Day: October 4, 2007

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Olbermann: Torture + Rush; Maddow + Craig + Worst (videos)

clyde1952

Here we go boys and girls. It’s tort… Here we go boys and girls. It’s torture, torture, torture in this first segment of tonights Countdown Show.

Our government denies doing it, said we didn’t do it, then the truth wills out as usual of course and we find out we did even more torture than most people thought we did, that Bush and Fredo lied about it even more. In the first half of this segment John Dean joins Keith to discuss justifying torture in the DEPARTMENT OF JUST US.

Part two of Keith’s opening segment on torture and the Bush administration. Is there anything at all that can be done to stop the outlaw Bush administration? Neal Katval, who was the lead counsel in the case of Hamdam vs. Rumsfeld in which he won an appeal to the Supreme Court, stops by to discuss.

Hell no! I won’t go! Is that an old anti-war protest? Nope. It’s the new motto of Senator Larry Craig who after a judge refused to overturn his conviction, decided he’d hang around for a couple of more years after all. Larry Craig is the gift that keeps on giving. Chris Cillizza from the Washington Post joins Keith.

In this segment, Keith and Rachael show how Rush continues to change the facts so that his listeners won’t be disturbed by what the truth is. To be a Rush listener, you have to believe that everything Rush says is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In reality, it is generally everything but the truth.

No matter how much evidence you have to the contrary, a Rush Limbaugh dumbohead will ignore all the facts because those facts would interfere with their Limbaugh Radio Utopia type world they live in.

As Keith and Rachael Maddow point out those listeners who tune in to Limbaugh, need the big lie to justify themselves. Don’t ever expect them to want the truth. It is pointless to argue with them, to discuss anything with them, when two words are missing from their vocabulary – facts and reality.

Another example today: Rush invites votevets to buy an ad on his show so that his listeners will think he is being fair. Meanwhile, what he doesn’t tell his listeners but already knows is that his station bosses have already nixed that idea. Therefore, they can go away still believing in the fairness of all things that happen in Fatsoland.

It is the same reason why they will only accept Rush’s edited account of what he said on his program in regards to phony soldiers and Army Staff Sgt. Brian Mcgough. For them, the edited version with a minute and thirty five seconds cut out is the real account, no matter how many times you play what actually went out over the air waves. Then again, I imagine that there are still people who really do believe that Nixon’s Secretary Rosemary Woods really did accidentally erase those tapes.

It is the same principle regarding what Limpbottom has said in regard to phony soldiers and Army Staff Sgt. Brian Mcgough. No matter how many times you confront them with the original complete broadcast, the only truth they will accept is the Limbaugh edited version, which changes the context of what he really said.

heathr234 And the winner is…the Republican Na…

And the winner is…the Republican National Committee for its new logo.

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Burma is Nigeria, and Chevron is Both by Malcolm

Malcolm

Featured writer
Dandelion Salad

Malcolm’s Blog
Oct. 4, 2007

England has organizations established to change the oil industry…

I was doing this search about exactly when George Shultz was on the board of directors at Chevron. I found refs verifying he was, but never the years, other than before Condo Rice. That just seemed so strange. Most bios did not even mentioned he was ever there. Another story stranger than fiction is how Chevron ended up in Burma. Unocal emerges from behind the walls and under the rocks, yeh, from the company that brought you Zalmay Khalizad, that brought the Taliban to Houston on a friendship tour, the same company that bought and supported the military dics, yes, yes, Unocal was sued and lost for complicity in murder, rape, forced prostitution, and eviction of people from their land and homes in Burma.

The company of Shultz and Condo Rice, that’s right, Chevron comes along and buys them in 2005, but since the initial ‘investment’ on development had been made prior to the US clamp down on trade with Burma due to the above offenses, Chevron gets the benefits accrued in gas and oil. Now isn’t that fair, so all’s well in the Empire and G ‘global warming’ Bush can spout his indignation about the bullies of Burma without worrying about Condo’s professional future. Think Chevron will have her back?

So all’s fair in Kapitalism. We don’t need no Kolonialism. Now we Kall it ‘FREE TRADE’.

Now, just trying to write about this I’m get as hot as a stolen car with a blown radiator, but to forget about Nigeria and what Chevron is doing there does not see the problem.

For those that have read Howard Zinn, there has been a sad awakening to an old paradigm. The United States’ foreign policy has been replicating the same behavior since it’s inception. Burma is just another example, so if we are going to correct the pattern we have much work to do. Currently, Burma is not the only iron in the fire. Nigeria is not just another instance of corporate- (Chevron)/government imperialism, it is every bit as vicious as Burma and has been going on for years.

In England, the resistance to oil industry atrocities in Nigeria is well established. Unraveling the Carbon Web (http://www.carbonweb.org/) was started in May of 1997 by a collaboration of Platform and CorporateWatch. Unraveling is about the bigger vision based upon analysis of those affected by the oil industry’s impact on society and the environment. Their goal is to educate and influence the public, government and corporate leaders, “its roots lie in the Crude Operators conference – a gathering to understand and challenge the oil industry.”

In their own words:

http://www.platformlondon.org/

Platform “works across disciplines for social and ecological justice. It combines the transformatory power of art with the tangible goals of campaigning, the rigour of in-depth research with the vision to promote alternative futures.”


This site is of incredible depth, but here is a reminder if you have forgotten: “On November 10th 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni colleagues were executed by the Nigerian state for campaigning against the devastation of the Niger Delta by oil companies, especially Shell and Chevron.”

Understanding is empowering and these sites are an education about the monster, but may be also worthy of consideration for organizing here in the United States.

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What a Difference a Day Makes by Glitzqueen (aka The Other Katherine Harris)

glitzqueen

Featured writer
Dandelion Salad

Glitzqueen’s blog post
Oct. 4, 2007

“What a difference a day makes. Twenty-four little hours…” so goes a love song composed in 1959. During those times (now identifiably halcyon), there was a sense of promise, not menace, in such words. Mostly good things happened.

Today the thought of what tomorrow may bring holds terror for anybody who’s paying attention: another horrific attack, whether on us or by us; more lost jobs, liberties and homes; more criminal waste of public funds; and, for many, word of a loved one’s death or injury in a needless war of choice.

For 1,161 out of 2600 members of the Minnesota National Guard, who just spent a record-breaking 22 months at hazard on our corporation-fattening battlefields, the issue is one day LESS, rather than one day more. Had their Pentagon orders read 730 days, instead of 729, these soldiers would be eligible for education benefits worth $500 to $800 monthly.

“It’s pretty much a slap in the face,” one of the affected platoon leaders told NBC yesterday, as detailed HERE. “I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership… once again failing the soldiers.”

I think 1st Lt. Jon Anderson is quite right about that.

He went on to say his soldiers expected those benefits, and here my reasoning parts company with his.

Remember how Shrub promised to run the government like a corporation? Well, on that point, he didn’t lie. It’s being run in exactly the same spirit as companies that lavish wealth and perks on their elites but deny all benefits to staff kept in “part-time” status by as little as one hour. If the difference could have been shaved down to an hour in this case, no doubt it would have been. Why should we expect anything better from a murderous tyrant who demands billions for thieving contractors in Iraq but won’t allow a few million to protect the health of more poor children?

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Censored again – and proud of it by Greg Palast

Dandelion Salad

by Greg Palast
Oct. 4, 2007

The bad news is, the Palast team has won its tenth-in-a-row “Project Censored” prize. For another story that Big Media won’t dare touch.

The good news is: we’re broke.

Last month, for the first time in two years, we came to you begging for cash so we could keep reporting the uncomfortable truth. Your response was astonishing. We’re out of debt – back to zero.

(Our crawl out of the red was also helped by The Nation Magazine’s Institute – which awarded our team the $25,000 Puffin Fellowship for investigative reporting.)

I’m back with one last (I promise) desperate plea for help. Now that we’ve made it out of debt, the Palast Investigative Fund needs your help to pay THIS month’s bills.

Please, right now, make a tax-deductible donation to the Investigative Fund and I’ll send you a personalized, signed copy of the book, ‘Project Censored 2008′ with my exposé on Mr. Giuliani’s friend – the hedge fund vulture who is swiping the debt relief meant for Africa.

Make your donation at least $125 and we’ll throw in Censored 2007 which includes our exposés on Iraq and Oil, “Bush Didn’t Bungle Iraq, You Fools!” and, the skinny on elections theft – co-written with the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

We have had to say good-bye to our two top investigators, Leni and Matt. Damn, we miss them! Our struggle now is to pay their successor, Kat, who is demanding to eat at least once a day.

And for those who really believe we’ve just GOT to get the word out: we are LOOKING FOR A COUPLE OF FILM PRODUCERS (twelve to be exact), so we can quickly release the broadcasts, “Greg Palast Investigates” Vol. 1 (”Election Theft for Dummies”) and Vol. 2 (”The Chavez Tapes”) based on our award-winning reports for BBC Television.

Become a mini-mogul by donating at least $1,000 to our fund (tax-deductible), and you’ll get on-screen executive producer credit and DVD copies of the films to impress (and depress) your friends and enemies.

No joke. We’re broke. But the work continues even if our pockets are bare. Want to support Raw Journalism, the real stuff? Here it is: just a $100 donation and I’ll send you a autographed copy Project Censored 2008, or Bush Family Fortunes (the BBC film on DVD), or LIVE from the Armed Madhouse, or the book that took 50,000 volts from a taser and keeps on ticking: Armed Madhouse – Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.

And true, deep appreciation from myself and the investigative team for your generosity which has kept us alive and proudly censored for nearly a decade.

Subscribe to the site, spread the word.

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. This material is distributed without profit.

In case you missed these:

Greg Palast on the Battle to End Vulture Funds (link; transcript)

Vulture Funds – Greg Palast (vid)

“Vulture Fund” Company Seeks $40 M Payt from Zambia on $4 M Debt + Zambia loses ‘vulture fund’

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Mike Gravel: I’m ashamed of this (video)

Dandelion Salad

gravel2008

Mike Gravel on PBS – The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

Mike Gravel interviews on the October 2nd Edition of ‘The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.’

He discusses his time in the US Senate, NI4D, the FairTax, and much more!

http://www.gravel2008.us/

ICH

MIKE GRAVEL: I love my country, and I love the human race. And I want to see a change made in the leadership of our country so we can do more to protect the human race….With respect to my country going to war when there’s no reason to go to war, killing human beings, I’m ashamed of this.

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John Nichols wants to Impeach Bush and Cheney! (video)

Dandelion Salad

davidcnswanson

Run time: 29:43 min

John Nichols, writer for The Nation a…

John Nichols, writer for The Nation and author of The Genius of Impeachment, discusses the history and reasons for the impeachment process as invisioned by our founding fathers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs_3sux8reA

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Canada Bars Entry to U.S. Peace Activists: CODEPINK Responds (video)

Dandelion Salad

liamh2

On Oct. 4, 2007, Ret. U.S. Army Colon… On Oct. 4, 2007, Ret. U.S. Army Colonel, and ex-U.S. State Department Diplomat, Ann Wright, and Ms. Medea Benjamin, the founder of Code Pink, held a press conference, in Washington, D.C., outside of the Embassy of Canada. Yesterday, they was barred from entering Canada by government officials at the border. They were informed that their names were on a “Criminal Database List,” which was compiled by the FBI. As a result of misdemeanor convictions, in this country, arising out of nonviolent protest action against the Iraq War, the FBI had arbitrarily placed their names on its “Criminal Database List.” The highly respected Peace Activists shared their views on the issue and how they intend to challenge the FBI’s decision and to also meet, later in the afternoon, with officials at the Canadian Embassy in order to remedy this situation.

see

Canada Refuses Entry to CODEPINK Cofounder Medea Benjamin & Retired Colonel Ann Wright by Medea Benjamin

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My Last Conversation With Aung San Suu Kyi By John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

By John Pilger
10/04/07 “ICH”

As the people of Burma rise up again, we have had a rare sighting of Aung San Suu Kyi. There she stood, at the back gate of her lakeside home in Rangoon, where she is under house arrest. She looked very thin. For years, people would brave the roadblocks just to pass by her house and be reassured by the sound of her playing the piano. She told me she would lie awake listening for voices outside and to the thumping of her heart. “I found it difficult to breathe lying on my back after I became ill, she said.”

Continue reading →

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10.03.07 Uncensored News Reports From Across The Middle East (video; over 18 only)

Dandelion Salad

Warning
.
This video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

Selected Episode

Oct. 3, 2007

linktv

“Polish Ambassador Attacked in Iraq,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Abbas & Olmert Prepare for Fall Conference,” Dubai TV, UAE
“Palestinian Children Severely Injured by Israeli Fire,” Al Aqsa, Gaza
“U.S. To Deport ex-Nazi,” IBA TV, Israel
“U.S. Soldiers Suffer Silently,” New TV, Lebanon
“U.S. Is In No Position to Start Another War,” IRIB2 TV, Iran
“Benazir Bhutto May Draw Representatives from Government,” Al Jazeera English, Qatar
“Volcanic Activity in Red Sea Prompts Fears,” Al Arabiya TV, UAE
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani

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Dissenting at your own risk By Cecilie Surasky + The Israel Lobby (MP3)

Dandelion Salad

By Cecilie Surasky
10/04/07 “ICH ”

Last year, I agreed to speak to a Jewish youth group about my organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, and our opposition to Israel’s occupation. My talk was to follow one from a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself “America’s pro-Israel Lobby.”

A week before, a shaken program leader said the AIPAC staffer had threatened to get the entire youth program’s funding canceled if I was allowed in the door. The threat worked, and in disgust, they canceled the whole talk.

Pundits will surely argue for years about professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s explosive new book, The Israel Lobby, which blames poor U.S. policy in the Middle East on a loose network of individuals and pro-Israel advocacy groups.

But the book, and the response to it, opens up another controversy: the stifling of debate about unconditional U.S. support for Israeli policies.

Why is Israel’s increasingly brutal 40-year occupation of Palestinian land regularly debated in the mainstream media abroad, including in Israel, but not here? And why is there an almost total lack of discussion among presidential candidates about the dollars that subsidize this occupation and the American diplomatic support that makes it possible?

In a society built on the free exchange of ideas, as Walt and Mearsheimer point out, one answer can be found by looking at the many self-appointed gatekeepers, such as Abraham Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League, or Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who use their Jewish identity as both a shield and cudgel. They work diligently to silence those who question ill-conceived policies of the Israeli and U.S. governments.

Non-Jewish critics, even former President Carter, are denounced as anti-Semites. Special ire is reserved for Jewish dissenters, who are branded as “self-hating” or “marginal,” while Muslim and Arab-Americans are easily smeared and even criminalized with charges of supporting terrorism.

Stunned by the stifling of dissent, we decided to start a Web site, Muzzlewatch, to track the incidents. Just as we launched, Stanford Middle East Studies Professor Joel Beinin was disinvited from a speaking engagement at a high school with just 24 hours’ notice.

After an unprecedented campaign of outside interference waged by Dershowitz, Professor Norman Finkelstein was refused tenure by DePaul University because of his criticism of U.S.-Israeli policy.

Palestinian-American anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj is fighting a political campaign to deny her tenure at Barnard.

Even Walt and Mearsheimer, who are getting plenty of exposure, couldn’t have asked for better proof of their point that the lobby works to stifle dissent when an embarrassed head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs told them that their scheduled speech was canceled. (They did speak before the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth on Sept. 17.) This was apparently because Foxman was not available that day to “balance” their talk.

(They had initially been booked by themselves. The talk was not rescheduled.)

Many groups that started with the important work of fighting real anti-Semitism now rely on anti-Semitism to insist that to show one’s love of Jews, one must offer uncritical support to Israel. They are especially displeased by Jews who believe that enabling Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights is not good for anyone.

Unless this atmosphere of intimidation is confronted, Americans will continue to lack access to information and perspectives necessary to formulate effective Middle East policies, virtually ensuring that Israel and the United States will be at war for many years to come.

‘The Israel Lobby’

A podcast of Walt and Mearsheimer’s presentation is available at http://podcast.dfwworld.org/2007_09-17_The_Israel_Lobby.MP3

Cecilie Surasky is communications director for the Oakland-based Jewish Voice for Peace.

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. This material is distributed without profit.

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‘The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy’ by John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt

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The Kucinich Question: Which side are you on? by Sharon Smith

Dandelion Salad

by Sharon Smith
Dissident Voice
October 4th, 2007

It was July 12 in Detroit, and all eight Democratic Party presidential candidates had just finished sparring at a forum sponsored by the NAACP when John Edwards and Hillary Clinton were caught hatching a plot to rid future debates of all but front-runners.

The two were apparently unaware that Fox News’ microphones were still turned on to overhear their mutual exasperation at sharing the stage with those on the losing end of opinion polls.

According to the Associated Press, Edwards whispered, “We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group.” Clinton agreed that the broad format had “trivialized” the debates, adding, “We’ve got to cut the number…They’re not serious.”

Dennis Kucinich, who would certainly be excluded if Edwards and Clinton succeed at this scheme, rapidly issued a press release stating his outrage: “Candidates, no matter how important or influential they perceive themselves to be, do not have and should not have the power to determine who is allowed to speak to the American public and who is not…Imperial candidates are as repugnant to the American people and to our Democracy as an imperial president.”

Indeed, Kucinich stands alone among the current crop of candidates in his consistently principled stand on issues ranging from opposition to the war in Iraq to support for single-payer health care, immigrant rights and the legalization of gay marriage.

During a nationally televised MSNBC debate on September 26, none of the three front-runners–who all claim to be “antiwar”–pledged to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of their first term in office in 2013. Clinton argued, “It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting.” Barack Obama stated, “I think it would be irresponsible.” Edwards admitted, “I cannot make that commitment.”

Kucinich answered with a refreshingly concrete antiwar resolve: “We can get out of there three months after I take office.” He added, “To me, it is fairly astonishing to have Democrats who took back the power of the House and Senate in 2006 to stand on this stage and tell the American people that the war will continue till 2013 and perhaps past that.”

And while current Democratic Party talking points blame Iraqis for the chaos enveloping Iraq, Kucinich supports reparations for the Iraqi people from the governments who have caused their suffering, arguing, “The U.S. and Great Britain have a high moral obligation to enable a peace process by beginning a program of significant reparations to the people of Iraq for the loss of lives, physical and emotional injuries, and damage to property.”

While Clinton has lurched rightward on support for abortion rights in recent years (stating in 2005 that abortion is “a sad, even tragic choice”), Kucinich is the only candidate who has shifted leftward on the issue of choice. He actively opposed abortion for many years but reversed his stand in 2003, stating, “[I]t finally came to the point where I understood that women will not be truly free unless they have the right to choose.”

Kucinich also stands firmly on the side of immigrants rights, however much his own party has compromised, arguing, “No fines should be paid [by immigrants], no one should be made to go back, and we should stop scapegoating immigrants.” He seeks to abolish NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) because it drives down Mexican wages and opposed the Security Fence Act to further enhance border control.

But Kucinich has no hope of winning the Democratic Party nomination, for his unwillingness to compromise on sound humanitarian principles dooms that outcome. This fact, combined with his steadfast refusal to accept corporate donations, relegates his candidacy in 2008, as it did in 2004, to the margins of the electoral arena, a project willingly enabled by a compliant mainstream media.

The Kucinich campaign complained, for example, that ABC News “deliberately cropped [Kucinich] out of a ‘Politics Page’ photo of the candidates after their August 19 debate” and removed an online “Who won the debate” survey after Kucinich came out the winner.

Nevertheless, like a scorned relative who always shows up to family functions, Kucinich refuses to disengage from the Democratic Party establishment that, as Clinton and Edwards attest, tolerates his presence only with gritted teeth.

But Kucinich’s loyalty to the party that holds him in such contempt will perform a useful service in delivering left-wing support for the party’s chosen, corporate-backed nominee in 2008.

This is a service that Kucinich will undoubtedly perform. Look back no further than 2004 for a preview of what lies ahead. After a principled antiwar campaign, Kucinich promised his supporters he would fight for a plank opposing the Iraq war at the Democratic Party Convention in July 2004. But no antiwar debate materialized, and Kucinich’s stunned supporters were left with no other choice than backing pro-war John Kerry as the anointed candidate.

Kucinich must therefore be faulted for compromising his principles in one crucial respect. He remains beholden to the Democrats–a ruling-class, imperialist party that coexists in a power-sharing arrangement with the Republicans–offering voters no genuine alternative to the status quo.

If Kucinich truly believed his own rhetoric, he would leave, creating the possibility for building a viable third party that could express popular opposition to corporate rule.

Sharon Smith is a columnist for Socialist Worker and author of Women’s Liberation and Socialism (Haymarket Books). This article first appeared on the SW website. Read other articles by Sharon.

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. This material is distributed without profit.