BREAKING NEWS: Peace Activists Stage 'Die-In' at Chicago's Most Prominent Catholic Parish, Charged With Felonies by Press Release (Posted by Kevin Gosztola) Page 1 of 1 page(s) http://www.opednews.com
reddit_url='http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_press_re_080323_breaking_news_3a_peace.htm'; reddit_title='BREAKING NEWS: Peace Activists Stage \'Die-In\' at Chicago\'s Most Prominent Catholic Parish, Charged With Felonies' digg_url='http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_press_re_080323_breaking_news_3a_peace.htm'; digg_title='BREAKING NEWS: Peace Activists Stage \'Die-In\' at Chicago\'s Most Prominent Catholic Parish, Charged With Felonies'; digg_bodytext='Six members of the anti-war group "Catholic Schoolgirls Against The War" staged a dramatic die-in during the 11AM Easter mass at Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago\'s most prominent Catholic parish – and the home of one of the nation\'s most conservative church leaders, Cardinal George.'; digg_topic='politics';
document.write ('') document.write ("")
PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release
Attention: News Assignment
Press contacts: Kevin Clark, 312-259-4380, solitaryleftist@aol.com; Jeff Pickering, 773-551-2353
Peace Activists Stage Dramatic 'Die-In' at Holy Name Cathedral to Protest Anniversary of Iraq War
Group decries Cardinal George's January 7 meeting with Mayor Daley and President Bush, the 'chief architect' of the ongoing carnage in Iraq.
CHICAGO, March 23 – Six members of the anti-war group "Catholic Schoolgirls Against The War" staged a dramatic die-in during the 11AM Easter mass at Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago's most prominent Catholic parish – and the home of one of the nation's most conservative church leaders, Cardinal George.
The three men and three women activists timed the action to reach both Holy Name's large easter audience – including Chicago's most prominent Catholic citizens, who commonly attend Easter mass at the church -- and the many more viewers and readers of the local press, which usually extensively cover the services.
The action was staged in the Gold Coast cathedral's parish center, an auditorium where mass is being said while the main cathedral undergoes renovation. Easter services at Holy Name are traditionally one of the most heavily attended masses of the year, and this mass was no exception, with people packed wall to wall for today's Easter morning holiday service.
The group of young men and women, dressed in their Easter best, sat through the 11AM mass until George reached the homily. A few seconds into the cardinal's main holiday message, the protesters rose from their seats, turned to address the thousands of parishioners in the auditorium, and talked about the continuing death of both Iraqis and Americans in Iraq as the war enters its sixth year.
The protesters also reminded the churchgoers that on January 7, 2008, cardinal George and Chicago mayor Richard Daley met in Chicago with U.S. president George W. Bush – the principle public figure responsible for initiating the carnage in Iraq – and denounced this meeting.
The protesters then laid down in the aisles and discharged packets of fake blood that covered them in red. Stunned ushers rushed in after a moment or two to try to remove the protesters, and also brought in some Chicago police officers who were stationed in the lobby to help with traffic control for the overflow crowd. The protesters did NOT resist arrest, agreeing to stand up and walk out of the auditorium, where they were subsequently arrested by cops outside. During a ten minute wait for a paddy wagon to show up, the activists conducted a series of media interviews with local television outlets. When the paddy wagon arrived, the cuffed protesters were loaded and taken to an area police station.
The impact inside the auditorium was powerful. According to an eyewitness on the scene, once the protesters were led out, the audience sat in shocked silence for a few moments. George then said "And we should thank our friends for what they have had to say," – and the parishioners responded with a round of applause.
Supporters of the protesters are still awaiting word on their final destination and the charges they may ultimately confront, although police stated at 12:15PM that the activists are currently being held at the 18th District police station, located at 1160 N. Larrabee Ave., 312-742-5870.
-30-
Circulated by HammerHard MediaWorks
www.hammerhard.org | chrisgeovanis@aol.com | 312-446-4939
NEWS ALERT: The Chicago police department has just release information that the six young people arrested at a die-in at Holy Name Cathedral today have been charged with one count of felony criminal damage to property and two counts of simple battery. For a more complete accounting of the story, go to the Chicago Independent Media Center's website at chicago.indymedia.org.
The arrestees are Angela Haban, 20 years old, female; Regan Maher, 25 years old, female; Mercedes Phinaih, 18 years old, female; Ephran Ramirez, Jr., 22 years old, male; Donte D. Smith, 21 years old, male; and Ryane J. Ziemba, 25 years old, male
According to the police, all arrestees are scheduled to be in court on these charges on March 31 at Branch 42 at 9am. CIMC is currently trying to confirm this date, and also to identify the date and time for the arresttees' bond hearing, which will likely be some time tomorrow, Monday, March 24. Attorneys report that bond, particularly for the felony count, could run into tens of thousands of dollars, with the arrestees required to post 10% of that. The last activist arrested on a trumped-up felony charge at a protest was slapped with a $60,000 bond. He spent two days in jail while supporters assembled the $6,000 it took to bail him out.
Supporters have asked the public to contact the following individuals about jail solidarity, including information on how to support the activists bond support fund: Jeff Pickert at 773-551-2353 or sittingbull5@ameritech.net; Kevin Clark at 773-267-5198 or solitaryleftist@aol.com.
URGENT
Ryane J. Ziemba, one of the activists involved in today's protest at Easter Mass is currently being denied his medication.
Despite multiple requests for his inhaler Chicago Police at the 18th District (near Division and Halsted) are refusing to give Ryane Ziemba the medication. Ryane's friends are asking that people call the station at 312-742-5870. We also are asking that people maintain a physical presence in front of the jail until the Police allow Ryan to use his medication.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
"The Dead Kennedys search for another frontman"
"It's likely that, if asked, the band will attribute my departure to scheduling conflicts brought about by my documentary work, but in reality it's a tediously long story involving personality conflicts, creative differences, arguments about splitting money equally, arguments about how the band should be run, arguments about the wisdom of hiring a band manager whose other star client was a Christian folk artist, arguments about whether we should or shouldn't go on MTV, and arguments about many other wretched things." --Jeff Penalty, hopefully the last singer of the remnants of the Dead Kennedys. (World Entertainment News Network, 03.22.2008)'Frisco (that's right, San Fran)--Give it up, quit, retire, it's over, go away, stop. You're Van Halen. Jello Biafra is an asshole, but these guys really live-down to his own descriptions of their real reasons for the legendary civil trial. What was the suit over? The rights to the name and the music of the band, and royalties they claimed Biafra hadn't paid them. Outside of the residuals owed, the rest was unadulterated greed. Now former singer Jeff Penalty was with them for a whopping five-years. Biafra fronted them from 1978-1987, with a split brought-on by constant police harassment and internal-struggles like in the above quote. If you ever felt jealous of your the idols, this is a refreshing reminder that success isn't always what you think it is. Some people have an extraordinary knack for blowing it.
This whole saga began in 2000 when the other Dead Kennedys won the lawsuit against Biafra (I sold all of the copies of their discography at that time). The first thing they did was to re-release the catalog in what can only be described as un-remastered versions with shoddy second-generation copies of the artwork and audio. Then came the tours and merchandising. Some twerp I know even suggested to me during some of this that the Dead Kennedys were better without Jello, a patently absurd notion that deserves no further comment. Did Jello rip-off the others when he held the catalog? I believe the answer is a qualified "yes." He did, but these creeps are far worse, and it's finally showing.
Granted, things went to Jello's head after the break-up of the Dead Kennedys, and his arrogance was palpable at his lectures during the 1990s--something I and thousands can attest to. My own brother saw the incident where he was beaten-up, and I can attest that it was earned. But what did we expect? Punk is about rudeness and shaking people up. The albums are there forever as a document. What these clowns did afterwards is unimportant.
This story has been over since the late-1980s when the band was on trial for obscenity, having the temerity to publish a poster of artwork by Swiss Surrealist H.R. Giger, enclosed with their 1985 opus "Frankenchrist." Look at Jeff Penalty's comments on the rest of the Dead Kennedys, and compare it alongside the previous comments of Jello Biafra. It all sounds the same, doesn't it? That's because they're telling the same story, the same facts about a group of washed-up rock-n'-rollers. At least Jello isn't pretending anymore.
Obama's Minister Part II
"When this country here was first being founded, there were 13 colonies. The whites were colonized. They were fed up with this taxation without representation. So some of them stood up and said, liberty or death. I went to a white school over here in Mason, Michigan. The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington—wasn’t nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.
Liberty or death was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English. They didn’t care about the odds. Why, they faced the wrath of the entire British Empire. And in those days, they used to say that the British Empire was so vast and so powerful, the sun would never set on it. This is how big it was, yet these 13 little scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire, liberty or death." --Malcolm X, February 1965.
The Midwest--I've been watching the carefully selected clips on CNN and Fox News going in heavy-rotation (and inverted-ratiocination)--I'm still not finding anything factually incorrect in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons in any respect, they are accurate and truthful. The truth hurts. Readers should note that most of the sermons are being culled from 2003, five-years-ago. Why weren't they important then? We know why, and we know why they're being run constantly: to hurt Obama's chances at victory over Clinton and McCain. The move is a racist one in every respect.
Telling the truth...that's not the Rev. wright's fault, nor is it his problem--we've had enough of blaming the messenger. The truth is the truth. Whether we like it or not, it's simply the truth. America has a bad habit of not only attacking, but killing the messenger. It's likely that the "greatest generation ever" murdered the last great one when Dr. King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel on April 4th, 1968. This country also murdered one the greatest minds in the Black liberation struggle and the American struggle for a just society with the assassination of Malcolm X on February 21st, 1965. There are many other tragic examples, and the list of America's victims is virtually endless. It almost reads like a slow-motion holocaust.
A very kind reader felt a little hurt by Dr. Wright's comments on the events surrounding September 11, 2001. They lost someone in the collapse of the World Trade Center, and I my heart goes out to them and everyone who lost someone in the attacks. A high school classmate of mine was also killed in the destruction of the World Trade Center, I didn't know them, however.
This is not to take away from anyone's loss: how does this loss change the fact that the foreign policy of our government caused the attacks? Shouldn't we all be angry at Congress and the White House, namely those who have been in power for the last few decades? If one compares the death-toll to what we have done to people in other nations, 9/11 is a blip on the historical radar. But there are points-of-comparison again--the toll is very close to the 1989 invasion of Panama by the current president's father, another war criminal badly-in-need of prosecution.
The Clintons also fit this bill (pun-intended), as does former President Jimmy Carter for his support of Indonesia in the invasion of East Timor. Carter is guilty of a number of other crimes of this nature. America allows her own terrorists a free-pass (think Alpha-66, the original Minutemen, the old KKK, certain private security firms, Indiana reservation "goons," and armies of criminal informants and puppet dictators and proxy armies). American lives are more valuable than those of "the darkies" in the third world, especially when they have mineral-wealth underneath their feet. Possession being 9/10's of the law, we dispossess them violently. Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans come-to-mind...
Like the invasion of Iraq and Grenada, Panama was an illegal invasion, and the toll is often estimated at around 3,000 dead. Nearly all of them were poor, as our forces were ordered to target the poorest neighborhoods for annihilation. What's disturbing is that we may never know the full body count from Panama since many of our troops were ordered to destroy as many of the remains as they could. Space doesn't permit a full-listing of our misbehaviors on the world stage in just the last 30-40 years, but in knowing them, Rev. Wright's comments don't seem so extreme. What seems extreme is our collective reaction to his comments. The only thing more extreme has been our foreign policy since the end of WWII. Rev. Jeremiah Wright: he's no Louis Farrakhan--the very reason he's being so viciously attacked.
Liberty or death was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English. They didn’t care about the odds. Why, they faced the wrath of the entire British Empire. And in those days, they used to say that the British Empire was so vast and so powerful, the sun would never set on it. This is how big it was, yet these 13 little scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire, liberty or death." --Malcolm X, February 1965.
The Midwest--I've been watching the carefully selected clips on CNN and Fox News going in heavy-rotation (and inverted-ratiocination)--I'm still not finding anything factually incorrect in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons in any respect, they are accurate and truthful. The truth hurts. Readers should note that most of the sermons are being culled from 2003, five-years-ago. Why weren't they important then? We know why, and we know why they're being run constantly: to hurt Obama's chances at victory over Clinton and McCain. The move is a racist one in every respect.
Telling the truth...that's not the Rev. wright's fault, nor is it his problem--we've had enough of blaming the messenger. The truth is the truth. Whether we like it or not, it's simply the truth. America has a bad habit of not only attacking, but killing the messenger. It's likely that the "greatest generation ever" murdered the last great one when Dr. King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel on April 4th, 1968. This country also murdered one the greatest minds in the Black liberation struggle and the American struggle for a just society with the assassination of Malcolm X on February 21st, 1965. There are many other tragic examples, and the list of America's victims is virtually endless. It almost reads like a slow-motion holocaust.
A very kind reader felt a little hurt by Dr. Wright's comments on the events surrounding September 11, 2001. They lost someone in the collapse of the World Trade Center, and I my heart goes out to them and everyone who lost someone in the attacks. A high school classmate of mine was also killed in the destruction of the World Trade Center, I didn't know them, however.
This is not to take away from anyone's loss: how does this loss change the fact that the foreign policy of our government caused the attacks? Shouldn't we all be angry at Congress and the White House, namely those who have been in power for the last few decades? If one compares the death-toll to what we have done to people in other nations, 9/11 is a blip on the historical radar. But there are points-of-comparison again--the toll is very close to the 1989 invasion of Panama by the current president's father, another war criminal badly-in-need of prosecution.
The Clintons also fit this bill (pun-intended), as does former President Jimmy Carter for his support of Indonesia in the invasion of East Timor. Carter is guilty of a number of other crimes of this nature. America allows her own terrorists a free-pass (think Alpha-66, the original Minutemen, the old KKK, certain private security firms, Indiana reservation "goons," and armies of criminal informants and puppet dictators and proxy armies). American lives are more valuable than those of "the darkies" in the third world, especially when they have mineral-wealth underneath their feet. Possession being 9/10's of the law, we dispossess them violently. Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans come-to-mind...
Like the invasion of Iraq and Grenada, Panama was an illegal invasion, and the toll is often estimated at around 3,000 dead. Nearly all of them were poor, as our forces were ordered to target the poorest neighborhoods for annihilation. What's disturbing is that we may never know the full body count from Panama since many of our troops were ordered to destroy as many of the remains as they could. Space doesn't permit a full-listing of our misbehaviors on the world stage in just the last 30-40 years, but in knowing them, Rev. Wright's comments don't seem so extreme. What seems extreme is our collective reaction to his comments. The only thing more extreme has been our foreign policy since the end of WWII. Rev. Jeremiah Wright: he's no Louis Farrakhan--the very reason he's being so viciously attacked.
On the Reemergence of SDS...
Spring in America--God bless these kids, this is so overdue. To everyone in the new SDS: you have my full-support. My home is open to you, my food, and my solidarity. It would behoove others to make the same offers of support. We offer you our hands and our hearts, Winter Soldiers! If you ever need a place to stay in South Bend, you have it here.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
On the Exhumation of Indiana Serial Killer Belle Gunness: New Questions Arise
LaPorte/Indianapolis,Indiana--The
more digging in the case of Belle Gunness, the more questions there are. In a piece that I wrote on the matter way back in November 16th , I commented that there appears to be a human skull in the photo to the right. That might be because there is one, but everyone's an expert (I'm not) and an anthropologist (ditto). From November 16th's comment from someone who wandered into the store:
Anonymous said...
But [University of Indianapolis lead researcher Andrea] Simmons, who speaks about the case Saturday at the Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso, has found a problem. The deeper the case gets, the more questions arise. Why were the bones of children found in her casket? Whose skull was found on the property? "We're finding every time we investigate something, it opens up a whole new question," Simmons said. ("Cracking the Belle Gunness Mystery," The Post-Tribune, 02.28.2008)
And that's how investigations like this play-out. It's possible that there will be no answers, it being 100 years since the Gunness farm burned-to-the-ground as a mob of authorities and vigilantes rushed to the residence to arrest the portly serial killer, the black widow of LaPorte. It was 1908.
- In case you don't know, the charred-corpse identified as that of Gunness was found in the remains of the cellar of the ruined farmhouse...without a head. Ever since that time it has been a source of wild speculations, namely that she got-away and started a life elsewhere. One good theory has the "Lady Bluebeard" chopping-off the head of a female maid, and there is evidence to support this. There are a good number of theories, which isn't that hard to believe. A century ago, people didn't have social security cards and photo identification was a rarity outside of passports, criminal and military records, and the like. Gunness lured her widower victims to her farm through Norwegian-language newspapers in the big cities, the myspace or facebook directories of the ass-end of the Victorian-era.
Some individuals were social ghosts in 1908, and the "Wild West" was just ending. Back then, it was easier to be someone else, a strange echo of today's phenomena of "identity-theft." Forget being ripped-off. Someone could murder you, take everything you owned, and simply vanish becoming you or someone else. 100-years-ago, it was far more widespread, and vice and labor, criminal and social violence were rampant. If Gunness recalls anything-at-all, it's the danger of almost no regulations in our society. It's a reminder of what a lawless society looks like, and what can happen when nobody is looking.
So here's what we have kids: an additional-skull found on the original site of the Gunness farm, and the bones of children in the grave of the serial killer along with what appears to be a headless skeletal-corpse, presumably that of the killer or a luckless ringer.
So here's what we have kids: an additional-skull found on the original site of the Gunness farm, and the bones of children in the grave of the serial killer along with what appears to be a headless skeletal-corpse, presumably that of the killer or a luckless ringer.
From Eardth to Crane with a two-step: Letters from the mailbag
----- Original Message ----
From: Bobby Crane
To: myboigie@earthlink.net
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 5:01:52 PM
Subject: your website
I came across your website and found some of the things you posted on it very offensive. Just thought I'd let you know.
Bob. C.
---- Original Message -----
Bob. C.
---- Original Message -----
From: Bobby Crane
Sent: 3/20/2008 1:06:00 AM
Subject: Re: your website
offensive as shit is probably a more appropriate description. do you want to talk about it?
Bob C.
Bob C.
----- Original Message -----
From: Matt Janovic
To: Bobby Crane
Sent: 3/19/2008 5:11:40 PM
Subject: Re: your website
Nope, I don't care what you think. Do your own blog--hell, do it about what a "horrible person Matt Janovic is," it's a free country (for now). --MJ
Ed.--Hey, I thought Bob Crane was dead! I guess it was just his personality and intellect. Do I want to talk about it? Of course not, what's that going to accomplish? Nothing, just a waste of my time, a lesson I learned during the Gulf War--the right loves to take-up your valuable time, and whether Bobbie knows it or not, he's arch-conservative and boorish.
What a crime: I wrote something (he wouldn't say what exactly) with honesty and sincerity about things that I and millions find disturbing in our world, and not expressed in the terms that someone else thought they should be. Offended? That works for me, and it will always beat television. If you feel like "talking" to a superficial boor, feel free to write Bobbie, he'll do.
"Anderson Cooper™ is saying he has skin cancer"
CNN--Good, maybe THAT will keep him from reporting rumors of Black Americans murdering each other as truth as he did at the Super dome in New Orleans in 2005. That's not journalism, it's reporting rumor and hearsay, and he should have been fired for it. But forget that for a moment: according to conventional wisdom, this rich zombie's life is worth more than the lives of America's victims, which he then makes-a-living on exploiting their suffering through his dubious reportage. It's enough to make a person violently-ill, unless they're already emotionally dead like many Americans. Vanderbilt scum. And they said there was no good side to cancer. Thank God for mortality, now let's see the Cheney heart-attack and the Bush stroke.
A Very Spiritual College Memory... (fragment)
"I'm more enlightened than you are, Matt," said the simpering idiot we called a drummer in our space rock band.I couldn't stop laughing at him, it was just too much. My laughter grew to uncontrollable cackling, and I could feel him tense-up next to me. To my amazement, he was actually getting angry.
"You know, you can laugh, but... ," he helplessly continued. I almost felt sorry for him and the hole he just couldn't stop digging. Some people are their own punishment, and he was no exception to the gaggle of jackapes I had to endure at that time.
He then went on some strange tirade of how I was "fragmented," and a whole lot of new age psychobabble sprinkled with bits of the Maharishi's philosophy he thought-up when he wasn't trying to fondle women like Mia Farrow. I was also incredibly evil to eat meat, even though we established that I and most working-class Americans couldn't afford to eat healthy (or much at all) on a strictly vegetarian diet.
"Well yes, I am laughing, glad you noticed. Do you have any idea how ridiculous it sounds when someone says something like that, especially coming from you?" I said. From there, I dissected his tirade, but it wouldn't have been that challenging for a ten-year-old.
Some explanations are in order: he was possibly one of the most unethical human beings I have ever met aside from my ex-wife. He had had sex with a 13-year-old girl, was a constant source of conflict in our merely OK band, and thought of himself as some prog-rock luminary on drums. He wasn't, and lacked the rudiments that even a simple drummer like Ringo Starr could master. I'm no Jimi Hendrix, and a Ringo-style drummer was what I wanted, but a half-assed Neal Peart was what I got. A drum machine plugged-into a PA system would have been better, the audience-be-damned...
He would do drum solos over literally everything we played and had no sense of musical dynamics or expression whatsoever (I have the tapes to prove it)--something I suspect he still hasn't grasped. Another member of the band was consistently late every time. He always triend to "bum a smoke" off of everyone he encountered, mumbling his requests like some nebbish cartoon character out of central casting.
One time I came over to where we practiced, and found he had cut his hand when he punched the mirror in his room. Apparently he didn't like what he saw--like everyone else who had the misfortune of encountering him. The "bass-player/singer" was literally hated by everyone at the university, and I would imagine still is by anyone in his immediate proximity.
If you've ever been in a garage band, you've probably had to deal with these kinds of boorish assholes at least once: they promise the moon and lie about how committed they are, they constantly threaten to quit when they don't get their way, they are completely irresponsible and unreliable, and they are the most profound examples of the egomaniac this side of politics (hence the term, "band politics"). If it sounds like the behavior or retarded five-year-olds, then you're getting the picture. This is why drum machines are so popular, and why you find a lot of musical artists these days who prefer buying a portable studio setup and going it alone. Sampling, drum machines, and computer-sequencing of music were all invented to remove people like this from the musical equation, as well as the interpersonal one. Not-so-ironically, these are the same people who whine about these technological developments. No pity here. But we were going-on about "spirituality," weren't we? It all seems to fit anyway.
"Your personality is fragmented, Matt, you aren't well," said the pedophile drummer.
In our modern reality where we're constantly bombarded with information and advertising, what does a statement like that mean? We were all fucked-up, and we were in our twenties. There were other factors at-play: Muncie was-and-is an economically depressed and unpleasant corrupt kind of town, but then, so is the rest of Indiana. Muncie just happens to be worse than the rest of the state, except Gary and a few rural shitholes that used to have sundown laws.
When the former drummer was saying that last bit to me, all I could think was, "Well, right, and being around you isn't ever going to help that." There was a strong compulsion to kick him down the flight-of-stairs that led up to our sallow, decrepit apartment. This is one of the great regrets of my life, besides ever getting married. I didn't need to say anything else to this clown, and he was leaving his hometown, the reason for the visit. When I say "goodbye" to people, I always try to argue with them in some juvenile competition. It must serve him well in the corporate world. Why must my life resemble a late-period Philip K. Dick novel? Being young isn't much fun at all, and I don't miss that time in my life. If your youth was the best-part of your life, it's your own fault, and you're probably not being realistic about much of anything. It was 1992, a wretched year, but at least the L.A. riots livened things up a bit. Here's to more of them, nostalgia-be-damned!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Is the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate Finally Investigating the Errant Senator David Vitter?
SITE METER--Look below, it appears that he's finally getting the attention he so richly deserves!
And here someone in their office said "get an eyeful of this," and they came back (note that they began with the article below this posting):
If only. If only she woulda...shut-up. If only. If only he coulda...kept it in his diapers. Now: ain't that America?
Here:
| Domain Name | senate.gov ? (U.S. Government) | ||||||||||||||||
| IP Address | 156.33.35.# (U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms) | ||||||||||||||||
| ISP | U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms | ||||||||||||||||
| Location |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Language | English (U.S.) en-us | ||||||||||||||||
| Operating System | Microsoft WinXP | ||||||||||||||||
| Browser | Internet Explorer 7.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.2) | ||||||||||||||||
| Javascript | version 1.3 | ||||||||||||||||
| Monitor |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Time of Visit | Mar 19 2008 5:00:13 am | ||||||||||||||||
| Last Page View | Mar 19 2008 5:37:43 am | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Length | 37 minutes 30 seconds | ||||||||||||||||
| Page Views | 11 | ||||||||||||||||
| Referring URL | http://blogsearch.go... vitter%22&scoring=d | ||||||||||||||||
| Search Engine | blogsearch.google.com | ||||||||||||||||
| Search Words | "david vitter" | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Entry Page | http://chickasawpick...il-commencement.html | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Exit Page | http://chickasawpick...il-commencement.html | ||||||||||||||||
| Out Click | | ||||||||||||||||
| Time Zone | UTC-4:00 | ||||||||||||||||
| Visitor's Time | Mar 18 2008 6:00:13 pm | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Number | 30,707 |
And here someone in their office said "get an eyeful of this," and they came back (note that they began with the article below this posting):
| Domain Name | senate.gov ? (U.S. Government) | ||||||||||||||||
| IP Address | 156.33.35.# (U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms) | ||||||||||||||||
| ISP | U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms | ||||||||||||||||
| Location |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Language | English (U.S.) en-us | ||||||||||||||||
| Operating System | Microsoft WinXP | ||||||||||||||||
| Browser | Internet Explorer 7.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) | ||||||||||||||||
| Javascript | version 1.3 | ||||||||||||||||
| Monitor |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Time of Visit | Mar 19 2008 5:06:17 am | ||||||||||||||||
| Last Page View | Mar 19 2008 5:08:21 am | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Length | 2 minutes 4 seconds | ||||||||||||||||
| Page Views | 3 | ||||||||||||||||
| Referring URL | |||||||||||||||||
| Visit Entry Page | http://chickasawpick...il-commencement.html | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Exit Page | http://chickasawpick...il-commencement.html | ||||||||||||||||
| Out Click | | ||||||||||||||||
| Time Zone | UTC-4:00 | ||||||||||||||||
| Visitor's Time | Mar 18 2008 6:06:17 pm | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Number | 30,710 |
If only. If only she woulda...shut-up. If only. If only he coulda...kept it in his diapers. Now: ain't that America?
A Helpful Reminder for April: The Commencement of the Palfrey Trial
Washington D.C.--The trial will be by jury, and as you know, it begins on April 7th. Mark your calendars if you haven't already, Spring will have truly sprung. What will we discover in all of this mess? Considering the complexity of the whole affair, it's likely that most of the players are only aware of their own little corner of a vast-mosaic, and barely know each other. Many of them probably don't even know of the involvement of all the others. Are there more politicians involved (nearly all of them will be Republicans)? Ask Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Ca.) sometime, and you might even ask former House Majority Leader Tom Delay. Then, there's Ted Stevens of Alaska...It's hoped that some political reforms will come out of this trial, and that many more politicians and bribing lobbyists take the fall. Do the government's prosecutors really have a case? We don't know, but it hasn't appeared so from the inception of this legal saga to the present. And what of former Pamela Martin & Associates escort Paula Neble? Some have alleged that she was the gal who had contact with Senator David Vitter. Where is Neble? Why is she hiding? What was the FBI's role in the investigations? Were wiretaps involved, and did they get a warrant? The FBI has kept a very low-profile in this case.
Who's going to be subpoenaed, finally? Will it be Brent Wilkes and Christopher D. Baker, owner of Shirlington Limousine, another shady government contractor that Rep. Louise Slaughter has sought a serious investigation of to no avail? Why does Shirlington Limo keep getting Department of Homeland Security and HUD contracts for millions of dollars when it was named in the investigations of Brent Wilkes, Mitchell Wade, Kyl Foggo, and the rest of his "co-conspirators"?
Poker players never tell (often the same thing in this story), and neither should defendants. District of Columbia Federal Judge James Robertson is presiding over the case. Judge Robertson is thought by some to the the whistle-blower on the illegal NSA warrantless wiretapping program that was secretly initiated by the White House in 2002. Is there any current scandal that this scandal is not attached to in some way? We'll all be finding-out--or not--soon. Perhaps we'll discover what happened from the FOIA. April it is.
Poker players never tell (often the same thing in this story), and neither should defendants. District of Columbia Federal Judge James Robertson is presiding over the case. Judge Robertson is thought by some to the the whistle-blower on the illegal NSA warrantless wiretapping program that was secretly initiated by the White House in 2002. Is there any current scandal that this scandal is not attached to in some way? We'll all be finding-out--or not--soon. Perhaps we'll discover what happened from the FOIA. April it is.
Monday, March 17, 2008
"SENATOR DAVID VITTER SHOULD RESIGN"
"Anybody who looks at the two cases will see that there is an enormous difference between the two of them. The people that are trying to draw comparisons to the two cases are people who've never agreed with me on important issues like immigration and other things." --Louisiana Senator David Vitter New Orleans--You think he should resign? Who doesn't these days? The Republicans have no reason to protect him anymore, he's served his usefulness. Do it now, he's hoping you'll forget again. If Spitzer had to go, so does Senator Vitter, the only difference is the statute of limitations, you cannot nail Vitter on that count. It's great that Republicans in Congress held-up any potential ethics investigations of the Louisiana senator for about nine months, but then, so did Barbara Boxer. You might ask her why sometime. You might also ask the FBI, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Bush administration why they gave Vitter a free-pass back in 2001 when they should have been monitoring the 9/11-hijackers.
Sitting-on any inquiries gave the Republicans time to wait-out the outgoing Democratic governor Kathleen Blanco who had been in a great deal of conflict with Vitter's bosses (he was literally the errand-boy for Karl Rove during the aftermath of Katrina) in the White House. It seems she didn't want to be their scapegoat, but she wasn't running around having-sex with prostitutes, and touching escorts:
Until recently, Vitter at least had a political rationale for not resigning. When he was first ensnared in the D.C. Madam criminal case last June, Republicans were one vote shy of controlling the U.S. Senate. Had he quit then, Louisiana's Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco, might have named a Democrat as his interim replacement. Now, however, Louisiana has a Republican governor in Bobby Jindal, who can name a Republican to replace Vitter. Thus, there no longer is any rational basis for the GOP to protect Vitter. Indeed, Republicans in and out of New York did not hesitate to demand that Democrat Spitzer resign as that state's governor last week. Like Vitter, Spitzer had been a crusading moralist. Unlike Vitter, Spitzer recognized and admitted his sins, including that of rank hypocrisy. He resigned within days.David Vitter should do likewise. (www.bestofneworleans.com, 03.18.2008)
The ditching of Vitter could be coming very soon, and most definitely for the reasons enumerated in the words of bestofneworleans.com. They aren't the only voices calling for Vitter to resign--he has enemies within his own party in Louisiana, and they've been trying to make him accept responsibility for his serial-solicitations of escorts and prostitutes for many years now. But enough on Wendy Vitter, some marriages-of-convenience can become so...inconvenient.
For enemies of Vitter within the Louisiana GOP, their time appears to be ripe and they are already striking. David Vitter's days in office are probably being numbered to the single-digits as this is being written, a happy thought indeed. What we know is that in 2001--shortly after some of his contact with escorts of Deborah Jeane Palfrey--Vitter was flying down to New Orleans to have sex with prostitutes around Canal Street.
The FBI was recording phone "chatter" to-and-from the brothel he solicited, entered them into logs, and then they sat on them. Vitter was positively identified, as were other members of the , most of them being members (pun-intended) of the Louisiana GOP. This wasn't under Clinton, it was under the current administration during their first term. The timing puts it with former Attorney General Ashcroft, and continued into the embarrassing tenure of Alberto Gonzales.
Vitter couldn't be more wrong in the above quote. There are many Republicans who agree with him on the issues of "immigration and other things," but they can say it more articulately under duress. Maybe not. Stammering and stuttering seem to be an acquired-habit in the current GOP incumbency, and it's likely to become contagious in the next few weeks when the economy keeps crashing and the dollar keeps plummeting globally. And what of the "other things," and "you know...uhhhhhh, ermmm, ahhhhhh"?
The public isn't having it anymore, and the outrage isn't likely to end with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Corruption is in the air, and Spitzer was the least of it--but David Vitter is someone who is up-to-his-neck in it, and so is the entire Republican Party. They don't even have Lincoln Chaffe to kick-around anymore. It's time that they be held-responsible for their actions. All you have to do is look at their voting-patterns and their lockstep unanimity. How much of it is ensured through sexual blackmail? Spitzer's case appears to give us that example that many of us have been waiting for, and a very long one at that. I'd mention the rumors that Vitter enjoyed being put into a diaper by prostitutes and escorts, but I'm no Anderson Cooper.™
BestOfNewOrleans.com, 03.18.2008:
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2008-03-18/commentary.php
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Obama's Minister
Chicago--I'm not understanding the reaction to this guy--everything he said was essentially true. As a matter-of-fact, the reaction to his sermon really only confirms what he said. I know, I know: Obama needs to WIN. He wants those conservative votes, and the closeted racist pseudo-liberal ones (they're more racist than conservatives, and less honest about it). Watch the fangs come out when the truth hits. Too bad. Heraclitus noted that ignorance loves to parade itself everywhere. American culture embodies this daily.No, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. was getting the same reaction that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got over forty-years-ago when he came out against the war in Vietnam, and he's being indirectly told, "Shut-up nigger, we do the talking." Time to wake-up White America: you suck, you're racists, and merely voting for a Black man isn't going to give any of you that quick-fix from a reasonable degree of guilt. You deserve to feel guilty, it's only natural that a racist should. Cognitive dissonance hurts.
No Black God is going to forgive you without a change in your heart, and neither will the rest of the multi-colored pantheon. The rest of the living won't be very forgiving either when an economic collapse comes. You have to change. I know that's going to be hard. But, even a ten-year-old would know that, and it takes years of selling-out and rationalizing to be an American "adult." It actually means accepting a life of infantilism. America is literally teeming with this kind of individual. Black Americans have their share of racistst. Bigotry is anthropology. Greed and wanton aggressiveness has no color-boundary. George W. Bush has redefined the concept of "success" in America, alright--he's wrecked it, and I'm envious of that...
Sell-outs come in a variety-of-colors, especially in the world of hip-hop and corporate business (same thing). I'd say we should be attacking our capitalist gangster economy, but without proper regulation and oversight the neocons have done that work. How could most revolutionaries compete with the lawlessness and anarchism of the Bush/Cheney White House? Will we have that other part of our political cycle where the reforms come in, but where we keep the rotten-barrel?That's the most likely outcome, so the questions then become, "How deep will the reforms be?" For real change, they had better be very deep. There hasn't much regulating going on, and that's how you get these crashes. Will the market crash almost exactly to-the-day it did in 1929? Is this supposed to be like a Civil War reenactment?
We White Americans are arrogant, greedy, presumptuous, and profoundly ignorant and racist, it's a simple fact. Granted, many Black Americans are too, but who's been on the receiving-end of America's brutality and exploitation most, and who were the teachers? Who took the worst of the abuse, and who was victimized the most? That's right, the Native Americans! Black Americans probably rank second if we're going to be honest here, Mexicans third. And let us not forget that there have always been poor and working-class Americans all, struggling to survive like the subproletarian minorities. It's all shades of race and class, and if you're poor in this country, you may as well be just another minority, "the other."
I enjoin all my fellow White Americans to support the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. in all of this. He and other Black Americans have something to teach us, as they have all along. My advice is to support the Reverend Wright--write him a friendly e-mail of support, a call, a card, and even a donation. He's saying the right things. Redemption means changing one's behavior, and lip-service-be-damned. Yet, all this said, somehow...somehow the media cares more about what the idiotic Louis Farrakhan has to say, it's all sensationalism these days. And here I thought that I'd never defend the preacher of a MegaChurch,™ but there it is. Human beings have the ability to change socially and behaviorally, it can be done.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Resisting the University: Students for a Democratic Society at the University of British Columbia
March 14, 2008
One of the most promising developments among Canadian social movements this year is the emergence of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. SDS's bold and imaginative actions have won it wide support in the student body. In the following article, SDS member Jasmine Rezaee outlines the group's program for transforming the university.
By Jasmine R. Rezaee
To effectively resist the commercialization of public space and the corporatization and militarization of education, students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) created a political group in the summer of 2007 called Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). SDS-UBC consists of students who are unafraid to use direct-action to enact radical social change. We actively resist the corporate and military funding of our education, and we believe that students should have a meaningful role in the decision-making processes at the university.
From March 3-7, 2008 SDS hosted a "Resisting the University" conference. Our conference contained sixteen different events ranging from panels and speakers to protests and TrekPark 2.0 building sessions (a campaign to reclaim park space on the campus). Our keynote guest speakers were professors David Noble from York University in Toronto and Denis Rancourt from the University of Ottawa. We had panels about the corporatization of the university, grad student apathy, militarization of education, academic freedom, critical pedagogy, the gentrification of our campus/city, the history of activism at UBC and Vancouver, and discussions about the governance structures at UBC.
A highlight of the week of activity included an opening speech by David Noble. He proclaimed a radical epistemology of knowledge through action and insisted that students must fight the university from outside its bureaucratic structure. Noble lambasted the tenureship process, the complacency of faculty, the corporatization of education, and the power-dynamics that structure the classroom and student-teacher relations. He proclaimed that the future is not pre-determined and that it is up to students, activists, and young people more generally to create a better university and society.
Another important event that occurred was our protest held on the day of UBC's 100 year anniversary. A large SDS and sympathizers contingent marched through the Student Union Building, Brock Hall (UBC's financial hub), and occupied the Old Administration building. We barged into a UBC executive meeting and seriously frightened a group of predominantly white males in business suits. We ate their food (a fancy buffet), screamed at them through a megaphone and put the unelected, Liberal government-appointed Board of Governors member Stephen Owen under severe heat! We also went to the president's office and chanted "1,2,3,4 we're knocking on your office door" but he never came out (the coward!).
After occupying the Old Administration Building, we went to our campus library and protested the presence of a huge, newly-erected military mural. Finally, we barged into a construction site and halted work for a while.
Our Week of Resistance was an important consciousness-raising experience. A reoccurring theme throughout the conference was the responsibility for social change that we carry as students and members of society.
Another theme that emerged in our conference was the hegemonic fear that renders faculty politically impotent. A milieu of fear and timidity has been bred due to:
a) the rise of sessional teachers, who constitute a flexible, underpaid university proletariat;
b) the increasing difficulty in obtaining tenure; and
c) the tenure process, which is designed to ensure the complacency and capitulation of faculty.
The fear of being fired or denied tenure often prevents faculty from including more critical perspectives in the classroom and discussing issues that may be deemed "controversial" by the university establishment. This curtails academic freedom and seriously hampers the development of critical thinking skills within the student body.
Each panel and discussion at our conference reminded us that there are many issues which are not discussed in the classroom but that directly shape the content and availability of courses. For example, because neoliberal or capitalist/profit-driven forces are engulfing the university, departments that don't exist to generate a profit, like women and gender's studies, or arts courses more generally, obtain increasingly diminished funding, limiting the availability of courses and the quality of research from these departments.
Some concrete issues that came out of Resisting the University which SDS-UBC hopes to realize:
Banning military recruitment at UBC.
Banning military funding for the Arts and Sciences (eg from the
Security and Defence Forum of the Canadian military).
Stopping the rise of sessional teachers by changing the university's hiring policies.
Changing the tenure process so that it breeds less fear, conservatism and complacency.
Stopping commercial development on campus: affordable student, staff and faculty housing only!
Equalizing the allocation of funds so that departments that don't exist to generate a profit secure adequate funding for quality research and permanent staff.
Banning military recruitment at UBC.
Banning military funding for the Arts and Sciences (eg from the
Security and Defence Forum of the Canadian military).
Stopping the rise of sessional teachers by changing the university's hiring policies.
Changing the tenure process so that it breeds less fear, conservatism and complacency.
Stopping commercial development on campus: affordable student, staff and faculty housing only!
Equalizing the allocation of funds so that departments that don't exist to generate a profit secure adequate funding for quality research and permanent staff.
Pressuring the provincial government to better fund post-secondary education. No more Tuition Fees! Zero student debt and zero fees to ensure the university is accessible to all.
Transforming UBC's governance structures into more transparent, representative and accountable bodies by empowering the Senate; jettisoning appointed seats; allowing students to easily place an item on the Board of Governors agenda; and eliminating corporate presence on the Board.
An official acknowledgement that UBC is built on stolen land and that the Coast Salish, and the Musqueam people in particular, have a right to it. Coalition building among sessionals, faculty, and other activists organizations to realize these goals.
The university should not be a vocational school. It should not be a place where people obtain a few skills to qualify them for a specific occupation in the capitalist economy. The university should be a revolutionary place where students learn the language of critique and dissent and develop critical thinking skills that will enable them to engage with other members of society in a socially and politically relevant manner. To realize this aim, SDS will continue to resist and concretely act to achieve each of the above mentioned goals.
Jasmine R. Rezaee is a member of Students for a Democratic Society at UBC..
For more information on SDS, go to the SDS website (http://www.sdsubc.ca/). While there, check out the SDS monthly newspaper, The Knoll.
"Uncontrolled words are consistently more dangerous to established authority than armed forces."
—John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards
Does D.C. Have Her Own Salon Kittys? (Revised version, originally written in June of 2007)
Washington D.C./Nazi Germany--It's highly doubtful that Deborah Jeane Palfrey knew anything about the subterranean activities of some of her associates, but could some of them have been agent provocateurs or spies? Or, with the capabilities of current surveillance technology, would it even be necessary? Could elements within the government and the two major political parties run sexual blackmailing operations under the color of legitimate investigations? Could foreign agencies be using escort services for similar ends? There is smoke.
Time and technology have changed the West's social landscape in substantial respects since 1933-1945 , but some things never change. Generally speaking, only the technology changes. This is another age, and some political tactics never die because they're always going to be useful later-on, and sometimes they get results. Instant communication was once the sole domain of the State, but today, we all have cell phones, pagers, laptop computers, GPS locators, unparalleled surveillance capabilities, and toys like the Blackberry and the new iPhone. Things have changed in the "secret world" as well, though the full-extent of these technological developments are unknown.
On Salon Kitty:
Although brothels were officially outlawed by the Third Reich, the elite Nazi SS security police had been authorized by Himmler before the war to engage prostitutes in intelligence gathering. The infamous Salon Kitty in Berlin's Giebachstrasse [11] was the brainchild of the Deputy Reichsfuhrer SS, Reinhard Heydrich. The high-class brothel was set up to increase surveillance of foreign diplomats and visitors as well as to gather dossiers on the sexual indiscretions of Nazi party big-wigs and government guests [Ed.-my emphasis]. ... (pp. 241-242) (heretical.com, "Love, Sex and War," by John Costello From Chapter 12: 'Black Propaganda and Sexpionage')But Nazi Germany was hardly the precedent of this approach--it's ubiquitous throughout human history in various incarnations. The story of Samson and Delilah comes-to-mind. "Honey traps" or "plots" are nothing new, and the examples are common in the secret world. Interestingly, "Operation Kitty" was an overall failure for the Nazis controlling the enterprise. It didn't provide the huge-swath of intelligence that its creator--Reinhard Heydrich of the SS--had wanted, just a lot of compromising smut on NSDAP party officials and lower-rung functionaries.
This was most useful against other "Gauleiters" in the National Socialist hierarchy. Heydrich likely used some of this information, though the extent is unknown. Heydrich was assassinated by Czech partisans in 1943, and had been an architect of the "final solution." Interestingly, it was an "open secret" amongst NSDAP functionaries who frequented Giebachstrasse 11 that all conversations were being recorded!
The Salon Kitty was a German SD (Gestapo) establishment in which, according to German spy chief Walter Schellenberg, "...important visitors from other countries could be 'entertained' in a discreet atmosphere and...offered seductive feminine companionship. In such an atmosphere the most rigid diplomat might be induced to unbend and reveal useful information." Salon Kitty was set up in a large multi-storied apartment structure in a fashionable district of Berlin. Today, it's another kind of shop. It is described in The Schellenberg Memoirs (1956):
["]Double walls were built for the incorporation of microphones. These were connected by automatic transmission to tape recorders which would record every word spoken throughout the house. Three of our department's technical experts, bound by oath, were put in charge of his apparatus. The ostensible owner of the house [Kitty Schmidt] was provided with the necessary domestic and catering staff for the establishment to be able to offer the best service, food, and drink.["] (Spy Tech Agency.com, 12.02.1999)The brothel's madam--Kitty Schmidt--had no control over the arrangement, and was a virtual captive of the regime, just like everyone else under the rule of NSDAP. It's entirely possible we have an entire network of this sort in North America today, just with different contours. This leads us to the role of sexual blackmail in politics.
There have been quite few "retirements" at the Pentagon under the Bush administration, and under Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense, there was an intense struggle for control of the Pentagon's bureaucracy. Of course, it hasn't been isolated to the DoD under Bush and Cheney. One can safely assume that the officer class of the United States are amply represented in the D.C. Madam's phone records, especially considering the presence of several numbers originating from Annapolis, as well as most of the region surrounding Washington D.C. Hotels adjacent to the Pentagon are also present.
There is a possible analog here from the era of NSDAP. In 1938, Hitler was finalizing his consolidation of power, but there were a few loose ends in the officer corps of the Wehrmacht:
For Hitler, the moment had arrived to clean house, to replace the crusty old generals with younger men eager to serve their Führer and follow orders, regardless of the consequences. The two highest ranking officers in Germany at this time were hold-overs from the days of President Hindenburg; Field Marshal Werner [V]on Blomberg, the Commander in Chief of the German Armed Forces, and General Werner [V]on Fritsch, the Commander in Chief of the Army. These stiff-lipped men with their rigid codes of honor were about to be toppled by that most vile of all things from their point of view, personal scandals involving sex. (historyplace.com, "Hitler Becomes Army Commander," 2001)For Blomberg, it would involve the fact that the elder Field Marshal married a "former-prostitute," conveniently found in Weimar police records by Herman Goering, the founder of the SD. Himmler also got in on the game. Thanks to this information, on January 25th, Hitler could finally force Blomberg's resignation. Finally, no one would stand in-his-way, and there would be war. For General Werner Von Fritsch, things would be worse than Blomberg's predicament. Much worse.
He would be blackmailed by an obscure account in Gestapo files that he had had an homosexual encounter in an alley in 1935, the same year that Hitler purged the SA (Brown shirts) in the "Night of Long-knives." In short, Fritsch was felled by a "confidential informant." At about that same time, Stalin was using similar methods in purging the Central Committee of the Communist Party, killing his prey outright...because he could.
The irony was, the informant who "outed" Fritsch (the notorious Hans Schmidt--no relation to Kitty) had the wrong man. It was an officer named "Frisch." It didn't matter to the blackmailers and state pimps: Hitler moved swiftly to remove Fritsch anyway. Sixteen other generals would be removed through various methods, but the downing of Blomberg and Fritsch was that crucial beginning of total control over the German Army by NSDAP. Ironically, a number of these generals would be brought back as the war deteriorated...
"Love, Sex and War,":
http://www.heretical.com/costello/12sexspy.html
Spy Tech Agency, December 2nd, 1999:
http://216.87.7.9/Intel%20Bulletin/Intel%20Bulletin%20019991202.htm
The Missing-Thread in Coverage of the Spitzer Scandal
New York City--Soon-to-be former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, has a lot to be proud of and ashamed of. When he was New York State's Attorney General, he was busting many of the same shady lending and mortgage firms who were bailed-out by the fed and J.P. Morgan today. $200 billion was given in-loans to Bank of America (current owner of Countrywide, now under investigation), Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and all the other sub-prime lenders--namely Bear-Stearns--who have run amok in a regulation-free environment thanks to the Bush administration looking the other way. But then along came state Attorney Generals like Spitzer.
Was the federal bust of Spitzer selective--was it payback for all the busts the former "Sheriff of Wall Street" made? We don't know this yet, but it's a possibility. The timing is very curious: just a few days before the bailout, we get the break in the Spitzer story and his name is thrust into-the-foreground.
What about the other clients identified in the investigation? If they're Republicans, we're not going to find-out anytime soon. Recall that Senator Vitter's presence on wiretaps of a 2001 investigation in New Orleans were suppressed for years by the Bush Justice Department. Then there were all the "mysterious" break-ins during 2007 at the campaign headquarters of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and the offices of Senator Christopher Dodd.
It's a real twilight time. But all that aside, one has to wonder if the newly-appointed Governor Paterson will be initiating any new investigations on Wall Street. Taking-down Spitzer surely had the aim of limiting them, underscoring the stupidity of his actions.
Historians are likely to be stunned at how selective most of the Justice Department investigations were under the Bush administration, and how Congress looked-aside when it was obvious for all to see. Funny how Americans are the last to know their own history. This aspect of the whole story is likely to be neglected into oblivion, down the memory hole, but the questions and suspicions are going to be there, forever. They'll just be classified until all the primary players are dead.
"National Security" will be the tired refrain, which in some respects is accurate: if Americans knew half of what's going-on under the color of authority, they might revolt. With all of the economic-woes created by this unprecedented era of corruption, it's unsurprising that both parties are alright about domestic surveillance--they might need it to survive our wrath when things have gotten so bad from their actions.
But if you look at how the exposure of Republican Senator David Vitter was handled and look at Spitzer's case, the Democratic governor's treatment certainly appears to be selective and blatantly partisan. This is not coming from a fan of the Democratic Party. Not only that, but it should be noted that the Spitzer case has a strange parallel with the blank inaction to impeach the vice president and president for far more heinous crimes. Calls for impeachment from the Republicans was resounding, while we can readily recall the sound of crickets on-their-part when it comes to their own.
Centrally, these would be war crimes, but the scope and depth of the Bush administration's overarching crimes are going to be marveled at for generations. Remember reading about slavery, or the Holocaust? Remember saying to yourself, "Were they stupid? Why did they put-up with that?!" Welcome to why not, your wondering is over. Have fun looking in the mirror tomorrow morning, then write, call, e-mail, and contact your representative and ask them what the hell they actually do there in Washington D.C. Better yet, if you have no ties to the establishment, why not run for office? Do what you do best.
Friday, March 14, 2008
House Democratic Version of FISA-Upgrade Bill Passes
Washington D.C.--Go right ahead and veto this bill so that the process has to begin all over again. The shadow cast by impending lawsuits against the telecommunications companies is having a good effect on the Bush administration--it's inflicting a reasonable degree of attrition. The White House and her allies are having to expend a great deal of energy, monies, and resources with little-to-no-effect, even here in gooberville (Indiana).
But there is a sea change occurring in Indiana, a political-shift. Some of this is the gradual dying-off of the WWII generation, but mainly because many people here in the 2nd District--and throughout the state--are not voting straight Republican anymore. That's a cause for alarm for any party, but the rednecks aren't having it up here in Northern Indiana anymore. Why, many of them might even vote for Black man...but people change in this country when all the corruption starts effecting their wallets directly, it doesn't have anything to do with some sudden flash of solidarity or enlightenment.
Human beings are selfish and aggressive at-base. Some of us overcome it. We're seeing the fallout from those of us who cannot. What's important is enforcing accountability, or there's really no point of having laws or order. That appears to be the neoconservative argument in-a-nutshell. Corruption is natural, hence the desperate need for regulation. People aren't inherently-good, and at this point in human history, the concept of community is exotic. Nothing is more natural or human as a thief or a brigand. If generosity and kindness were commonplace, they wouldn't be special.
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is spending millions-of-dollars running a new ad in several states right now attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic Party with bald-misrepresentations that we're all suddenly without FISA and that "investigations are being hampered." Correct, investigations without a warrant are being hampered, and our rights are finally being recognized by more members of Congress. One should be asking: who are the FDD's primary backers and donors? I hope for their sake that their records are in order, and that they haven't visited any hookers in the last-few-months.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Where do you see a skull in the photo? Most of the light-colored areas are the zinc which lined the casket. Sorry. No skull.
Mrithi