Illusions & Delusions About the U.S. Economic Picture (video)

Dandelion Salad

NewAmericaFoundation

What will it take to strengthen America’s ‘real economy’?

Former John Edwards campaign senior economic advisor and telecom executive Leo Hindery understands better than most the difference between the needs of Wall Street and the needs of average Americans on Main Street. Looking at the subprime crisis as a symptom of a long history of economic mismanagement, Leo Hindery will argue that recent calls to change the regulatory bureaucracy in Washington are at best a band-aid. Rather, the American economy needs a long-term strategy to build a new edge in tradable goods and services to rebuild our middle class with high-wage jobs and reduce our massive trade imbalances.

Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

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Secular Jews and the ‘Jewish State’

Dandelion Salad

By Ralph Seliger
April 1, 2008

American Jews remain, along with African Americans, the most left-leaning ethnic community in the country. While many support the State of Israel uncritically, some Jews express their concern for Israel’s welfare by joining organizations and activities that challenge certain policies and promote social change.

Last November, “The Other Israel Film Festival: Images of Arab Citizens of Israel” was inaugurated in a partnership with Manhattan’s Jewish Community Center and several other institutions.

In January 2008, Meretz USA, a progressive Zionist group that I work with, along with the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace (Brit Tzedek v’Shalom), focused their annual “Israel Symposium” on Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 percent of Israel’s population.

…continued

Strangelove’s Wet Dream – A Nuclear Free Fire Zone By Peter Chamberlin

Dandelion Salad

By Peter Chamberlin
04/02/08 “ICH”

“You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.

You are a slave…, like everyone else you were born into bondage.  Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch.  A prison for your mind.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

Never before have so few invested so much, for such long a time, to confuse so many people, about so many things.  Never before have so many free people willingly betrayed their own country, their own religion, even their own family, in order to gamble for the opportunity to serve the interests of the powerful few, who are known to reward loyalty so extravagantly.  This is typical behavior for a country that gambles enough to support its public school system with proceeds from lottery ticket sales.   

Our government, with the help of the psychos and sycophants who worship at its feet, has created a police state, which the people allow to masquerade as a democracy.  The various wars against this or that problem in America, but more specifically, the “war on drugs,” have been used successfully by our overlords as an excuse to create a police state apparatus, and with it, new omnipresent agencies which made illegal searches and the invasion of privacy in America commonplace, long before the Patriot Act applied it to every facet of our lives.   

The American government, in bed with the magnates of big business (the dictionary definition of “fascism”), have been at war with the American people for a very long time.  Fat cat Republicans, who regularly bankroll both parties, have long plotted to replace democracy with a fascist dictatorship.  (SEE: THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE)  Corporations have invested billions in foundations to study the people, in order to make more efficient war upon their minds. 

America has the largest prison population in the world, not by accident, but by design.  Many years ago it became apparent to the masters of our government that the American people would never submit to the involuntary slavery that awaited them.  One day, when the people realized what was being done to them, circumstances would devolve into a military confrontation between Washington and the people.  When that day comes, it would be better for government mercenary forces if most young men of fighting age were either overseas, or in jail. 

Like the revolutionary movie “Matrix,” every totalitarian state will eventually produce an underground resistance, which will find its own charismatic leaders, who can convince enough fellow slaves to rise-up into an irresistible critical mass.  It will be the same way here in America, once Internet researchers finally manage to blow the lid off the 911 cover-up, or one of the other pressure cooker political cover-ups that are now being brought to a boil on the stove.  When the people can finally get a clear glimpse of the totalitarian state rising around them, they will throw off all pretense of self-serving self-restraint.   

The nature of the overthrow will depend upon the length of time required to alert the masses to the dangerous truth.  If the people can be aroused to perform their patriotic duty to restrain their government from destroying the world, before it crosses the nuclear threshold, then peaceful change is still possible.  The lunatic-in-chief and his supporters in both the political parties are prepared to use nuclear weapons against vast civilian populations, if We the People are unwilling to stop them.  This new phase in the war that is allegedly being fought in America’s defense will represent the final transmutation of that war into a totally new war, fought to prevent alleged nuclear weapons construction, by unleashing actual nuclear destruction.  Strangelove’s “wet dream,” a nuclear free fire zone. 

The disaster unfolding in Washington is like nothing the earth has ever seen.  The highest form of government ever produced by man is putting the final stages of planning on freedom’s demise, and yet the freest people in the history of the world believe that they are powerless to change anything, as they watch excitedly from the sidelines, screaming patriotic hymns to Clinton and McCain.  The planners and their stooges ultimately believe in their own ability to carry forward the grand “success” stories of Iraq and Afghanistan into the rest of the Muslim world.  The illusion that they can destroy select areas of the rest of the world without destroying us, helps to calm the delirious worry-free psyches of an immoral society, ready to kill the world to save their own sorry asses.  

The war on terrorism uses our beliefs against us.  It has been exposed as a holy war between Christianity and Islam, at least that is evidently what the Jewish neocon authors of the war want it to be.  It is only a matter of time before it becomes obvious to everyone that the war of the new world order is a war against all religion.  Religious belief and basic human morality must be allowed to serve as the basis for the fight against this war, because it is a war on life itself.  The inherent evil of the whole operation must become the rallying point for the people to oppose the war.  It is nothing less than an egotistical human attempt to overthrow the moral basis of international law, replacing it with the inhumane law of parasitic capitalist Darwinism.  Kill everyone who refuses to be made into a slave! 

Religious extremists are primary tools for manipulating religious populations into embracing false violent beliefs, in direct contradictions to the peaceful books they were taught from.  In both politics and religion, it is the extremists who stand-out, commanding attention, if not respect.  It is through the various targeted extremists that the false religious and political beliefs are introduced into the mainstream of ideas.  It is within this flow of ideas that we must wade, to fight the false ideas of a war of civilizations and its counterpart a “holy war” between Christianity and Islam. 

It is time that extremists in the cause of religious truth and freedom took the fight to our corporate government.  We do not have to bow before a form of Zionist-sanctioned political correctness, which leaves no room for truth in an entertainment/indoctrination bureau which masquerades as a free press.  Our “free press” has allowed itself to become the greatest threat to freedom our nation has ever faced.  It is impossible for a free people to defend itself against an administration of deadly lies when the truth is so easily buried.  The American people must become their own press, in order to get around the main obstacle to freedom.    

The revolution must be a national rejection of a political system based on lies and cover-ups.  Our national resistance movement must take the form of a fight for truth, and it must take place in the national arena.  The truth we have learned from the rest of the world, through the alternative media, must become common knowledge.  You would think that the way Americans love ironic, sarcastic humor, the majority would eagerly join us over here in the alternative media, to share our fascination with the hypocritical stage theater now being performed for our national amusement, which masquerades as politics and foreign policy.      

The national debate has been strangled because of the news blackout over American/Israeli relations and American duplication of Israeli tactics in the war.  Criticism of Israel or its tactics which are used by American forces will not be found anywhere in the “legitimate” American press.  This news “dead zone,” which is  geographically centered on Israel, is certain to be where the planned conflict against Iran and everyone associated with Iran will break-out.  We have to overcome this news blackout over the selected zone of conflict. 

The Zionist censorship of American debate relies upon the accusation of “anti-Semitism” as their primary weapon, to silence fair-minded Americans, who would normally refuse to remain silent in the face of such massive cold-blooded murder on this scale.  This instantly has the effect of elevating whatever position they are defending from debate to an (so far) unassailable position beyond debate from the “racist” rabble, otherwise known as “anti-Zionists.”  By openly making Israel’s war America’s war, the magical talisman of “anti-Semitism” insulates the Israeli roots of the war on Islam from criticism.  Israel must be exposed as the progenitor of this war and the even bigger battle about to be let loose upon the innocent Muslims of the world.  

The real racists are the Zionists.  It is impossible to fight the racist basis of the war, without exposing this cold hard fact.  Ideas of Jewish superiority based on Biblical accounts of ancient Israel are embraced by “Christian” leaders, who ignore the obvious ethnic cleansing and state policies of today’s “Israel” that easily match the accepted international definition of “genocide.”  The ongoing “Shoah” (holocaust) being inflicted upon the Palestians is ignored by the loyal press, while the most cynical Zionists seek to derail true debate by mislabeling feeble homemade rockets as genocidal weapons.  http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1206632348924&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull    Once again, the Zionists turn truth on its head, with its genocidal weapons claim, while denying that the truly horrific thermobaric, phosphorus and uranium-based weapons it has used in Gaza and Lebanon were used in contravention of international law.   http://uruknet.info/?p=m42553&hd=&size=1&l=e   

If the indigenous people of Palestine are not made to seem inferior, as somewhat less human than the citizens of the “Jewish state,” then it becomes much harder to rationalize a “Shoah” upon them, or to “broom them” from their land, like an infestation of vermin.  The war against Islam is based on this false position of superiority over all the Muslim people, just as it has been in previous American wars against other non-white populations, who had land or lives available for the taking.  The would-be tyrants of the world have always looked at the American genocide of Native Americans as the ultimate example to follow.   

For those of you still on the sidelines, who have never been baptized by the fires of vitriol and accusations of “anti-Semitism” that always come from criticizing our government for fighting catastrophic wars to enshrine Israel’s security above our own, I invite you to wade into the political waters and be baptized in organized hatred, for daring to speak-out.  For I guarantee that the first comments you will hear for breaking the taboo and telling the truth will be very abusive in a special mad dog sort of way.  The Jewish extremists (who call themselves Zionists) have manipulated Christians, (who also call themselves Zionists) into fighting a genocidal war against Muslims (whom the Zionists call Islamists), so that the Jewish extremists in Israel could safely, openly, remove all Muslims from “Greater Israel,” the land coveted by “the chosen people.”     

It is wrong to allow a new holocaust of one people to fulfill the territorial ambitions of the descendants of the survivors of the last holocaust.

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Empire or Humanity? By Howard Zinn

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather’s Dream By David Swanson

The Canada-Israel “Public Security” Agreement by Michel Chossudovsky

Dandelion Salad

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, April 2, 2008

Canada and Israel have signed a far-reaching public security cooperation agreement.

The agreement, described as a “Partnership”, involves a “Declaration of Intent” by the two governments. The Declaration was signed in Tel Aviv on March 23.

“Today, the Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety Canada and Avi Dicter, Minister of Public Security of the Government of the State of Israel, signed a Declaration of Intent to enhance cooperation in the area of public safety.

“The Government of Canada is committed to enhancing the security of Canadians – both through our actions at home and with our international partners.” said Minister Day. “Today’s declaration demonstrates the longstanding cooperation between Canada and Israel on public safety issues, and we welcome this increased cooperation in order to improve our countries’ capacity to protect our citizens.”

This declaration will allow Canada and Israel to better enhance cooperation in the areas of organized crime, emergency management, crime prevention, and other related public safety concerns. The declaration seeks to establish a more structured framework for the continued cooperation on public safety issues between Canada and Israel.

“The Declaration of Intent is an opportunity for Canada and Israel to strengthen their commitment to safeguarding their citizens and respective national interests from common threats,” said Minister Dicter.” ( http://www.ps-sp.gc.ca/app_support/xml/ps_news_e.xml)

Cheney Mission to the Middle East Shrouded in Secrecy

Canada’s Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day was in Israel on the same day as Vice Cheney Dick Cheney.

Coincidentally, a US mission led by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff was also in Israel on official business, as guest of Israel’s Minister of Public Security, Avi Dicter. There are no reports on Canada-US-Israeli consultations during these official visits. In all likelihood, officials from the respective departments/ministries of US Homeland Security, Israel’s Public Security and Canada’s Public Safety had meetings behind closed doors.

Terms of Reference of the Partnership

Israel’s Ministry of Public Security carries out public security, law enforcement activities as well as the operation of Israel’s prisons, which are in large part used to detain Palestinians.

Canada’s Ministry of Public Safety, established in 2003, is a copy and paste version of US Homeland Security, with which  it has a close bilateral relationship. Public Safety Canada works closely with several government agencies including the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Correctional Service Canada (CSC) and The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Officials from these agencies have no doubt been consulted regarding the terms of reference of the Israel-Canada declaration.

The terms reference of the Canada-Israel Declaration are extremely broad. They include issues of immigration and ethnic profiling, the management of borders, intelligence and the exchange of information, emergency preparedness, correctional services, prisons, law enforcement and counter terrorism.

The Declaration of Intent involves the setting up of a close bilateral cooperation arrangement at the ministerial level. A management committee has been set up under the helm of  the Deputy Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada, and the Director General of Public Security of the State of Israel.

Senior Israeli and Canadian officials respectively from Israel’s Ministry of Public Security and from various Canadian federal departments and agencies (including the RCMP, CSIS and CBSA), which are under the jurisdiction of Stockwell Day’s ministry  would carry out “an approved program of work”.

The programme would be implemented by a Senior Coordinator from each country, namely, the Assistant Deputy Minister (Strategic Policy) for Canada’s Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Deputy Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Public Security of the State of Israel;

The agreements requires the two countries to “[b]uild on their shared commitment to facilitate and enhance cooperation to protect their respective countries’ population, assets and interests from common threats”. 

What type of border security and control of immigrants is involved?

How does this impinge upon Canada’s immigration procedures?

The agreement appears to be built upon a much broader agreement between Canada and the US in the area of Homeland Security.  But it also replicates the pattern of a February 2006 agreement reached between US Homeland Security and Israel’s Ministry of Public Security

The Israel-Canada agreement has been in the pipeline since Minister Dicter’s October 2007 visit to the US and Canada. Minister Dicter met Stockwell Day last October in Toronto “with the intention on establishing cooperation on homeland security” and counter-terrorism.

Nature of the Agreement

Israel is not part of North America. Canada and Israel do not share a common border. So what is the underlying agenda?

Will Canada assist Israel in policing its border with Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories?

Conversely, will Israeli officials assist Canada in ethnic profiling of people (including biometric applications, which is mentioned in the agreement) who visit Canada from the Middle East? Will Israeli officials have access to confidential files of Canadians?

What type of cooperation is envisaged in the areas of prisons and law enforcement? Interrogation techniques? Are Israeli consultants going to help reorganize our correctional services?

The agreement would allow officials from the State of Israel,  a country on record for its numerous human rights violations acts directed against the people of Palestine, to play a role in Canadian public security. In this regard, will Israeli officials assist the RCMP and CSIS in the profiling of Canadians citizens who are Muslims.

Will Israeli officials assist their Canadian counterparts in dealing with individuals and/or organizations in Canada involved in supporting the rights of Palestinians. Will Israeli officials assist their Canadian counterparts in the domestic “war on terrorism”, which in recent years has led to numerous arbitrary detentions on trumped-up charges.

At the same time,  the Declaration establishes a de facto complicit relationship whereby Canadian officials (RCMP, etc) would contribute to assisting Israel in its domestic police and border activities (e.g. Lebanon, Syria, Gaza), not under the auspices of the United Nations, but directly in cooperation with Israeli police and security officials.

The timing of this agreement coincides with Dick Cheney’s visit to the Middle East. Is it in any way related to US-Israeli war plans directed against Iran, Syria and Lebanon?

The issue of “counter-terrorism” is not mentioned explicitly in the Declaration although the terms of reference suggest that the “war on terrorism” is an integral part of the agreement.

The Canada-Israel Public Security agreement has barely been mentioned by the Canadian media. It has not been the object of a debate in parliament. Why has this issue not been brought to the forefront of public debate?  Why has the parliamentary opposition remained mum on the subject?

The text of the Declaration states that “:{it] is not intended to create legally binding obligations, under either domestic or international law. Yet, at the outset, it violates several fundamental principles of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It should be forcefully challenged in Canada’s courts.

---

ANNEX

FULL TEXT of AGREEMENT

http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/media/nr/2008/nr20080323-1-eng.aspx

Public Safety Canada March 23, 2008

Declaration of Intent Between the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada and the Ministry of Public Security of the Government of the State of Israel

The Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada and the Ministry of Public Security of the Government of the State of Israel, declare their intent:

1. To prioritize and manage cooperation in the following areas within the responsibility of the Ministries:

1. Border management and security, including biometric applications;

2. Correctional services and prisons;

3. Crime prevention;

4. Critical infrastructure protection;

5. Emergency management;

6. Illegal immigration;

7. Law enforcement cooperation;

8. Money laundering;

9. Organized crime;

10. Terrorist financing; and

11. Trafficking in persons.

2. To achieve the following objectives:

1. Build on their shared commitment to facilitate and enhance cooperation to protect their respective countries’ population, assets and interests from common threats;

2. Integrate and coordinate of the identification, prioritization, and implementation of cooperative efforts between themselves in the area of public safety;

3. Manage the delivery of approved cooperative activities within the scope of this Declaration;

4. Establish of clear lines of communication and points of contact between themselves as part of an ongoing process of dialogue and partnership in pursuing common goals;

5. Share knowledge, experience, expertise, information, research, and best practices;

6. Identify and share public safety concerns on the basis of threats, risk assessments, priorities, vulnerabilities, and consequences; and

7. Facilitate technical exchange cooperation, including education, training, and exercises.

3. To establish a Management Committee that would:

1. Be comprised of the Deputy Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada, and the Director General of Public Security for the Government of the State of Israel;

2. Meet annually and as needed to develop and approve a program of work, consistent with the scope and objectives of this Declaration, for that upcoming year;

3. Evaluate and approve progress and results of activities carried out under this Declaration from the previous year;

4. Identify officials from the Ministry of Public Security of the Government of the State of Israel and from the department and agencies for which the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada is responsible, to carry out, within specific timeframes, each of the items in the approved program of work;

5. Be supported by a Senior Coordinator, namely, the Assistant Deputy Minister (Strategic Policy) for the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada, and the Deputy Director General for the Ministry of Public Security of the Government of the State of Israel; and

6. Have the Senior Coordinators ensure the delivery of the approved program of work and recommend new activities for the Committee’s approval.

4. To bear respectively the costs that they each incur for performing, managing, and administering its activities under this Declaration;

5. To ensure the appropriate protection of all information, knowledge, expertise, etc. that is exchanged between them against any unauthorized access, alteration, publication, or dissemination; and

6. To protect any information, knowledge, expertise, etc. that is exchanged between them against disclosure to any third party with the same degree of care as they each exercise with their own information, knowledge, expertise, etc. of a similar nature;

It is understood that:

This Declaration is not intended to duplicate or supersede any existing arrangements between any departments and/or agencies of the Government of Canada and the Government of Israel; and

This Declaration is not intended to create legally binding obligations, under either domestic or international law.

Signed in duplicate at Tel Aviv, this 23rd day of March, 2008, which corresponds to the 16th day of Adar b’5768, in the English, French, and Hebrew languages with all texts being equally valid.

FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS OF CANADA

FOR THE MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SECURITY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

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.

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© Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2008
The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8530

Statement before the Joint Economic Ctte – Hearing on “The Economic Outlook” by Ron Paul

Dandelion Salad

by Congressman Ron Paul
April 2, 2008

Mr. Chairman,

I have never been opposed to regulation, although my idea of regulation differs from that of many people in Washington. The free market and its forces of supply and demand are the most effective regulator of the private sector, and have never been known to fail absent government intervention. But piling more public sector regulation on the private sector will have a detrimental effect on the health of our financial system and sow the seeds for the next financial meltdown.

What we in Washington should be discussing is increased regulation and scrutiny of public sector regulatory and oversight agencies such as the Federal Reserve Board, the SEC, and others. The Federal Reserve’s actions got us into at least one depression in the last century, and have led to continued cyclical difficulties, including the current economic slowdown.

Back in the 1970s, government-caused inflation reached levels high enough that the Nixon administration decided to implement wage and price controls. Placing blame on greedy speculators, unscrupulous mortgage originators, or panicky investors, is a common reaction on the part of government.

The solution called for, despite the numerous documented failures of government regulation, is always more regulation, more government involvement in and control over the economy, and less free enterprise. Never is the blame placed squarely where it belongs, which is on the shoulders of legislators and regulators whose actions distort the market, prohibiting legitimate market activities and encouraging the development of labyrinthine and opaque financial schemes.

The latest regulatory plan from the Treasury Department, with the potential to turn the Federal Reserve into a super-regulator overseeing state-chartered banks, bank holding companies, and acting as a guarantor of market stability, is another in a long line of half-baked government responses to financial difficulty. Recession after recession has not impressed upon government leaders the reality that the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy activities are what lead to market instability.

The business cycle, contrary to what Secretary Paulson and others seem to believe, is not endemic to the free market. It is always and everywhere the result of monetary inflation and subsequent malinvestment, which when it is discovered must of necessity be liquidated in order for a true recovery to occur. Delaying the liquidation will only prolong the crisis and ensure that the next crisis will be more severe.

Every government intervention will result in a distortion of the market and a subsequent shock somewhere down the line in the future. It is about time that we recognize the failure of government intervention, get our hands out of the private sector, and for once allow the market to function.

***

Ron Paul Berates Bernanke at Joint Economic Committee

RadiantBlueLight

h/t: The Bivouac

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Paulson’s Fixit Plan for Wall Street – If It’s Not Dead on Arrival, Someone Should Shoot It Quick

Ron Paul on Glenn Beck 4.1.08 (video)

The Joke’s on Us, as Long as We Allow It by The Other Katherine Harris

Stadiums, Libraries and Taxpayers by Ralph Nader

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
April 2, 2008

There used to be a time when baseball parks were built by private investors—usually a wealthy local family—and the stands were full of what used to be called the “masses.”

There used to be a time when libraries were maintained and stocked as an integral part of the neighborhood and community. Not a single library closed in America due to the great economic depression of the nineteen thirties.
As illustrated so elaborately in Washington D.C. last week, the “gleaming new baseball stadium” temporarily named “Nationals Park” for the local major league baseball team, opened with $ 611 million dollars—mostly taxpayers money—going into its constructions. A Washington Post editorial crowed that the stadium was built “on time and within budget.” Why not? The cost came in at twice the estimate five years ago and its frantic construction pace reflected the priorities of the nation’s capital.

Consider one aspect of this “tale of two cities”—the depleted and disrepaired condition of the main Martin Luther King Library and its twenty six neighborhood branches. The annual budget last year was only $33 million. Four of the branches were shut down for remodeling or rebuilding three and a half years ago. The money has been appropriated. But with the sites being eyed by avaricious developers for “multi-use” complexes, among other reasons, the residents still do not have operating libraries. “On time and within budget” is not even on the radar.

Now I ask you—what is the most appropriate, profound, and respectful use of tax dollars? A ballpark built for mega-millionaire owners who could have raised their own capital? Or “gleaming new libraries” which edify a metropolis and play a critical role in educational, civic and urban renewal?

The question would answer itself were the decision made by local referendum. Polls continually showed that the disenfranchised people of the District of Columbia opposed a taxpayer-funded professional ballpark. The new mayor Adrian Fenty made this opposition a major issue in his improbable run for that office in 2006.

There is little doubt that the people would have preferred to use that $611 million (and other estimates are higher) for library renovations and acquisitions as well as neighborhood recreational facilities for participatory sports by all ages. Studies have shown that after school programs at libraries help children learn better and participatory sports—indoor and outdoor—keep physically exercised youngsters from getting into street trouble.

Nationals Park opened to great fanfare this past weekend, hailed by page after page of coverage in excruciating detail by the Washington Post. Would that this major newspaper devote such attention to the details of 27 library buildings, many of them crumbling and dysfunctional, in its home town.

When Post opinion writer Marc Fisher did devote two columns to the library’s plight in 2002, it helped spark our D.C. Library Renaissance Project, headed by Robin Diener. With library-minded citizens, this Project has brought more public attention, an increased budget and some improvement in the D.C. Library system, long considered to be in the bottom tier of library systems in major American cities.

When power is concentrated in the hands of the few, it’s small wonder that priorities are inverted to the level of the grotesque. Our national capital has been undergoing one of the biggest commercial building booms in its history. Cranes are busy everywhere, except for building the schools, libraries, clinics and neighborhood parks. Real estate developers and their customary allies—banks, mortgage firms, corporate law firms and trade associations—dominate. Not the people, who cannot even have the right to vote for two Senators and a Representative having full voting power in the Congress.

In its March 28, 2008 special, ten page section on Nationals Park, the Washington Post printed a full page “Letter to Nats Fans” by the team’s owners, the Lerner family. They profusely thanked the Mayor, the DC City Council, the corporate-welfare promoter called the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission, along with the construction firms, consultants, and workers.

Remarkably absent from their list of gratitude were the D.C. taxpayers who paid for the building that will make the Lerners and their partners even more wealthy. (These owners are in arbitration over their demand that the taxpayers even pay for the uniforms of the multi-millionaire ball players!)

The Lerners, in all decency, should name the stadium “Taxpayers Stadium.” Instead, they are shopping around the corporate groves for a company to pay to put its name on the building instead of its present “Nationals Park” designation.

Once again the boosteristic Washington Post headlined “Millions Ride on Nats’ Naming Rights.” It is the Lerners who get the millions, but Mark Lerner shared a worry, during an interview with the Post reporter while looking around the Park.

“It’s going to be a huge and expensive task between the signs on the roadways, and all the signs in here—all these neon signs. It’s going to cost a fortune—when the time comes,” he declared.

D.C. taxpayers are left to wonder who will pay for replacing these Nationals Park signs? They better check the fine print.

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Nader-Ralph

www.votenader.org/

Mosaic News – 4/1/08: World News from the Middle East

Dandelion Salad

Warning

.

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

linktv

For more: http://linktv.org/originalseries
“Maliki Stops Random Arrests,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Basra Suffers Humanitarian Crisis,” Al Arabiya TV, UAE
“Israel Continues Settlements’ Construction,” Dubai TV, UAE
“Ehud Barak Plans to Create New Party,” IBA TV, Israel
“Israel Can Turn Lebanon into a ‘Parking Lot’,” Abu Dhabi TV, UAE
“The Arab Summit was a Success,” Syria TV, Syria
“New Pakistani Cabinet Sworn In,” Al-Alam TV, Iran
“Did Life Change Since the Fall of the Taliban?,” Al Jazeera English, Qatar
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.

Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

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Sen Joe Biden: America Has No Credibility! (video)

Dandelion Salad

CSPANJUNKIEdotORG

April 02, 2008

C-SPAN Senate Iraq War Hearings

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Delusionary, Dancing Bush By Ray McGovern

Dandelion Salad

By Ray McGovern
04/01/03 “ICH”
Consortiumnews.com

Events of the last week offer a metaphorical glimpse at the delusion pervading President George W. Bush’s White House and other enclaves of Iraq supporters in Washington. Bush and the First Lady spent last Monday clowning with the Easter Bunny (White House counsel Fred Fielding having donned the costume).

At the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), war cheerleaders, dressed as academicians, were delivering a panegyric on how peaceful and stable the situation in Iraq had become. The “surge,” they announced, had nipped a civil war in the bud.

“The civil war is over,” AEI’s Fred Kagan, co-author of the surge, declared proudly. Brookings twins Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack led the cheering section.

Meanwhile, back in the southern Iraq city of Basra and elsewhere, full-blown civil war seemed about to explode. And in Baghdad, formerly protected folks were getting killed by mortar and rocket fire in what is customarily referred to as “the highly fortified Green Zone,” which has sequestered U.S. embassy and military officials as well as those of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government.

Two American officials and two Iraqi guards of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi died in the Green Zone attacks, which are continuing.

At ABC in New York, Good Morning America‘s Diane Sawyer was trying hard Thursday to understand it all. Shaking her head in disbelief after four straight days of attacks on the Green Zone, she asked how a round “can actually get inside the embassy; how fortified is that?” ABC national security correspondent Jonathan Karl let her down easy, explaining that artillery fire can actually get “over the walls … so it does happen: they do get inside the embassy compound.”

A teaching moment. Mortar and artillery fire can actually get “over the walls.” Quick, someone tell Gen. David Petraeus.

But Don’t Bother Bush

No need to drag the president away from the Easter Bunny with such nettlesome details. Interestingly, it was Sawyer herself who asked Bush, during an interview on Dec. 16, 2003, where he gets his news and how he reacts to criticism. The president’s answer was revealing:

“Why even put up with it when you can get the facts elsewhere? I’m a lucky man. I’ve got… it’s not just Condi and Andy [Andy Card, former chief of staff], it’s all kinds of people in my administration who are charged with different responsibilities, and they come in and say this is what’s happening, this isn’t what’s happening.”

By Thursday, someone did tell the president about Maliki’s big gamble in taking on militias loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr in the Basra area, the stiff resistance Iraqi government forces encountered, and the application of U.S. ground and air support.

And someone told the president to take the line that the outbreak of major violence was “a positive moment,” and so that’s what he said. No matter that the upsurge in hostilities threatened to demolish the myth of a “successful surge.” The White House spin machine could be counted on to take care of that. And, for good measure, the shelling of the Green Zone could be blamed on Iran. Indeed, Petraeus was quick to label the projectiles “Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets.”

Reality? We Make Our Own

It is comfortable to stay in denial, and President George W. Bush basks in it. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska saw that early on. In June 2005 he told U.S. News & World Report:

“The White House is completely disconnected from reality… it’s like they’re just making it up as they go along.”

Would that someone had summoned the courage to tell Bush of William F. Buckley Jr.’s observations about Iraq in National Review on Feb. 24, 2006:

“Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. … Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality … different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.”

A few months later, on June 13, 2006, Bush flew to Baghdad to size up Prime Minister Maliki. The president told American troops gathered in the “heavily fortified Green Zone” that he had come “to look Prime Minister Maliki in the eyes – to determine whether or not he is as dedicated to a free Iraq as you are. I believe he is.”

This, of course, was not the first display of the president’s propensity to draw significant impressions from eyeballing foreign leaders. Five years before, Bush had quickly taken the measure of Russia’s Vladimir Putin: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. … I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Souls can change, I suppose. But apparently not eyeballs. Maliki’s retinal scan apparently remains valid for at least two years, judging from the president’s automatic endorsement of Maliki’s major gamble last week in the Basra area. Bush has now ordered U.S. ground and air units to support Maliki’s effort. The general objective is to root out Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army units in the area, but the campaign faces formidable obstacles and does not appear to be going well.

Doesn’t Make a Lot of Sense? So?

In the past, Bush has let himself be convinced by Vice President Dick Cheney’s “analysis” that increased enemy attacks were signs of desperation – an indication that the enemy is in its “last throes,” if you will. And it seems clear that Cheney is still, as Col. Larry Wilkerson has put it, “whispering in Bush’s ear.”

That is scary. There were abundant signs during Cheney’s recent visit to the Middle East that, among other things, he continues to be receptive to Israeli importuning, as Israeli president Shimon Peres put it on March 23, to deal with what both referred to as “the Iranian threat” before Bush leaves office. Bush and Cheney seem to have given Israeli leaders the impression that the Bush administration has made a commitment to do precisely that.

Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to the president’s father and who was appointed chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board by the son, took the unusual step of going public with a startling remark in October 2004 that should give us all great concern. Just before he was sacked, the usually discreet Scowcroft told the Financial Times that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush “mesmerized.” Eyeballing again – this time in Bush’s direction, it appears.

And Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with masterful tutoring from the psychologists in the Israeli Mossad, has shown he can duplicate the spell. Who can forget watching Olmert’s fulsome praise of George W. Bush during his recent visit to Israel and how Bush seemed to turn to putty. Aw, shucks, he seemed to be saying, at least the Israelis respect me. And they are “mighty tough fellas.”

Attacking Iran

The point is that if Cheney and Olmert both whisper “attack Iran,” the president may give the order with the full expectation that – with Adm. William Fallon out of the way – a malleable secretary of defense and martinet generals and admirals left over from former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s reign will salute smartly and launch a much wider and more dangerous war in the Persian Gulf area. (After all, those rockets hitting the Green Zone are, according to Gen. Petraeus, “Iranian-provided, Iranian-made.”)

Why attack Iran? Israeli officials have not been reluctant to insist publicly that they want our impressionable president to take care of their Iran problem before he leaves office.

Last October, for example, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Sallai Meridor rang several changes on the theme of Iran’s “threat” to Israel. In warning dripping with chutzpah and unintended candor, the Israeli ambassador served notice that countering Iran’s nuclear ambitions will take a “united United States in this matter,” lest the Iranians conclude that, “come January ’09, they have it their own way.” Meridor stressed that “very little time” remained to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and the time frame he has in mind is clear.

Why attack Iran? Well, also, just because! Because, as Bush is fond of saying, he is commander in chief. And he considers the U.S. armed forces his plaything. And because he can. Never mind the consequences. When has anyone held George W. Bush accountable for consequences?

Worse still, Bush’s open-ended rhetorical commitment to defend Israel if attacked could spell big trouble. If Iran were to strike Israel, Bush has said, “We will defend our ally, no ifs, ands, or buts.” That is great rhetoric; trouble is that it surrenders the initiative to the Israelis, who have it within their power to provoke the Iranians.

And, Please, No Jimmy Baker

Bush chafes at any thought that those he considers his father’s cronies could rein him in. Bête noire number-one is the fella the president calls “Jimmy Baker.” Negotiate with Iran? Draw down troops? George W. Bush will instinctively do the opposite. If Baker says Guantanamo should be shut down (as he did, joining five other former secretaries of state last week), then keep it open.

But, most of all, enjoy the last 10 months of “unitary executive” power.

That is perhaps most disturbing of all. George W. Bush is tap-dancing through it all. And the worse things get, the more jocular he seems to become. Commenting on Bush’s recent manic behavior, Justin Frank, M.D., author of Bush on the Couch, suggests that Bush is “acting like a kid planning to make a real mess as only he knows how – given his comfort with sadism, his lack of shame or conscience, and his propensity to take delight in breaking things.”

Trouble is that as he tap dances the next few months away, he is systematically destroying the armed forces of the United States, and there does not seem to be anyone with the courage to try to stop him.

Eight months ago, Dr. Frank and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) collaborated on an article we called “Dangers of a Cornered Bush.” The president and his imperial court now have 10 more months to act out. The scenarios we explored in that memo are still worth pondering.

Let me close with a remark Seymour Hersh made last year, even though it may seem flippant and in no way conveys the enormity of the danger we face in the coming months:

“These guys are scary as hell… you can’t use the word ‘delusional,’ for it’s actually a medical term. Wacky. That’s a fair word.”

With so much destructive power at the disposal of George W. Bush, we need to be increasingly alert to signs that additional delusional policies are about to be executed.

This article appeared first on ConsortiumNews.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.

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Dangers of a Cornered George Bush By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity & Dr. Justin Frank

NATO Marches Eastward by Justin Raimondo

Dandelion Salad

by Justin Raimondo
antiwar.com
April 2, 2008

We’re on a dangerous collision course with Russia, no matter who wins the White House

Bush Pushes Ukraine’s Membership in NATO

AssociatedPress

The relentless march of NATO, decades after the implosion of the Soviet Union and the death knell of the Leninist project, is surely an object lesson in the real motivations and character of “democratic” imperialism, here and in Europe. The Communist enemy may be long gone, but NATO soldiers ever onward, and ever eastward. Suddenly we’re back in the heyday of the Cold War: once again we hear the War Party’s clarion call – “The Russians are coming!”

What they really mean to say however – as the video clip above makes visibly and audibly clear – is that the Americans are coming, along with the Brits, actively seeking to delegitimize and destabilize the government still dominated by Vladimir Putin. A new campaign for “regime change” is in the making, this time aimed at Moscow.

…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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Was Polonium-210 Being Smuggled for a Dirty Bomb? By Paul Craig Roberts

Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko/Ex-KBG Spy

Edmonds-Sibel

Empire or Humanity? By Howard Zinn

Dandelion Salad

By Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch
April 1, 2008

In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at home, the position of the globe’s “sole superpower” is visibly fraying. The country that was once proclaimed an “empire lite” has proven increasingly light-headed. The country once hailed as a power greater than that of imperial Rome or imperial Britain, a dominating force beyond anything ever seen on the planet, now can’t seem to make a move in its own interest that isn’t a disaster. The Iraq government’s recent offensive in Basra is but the latest example with — we can be sure — more to come.

In the meantime, the fate of that empire, lite or otherwise, is the subject of Howard Zinn today at Tomdispatch, and of a new addition to his famed People’s History of the United States. The new book represents a surprise breakthrough into cartoon format. It’s a rollicking graphic history, illustrated by cartoonist Mike Konopacki, that takes us from the Indian Wars to the Iraqi “frontier” (with some striking autobiographical asides from Zinn’s own life). It’s called A People’s History of American Empire. It’s a gem and it’s being published today.

In honor of publication day, Tomdispatch offers the equivalent of a little online extravaganza. Below, you can read Zinn’s essay on how he first learned about the American Empire; and you can also click here for two special treats. You can view an animated video, using some of the book’s art, with voiceover by none other than Viggo Mortensen. (Think of it as Lord of the Rings, Part IV: The American Mordor Chronicles.) Finally, if you look below the video on that same page, you’ll see an autobiographical section of the new book, focusing on Zinn’s early years. (Click on each illustration to view a single page of text.) Have fun. Tom

***

Empire or Humanity?

What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me About the American Empire

By Howard Zinn

With an occupying army waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with military bases and corporate bullying in every part of the world, there is hardly a question any more of the existence of an American Empire. Indeed, the once fervent denials have turned into a boastful, unashamed embrace of the idea.

However, the very idea that the United States was an empire did not occur to me until after I finished my work as a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force in the Second World War, and came home. Even as I began to have second thoughts about the purity of the “Good War,” even after being horrified by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even after rethinking my own bombing of towns in Europe, I still did not put all that together in the context of an American “Empire.”

I was conscious, like everyone, of the British Empire and the other imperial powers of Europe, but the United States was not seen in the same way. When, after the war, I went to college under the G.I. Bill of Rights and took courses in U.S. history, I usually found a chapter in the history texts called “The Age of Imperialism.” It invariably referred to the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the conquest of the Philippines that followed. It seemed that American imperialism lasted only a relatively few years. There was no overarching view of U.S. expansion that might lead to the idea of a more far-ranging empire — or period of “imperialism.”

I recall the classroom map (labeled “Western Expansion”) which presented the march across the continent as a natural, almost biological phenomenon. That huge acquisition of land called “The Louisiana Purchase” hinted at nothing but vacant land acquired. There was no sense that this territory had been occupied by hundreds of Indian tribes which would have to be annihilated or forced from their homes — what we now call “ethnic cleansing” — so that whites could settle the land, and later railroads could crisscross it, presaging “civilization” and its brutal discontents.

Neither the discussions of “Jacksonian democracy” in history courses, nor the popular book by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Jackson, told me about the “Trail of Tears,” the deadly forced march of “the five civilized tribes” westward from Georgia and Alabama across the Mississippi, leaving 4,000 dead in their wake. No treatment of the Civil War mentioned the Sand Creek massacre of hundreds of Indian villagers in Colorado just as “emancipation” was proclaimed for black people by Lincoln’s administration.

That classroom map also had a section to the south and west labeled “Mexican Cession.” This was a handy euphemism for the aggressive war against Mexico in 1846 in which the United States seized half of that country’s land, giving us California and the great Southwest. The term “Manifest Destiny,” used at that time, soon of course became more universal. On the eve of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Washington Post saw beyond Cuba: “We are face to face with a strange destiny. The taste of Empire is in the mouth of the people even as the taste of blood in the jungle.”

The violent march across the continent, and even the invasion of Cuba, appeared to be within a natural sphere of U.S. interest. After all, hadn’t the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 declared the Western Hemisphere to be under our protection? But with hardly a pause after Cuba came the invasion of the Philippines, halfway around the world. The word “imperialism” now seemed a fitting one for U.S. actions. Indeed, that long, cruel war — treated quickly and superficially in the history books — gave rise to an Anti-Imperialist League, in which William James and Mark Twain were leading figures. But this was not something I learned in university either.

The “Sole Superpower” Comes into View

Reading outside the classroom, however, I began to fit the pieces of history into a larger mosaic. What at first had seemed like a purely passive foreign policy in the decade leading up to the First World War now appeared as a succession of violent interventions: the seizure of the Panama Canal zone from Colombia, a naval bombardment of the Mexican coast, the dispatch of the Marines to almost every country in Central America, occupying armies sent to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. As the much-decorated General Smedley Butler, who participated in many of those interventions, wrote later: “I was an errand boy for Wall Street.”

At the very time I was learning this history — the years after World War II — the United States was becoming not just another imperial power, but the world’s leading superpower. Determined to maintain and expand its monopoly on nuclear weapons, it was taking over remote islands in the Pacific, forcing the inhabitants to leave, and turning the islands into deadly playgrounds for more atomic tests.

In his memoir, No Place to Hide, Dr. David Bradley, who monitored radiation in those tests, described what was left behind as the testing teams went home: “[R]adioactivity, contamination, the wrecked island of Bikini and its sad-eyed patient exiles.” The tests in the Pacific were followed, over the years, by more tests in the deserts of Utah and Nevada, more than a thousand tests in all.

When the war in Korea began in 1950, I was still studying history as a graduate student at Columbia University. Nothing in my classes prepared me to understand American policy in Asia. But I was reading I. F. Stone’s Weekly. Stone was among the very few journalists who questioned the official justification for sending an army to Korea. It seemed clear to me then that it was not the invasion of South Korea by the North that prompted U.S. intervention, but the desire of the United States to have a firm foothold on the continent of Asia, especially now that the Communists were in power in China.

Years later, as the covert intervention in Vietnam grew into a massive and brutal military operation, the imperial designs of the United States became yet clearer to me. In 1967, I wrote a little book called Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal. By that time I was heavily involved in the movement against the war.

When I read the hundreds of pages of the Pentagon Papers entrusted to me by Daniel Ellsberg, what jumped out at me were the secret memos from the National Security Council. Explaining the U.S. interest in Southeast Asia, they spoke bluntly of the country’s motives as a quest for “tin, rubber, oil.”

Neither the desertions of soldiers in the Mexican War, nor the draft riots of the Civil War, not the anti-imperialist groups at the turn of the century, nor the strong opposition to World War I — indeed no antiwar movement in the history of the nation reached the scale of the opposition to the war in Vietnam. At least part of that opposition rested on an understanding that more than Vietnam was at stake, that the brutal war in that tiny country was part of a grander imperial design.

Various interventions following the U.S. defeat in Vietnam seemed to reflect the desperate need of the still-reigning superpower — even after the fall of its powerful rival, the Soviet Union — to establish its dominance everywhere. Hence the invasion of Grenada in 1982, the bombing assault on Panama in 1989, the first Gulf war of 1991. Was George Bush Sr. heartsick over Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait, or was he using that event as an opportunity to move U.S. power firmly into the coveted oil region of the Middle East? Given the history of the United States, given its obsession with Middle Eastern oil dating from Franklin Roosevelt’s 1945 deal with King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia, and the CIA’s overthrow of the democratic Mossadeq government in Iran in 1953, it is not hard to decide that question.

Justifying Empire

The ruthless attacks of September 11th (as the official 9/11 Commission acknowledged) derived from fierce hatred of U.S. expansion in the Middle East and elsewhere. Even before that event, the Defense Department acknowledged, according to Chalmers Johnson’s book The Sorrows of Empire, the existence of more than 700 American military bases outside of the United States.

Since that date, with the initiation of a “war on terrorism,” many more bases have been established or expanded: in Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, the desert of Qatar, the Gulf of Oman, the Horn of Africa, and wherever else a compliant nation could be bribed or coerced.

When I was bombing cities in Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and France in the Second World War, the moral justification was so simple and clear as to be beyond discussion: We were saving the world from the evil of fascism. I was therefore startled to hear from a gunner on another crew — what we had in common was that we both read books — that he considered this “an imperialist war.” Both sides, he said, were motivated by ambitions of control and conquest. We argued without resolving the issue. Ironically, tragically, not long after our discussion, this fellow was shot down and killed on a mission.

In wars, there is always a difference between the motives of the soldiers and the motives of the political leaders who send them into battle. My motive, like that of so many, was innocent of imperial ambition. It was to help defeat fascism and create a more decent world, free of aggression, militarism, and racism.

The motive of the U.S. establishment, understood by the aerial gunner I knew, was of a different nature. It was described early in 1941 by Henry Luce, multi-millionaire owner of Time, Life, and Fortune magazines, as the coming of “The American Century.” The time had arrived, he said, for the United States “to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit, and by such means as we see fit.”

We can hardly ask for a more candid, blunter declaration of imperial design. It has been echoed in recent years by the intellectual handmaidens of the Bush administration, but with assurances that the motive of this “influence” is benign, that the “purposes” — whether in Luce’s formulation or more recent ones — are noble, that this is an “imperialism lite.” As George Bush said in his second inaugural address: “Spreading liberty around the world… is the calling of our time.” The New York Times called that speech “striking for its idealism.”

The American Empire has always been a bipartisan project — Democrats and Republicans have taken turns extending it, extolling it, justifying it. President Woodrow Wilson told graduates of the Naval Academy in 1914 (the year he bombarded Mexico) that the U.S. used “her navy and her army… as the instruments of civilization, not as the instruments of aggression.” And Bill Clinton, in 1992, told West Point graduates: “The values you learned here… will be able to spread throughout the country and throughout the world.”

For the people of the United States, and indeed for people all over the world, those claims sooner or later are revealed to be false. The rhetoric, often persuasive on first hearing, soon becomes overwhelmed by horrors that can no longer be concealed: the bloody corpses of Iraq, the torn limbs of American GIs, the millions of families driven from their homes — in the Middle East and in the Mississippi Delta.

Have not the justifications for empire, embedded in our culture, assaulting our good sense — that war is necessary for security, that expansion is fundamental to civilization — begun to lose their hold on our minds? Have we reached a point in history where we are ready to embrace a new way of living in the world, expanding not our military power, but our humanity?

Howard Zinn is the author of A People’s History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History of the United States, now being filmed for a major television documentary. His newest book is A People’s History of American Empire, the story of America in the world, told in comics form, with Mike Konopacki and Paul Buhle in the American Empire Project book series. An animated video adapted from this essay with visuals from the comic book and voiceover by Viggo Mortensen, as well as a section of the book on Zinn’s early life, can be viewed by clicking here. Zinn’s website is HowardZinn.org.

Copyright 2008 Howard Zinn
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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US Interventions: 1798 – Present (2005)

T(ypo)ERRORISM (video) + List of US Bombings since WWII

Dennis Kucinich: Tibet & China + 500 Tibetans protest in front of White House

Dandelion Salad

mayyoubekind

US Congressman Dennis Kucinich Condemns China on human rights.

Support free Tibet.

US Calls Dalai Lama a Man of Peace.

Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

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500 Tibetans protest in front of White House

by Yoshinari Kurose

The Daily Yomiuri
April 2, 2008

WASHINGTON–About 500 Tibetans gathered in front of the White House on Monday to protest the decision of U.S. President George W. Bush to attend the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics.

It was the first such gathering of Tibetans in Washington since the riots in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on March 14, and the subsequent violent crackdown by the Chinese government.

In addition to Tibetans living on the East Coast and in the southern parts of the United States, those at the meeting included Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, a U.S. lawmaker known as a human rights advocate, and several other members of Congress.

Kucinich called on Bush to reconsider his decision to attend the ceremony, saying Bush should wake up and protest against China, and that instead of going to Beijing, he would be better off going to Lhasa.

The protesters, demanding peace for Tibet, then marched to the Chinese Embassy, several kilometers northwest of the White House.

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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Kucinich-Dennis

Olbermann: Vox Pop Pox + FISA Fables + Bushed! + Worst + Wal-Mart

Dandelion Salad

Ryokibin

Apr. 1, 2008

Vox Pop Pox

Keith speaks with Howard Fineman.

Race Back in the Race: 217 Days until the 2008 Presidential Election — and the halfway mark between the last primary, three weeks ago, and the next one. And any illusion that that Pennsylvania primary is not about Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and race, has, late today been chased from the stage by Clinton advisor Harold Ickies and a Missouri Congressman named Emmanuel Cleaver. Our fifth story tonight begins with the admission by Mr. Ickies that Barack Obama’s former pastor is the topic when the Clinton Campaign tries to persuade super-delegates, and that the campaign would still pursue the nomination even if she entered the Convention behind in the popular vote.

FISA Fables

Keith speaks with Rachel Maddow.

Tears & Fears: It is one thing for the administration to continually claim that immunity for telecom giants is actually necessary to keep America safe…It is quite another for Attorney General Michael Mukasey to cite a call from a safe house in Afghanistan to the United States….A call before the attacks of September 11th…about those attacks…Implying that if the government had already shredded the Constitution then… the attacks might have been prevented. The claim is necessarily either false, or convicts the Bush Administration of complete negligence. And as importantly, it comes up in the context of our third story on the Countdown… indications that the White House may be willing to negotiate on the electronic surveillance bill.

Bushed!

Make it up as you go along-Gate

Protect the troops-Gate

Watch List-Gate

World’s Worst

Worse: CIA Director General Michael Hayden

Worser: Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson of Fixed News

Worst: Comedian Rush Limbaugh

VOTERSTHINKdotORG

WALMART CONCEDES TO THE SHANK FAMILY AND KEITH OLBERMANN

Jim Shank on WALMART’s decision to do the right thing

April 01, 2008
CNN Anderson Cooper 360

see

Dir C.I.A Gen Hayden on Torture & Iran’s nuclear program (videos)

Urban Scout Rant: Emerging Rewilding Culture

Dandelion Salad

urbanscout

Urban Scout rants about the emerging rewilding culture.

Added: January 04, 2008

Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

.

h/t: Colby

see

Civilization! (video)

Israel conducts War Games directed against Iran & Syria

Dandelion Salad

Global Research, April 1, 2008
World Tribune.com

Global Research Editor’s Note:

The following report suggests that Israel is on a war footing.

These war games are not defensive in nature as claimed by the Israeli government. These military exercises are part of the broader US-Israeli military agenda in relation to Iran and Syria.

***

Israel readies largest exercise ever to prepare for Iran-Syria missile war

TEL AVIV — Israel plans to conduct its largest exercise ever to set contingencies for massive missile attacks by Iran and Syria. The government has been preparing for a five-day exercise in April that would simulate conventional and nonconventional missile strikes from Iran, Lebanon and Syria. Officials said the exercise would test emergency response as well as evacuation of cities struck by enemy missiles.

The exercise, scheduled to begin on April 6, has been organized by National Emergency Authority. The authority was established in 2007 as part of recommendations in the aftermath of the Hizbullah war a year earlier, in which 4,500 rockets landed in Israel.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i has been responsible for the exercise, meant to integrate efforts by the military, police and emergency services. The exercise also envisioned missile and rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities by the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

The exercise would include a simulation conducted by the government. Officials said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would convene the Cabinet to order a response to the enemy strike.

Officials said the exercise could take place annually amid an assessment that Iran would assemble a nuclear bomb as early as 2009. In 2007, the military halted an effort to replace gas masks distributed in the late 1990s.

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