wArSHINtuHn--This is incredibly stupid, and a great example of the timidity of the press in the USA nowadays. The Bush administration gave the AP and other wire-services a transcript from an "unidentified, high-level administration official" about Vice President Dick Cheney. OK, fine. Except that the text reads as though it is Cheney, the man whose whereabouts are frequently unknown, just like Osama Bin Laden, that other international terrorist:
"Let me just make one editorial comment here," the official said. "I've seen some press reporting says, `Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.' That's not the way I work. I don't know who writes that, or maybe somebody gets it from some source who doesn't know what I'm doing, or isn't involved in it. But the idea that I'd go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business.["] (AP, 02.28.2007)
It's Cheney, obviously, so why the subterfuge? Why won't AP just say point-blank: "it's Cheney." This is becoming idiotic, this fear of "losing-access." OK, after this missive to the press, who cares? Honestly. They're only going to tell you a bunch of bullshit, so why bother showing-up? Let them say their lies, and then snipe those lies for the transparent crapulence that they are. I know, your mortgages ("mort" being the first-part of the word since it's a living-death).
Frankly, I don't think the American press is ever going to live-down this administration, nor will the this generation of politicians. Many of them are going to be facing retirement with all this moronic wrangling over how to shut the Bush administration down. But, as we all know, even many Democrats were complicit fellow travellers. Today--at least--Edwards was smart enough to apologize for his stupid vote for the 2002 approval of force in Iraq. He beat Hillary to it, and now she's going to have to with less-effect. This is good for the American voter, as she's now ham-strung herself by her contempt for the will of the enfranchised.
If this pathetic AP story says anything, it's how much we need to nationalize our press agencies, and that the FCC's once-cherished "Fairness Doctrine" becomes a law. To their credit, the Democrats tried this twice, but were thwarted by the GOP in 1988 and 1993. However, it should be remembered that this is before the 1994 congressional elections that brought a GOP-majority into the House.
In-other-words, there were many in the Democratic ranks who betrayed us on this. Ownership of media was allowed to dangerously consolidate under: Reagan, Bush I, and Bill Clinton. If you think Hillary will be any different, you're mistaken. For my money, Dick Cheney may as well be a hologram. Pretty lame that they can't beat a guy with a pacemaker, eh? He'll always be our first cybernetic president. Maybe the mystery man was Osama. Mark Twain was right, we're not worth-saving as a species. The Unknown Comic couldn't be reached for this story. He's next-in-line for White House Press Sec.
APING: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16797705.htm
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
WAS THE TIMING OF THE HAGUE DECISION ON SERBIA CALCULATED FOR UN DECISION TO GRANT KOSOVO TO ALBANIANS?
UN OCCUPIED KOSOVO--15,000 Serbs protested in-front of the American embassy today, calling for Russia to use her veto power in the Security Council to block a measure that would further divide and dismantle Serbia, severing the Kovoso province from that entity. It's just a new step in the dismantling of Yugoslavia's coherent remnants. This is all the Bosnian wars were really about to the West.
Luckily, Russia seems to be responding, and is a traditional cultural and diplomatic ally of Serbia (a remnant of "Pan-Slavism"). Partitioning Kosovo will only cause more problems to an already bad situation, and is likely to stimulate another crisis in the region. Unlike the American public, Serbs know that these plans originate in Washington, with assistance from NATO charter members. The timing of the Hague decision is interesting.
Serbs and Albanians are holding final talks in Vienna on the plan by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. He wants to send the blueprint to the U.N. Security Council in late March. But veto holder Russia repeated its skepticism on Tuesday. "Frankly, we are worried at the absence of any desire to meet the legitimate concerns of Belgrade," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said of the plan at a news conference in Moscow. "The contents of the plan lead one to think that the authors ...took as a starting point the inevitability of Kosovo's independence regardless of Belgrade's views." (AP, 02.27.2007)
It hasn't been a consideration at any point, has it? The Balkans have been coveted by the West for hundreds-of-years, just like Russia. Both regions understand this fact of international geopolitics, while it's a curiously exotic notion in the developed world. Yet, this is about national determination, and underscores the failure of humanism and internationalism within Western diplomatic circles.
Point-blank: they don't hold the aforementioned values in any real esteem, it is just rhetoric. All NATO and the UN have done is foster division, and dividing-up the region is the overarching-goal. But the threat in the Balkans is real, and separatism could mean a repeat of the 20th century in the region--something that could easily spread into conflagration:
In the Spanish city of Seville, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov repeated a long-standing Kremlin warning that independence for Kosovo would set a precedent that could ignite separatist conflicts elsewhere."That is of course true of the post-Soviet area, but not only there -- it is true also of areas across Europe," Ivanov said on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO defense ministers."The whole thing can lead to a chain reaction, or, in other words, we have to be careful that we do not open a Pandora's box." (AP, 02.09.2007)
Once these little entities are isolated--as they were in South America--they're easier to conquer. That is the goal. The rest is window-dressing. But it's a strong possibility that it could fly completely out-of-control just as it did beginning roughly 100-years-ago. This is how power plays with our lives. The partitioning is a deadly-gamble in a region best left alone. So long as Muslims and the West covet the Balkans, the longer it will remain the powder-keg of Europe.
Full-text of Ahtisaari's Plan: http://www.balkanupdate.com/Ahtisari%27s%20status%20proposal%20for%20Kosovo.pdf
Reuters: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070227/pl_nm/serbia_kosovo_rally1_dc
"Russia urges time out in Kosovo status process": http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070209/wl_nm/kosovo_russia_dc_2
Luckily, Russia seems to be responding, and is a traditional cultural and diplomatic ally of Serbia (a remnant of "Pan-Slavism"). Partitioning Kosovo will only cause more problems to an already bad situation, and is likely to stimulate another crisis in the region. Unlike the American public, Serbs know that these plans originate in Washington, with assistance from NATO charter members. The timing of the Hague decision is interesting.
Serbs and Albanians are holding final talks in Vienna on the plan by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. He wants to send the blueprint to the U.N. Security Council in late March. But veto holder Russia repeated its skepticism on Tuesday. "Frankly, we are worried at the absence of any desire to meet the legitimate concerns of Belgrade," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said of the plan at a news conference in Moscow. "The contents of the plan lead one to think that the authors ...took as a starting point the inevitability of Kosovo's independence regardless of Belgrade's views." (AP, 02.27.2007)
It hasn't been a consideration at any point, has it? The Balkans have been coveted by the West for hundreds-of-years, just like Russia. Both regions understand this fact of international geopolitics, while it's a curiously exotic notion in the developed world. Yet, this is about national determination, and underscores the failure of humanism and internationalism within Western diplomatic circles.
Point-blank: they don't hold the aforementioned values in any real esteem, it is just rhetoric. All NATO and the UN have done is foster division, and dividing-up the region is the overarching-goal. But the threat in the Balkans is real, and separatism could mean a repeat of the 20th century in the region--something that could easily spread into conflagration:
In the Spanish city of Seville, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov repeated a long-standing Kremlin warning that independence for Kosovo would set a precedent that could ignite separatist conflicts elsewhere."That is of course true of the post-Soviet area, but not only there -- it is true also of areas across Europe," Ivanov said on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO defense ministers."The whole thing can lead to a chain reaction, or, in other words, we have to be careful that we do not open a Pandora's box." (AP, 02.09.2007)
Once these little entities are isolated--as they were in South America--they're easier to conquer. That is the goal. The rest is window-dressing. But it's a strong possibility that it could fly completely out-of-control just as it did beginning roughly 100-years-ago. This is how power plays with our lives. The partitioning is a deadly-gamble in a region best left alone. So long as Muslims and the West covet the Balkans, the longer it will remain the powder-keg of Europe.
Full-text of Ahtisaari's Plan: http://www.balkanupdate.com/Ahtisari%27s%20status%20proposal%20for%20Kosovo.pdf
Reuters: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070227/pl_nm/serbia_kosovo_rally1_dc
"Russia urges time out in Kosovo status process": http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070209/wl_nm/kosovo_russia_dc_2
"TOMB COULD BE THAT OF JESUS OF NAZARETH, BUT 99.9999% CHANCE IT ISN'T"
"[This is the tomb of the...] King of the world!"
--Director James Cameron, making an ass of himself again-and-again.
"Who says that 'Maria' is Magdalena and 'Judah' is the son of Jesus? It cannot be proved. These are very popular and common names from the 1st century BC. ...They just want to get money for it." --Israeli archaeologist and professor Amos Kloner. (AFP & AP, 02.26.2007)
wArSHINgTUHN--You know, Titanic may be the most-expensive bad movie ever made. It wasn't good, not at all. Forget Ishtar, "Fishtar" (Waterworld), or Cleopatra, that was possibly the biggest single waste of wealth on a story that said nothing about a minor historical-event. It was boring. I used to like this guy, and can remember how cool the original Terminator was in 1984--it was pretty incredible at that time! But it was downhill-from-there.
The Abyss was alright, but hokey in several-places, though I'll watch anything with Ed Harris in it. Cecil B. Demille must be jealous, looking-up from--you know--wishing he had thought of this. It's just an unsurprising pander to the religiously-insane in North America (and all the other distribution regions they can sell it to). It's utter rubbish. Yes, a First Century C.E. group of ossuaries is interesting, but Jesus and his family were poor--there would be no tomb, and certainly not one like this. Only the wealthy had the money for these tombs in the Jerusalem of that time.
DNA: what do you have to check-it-against? Nothing. What? The Shroud of Turin (really Torrino)? Good-luck getting a sample. You'd be disappointed with the results, and it still wouldn't prove any genuine chain-of-evidence. Of all the many-many individuals of antiquity, we have literally no physical-evidence there was ever a man named Jesus of Nazareth. And just look at the name Jesus--it's a anglicized version of "Yeshua", or Joshua. "Jesus" was a very common name in those days, almost like calling your son John. Great, the individuals in the tomb don't all have the same DNA...and? Using science to prove faith is backwards and peculiar.This is just like that stupid story of "the ossuary of James" (brother of Jesus). It's crap, a lie for money, and it only hurts the real spirituality out there. That's all.
AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070227/ap_on_re_us/jesus_s_burial;_ylt=AsMEHq5i0glmuz20sV_QefJH2ocA
--Director James Cameron, making an ass of himself again-and-again.
"Who says that 'Maria' is Magdalena and 'Judah' is the son of Jesus? It cannot be proved. These are very popular and common names from the 1st century BC. ...They just want to get money for it." --Israeli archaeologist and professor Amos Kloner. (AFP & AP, 02.26.2007)
wArSHINgTUHN--You know, Titanic may be the most-expensive bad movie ever made. It wasn't good, not at all. Forget Ishtar, "Fishtar" (Waterworld), or Cleopatra, that was possibly the biggest single waste of wealth on a story that said nothing about a minor historical-event. It was boring. I used to like this guy, and can remember how cool the original Terminator was in 1984--it was pretty incredible at that time! But it was downhill-from-there.
The Abyss was alright, but hokey in several-places, though I'll watch anything with Ed Harris in it. Cecil B. Demille must be jealous, looking-up from--you know--wishing he had thought of this. It's just an unsurprising pander to the religiously-insane in North America (and all the other distribution regions they can sell it to). It's utter rubbish. Yes, a First Century C.E. group of ossuaries is interesting, but Jesus and his family were poor--there would be no tomb, and certainly not one like this. Only the wealthy had the money for these tombs in the Jerusalem of that time.
DNA: what do you have to check-it-against? Nothing. What? The Shroud of Turin (really Torrino)? Good-luck getting a sample. You'd be disappointed with the results, and it still wouldn't prove any genuine chain-of-evidence. Of all the many-many individuals of antiquity, we have literally no physical-evidence there was ever a man named Jesus of Nazareth. And just look at the name Jesus--it's a anglicized version of "Yeshua", or Joshua. "Jesus" was a very common name in those days, almost like calling your son John. Great, the individuals in the tomb don't all have the same DNA...and? Using science to prove faith is backwards and peculiar.This is just like that stupid story of "the ossuary of James" (brother of Jesus). It's crap, a lie for money, and it only hurts the real spirituality out there. That's all.
AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070227/ap_on_re_us/jesus_s_burial;_ylt=AsMEHq5i0glmuz20sV_QefJH2ocA
NEWSFLASH: AMERICAN (MOSTLY-WHITE...MOSTLY)COLLEGE STUDENTS MORE NARCISSISTIC THAN EVER!
COLLEGEUNIVERSE--Well of course they are, and so was I! It's part of being in your twenties ferchrissakes. But it sounds like things are worsening according to this new study. You didn't have to tell me, I've worked with young people in their twenties, and it's not just the kids at university. If you look at their musical-tastes--almost always poor within the United States--it's pretty whiny and self-centered, but that's youth culture isn't it? Or is it? Living in a predominantly-Catholic city, it's not always easy to discern who has an affective-disorder, and who doesn't (I'm a lapsed-Catholic, incidentally, the worst-kind) :
"Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others," he said. The study asserts that narcissists "are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors."Twenge, the author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before," said narcissists tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others.
(AP, 02.27.2007)
That must be why they whine so much in those emo (Phillips) songs, a trend in punk that began as a joke in the D.C. scene of the 1980s. They sucked in the early-1990s. It's been over fifty-years since James Dean was creamed in his Porsche Spider by Johnny Turnipseed (birthing postwar youth culture as we know it), and I believe its dominance over mainstream culture is ending. The spell is over. As America's age demographics shift, youth culture erodes, and a refreshing-wind of adult culture is reemerging. By God, it's even safe to go the movies on-occasion again! You can listen to music other than rock! It's safe to come out again, folks, it's safe to have eclectic tastes again.
But what exactly are those "negative consequences for society"? Well, it poisons interactions between people, and the dignity of others becomes secondary. My response to the study: well duh. It's not just the kids, it's the parents. American culture is pure poison nowadays, and there are few people worth knowing when so many are like this. It's a culture of greed and disgust, leaving a chasm that could be filled with religious and political (neocon) extremism tomorrow. As a matter of fact, it's out there running America right now.
You know, I would never have believed this study from my recent interactions with twenty-somethings, not ever. Kids: you aren't special, few are. Now, go play.This study is not a surprise for those of us who still really feel empathy. Being surrounded by such people in Michiana, I reflect on how nice it would be to be in an actual community with thoughtful and open people I can trust. I've met a few of them here, and we are scarce. Most people in the Midwest worship the money god, their only true God. This is becoming a scary society to live in--if one can live in it at all. But hey, it looks like hats are coming-back!
AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070227/ap_on_re_us/self_centered_students
Monday, February 26, 2007
LOUIS FARRAKHAN IS DYING: WHO WILL THE FBI & THE NSA FIND TO REPLACE HIM? WHO WILL PROTECT LILY-WHITE AMERICA?
Malcolm X: 'I found that nigger [Louis X] in a garbage-can.' --Malcolm X to Alex Haley, 1964.
The Midwest/N.O.I.Land--If you've ever been to Chicago, you'll have noticed the big Mosque. It's the Nation of Islam's largest temple, often ministered-to by the leader of the NOI, Louis Farrakhan. Once known in Boston as a violin-player in local Calypso bands, he was recruited by no-less than Malcolm X in the 1950s into-the-fold of the NOI.
Malcolm made Louis Farrakhan, and he would not exist in the NOI without this fact. But he's a Judas, he called-for the death of Malcolm in the pages of Muhammad Speaks up-to the assassination of the Black Nationalist leader in February of 1965. I grant that he was not alone, and could have merely been manipulated by moles within the NOI. One has to ponder how many current members are Special Agents in deep-cover.
The man in the center of the above photo's name was John Ali. A number of assassination researchers believe he was an undercover informant for the FBI, and was intimately-involved in Malcolm's death.
His (and other FBI moles) behind-the-scenes role in Malcolm's murder is unknown, but he's made several public statements that show he approved-of them. He must have--he helped exacerbate the rift between Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm's coalescing faction with the Nation of Islam. I've seen his summer home in Northern Indiana, and it's swank.
It seems that 'Calypso Louie' has enriched himself since the restructuring of the NOI in the mid-1970s. Perhaps Louis is dying, as this comes to all men. He'll have better health-care than most Americans could ever dream of. He has been paid well for rendering the NOI useless. Read some of their recent literature, and you'll find some very peculiar ideas indeed.
There has been a guessing-game as to whether the NOI will survive Farrakhan, and I am sure it will, but it will be weakened. Their history is too checkered and specific for them to be of any use to Black Americans (or anyone else) in-general, but this has been obvious since the 1950s. They were always an anachronism within America, both Black and White, and their origins are shadowy in many areas.
More like a cult, the NOI is still seen as a heretical sect of Islam. The reality is, they are probably the remnants of a nomadic maroon community that once populated Indianapolis. As a matter of fact, they were the first permanent settlers of Indianapolis. A diaspora scattered many of them North into Chicago and the greater Detroit area, while some went to other parts of Illinois, Missouri and Michigan.
This multi-racial cultural group was called 'the Tribe of Ben Ishmael', or the 'Ishmaelites', but little is known of their story.
The truth probably resides in municipal records of Indianapolis from the early 19th century. They were some of the first victims of the inception of eugenics laws in Indiana 100-years-ago. By the 1920s-30s, the diaspora throughout the Midwest was complete, while the rest were sterilized or inhabiting Indiana's legendary State Mental Health Asylums. That's genocide.
It is thought that many of the Ishmaelites populated the early membership of the Nation of Islam and the Moorish Science Temple. But this is conjecture.
The Nation of Islam will likely survive, because there will always be racial outcasts in the Midwest with nowhere else to go. The Nation of Islam without Louis Farrakhan? It survived Wallace Fard (a man whose FBI file you should all read) and Elijah Muhammad (ditto), and even his son Wallace Muhammad (doubly-so).
The FBI would invent the NOI if it had to, but Louis and the FOI probably have an FBI paymaster anyway. What a lost opportunity. How shameful of them. Forget the lives of poor Blacks, we want our own fiefdom. It's been said that Malcolm X was one of the best orators of the 20th century, and I would agree. Louis ranks as its worst.
At 73, it's time to retire. Does it matter if they perpetuate as an organization? Nope.
Ed: revised version of an earlier piece.
AL GORE WINS THE OSCAR, BUT ONLY JOKES ABOUT PRESIDENTIAL BID
HOLLYWOOD--He did it! He won the presidency back in 2000, before the Bush campaign filed their briefs to the Supreme Court, after they engineered harassment campaigns at polling-places, rigged machines, and made ballots disappear, he had won the election. Now, after several-years running a business and stumping his global warming slide-show across the US and the world--Al Gore is back. Will he run again? I think he will, and has made comments that it would be likely if he won the Academy's award for best documentary. Granted, he didn't direct it, but it wouldn't exist without his presentation and his narration. I still haven't seen this film, but plan to. But what does it matter? I'm convinced, global warming is certainly real, and it's better to err on the side of science than it is on greed and religious-insanity.
No, "An Inconvenient Truth" wouldn't exist without Al Gore at all. I have a lot of misgivings about this man going-back to the 1980s (like the PMRC, amongst other issues), so I still think he has a lot to prove. He has the trust of the American public to earn-back. I'm a registered Democrat, but only because the GOP is truly the part of the apocalypse, the party of scum and greed. Granted, the DNC is barely any better, but they do respond to public pressure eventually, even if it's belated. The GOP will never do this unless they literally have no other choice but compliance, or their demise. It appears they've been choosing their demise for the last 12-years, but they have their allies in the Democratic Party--you know the names. The questions is this: is Al Gore still one of those names? Is he still a neoliberal? If he is, he isn't worth voting-for. If he doesn't stand for a progressive agenda that brings a radical redistribution of wealth, all the measures to stop global warming will be for-nought.
No, "An Inconvenient Truth" wouldn't exist without Al Gore at all. I have a lot of misgivings about this man going-back to the 1980s (like the PMRC, amongst other issues), so I still think he has a lot to prove. He has the trust of the American public to earn-back. I'm a registered Democrat, but only because the GOP is truly the part of the apocalypse, the party of scum and greed. Granted, the DNC is barely any better, but they do respond to public pressure eventually, even if it's belated. The GOP will never do this unless they literally have no other choice but compliance, or their demise. It appears they've been choosing their demise for the last 12-years, but they have their allies in the Democratic Party--you know the names. The questions is this: is Al Gore still one of those names? Is he still a neoliberal? If he is, he isn't worth voting-for. If he doesn't stand for a progressive agenda that brings a radical redistribution of wealth, all the measures to stop global warming will be for-nought.
WE TOLD YOU SO: SERBIA CLEARED OF GENOCIDE CHARGES BY THE HAGUE
"At the same time, though, where are the leaders of the international community who also helped to bring events in the Balkans about? Have we ever heard one word of apology or acknowledgment of failure or responsibility from anyone in leadership positions of Unprofor, the United Nations or the major governments that they got it wrong?"
--William D. Montgomery, former special representative of the U.S. president and secretary of state for Bosnian Peace Implementation in 1996-97. Also, U.S. ambassador to Croatia from 1998 to 2000 and ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro from 2000 to 2004. (IHT, 07.12.2005)
The Hague, The Netherlands--In a vote of 13-2, Serbia has been cleared of charges of genocide surrounding the Bosnian conflict of 1992-1995, with only 50 protesters outside of the court calling-for a guilty verdict. Where were you, almighty moralists and apologists for NATO? Nowhere near the Hague, that's for certain.
NATO (through German diplomatic channels) allowed for Croatia and Slovenia to break away from Yugoslavia, a move that was strongly-opposed by Serbs, and which likely would have prevented the cataclysm that ensued. Yet, looking at the reporting today, the West's role in all of this is imperceptible:
Bosnia's Muslims and Croats followed Slovenia and Croatia in breaking away from Yugoslavia in April 1992, against the wishes of Bosnian Serbs, who were left as a one-third minority in what had previously been a Yugoslav republic ruled from Belgrade. This triggered a war in which at least 100,000 people were killed. Backed by the Yugoslav army, the Serbs captured two-thirds of Bosnia and besieged Sarajevo. Tens of thousands of non-Serbs were killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes. (Reuters, 02.26.2007)It must be an unpleasant an disorienting feeling to be someone who swallowed the line that it was all about the Serbs, when KLA (later to become Al-Qaida) was and is involved-in similar depredations.
Cognitive-dissonance is natural, however, and earned for those who wholeheartedly-embraced this notion, ignoring the facts, and accepting the hyperbole. Now you all have a tiny-piece of what it felt like to be a German after WWII.
The article still fails to mention that over 200,000 Eastern Orthodox Serbs were relocated forcibly during the conflict thanks to NATO policies, but our crimes don't exist. The Hague has done a disservice by ignoring these facts. But, if you follow the media closely, this isn't new. This is my favorite-part of the ruling:
The Serbian leaders "should have made the best effort within their power to try and prevent the tragic events then taking shape," in the U.N. enclave, the scale of which "might have been surmised," the ruling said. However, it rejected Bosnia's claim for monetary reparations. ...Serbia's claim that it was powerless to prevent the massacres "hardly tallies with their known influence" over the Bosnian Serb army, said the ruling. The ruling did not specify what Serbia could have done. (AP, 02.26.2007)I think we know what Serbia could have done--attack the UN, NATO, and the KLA. That's fair, isn't it? Considering the total chaos of the conflict, it's unsurprising that the Hague "did not specify", because that would reveal Western-involvement in funding the KLA (particularly by the US State Department).
Again, our crimes don't exist...unless you do some digging in the margins of the known record of what occurred.
But, according to most in America, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the bombings of Dresden, Munich, and the fire-bombings of Tokyo and nearly every Japanese city during WWII by Allied forces, were not war crimes. Yet, the reality is, there were. A winner's justice is never justice. The UN, and all the members of NATO are equally responsible for the what occurred during the Bosnian war, and inflicted heavier-casualties during the 1999 aerial-bombings.
During that same period, President William Jefferson Clinton's administration was committing a calculated act of genocide against Iraqi citizens through the no-fly zone, and aerial-bombardment of crucial infrastructure. This makes him and everyone who was involved in the expediting of these acts war criminals.
As a result of this, approximately 500,000 Iraqi children--almost an entire generation--died. Coupled with the invasion of Iraq--the thousands of murders, the cultural-looting, torture, rape, and more, we have all the ingredients of genocide as an ongoing-policy of the United States towards Iraq. That's attempted genocide, folks.
Someone should ask Rahm Emanuel why he did nothing to dissuade the president and the State Department from this course, and why he isn't today. But these facts escape most of the public, and certainly the majority of the intelligentsia in the West.
There is blood on our hands, and today's verdict--while fairer than expected--was still shot-through with irony and a hollowness that is typical of our daily rationalizations. We're not learning, as much as we would like to convince ourselves that we are. These are the seeds of our own destruction that might come sooner than we think, unless we change our foreign policy in a radical sense. This will require more involvement by the public.
Revised 08.31.2008
Reuter-rooters: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070226/wl_nm/bosnia_serbia_srebrenica_dc
Our Beloved AP: http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2007/02/26/ap/headlines/d8nhcsl00.txt
Our Beloved AP: http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2007/02/26/ap/headlines/d8nhcsl00.txt
Sunday, February 25, 2007
How Many Homeless American Veterans are Sleeping in the Streets Tonight?
200,000. --Maybe the president could call them up for duty. Hey, at least someone in the press tipped-him-off that there was going to be a story on how horrible conditions were at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Hospital, then he could preempt it with Sec. of Defense Gates' comments that conditions there are "unacceptable," and have his inspection-visit with heavy coverage from the folks who warned them about the impending story. Hint: we're on to you. Only 30% of this nation are fooled all of-the-time now.
My grandfather--a WWII vet--always told me that all of the servicemen were promised medical care for the rest of their lives after the war--everything would be paid-for by the US government, all of their health needs, and that it would be done properly. Even the ones that weren't related to the war. It didn't happen, and you should really go visit a VA hospital sometime, you won't be able to eat for weeks. It's called cutting the costs of war. Thanks Congress, thanks Executive branch, and thanks to all the rich who profited from the wars. Thanks a lot, I'm not having any kids for you to slaughter.
Source: The Department of Veteran Affairs
My grandfather--a WWII vet--always told me that all of the servicemen were promised medical care for the rest of their lives after the war--everything would be paid-for by the US government, all of their health needs, and that it would be done properly. Even the ones that weren't related to the war. It didn't happen, and you should really go visit a VA hospital sometime, you won't be able to eat for weeks. It's called cutting the costs of war. Thanks Congress, thanks Executive branch, and thanks to all the rich who profited from the wars. Thanks a lot, I'm not having any kids for you to slaughter.
Source: The Department of Veteran Affairs
Saturday, February 24, 2007
US MILITARY & CONTRACTORS VIRTUALLY EQUAL IN NUMBERS IN IRAQ
IRAQ--Not only does the public not understand that hundreds-of-thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed in this conflict, but that roughly half of the people there on the American side are private contractors. The reality is, we have over 250,000 military and mercenary soldiers in Iraq, and we still cannot provide adequate security and infrastructure throughout the occupied nation.
US MILITARY FORCES: 135,000
PRIVATE CONTRACTORS: 120,000
Source: AP
Number of American Troops KIA as of this writing: 3,154 (number wounded, 23,677)
Number of Private contractors KIA: closing-in on 800.
Sources: AP, and Antiwar.com.
The AP had this to say:
While the Defense Department issues a press release whenever a soldier or Marine dies, the AP had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain figures on pre-2006 civilian deaths and injuries from the Labor Department, which tracks workers' compensation claims. By the end of 2006, the Labor Department had quietly recorded 769 deaths and 3,367 injuries serious enough to require four or more days off the job. (AP, 02.24.2007)
and:
If the contractor deaths were added to the Pentagon's count of U.S. military casualties, the number of war dead would climb about 25 percent, from about 3,000 as of the end of 2006 to nearly 3,800. (ibid)
Quite a mess, eh? It's absurd that the AP had to do a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain this information, but that's the GOP for you...and dyadic-politicians like Billary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, and Rahm Emanuel, Charles Schumer, and others in Congress. Using private contractors has had many functions for the neoncon cabal, and hiding casualties--which includes wounded who have survived--is one of them.
So, in-fact, the casualties are considerably higher, but without the stigma it might have engendered had there been a draft. It's time to end the all-volunteer military, and time to reinstate the draft without class-based loopholes. Compulsory service for everyone who is called-up, unless they want to do public services of some sort. The Middle East: it's only going to worsen. The only upside is that it will likely hamstring current establishment politicos for a very-very long-time, ending many of their careers forever. Meanwhile, thousands die, for concentrated power and wealth.
AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070223/ap_on_re_us/iraq_contractors
US MILITARY FORCES: 135,000
PRIVATE CONTRACTORS: 120,000
Source: AP
Number of American Troops KIA as of this writing: 3,154 (number wounded, 23,677)
Number of Private contractors KIA: closing-in on 800.
Sources: AP, and Antiwar.com.
The AP had this to say:
While the Defense Department issues a press release whenever a soldier or Marine dies, the AP had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain figures on pre-2006 civilian deaths and injuries from the Labor Department, which tracks workers' compensation claims. By the end of 2006, the Labor Department had quietly recorded 769 deaths and 3,367 injuries serious enough to require four or more days off the job. (AP, 02.24.2007)
and:
If the contractor deaths were added to the Pentagon's count of U.S. military casualties, the number of war dead would climb about 25 percent, from about 3,000 as of the end of 2006 to nearly 3,800. (ibid)
Quite a mess, eh? It's absurd that the AP had to do a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain this information, but that's the GOP for you...and dyadic-politicians like Billary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, and Rahm Emanuel, Charles Schumer, and others in Congress. Using private contractors has had many functions for the neoncon cabal, and hiding casualties--which includes wounded who have survived--is one of them.
So, in-fact, the casualties are considerably higher, but without the stigma it might have engendered had there been a draft. It's time to end the all-volunteer military, and time to reinstate the draft without class-based loopholes. Compulsory service for everyone who is called-up, unless they want to do public services of some sort. The Middle East: it's only going to worsen. The only upside is that it will likely hamstring current establishment politicos for a very-very long-time, ending many of their careers forever. Meanwhile, thousands die, for concentrated power and wealth.
AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070223/ap_on_re_us/iraq_contractors
ITALY, THE OTHER NATION IN A POLITICAL CRISIS: PRODI LOSES SUPPORT OVER KEEPING ITALIAN TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN
"We must defend this government, defend the political stability of this country, ...and defend the credibility of the Italian left." --Massimo D'Alema, Italy's foreign minister.
ROME--Today, Italy's President Giorgio Napalitano has asked Prime Minister Romano Prodi to stay on until there is a confidence vote for himself and his center-left coalition in Italy's Senate. This is all very ironic. Prime Minister Romano Prodi's center-left coalition in the Italian Parliament has been scuttling him, just as Silvio Berlusconi was by his own center-right coalition in the Italian Senate. In case you didn't know, Italy's President is in-charge in a parliamentary system, not Prodi. Power is shared at the cabinet level in this form of democracy, and I think it's better to have no movement than the kind the GOP and the Bush administration have unleashed.
This sharing is actually recent to Italy, however, as even with the appearance of instability, Christian Democrats have essentially led the nation behind-the-scenes--until Berlusconi and his coalition of the right. Prodi successfully beat the right-wing media billionaire thanks to the Italian public concerns over the war in Iraq. Now, he's getting similar treatment over Afghanistan, and the highly-controversial expansion of an American military base in Vicenza. Prodi has removed Italian troops from Iraq, but won't do so from Afghanistan. The Guardian had this to say yesterday in an editorial:
The more fundamental cause of the crisis, however, is the sabotage of the Italian political system of which Silvio Berlusconi was guilty when he was in office. His readiness to use his wealth and his control of much of the Italian media to buttress his political position, and to use his power to expand his business empire, degraded Italian politics. But he compounded this with his so-called electoral reforms, which brought in a low-threshold form of proportional representation encouraging a multiplicity of parties - a change that he knew would help his own relatively small group of parties while working to the disadvantage of his more heterogeneous centre-left opponents. (Guardian, 02.23.2007)
This is the other reason why Prodi is having so much trouble, but his support of keeping Italian troops in Afghanistan isn't helping him. Today, Prodi has been retained, and faces another confidence vote from the Italian Senate. Just as Democratic leadership in the United States shops around for defecting GOP-senators to prohibit a buildup of troops in Iraq, and a war with Iran, so too must the center-left coalition woo others in the Italian Senate to keep Prodi and their coalition intact (and the conditions for governing in-general stable).
They appear poised to do it. Berlusconi's media machine will do its best to prevent this.But this situation is more nuanced. Even after the confidence vote, it's going to take the support of at least one Senator who has been appointed for life. This seems likely for Prodi, whose cabinet could very easily resurrect--something that didn't appear possible when the Prime Minister offered to step-down on Wednesday.
It appears many don't want the return of the center-right coalition--which could anger the public if it meant more involvement with the US in their foreign policy--led by Berlusconi or his lieutenants. It's a return to the political-instability that Italy is known for, and it's likely that the will for stability--and keeping-out Berlusconi's forces--will aid in Prodi's survival. The Communist Party hasn't been very reliable, and as one could predict, has been intractable on several points of ideology regarding Prodi's policies.The center-left coalition has been in-conferences since Wednesday hammering-out a "12-point platform" that ironically includes honoring Italy's commitments in Afghanistan (2,000 regular army troops) and Lebanon (popular with the Italian public).
The center-left appeared to have won the confidence vote of at least one centrist — Marco Follini, a former deputy premier who has since left the conservative coalition led by Berlusconi. Follini told the Corriere della Sera daily he would "likely" support Prodi, saying he wanted to free the government from the influence of radical fringes. Center-left leaders also are trying to win the support of some of the seven senators appointed for life. (AP, 02.24.2007)
Keeping Berlusconi out-of-office is likely to cement the coalition into a line that is coherent and cohesive. But, using his control over virtually the entire media of Italy (and even Sicily), Berlusconi has been firing-shots at the center-left coalition. This has probably emboldened and unified them, as well as the simple desire to survive as a nine-party majority in the lower house and Senate. We won't know the results until later next-week. Italian politics never bores.But what's important is that the electoral laws enacted by Berlusconi have to be removed after all of this. They favor the right, with their larger-parties and enormous wealth--not exactly the ingredients for democracy, and an analog to the political crisis in the United States.
Indeed, there have been accusations from the Left and Right, back-and-forth, of irregularities at polling-places, just as here. Berlusconi's coalition backed the Bush administration 100%, and may have even provided the forged "Niger documents" that provided the neocons their "smoking-gun" to invade Iraq. Berlusconi's magazines, newspapers, and news outlets parroted the Bush-line during the run up to the war in Iraq:
A breathless three-part series by the daily La Repubblica last week charged that Pollari had disseminated the documents to United States and Britain knowing they were crude forgeries.The newspaper, a staunch opponent of Berlusconi [Ed.-Who isn't?], also reported that Pollari had acted on orders from Berlusconi, who was said to be eager following the Sept. 11 terror attacks to help Bush in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ...The furor over Italy's role in feeding intelligence to the United States and Britain before the war in Iraq has shaken the Italian government and been dubbed "Niger-gate" by the Italian media. (IHT, 11.03.2005)
However it turns-out, it has implications for America, and the world.
Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2019311,00.html
AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070224/ap_on_re_eu/italy_politics
IHT: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/03/news/italy.php
ROME--Today, Italy's President Giorgio Napalitano has asked Prime Minister Romano Prodi to stay on until there is a confidence vote for himself and his center-left coalition in Italy's Senate. This is all very ironic. Prime Minister Romano Prodi's center-left coalition in the Italian Parliament has been scuttling him, just as Silvio Berlusconi was by his own center-right coalition in the Italian Senate. In case you didn't know, Italy's President is in-charge in a parliamentary system, not Prodi. Power is shared at the cabinet level in this form of democracy, and I think it's better to have no movement than the kind the GOP and the Bush administration have unleashed.
This sharing is actually recent to Italy, however, as even with the appearance of instability, Christian Democrats have essentially led the nation behind-the-scenes--until Berlusconi and his coalition of the right. Prodi successfully beat the right-wing media billionaire thanks to the Italian public concerns over the war in Iraq. Now, he's getting similar treatment over Afghanistan, and the highly-controversial expansion of an American military base in Vicenza. Prodi has removed Italian troops from Iraq, but won't do so from Afghanistan. The Guardian had this to say yesterday in an editorial:
The more fundamental cause of the crisis, however, is the sabotage of the Italian political system of which Silvio Berlusconi was guilty when he was in office. His readiness to use his wealth and his control of much of the Italian media to buttress his political position, and to use his power to expand his business empire, degraded Italian politics. But he compounded this with his so-called electoral reforms, which brought in a low-threshold form of proportional representation encouraging a multiplicity of parties - a change that he knew would help his own relatively small group of parties while working to the disadvantage of his more heterogeneous centre-left opponents. (Guardian, 02.23.2007)
This is the other reason why Prodi is having so much trouble, but his support of keeping Italian troops in Afghanistan isn't helping him. Today, Prodi has been retained, and faces another confidence vote from the Italian Senate. Just as Democratic leadership in the United States shops around for defecting GOP-senators to prohibit a buildup of troops in Iraq, and a war with Iran, so too must the center-left coalition woo others in the Italian Senate to keep Prodi and their coalition intact (and the conditions for governing in-general stable).
They appear poised to do it. Berlusconi's media machine will do its best to prevent this.But this situation is more nuanced. Even after the confidence vote, it's going to take the support of at least one Senator who has been appointed for life. This seems likely for Prodi, whose cabinet could very easily resurrect--something that didn't appear possible when the Prime Minister offered to step-down on Wednesday.
It appears many don't want the return of the center-right coalition--which could anger the public if it meant more involvement with the US in their foreign policy--led by Berlusconi or his lieutenants. It's a return to the political-instability that Italy is known for, and it's likely that the will for stability--and keeping-out Berlusconi's forces--will aid in Prodi's survival. The Communist Party hasn't been very reliable, and as one could predict, has been intractable on several points of ideology regarding Prodi's policies.The center-left coalition has been in-conferences since Wednesday hammering-out a "12-point platform" that ironically includes honoring Italy's commitments in Afghanistan (2,000 regular army troops) and Lebanon (popular with the Italian public).
The center-left appeared to have won the confidence vote of at least one centrist — Marco Follini, a former deputy premier who has since left the conservative coalition led by Berlusconi. Follini told the Corriere della Sera daily he would "likely" support Prodi, saying he wanted to free the government from the influence of radical fringes. Center-left leaders also are trying to win the support of some of the seven senators appointed for life. (AP, 02.24.2007)
Keeping Berlusconi out-of-office is likely to cement the coalition into a line that is coherent and cohesive. But, using his control over virtually the entire media of Italy (and even Sicily), Berlusconi has been firing-shots at the center-left coalition. This has probably emboldened and unified them, as well as the simple desire to survive as a nine-party majority in the lower house and Senate. We won't know the results until later next-week. Italian politics never bores.But what's important is that the electoral laws enacted by Berlusconi have to be removed after all of this. They favor the right, with their larger-parties and enormous wealth--not exactly the ingredients for democracy, and an analog to the political crisis in the United States.
Indeed, there have been accusations from the Left and Right, back-and-forth, of irregularities at polling-places, just as here. Berlusconi's coalition backed the Bush administration 100%, and may have even provided the forged "Niger documents" that provided the neocons their "smoking-gun" to invade Iraq. Berlusconi's magazines, newspapers, and news outlets parroted the Bush-line during the run up to the war in Iraq:
A breathless three-part series by the daily La Repubblica last week charged that Pollari had disseminated the documents to United States and Britain knowing they were crude forgeries.The newspaper, a staunch opponent of Berlusconi [Ed.-Who isn't?], also reported that Pollari had acted on orders from Berlusconi, who was said to be eager following the Sept. 11 terror attacks to help Bush in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ...The furor over Italy's role in feeding intelligence to the United States and Britain before the war in Iraq has shaken the Italian government and been dubbed "Niger-gate" by the Italian media. (IHT, 11.03.2005)
However it turns-out, it has implications for America, and the world.
Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2019311,00.html
AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070224/ap_on_re_eu/italy_politics
IHT: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/03/news/italy.php
Friday, February 23, 2007
2008 Campaigning...
I'd write about it...but I have to return some videotapes. I'm the part of this human world that bites back.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Did women invent weapons? New Studies in chimp hunting-behaviors point to this possibility.
"Nobody owns life, but anyone who can lift a frying pan owns death."
--Williams S. Burroughs
The Realms of Human and Primate Anthropology--This has been getting kicked-around for some time, but some new studies by anthropologists Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani of Iowa State University:
Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods. "That to me was just as intriguing if not even more so," Pruetz said. The spear-hunting occurred when the group was foraging together, again unchimplike behavior that might produce more competition between males and females, she said. Maybe females invented weapons for hunting, Pruetz said. "The observation that individuals hunting with tools include females and immature chimpanzees suggests that we should rethink traditional explanations for the evolution of such behavior in our own lineage," she concluded in her paper.
(Reuters, 02.22.2007)
So, what does it suggest? It could suggest that female-primates invented weapons systems, something usually ascribed to males. Yes, this throws another wrench into the gears of identity-politics. Now, it doesn't mean conclusively that women invented weapons, but it's a strong indicator that it might be true. Kinda makes 2001: A Space Odyssey play differently, doesn't it? I thought it fitting that one of the researchers was a woman. But, we all know women are just as capable of sundry forms of violence, just not as many direct, physical-confrontations as human males (hence, the need for weaponry).
If one looks at the span of human history, this should be of no surprise. Women have also been known for their skills at poisoning for millennia. Granted, it's a harsh world we live in, but it usually takes two to tango. To my mind, nobody is entirely innocent.
The authors point out that the females and immature chimpanzees using the spear-like tools appear to be exploiting a niche relatively ignored by males, an observation that supports a previous hypothesis that female hominids played a role in the evolution of the earliest tool technology and suggests that this technology may have included tools for hunting.
(HuliQ.com, 02.22.2007)
As the great Pier Paolo Pasolini once remarked (I'm paraphrasing), "The world is made up of hawks and doves," and the only choice is deciding which species one wishes to be. I'm not advocating victimizing anyone, nor was Pasolini, it's merely a statement of fact: you either decide not to be victimized (usually meaning massive-retaliation, and discipline and tireless resolve), or you end up a dove.
Chimpanzees are modern humans' closest living relatives. And Pruetz's research site is a savannah similar to the open environment that early human ancestors are believed to have moved into millions of years ago. "Looking at our closest living relatives in a habitat that is fairly similar to what we see characterizing early hominids six million years ago" can help researchers understand early human ancestors' behavior and ecology, she said. USC's Stanford likens chimpanzees to a window to a past poorly preserved in the archaeological record.
(NationalGeographic.com, 02.22.2007)
You have to fight for your place in this world, and that's that. There is no justice, only who's left. Moral arguments are phantasms, there is only that which is in the range of the constructive or destructive. Chimps contain 98% of the DNA that we have--we're marginally different from them, and they are a warring-species.
Reuters: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070222/sc_nm/chimps_hunting_dc
HuliQ.com: http://www.huliq.com/12184/how-tool-use-evolved-among-primates
National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070222-chimps-spears_2.html
--Williams S. Burroughs
The Realms of Human and Primate Anthropology--This has been getting kicked-around for some time, but some new studies by anthropologists Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani of Iowa State University:
Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods. "That to me was just as intriguing if not even more so," Pruetz said. The spear-hunting occurred when the group was foraging together, again unchimplike behavior that might produce more competition between males and females, she said. Maybe females invented weapons for hunting, Pruetz said. "The observation that individuals hunting with tools include females and immature chimpanzees suggests that we should rethink traditional explanations for the evolution of such behavior in our own lineage," she concluded in her paper.
(Reuters, 02.22.2007)
So, what does it suggest? It could suggest that female-primates invented weapons systems, something usually ascribed to males. Yes, this throws another wrench into the gears of identity-politics. Now, it doesn't mean conclusively that women invented weapons, but it's a strong indicator that it might be true. Kinda makes 2001: A Space Odyssey play differently, doesn't it? I thought it fitting that one of the researchers was a woman. But, we all know women are just as capable of sundry forms of violence, just not as many direct, physical-confrontations as human males (hence, the need for weaponry).
If one looks at the span of human history, this should be of no surprise. Women have also been known for their skills at poisoning for millennia. Granted, it's a harsh world we live in, but it usually takes two to tango. To my mind, nobody is entirely innocent.
The authors point out that the females and immature chimpanzees using the spear-like tools appear to be exploiting a niche relatively ignored by males, an observation that supports a previous hypothesis that female hominids played a role in the evolution of the earliest tool technology and suggests that this technology may have included tools for hunting.
(HuliQ.com, 02.22.2007)
As the great Pier Paolo Pasolini once remarked (I'm paraphrasing), "The world is made up of hawks and doves," and the only choice is deciding which species one wishes to be. I'm not advocating victimizing anyone, nor was Pasolini, it's merely a statement of fact: you either decide not to be victimized (usually meaning massive-retaliation, and discipline and tireless resolve), or you end up a dove.
Chimpanzees are modern humans' closest living relatives. And Pruetz's research site is a savannah similar to the open environment that early human ancestors are believed to have moved into millions of years ago. "Looking at our closest living relatives in a habitat that is fairly similar to what we see characterizing early hominids six million years ago" can help researchers understand early human ancestors' behavior and ecology, she said. USC's Stanford likens chimpanzees to a window to a past poorly preserved in the archaeological record.
(NationalGeographic.com, 02.22.2007)
You have to fight for your place in this world, and that's that. There is no justice, only who's left. Moral arguments are phantasms, there is only that which is in the range of the constructive or destructive. Chimps contain 98% of the DNA that we have--we're marginally different from them, and they are a warring-species.
Reuters: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070222/sc_nm/chimps_hunting_dc
HuliQ.com: http://www.huliq.com/12184/how-tool-use-evolved-among-primates
National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070222-chimps-spears_2.html
Blue Indiana
BLOGOSPHERE--I haven't decided if I like these folks yet--they seem to be very partisan towards the Democrats, which I think is stupid. But here's the link, it's better than them being Republicans...I think.
Blue Indiana:http://www.blueindiana.net/frontPage.do
Blue Indiana:http://www.blueindiana.net/frontPage.do
MOVEON.ORG, CINDY SHEEHAN, AND ME AND MY SO-CALLED BIG-MOUTH AND RUDENESS (REVISED)
"A slow bleed strategy is amazingly immoral and the people who are doing the actual bleeding don't have the last names of Clinton, McCain, Pelosi, Reed, Parisier or Mazzie." --Cindy Sheehan
THE SO-CALLED ANTIWAR MOVEMENT--More like a bowel-movement with Moveon.org in-charge--wha? In-charge? Yup, they're the only antiwar group that Congress will meet with. So, they believe in defunding the war in Iraq, right? Wrong. Not-even-close. Not even an immediate drawdown of troops. Cindy wrote a piece that's being featured on Michael Moore's website, and it seems nowhere else. Not Huffingtonpost.com, zippo.
Cindy--and people like myself--are the real movement, the grass-roots, but if you look at the history of progressive movements in this country, you'll find the all-too-often occurrence of upper middle-class and wealthy individuals hijacking them from the ordinary people who started them. To these establishment-types, people like myself an Cindy are "too firebrand," or "too radical."
MoveOn.org, which I recently learned was the American "anti-war" movement [Ed.-a recent NYT article stated this.], is not calling for an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, but favors a "slow bleed" strategy. MoveOn will not call for de-funding the war because they don't want to be perceived as "anti-troop" when we all know that the reich-wing has never supported our troops. The 21,500 troops who are going to be surged into Baghdad will not even have body armor until this summer. Hopefully, they can dodge the bullets and shrapnel until summer, or until MoveOn wakes up and realizes that the only way to support our troops in the field is to bring them back to the States so they don't have to worry about body armor, clean water or edible food. (MichaelMoore.com, 02.21.2007)Oh, I still "sign" all of their petitions, but you'll never find me giving a dime to Moveon.org for the aforementioned reasons. But there's another reason. In early-June of 2006, I was invited via email as an ostensible "member" to attend a press ceremony/"protest" in-front of the office building that held the office of now-former 2nd Indiana congressional district representative Chris Chocola.
Chocola was the model for the lockstep GOP congressman, giving Bush the rubber-stamp on basically everything. MPJC had teamed-up with Moveon.org to do this, and the event was not grassroots, and was basically staged as a publicity-stunt. That's fine, but when ordinary people like myself have no say in it, what's the point?
The ostensible antiwar group I was marginally associated-with at that time was--and is--called MPJC, primarily comprised of Notre Dame University and St. Mary's faculty--hardly a shining-example of "grassroots" organizing, and basically a bunch of privileged academics and bourgies who don't have any real convictions.
It's a cold day in hell when students from Notre Dame and St. Mary's attend, and while I Many of them are tenured professors, or insulated in some form, so getting-arrested isn't any skin off of their backs--but they won't do anything.
They've never done any non-violent civil disobedience around here, they just stand on a corner every week, have some impotent meetings, and seem to be accomplishing nothing. Recently, however, they did meet with Democratic Representative Joe Donnelly, a step in the right-direction (they even asked him hard-questions). Anyway, I was willing to risk my last job if necessary, but I realized these folks aren't serious. They wouldn't have your back, and they're cold and unfriendly--not exactly the vanguard of anything.
The Moveon event was pretty lame. I literally left work on my lunch break, speeding to get there on-time. There had been no admonitions on bringing one's own sign to the event whatsoever. Did I mention I was invited by Moveon.org as a member? The event was in an open plaza in-front of the office building that housed Chocola's office, and they had "our" group in the center of the it. It's almost shaped like a stage. I arrived with my own sign--it said "Impeach Bush."
As I walked over to the MPJC folks, I was immediately accosted by a massively-busted (yeah, I know) young woman in her late-20s who told me violently that "You have to leave, this is our event." She even grabbed my arm, and stated, "Your sign is distracting from our message here. We're trying to send a message that Chocola is aiding war profiteering."
That must have been why all the signs--pre-made by Moveon.org, and imposed upon MPJC--had "Halliburton" writ-large on them. This was strange, since Halliburton and Chocola had only a meager-connection with one another. Whatever, but I was so humiliated and angry that I was shaking. The last-time I felt this was when I argued with morons during the Gulf War, and my involvement against that war went so far as to earn me death-threats.
The harpie continued: "You're going to have to leave." "I'm not leaving," I said, and shot-back: "Is this private property that you own?" She wouldn't answer me, and kept invading my personal space. Things continued to get ugly, and it finally ended with her and I agreeing that I wouldn't be in all the group-shots. "You can't stand with them," she said so warmly that I could feel the chill and see my own breath. It lasted no more than a minute, but it was incredibly emotional and ugly.
A journalist from the South Bend Tribune was standing 3-feet from us as it occurred, and asked me, "Are you two on the same side? What was that about?" "Yes, and I don't understand what just happened to me," I replied. He took my name, and I thanked him for his professionalism. "Well, sometimes, a degree in journalism comes-in-handy!" he smiled. I smiled too, but I was still shaking and furious.
MPJC has an email-list for its members and auxiliaries. I sent an email to all of them, and was immediately told that the event both "didn't happen", and "was nothing much." That was from the wife of one of the group's founders, a private physician no-less. The insensitivity was so great that I let them all have a piece of my mind on the issues of what happened, and why they were wrong. I wish I had quit then, but I remained for three-more-months, a regrettable decision. Frankly, groups like MPJC need to dissolve to be replaced by real grassroots ones comprised only of working-class individuals who have come there spontaneously as I had.
These kind of people are the ilk that legends like Rosa Luxembourg, the Knights of Labor, the IWW ("wobblies"), people who fought and died for the 8-hour-day, the unionist movement, anonymous civil rights workers, and all the other grassroots progressives of the last 150-years would have shrugged-off: they are counterrevolutionaries who want to control our movements to preserve their petty-privileges. They are cowards. Whether they know it or not, they're part of the problem and need to be jettisoned from any and all leadership positions in what little there is of an American antiwar and progressive movement. The place that it really shines is the internet, but try telling the bourgies this.
They are basically worthless roadblocks that should be removed, but I personally believe that events will become so desperate that they're going to be rolled-over anyway--a situation of their own making. Radical-actions and ideas are required. Serious inquiries only. If people like the MPJC leadership had been in-charge of the Civil Rights movement, Blacks would still have separate bathrooms, and be riding in the back of the bus. Quit fooling yourselves, and reflect that the main-reason few are joining you on your corners is because they intuitively know bullshit when they see it.
Caveat emptor, another dead hand. And don't give any money to Moveon.org if you believe in grassroots politics that are genuine, because that's not what they're about at all. It would be better spent on porn and beer. God bless Cindy Sheehan. Get out of our movement, you're only fooling yourselves, comfortable people. Now, give me a good-paying goddamned job to-boot.
The Real Deal: http://www.gsfp.org/
PS: The South Bend Tribune never covered the incident. Draw your own conclusions.
02.24.2007: I should add that the sign I was carrying ("Impeach Bush") was provided to myself by MPJC . There was nothing in the Moveon emails, or MPJC emails that said, "don't bring a sign, they will be provided." This omission confused a few dummies at the DailyKos. But why should they provide signs? What does that have to do with a "grassroots" movement? That's a top-down approach, which is the core-problem facing this nation. It stinks of stage-managing and authoritarianism. I'd say, "save your money," but I know you will anyway. Let thy conscience be salved, give it directly to Cindy and the Gold Star Mothers.
MISS BIG FAKE BOOBIES, SREBRENICA, IRAQ, AND OJ
"The bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999 allegedly to stop ethnic cleansing and prevent the Balkans from becoming once again the powder keg of Europe has backfired. Kosovo has become exclusively an Albanian province with the exception of a few stalwart Serbians in the Mitrovica area who live surrounded by barbed wire and are threatened daily with murder and mayhem by their Albanian neighbours. The Balkans, since the end of the bombing, have been in constant turmoil caused by the KLA terrorist activities." --James Bissett, former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, 1990-1992.
“It's very expensive to be me. It's terrible the things I have to do to be me.” --Anna Nicole Smith
Our Apologist Mainstream Media--Remember the O.J. trial? I do, and I want that memory erased for good. Give me some of that Total Recall erasing, like it was never there. It's good that her tits are big enough to hide the rapidly disintegrating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but what about "the Juice"?
That moron was used to hide most of the facts of the Balkans war that the Clinton administration was waging, done primarily to dismantle Yugoslavia as a third-path economy, rather than a "humanitarian-invasion." There is no such thing, it's a fiction.
Where was the media coverage of the invasion of Rwanda during that same period? There wasn't much, because the place wasn't seen as strategically important or valuable at that time. But at least we rewarded Osama Bin Laden with a precinct and gave him a Bosnian passport during the Balkans conflict.
Correct, you're a sucker if thought there was really a systematic ethnic-cleansing in the Balkans. Ours--and other NATO forces, along with mercenaries--murdered more human-beings than the Serbs could ever muster. But, our crimes don't exist, only other countries do that. The one thing
Ironically, we can thank George W. Bush for stripping-away this delusion forever, with his openly-criminal usage of illegal rendition, torture, murder--he's given the game away, and there's no more denying that these tactics are common features of our foreign policy. More revelations are coming.
Look at Dafur: has anyone invaded them to stop a real genocide? War crimes are a part of war, but the atrocities in Srebrenica--all Bosniak Muslims--amounted to the murders of 8,000 people. Sorry, but as bad as this sounds, that's nothing compared to the death tolls in Iraq, and that's just one example of American war crimes. All "ethnic-cleansing" did was to provide a pretext to invade, which NATO knew would occur when Croatia and Slovenia notified them through Germany that they wanted to split from Yugoslavia: "Germany granted recognition to Slovenia and Croatia on 18 December 1991, while other European community members and the US followed suit," states the Nations Encyclopedia.
This is also from www.nationsencyclopedia.com, and is followed by what is the standard line on NATO involvement with this sentence: "The international community stood firmly in support of the preservation of Yugoslavia."
Strange, since everything they did in the run-up to the Balkans war made this an impossibility.
At the same time, though, where are the leaders of the international community who also helped to bring events in the Balkans about? Have we ever heard one word of apology or acknowledgement of failure or responsibility from anyone in leadership positions of Unprofor, the United Nations or the major governments that they got it wrong? ...We are rightly looking for full accountability from the parties in the region. I am sorry that we are not doing the same for ourselves. (William D. Montgomery was special representative of the U.S. president and secretary of state for Bosnian Peace Implementation in 1996-97, U.S. ambassador to Croatia from 1998 to 2000 and ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro from 2000 to 2004.) (IHT, 07.12.2005)NATO charter members at that time knew full-well that the atrocities were coming, and merely allowed a force of 375 UN peacekeepers to defend the village and its inhabitants. But the Serbs suffered greater-losses at the hands of NATO:
If what happened to Kosovo Albanians and Bosnian Moslems was genocide, what of the treatment of Orthodox Serbs? After NATO's air war, 200,000 were driven from Kosovo. Most who remain cower behind barbed-wire barricades in Mitrovica. Altogether, 2 million Serbs were expelled from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, and 240 of their churches were destroyed. When this happens to anyone else, it's called ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide. The tragedy has its roots in the early 1990s, when the West decided Bosnians and Croatians were entitled to their own states. (Free Republic, 12.03.2001)Yeah, but what does this have to do with Anna Nicole Smith and OJ? They provide media "white-outs", a distraction. Yes, you take a the disastrous lives of worthless celebrities who are on-hand at that particular historical moment, and you make them a SHIBBOLETH. Anyone like these vermin will do, just so long as they're vulnerable due to their own behaviors and their infliction on others. Feel inflicted? Manipulated? I do. If O.J.'s head exploded, or he was run-over by a truck, I wouldn't care.
Anna Nicole Smith? Her life was worthless compared to someone who's being put-upon by our troops in Iraq, or anywhere our foreign policy has dominion. That's right: American foreign policy needs people like this to function nowadays, pathetic. And why do think Hillary Clinton won't apologize for her vote on authorizing the use of force in Iraq?
Has her husband ever apologized for the murdering of 500,000 Iraqi children during the 1990s? Taken together, Clinton's and Bush's policies towards Iraq amount to attempts at genocide, yet nobody bats-an-eye. America gets the world it deserves. They get Joe Lieberman (who called Muslim extremists fighting Serbs "freedom fighters") and George W. Bush.
Revised 08.31.2008
Free Republic on Bosnia/Croatian war:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/582809/posts
International Herald Tribune on Srebnecia's 10th Anniversary:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/11/opinion/edmont.php
Former Canadian Diplomat James Bisset's Take on the KLA:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BIS111A.html
Nationsencycolpedia.com on Croatia:
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Croatia-HISTORY.html
A Serbian Take on Osama Bin Laden and the War on Terrorism (From 2001):
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic/NewsST091901.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/582809/posts
International Herald Tribune on Srebnecia's 10th Anniversary:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/11/opinion/edmont.php
Former Canadian Diplomat James Bisset's Take on the KLA:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BIS111A.html
Nationsencycolpedia.com on Croatia:
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Croatia-HISTORY.html
A Serbian Take on Osama Bin Laden and the War on Terrorism (From 2001):
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic/NewsST091901.htm
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Anna Nicole Smith: A Most Unwholesome Verdict (a short story)
"Sic semper tyrannis!"
--John Wilkes Booth, after shooting President Lincoln, catching his spurs in a flag draping the presidential box, crashing to the stage, and then breaking his leg (pun-intended).
It was terrible, disgusting, and the judge hadn't even gone into the details of the decease's sex-life. Who was the father, and could someone please get her child away from all of them? Soon, they were all swapping semen and other sundry DNA-samples, but the worst was yet-to-come (pun-intended). The ultimate-objectification of her body had arrived: in-order to secure the child, they all had to eat her corpse, and by court-order. The judge didn't take-kindly to any hemming-and-hawing, cannibalism was decisive and at least the appearance of certainty was in-place. This was all-important to Americans.
I know, strange doesn't even come close. Meanwhile, back at the ranch (Crawford), the President's advisers were keeping the Anna Nicole story alive. It would take more than 30,0000-volts to get this corpse twitching, and there were real stories that needed a white-out. It was time for the "dead-frog" routine. The British Prime Minister was announcing the pullout of his troops in the forgotten "coalition of the willing", dozens were dying everyday in Baghdad alone, Afghanistan was disintegrating too, the trial of President Cheney's chief of staff was winding-down, and the storm clouds were looming.
"It sure was a good thing she had enormous-breasts," chuckled President Cheney, "Or we might actually have to show everyone all the wounded and dead in Iraq and Afghanistan-stan!" He walked over to the Lincoln bedroom, banging-against the walls in his gin-stupor, reached the room, and sat-down on the bed. The ghost of Abraham Lincoln materialized in a way that would make Hollywood execs envious--CGI never looked this good, and never would.
"Creepin' Christ, you stink of spirits," said the dead president, looking similar to his $5-bill portrait, only not with his chin tucked-in so goddamned close. OK, he looked more lifelike than the Disney animatronic, satisfied?
"I rescinded Habeus Corpus too, and look what they did to me," said Lincoln, motioning to the hole in his head. President Cheney just gave him that shit-eating grin he had at January's State of the Union address. He snickered, not unlike the Burgess Meredith version of the Penguin, only less-convincing.
"Yeah? Well, go fuck yourself, I got a few cards up-my-sleef, bud," he vomited. No, I mean he vomited. He was drunk, remember? Jesus. Yeah, and his speech was slurred. Fuck it.
"I gotch the presssshh in my pock-et thisssh-timmmmmme, didj youse?" said President Cheney. He crawled over to the TV set and turned-on Fox News--the only news he watches--and began touching himself violently, it was a pathetic sight. Not Cheney, I meant Fox News--man are you people slow. Stories of Anna Nicole Smith were on, because that was all that was on.
Lincoln croaked, "Where are all your wounded, Mr. President? Why is there nothing but this used-up tramp in your press? Maybe I should have allowed the South to peter-out? Hmm. Was the Union worth saving for this? I'm glad that actor shot me, it spared me the aftermath of the war. Perhaps the Union was a phantasm of my own making." Indeed, it was, and they both watched the child's suitors eating the corpse (garnished with money) until the early-morning. It was good to be so free, and President Cheney bit-into a corn syrup enriched zagnut. He could never understand why he had such a horrible-case of irritable bowel syndrome. But Lincoln was wrong, another bad-actor named Ronald Reagan had assassinated the Union long-ago. Send the troops to Harper's Ferry, boys, John Brown's body won't rest in its grave...wait, there's no troops.
--John Wilkes Booth, after shooting President Lincoln, catching his spurs in a flag draping the presidential box, crashing to the stage, and then breaking his leg (pun-intended).
It was terrible, disgusting, and the judge hadn't even gone into the details of the decease's sex-life. Who was the father, and could someone please get her child away from all of them? Soon, they were all swapping semen and other sundry DNA-samples, but the worst was yet-to-come (pun-intended). The ultimate-objectification of her body had arrived: in-order to secure the child, they all had to eat her corpse, and by court-order. The judge didn't take-kindly to any hemming-and-hawing, cannibalism was decisive and at least the appearance of certainty was in-place. This was all-important to Americans.
I know, strange doesn't even come close. Meanwhile, back at the ranch (Crawford), the President's advisers were keeping the Anna Nicole story alive. It would take more than 30,0000-volts to get this corpse twitching, and there were real stories that needed a white-out. It was time for the "dead-frog" routine. The British Prime Minister was announcing the pullout of his troops in the forgotten "coalition of the willing", dozens were dying everyday in Baghdad alone, Afghanistan was disintegrating too, the trial of President Cheney's chief of staff was winding-down, and the storm clouds were looming.
"It sure was a good thing she had enormous-breasts," chuckled President Cheney, "Or we might actually have to show everyone all the wounded and dead in Iraq and Afghanistan-stan!" He walked over to the Lincoln bedroom, banging-against the walls in his gin-stupor, reached the room, and sat-down on the bed. The ghost of Abraham Lincoln materialized in a way that would make Hollywood execs envious--CGI never looked this good, and never would.
"Creepin' Christ, you stink of spirits," said the dead president, looking similar to his $5-bill portrait, only not with his chin tucked-in so goddamned close. OK, he looked more lifelike than the Disney animatronic, satisfied?
"I rescinded Habeus Corpus too, and look what they did to me," said Lincoln, motioning to the hole in his head. President Cheney just gave him that shit-eating grin he had at January's State of the Union address. He snickered, not unlike the Burgess Meredith version of the Penguin, only less-convincing.
"Yeah? Well, go fuck yourself, I got a few cards up-my-sleef, bud," he vomited. No, I mean he vomited. He was drunk, remember? Jesus. Yeah, and his speech was slurred. Fuck it.
"I gotch the presssshh in my pock-et thisssh-timmmmmme, didj youse?" said President Cheney. He crawled over to the TV set and turned-on Fox News--the only news he watches--and began touching himself violently, it was a pathetic sight. Not Cheney, I meant Fox News--man are you people slow. Stories of Anna Nicole Smith were on, because that was all that was on.
Lincoln croaked, "Where are all your wounded, Mr. President? Why is there nothing but this used-up tramp in your press? Maybe I should have allowed the South to peter-out? Hmm. Was the Union worth saving for this? I'm glad that actor shot me, it spared me the aftermath of the war. Perhaps the Union was a phantasm of my own making." Indeed, it was, and they both watched the child's suitors eating the corpse (garnished with money) until the early-morning. It was good to be so free, and President Cheney bit-into a corn syrup enriched zagnut. He could never understand why he had such a horrible-case of irritable bowel syndrome. But Lincoln was wrong, another bad-actor named Ronald Reagan had assassinated the Union long-ago. Send the troops to Harper's Ferry, boys, John Brown's body won't rest in its grave...wait, there's no troops.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Yesterday was Arlen Specter Day: New JFK ASSASSINATION FOOTAGE SURFACES THAT FINISHES-OFF "MAGIC BULLET THEORY"
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." --William Colby, former CIA Director, quoted by Dave Mcgowan, Derailing Democracy.
DALLAS, TEXAS--Yesterday, in an event that barely got coverage today by the mainstream media, 82-year-old George Jeffries finally came forward with his footage that takes-place roughly 90 seconds before the assassination (duration is at 40 seconds-on, so it's unclear how close it extends into the first shots fired at the president).
"The president's coat is clearly if briefly seen bunched up on his back," stated Ed Stoddard's Reuters piece, which is peppered with accusations that anyone questioning the Warren Commission Report is a "conspiracy buff." The BBC was more level-headed, while AP was coy.
The film shows the president's coat bunched up on his back - a detail some will see as evidence that the bullet wounds on the president's body did not match those on his jacket. The film also shows "the clearest, best film of Jackie in the motorcade", says Mr Mack. Also visible is secret service agent Clint Hill, riding on the back of the car. (BBC, 02.20.2007)
Right, it was Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone again. That's the line of the American press, and they've begged-the-question too much to be safe. The apologists sound more like the old Soviet version of Pravda, thanks to the usual lockstep on the assassination and the "conventional wisdom" surrounding it. Consciously disregarding a mountain of evidence that points elsewhere is crucial to the media's take on the JFK assassination.
No mafia-connections here, no intelligence operatives, and Jack Ruby's FBI, intelligence, and mafia-connections never existed either (someone should check his corpse for polonium-210, he claimed he was injected by government agents with a radioactive substance--I know, this never happens). One should consider that none of the multifarious theories of Oliver Stone's "JFK" contains one pointing towards La Cosa Nostra.
Problem: with the jacket bunched-up (an issue brought-up by researchers before), the holes in the late-president's suit-jacket simply don't match the Warren Report's version, nor the trajectories. The points of entry are too-low on the garment and the president's body.
To make a long story short, this is new evidence of major import, and once again it undermines Arlen Specter's "single-bullet theory." There have been many other pieces of evidence that have done so, but this appears to be a solid one. With the entry-wounds so low in the back, at least one shot has to come from the grassy knoll, and possibly elsewhere at ground-level.
In 1975, the public was finally shown the Zapruder film on national television by "Goodnight America," and the outcry from it and Watergate (and many other examples of our intelligence community running-amok) caused the creation of the committee. Neither this film, or the Zapruder film support the Warren Commission Report or Specter's theory.
We should ask ourselves what kind of political creature Senator Specter really constitutes. Consider that he dragged his feet for nearly a year after it was revealed by the New York Times on December 15, 2005 that we were (are?) all being spied-on illegally by the Bush administration via the NSA. There were no investigations of the NSA programs under Specter's House Judiciary leadership, echoing the quality of his work as a Warren Commission lawyer. We should all re-examine this man, his record, and his background thoroughly.
But, we know that the NYT covered-up knowledge of the NSA surveillance and database-program for over one-year. Granted, we know the media aren't particularly adversarial to established power--in-fact, they're the servant of it--but are there other factors? Indeed, there are.
From Carl Bernstein's 1977 Rolling Stone article on CIA-infiltration of the mainstream media:
Like the mainstream media, Arlen Specter shows a strange tendency towards anti-democratic behavior, and standing-down at crucial moments in our history when democracy is threatened from-within. What is his relationship with our intelligence community? The media? Who is Arlen Specter, and why don't we know him better?
His views on foreign policy, intelligence oversight, and protection of the Bill of Rights are a bone-of-contention with his GOP peers. Yet, he's often at-odds with the GOP on many other issues such as social spending, and even abortion. Overarching economic concerns are uncontroversial between them all. He's hardly alone in our political culture, and oddly, Joe Lieberman's career sometimes resembles Specter's. US News did an interestingly-timed piece on Specter in September of 2005, when the NSA surveillance program was about to be exposed:
America is not immune from established history. Cowards ignore the truth and the troubling questions. According to Arlen Specter and the mainstream media, we can never trust our senses or our own judgment. To them, we the people, are incapable of independent thought. They claim the right to think for us, and have planted the seed-of-doubt about the Kennedy-assassination since November 22nd, 1963 by their actions.
Things might get messy for them and their controllers if every public school had to teach American children the fact that President Kennedy was murdered by a right-wing constellation that coalesced and struck him down for reasons that are still unknown today.
No mafia-connections here, no intelligence operatives, and Jack Ruby's FBI, intelligence, and mafia-connections never existed either (someone should check his corpse for polonium-210, he claimed he was injected by government agents with a radioactive substance--I know, this never happens). One should consider that none of the multifarious theories of Oliver Stone's "JFK" contains one pointing towards La Cosa Nostra.
Problem: with the jacket bunched-up (an issue brought-up by researchers before), the holes in the late-president's suit-jacket simply don't match the Warren Report's version, nor the trajectories. The points of entry are too-low on the garment and the president's body. To make a long story short, this is new evidence of major import, and once again it undermines Arlen Specter's "single-bullet theory." There have been many other pieces of evidence that have done so, but this appears to be a solid one. With the entry-wounds so low in the back, at least one shot has to come from the grassy knoll, and possibly elsewhere at ground-level.
Specter still defends the single-bullet theory, which suffered a substantial loss of credibility after the House Assassinations Committee investigations which concluded there had been a conspiracy in the assassination. This fact is routinely ignored by the media.
But besides all this, Specter's behavior as a Warren Commission lawyer/investigator has been called-into-question by several JFK assassination witnesses. Jean Hill (the woman in red in the Zapruder film) saw the assassination no more than 20 feet in-front of her. Specter questioned her in Dallas on March 24, 1964, and under peculiar circumstances at Parkland Hospital:
But besides all this, Specter's behavior as a Warren Commission lawyer/investigator has been called-into-question by several JFK assassination witnesses. Jean Hill (the woman in red in the Zapruder film) saw the assassination no more than 20 feet in-front of her. Specter questioned her in Dallas on March 24, 1964, and under peculiar circumstances at Parkland Hospital:
He kept trying to get me to change my story, particularly regarding the number of shots. He said I had been told how many shots there were and I figured he was talking about what the Secret Service told me right after the assassination. His inflection and attitude was that I knew what I was supposed to be saying, why wouldn't I just say it. I asked him, 'Look, do you want the truth or just what you want me to say?' He said he wanted the truth, so I said, 'The truth is that I heard between four and six shots.'
I told him, 'I'm not going to lie for you.' So he starts talking off the record. He told me about my life, my family, and even mentioned that my marriage was in trouble. I said, 'What's the point of interviewing me if you already know everything about me?' He got angrier and finally told me, 'Look, we can even make you look as crazy as Marguerite Oswald [Lee Oswald's mother] and everybody knows how crazy she is. We could have you put in a mental institution if you don't cooperate with us.' I knew he was trying to intimidate me... (as told to researcher Jim Marrs)
In 1975, the public was finally shown the Zapruder film on national television by "Goodnight America," and the outcry from it and Watergate (and many other examples of our intelligence community running-amok) caused the creation of the committee. Neither this film, or the Zapruder film support the Warren Commission Report or Specter's theory.
We should ask ourselves what kind of political creature Senator Specter really constitutes. Consider that he dragged his feet for nearly a year after it was revealed by the New York Times on December 15, 2005 that we were (are?) all being spied-on illegally by the Bush administration via the NSA. There were no investigations of the NSA programs under Specter's House Judiciary leadership, echoing the quality of his work as a Warren Commission lawyer. We should all re-examine this man, his record, and his background thoroughly.
But, we know that the NYT covered-up knowledge of the NSA surveillance and database-program for over one-year. Granted, we know the media aren't particularly adversarial to established power--in-fact, they're the servant of it--but are there other factors? Indeed, there are.
From Carl Bernstein's 1977 Rolling Stone article on CIA-infiltration of the mainstream media:
According to sources in the Senate and the Agency, the use of journalists was one of two areas of inquiry which the CIA went to extraordinary lengths to curtail. The other was the Agency’s continuing and extensive use of academics for recruitment and information gathering purposes. In both instances, the sources said, former directors Colby and Bush and CIA special counsel Mitchell Rogovin were able to convince key members of the committee that full inquiry or even limited public disclosure of the dimensions of the activities would do irreparable damage to the nation’s intelligence‑gathering apparatus, as well as to the reputations of hundreds of individuals. (Rolling Stone, 10.12.1977)These excuses sound familiar, don't they...just like those of the current Bush administration? When you read any article on the JFK assassination, consider that much of the media is already honeycombed by the CIA.
Like the mainstream media, Arlen Specter shows a strange tendency towards anti-democratic behavior, and standing-down at crucial moments in our history when democracy is threatened from-within. What is his relationship with our intelligence community? The media? Who is Arlen Specter, and why don't we know him better?
His views on foreign policy, intelligence oversight, and protection of the Bill of Rights are a bone-of-contention with his GOP peers. Yet, he's often at-odds with the GOP on many other issues such as social spending, and even abortion. Overarching economic concerns are uncontroversial between them all. He's hardly alone in our political culture, and oddly, Joe Lieberman's career sometimes resembles Specter's. US News did an interestingly-timed piece on Specter in September of 2005, when the NSA surveillance program was about to be exposed:
After three years at a prestigious Philadelphia firm, Specter joined the Philadelphia district attorney's office in 1959 as an assistant D.A. It was while he was a prosecutor in Philadelphia, in December 1963, that he was invited by a law school friend at the Justice Department to join the staff of the Warren Commission. In that position, Specter, dogged and determined, developed the single-bullet theory to explain how a lone gunman had fired the single shot that killed President Kennedy and injured Texas Gov. John Connally, who was in the car with him. ...It is largely his inscrutable political identity that has made him such a curiosity for such a long time.(US News, 09.12.2005)
Specter finally made it to the Senate for Pennsylvania in 1980, at the same moment as the "Reagan revolution" (helped by post-Watergate voter apathy). Was he rewarded for his role on the Warren Commission? Who are his backers from that period in the late-1970s? How many of them actually lived in Pennsylvania? How many were billionaires from Texas? It--tyranny and those most dramatic political acts--can happen here.
America is not immune from established history. Cowards ignore the truth and the troubling questions. According to Arlen Specter and the mainstream media, we can never trust our senses or our own judgment. To them, we the people, are incapable of independent thought. They claim the right to think for us, and have planted the seed-of-doubt about the Kennedy-assassination since November 22nd, 1963 by their actions.
Things might get messy for them and their controllers if every public school had to teach American children the fact that President Kennedy was murdered by a right-wing constellation that coalesced and struck him down for reasons that are still unknown today.
"Snow Job" from FAIR: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1374
The CIA and the Media, by Carl Bernstein: http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/cia_press.html
JFK Assassination Museum, Dallas: http://www.jfk.org/
US News's Enigmatic-take on Arlen Specter, September 2005:
Revised and corrected, 07.23.2008
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