by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
May 27, 2010
* Like most of you, I can’t stop thinking about the sea life in the Gulf of Mexico. It is just a matter of time before massive amounts of fish and mammals begin washing up on the oily shore. What happens if they can’t plug this oil hole for another week, or month, or several months? Why isn’t the government suspending its global military operations and putting every researcher, every government scientist, and the rest of their brain power to work on this case?
* Peter Woodruff and I did half of our weekly radio show at Bowdoin College’s WBOR station last night on the oil disaster. We played one of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Prison Radio news bits on the subject as well as one from Jim Hightower. The second half of our show was dedicated to war spending and Obama’s call for a commission to take down the “entitlement programs” – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
* Most activists in South Korea have been, and remain, suspicious about the official story surrounding the sinking of their Navy ship. At the time of the incident the U.S. and South Korea were having one of their annual provocative war games where they practice an invasion of North Korea. One has to remember that the U.S. has a modus operandi when it comes to using sunk boats to justify war – “Remember the Maine” that was the prelude to the Spanish-American War and the more contemporary Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that was the kick-off to the Vietnam War. Some are already speculating that the South Korean sinking was timed before their June 2 elections and/or timed to ensure that Japan’s new government reneges on its promise to close a U.S. military base in Okinawa. I’m sure there are other good theories on this as well.
Latest News: It appears the ship sunk due to grounding in rough waters. A South Korean maritime expert seems to have solved the case and is trying to get Hillary Clinton and Obama to pay attention. See the whole story here.
* Hillary Clinton is proving to be a real war hawk as she runs around beating the war drum against North Korea and Iran. One activist living in Japan wrote last night that most non-Americans are not listening to her but instead are focused on the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and thinking that the U.S. is a “failed state.”
* Maybe some country needs to do a humanitarian intervention of the U.S. and help us get rid of the “corporate pirates” who have taken control of our democracy. Maybe they could stuff a bunch of the corporate executives into the oil blow hole in the Gulf. God knows there are enough of the fat cats on Wall Street and in Washington DC to plug up the hole good and tight.
see
‘Top Kill’ LIVE feed: BP says oil spill stopped + No confirmation that Top Kill has been successful
Kucinich: Oily Apocalypse or Green Wave? + Why Do We Distance Ourselves from the Oil Disaster?
Below the surface of oil hemorrhage, Part 3 by Roxanne Amico
Korean Stand-off: US Soft Power Play To Maintain Aggression Towards Iran By Finian Cunningham
Dandelion Salad 
Pingback: Memorial Day 2010: Milestones Of Mourning by Ed Ciaccio « Dandelion Salad
Ariel,
All your final questions are right on the money….they all are the reasons for pushing for a K-NK break-up and increase in tensions….the US military machine prospers by increasing conflict and it helps “justify” the military encirclement of China
Dear Bruce,
I got a good, hearty laugh out of your suggestion about plugging the oil spill hole with the fat cats from Wall Street and Washington, D.C. But seriously, I’ve been very concerned about the damage being done by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico also. If Obama were a better leader and not such a lame excuse for a president, he would have activated and organized a far-ranging response to this crisis by the citizenry as well as the military.
And the U.S. egging on South Korea to retaliate against the purported sinking of the Cheonan by N. Korea has been in extremely poor taste and abysmally inept foreign relations. With the letter from Shin Sang-Chui building quite a plausible case that the Cheonan grounded in shallow waters, it sure is beginning to look like the torpedo account was a fabrication cut from the same pattern as the demolition of the twin towers as a pretext for waging war.
And why is the U.S. administration so gung-ho on getting a war going in Korea? Is it perhaps because last year relations were improving between the two Koreas? Is it because the U.S. doesn’t want Korea to end the war because then there’s no excuse to keep its’ military bases and forces there, let alone build a new one on Jeju Island? Aren’t the military exercises that the U.S. continually stages with South Korea in mock war situations of invading North Korea a strategem to keep tensions high and undermine any efforts at reconciliation?
Pingback: There was no Explosion. There was No Torpedo. « Dandelion Salad