Max and the Marginalized: Weeknights At Six

Dandelion Salad

radioidaho

LA political band Max and the Marginalized’s song about Lou Dobbs, and a cartoon where we throw burritos at him and build a border fence around him.

http://www.myspace.com/maxandthemarginalized
http://www.maxandthemarginalized.com

Animation + Recording by Maxwell Waker
http://www.myspace.com/bigloudstudios
bigloudstudios [at] earthlink.net

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On Myspace

Max and the Marginalized [NEW SONG WEEKLY]

From their blog:

Max Waker, our de facto fourth member who engineers and produces all our stuff and is growing his talents as an animator just made this video for our song “Weeknights at Six” about xenophobic anti-immigrant CNN anchorman Lou Dobbs. Enjoy and please send around!

see

Fact-Checking Dobbs: CNN Anchor Lou Dobbs Challenged on Immigration Issues (link)

Detention Camps

Immigration

The Dubious Mr. Dobbs By Amy Goodman

The Lou Dobbs Primary? Immigration more an issue for media than voters

Canadian law leaves Muslims under house arrest

Dandelion Salad

AlJazeeraEnglish

Al Jazeera’s Nick Spicer reports on Canada’s security laws that have led to the detention of several Muslims.

Canada’s “security certificate” law allows the Government to detain non-citizens or put them under house arrest without charge.

Following the September 11 attacks on the United States, neighbouring Canada used a long-standing legal mechanism to detain several Muslims.

Years later those men, such as Mohammed Harkat, are still living uncertain lives.

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Cop Assaults Cameraman For Filming From Across Street KOB

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peacespeech

An Eyewitness News 4 photographer was cuffed and cited Thursday morning for disobeying a police officer. It was a situation where the photographer was trying to do his job.

Manufactured Reality: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Dandelion Salad

by Peter Chamberlin
Global Research, May 31, 2008
- 2008-05-30

In order to force a new reality upon any targeted populace, the masters of the universe follow a simple strategy – they immediately make things twice as bad as they intend to keep them, only to take one step back after a short while, so that the new manufactured reality will be easier to accept. This strategy holds constant from the manipulation of oil prices to the military strategy to rule the world by force.

In the terror war, nuclear terrorism has become the weapon of both first choice and last resort for American war planners. It was more important to create the impression that nuclear war was imminent than it was to convince the world that we intended to use nuclear weapons as our ace in the hole. The world had to be terrorized into believing that our insane cowboy president was about to unleash nuclear war upon the world, so that it could be held over the people’s heads. The world had to be shocked and awed by American military supremacy into submitting to Bush’s demands.

America took two giant steps forward militarily, intending in the end to take one step back from the precipice of actual global thermonuclear war, to a more limited approach that only called for a limited use of “tactical” nukes. A two-track approach to the war was undertaken; one path leading to immediate global nuclear war and another “democratic” approach, which put-off the use of nuclear weapons until some future action, in order to create unlimited opportunities for subversion where America’s full military might could be brought to bear upon more specific targets. (Have they already been used?) http://webwarper.net/ww/~av/www.redress.cc/global/dhalpin20080517

The threat that full-scale nuclear war in the center of the world’s primary energy basket was imminent created a global atmosphere of mortal fear and dread, while covert limited wars were simultaneously pursued. This was intended to cow both the American people and the people in the targeted countries into submission to presidential dictates. The threat of general nuclear war was used to intimidate the targeted governments into “playing nice” diplomatically, while America interfered in their national affairs, introducing its revolutionary “democratic” form of politics, which included backing extremist groups.

Fear of US nuclear forces provided cover to American agitation in the Middle East region along the lines of “Operation Gladio,” which was used against our own allies in Europe. In both operations, sympathetic right-wing leaders were found who could be bought, to be groomed by the CIA, to cultivate and organize local opposition groups. From these agitated groups more violent radicals were found and hired to stage terrorist (“false flag”) attacks upon civilians and the governments, to be blamed upon their local opposition, which were usually actual patriot groups.

The second leg of the neoconservative war doctrine is the spreading of subversion under the cover of implanting democracy by force, and its companion, the spreading of force through democratic means. Divisive political campaigns in targeted nations (including staged attacks by extremists) were engineered, to split the tribal societies into heavily-armed polarized factions waiting for retribution.

We have this apt description of this divisive American strategy from former Pakistani ISI agent, turned human rights activist, Khalid Khawaja:

“Many of us call it a battle between East and West, between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world, but it is neither of these. It is in fact the ruling regimes that want to dictate their will…

Ninety percent of people accept to be ruled, but there always remain some elements who refuse to succumb. They fight for freedom and resist till their last. However, in this conflict of two minorities – those who impose their will and those who resist it – the majority remains the sole victim. Yet people talk about Islam versus Christianity or Judaism. The basic theme remains the same. There is a group of people who want to impose their will, whether they happen to be Christian or Muslim, and there is a group of people who want to resist, and there is a silent majority which is trampled in between.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GF22Df04.html

Mr. Khawaja continues to delve into the under-discussed cause of the whole war on terror:

“In Afghanistan’s case, a similar game was carried out on a massive scale when Muslim youths from all over the world were brought in by Pakistan and the US [to fight against the Soviets in the 1980s]. They were tools for the empires’ proxy war. The name of jihad was used…it is a question of a state imposing its will. The message is clear: if you are against us, we will kill you and your sympathizers. In this state terrorism, there is no exception, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Pakistan, India, the US or Israel. All are the same.

When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets crushed. When two elephants make love, it is again the grass that gets crushed. Whether states fight with each other or make friendships, it is only the tools who became victims.”

The same deception has been practiced in both Iraq and Afghanistan, to prolong both of those wars until the doctrine could be spread beyond them. Both countries had been targeted for regime change, but nonetheless, even after the first regime was replaced, the doctrine of creating surrogate militias to promote democratic revolution was still developed in each one, targeting the new regimes. In each country violent extremist groups, usually identified as “al Qaida related,” were put on the American payroll to fight against US troops and US installed governments. The hiring and training of these “militia” mercenary groups falls within the recognized definition of treason, “levying war against [the United States].”

That destabilizing doctrine is now being exported into Iran from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where beachheads have been established for a planned assault upon the entire neighborhood. These training centers are terrorist camps, plain and simple. These are the American trained terrorists who will carry the limited warfare scenario into Iran under cover of the greater threat of nuclear terrorism. The United States of America is the world’s number one supporter and exporter of terrorism; it always has been.

In order to carry out the Israeli-centric PNAC (Project for a New American Century) terror war plan that they have committed to, Bush and Cheney have doggedly undermined America’s national interests at home and all over the world. America’s national interest has always been based on advancing liberty and human rights to the whole world, but now, under the neocon plan, these are rights that must be earned. Bush was sent unto the world to turn reality upon its head.

On a rotating basis, America and Israel took turns slinging threats of nuclear annihilation and libelous invective at Iran and Syria, hyping the threats to intensify the notion that a nuclear attack was becoming imminent. As Israel and America ramp-up the war-mongering against Iran and Syria, Israel sings out the threats first, then America will provide the chorus and hopefully the highly desired “money shot” afterwards.

As a final machination, to seal America and Israel’s position, the neocon doctrine unlocked the prohibition of the offensive use of nuclear weapons, even in civilian areas. It is this new free use of nuclear weapon doctrine that is the icing on the cake for those who are plotting to seize the world under the threat of American nuclear terrorism. Because it is now possible, it is easy to convince us all that our cowboy administration of religious zealots is about to commit an insane act, i.e., unleashing nuclear war to eliminate the possibility of a nuclear war.

Patriotic anti-government voices in this country and in the targeted countries, helped to create a strong public perception that nuclear war was imminent. Antiwar voices of protest like mine sound a warning to alert the people to the crimes being planned that must be heard, but in so doing, we play into the government scheme by helping to hype the threat. It is both necessary and natural that patriots arise to defend their nations in the face of American invasion or aggression. We play a vital role in the planned drama, as it unfolds. We have convinced the world that Bush and Cheney were insane enough to radiate the Middle Eastern oil fields, in order to steal the world’s oil. We now may have to convince the world that the crazies themselves are the source of most of the terrorism which we fight.

It is pretty obvious that they really are that insane, but it should be even more obvious that their greedy masters don’t want their world destroyed, they only want to control it. Why should they actually nuke Iran, if they can persuade the locals to overthrow the regime for us, causing less collateral damage (it would be difficult to operate the Middle East oil facilities, if they were all radioactive). We have to convince the American people that Bush even though the little dictator is both stupid and insane, the real deciders are neither of those things. It is their wills which will prevail, meaning that there are other less final, less costly ways to takeover the oil reserves and the pipeline routes.

We have to concentrate on stopping the secret war, without being blinded by the glare of nuclear terrorism. Exposure of American sponsorship of world terrorism (some of the very “terrorism” we are fighting) must become our top priority. Legal actions must be taken to stop the illegal support of terrorism upon civilians by our government. Further legal actions must be taken to separate American foreign policy from Israel, in order to bring the terror war to an end.

Israel has been the primary source for most of the “intelligence” that launched the war on Iraq, the Iranian reactors and hypothetical nuclear weapons, as well as the alleged Syrian reactors. America turned Israel’s evidence into grounds for waging war, even nuclear war. They are behind the new push to find other Syrian nuclear facilities http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211872842227&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull as well as the alleged Iranian warhead blueprint. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212041430322&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Israel is behind every military move against Iran that is being brought-up in the press. It was the first to suggest taking out Iranian reactors, the first to recommend a naval blockade of Iran and an embargo on air flights between Iran and Syria and Lebanon. American Zionist Congressional leaders gladly took up the torches lit by Israel, to create Israeli security at America’s expense. A Congressional resolution is awaiting passage in the Senate, which demands that our government carry-out these acts of war, both the naval blockade and the air embargo, House Resolution 1194 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.+Res.+1194:

The American people must rise-up in outrage to the terrorists who rule over us and stop the planned escalation, as a first step to de-escalating the war. It is time for us to take our own two steps forward, to force the aggressors to take one step back and begin to tear-down their manufactured reality.

Contact author: peter.chamberlin@yahoo.com

The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author’s copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com
© Copyright Peter Chamberlin, Global Research, 2008
The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9139

Kids In America(n Torture Camps) – Why Does the Media Cover Up War Crimes?

Dandelion Salad

By Ted Rall
05/30/08 “ICH”

LOS ANGELES–In last week’s column I cited New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau as a prime example of what ails us: reporters who don’t report, a.k.a. journalists who love the government too much.

When Lichtblau found out that the Bush Administration was listening to Americans’ phone calls and reading their e-mail, he decided to hold the story. Instead of fulfilling his duty to the Times’ readers and running with it, he asked the White House for permission. By the time the NSA domestic surveillance story finally ran, 14 months had passed–and Bush had won the 2004 election.

Again, in a May 17th piece bearing the headline “FBI Gets Mixed Review in Interrogation Report,” Lichtblau is running interference for the government. “A new Justice Department report praises the refusal of FBI agents to take part in the military’s abusive questioning of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan,” begins the article, “but it also finds fault with the bureau’s slow response to complaints about the tactics from its own agents.”

“Abusive questioning.” “Harsh interrogation tactics.”

According to the Justice Department report, “routine” treatment of Guantánamo prisoners–witnessed by the FBI–includes “bending the detainee’s thumbs back and grabbing his genitals.” Military and CIA torturers chained detainees’ hands and feet together for as long as a full day, “left to defecate on themselves.” They terrorized them with dogs, stripped them and made them wear women’s underwear and subjected them to blaring music, freezing cold and searing heat.

Torture. Such a simple word. Why not use it?

Lichtblau’s “mixed review” appellation notwithstanding, the report by the Justice Department paints a shocking, uniformly negative portrait of a federal law enforcement agency whose officers react to appalling conduct with the Nuremberg defense–”I was just following orders.”

“Indeed,” reported U.S. News & World Report, “time after time, the report concludes that FBI agents saw or heard about numerous interrogation methods–from sleep deprivation to duct-taping detainees’ mouths to scaring them with dogs–that plainly violated their own agency’s code of conduct.” (Not to mention the Geneva Conventions.) Rather than report their scruples to someone who might raise hell and put a stop to the systemic torture at Gitmo and other U.S. concentration camps–i.e., the public–FBI agents turned to the criminals. Just like Lichtblau did with domestic spying.

“When [one] agent mentioned [a torture] incident to the general [at Guantánamo], the general’s response…was ‘Thank you, gentlemen, but my boys know what they’re doing.’” Ultimately the FBI, worried that agents could be charged with war crimes if they continued to witness the torture by CIA operatives and mercenaries, pulled its employees out of Gitmo and other camps. No one called a Congressman. None called a press conference.

FBI agents kept quiet–even when the CIA frat-boy-style torture tactics screwed up their interrogations.

In 2003 one FBI agent had “begin building a rapport” with Yussef Mohammed Mubarak al-Shihri, a Saudi citizen. Al-Shihri told the agent that female CIA agents had “forced to listen to the ‘meow mix’ jingle for cat food for hours and had a women’s dress ‘draped’ on him.” As usual, the agent turned to the torturer. “The agent said he confronted a female military intelligence interrogator who admitted to ‘poaching’ his detainee, but there was little more the agent could do. Following the incident, al-Shihri became uncooperative, and the agent said he never bothered to tell his superiors about the military interrogator’s actions.”

Turning a blind eye to torture. Watching passively as CIA goons destroy the trust of a possible material witness to terrorism. What “mixed review”?

As usual, the Newspaper of Record’s worst sins in Gitmogate are those of omission–the really weird stuff that could deprive the Administration of its few remaining supporters. “Buried in a Department of Justice report,” reported ABC News, “are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantánamo and interrogate Chinese Uyghurs held there.”

Like their Tibetan neighbors, the Uyghurs of western China are victims of government oppression, including mass executions. Throughout the 1990s, U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia urged Uyghurs to revolt against Chinese occupation. After 9/11, however, the U.S. agreed to help China capture and torture Uyghur independence activists–as a quid pro quo for not using its U.N. veto to stop the American invasion of Afghanistan. (There’s more about the U.S. betrayal of the Uyghurs in my book “Silk Road to Ruin.”)

“Uyghur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators,” said ABC. “When Uyghur detainees refused to talk to Chinese interrogators in 2002, U.S. military personnel put them in solitary confinement as punishment.”

It’s a tale bizarre enough to make Rush Limbaugh blush: intelligence agents from communist China invited to an American military base, where they’re allowed to torture political dissidents in American custody, with American soldiers as their sidekicks. In light of China’s crackdown on Tibet during the run-up to the Olympics, it’s a tasty news tidbit. But it didn’t run in The Times–as far as I can tell, it only ran in one newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor.

At the same time journo-wimp Lichtblau was penning his “balanced” take on the Justice Department’s bombshell report, the U.S. government admitted that it has more than 500 children in its torture and concentration camps. More than 2,500 children have gone through U.S. secret prisons since 2002, including at least eight at Guantánamo.

I know a lot of right-wing conservatives. We don’t share much political common ground, but it’s hard to imagine any of them thinking the indefinite detention and torture of children, against whom there is no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing, is anything other than the behavior of a monster.

If a man screams in a government torture chamber, does he make a sound? Not if the only one who hears him is an American reporter.

Ted Rall is the author of the book “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?,” an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America’s next big foreign policy challenge. Visit his website www.tedrall.com

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Propagandists First, Journalists Second – How the NYT Won 2004 for Bush

FBI Compiled “War Crimes” Dossier on Prisoner Abuse and Torture

Mosaic News – 5/29/08: World News from the Middle East

Where Is the Outrage? By Robert Scheer

CIA Documents on Torture: Treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody overseas

Outer Darkness: The Gulag Cancer Grows, State Terror Intensifies by Chris Floyd + Secret prisons (vids)

Uranium Enrichment: The Bushes, The Saudis and The Bomb by Chris Floyd

Dandelion Salad

by Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
Thursday, 29 May 2008

Did you hear the alarming story about a country led by draconian Muslim religious extremists acquiring enriched uranium for their nuclear plants — plants which could be weaponized anytime in the future, putting weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Sharia law fanatics who repress women, chop off heads and throttle all dissent? What’s more, they were given this weapons-grade material by a rogue nation led by a goonish tyrant who gained power only because he was the wastrel son of the former leader. Break out the regime change machinery right away; this evil must be stopped!

What’s that? No, we’re not talking about Iran getting souped-up nukestuff from North Korea. We’re talking about George W. Bush’s bestowal of enriched uranium on his pals and business partners, the Saudi royals, the most draconian religious tyrants in the world. Harvey Wasserman has the goods at Democracy Now:

You know, I’d like to know the insane asylum in which this policy was concocted. The idea of giving enriched uranium to the Saudis while threatening war with the Iranians for enriching uranium is astonishing. The idea that the Saudis are going to somehow lower the price of oil on the basis of possibly getting nuclear reactors in the future is just almost staggering to think about. It’s something, I guess, we’ve come to expect with the Bush administration.

…

…continued

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Bush Promises to Give Enriched Uranium to Saudi Arabia

Cowardice of silence by John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

by John Pilger
The Guardian,
Saturday May 31 2008

The renewal of Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest casts shame on the Burmese junta’s western sponsors

When I phoned Aung San Suu Kyi’s home in Rangoon yesterday, I imagined the path to her door that looks down on Inya Lake. Through ragged palms, a trip-wire is visible, a reminder that this is the prison of a woman whose party was elected by a landslide in 1990, a democratic act extinguished by men in ludicrous uniforms. Her phone rang and rang;…

…

Dismissing the idiocy of a military intervention in her country, she asked: “What about all those who trade with the generals, who give them many millions of dollars that keep them going?” She was referring to the huge oil and gas companies, Total and Chevron, which effectively hand the regime $2.7bn a year, and the Halliburton company…

…continued

h/t: ooppoddoo

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

From Kennedy to Obama: Liberalism’s last fling By John Pilger

Freedom Writ Large By John Pilger

John Pilger: Burma – Land of Fear (video; 1996)

The Burmese Regime’s Lifeline – Chevron’s Pipeline By Amy Goodman

My Last Conversation With Aung San Suu Kyi By John Pilger

Madness in Myanmar By Eric Margolis

Myanmar

Iraqi clerics against US bases

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews

More at http://therealnews.com/c.ph…
Clerics call for referendum on proposal to indefinitely station US troops in Iraq…

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From Kennedy to Obama: Liberalism’s last fling By John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

By John Pilger
05/30/08 “ICH”
http://www.johnpilger.com

Bobby Kennedy’s campaign is the model for Barack Obama’s current bid to be the Democratic nominee for the White House. Both offer a false hope that they can bring peace and racial harmony to all Americans

In this season of 1968 nostalgia, one anniversary illuminates today. It is the rise and fall of Robert Kennedy, who would have been elected president of the United States had he not been assassinated in June 1968. Having travelled with Kennedy up to the moment of his shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June, I heard The Speech many times. He would “return government to the people” and bestow “dignity and justice” on the oppressed. “As Bernard Shaw once said,” he would say, “‘Most men look at things as they are and wonder why. I dream of things that never were and ask: Why not?’” That was the signal to run back to the bus. It was fun until a hail of bullets passed over our shoulders.

Kennedy’s campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name. Like Obama, he raised the expectations of young people and minorities. Like Obama, he promised to end an unpopular war, not because he opposed the war’s conquest of other people’s land and resources, but because it was “unwinnable”.

Should Obama beat John McCain to the White House in November, it will be liberalism’s last fling. In the United States and Britain, liberalism as a war-making, divisive ideology is once again being used to destroy liberalism as a reality. A great many people understand this, as the hatred of Blair and new Labour attest, but many are disoriented and eager for “leadership” and basic social democracy. In the US, where unrelenting propaganda about American democratic uniqueness disguises a corporate system based on extremes of wealth and privilege, liberalism as expressed through the Democratic Party has played a crucial, compliant role.

In 1968, Robert Kennedy sought to rescue the party and his own ambitions from the threat of real change that came from an alliance of the civil rights campaign and the anti-war movement then commanding the streets of the main cities, and which Martin Luther King had drawn together until he was assassinated in April that year. Kennedy had supported the war in Vietnam and continued to support it in private, but this was skilfully suppressed as he competed against the maverick Eugene McCarthy, whose surprise win in the New Hampshire primary on an anti-war ticket had forced President Lyndon Johnson to abandon the idea of another term. Using the memory of his martyred brother, Kennedy assiduously exploited the electoral power of delusion among people hungry for politics that represented them, not the rich.

“These people love you,” I said to him as we left Calexico, California, where the immigrant population lived in abject poverty and people came like a great wave and swept him out of his car, his hands fastened to their lips.

“Yes, yes, sure they love me,” he replied. “I love them!” I asked him how exactly he would lift them out of poverty: just what was his political philosophy? “Philosophy? Well, it’s based on a faith in this country and I believe that many Americans have lost this faith and I want to give it back to them, because we are the last and the best hope of the world, as Thomas Jefferson said.”

“That’s what you say in your speech. Surely the question is: How?”

“How . . . by charting a new direction for America.”

The vacuities are familiar. Obama is his echo. Like Kennedy, Obama may well “chart a new direction for America” in specious, media-honed language, but in reality he will secure, like every president, the best damned democracy money can buy.

Embarrassing truth

As their contest for the White House draws closer, watch how, regardless of the inevitable personal smears, Obama and McCain draw nearer to each other. They already concur on America’s divine right to control all before it. “We lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good,” said Obama. “We must lead by building a 21st-century military . . . to advance the security of all people [emphasis added].” McCain agrees. Obama says in pursuing “terrorists” he would attack Pakistan. McCain wouldn’t quarrel.

Both candidates have paid ritual obeisance to the regime in Tel Aviv, unquestioning support for which defines all presidential ambition. In opposing a UN Security Council resolution implying criticism of Israel’s starvation of the people of Gaza, Obama was ahead of both McCain and Hillary Clinton. In January, pressured by the Israel lobby, he massaged a statement that “nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people” to now read: “Nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognise Israel [emphasis added].” Such is his concern for the victims of the longest, illegal military occupation of modern times. Like all the candidates, Obama has furthered Israeli/Bush fictions about Iran, whose regime, he says absurdly, “is a threat to all of us”.

On the war in Iraq, Obama the dove and McCain the hawk are almost united. McCain now says he wants US troops to leave in five years (instead of “100 years”, his earlier option). Obama has now “reserved the right” to change his pledge to get troops out next year. “I will listen to our commanders on the ground,” he now says, echoing Bush. His adviser on Iraq, Colin Kahl, says the US should maintain up to 80,000 troops in Iraq until 2010. Like McCain, Obama has voted repeatedly in the Senate to support Bush’s demands for funding of the occupation of Iraq; and he has called for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan. His senior advisers embrace McCain’s proposal for an aggressive “league of democracies”, led by the United States, to circumvent the United Nations.

Amusingly, both have denounced their “preachers” for speaking out. Whereas McCain’s man of God praised Hitler, in the fashion of lunatic white holy-rollers, Obama’s man, Jeremiah Wright, spoke an embarrassing truth. He said that the attacks of 11 September 2001 had taken place as a consequence of the violence of US power across the world. The media demanded that Obama disown Wright and swear an oath of loyalty to the Bush lie that “terrorists attacked America because they hate our freedoms”. So he did. The conflict in the Middle East, said Obama, was rooted not “primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel”, but in “the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam”. Journalists applauded. Islamophobia is a liberal speciality.

The American media love both Obama and McCain. Reminiscent of mating calls by Guardian writers to Blair more than a decade ago, Jann Wenner, founder of the liberal Rolling Stone, wrote: “There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him, and underneath that ease lies a resolute discipline . . . Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do: to summon ‘the better angels of our nature’.” At the liberal New Republic, Charles Lane confessed: “I know it shouldn’t be happening, but it is. I’m falling for John McCain.” His colleague Michael Lewis had gone further. His feelings for McCain, he wrote, were like “the war that must occur inside a 14-year-old boy who discovers he is more sexually attracted to boys than to girls”.

The objects of these uncontrollable passions are as one in their support for America’s true deity, its corporate oligarchs. Despite claiming that his campaign wealth comes from small individual donors, Obama is backed by the biggest Wall Street firms: Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, as well as the huge hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. “Seven of the Obama campaign’s top 14 donors,” wrote the investigator Pam Martens, “consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages.” A report by United for a Fair Economy, a non-profit group, estimates the total loss to poor Americans of colour who took out sub-prime loans as being between $164bn and $213bn: the greatest loss of wealth ever recorded for people of colour in the United States. “Washington lobbyists haven’t funded my campaign,” said Obama in January, “they won’t run my White House and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am president.” According to files held by the Centre for Responsive Politics, the top five contributors to the Obama campaign are registered corporate lobbyists.

What is Obama’s attraction to big business? Precisely the same as Robert Kennedy’s. By offering a “new”, young and apparently progressive face of the Democratic Party – with the bonus of being a member of the black elite – he can blunt and divert real opposition. That was Colin Powell’s role as Bush’s secretary of state. An Obama victory will bring intense pressure on the US anti-war and social justice movements to accept a Democratic administration for all its faults. If that happens, domestic resistance to rapacious America will fall silent.

Piracies and dangers

America’s war on Iran has already begun. In December, Bush secretly authorised support for two guerrilla armies inside Iran, one of which, the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, is described by the state department as terrorist. The US is also engaged in attacks or subversion against Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bolivia and Venezuela. A new military command, Africom, is being set up to fight proxy wars for control of Africa’s oil and other riches. With US missiles soon to be stationed provocatively on Russia’s borders, the Cold War is back. None of these piracies and dangers has raised a whisper in the presidential campaign, not least from its great liberal hope.

Moreover, none of the candidates represents so-called mainstream America. In poll after poll, voters make clear that they want the normal decencies of jobs, proper housing and health care. They want their troops out of Iraq and the Israelis to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbours. This is a remarkable testimony, given the daily brainwashing of ordinary Americans in almost everything they watch and read.

On this side of the Atlantic, a deeply cynical electorate watches British liberalism’s equivalent last fling. Most of the “philosophy” of new Labour was borrowed wholesale from the US. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were interchangeable. Both were hostile to traditionalists in their parties who might question the corporate-speak of their class-based economic policies and their relish for colonial conquests. Now the British find themselves spectators to the rise of new Tory, distinguishable from Blair’s new Labour only in the personality of its leader, a former corporate public relations man who presents himself as Tonier than thou. We all deserve better.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Stewart on Bush chest bumps: Would we love him if he didn’t f*ck things up?

Dandelion Salad

Raw Story
by David Edwards and Muriel Kane
May 30, 2008

President George W. Bush recently engaged in some rather juvenile behavior while speaking at the Air Force graduation ceremony.

Jon Stewart showed a series of photos of Bush’s antic on Thursday’s Daily Show and commented, “When I see the president do the chest bump, I cannot help but think that if he hadn’t been fucking things up for the past seven years and was goofing around like this — would we love him? Would we be like, ‘He is irrepressible’? What a scamp!’ Or does the whole doing that while Rome is burning aspect of his presidency sour us on his exuberance?”

…continued

more about “Stewart on Bush chest bumps: Would we…“, posted with vodpod

see

President Bush Delivers Commencement Address at United States Air Force Academy

McCain Rejects GI Bill: I Said Support The Troops, Not Coddle Them

Supporting our troops is not just a bumper sticker by R J Shulman

Asylum Street Spankers: Stick a Ribbon on Your SUV (video)

President Bush Delivers Commencement Address at United States Air Force Academy

Dandelion Salad

Air Force Academy
Colorado Springs, Colorado
28 May 2008

excerpts:

“The first lesson is this: In both the 20th century and today, defeating hateful ideologies requires all elements of national power, including the use of military power. The military power that you will wield in your military careers is much more precise and effective than in past generations. When the United States entered World War II, the age of long-range bombing was just beginning. There were no computer guidance, no GPS targeting, or laser-guided munitions. The allied bombing raids against Germany and Japan resulted in horrific civilian casualties and widespread destruction. It took nearly four years before the regimes in Berlin and Tokyo finally capitulated — with difficult battles from the deserts of North Africa to the forests of France, to the islands of the Pacific.

Today, revolutionary advances in technology are transforming warfare. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, for example, we employed military capabilities so precise that coalition air crews could take out a tank hiding under a bridge without damaging the bridge. With this military technology, we can now target a regime without targeting an entire nation. We’ve removed two cruel regimes in weeks instead of years. In Afghanistan, coalition forces and their Afghan allies drove the Taliban from power in less than two months. In Iraq, with the help of the United States Air Force, our troops raced across 350 miles of enemy territory to liberate Baghdad in less than one month — one of the fastest armored advances in military history.”

“The second lesson is this: In both the 20th century and today, defeating hateful ideologies requires using our national resources to strengthen free institutions in countries that are fighting extremists. We must help these nations govern their territorial — territory effectively so they can deny safe haven to our common enemies. And in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we removed regimes that threatened our people, we have a special obligation to help these nations build free and just societies that are strong partners in the fight against these extremists and terrorists.

We’ve assumed this obligation before. After World War II, we helped Germany and Japan build free societies and strong economies. These efforts took time and patience, and as a result, Germany and Japan grew in freedom and prosperity. Germany and Japan, once mortal enemies, are now allies of the United States. And people across the world have reaped the benefits from that alliance. Today, we must do the same in Afghanistan and Iraq. By helping these young democracies grow in freedom and prosperity, we’ll lay the foundation of peace for generations to come.

We face a number of challenges in undertaking this vital work. One challenge is that in the past, in Germany and Japan, the work of rebuilding took place in relative quiet. Today, we’re helping emerging democracies rebuild under fire from terrorist networks and state sponsors of terror. This is a difficult and unprecedented task — and we’re learning as we go. For example, in Iraq we learned from hard experience that newly liberated people cannot make political and economic progress unless they first have some measure of security. In 2006, Iraqis did not have this security, and we all watched as their capital descended into sectarian violence.”

“The third lesson is this: For all the advanced military capabilities at our disposal, the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is the power of freedom. We can see this story in the 20th century. In 1941, when Nazi bombers pounded London and Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the future of freedom appeared bleak. There were only about a dozen democracies in the world — it seemed that tyranny, not liberty, was on the march. And even after Japan and Germany were defeated in World War II, freedom’s victory was far from clear. In Europe, the advance of Nazi tyranny was replaced by the advance of Soviet tyranny. In Asia, the world saw the Japanese Empire recede and communism claim most of its former territory — from China to Korea, to Vietnam.”

…continued

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Stewart on Bush chest bumps: Would we love him if he didn’t f*ck things up?

Peak Food and Peak Water by Shepherd Bliss

by Shepherd Bliss
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
May 29, 2008

Peak Oil theorists such as Richard Heinberg, James Howard Kunstler, Matthew Simmons, and others turn out to be correct. Petroleum supplies are declining as demand increases. This unfolding trend will radically change human habitation on the Earth. Among the consequences will be the drastic reduction of food and fresh water available to people, not only in poorer parts of the globe, but throughout the planet.

Industrial societies with their industrial agriculture are dependent upon fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal for many things, including transportation, electricity, and making plastics and other modern essentials. Oil is the main ingredient in conventional food. As the supply of petroleum and other fossil fuels decline Peak Water and Peak Food will follow. In recent months we have seen the return of food riots in the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa.

In April food prices in the United States saw their biggest jump in 18 years, according to the Labor Department. Prices are up an average of 41% from last year for commodities such as corn and cotton. Fertilizer prices are up a dramatic 65% from a year ago.

“Saving Water: From Field to Fork” titles a new study reported in the article “Food Security Requires New Approach to Water” in a May 24 Inter Press Service (IPS) article. A growing scarcity of water threatens food supplies. Food production and agriculture are the largest uses of fresh water, consuming about 70% of water globally, according to the study by the Stockholm International Water Institute. In his book “Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines,” Heinberg says that over 80% of fresh water goes toward agriculture in the United States.

Scare supplies of water, according to the IPS article, “will be a key constraint to food production.” If there is no change in current practices in food production and consumption, according to a contributor to the Stockholm report, “it is likely that twice as much water as that used today would be required by 2015 to produce the world’s required food.” But that amount of water would not be available, indicating the possibility of widespread food fights and even famine.

“Peak Food” is a term that California farmer and author John Jeavons uses in workshops. Jeavons “says peak food is actually related to four other intertwined crises: peak farmable land, peak water, peak oil, and global warming,” according to the article “Monocrops Bring Food Crisis” by Alex Roslin in the Canadian publication www.straight.com.

A solution–according to Jeavons in his classic book “How to Grow More Vegetables”–is to revive small-scale farming, such as used to prevail in the United States. In addition to Jeavon’s biointensive farming, others advocate the system referred to as permaculture. Heinberg calls for the de-industrialization of agriculture. He says that a key will be getting more farmers and re-ruralization and re-localization.

“Food Banks Face Rising Costs,” headlines a May 26 MSNBC article. “While demand is up, supplies and donations are down,” the article reveals. “The way it’s going, we’re going to have a food disaster pretty soon,” the MSNBC article quotes Phyllis Legg of the Merced Food Bank in the foreclosure-ravaged Merced County in California.

“If gas keeps going up, its going to be catastrophic in every possible way,” the article quotes Ross Fraser, a spokesperson for America’s Second Harvest–The Nation’s Food Bank Network. “The price of gasoline is going to drive the price of everything else,” Fraser asserts.

A food bank in Albuquerque, N.M., runs out of food and turns people away. Public school students in Baton Rouge, La. bring home some of their lunches to have something to eat for dinner. A food bank in Lorain, Ohio, meets only 25 to 30% of the need for food. In Stockton, Ca., which has the highest foreclosure rate in the country, customers line up several hours before the food bank’s 10 a.m. opening.

“When people go to the gas pump and watch that dial roll over, there goes breakfast, lunch and dinner. People are living on the edge,” Don Lindsay is quoted in a May 26 article in the New York Times-owned daily Press Democrat of Sonoma County, where this reporter lives in Northern California. Lindsay is operations director of the Redwood Empire Food Bank. It feeds 50,000 people in our semi-rural county of around 500,000. Such pantries are an essential aspect of the safety net that is diminishing.

“Present and future generations may become acquainted with that old, formerly familiar but unwelcome houseguest–famine,” writes Heinberg.

The electrical grid in Baghdad is not expected to be restored for many years and is already down in other parts of the world, making electricity and it many benefits unavailable. An increasing number of people in parts of Hawai’i, California’s North Coast, and elsewhere are planning for the future by making homes that are off the electrical grid. Industrial societies run on electricity powered by the cheap energy of fossil fuels. As the supply of those energy sources decline and world-wide competition for them through wars and other means heighten, more electrical grids will fail, and with them access to both food and water.

The pace quickens. The signs are more numerous. We need even more than food security; we need food sovereignty. Who controls your food? Growing at least part of one’s own food–and having something to trade–will be essential to survival.

see

Is Water Becoming the New Oil? by Marc Clayton

Social change to stop climate change

General Zinni: Global warming a serious security threat (video)

The Most IMPORTANT Video You’ll Ever See (videos; Parts 1-4)

The Most IMPORTANT Video You’ll Ever See (videos; Parts 5-8)

How It All Ends: Your Mission (global warming; must-see videos)

How It All Ends (Global Warming; must-see video; links)

Global Warming/Climate changes/Environment

Global Warming

Did Colbert Really Just Call Me Che Guevara? by David Sirota

Dandelion Salad

by David Sirota
http://www.smirkingchimp.com
May 30, 2008

“Did Colbert Really Just Call Me Che G…“, posted with vodpod

NEW YORK – As promised yesterday, here is a link to the video from my appearance on The Colbert Report. It’s hard to come up with exactly the right word to describe what it feels like to be on Stephen’s show. It’s somewhere between fun and excruciating – and really, it’s both at the same time (does saying that make me a masochist?).

Before the show, Stephen came by the green room to say hello and chat. He’s much different off the air than on, in that he’s not in character. The first time I went on (2 years ago) he made sure I understood his character is satirical (apparently, some guests – mostly conservatives – don’t get the joke). This time around we just chatted about other things, and traded a few stories about living in the Willard dorm at Northwestern, where we both went to college.

…continued

mm

Is Water Becoming the New Oil? by Marc Clayton

Dandelion Salad

by Marc Clayton
carolynbaker.net
Friday, 30 May 2008
Reprinted from COMMON DREAMS

Population, pollution, and climate put the squeeze on potable supplies – and private companies smell a profit. Others ask: Should water be a human right?

Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water – and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.

Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.

Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”

Water’s hot-commodity status has snared the attention of big equipment suppliers like General Electric as well as big private water companies that buy or manage municipal supplies – notably France-based Suez and Aqua America, the largest US-based private water company.

Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast, says a 2007 global investment report.

…continued

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Social change to stop climate change

General Zinni: Global warming a serious security threat (video)

The Most IMPORTANT Video You’ll Ever See (videos; Parts 1-4)

The Most IMPORTANT Video You’ll Ever See (videos; Parts 5-8)

How It All Ends: Your Mission (global warming; must-see videos)

How It All Ends (Global Warming; must-see video; links)

Global Warming/Climate changes/Environment

Global Warming

McCain Rejects GI Bill: I Said Support The Troops, Not Coddle Them (satire)

Robert

by R J Shulman
Dandelion Salad
featured writer
Robert’s blog post
May 31, 2008

WASHINGTON – Senator John McCain announced today why he is not supporting the GI bill originally introduced by Senators Webb (D-Va) and Hagel (R-Neb). “Those benefits are so rich that this bill is nothing more than an end run by the liberals to entice the troops to come home early from Iraq. It is also a distraction to the troops who should be thinking about killing insurgents, rather than killing on a college exam.”

“I agreeicate with that Senator McCann,” President Bush said, “I have been doing my part to un-entice the troops to stay in Iraq by making sure there are no jobs here when they get back, to make sure gas and food prices are too high here and that veterans hospitals are full of rats and mold.” “If we don’t put their lives on the line over here,” said Presidential Press Secretary Dana Perino, “then they won’t be putting their lives on the line over there.”

McCain mentioned that there was no way he could have his hundred year war if troops were “too busy shoving their lazy posteriors in cushy college chairs.” General Petraeus weighed in by saying he agreed with everything that Bush said and requested that the President return those photographs they had been talking about and that the negatives needed to be returned, too.