paper audit trail to be certified under the more stringent 2002 standards.
Version 2.5 includes new features such as Instant Runoff Voting,
electronic VVPAT audio review, early voting support, encrypted election results as well as additional enhanced security features.
[Note: we hold to the view that any paper ballot emanating from such a machine should be placed in an optical scan machine for a second computerized count. A "verified paper trail" is only useful when someone notices something wrong. In California, for example, simply adding two votes at every machine could produce a statewide difference in tally of 150,000 votes]
ACCU POLL INSTALLS IRV ABILITY
(Article here)
[ROB RICHIE, FAIR VOTE - Accu Poll has a very small share of the market, but seems to be making a very serious push in states around the country. It's a real breakthrough to have it touting the fact that its equipment is ready to run instant runoff voting elections.]
Accu Poll Inc. a developer of direct recording electronic voting
systems, today announced receipt of certification under the 2002 Federal Election Commission voting system standards. As a result, Accu Poll becomes the first vendor of an end-to-end voting system featuring a voter verified paper audit trail to be certified under the more stringent 2002 standards.
Version 2.5 includes new features such as Instant Runoff Voting,
electronic VVPAT audio review, early voting support, encrypted election results as well as additional enhanced security features.
[Note: we hold to the view that any paper ballot emanating from such a machine should be placed in an optical scan machine for a second computerized count. A "verified paper trail" is only useful when someone notices something wrong. In California, for example, simply adding two votes at every machine could produce a statewide difference in tally of 150,000 votes]
LATINO BOYCOTT IN ARIZONA
Is this a glaring generalization, or does it seem that Hispanics understand the power of their numbers better than most?--Pete
YVETTE ARMENDARIZ, ARIZONA REPUBLIC - Organizers of an economic boycott asking Hispanics not to go to work or spend money on Tuesday say the day was a success, drawing thousands of people in support. Although businesses around the Valley for the most part did not come to a stop, Hispanics gave up lunching out or shopping in support of the boycott. The boycott was a response to dozens of measures pending in the state Legislature that propose restrictions on undocumented immigrants.
Hispanics who could afford it or believed it was worth missing a day of pay showed up at rallies instead of work. "It couldn't have gone any better. It was more than I expected," said organizer Elias Bermudez, executive director of Centro de Ayuda (Center of Help), which assists immigrants in filling out immigration and tax documents. . .
Several restaurants, carwashes, construction companies and golf courses reported higher absenteeism. Some, such as Baja Fresh Downtown, closed for the day. Lombardi's Restaurant at Arizona Center limited its menu to salads and pastas because of a reduced kitchen crew.
Some roofing companies were crippled by the boycott. An office worker who answered the phone at Catalina Roofing and Supply in Phoenix said none of the company's 160 roofers showed up for work Tuesday.
At San Tan Roofing and Superstition Carpentry in Gilbert, half of the
company's 150 roofers and 400 of its 700 framers didn't show up for
work, Chief Financial Officer William McGlothlin said. Ninety percent of the company's workforce is Hispanic. (Azcentral Article)
YVETTE ARMENDARIZ, ARIZONA REPUBLIC - Organizers of an economic boycott asking Hispanics not to go to work or spend money on Tuesday say the day was a success, drawing thousands of people in support. Although businesses around the Valley for the most part did not come to a stop, Hispanics gave up lunching out or shopping in support of the boycott. The boycott was a response to dozens of measures pending in the state Legislature that propose restrictions on undocumented immigrants.
Hispanics who could afford it or believed it was worth missing a day of pay showed up at rallies instead of work. "It couldn't have gone any better. It was more than I expected," said organizer Elias Bermudez, executive director of Centro de Ayuda (Center of Help), which assists immigrants in filling out immigration and tax documents. . .
Several restaurants, carwashes, construction companies and golf courses reported higher absenteeism. Some, such as Baja Fresh Downtown, closed for the day. Lombardi's Restaurant at Arizona Center limited its menu to salads and pastas because of a reduced kitchen crew.
Some roofing companies were crippled by the boycott. An office worker who answered the phone at Catalina Roofing and Supply in Phoenix said none of the company's 160 roofers showed up for work Tuesday.
At San Tan Roofing and Superstition Carpentry in Gilbert, half of the
company's 150 roofers and 400 of its 700 framers didn't show up for
work, Chief Financial Officer William McGlothlin said. Ninety percent of the company's workforce is Hispanic. (Azcentral Article)
THE PRICE OF COVERING THE WAR HONESTLY
[From a speech given by photojournalist Molly Bingham at Western
Kentucky University last month. Bingham, a Louisville native, was
detained in 2003 by Iraqi security forces and held in Abu Ghraib prison from March 25 to April 2, 2003. Eighteen days after her release, she returned to Iraq to pursue stories for The New York Times, The Guardian of London and others.]
...Recent actions indicate that the U.S. military will detain and/or kill any journalist who happens to be caught covering the Iraqi side of the militant resistance, and indeed a number of journalists have been killed by U.S. troops while working in Iraq. This behavior at the moment seems to be limited to journalists who also happen to be Arabs, or Arab-looking, but that is only a tangential story to what I'm telling you about here. . .
Dexter Filkins, who writes for The New York Times, related a
conversation he had in Iraq with an American military commander just before we left. Dexter and the commander had gotten quite friendly, meeting up sporadically for a beer and a chat. Towards the end of one of their conversations, Dexter declined an invitation for the next day by explaining that he'd lined up a meeting with a "resistance guy." The commander's face went stony cold and he said, "We have a position on that." For Dexter the message was clear. He cancelled the appointment.
And many American journalists often refer to those attacking Americans or Iraqi troops and policemen as "terrorists." Some are indeed using terrorist tactics, but calling them "terrorists" simply shuts down any sense of need or interest to look beyond that word, to understand why indeed human beings might be willing to die in a violent struggle to achieve their goal. Pushing them off as simply "insane, wild Arabs" or "extremist Muslims" does them no service, but even more, it does the U.S. no service. If we as Americans fail to understand who attacks us and why, we will simply continue on this same path, and continue watching from afar as a war we don't understand boils over...(more)
Kentucky University last month. Bingham, a Louisville native, was
detained in 2003 by Iraqi security forces and held in Abu Ghraib prison from March 25 to April 2, 2003. Eighteen days after her release, she returned to Iraq to pursue stories for The New York Times, The Guardian of London and others.]
...Recent actions indicate that the U.S. military will detain and/or kill any journalist who happens to be caught covering the Iraqi side of the militant resistance, and indeed a number of journalists have been killed by U.S. troops while working in Iraq. This behavior at the moment seems to be limited to journalists who also happen to be Arabs, or Arab-looking, but that is only a tangential story to what I'm telling you about here. . .
Dexter Filkins, who writes for The New York Times, related a
conversation he had in Iraq with an American military commander just before we left. Dexter and the commander had gotten quite friendly, meeting up sporadically for a beer and a chat. Towards the end of one of their conversations, Dexter declined an invitation for the next day by explaining that he'd lined up a meeting with a "resistance guy." The commander's face went stony cold and he said, "We have a position on that." For Dexter the message was clear. He cancelled the appointment.
And many American journalists often refer to those attacking Americans or Iraqi troops and policemen as "terrorists." Some are indeed using terrorist tactics, but calling them "terrorists" simply shuts down any sense of need or interest to look beyond that word, to understand why indeed human beings might be willing to die in a violent struggle to achieve their goal. Pushing them off as simply "insane, wild Arabs" or "extremist Muslims" does them no service, but even more, it does the U.S. no service. If we as Americans fail to understand who attacks us and why, we will simply continue on this same path, and continue watching from afar as a war we don't understand boils over...(more)
PENSIONS OF UNITED WORKERS SLASHED BY COURT DECISION
[The math on this indicates that the average United current or retired employee stands to lose $5300 a year as a result of this decision]
BBC - A US bankruptcy judge has approved plans by United Airlines to terminate its employees' pension plans. The troubled US carrier said it would save about $645m a year, in what would become America's largest corporate pension default. United plans to transfer responsibility for its four defined-benefit plans to the US government's pension agency.
Employees could lose thousands of dollars a year from their pensions when they are assumed by the US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Some 120,000 current and retired United employees are covered by the pensions. "Thousands of retirees will be severely impacted by the ruling," said a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. They have already seen their retirement medical costs skyrocket because of United's bankruptcy. . . and now will have reduced pensions. It's a devastating blow."
Workers have vowed to strike if their pensions are terminated. But Jake Brace, United's chief financial officer, said the company was doing what was necessary for its long-term survival. "The judge ruled that we did not violate the contract, so we did not violate the law and they (the unions) have no right to strike," he said.
In January, pilots and flight attendants at United agreed to accept pay cuts worth $310m a year to help the carrier emerge from bankruptcy protection.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/business/4535403.stm
AP - United's effort to dump its pensions is being watched closely by the rest of the industry, where record fuel costs, the lowest fares since the early 1990s and stiff competition have caused large airlines to post billions of dollars in losses. A successful move by United to get out from under its pension obligations, following a step taken by US Airways Group in February, would clear the way for similar actions elsewhere.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/10/business/air.php
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - It's been a rough ride for workers at United Airlines over the last five years. Nearly 40,000 United workers -- including 9,000 in the Bay Area -- retired, quit or were laid off as the troubled airline slashed its workforce. . .
Employees who once owned big chunks of the airline's parent company, UAL Corp., through an employee stock ownership plan lost their stock when the company went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2002. Moreover, they have conceded $2.5 billion a year in wages and benefits to United, which says it needs even more stringent cost-containment to emerge from bankruptcy.
SF Gate Article
BBC - A US bankruptcy judge has approved plans by United Airlines to terminate its employees' pension plans. The troubled US carrier said it would save about $645m a year, in what would become America's largest corporate pension default. United plans to transfer responsibility for its four defined-benefit plans to the US government's pension agency.
Employees could lose thousands of dollars a year from their pensions when they are assumed by the US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Some 120,000 current and retired United employees are covered by the pensions. "Thousands of retirees will be severely impacted by the ruling," said a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. They have already seen their retirement medical costs skyrocket because of United's bankruptcy. . . and now will have reduced pensions. It's a devastating blow."
Workers have vowed to strike if their pensions are terminated. But Jake Brace, United's chief financial officer, said the company was doing what was necessary for its long-term survival. "The judge ruled that we did not violate the contract, so we did not violate the law and they (the unions) have no right to strike," he said.
In January, pilots and flight attendants at United agreed to accept pay cuts worth $310m a year to help the carrier emerge from bankruptcy protection.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/business/4535403.stm
AP - United's effort to dump its pensions is being watched closely by the rest of the industry, where record fuel costs, the lowest fares since the early 1990s and stiff competition have caused large airlines to post billions of dollars in losses. A successful move by United to get out from under its pension obligations, following a step taken by US Airways Group in February, would clear the way for similar actions elsewhere.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/10/business/air.php
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - It's been a rough ride for workers at United Airlines over the last five years. Nearly 40,000 United workers -- including 9,000 in the Bay Area -- retired, quit or were laid off as the troubled airline slashed its workforce. . .
Employees who once owned big chunks of the airline's parent company, UAL Corp., through an employee stock ownership plan lost their stock when the company went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2002. Moreover, they have conceded $2.5 billion a year in wages and benefits to United, which says it needs even more stringent cost-containment to emerge from bankruptcy.
SF Gate Article
Thursday, May 12, 2005
‘Foreign Fighters’ On a ‘Rampage’; U.S. Media On a Roll
May 12, 2005
POSTED BY: Chris Shumway, NewStandard
http://newstandardnews.net/alivewires/mideast/content/?show_item=1800
An AP dispatch this morning bears the headline "Iraqi Insurgents Go on Rampage, Kill 60." The article describes a string of suicide bombings that were unleashed Wednesday as US forces were in the midst of a major offensive against insurgents in western Iraq, near the Syrian border.
My issue here isn't whether or not the insurgents went on a rampage. It appears that they did. Rather, the bigger question is whether the AP, or any other US mainstream media outlet, applies the same standards when describing violent, offensive actions on the part of warring factions?
I don't recall the AP using a similar headline while US forces were attacking Fallujah last November. During that battle, US forces attacked hospitals, killed thousands of people (how many civilians, we'll probably never know), and drove maybe 100,000 - 200,000 people from their homes.
Was that not a rampage? Certainly the scale of the attack was far bigger than that of Wednesday's suicide bombings.
The AP article also includes this astonishing passage, which has actually become customary for US mainstream media:
...evidence obtained from captured insurgents confirmed the presence of foreign fighters in the area.
Foreign fighters? Aren't the 1,000 or so US troops conducting the offensive "foreign fighters?" I don't think any of them are Iraqi-born, nor are they from neighboring countries. So why does AP simply repeat US military statements or comments about "foreign fighters" in Iraq? Aren't the soldiers who make such statements also foreign fighters? And what exactly is the "evidence" they've obtained? The AP doesn't say.
Perhaps AP could at least rewrite the article to read: "The US military, which itself is fighting on foreign soil, says evidence obtained from captured insurgents confirmed the presence of other foreign fighters in the area who have taken up arms with the insurgency."
Hey, here's a thought: What if all the foreign fighters left Iraq?
POSTED BY: Chris Shumway, NewStandard
http://newstandardnews.net/alivewires/mideast/content/?show_item=1800
An AP dispatch this morning bears the headline "Iraqi Insurgents Go on Rampage, Kill 60." The article describes a string of suicide bombings that were unleashed Wednesday as US forces were in the midst of a major offensive against insurgents in western Iraq, near the Syrian border.
My issue here isn't whether or not the insurgents went on a rampage. It appears that they did. Rather, the bigger question is whether the AP, or any other US mainstream media outlet, applies the same standards when describing violent, offensive actions on the part of warring factions?
I don't recall the AP using a similar headline while US forces were attacking Fallujah last November. During that battle, US forces attacked hospitals, killed thousands of people (how many civilians, we'll probably never know), and drove maybe 100,000 - 200,000 people from their homes.
Was that not a rampage? Certainly the scale of the attack was far bigger than that of Wednesday's suicide bombings.
The AP article also includes this astonishing passage, which has actually become customary for US mainstream media:
...evidence obtained from captured insurgents confirmed the presence of foreign fighters in the area.
Foreign fighters? Aren't the 1,000 or so US troops conducting the offensive "foreign fighters?" I don't think any of them are Iraqi-born, nor are they from neighboring countries. So why does AP simply repeat US military statements or comments about "foreign fighters" in Iraq? Aren't the soldiers who make such statements also foreign fighters? And what exactly is the "evidence" they've obtained? The AP doesn't say.
Perhaps AP could at least rewrite the article to read: "The US military, which itself is fighting on foreign soil, says evidence obtained from captured insurgents confirmed the presence of other foreign fighters in the area who have taken up arms with the insurgency."
Hey, here's a thought: What if all the foreign fighters left Iraq?
Power of Nightmares re-awakened
I have written in past blogs about the myth al-Qaeda's organizational strength and its purpose in the New Crusades. It now seems that the excellent series concerning this myth, "The Power Of Nightmares", will finally see world-wide theatrical release. It has been persona non grata here in the Nation of Righteous Holy Crusaders since its first airing in the autumn of 2004, and while we were hoping for DVD release, this is certainly a wonderful first step.--Pete
By Adam Curtis
Writer, Producer and Narrator, The Power of Nightmares
The Power of Nightmares - first screened in Autumn 2004 and repeated last week on BBC Two - questions whether the threat of terrorism to the West is a politically driven fantasy and if al-Qaeda really is an organised network.
The BBC has been inundated with correspondence, some critical much of it very positive. Viewers were invited to put their questions to the writer of the series, Adam Curtis. Here he responds to some of those correspondents, chosen to represent a broad selection of your questions.
I know you have already been asked, but PLEASE, PLEASE, release the series on video or DVD
Peter Grant, London
The problem is that the films are full of archive film and music from a multitude of sources. The reason my series are normally not released on DVD is that it is prohibitively costly and a nightmare - no pun intended - to clear the rights.
But so many people have now asked for the series to be released in this form that I think it probably will happen.
I have sat through your documentary tonight. I hope your programme is shown again following the next terrorist attack. You sound like the hedgehog who claims that cars won't hurt you!!!! I'm amazed!!!!!!!
Iain Foster, Portsmouth
In the face of much more tangible threats in the past - like the IRA, the Soviet Union and even Nazi Germany - British governments did not encourage the people to behave like hedgehogs.
Why roll up into a ball now in the face of what is a serious but in no way an overwhelming threat to our nation and our freedoms?
The programmes did not say that there was no threat. What they argued was that although there is a serious threat of terrorism from some radical Islamists, the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organisation waiting to strike our societies is an illusion.
The question the series tried to answer was why contemporary politicians and other elites, like the media, want you to feel frightened - to behave and feel like a hedgehog trapped on a motorway - when the reality and the scale of the threat is actually very different. (more...)
By Adam Curtis
Writer, Producer and Narrator, The Power of Nightmares
The Power of Nightmares - first screened in Autumn 2004 and repeated last week on BBC Two - questions whether the threat of terrorism to the West is a politically driven fantasy and if al-Qaeda really is an organised network.
The BBC has been inundated with correspondence, some critical much of it very positive. Viewers were invited to put their questions to the writer of the series, Adam Curtis. Here he responds to some of those correspondents, chosen to represent a broad selection of your questions.
I know you have already been asked, but PLEASE, PLEASE, release the series on video or DVD
Peter Grant, London
The problem is that the films are full of archive film and music from a multitude of sources. The reason my series are normally not released on DVD is that it is prohibitively costly and a nightmare - no pun intended - to clear the rights.
But so many people have now asked for the series to be released in this form that I think it probably will happen.
I have sat through your documentary tonight. I hope your programme is shown again following the next terrorist attack. You sound like the hedgehog who claims that cars won't hurt you!!!! I'm amazed!!!!!!!
Iain Foster, Portsmouth
In the face of much more tangible threats in the past - like the IRA, the Soviet Union and even Nazi Germany - British governments did not encourage the people to behave like hedgehogs.
Why roll up into a ball now in the face of what is a serious but in no way an overwhelming threat to our nation and our freedoms?
The programmes did not say that there was no threat. What they argued was that although there is a serious threat of terrorism from some radical Islamists, the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organisation waiting to strike our societies is an illusion.
The question the series tried to answer was why contemporary politicians and other elites, like the media, want you to feel frightened - to behave and feel like a hedgehog trapped on a motorway - when the reality and the scale of the threat is actually very different. (more...)
Ahnuld's Pah-pu-lah-rih-ty slipping?
TINA FEY - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity has been slipping in recent months as residents slowly begin to realize they elected Arnold Schwarzenegger to be their governor.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldailyfeed3.htm
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldailyfeed3.htm
THE MEDIACRACY
JOURNALISM 101 (click for LA Times article)
WHEN a president who has done more to destroy democracy and freedom in our country than any of his predecessors goes abroad and talks about the need for democracy and freedom elsewhere in the world, it is good to consider his credentials as well as his rhetoric. One way to do this is to quote someone a bit skeptical of the president, something much of the media doesn't seem to bother with much these days.
Most of all, it's probably not a good idea to leave it to the Russian
premier to point out some of the ironies involved or to a Dutch student to ask President Bush, "I have a question. . . concerning the terrorism. . . And you made many laws after 9/11, many - many laws and many measures. And I'm wondering, will there be a time when you drop those laws and when you decrease the measures?"
The LA Times, to its credit, did report the question and Bush's
response:
"'Look,' Bush replied, 'a free society such as ours, obviously, must
balance the government's most important duty, which is to protect the American people from harm, with the civil liberties of our citizens. And every law we passed that was aimed to protect us in this new era of threats from abroad and the willingness for people to kill without mercy has been scrutinized and, of course, balanced by our Constitution.
"The president explained that Congress was reviewing the Patriot Act, the controversial measure that gives law enforcement agencies greater power to conduct surveillance and share information. He told her that the Sept. 11 attacks had changed his nation's mind-set, resulting in the need for different laws.
"'I mean, it was more than just an attack; it was a whole mind-set,' he said. 'And that's why your question is really relevant - did that
mind-set, did that change of attitude cause us to then begin to take away certain civil liberties, and I would argue it did not.'
"Bush's co-host at the event, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, wondered if the young woman was satisfied.
"'You're convinced by the president?' he asked amid laughter.
WHEN a president who has done more to destroy democracy and freedom in our country than any of his predecessors goes abroad and talks about the need for democracy and freedom elsewhere in the world, it is good to consider his credentials as well as his rhetoric. One way to do this is to quote someone a bit skeptical of the president, something much of the media doesn't seem to bother with much these days.
Most of all, it's probably not a good idea to leave it to the Russian
premier to point out some of the ironies involved or to a Dutch student to ask President Bush, "I have a question. . . concerning the terrorism. . . And you made many laws after 9/11, many - many laws and many measures. And I'm wondering, will there be a time when you drop those laws and when you decrease the measures?"
The LA Times, to its credit, did report the question and Bush's
response:
"'Look,' Bush replied, 'a free society such as ours, obviously, must
balance the government's most important duty, which is to protect the American people from harm, with the civil liberties of our citizens. And every law we passed that was aimed to protect us in this new era of threats from abroad and the willingness for people to kill without mercy has been scrutinized and, of course, balanced by our Constitution.
"The president explained that Congress was reviewing the Patriot Act, the controversial measure that gives law enforcement agencies greater power to conduct surveillance and share information. He told her that the Sept. 11 attacks had changed his nation's mind-set, resulting in the need for different laws.
"'I mean, it was more than just an attack; it was a whole mind-set,' he said. 'And that's why your question is really relevant - did that
mind-set, did that change of attitude cause us to then begin to take away certain civil liberties, and I would argue it did not.'
"Bush's co-host at the event, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, wondered if the young woman was satisfied.
"'You're convinced by the president?' he asked amid laughter.
NURSES KICK ARNOLD'S BUTT
http://www.laboreducator.org/miltact.htm
HARRY KELBER, LABOR EDUCATOR - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may have made a major political blunder when he called the California Nurses Association a "special interest" and sought to block the independent union’s successful sponsorship of legislation to reduce the RN-patient ratio in the state's hospitals.
Schwarzenegger infuriated CNA members when he pointed at a group of
protesting nurses in the audience at one of his fund-raisers and told
the crowd they were "special interests" and he was always "kicking their
butts." His remarks were also meant for the state's teachers, police and
firefighters who have good reasons to oppose him. . .
CNA has led the fight against the "Great Arnold" by using guerrilla
tactics that caused his public approval rating to plummet from 65% to
43% - and it's still dropping. RNs have dogged each of some forty of the
governor's fund raising and media events, evoking his anger and
frustration.
For example, at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco on April 5, some 5,000
RNs, teachers, firefighters and police circled the hotel and made it a
media circus that dominated the news for three days and left 500 to 600
seats at the fund-raiser empty, while creating beautiful footage of the
governor sneaking into the back of his own event. At various
fund-raisers, a light plane has been a frequent uninvited guest, towing
a banner through the skies that read "California is not for sale."
HARRY KELBER, LABOR EDUCATOR - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may have made a major political blunder when he called the California Nurses Association a "special interest" and sought to block the independent union’s successful sponsorship of legislation to reduce the RN-patient ratio in the state's hospitals.
Schwarzenegger infuriated CNA members when he pointed at a group of
protesting nurses in the audience at one of his fund-raisers and told
the crowd they were "special interests" and he was always "kicking their
butts." His remarks were also meant for the state's teachers, police and
firefighters who have good reasons to oppose him. . .
CNA has led the fight against the "Great Arnold" by using guerrilla
tactics that caused his public approval rating to plummet from 65% to
43% - and it's still dropping. RNs have dogged each of some forty of the
governor's fund raising and media events, evoking his anger and
frustration.
For example, at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco on April 5, some 5,000
RNs, teachers, firefighters and police circled the hotel and made it a
media circus that dominated the news for three days and left 500 to 600
seats at the fund-raiser empty, while creating beautiful footage of the
governor sneaking into the back of his own event. At various
fund-raisers, a light plane has been a frequent uninvited guest, towing
a banner through the skies that read "California is not for sale."
TRICK OF THE WEEK: DID THEY EACH HAVE IPODS?
WASHINGTON POST PHOTO CAPTION - President Bush and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Bakenende listen to their national anthems.
How to End the War
By Naomi Klein, In These Times
Posted on May 10, 2005.
http://www.alternet.org/story/21980/
Editor's Note: The following essay is adapted from remarks made at the National Teach-in on Iraq sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. The teach-in was held on March 24, the 40th anniversary of the first teach-in on the Vietnam War, which was held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The central question we need to answer is this: What were the real reasons for the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq?
When we identify why we really went to war—not the cover reasons or the rebranded reasons, freedom and democracy, but the real reasons—then we can become more effective anti-war activists. The most effective and strategic way to stop this occupation and prevent future wars is to deny the people who wage these wars their spoils—to make war unprofitable. And we can’t do that unless we effectively identify the goals of war.
When I was in Iraq a year ago trying to answer that question, one of the most effective ways I found to do that was to follow the bulldozers and construction machinery. I was in Iraq to research the so-called reconstruction. And what struck me most was the absence of reconstruction machinery, of cranes and bulldozers, in downtown Baghdad. I expected to see reconstruction all over the place.
I saw bulldozers in military bases. I saw bulldozers in the Green Zone, where a huge amount of construction was going on, building up Bechtel’s headquarters and getting the new U.S. embassy ready. There was also a ton of construction going on at all of the U.S. military bases. But, on the streets of Baghdad, the former ministry buildings are absolutely untouched. They hadn’t even cleared away the rubble, let alone started the reconstruction process.
The one crane I saw in the streets of Baghdad was hoisting an advertising billboard. One of the surreal things about Baghdad is that the old city lies in ruins, yet there are these shiny new billboards advertising the glories of the global economy. And the message is: “Everything you were before isn’t worth rebuilding.” We’re going to import a brand-new country. It is the Iraq version of the Extreme Makeover.
It’s not a coincidence that Americans were at home watching this explosion of extreme reality television shows where people’s bodies were being surgically remade and their homes were being bulldozed and reconstituted. The message of these shows is: Everything you are now, everything you own, everything you do sucks. We’re going to completely erase it and rebuild it with a team of experts. You just go limp and let the experts take over. That is exactly what “Extreme Makover: Iraq” is.
There was no role for Iraqis in this process. It was all foreign companies modernizing the country. Iraqis with engineering Ph.D.s who built their electricity system and who built their telephone system had no place in the reconstruction process.
If we want to know what the goals of the war are, we have to look at what Paul Bremer did when he first arrived in Iraq. He laid off 500,000 people, 400,000 of whom were soldiers. And he shredded Iraq’s constitution and wrote a series of economic laws that the The Economist described as “the wish list of foreign investors.”
Basically, Iraq has been turned into a laboratory for the radical free-market policies that the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute dream about in Washington, D.C., but are only able to impose in relative slow motion here at home.
So we just have to examine the Bush administration’s policies and actions. We don’t have to wield secret documents or massive conspiracy theories. We have to look at the fact that they built enduring military bases and didn’t rebuild the country. Their very first act was to protect the oil ministry leaving the the rest of the country to burn—to which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded: “Stuff happens.” Theirs was an almost apocalyptic glee in allowing Iraq to burn. They let the country be erased, leaving a blank slate that they could rebuild in their image This was the goal of the war.
The Big Lie
The administration says the war was about fighting for democracy. That was the big lie they resorted to when they were caught in the other lies. But it’s a different kind of a lie in the sense that it’s a useful lie. The lie that the United States invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy not just to Iraq but, as it turns out, to the whole world, is tremendously useful—because we can first expose it as a lie and then we can join with Iraqis to try to make it true. So it disturbs me that a lot of progressives are afraid to use the language of democracy now that George W. Bush is using it. We are somehow giving up on the most powerful emancipatory ideas ever created, of self-determination, liberation and democracy.
And it’s absolutely crucial not to let Bush get away with stealing and defaming these ideas—they are too important.
In looking at democracy in Iraq, we first need to make the distinction between elections and democracy. The reality is the Bush administration has fought democracy in Iraq at every turn.
Why? Because if genuine democracy ever came to Iraq, the real goals of the war—control over oil, support for Israel, the construction of enduring military bases, the privatization of the entire economy—would all be lost. Why? Because Iraqis don’t want them and they don’t agree with them. They have said it over and over again—first in opinion polls, which is why the Bush administration broke its original promise to have elections within months of the invasion. I believe Paul Wolfowitz genuinely thought that Iraqis would respond like the contestants on a reality TV show and say: “Oh my God. Thank you for my brand-new shiny country.” They didn’t. They protested that 500,000 people had lost their jobs. They protested the fact that they were being shut out of the reconstruction of their own country, and they made it clear they didn’t want permanent U.S. bases.
That’s when the administration broke its promise and appointed a CIA agent as the interim prime minister. In that period they locked in—basically shackled—Iraq’s future governments to an International Monetary Fund program until 2008. This will make the humanitarian crisis in Iraq much, much deeper. Here’s just one example: The IMF and the World Bank are demanding the elimination of Iraq’s food ration program, upon which 60 percent of the population depends for nutrition, as a condition for debt relief and for the new loans that have been made in deals with an unelected government.
In these elections, Iraqis voted for the United Iraqi Alliance. In addition to demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of troops, this coalition party has promised that they would create 100 percent full employment in the public sector—i.e., a total rebuke of the neocons’ privatization agenda. But now they can’t do any of this because their democracy has been shackled. In other words, they have the vote, but no real power to govern.
A Pro-democracy Movement
The future of the anti-war movement requires that it become a pro-democracy movement. Our marching orders have been given to us by the people of Iraq. It’s important to understand that the most powerful movement against this war and this occupation is within Iraq itself. Our anti-war movement must not just be in verbal solidarity but in active and tangible solidarity with the overwhelming majority of Iraqis fighting to end the occupation of their country. We need to take our direction from them.
Iraqis are resisting in many ways—not just with armed resistance. They are organizing independent trade unions. They are opening critical newspapers, and then having those newspapers shut down. They are fighting privatization in state factories. They are forming new political coalitions in an attempt to force an end to the occupation.
So what is our role here? We need to support the people of Iraq and their clear demands for an end to both military and corporate occupation. That means being the resistance ourselves in our country, demanding that the troops come home, that U.S. corporations come home, that Iraqis be free of Saddam’s debt and the IMF and World Bank agreements signed under occupation. It doesn’t mean blindly cheerleading for “the resistance.” Because there isn’t just one resistance in Iraq. Some elements of the armed resistance are targeting Iraqi civilians as they pray in Shia mosques—barbaric acts that serve the interests of the Bush administration by feeding the perception that the country is on the brink of civil war and therefore U.S. forces must remain in Iraq. Not everyone fighting the U.S. occupation is fighting for the freedom of all Iraqis; some are fighting for their own elite power. That’s why we need to stay focused on supporting the demands for self-determination, not cheering any setback for U.S. empire.
And we can’t cede the language, the territory of democracy. Anybody who says Iraqis don’t want democracy should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Iraqis are clamoring for democracy and had risked their lives for it long before this invasion—in the 1991 uprising against Saddam, for example, when they were left to be slaughtered. The elections in January took place only because of tremendous pressure from Iraqi Shia communities that insisted on getting the freedom they were promised.
The Courage to be Serious
Many of us opposed this war because it was an imperial project. Now Iraqis are struggling for the tools that will make self-determination meaningful, not just for show elections or marketing opportunities for the Bush administration. That means it’s time, as Susan Sontag said, to have “the courage to be serious.” The reason why the 58 percent of Americans against the war has not translated into the same millions of people on the streets that we saw before the war is because we haven’t come forward with a serious policy agenda. We should not be afraid to be serious.
Part of that seriousness is to echo the policy demands made by voters and demonstrators in the streets of Baghdad and Basra and bring those demands to Washington, where the decisions are being made.
But the core fight is over respect for international law, and whether there is any respect for it at all in the United States. Unless we’re fighting a core battle against this administration’s total disdain for the very idea of international law, then the specifics really don’t matter.
We saw this very clearly in the U.S. presidential campaign, as John Kerry let Bush completely set the terms for the debate. Recall the ridicule of Kerry’s mention of a “global test,” and the charge that it was cowardly and weak to allow for any international scrutiny of U.S. actions. Why didn’t Kerry ever challenge this assumption? I blame the Kerry campaign as much as I blame the Bush administration. During the elections, he never said “Abu Ghraib.” He never said “Guantanamo Bay.” He accepted the premise that to submit to some kind of “global test” was to be weak. Once they had done that, the Democrats couldn’t expect to win a battle against Alberto Gonzales being appointed attorney general, when they had never talked about torture during the campaign.
And part of the war has to be a media war in this country. The problem is not that the anti-war voices aren’t there—it’s that the voices aren’t amplified. We need a strategy to target the media in this country, making it a site of protest itself. We must demand that the media let us hear the voices of anti-war critics, of enraged mothers who have lost their sons for a lie, of betrayed soldiers who fought in a war they didn’t believe in. And we need to keep deepening the definition of democracy—to say that these show elections are not democracy, and that we don’t have a democracy in this country either.
Sadly, the Bush administration has done a better job of using the language of responsibility than we in the anti-war movement. The message that’s getting across is that we are saying “just leave,” while they are saying, “we can’t just leave, we have to stay and fix the problem we started.”
We can have a very detailed, responsible agenda and we shouldn’t be afraid of it. We should be saying, “Let’s pull the troops out but let’s leave some hope behind.” We can’t be afraid to talk about reparations, to demand freedom from debt for Iraq, a total abandonment of Bremer’s illegal economic laws, full Iraqi control over the reconstruction budget—there are many more examples of concrete policy demands that we can and must put forth. When we articulate a more genuine definition of democracy than we are hearing from the Bush administration, we will bring some hope to Iraq. And we will bring closer to us many of the 58 percent who are opposed to the war but aren’t marching with us yet because they are afraid of cutting and running.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/21980/
Posted on May 10, 2005.
http://www.alternet.org/story/21980/
Editor's Note: The following essay is adapted from remarks made at the National Teach-in on Iraq sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. The teach-in was held on March 24, the 40th anniversary of the first teach-in on the Vietnam War, which was held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The central question we need to answer is this: What were the real reasons for the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq?
When we identify why we really went to war—not the cover reasons or the rebranded reasons, freedom and democracy, but the real reasons—then we can become more effective anti-war activists. The most effective and strategic way to stop this occupation and prevent future wars is to deny the people who wage these wars their spoils—to make war unprofitable. And we can’t do that unless we effectively identify the goals of war.
When I was in Iraq a year ago trying to answer that question, one of the most effective ways I found to do that was to follow the bulldozers and construction machinery. I was in Iraq to research the so-called reconstruction. And what struck me most was the absence of reconstruction machinery, of cranes and bulldozers, in downtown Baghdad. I expected to see reconstruction all over the place.
I saw bulldozers in military bases. I saw bulldozers in the Green Zone, where a huge amount of construction was going on, building up Bechtel’s headquarters and getting the new U.S. embassy ready. There was also a ton of construction going on at all of the U.S. military bases. But, on the streets of Baghdad, the former ministry buildings are absolutely untouched. They hadn’t even cleared away the rubble, let alone started the reconstruction process.
The one crane I saw in the streets of Baghdad was hoisting an advertising billboard. One of the surreal things about Baghdad is that the old city lies in ruins, yet there are these shiny new billboards advertising the glories of the global economy. And the message is: “Everything you were before isn’t worth rebuilding.” We’re going to import a brand-new country. It is the Iraq version of the Extreme Makeover.
It’s not a coincidence that Americans were at home watching this explosion of extreme reality television shows where people’s bodies were being surgically remade and their homes were being bulldozed and reconstituted. The message of these shows is: Everything you are now, everything you own, everything you do sucks. We’re going to completely erase it and rebuild it with a team of experts. You just go limp and let the experts take over. That is exactly what “Extreme Makover: Iraq” is.
There was no role for Iraqis in this process. It was all foreign companies modernizing the country. Iraqis with engineering Ph.D.s who built their electricity system and who built their telephone system had no place in the reconstruction process.
If we want to know what the goals of the war are, we have to look at what Paul Bremer did when he first arrived in Iraq. He laid off 500,000 people, 400,000 of whom were soldiers. And he shredded Iraq’s constitution and wrote a series of economic laws that the The Economist described as “the wish list of foreign investors.”
Basically, Iraq has been turned into a laboratory for the radical free-market policies that the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute dream about in Washington, D.C., but are only able to impose in relative slow motion here at home.
So we just have to examine the Bush administration’s policies and actions. We don’t have to wield secret documents or massive conspiracy theories. We have to look at the fact that they built enduring military bases and didn’t rebuild the country. Their very first act was to protect the oil ministry leaving the the rest of the country to burn—to which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded: “Stuff happens.” Theirs was an almost apocalyptic glee in allowing Iraq to burn. They let the country be erased, leaving a blank slate that they could rebuild in their image This was the goal of the war.
The Big Lie
The administration says the war was about fighting for democracy. That was the big lie they resorted to when they were caught in the other lies. But it’s a different kind of a lie in the sense that it’s a useful lie. The lie that the United States invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy not just to Iraq but, as it turns out, to the whole world, is tremendously useful—because we can first expose it as a lie and then we can join with Iraqis to try to make it true. So it disturbs me that a lot of progressives are afraid to use the language of democracy now that George W. Bush is using it. We are somehow giving up on the most powerful emancipatory ideas ever created, of self-determination, liberation and democracy.
And it’s absolutely crucial not to let Bush get away with stealing and defaming these ideas—they are too important.
In looking at democracy in Iraq, we first need to make the distinction between elections and democracy. The reality is the Bush administration has fought democracy in Iraq at every turn.
Why? Because if genuine democracy ever came to Iraq, the real goals of the war—control over oil, support for Israel, the construction of enduring military bases, the privatization of the entire economy—would all be lost. Why? Because Iraqis don’t want them and they don’t agree with them. They have said it over and over again—first in opinion polls, which is why the Bush administration broke its original promise to have elections within months of the invasion. I believe Paul Wolfowitz genuinely thought that Iraqis would respond like the contestants on a reality TV show and say: “Oh my God. Thank you for my brand-new shiny country.” They didn’t. They protested that 500,000 people had lost their jobs. They protested the fact that they were being shut out of the reconstruction of their own country, and they made it clear they didn’t want permanent U.S. bases.
That’s when the administration broke its promise and appointed a CIA agent as the interim prime minister. In that period they locked in—basically shackled—Iraq’s future governments to an International Monetary Fund program until 2008. This will make the humanitarian crisis in Iraq much, much deeper. Here’s just one example: The IMF and the World Bank are demanding the elimination of Iraq’s food ration program, upon which 60 percent of the population depends for nutrition, as a condition for debt relief and for the new loans that have been made in deals with an unelected government.
In these elections, Iraqis voted for the United Iraqi Alliance. In addition to demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of troops, this coalition party has promised that they would create 100 percent full employment in the public sector—i.e., a total rebuke of the neocons’ privatization agenda. But now they can’t do any of this because their democracy has been shackled. In other words, they have the vote, but no real power to govern.
A Pro-democracy Movement
The future of the anti-war movement requires that it become a pro-democracy movement. Our marching orders have been given to us by the people of Iraq. It’s important to understand that the most powerful movement against this war and this occupation is within Iraq itself. Our anti-war movement must not just be in verbal solidarity but in active and tangible solidarity with the overwhelming majority of Iraqis fighting to end the occupation of their country. We need to take our direction from them.
Iraqis are resisting in many ways—not just with armed resistance. They are organizing independent trade unions. They are opening critical newspapers, and then having those newspapers shut down. They are fighting privatization in state factories. They are forming new political coalitions in an attempt to force an end to the occupation.
So what is our role here? We need to support the people of Iraq and their clear demands for an end to both military and corporate occupation. That means being the resistance ourselves in our country, demanding that the troops come home, that U.S. corporations come home, that Iraqis be free of Saddam’s debt and the IMF and World Bank agreements signed under occupation. It doesn’t mean blindly cheerleading for “the resistance.” Because there isn’t just one resistance in Iraq. Some elements of the armed resistance are targeting Iraqi civilians as they pray in Shia mosques—barbaric acts that serve the interests of the Bush administration by feeding the perception that the country is on the brink of civil war and therefore U.S. forces must remain in Iraq. Not everyone fighting the U.S. occupation is fighting for the freedom of all Iraqis; some are fighting for their own elite power. That’s why we need to stay focused on supporting the demands for self-determination, not cheering any setback for U.S. empire.
And we can’t cede the language, the territory of democracy. Anybody who says Iraqis don’t want democracy should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Iraqis are clamoring for democracy and had risked their lives for it long before this invasion—in the 1991 uprising against Saddam, for example, when they were left to be slaughtered. The elections in January took place only because of tremendous pressure from Iraqi Shia communities that insisted on getting the freedom they were promised.
The Courage to be Serious
Many of us opposed this war because it was an imperial project. Now Iraqis are struggling for the tools that will make self-determination meaningful, not just for show elections or marketing opportunities for the Bush administration. That means it’s time, as Susan Sontag said, to have “the courage to be serious.” The reason why the 58 percent of Americans against the war has not translated into the same millions of people on the streets that we saw before the war is because we haven’t come forward with a serious policy agenda. We should not be afraid to be serious.
Part of that seriousness is to echo the policy demands made by voters and demonstrators in the streets of Baghdad and Basra and bring those demands to Washington, where the decisions are being made.
But the core fight is over respect for international law, and whether there is any respect for it at all in the United States. Unless we’re fighting a core battle against this administration’s total disdain for the very idea of international law, then the specifics really don’t matter.
We saw this very clearly in the U.S. presidential campaign, as John Kerry let Bush completely set the terms for the debate. Recall the ridicule of Kerry’s mention of a “global test,” and the charge that it was cowardly and weak to allow for any international scrutiny of U.S. actions. Why didn’t Kerry ever challenge this assumption? I blame the Kerry campaign as much as I blame the Bush administration. During the elections, he never said “Abu Ghraib.” He never said “Guantanamo Bay.” He accepted the premise that to submit to some kind of “global test” was to be weak. Once they had done that, the Democrats couldn’t expect to win a battle against Alberto Gonzales being appointed attorney general, when they had never talked about torture during the campaign.
And part of the war has to be a media war in this country. The problem is not that the anti-war voices aren’t there—it’s that the voices aren’t amplified. We need a strategy to target the media in this country, making it a site of protest itself. We must demand that the media let us hear the voices of anti-war critics, of enraged mothers who have lost their sons for a lie, of betrayed soldiers who fought in a war they didn’t believe in. And we need to keep deepening the definition of democracy—to say that these show elections are not democracy, and that we don’t have a democracy in this country either.
Sadly, the Bush administration has done a better job of using the language of responsibility than we in the anti-war movement. The message that’s getting across is that we are saying “just leave,” while they are saying, “we can’t just leave, we have to stay and fix the problem we started.”
We can have a very detailed, responsible agenda and we shouldn’t be afraid of it. We should be saying, “Let’s pull the troops out but let’s leave some hope behind.” We can’t be afraid to talk about reparations, to demand freedom from debt for Iraq, a total abandonment of Bremer’s illegal economic laws, full Iraqi control over the reconstruction budget—there are many more examples of concrete policy demands that we can and must put forth. When we articulate a more genuine definition of democracy than we are hearing from the Bush administration, we will bring some hope to Iraq. And we will bring closer to us many of the 58 percent who are opposed to the war but aren’t marching with us yet because they are afraid of cutting and running.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/21980/
Conspiracy Theory Rock (animation)
This thoroughly entertaining ripoff of School House Rock sends a hippy through the sausage factory of media consolidation; but it'll send those of a certain age group straight back to a thousand Saturday Mornings. Alas, it did its job too well. LiP writes: "[It] only aired once on Saturday Night Live before it was cut from the episode, and omitted from all future rebroadcasts. Evidently...[it] hit a little too close to home." SNL is owned by NBC which is owned by General Electric which, well, just watch the video.
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