I watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech for the democratic party nomination on CNN and I must say that I am impressed. He lit John McCain's ass up like a Christmas tree. Barack Obama bitched slapped John McCain before the world.
He called into question McCain's temperament and judgment to be commander-in-chief and said that he said that he would chase bin Laden to the gates of hell, but will not go to the cave where he lives. What a kick to the nuts. Obama told the republicans that they need to "own up to their failures".
I was actually in awe because Obama actually did what Senator Kerry failed to do back in 2004 and that was strike back at the republican party negative attacks. He has the republicans scrambling and to be honest, I cannot see him losing this election.
However, with suspect voting machines and denying people their right to vote at the polls, I would not be surprised if John McCain gets in the white house. As for now, Obamania has the momentum and is going at full speed. Obama's speech was acidic and took no prisoners.
Wow, and this is coming from a person who don't trust Obama and believes he's more dangerous than a president McCain. Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing what the republicans will say and what dirty tactics they will be sinking down to. One major thing that I picked up from Obama's acceptance speech tonight is that if the republicans swiftboat him, he will strike back. He's definately no John Kerry. That old fart McCain probably exploded as Obama slapped him with the gloves.
Now that this Obama buzz is waning, I'll be going back to posting various articles from www.blackagendareport.com that talk about the real Barack Obama. Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader are better choices for president. Even Ron Paul and Dennis Kuccinich were better choices.
Is there going to be change? Will that change be for the better? We'll just have to wait and see.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Pakistani Democracy -- and Ours
[col. writ. 8/18/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
With news of the abrupt resignation of Pakistani general-cum-president, Pervez Musharraf, comes the stark realization that, in Islamabad, democracy means the power of the people over that of a dictator.
It also means that Pakistanis so believe in their Constitution that they were willing to confront a military dictator who violated it.
Musharraf, buffeted by the bellows of opposition, chose to switch, rather than fight. He knew that parliamentary opposition parties were intent on impeaching him for violation of the national constitution.
They protested in the streets from the elites to the poor, and Musharraf threw them into jails. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated under suspicious circumstances.
Some 7,000 miles away, another president violates the constitution at will, and breaks both statutory and international laws on torture, secret prisons, renditions, illegal detentions, wiretaps -- and on and on. But,of course, in this other democracy, the constitution is an historical artifact, held under special glass in a vacuum of a special gas, something to be worshipped from a distance, while violated daily.
And the national legislature? They favor false stability over all things -- and when the party in opposition recently gained the majority, they immediately announced impeachment was "off the table."
In a nation based on precedent, this means every president -- from now on- can feel free to violate the constitution at will. He - or she - can go to war on a whim - or lies. She may order her subordinates to torture, to kidnap, to break any law with impunity, and be sure that she is protected by precedent.
The political classes have decided that the only avenue left for the people is every four years or so, during an election where millionaires are the candidates. In the meantime, anything goes.
Right?
In the US, democracy is a word that we throw out to justify armed invasions and illegal violations of international law -- it has no intrinsic meaning.
In Pakistan, democracy is thriving and alive. It marched in the streets, it spoke in the courts, and it ran in the actions of Parliament, demanding impeachment.
In democracy, it seems, Americans have a great deal to learn.
--(c) '08 maj
With news of the abrupt resignation of Pakistani general-cum-president, Pervez Musharraf, comes the stark realization that, in Islamabad, democracy means the power of the people over that of a dictator.
It also means that Pakistanis so believe in their Constitution that they were willing to confront a military dictator who violated it.
Musharraf, buffeted by the bellows of opposition, chose to switch, rather than fight. He knew that parliamentary opposition parties were intent on impeaching him for violation of the national constitution.
They protested in the streets from the elites to the poor, and Musharraf threw them into jails. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated under suspicious circumstances.
Some 7,000 miles away, another president violates the constitution at will, and breaks both statutory and international laws on torture, secret prisons, renditions, illegal detentions, wiretaps -- and on and on. But,of course, in this other democracy, the constitution is an historical artifact, held under special glass in a vacuum of a special gas, something to be worshipped from a distance, while violated daily.
And the national legislature? They favor false stability over all things -- and when the party in opposition recently gained the majority, they immediately announced impeachment was "off the table."
In a nation based on precedent, this means every president -- from now on- can feel free to violate the constitution at will. He - or she - can go to war on a whim - or lies. She may order her subordinates to torture, to kidnap, to break any law with impunity, and be sure that she is protected by precedent.
The political classes have decided that the only avenue left for the people is every four years or so, during an election where millionaires are the candidates. In the meantime, anything goes.
Right?
In the US, democracy is a word that we throw out to justify armed invasions and illegal violations of international law -- it has no intrinsic meaning.
In Pakistan, democracy is thriving and alive. It marched in the streets, it spoke in the courts, and it ran in the actions of Parliament, demanding impeachment.
In democracy, it seems, Americans have a great deal to learn.
--(c) '08 maj
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
'68 -- Then and Now
[col. writ. 8/19/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Ona Move!
Thank you, Re-Create '68, for inviting me to join your efforts in Denver, to practice real democracy in the shadows of the Empire.
When I think of the DNC, I'm reminded of the words of the great French writer, Voltaire, who, when speaking of the Holy Roman Empire, quipped it "was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
The Democratic National Committee is neither democratic, nor national, nor a committee. If it were democratic why would it reject the voices of the people, who protest against its rule? If it were national, it wouldn't be driven by imperialist and globalist corporate interests. (Let us not forget William J. Clinton - perhaps the best known globalist (NAFTA?) in the country). And if it were truly a committee then anybody could join it - not just the political puppets of corporate power.
In 1968, a Democratic mayor named Daley unleashed brutal and vicious cops on people who dared protest against the Democratic Party's support for the atrocities in Vietnam. Those young people were allegedly protected under the free speech 'guarantees' of the Constitution. Instead, they got the crap beat out them.
It was imperial war then - and it's imperial war now, and only the names and faces have changed (some names - there's still a Mayor Daley in Chicago).
In fact, things are more repressive today than they were in '68, for then, anti-war activists and students could at least march through the streets. They got their asses whipped, but at least they marched. Today, city governments have built cages for protest. So much for respect for the constitution!
Now, as in LA 2000, you can get your ass whipped -- in a cage!
That is what American democracy looks like in 2008.
For another idea, look at what Pakistan did a few days ago. When the head-of-state violated the constitution, the people took to the streets. When he brought out the troops, they continued to protest. And they demanded impeachment!
There, democracy forced a dictator to resign!
There, democracy marches - ona move!
Here, democracy is in cages, hidden in the boondocks, while alleged representatives sell their souls to the highest corporate bidder, to further the interests of imperial war.
Here, politicians take the label of 'democrat', hire the cops to beat you, hire the media to slander you, so that they can send your children to war for oil pipelines, or to protect foreign despots and princes.
Here, democracy is on life-support, while paid-for politicians give mouth to mouth to imperialism, rampant globalization and the ravaging of the poor.
Our revered ancestor Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will." Your protests are in that great spirit of resistance.
We only need more!
Ona Move! Long Live John Africa!
I thank you all!
Mumia Abu-Jamal
(c) '08 maj
Ona Move!
Thank you, Re-Create '68, for inviting me to join your efforts in Denver, to practice real democracy in the shadows of the Empire.
When I think of the DNC, I'm reminded of the words of the great French writer, Voltaire, who, when speaking of the Holy Roman Empire, quipped it "was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
The Democratic National Committee is neither democratic, nor national, nor a committee. If it were democratic why would it reject the voices of the people, who protest against its rule? If it were national, it wouldn't be driven by imperialist and globalist corporate interests. (Let us not forget William J. Clinton - perhaps the best known globalist (NAFTA?) in the country). And if it were truly a committee then anybody could join it - not just the political puppets of corporate power.
In 1968, a Democratic mayor named Daley unleashed brutal and vicious cops on people who dared protest against the Democratic Party's support for the atrocities in Vietnam. Those young people were allegedly protected under the free speech 'guarantees' of the Constitution. Instead, they got the crap beat out them.
It was imperial war then - and it's imperial war now, and only the names and faces have changed (some names - there's still a Mayor Daley in Chicago).
In fact, things are more repressive today than they were in '68, for then, anti-war activists and students could at least march through the streets. They got their asses whipped, but at least they marched. Today, city governments have built cages for protest. So much for respect for the constitution!
Now, as in LA 2000, you can get your ass whipped -- in a cage!
That is what American democracy looks like in 2008.
For another idea, look at what Pakistan did a few days ago. When the head-of-state violated the constitution, the people took to the streets. When he brought out the troops, they continued to protest. And they demanded impeachment!
There, democracy forced a dictator to resign!
There, democracy marches - ona move!
Here, democracy is in cages, hidden in the boondocks, while alleged representatives sell their souls to the highest corporate bidder, to further the interests of imperial war.
Here, politicians take the label of 'democrat', hire the cops to beat you, hire the media to slander you, so that they can send your children to war for oil pipelines, or to protect foreign despots and princes.
Here, democracy is on life-support, while paid-for politicians give mouth to mouth to imperialism, rampant globalization and the ravaging of the poor.
Our revered ancestor Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will." Your protests are in that great spirit of resistance.
We only need more!
Ona Move! Long Live John Africa!
I thank you all!
Mumia Abu-Jamal
(c) '08 maj
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Foreign Policy of Fools
[col. writ. 8/16/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
It is impossible to look at recent US diplomacy without discovering that it is one based more on whim and fancy, than reason.
That's because much of what passes for diplomacy and foreign policy is driven by the market, which is ultimately, the only true bipartisan feature of the nation's politics.
The market buys politicians by the bushel, and when they are slick enough to gain office, they serve corporate interests first, second, and always.
When you think about it, isn't this a perversity of democracy?
In Raj Patel's brilliant new book, Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publ., 2008) we find a telling quotation from Robert Strauss, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, describing his relationship with the agricultural business giant, Archer Daniels Midland. Speaking of the company's former chairman, Strauss said, "Dwayne Andreas just owns me. But I mean that in a nice way" (pp.112-13).
If you visited the nation's capital, you'd doubtless find hundreds of men and women who could quite effortlessly replace ADM with Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton ad infinitum.
And it is precisely on behalf of such interests that foreign policy is made. It's not, and has never been, democracy. It's not freedom. It's none of these things. It's what's good for business.
This may seem a hard truth, but it is the truth.
The Iraq war was a pipe dream of the energy corporations, and opposed by more Americans than almost any war in generations. Who did the politicians listen to -- the people? -- or the corporations?
The impact on US foreign policy and democracy couldn't be more pronounced, as shown by incumbent President Bush's recent visit to the Middle East. America's closest allies essentially gave him the brush-off, and one US-supported leader, Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fuad Saniora, actually told Bush that he didn't have time to rap -- he had another, more important meeting -- with Hezbollah.
Indeed, several weeks later Lebanon's Parliament voted to give more power to Hezbollah.
That's one side-effect of US foreign policy; here's another.
Virtually every elected forum in Pakistan has voted for the impeachment of Pakistan's so-called President (and US ally) Pervez Musharraf, the de facto dictator who locked up his opponents, tossed lawyers in jail, and removed Supreme Court judges who didn't vote his way. Who has America supported - the dictator? -- or the People?
How's this supporting democracy?
Over the border in Afghanistan, the US supports what may be called a narcocracy -- or a narco-state.
The preferred US ally is a military junta (or dictatorship) which oppressed its people with violence and terror. We have nearly a century of examples to prove this all throughout Latin America.
What kind of foreign policy is this but an imperial one? One designed to make millions of enemies, instead of a few isolated 'friends?'
--(c) '08 maj
=========
[Source: "Hezbollah Gains Power in Lebanon," USA Today, 8/13/08, 5A; Mr. Patel's book, Stuffed & Starved, is available at:www.mhpbooks.com]
It is impossible to look at recent US diplomacy without discovering that it is one based more on whim and fancy, than reason.
That's because much of what passes for diplomacy and foreign policy is driven by the market, which is ultimately, the only true bipartisan feature of the nation's politics.
The market buys politicians by the bushel, and when they are slick enough to gain office, they serve corporate interests first, second, and always.
When you think about it, isn't this a perversity of democracy?
In Raj Patel's brilliant new book, Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publ., 2008) we find a telling quotation from Robert Strauss, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, describing his relationship with the agricultural business giant, Archer Daniels Midland. Speaking of the company's former chairman, Strauss said, "Dwayne Andreas just owns me. But I mean that in a nice way" (pp.112-13).
If you visited the nation's capital, you'd doubtless find hundreds of men and women who could quite effortlessly replace ADM with Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton ad infinitum.
And it is precisely on behalf of such interests that foreign policy is made. It's not, and has never been, democracy. It's not freedom. It's none of these things. It's what's good for business.
This may seem a hard truth, but it is the truth.
The Iraq war was a pipe dream of the energy corporations, and opposed by more Americans than almost any war in generations. Who did the politicians listen to -- the people? -- or the corporations?
The impact on US foreign policy and democracy couldn't be more pronounced, as shown by incumbent President Bush's recent visit to the Middle East. America's closest allies essentially gave him the brush-off, and one US-supported leader, Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fuad Saniora, actually told Bush that he didn't have time to rap -- he had another, more important meeting -- with Hezbollah.
Indeed, several weeks later Lebanon's Parliament voted to give more power to Hezbollah.
That's one side-effect of US foreign policy; here's another.
Virtually every elected forum in Pakistan has voted for the impeachment of Pakistan's so-called President (and US ally) Pervez Musharraf, the de facto dictator who locked up his opponents, tossed lawyers in jail, and removed Supreme Court judges who didn't vote his way. Who has America supported - the dictator? -- or the People?
How's this supporting democracy?
Over the border in Afghanistan, the US supports what may be called a narcocracy -- or a narco-state.
The preferred US ally is a military junta (or dictatorship) which oppressed its people with violence and terror. We have nearly a century of examples to prove this all throughout Latin America.
What kind of foreign policy is this but an imperial one? One designed to make millions of enemies, instead of a few isolated 'friends?'
--(c) '08 maj
=========
[Source: "Hezbollah Gains Power in Lebanon," USA Today, 8/13/08, 5A; Mr. Patel's book, Stuffed & Starved, is available at:www.mhpbooks.com]
A New Russia: A New Reality
[col. writ. 8/13/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The conflict between Russia and Georgia gives us some idea of things to come.
It shows, more than conflicts in Eastern Europe, the extra costs of the Iraqi Imperial adventure.
For America, though it would dearly love to intervene, hasn't the troops nor the material to engage the Russians on Georgia's behalf.
Instead, it is relegated to the sidelines while French President Nicolas Sarkozy mediates a cease fire between the two sides, while the US issues press releases.
The US media has, once again, echoed the administration line, which points Russians as the side which provoked the conflict. But most media can only do so if it ignores news reports from early August, which stated that Georgian troops attacked rebel fighters in South Ossetia, an impoverished mountainous region which won independence from Georgia after a bloody war in the early '90's.
The Russian incursion also shows that the country, now flush with cash, is a far cry from the debtor nation of a decade ago. This was a demonstration as much to Georgia as it was to the world, of a new Russia, aggressive, armed and willing to enter its former territories of the Soviet era.
Russian aggressiveness was made possible in part by its recent oil wealth. As a major oil power, it has profited from the rise in prices since the Iraq invasion, which sent prices soaring worldwide.
The actions of one state influences the fate and actions of other states.
And where was US outrage at military attacks on neighbors when Israel bombed Lebanon from coast to coast? When the Arab League begged the US to mediate peace between the two warring sides, America's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, said what people in Lebanon were seeing weren't bombs, death and destruction, but "the birth pangs of democracy."
But that was then -- this is now.
Russia saw an opportunity, provided a justification; and seized it.
Sound familiar?
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Schwirtz, Michael, "6 Die as Georgia Battles Rebel Group," Sun. New York Times, 8/3/08, p.12.]
The conflict between Russia and Georgia gives us some idea of things to come.
It shows, more than conflicts in Eastern Europe, the extra costs of the Iraqi Imperial adventure.
For America, though it would dearly love to intervene, hasn't the troops nor the material to engage the Russians on Georgia's behalf.
Instead, it is relegated to the sidelines while French President Nicolas Sarkozy mediates a cease fire between the two sides, while the US issues press releases.
The US media has, once again, echoed the administration line, which points Russians as the side which provoked the conflict. But most media can only do so if it ignores news reports from early August, which stated that Georgian troops attacked rebel fighters in South Ossetia, an impoverished mountainous region which won independence from Georgia after a bloody war in the early '90's.
The Russian incursion also shows that the country, now flush with cash, is a far cry from the debtor nation of a decade ago. This was a demonstration as much to Georgia as it was to the world, of a new Russia, aggressive, armed and willing to enter its former territories of the Soviet era.
Russian aggressiveness was made possible in part by its recent oil wealth. As a major oil power, it has profited from the rise in prices since the Iraq invasion, which sent prices soaring worldwide.
The actions of one state influences the fate and actions of other states.
And where was US outrage at military attacks on neighbors when Israel bombed Lebanon from coast to coast? When the Arab League begged the US to mediate peace between the two warring sides, America's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, said what people in Lebanon were seeing weren't bombs, death and destruction, but "the birth pangs of democracy."
But that was then -- this is now.
Russia saw an opportunity, provided a justification; and seized it.
Sound familiar?
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Schwirtz, Michael, "6 Die as Georgia Battles Rebel Group," Sun. New York Times, 8/3/08, p.12.]
Friday, August 22, 2008
Bush to Putin, “Get out now!” Putin to Bush, “Nyet!”
Information Clearing House
August 22, 2008
When Vladimir Putin heard President Bush demand that Russian troops “leave Georgia territory immediately”, he did what any sensible leader of a great nation would do; he yawned, scratched his belly and ambled over to the Kremlin frig to see if there were any left-overs from last night’s imperial banquet with the French dignitaries. He may have even smiled wistfully to himself as he peered over the Chicken Kiev and the Siberian cutlets, thinking, “Nyet, George; South Ossetia’s future is no longer negotiable”.
The illusion created by the western media, is that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are hanging on every word that emerges from the White House and gaging their strategy accordingly. Wrong. In fact, they’re not even listening; they can’t be bothered.
Whatever Bush says is irrelevant. Who cares? Not Putin, that’s for sure. Moscow is working out the details of its so-called “withdrawal plans” with the United Nations, not Washington. Bush isn’t even a part of the process; he has no say-so at all. None. His fulminations might add a few toxins to the jet stream, but other than that, they make no difference at all. Putin is in the driver’s seat now.
American’s are convinced that their activities in the world still matter. That’s because Americans are marinated in a culture of narcissism. In truth, “American exceptionalism” is just a misunderstanding of one’s own basic insignificance. The dust-up in South Ossetia will help dispel some of those illusions and clarify what little influence the US really has. Bush demagoguery and foot-stomping won’t change a thing; he’s wasting his time. This is Russia’ backyard. They’ll decide the outcome. Bush should stop his jabbering and mind his own business.
And, no; there won’t be a war with Russia; that’s all just more handwringing speculation from liberal pundits. It’s pure rubbish. The Bush administration will do what US policymakers always do when faced with a well-armed adversary; thrust their sabers into the air and rattle them ferociously while beating a hasty retreat. “Cut and run” is not a neocon bullet-point; it’s a summary of 60 years of foreign policy. In fact, the US and its good friend, Israel, sing from the same hymnal; they love blasting-away at defenseless women and children in Gaza or Falluja, but stear-clear of the guys with guns and rocket-launchers. Israel lost a mere 118 men in its 34 Day war with Hezbollah before they decided to pack it in and go home. Putin knows that; that’s why he’s been sending anti-aircraft weaponry to Iran hoping it will dissuade Israel from doing something foolish, like blowing up what’s left of the Middle East. And, it’s a good plan, too. Bush and Olmert have already shown that moral considerations don’t make a bit of difference; what matters is weapons and men who know how to use them.
Now that the Russian army is in South Ossetia, Bush, Cheney, Rice have been getting madder and more frustrated by the day. “Get out now or face the consequences”, they growl. But, Putin, with obvious disdain, just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Make me”.
Everyone in the world knows what’s going on. They can see that Putin has drawn a line in the sand and is openly challenging American credibility. This is the perfect opportunity for Bush to prove that he’s really the War President he says he is and not just a cardboard-cutout fraudster. He can show those smug Ruskis who’s really the boss. After all, he has Putin’s address, doesn’t he? He can order his war machine to turn north and head for Georgia, guns blazing. What’s stopping him?
South Ossetia is a tipping point; the culmination of 8 years of persistent violence and aggression. It is the moment of truth. Now we’ll see what the real ‘governing principle’ of the administration’s foreign policy is: is it the Bush Doctrine or the Wimp Doctrine? Many of the pundits and analysts are convinced that Bush and his clatter of gangsters will lead us into WW3, but it won’t happen. It’s just more hot air. There are more chickens in the Bush White House than there are at a KFC Poultry Farm. They’re only too eager to send some other mother’s sons to fight their wars, but they’d never risk losing anything themselves. Go ahead George; you’re the war president, President. Show the world those aren’t Lima beans hanging between your legs. Let’s see what you got?
Bush isn’t going to send American troops in South Ossetia. No way. This is a man who won’t peep his head out of the White House without 8,000 armed guards shadowing his every move and a small squadron of Apache Helicopters flying overhead. A guy like that isn’t about to take on the Russian army. Forget about it. Bush will do all his fighting from the safety of the Executive Media Center where he can duck behind the Presidential podium if a car backfires on Pennsylvania Ave. That’s his kind of fighting.
NOTES FROM LIBERATED SOUTH OSSETIA
Was the War in the Caucasus was the work of the Neocons?
Some people think so; and they could be right. Putin may have just been playing a role that was written in Washington. Does that sound crazy?
A few months ago, Putin rejected Bush’s unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence. Serbia is a traditional ally of Russia’s and Putin has no intention of allowing it to be split up by Washington. Bush’s proclamation was a violation of the UN Charter. No one has the right to simply ignore national sovereignty and carve up another country as they see fit. The UN never approved the initiative, but Bush went ahead anyway to satisfy the global ambitions of his neocon base.
So Putin did what any reasonable leader would do; he convened a meeting of his foreign policy team–many of them Soviet-era hardliners who warned him that the US could not be trusted–and decided on a plan to annex South Ossetia. (which he said he would do if Bush declared Kosovo independent) As it turns out, Israeli advisers in Georgia, wanted to strike a deal with Putin over the high-tech weapons systems that Russia had been selling to Iran. So (I believe) Putin made a deal with Israel to suspend arms-sales to Iran if Israel would trick the dim-witted Saakashvili into invading South Ossetia. That would set the stage for a Russian counter-attack and de facto annexation. Good plan, eh?
The question is; would friends of the neocons agree to pull the wool over Saakashvili’s eyes to stop Putin’s weapons shipments to Iran? No one knows for sure, but the degree of Russian preparedness before the counter-attack suggests that they had been tipped-off by people close to Saakashvili. Who would that be? Maybe someone who had something to gain, right?
Consider this excerpt from George Friedman’s article for Stratfor, “The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power”:
“The United States maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed, given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts have missed the possibility that the Russians had laid a trap, hoping for a Georgian invasion to justify its own counterattack?”
For the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more importantly, they do not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran, particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries, like Syria.” (George Friedman, “The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power”, Stratfor)
Friedman’s summary makes the “neocon theory” seem all the more plausible. A quid pro quo with Putin would have been the only way to guarantee that Iran would not get its hands on critical defensive weaponry. Certainly, the neocons must have taken that into consideration. All they had to do was hoodwink Saakashvili and Putin would do the rest. No problemo. The outcome, however, has created a few unintended consequences. The Bush administration’s chances of securing access to the oil-rich Caspian Basin or of gaining NATO membership for Georgia are now nil. America’s gambit in Central Asia just made an unexpected crash landing.
Of course, there’s no way to verify this theory without someone stepping forward and corroborating the details. But wherever there’s trouble, there’s bound to be a few neocon fingerprints somewhere.
You Call This Freedom?
New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 20, 2008
WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.
The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.
Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.
The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Congress overhauled the federal wiretapping law in July, for instance, and President Bush issued an executive order this month ratifying new roles for intelligence agencies. Other pending changes would also authorize greater sharing of intelligence information with the local police, a major push in the last seven years.
The Justice Department is already expecting criticism over the F.B.I. guidelines. In an effort to pre-empt critics, Mr. Mukasey gave a speech last week in Portland, Ore., describing the unfinished plan as an effort to “integrate more completely and harmonize the standards that apply to the F.B.I.’s activities.” Differing standards, he said, have caused confusion for field agents.
Mr. Mukasey emphasized that the F.B.I. would still need a “valid purpose” for an investigation, and that it could not be “simply based on somebody’s race, religion, or exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Rather than expanding government power, he said, “this document clarifies the rules by which the F.B.I. conducts its intelligence mission.”
In 2002, John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, allowed F.B.I. agents to visit public sites like mosques or monitor Web sites in the course of national security investigations. The next year, Mr. Bush issued guidelines allowing officials to use ethnicity or race in “narrow” circumstances to detect a terrorist threat.
The Democratic senators said the draft plan appeared to allow the F.B.I. to go even further in collecting information on Americans connected to “foreign intelligence” without any factual predicate. They also said there appeared to be few constraints on how the information would be shared with other agencies.
Michael German, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and a former F.B.I. agent, said the plan appeared to open the door still further to the use of data-mining profiles in tracking terrorism.
“This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to identify future bad guys,” he said. “But that has not been demonstrated to be true anywhere else.”
The Justice Department said Wednesday that in light of requests from members of Congress for more information, Mr. Mukasey would agree not to sign the new guidelines before a Sept. 17 Congressional hearing.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 20, 2008
WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.
The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.
Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.
The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Congress overhauled the federal wiretapping law in July, for instance, and President Bush issued an executive order this month ratifying new roles for intelligence agencies. Other pending changes would also authorize greater sharing of intelligence information with the local police, a major push in the last seven years.
The Justice Department is already expecting criticism over the F.B.I. guidelines. In an effort to pre-empt critics, Mr. Mukasey gave a speech last week in Portland, Ore., describing the unfinished plan as an effort to “integrate more completely and harmonize the standards that apply to the F.B.I.’s activities.” Differing standards, he said, have caused confusion for field agents.
Mr. Mukasey emphasized that the F.B.I. would still need a “valid purpose” for an investigation, and that it could not be “simply based on somebody’s race, religion, or exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Rather than expanding government power, he said, “this document clarifies the rules by which the F.B.I. conducts its intelligence mission.”
In 2002, John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, allowed F.B.I. agents to visit public sites like mosques or monitor Web sites in the course of national security investigations. The next year, Mr. Bush issued guidelines allowing officials to use ethnicity or race in “narrow” circumstances to detect a terrorist threat.
The Democratic senators said the draft plan appeared to allow the F.B.I. to go even further in collecting information on Americans connected to “foreign intelligence” without any factual predicate. They also said there appeared to be few constraints on how the information would be shared with other agencies.
Michael German, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and a former F.B.I. agent, said the plan appeared to open the door still further to the use of data-mining profiles in tracking terrorism.
“This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to identify future bad guys,” he said. “But that has not been demonstrated to be true anywhere else.”
The Justice Department said Wednesday that in light of requests from members of Congress for more information, Mr. Mukasey would agree not to sign the new guidelines before a Sept. 17 Congressional hearing.
Billionaires say US debts need attention
By JOSH FUNK, AP Business Writer
2 hours, 16 minutes ago
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two billionaires used the screening of a documentary in theaters across the United States on Thursday to urge the country to come to grips with its staggering debt load.
Warren Buffett and Pete Peterson were at the premiere of the movie "I.O.U.S.A." to add their views to the film's message: An economic disaster will befall the nation if the federal government's $53 trillion in debts continue to grow.
But Buffett said at a news conference before the movie's showing that he doesn't think the country's financial picture is quite as dire as the filmmakers portray.
"I do not regard our national debt as unduly alarming," said Buffett, who is chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and is listed by Forbes magazine as the world's richest man.
Buffett said he's confident the country will be able to address its debts and remain prosperous, but he doesn't want to see the share of the U.S. gross domestic product devoted to debt continue to grow.
"We've overcome things far worse than what is going on right now," Buffett said, who was interviewed in the movie but is not backing it financially.
The film that was shown Thursday in 358 theaters nationwide details the federal government's debts. The movie is backed by Peterson — who co-founded the Blackstone Group LP private equity firm and served as commerce secretary under President Nixon — and is part of his foundation's campaign to give the ballooning debt a central role in the presidential campaign.
"What concerns me more than anything is our savings rate," Peterson said.
Peterson said the meager U.S. rate of savings today means that roughly 70 percent of the nation's debts are being bought by foreign investors, and that could create geopolitical and economic problems for the country.
A panel discussion in Omaha followed the movie and was broadcast live to the other theaters, except on the West Coast where it was shown tape-delayed. Thursday's panel discussion featured Buffett, Peterson, AARP Chief Executive Bill Novelli and William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute.
Niskanen said the nation has to increase the retirement age in Social Security to at least 70 from the current range of 65 to 67. He also backed adding an income test to Medicare so those with more money pay a larger share of their health costs.
Peterson said he hopes the movie will help explain the problems debt can bring, so politicians will feel more pressure to act.
"The problem is getting the public understanding and the political will to do something about it," he said.
The "I.O.U.S.A." filmmakers followed former U.S. Comptroller David Walker as he toured the country, speaking to college groups, newspaper editorial boards and community groups about the nation's financial problems.
Most of the talks in the movie took place while Walker still ran the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government.
Walker and the movie cite GAO figures that show the U.S. government owed roughly $53 trillion more than it had at the end of the 2007 fiscal year, the most recent figure available.
About $11 trillion of that covers publicly traded government debt, the amount the federal government owes to employee pensions and the cost of environmental cleanup of federal land.
The rest of the $53 trillion figure accounts for projected shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security.
The cost of covering those obligations is expected to soar as more baby boomers become eligible for the two programs.
Buffett said he doesn't believe those programs that help provide for the elderly will consume the bulk of the government's resources in the future because America will be wealthier.
"The important thing to remember is that the pie gets larger over time, and there's more to divide up," Buffett said.
But Walker, who also took part in the panel discussion, said he disagrees with Buffett's assessment because the predictions the movie highlights about the country's debt already assume the nation will be wealthier.
Walker said he hopes both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president will acknowledge the staggering amount of debt the nation carries, and pledge to appoint a bipartisan coalition next year to look for solutions.
The film also featured interviews with prominent businessmen and officials from both major political parties, such as former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker and former U.S. Treasury secretaries Paul O'Neill and Robert Rubin.
Greenspan warned that the nation cannot continue consuming more than it produces indefinitely.
"Without savings, there is no future," Greenspan said in the movie.
Thursday's screenings and panel discussion will be followed by a 12-city theatrical run beginning Friday. Peterson says he wants to have the movie shown on TV next year.
___
On the Net:
I.O.U.S.A. movie: http://www.iousathemovie.com
2 hours, 16 minutes ago
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two billionaires used the screening of a documentary in theaters across the United States on Thursday to urge the country to come to grips with its staggering debt load.
Warren Buffett and Pete Peterson were at the premiere of the movie "I.O.U.S.A." to add their views to the film's message: An economic disaster will befall the nation if the federal government's $53 trillion in debts continue to grow.
But Buffett said at a news conference before the movie's showing that he doesn't think the country's financial picture is quite as dire as the filmmakers portray.
"I do not regard our national debt as unduly alarming," said Buffett, who is chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and is listed by Forbes magazine as the world's richest man.
Buffett said he's confident the country will be able to address its debts and remain prosperous, but he doesn't want to see the share of the U.S. gross domestic product devoted to debt continue to grow.
"We've overcome things far worse than what is going on right now," Buffett said, who was interviewed in the movie but is not backing it financially.
The film that was shown Thursday in 358 theaters nationwide details the federal government's debts. The movie is backed by Peterson — who co-founded the Blackstone Group LP private equity firm and served as commerce secretary under President Nixon — and is part of his foundation's campaign to give the ballooning debt a central role in the presidential campaign.
"What concerns me more than anything is our savings rate," Peterson said.
Peterson said the meager U.S. rate of savings today means that roughly 70 percent of the nation's debts are being bought by foreign investors, and that could create geopolitical and economic problems for the country.
A panel discussion in Omaha followed the movie and was broadcast live to the other theaters, except on the West Coast where it was shown tape-delayed. Thursday's panel discussion featured Buffett, Peterson, AARP Chief Executive Bill Novelli and William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute.
Niskanen said the nation has to increase the retirement age in Social Security to at least 70 from the current range of 65 to 67. He also backed adding an income test to Medicare so those with more money pay a larger share of their health costs.
Peterson said he hopes the movie will help explain the problems debt can bring, so politicians will feel more pressure to act.
"The problem is getting the public understanding and the political will to do something about it," he said.
The "I.O.U.S.A." filmmakers followed former U.S. Comptroller David Walker as he toured the country, speaking to college groups, newspaper editorial boards and community groups about the nation's financial problems.
Most of the talks in the movie took place while Walker still ran the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government.
Walker and the movie cite GAO figures that show the U.S. government owed roughly $53 trillion more than it had at the end of the 2007 fiscal year, the most recent figure available.
About $11 trillion of that covers publicly traded government debt, the amount the federal government owes to employee pensions and the cost of environmental cleanup of federal land.
The rest of the $53 trillion figure accounts for projected shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security.
The cost of covering those obligations is expected to soar as more baby boomers become eligible for the two programs.
Buffett said he doesn't believe those programs that help provide for the elderly will consume the bulk of the government's resources in the future because America will be wealthier.
"The important thing to remember is that the pie gets larger over time, and there's more to divide up," Buffett said.
But Walker, who also took part in the panel discussion, said he disagrees with Buffett's assessment because the predictions the movie highlights about the country's debt already assume the nation will be wealthier.
Walker said he hopes both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president will acknowledge the staggering amount of debt the nation carries, and pledge to appoint a bipartisan coalition next year to look for solutions.
The film also featured interviews with prominent businessmen and officials from both major political parties, such as former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker and former U.S. Treasury secretaries Paul O'Neill and Robert Rubin.
Greenspan warned that the nation cannot continue consuming more than it produces indefinitely.
"Without savings, there is no future," Greenspan said in the movie.
Thursday's screenings and panel discussion will be followed by a 12-city theatrical run beginning Friday. Peterson says he wants to have the movie shown on TV next year.
___
On the Net:
I.O.U.S.A. movie: http://www.iousathemovie.com
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Shame on America’s battlefields and bases
By FinalCall.com News Editorial
Updated Aug 19, 2008, 11:18 pm
(FinalCall.com) - When a soldier enlists in the American military, there is perhaps no worse news than to receive the awful notification that a loved one has died. The pain and sense of loss must be almost unbearable and bring a burden that can test the strongest parents and families.
But to have a loved one who was possibly raped and murdered at the hands of a fellow soldier or battlefield colleague must bring a sense of outrage and anger that accompanies the great sense of loss. With a battlefield death, there is a ceremony and maybe the consolation that the soldier died at the service of her country. With the prospect of murder, closure can only come with justice for the life of an innocent wrongly taken.
The parents of LaVena Johnson, who was 19-year-old when she died in Balad, Iraq, are struggling with the aftermath of her death and engaged in a battle to uncover the truth. Linda and John Johnson say their daughter was mentally strong and came from a close knit family.
They don’t buy the Army’s claim that Private First Class Johnson committed suicide. The couple maintains photos and other information, much obtained under duress from the Army; don’t bear witness to a suicide. For example, for the Army story to work, LaVena would had to have held a high-powered rifle in the wrong hand and shot herself in the head. Typically suicides with a rifle involve placing the weapon under the chin or in the mouth to achieve the desperate act.
The Johnson’s said their daughter couldn’t have shot herself as described by the Army and Army photos of her of dead body offer other evidence. John Johnson said his baby girl’s nose was broken, teeth were knocked out, scratches and bruises could be seen on her body and burns were found on the right side of her back and on her right hand. Her vaginal area was “tore all to hell,” according to her father. The parents are convinced that in an attempt to hide evidence of rape, lye was apparently poured into the young woman’s private parts.
LaVena’s mother never wanted her daughter to join the military and the child’s almost daily calls home from the base communications center didn’t erase her fears. “She would try to reassure me that being there right on the base that she would be ok, but she was in a place with a bunch of Satanic predators that wore the same uniform that she did,” said Linda Johnson, of her daughter.
The couple is awaiting a response to their call for a full investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into their daughter’s death. Rep. William Clay, a Black congressman from Missouri, raised questions about the death of LaVena Johnson during a nationally televised hearing and the Army responded with a CD containing photos from her death. Before Rep. Clay raised his voice, the Army had told the Johnson’s they weren’t entitled to the photos of their dead daughter.
Rep. Clay did the right thing by raising questions about this case and the Congressional Black Caucus should fully stand behind the call for an investigation. The Johnson family is pushing forward in its quest for truth with support from Color of Change, an activist internet organization that has created an on-line petition, and Black media outlets have allowed the couple from St. Louis to share their story.
If the couple’s charges about the death of their daughter are proven true, it would not be a surprise. A horrible reality faced by women in the military today is the specter of rape and assault—not from an enemy but from someone wearing the same uniform.
While Bush administration spokesmen, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush were proud to announce Iraqi women no longer had to endure rape rooms under one-time U.S. patron Saddam Hussein as part of victory cries in Iraq, little is heard from the White House when it comes to sexual assaults and gang rapes suffered by U.S. servicewomen.
Such incidents don’t make for very good public relations materials or help sell lies about a war that was built on deceit and fabrications from the beginning. One group counted nearly 1,000 instances of Bush administration lies told to buttress its desire to go to war in Iraq.
“As my favorite playwright, Bertina Brecht, said, ‘When the leaders talk of peace, the people know the war has already begun.’ When the suits talk now about rescuing women, sisters should know that mass rapes have already started. Go to the u.s. women closest to the scene of the crime—the tens of thousands of servicewomen in khaki and desert camouflage. There they are, with M-16s in hand, in combat boots, young and fit, been through the world’s most expensive patriarchal capitalist boot camp. Are they protecting Iraqi women and children from terrorism and rape? No way. Because they’re the first line of vics themselves. They’re who gets raped first in the warmup before GI rapists even get to the Iraqi women and children. How can they protect Iraqi women and children if they can’t protect themselves?” asked essayist Bruce Lee, who wrote an on-line piece titled “For Women Only: The Rape Movement in Iraq & Men’s Anti-War Politics.”
The Denver Post reported back in 2004 that U.S. servicewomen were being victimized. “No war comes without cost, but the cost should be born out of conflict with the enemy, and not because of egregious violations by some of our own troops,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the Armed Services personnel subcommittee, according to the New York Times.
The sexual abuses can start long before the women even officially don a military uniform. The Associated Press reported in 2006 that 100 high school girls were raped or sexually assaulted by military recruiters.
The tendency for the Bush administration and the military to lie and engage in cover-ups and the already documented horror stories of the brutal violations of women in the U.S. armed forces demand forceful action. The Congressional Black Caucus should take the lead and the Democratic Party should follow quickly behind to get to the truth of the death of LaVena Johnson. It is shameful that little protection seems to exist for women because they took a vow to protect their country.
Related link:
U.S. Army says suicide; Parents seek investigation (FCN, 08-19-2008)
FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright © 2008 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com.
Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.
Updated Aug 19, 2008, 11:18 pm
(FinalCall.com) - When a soldier enlists in the American military, there is perhaps no worse news than to receive the awful notification that a loved one has died. The pain and sense of loss must be almost unbearable and bring a burden that can test the strongest parents and families.
But to have a loved one who was possibly raped and murdered at the hands of a fellow soldier or battlefield colleague must bring a sense of outrage and anger that accompanies the great sense of loss. With a battlefield death, there is a ceremony and maybe the consolation that the soldier died at the service of her country. With the prospect of murder, closure can only come with justice for the life of an innocent wrongly taken.
The parents of LaVena Johnson, who was 19-year-old when she died in Balad, Iraq, are struggling with the aftermath of her death and engaged in a battle to uncover the truth. Linda and John Johnson say their daughter was mentally strong and came from a close knit family.
They don’t buy the Army’s claim that Private First Class Johnson committed suicide. The couple maintains photos and other information, much obtained under duress from the Army; don’t bear witness to a suicide. For example, for the Army story to work, LaVena would had to have held a high-powered rifle in the wrong hand and shot herself in the head. Typically suicides with a rifle involve placing the weapon under the chin or in the mouth to achieve the desperate act.
The Johnson’s said their daughter couldn’t have shot herself as described by the Army and Army photos of her of dead body offer other evidence. John Johnson said his baby girl’s nose was broken, teeth were knocked out, scratches and bruises could be seen on her body and burns were found on the right side of her back and on her right hand. Her vaginal area was “tore all to hell,” according to her father. The parents are convinced that in an attempt to hide evidence of rape, lye was apparently poured into the young woman’s private parts.
LaVena’s mother never wanted her daughter to join the military and the child’s almost daily calls home from the base communications center didn’t erase her fears. “She would try to reassure me that being there right on the base that she would be ok, but she was in a place with a bunch of Satanic predators that wore the same uniform that she did,” said Linda Johnson, of her daughter.
The couple is awaiting a response to their call for a full investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into their daughter’s death. Rep. William Clay, a Black congressman from Missouri, raised questions about the death of LaVena Johnson during a nationally televised hearing and the Army responded with a CD containing photos from her death. Before Rep. Clay raised his voice, the Army had told the Johnson’s they weren’t entitled to the photos of their dead daughter.
Rep. Clay did the right thing by raising questions about this case and the Congressional Black Caucus should fully stand behind the call for an investigation. The Johnson family is pushing forward in its quest for truth with support from Color of Change, an activist internet organization that has created an on-line petition, and Black media outlets have allowed the couple from St. Louis to share their story.
If the couple’s charges about the death of their daughter are proven true, it would not be a surprise. A horrible reality faced by women in the military today is the specter of rape and assault—not from an enemy but from someone wearing the same uniform.
While Bush administration spokesmen, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush were proud to announce Iraqi women no longer had to endure rape rooms under one-time U.S. patron Saddam Hussein as part of victory cries in Iraq, little is heard from the White House when it comes to sexual assaults and gang rapes suffered by U.S. servicewomen.
Such incidents don’t make for very good public relations materials or help sell lies about a war that was built on deceit and fabrications from the beginning. One group counted nearly 1,000 instances of Bush administration lies told to buttress its desire to go to war in Iraq.
“As my favorite playwright, Bertina Brecht, said, ‘When the leaders talk of peace, the people know the war has already begun.’ When the suits talk now about rescuing women, sisters should know that mass rapes have already started. Go to the u.s. women closest to the scene of the crime—the tens of thousands of servicewomen in khaki and desert camouflage. There they are, with M-16s in hand, in combat boots, young and fit, been through the world’s most expensive patriarchal capitalist boot camp. Are they protecting Iraqi women and children from terrorism and rape? No way. Because they’re the first line of vics themselves. They’re who gets raped first in the warmup before GI rapists even get to the Iraqi women and children. How can they protect Iraqi women and children if they can’t protect themselves?” asked essayist Bruce Lee, who wrote an on-line piece titled “For Women Only: The Rape Movement in Iraq & Men’s Anti-War Politics.”
The Denver Post reported back in 2004 that U.S. servicewomen were being victimized. “No war comes without cost, but the cost should be born out of conflict with the enemy, and not because of egregious violations by some of our own troops,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the Armed Services personnel subcommittee, according to the New York Times.
The sexual abuses can start long before the women even officially don a military uniform. The Associated Press reported in 2006 that 100 high school girls were raped or sexually assaulted by military recruiters.
The tendency for the Bush administration and the military to lie and engage in cover-ups and the already documented horror stories of the brutal violations of women in the U.S. armed forces demand forceful action. The Congressional Black Caucus should take the lead and the Democratic Party should follow quickly behind to get to the truth of the death of LaVena Johnson. It is shameful that little protection seems to exist for women because they took a vow to protect their country.
Related link:
U.S. Army says suicide; Parents seek investigation (FCN, 08-19-2008)
FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright © 2008 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com.
Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.
The United States Draft: Will you answer the call?
By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Updated Aug 20, 2008, 04:13 pm
[Editor’s note: The following excerpt is taken from a message delivered June 20, 2004 by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at Muhammad’s Mosque No. 11 in Boston, Massachusetts.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
The United States of America is in terrible shape right now. The country is teetering on the brink of an economic collapse, but the government makes you think that you really have a lot of money. But the money is not supported by anything of value. The gross national product of the country supports the dollar bills that you have in your pocket. But one day, in the twinkling of an eye, the economy will just collapse. The wise of the country know that this is coming and they’re trying to hedge against it. But the poor Blacks and Hispanics, and even poor Whites, they don’t really know what is going on with their country.
The President of the United States, in his misadventure in Iraq, is raping the treasury of a government that already has a half a trillion dollar deficit. Then, he spends $100 billion to send troops into a country that could, in no way, threaten the United States of America.
I visited Iraq, along with my wife and members of my staff, on at least two or three occasions. The last time I was there was July 2002 (on a peace mission), about eight months before the war. When I got off the plane in Iraq, they received me like the Boston police received me here during this visit. They blocked the highways and brought me to my hotel. A female reporter asked me, “Why are you here?” I said, “I’m here to try to stop a war.” I knew that America was going to attack Iraq, and I was going to try to impress upon Saddam Hussein that he should let the inspectors into his country, because he did not have anything to hide. He should not give America a stick, because they really were looking for a pretext for war.
Years ago, when I was growing up in Roxbury, we never had guns in the streets. We would buy a switchblade or something like that, but we never had guns. Now, most of you young men think that a gun represents power. So, they bring guns into the community and you think the gun is there to protect you from your brother. But the gun is giving the enemy the pretext for the annihilation of a people.
In Gaza on the West Bank in Palestine, or Israel, we see on television, young men throwing stones at tanks—but some of them have AK-47s, like some of you. But the Israelis are not thinking about coming on the ground, fighting AK-47 to AK-47. No, they come in with tanks and helicopter gunships, shooting rockets down on unarmed people. You may say this is terrible. Of course it is, but that’s what you see happening over there. You never would think that you are going to see that happening in Roxbury, would you? Or in Harlem or on the South side and West side of Chicago or in Watts in Los Angeles? But you will, in just a few days from now.
Next year, the military is going to impose the draft. You beautiful, young men, you don’t have a job and you barely graduated from high school, if you did. So, they are going to give you an offer next year that you can’t refuse. In fact, when you turn 18 now, they are at the high schools telling you what a future you would have by joining the armed forces of the United States of America.
You don’t have any future in that, brother—they don’t have a future. Our young women are facing the same now, because they are recruiting you to the armed forces. What are you going 9,000 miles away to fight for? Who are you fighting? What have those people done to you? They call them insurgents, but the military is in that man’s house as an occupier. What are you doing there? If they rise up to kill you for being there, what are you going to say? Are you going to say, “That’s the enemy,” when you are in their house? That’s like a robber breaking into your house, taking over your house, and holding your wife and your children under arms. You are on the top floor, you hear it going on downstairs, get a pistol, run down and shoot the people that have your wife and your children—and the media calls you an insurgent who rose against a legitimate occupier of your house. Does that make sense? It’s so insane that one must wonder who could be the architect of such a policy.
So next year, you will have to decide: Am I going to go into the military because they called me or should I stand my ground? If you never thought of standing your ground against the president of the United States and an invitation to join the military, you might as well start entertaining that thought. Look at how strong you young men are, how powerful you are in beating each other up, but what we want to do is give you some legs that allow you to stand, so when the president writes in a draft letter, “Greetings. You can report to such and such place for induction into the military,” you will say, “Not me.”
You may say, “I’m an American citizen.” Who said so? When did you become a citizen? You say, “The Emancipation Proclamation freed me and I’m a citizen.” Really? Well, if you are a citizen, why don’t you have the rights and the privileges of a U.S. citizen? How can a foreigner named Schwarzenegger, a man who came here 20 years ago, become the governor of the state of California, but you have been here 400 years and he has rights that you don’t have, and you built the country.
I know that you want to be a citizen. Bless your heart. You are just like the Bible’s Prodigal Son who left his father’s house and went into a strange country to try to join himself on to be a citizen in that strange country. That’s us. He squandered everything that he had and we have lost everything here that we had when we were Africans. We don’t have our own mind anymore. We are very sick people who need a doctor to cure us from the madness imposed on us by our former slave masters and their children. You are a made people.
What do I mean “made”? You are the creation of Allah (God), but you are the make of the White man.
Allah (God) makes man; the White man makes ni---s, boys and Colored people. So, you and I are the reflection of his own sickness. He hates Black, so he taught you to do what? He’s a liar and a thief, that’s what the Bible says. So, what did he make us? He made us the worst of himself and when he looks at us, he’s looking at a mirror image. When you are ugly and you look at a mirror, you want to break it. So, he sees the mirror image of his own madness in you. So, the police come and they don’t have any love for you. It’s sad that you and I are in this condition after so many great ones have come among us to teach us.
Next year, when the draft comes, Brother Minister Don, your young sons and mine, and grandsons and daughters, they’ll be asking them to join. Muhammad Ali was the heavyweight champion of the world and a Muslim. In the ’50s, Ali said, “Them Viet Cong never called me no ni---r.” Think about that. “Why should I go over there and fight some poor rice farmers? They haven’t done anything to me. Why are you sending me there?” Ali said, “No, I’m not going.”
They stripped him of his championship, yet the brother stood up. He would not fight for America in an unjust war, but he later became the people’s champ. People loved him all over the world because he made a righteous stand. Eventually, the Supreme Court upheld his right to be a conscientious objector. So, if Muhammad Ali, as a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was legitimately a conscientious objector, then every Black man and woman who follows the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, according to the Supreme Court’s decision, were conscientious objectors. So, we are not going to answer the call of the draft. Now, I would advise you to join the Nation of Islam.
When it gets hot in the military, come on home, brother. Say, “No, I’m not going to fight for you.” But, before you do that, you have to stop fighting and killing one another, because if you can kill one another, and that’s your own brother and sister that suffered right along with you, then what right do you have to tell the President that you won’t go to fight Iraqis or Syrians, when you are in the ’hood killing your own brother because he does not wear the right color or did not give the right hand signal?
So, you’ve got to clean that behavior up now, in order to justify saying “I’m a conscientious objector.” How are you going to have an AK-47 in your house, saying “any ni---r come up in here, he’s going to get it.” No, you have to show the world that you are a people of peace.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was such a wise and masterful teacher. He took away from us all weapons. He forbade us to carry weapons, or even have them in our homes. We didn’t need any weapons to protect us. Usually, when you’ve got a weapon in your house, and you get angry with your wife or your husband, one of you will end up dead, or both of you. That’s who’s in prison today, victims of domestic violence.
But you do not need weapons if you have The God. We, in the Nation of Islam, have never relied on weapons. When we were attacked by those who had weapons, Allah (God) delivered their weapons into our hands. You don’t need them. You have to show the world that you are a people of peace, and you can’t wait until next year to do it. You need to start doing that right now. Clean up your act.
FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright © 2008 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com. Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.
Updated Aug 20, 2008, 04:13 pm
[Editor’s note: The following excerpt is taken from a message delivered June 20, 2004 by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at Muhammad’s Mosque No. 11 in Boston, Massachusetts.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
The United States of America is in terrible shape right now. The country is teetering on the brink of an economic collapse, but the government makes you think that you really have a lot of money. But the money is not supported by anything of value. The gross national product of the country supports the dollar bills that you have in your pocket. But one day, in the twinkling of an eye, the economy will just collapse. The wise of the country know that this is coming and they’re trying to hedge against it. But the poor Blacks and Hispanics, and even poor Whites, they don’t really know what is going on with their country.
The President of the United States, in his misadventure in Iraq, is raping the treasury of a government that already has a half a trillion dollar deficit. Then, he spends $100 billion to send troops into a country that could, in no way, threaten the United States of America.
I visited Iraq, along with my wife and members of my staff, on at least two or three occasions. The last time I was there was July 2002 (on a peace mission), about eight months before the war. When I got off the plane in Iraq, they received me like the Boston police received me here during this visit. They blocked the highways and brought me to my hotel. A female reporter asked me, “Why are you here?” I said, “I’m here to try to stop a war.” I knew that America was going to attack Iraq, and I was going to try to impress upon Saddam Hussein that he should let the inspectors into his country, because he did not have anything to hide. He should not give America a stick, because they really were looking for a pretext for war.
Years ago, when I was growing up in Roxbury, we never had guns in the streets. We would buy a switchblade or something like that, but we never had guns. Now, most of you young men think that a gun represents power. So, they bring guns into the community and you think the gun is there to protect you from your brother. But the gun is giving the enemy the pretext for the annihilation of a people.
In Gaza on the West Bank in Palestine, or Israel, we see on television, young men throwing stones at tanks—but some of them have AK-47s, like some of you. But the Israelis are not thinking about coming on the ground, fighting AK-47 to AK-47. No, they come in with tanks and helicopter gunships, shooting rockets down on unarmed people. You may say this is terrible. Of course it is, but that’s what you see happening over there. You never would think that you are going to see that happening in Roxbury, would you? Or in Harlem or on the South side and West side of Chicago or in Watts in Los Angeles? But you will, in just a few days from now.
Next year, the military is going to impose the draft. You beautiful, young men, you don’t have a job and you barely graduated from high school, if you did. So, they are going to give you an offer next year that you can’t refuse. In fact, when you turn 18 now, they are at the high schools telling you what a future you would have by joining the armed forces of the United States of America.
You don’t have any future in that, brother—they don’t have a future. Our young women are facing the same now, because they are recruiting you to the armed forces. What are you going 9,000 miles away to fight for? Who are you fighting? What have those people done to you? They call them insurgents, but the military is in that man’s house as an occupier. What are you doing there? If they rise up to kill you for being there, what are you going to say? Are you going to say, “That’s the enemy,” when you are in their house? That’s like a robber breaking into your house, taking over your house, and holding your wife and your children under arms. You are on the top floor, you hear it going on downstairs, get a pistol, run down and shoot the people that have your wife and your children—and the media calls you an insurgent who rose against a legitimate occupier of your house. Does that make sense? It’s so insane that one must wonder who could be the architect of such a policy.
So next year, you will have to decide: Am I going to go into the military because they called me or should I stand my ground? If you never thought of standing your ground against the president of the United States and an invitation to join the military, you might as well start entertaining that thought. Look at how strong you young men are, how powerful you are in beating each other up, but what we want to do is give you some legs that allow you to stand, so when the president writes in a draft letter, “Greetings. You can report to such and such place for induction into the military,” you will say, “Not me.”
You may say, “I’m an American citizen.” Who said so? When did you become a citizen? You say, “The Emancipation Proclamation freed me and I’m a citizen.” Really? Well, if you are a citizen, why don’t you have the rights and the privileges of a U.S. citizen? How can a foreigner named Schwarzenegger, a man who came here 20 years ago, become the governor of the state of California, but you have been here 400 years and he has rights that you don’t have, and you built the country.
I know that you want to be a citizen. Bless your heart. You are just like the Bible’s Prodigal Son who left his father’s house and went into a strange country to try to join himself on to be a citizen in that strange country. That’s us. He squandered everything that he had and we have lost everything here that we had when we were Africans. We don’t have our own mind anymore. We are very sick people who need a doctor to cure us from the madness imposed on us by our former slave masters and their children. You are a made people.
What do I mean “made”? You are the creation of Allah (God), but you are the make of the White man.
Allah (God) makes man; the White man makes ni---s, boys and Colored people. So, you and I are the reflection of his own sickness. He hates Black, so he taught you to do what? He’s a liar and a thief, that’s what the Bible says. So, what did he make us? He made us the worst of himself and when he looks at us, he’s looking at a mirror image. When you are ugly and you look at a mirror, you want to break it. So, he sees the mirror image of his own madness in you. So, the police come and they don’t have any love for you. It’s sad that you and I are in this condition after so many great ones have come among us to teach us.
Next year, when the draft comes, Brother Minister Don, your young sons and mine, and grandsons and daughters, they’ll be asking them to join. Muhammad Ali was the heavyweight champion of the world and a Muslim. In the ’50s, Ali said, “Them Viet Cong never called me no ni---r.” Think about that. “Why should I go over there and fight some poor rice farmers? They haven’t done anything to me. Why are you sending me there?” Ali said, “No, I’m not going.”
They stripped him of his championship, yet the brother stood up. He would not fight for America in an unjust war, but he later became the people’s champ. People loved him all over the world because he made a righteous stand. Eventually, the Supreme Court upheld his right to be a conscientious objector. So, if Muhammad Ali, as a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was legitimately a conscientious objector, then every Black man and woman who follows the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, according to the Supreme Court’s decision, were conscientious objectors. So, we are not going to answer the call of the draft. Now, I would advise you to join the Nation of Islam.
When it gets hot in the military, come on home, brother. Say, “No, I’m not going to fight for you.” But, before you do that, you have to stop fighting and killing one another, because if you can kill one another, and that’s your own brother and sister that suffered right along with you, then what right do you have to tell the President that you won’t go to fight Iraqis or Syrians, when you are in the ’hood killing your own brother because he does not wear the right color or did not give the right hand signal?
So, you’ve got to clean that behavior up now, in order to justify saying “I’m a conscientious objector.” How are you going to have an AK-47 in your house, saying “any ni---r come up in here, he’s going to get it.” No, you have to show the world that you are a people of peace.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was such a wise and masterful teacher. He took away from us all weapons. He forbade us to carry weapons, or even have them in our homes. We didn’t need any weapons to protect us. Usually, when you’ve got a weapon in your house, and you get angry with your wife or your husband, one of you will end up dead, or both of you. That’s who’s in prison today, victims of domestic violence.
But you do not need weapons if you have The God. We, in the Nation of Islam, have never relied on weapons. When we were attacked by those who had weapons, Allah (God) delivered their weapons into our hands. You don’t need them. You have to show the world that you are a people of peace, and you can’t wait until next year to do it. You need to start doing that right now. Clean up your act.
FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright © 2008 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com. Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.
Denver 2008: Hope Is For The Weak
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
You know you're addicted to a drug when you need it just to feel normal. By that standard, African Americans have been addicted to hope for a long, long time. Nothing wrong with that. As Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, from whom the title of this piece is borrowed points out, hope is seductive, it's attractive, and when times are hard, hope is absolutely necessary. We're all quite naturally attracted to those full of hope, while we pity or shun those without it. But if hope is much like a drug, it's also a lot like capital. Hope can be invested, wisely based on facts and a sober analysis of the forces in play, or it can be squandered foolishly, based on wishful thinking and outright lies. The air in Denver the last week of August will be full of hope. And full of lies.
Since hope is a limited thing, and sometimes all that we have, Jensen suggests that we ought to be realistic and tough-minded about where we invest it and how. The nomination of the Democratic party's first black candidate is an historic occasion, to be sure. But what is there in Denver to invest our hopes in?
The political conventions bill themselves as glittering spectacles of participatory democracy. But those days, if they ever existed, are long gone. Today's political conventions are week-long staged-for-TV marketing spectacles, in which the permanent party of corporations and wealthy individuals publicly crown their champions, frame the issues and present the package to voters.
True to the core marketing principal of avoiding fact-based arguments and comparisons, striving instead to establish powerful, reason-proof emotional connections to their brands, convention planners often choose their dates to coincide with “historical” themes. Thus the 2004 Republican convention was held in New York City on the anniversary of 9-11, to facilitate the kind of fearmongering warlike campaign in which Republicans excel. And this year's Democratic extravaganza is scheduled to conclude with the acceptance speech of Senator Obama at Mile High Stadium on the 45th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and King's “I Have A Dream” speech, a tenuous connection which we confidently predict will be recycled and stressed endlessly.
No less an historical authority than Oprah Winfrey herself has declared Obama's career to be “the fulfillment of Dr. King's Dream”, as if the 20th century Freedom Movement was exclusively about overcoming prejudice without challenging America's empire overseas or her inequalities at home. As usual, Oprah has the establishment message dead-on. For more than forty years, the media have taught and sold an eviscerated history of the Freedom Movement which they have branded as “Dr. King's Dream.” According to the authorities, “Dr. King's Dream” was about individual worth, about judging people by “the content of their character” and affording an equal opportunity for all to rise.
Even though Dr. King died supporting a black union in the midst of a militant citywide strike, the media-endorsed versions of his life, of the Freedom Movement, and of “the Dream” (probably trademarked) which the election of Barack Obama will supposedly “fulfill” are never about collective action, or democracy in workplaces. They never mention the right – won and held by people in most other nations around the world --- to organize and strike without being fired or penalized. Despite Dr. King's prescient warnings that if we did not swiftly end the war in Vietnam and turn our energies to peace abroad and justice at home we would be marching against US wars here, there and everywhere, we will be told in Denver, on the 45th anniversary of “I Have A Dream” that his legacy is being satisfied by the elevation of a black candidate who celebrates empire, who endorses the so-called worldwide “war on terror”, who has assured us he will not end the war in Iraq while he, co-signs the Bush threats to Iran and escalates the conflict in Afghanistan, perhaps extending it to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Despite his African heritage, Obama shows no signs of ending, or even publicly acknowledging the fact that the US has furnished arms and military aid to more than 50 of 54 African nations, making it the most war-torn continent on earth. Thanks in large part to US policies, AK-47s are manufactured nowhere in Africa, but are cheaper there than anywhere else on earth.
The crowning of Barack Obama in Denver, and the linking of his brand to King's “I Have A Dream” speech on its 45th anniversary are the cynical triumphs of this limited, truncated version of anti-racist struggle. The hollowness for ordinary people, and the usefulness, for elites, of anti-racist struggle divorced from any challenges to empire and inequality could have been, and were seen clearly a long way off. But not by anybody on our side.
Vijay Prashad reminds us that when the University of Michigan was litigating its affirmative action lawsuit in the late 90s, DuPont, Steelcase, Abbott Laboratories, Intel, Microsoft, Texaco, Lucent and a raft of other Fortune 500 companies filed a brief in support of affirmative action.
Racial and ethnic diversity in institutions of higher education is vital to amici's efforts to hire and maintain a diverse workforce, and to employ individuals of all backgrounds who have been educated in a diverse environment. Such a talented workforce is important to amici's continued success in the global marketplace.
In other words, without highly placed minority executives they could not hope to penetrate minority markets, or influence the politics of those communities to corporate advantage. The Pentagon filed similar objections in support of affirmative action. With more than 800 military bases around the world in nearly a hundred countries, they argued, the US military also needed a critical number of minority officers to influence the politics of minority communities, and to effectively make war in Africa, Asia and all the places Dr. King predicted decades before.
When the struggle against racism is shorn of its living connections to the fights against American empire abroad and structural inequality at home, it's just a way of promoting a few black faces into high places with no positive effect on the rest of us. The Denver co-branding of Obama with “I Have A Dream Day” (probably trademarked too) is the triumph of America's official and elite movement against racism, which was never a mass movement at all. It was a survival strategy to superficially integrate the elite.
America's structural inequalities, the vast eleven to one wealth gap between white and black families, the staggering imprisonment rate of young African Americans, the dispossession of hundreds of thousands from the Gulf Coast --- all these and other racially disproportionate structural elements of American life will remain as they have been. Parasitic insurance companies will continue to eat a third of every American health care dollar. And the pointless, predatory so-called “war on terror” will continue, as Bush and Cheney intended under a black Democrat, should he be elected, indefinitely.
The air in Denver the last week of August will definitely be full of hope. And full of something else too.
Bruce Dixon managing editor at Black Agenda Report is based in Atlanta and can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
You know you're addicted to a drug when you need it just to feel normal. By that standard, African Americans have been addicted to hope for a long, long time. Nothing wrong with that. As Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, from whom the title of this piece is borrowed points out, hope is seductive, it's attractive, and when times are hard, hope is absolutely necessary. We're all quite naturally attracted to those full of hope, while we pity or shun those without it. But if hope is much like a drug, it's also a lot like capital. Hope can be invested, wisely based on facts and a sober analysis of the forces in play, or it can be squandered foolishly, based on wishful thinking and outright lies. The air in Denver the last week of August will be full of hope. And full of lies.
Since hope is a limited thing, and sometimes all that we have, Jensen suggests that we ought to be realistic and tough-minded about where we invest it and how. The nomination of the Democratic party's first black candidate is an historic occasion, to be sure. But what is there in Denver to invest our hopes in?
The political conventions bill themselves as glittering spectacles of participatory democracy. But those days, if they ever existed, are long gone. Today's political conventions are week-long staged-for-TV marketing spectacles, in which the permanent party of corporations and wealthy individuals publicly crown their champions, frame the issues and present the package to voters.
True to the core marketing principal of avoiding fact-based arguments and comparisons, striving instead to establish powerful, reason-proof emotional connections to their brands, convention planners often choose their dates to coincide with “historical” themes. Thus the 2004 Republican convention was held in New York City on the anniversary of 9-11, to facilitate the kind of fearmongering warlike campaign in which Republicans excel. And this year's Democratic extravaganza is scheduled to conclude with the acceptance speech of Senator Obama at Mile High Stadium on the 45th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and King's “I Have A Dream” speech, a tenuous connection which we confidently predict will be recycled and stressed endlessly.
No less an historical authority than Oprah Winfrey herself has declared Obama's career to be “the fulfillment of Dr. King's Dream”, as if the 20th century Freedom Movement was exclusively about overcoming prejudice without challenging America's empire overseas or her inequalities at home. As usual, Oprah has the establishment message dead-on. For more than forty years, the media have taught and sold an eviscerated history of the Freedom Movement which they have branded as “Dr. King's Dream.” According to the authorities, “Dr. King's Dream” was about individual worth, about judging people by “the content of their character” and affording an equal opportunity for all to rise.
Even though Dr. King died supporting a black union in the midst of a militant citywide strike, the media-endorsed versions of his life, of the Freedom Movement, and of “the Dream” (probably trademarked) which the election of Barack Obama will supposedly “fulfill” are never about collective action, or democracy in workplaces. They never mention the right – won and held by people in most other nations around the world --- to organize and strike without being fired or penalized. Despite Dr. King's prescient warnings that if we did not swiftly end the war in Vietnam and turn our energies to peace abroad and justice at home we would be marching against US wars here, there and everywhere, we will be told in Denver, on the 45th anniversary of “I Have A Dream” that his legacy is being satisfied by the elevation of a black candidate who celebrates empire, who endorses the so-called worldwide “war on terror”, who has assured us he will not end the war in Iraq while he, co-signs the Bush threats to Iran and escalates the conflict in Afghanistan, perhaps extending it to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Despite his African heritage, Obama shows no signs of ending, or even publicly acknowledging the fact that the US has furnished arms and military aid to more than 50 of 54 African nations, making it the most war-torn continent on earth. Thanks in large part to US policies, AK-47s are manufactured nowhere in Africa, but are cheaper there than anywhere else on earth.
The crowning of Barack Obama in Denver, and the linking of his brand to King's “I Have A Dream” speech on its 45th anniversary are the cynical triumphs of this limited, truncated version of anti-racist struggle. The hollowness for ordinary people, and the usefulness, for elites, of anti-racist struggle divorced from any challenges to empire and inequality could have been, and were seen clearly a long way off. But not by anybody on our side.
Vijay Prashad reminds us that when the University of Michigan was litigating its affirmative action lawsuit in the late 90s, DuPont, Steelcase, Abbott Laboratories, Intel, Microsoft, Texaco, Lucent and a raft of other Fortune 500 companies filed a brief in support of affirmative action.
Racial and ethnic diversity in institutions of higher education is vital to amici's efforts to hire and maintain a diverse workforce, and to employ individuals of all backgrounds who have been educated in a diverse environment. Such a talented workforce is important to amici's continued success in the global marketplace.
In other words, without highly placed minority executives they could not hope to penetrate minority markets, or influence the politics of those communities to corporate advantage. The Pentagon filed similar objections in support of affirmative action. With more than 800 military bases around the world in nearly a hundred countries, they argued, the US military also needed a critical number of minority officers to influence the politics of minority communities, and to effectively make war in Africa, Asia and all the places Dr. King predicted decades before.
When the struggle against racism is shorn of its living connections to the fights against American empire abroad and structural inequality at home, it's just a way of promoting a few black faces into high places with no positive effect on the rest of us. The Denver co-branding of Obama with “I Have A Dream Day” (probably trademarked too) is the triumph of America's official and elite movement against racism, which was never a mass movement at all. It was a survival strategy to superficially integrate the elite.
America's structural inequalities, the vast eleven to one wealth gap between white and black families, the staggering imprisonment rate of young African Americans, the dispossession of hundreds of thousands from the Gulf Coast --- all these and other racially disproportionate structural elements of American life will remain as they have been. Parasitic insurance companies will continue to eat a third of every American health care dollar. And the pointless, predatory so-called “war on terror” will continue, as Bush and Cheney intended under a black Democrat, should he be elected, indefinitely.
The air in Denver the last week of August will definitely be full of hope. And full of something else too.
Bruce Dixon managing editor at Black Agenda Report is based in Atlanta and can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
John Edwards and Fake Morality
Despite all the recent hoopla over when and how long former North Carolina Senator and recent Democratic party presidential contender John Edwards cheated on his wife Elizabeth and whether he and Reil Hunter have a love child or not, at the end of the day it has very little bearing on our collective wellbeing.
When someone watches Entertainment Tonight or picks up a supermarket tabloid, they do so because they are interested in the private lives of the rich and famous. They do it out of morbid curiosity, or simply to know how the other half lives.
But when one reads the "news" it is with the anticipation that you will be provided with useful information. So when we are served a menu of tabloid news - the information on Edwards's affair was initially taken from the National Enquirer - one has to ask: what does this have to do with me?
Is infidelity an indicator of how a politician will perform in office? I think not. Judging from past presidents that were philanderers it didn't seem to limit their effectiveness in office. While Bill Clinton may have been the worst of the lot, in terms of sexual discretion, he was still able to steer the US imperial ship and impose America's will on the world. John Kennedy was rumored to have shared Marilyn Monroe with his brother and was otherwise unfaithful to his wife, Jacqueline. It does appear that the current president has been faithful to his wife - yet George Bush has committed every transgression imaginable against the U.S. Constitution, and has behaved faithlessly towards to the citizenry he is sworn to protect.
Salacious reporting about extramarital affairs and rumors of affairs is part of the pornification of the news. Most print and broadcast outlets do not give us actual news, but rather, their own prepackaged, prejudiced perspective on the world. And since the American public has been trained to be entertained more than informed - titillated rather than intellectually stimulated - porn posing as news is right up our alley.
While FOX news is little more than an infomercial for right wing ideology - and the worst offender in this race to numb our minds - the other "news" organizations are not far behind. CNN, supposedly "the most trusted name in news," and MSNBC brought in their experts to kick the John Edwards scandal around, and CBS, NBC and ABC all used up precious airtime dabbling in dirt.
Not that there is a dearth of real news. There are two big Bush wars that are barely covered beyond the airing of official press releases and Pentagon-inspired commentary. Why aren't the media scandalized by the General Accounting Office's discovery that $23 billion slated to be spent in Iraq is unaccounted for? Why does the Attorney General of the United States think that folks should go Scott-free for unlawfully filling Justice Department jobs? There are enough unanswered questions to busy any 24-hour news machine - if explicating the world were actually the objective.
But the press chose to belabor Edwards' indiscretions.
Edwards is no longer running for office, though there were rumors that he was being considered as a vice presidential candidate.
I suspect that one of the other reasons the former presidential candidate was attacked with such ferocity was because he had the nerve to run a populist campaign in an age when the ruling class feels no need to throw a bone to working people. Whatever the reason, Edwards showed real heart and compassion, touring poverty-stricken areas and speaking of the "two Americas." Like none of the other contenders, he put a spotlight on New Orleans. In some ruling circles, that's considered a crime.
If a politician came along who made sure that Johnny could read whether he lived in the Ozarks or the ghetto, kept affordable roofs over our heads, ensured that we all took home a fair and livable wage, were afforded universal health care and equal opportunity, few of us would care about the condition of his or her marriage.
Corporate media keep us focused on false morality - on the private affairs of luminaries - so that we won't confront the real forces that devalue the lives of the vast majority of us.
Mel Reeves is an activist living in Miami. He can be contacted at mellaneous19@yahoo.com
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it.
When someone watches Entertainment Tonight or picks up a supermarket tabloid, they do so because they are interested in the private lives of the rich and famous. They do it out of morbid curiosity, or simply to know how the other half lives.
But when one reads the "news" it is with the anticipation that you will be provided with useful information. So when we are served a menu of tabloid news - the information on Edwards's affair was initially taken from the National Enquirer - one has to ask: what does this have to do with me?
Is infidelity an indicator of how a politician will perform in office? I think not. Judging from past presidents that were philanderers it didn't seem to limit their effectiveness in office. While Bill Clinton may have been the worst of the lot, in terms of sexual discretion, he was still able to steer the US imperial ship and impose America's will on the world. John Kennedy was rumored to have shared Marilyn Monroe with his brother and was otherwise unfaithful to his wife, Jacqueline. It does appear that the current president has been faithful to his wife - yet George Bush has committed every transgression imaginable against the U.S. Constitution, and has behaved faithlessly towards to the citizenry he is sworn to protect.
Salacious reporting about extramarital affairs and rumors of affairs is part of the pornification of the news. Most print and broadcast outlets do not give us actual news, but rather, their own prepackaged, prejudiced perspective on the world. And since the American public has been trained to be entertained more than informed - titillated rather than intellectually stimulated - porn posing as news is right up our alley.
While FOX news is little more than an infomercial for right wing ideology - and the worst offender in this race to numb our minds - the other "news" organizations are not far behind. CNN, supposedly "the most trusted name in news," and MSNBC brought in their experts to kick the John Edwards scandal around, and CBS, NBC and ABC all used up precious airtime dabbling in dirt.
Not that there is a dearth of real news. There are two big Bush wars that are barely covered beyond the airing of official press releases and Pentagon-inspired commentary. Why aren't the media scandalized by the General Accounting Office's discovery that $23 billion slated to be spent in Iraq is unaccounted for? Why does the Attorney General of the United States think that folks should go Scott-free for unlawfully filling Justice Department jobs? There are enough unanswered questions to busy any 24-hour news machine - if explicating the world were actually the objective.
But the press chose to belabor Edwards' indiscretions.
Edwards is no longer running for office, though there were rumors that he was being considered as a vice presidential candidate.
I suspect that one of the other reasons the former presidential candidate was attacked with such ferocity was because he had the nerve to run a populist campaign in an age when the ruling class feels no need to throw a bone to working people. Whatever the reason, Edwards showed real heart and compassion, touring poverty-stricken areas and speaking of the "two Americas." Like none of the other contenders, he put a spotlight on New Orleans. In some ruling circles, that's considered a crime.
If a politician came along who made sure that Johnny could read whether he lived in the Ozarks or the ghetto, kept affordable roofs over our heads, ensured that we all took home a fair and livable wage, were afforded universal health care and equal opportunity, few of us would care about the condition of his or her marriage.
Corporate media keep us focused on false morality - on the private affairs of luminaries - so that we won't confront the real forces that devalue the lives of the vast majority of us.
Mel Reeves is an activist living in Miami. He can be contacted at mellaneous19@yahoo.com
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Some Prisoners Declared Innocent, But Not Freed
by Maya Schenwar
This article originally appeared in Truthout.
Former Black Panther Albert Woodfox, convicted of murdering a prison guard with two other inmates, has spent the last 35 years in prison, most of it in solitary confinement. Last month, Woodfox's conviction was overturned by a federal judge. However, despite being cleared of charges, Woodfox remains incarcerated, as the Louisiana attorney general's office persists in challenging the judge's decision.
After repeated reexaminations of his case and an intervention by US House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, who called Woodfox's continued incarceration a "tragic miscarriage of justice," evidence against Woodfox is practically nonexistent. Nevertheless, he remains embroiled in litigation, and until the prosecutors have had their fill, he will stay behind bars.
Pam LaBorde, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Corrections, told Truthout that the attorney general would be appealing Woodfox's exoneration. She said that she does not know when a trial will take place, adding, "We're very early in the process."
"He has to remain in prison until the new trial takes place," LaBorde said.
Woodfox's case brings to light the startling reality that defendants who have been declared innocent may languish in prison indefinitely, due to endless litigation or conflicting legal technicalities. An overturned conviction is often countered by prosecutors with a "stay the mandate" motion, requiring prisoners to remain incarcerated until appeal. Due to poor lawyers, influential prosecutors and ever-changing legal statutes, the motion is often granted.
Woodfox's lawyers have called upon the state of Louisiana to drop its attempts at retrial, arguing that an immediate release is the only humane option.
"How can Louisiana continue to imprison a 61-year-old man after a federal judge has ruled that he shouldn't have been convicted in the first place?" Nick Trenticosta, one of Woodfox's attorneys, told the San Francisco Bay View in July. "The state needs to move forward. Albert must be released."
However, according to a spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general's office, a motion for reconsideration has been filed, and the state could even take the case to the Supreme Court, leaving Woodfox incarcerated for the foreseeable future.
"I don't think we have a timeline," the attorney general's spokeswoman told Truthout.
The situation is not atypical, according to Kerry Max Cook, who spent 22 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. He recently published the book Chasing Justice, which details his battle to prove his innocence and gain his freedom. Cook, who was declared innocent in 1999, cites his own case as an example of post-exoneration incarceration.
"The mandate [for release] had been issued and I still remained on death row, though I had no more conviction," Cook told Truthout. "I myself had to petition the state district judge and demand the Constitution be followed and I be removed from death row. Some lawyers won't fight for their clients, and the client has to fight for themselves like I did."
For clients who do not or cannot "fight for themselves," an open-ended prison sentence may be inevitable, hinging on the whims of prosecutors and judges.
Another reason prisoners may stay incarcerated when they should be released: Legal statutes on sentencing change often and quickly, and sometimes a prisoner's release date is simply computed wrong, according to Rene Aucoin, a New England journalist who has followed the matter closely.
"Say you were arrested in 1993 and the statutes mandated that you serve 75 percent of your sentence. Say the statutes were changed and/or new statutes created so that the law mandates inmates serve 85 percent of their sentence. By the time your release/parole date is near, the statutes have been changed again, and since you were convicted so long ago and have been incarcerated through several changes in legal statutes, no one remembers how the original law worked," Aucoin told Truthout.
When prisoners are not properly represented and are not advised on sentencing policy, such breaches slip by unnoticed. Cook partially attributes illegal extended incarceration to "laziness and unconcern" on the part of judges and the prison system.
In the Woodfox case, judges and defendants alike cited another culprit: discrimination. Before they were charged with murder, Woodfox and his two co-defendants - now dubbed the Angola 3, after the Angola Penitentiary where they were incarcerated - were engaged in rallying other inmates to participate in nonviolent protests against the prison's segregated quarters and ingrained racial violence.
Last year, a magistrate judge noted in her findings for Woodfox's case, "Punishment for crimes committed 35 years ago, for political beliefs, for religious beliefs, and for leadership qualities are not legitimate penological interests." Judges' opinions since have indicated that Woodfox's conviction may well have been prompted by political and racial discrimination.
In a column for The Guardian UK, Helen Kinsella notes that 36 years later, that same motivation may well be driving Woodfox's continued incarceration. She notes that some of the same players may even be involved.
"The attorney general's second-in-command, John Sinquefield, who is helping to preside over the decision to continue fighting the case, is implicated in some of the wrongdoings referred to in the magistrate's June report," Kinsella writes.
The attorney general's office did not return requests for comment on Sinquefield's connection to the case by press time.
According to Cook, who is gay, discrimination played a direct role in his own past-due incarceration.
"As a convicted homosexual I always struggled to get basic human rights in Texas," Cook said, noting that he was unable to use those civil rights violations to defend himself in court and in his petitions for release.
A host of other impetuses may result in prisoners staying in jail past their release dates. For example, in some states, if an inmate is eligible for parole but has nowhere to "parole to," he or she must remain in prison.
Illinois mother Carleen Cross is currently experiencing that phenomenon firsthand. Her son completed his sentence last October, but due to the nature of his crime and the effect it's had on their family, Cross and her relatives could not take him in during his parole period. Since there is no approved public facility in Cross's area that houses sex crime parolees, her son was denied release.
"We had 48 government-approved beds in the state for sex offenders and that's been cut to 28, so he won't ever get one of those," Cross told Truthout.
Therefore, her son is serving out his parole time in prison. He will not be released until October 2010 - two full years after his intended release date.
"There is no one to help him at all or even visit but me," Cross said. "He made the statement to me last week that he knows what it feels like to be dead."
This article originally appeared in Truthout.
Former Black Panther Albert Woodfox, convicted of murdering a prison guard with two other inmates, has spent the last 35 years in prison, most of it in solitary confinement. Last month, Woodfox's conviction was overturned by a federal judge. However, despite being cleared of charges, Woodfox remains incarcerated, as the Louisiana attorney general's office persists in challenging the judge's decision.
After repeated reexaminations of his case and an intervention by US House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, who called Woodfox's continued incarceration a "tragic miscarriage of justice," evidence against Woodfox is practically nonexistent. Nevertheless, he remains embroiled in litigation, and until the prosecutors have had their fill, he will stay behind bars.
Pam LaBorde, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Corrections, told Truthout that the attorney general would be appealing Woodfox's exoneration. She said that she does not know when a trial will take place, adding, "We're very early in the process."
"He has to remain in prison until the new trial takes place," LaBorde said.
Woodfox's case brings to light the startling reality that defendants who have been declared innocent may languish in prison indefinitely, due to endless litigation or conflicting legal technicalities. An overturned conviction is often countered by prosecutors with a "stay the mandate" motion, requiring prisoners to remain incarcerated until appeal. Due to poor lawyers, influential prosecutors and ever-changing legal statutes, the motion is often granted.
Woodfox's lawyers have called upon the state of Louisiana to drop its attempts at retrial, arguing that an immediate release is the only humane option.
"How can Louisiana continue to imprison a 61-year-old man after a federal judge has ruled that he shouldn't have been convicted in the first place?" Nick Trenticosta, one of Woodfox's attorneys, told the San Francisco Bay View in July. "The state needs to move forward. Albert must be released."
However, according to a spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general's office, a motion for reconsideration has been filed, and the state could even take the case to the Supreme Court, leaving Woodfox incarcerated for the foreseeable future.
"I don't think we have a timeline," the attorney general's spokeswoman told Truthout.
The situation is not atypical, according to Kerry Max Cook, who spent 22 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. He recently published the book Chasing Justice, which details his battle to prove his innocence and gain his freedom. Cook, who was declared innocent in 1999, cites his own case as an example of post-exoneration incarceration.
"The mandate [for release] had been issued and I still remained on death row, though I had no more conviction," Cook told Truthout. "I myself had to petition the state district judge and demand the Constitution be followed and I be removed from death row. Some lawyers won't fight for their clients, and the client has to fight for themselves like I did."
For clients who do not or cannot "fight for themselves," an open-ended prison sentence may be inevitable, hinging on the whims of prosecutors and judges.
Another reason prisoners may stay incarcerated when they should be released: Legal statutes on sentencing change often and quickly, and sometimes a prisoner's release date is simply computed wrong, according to Rene Aucoin, a New England journalist who has followed the matter closely.
"Say you were arrested in 1993 and the statutes mandated that you serve 75 percent of your sentence. Say the statutes were changed and/or new statutes created so that the law mandates inmates serve 85 percent of their sentence. By the time your release/parole date is near, the statutes have been changed again, and since you were convicted so long ago and have been incarcerated through several changes in legal statutes, no one remembers how the original law worked," Aucoin told Truthout.
When prisoners are not properly represented and are not advised on sentencing policy, such breaches slip by unnoticed. Cook partially attributes illegal extended incarceration to "laziness and unconcern" on the part of judges and the prison system.
In the Woodfox case, judges and defendants alike cited another culprit: discrimination. Before they were charged with murder, Woodfox and his two co-defendants - now dubbed the Angola 3, after the Angola Penitentiary where they were incarcerated - were engaged in rallying other inmates to participate in nonviolent protests against the prison's segregated quarters and ingrained racial violence.
Last year, a magistrate judge noted in her findings for Woodfox's case, "Punishment for crimes committed 35 years ago, for political beliefs, for religious beliefs, and for leadership qualities are not legitimate penological interests." Judges' opinions since have indicated that Woodfox's conviction may well have been prompted by political and racial discrimination.
In a column for The Guardian UK, Helen Kinsella notes that 36 years later, that same motivation may well be driving Woodfox's continued incarceration. She notes that some of the same players may even be involved.
"The attorney general's second-in-command, John Sinquefield, who is helping to preside over the decision to continue fighting the case, is implicated in some of the wrongdoings referred to in the magistrate's June report," Kinsella writes.
The attorney general's office did not return requests for comment on Sinquefield's connection to the case by press time.
According to Cook, who is gay, discrimination played a direct role in his own past-due incarceration.
"As a convicted homosexual I always struggled to get basic human rights in Texas," Cook said, noting that he was unable to use those civil rights violations to defend himself in court and in his petitions for release.
A host of other impetuses may result in prisoners staying in jail past their release dates. For example, in some states, if an inmate is eligible for parole but has nowhere to "parole to," he or she must remain in prison.
Illinois mother Carleen Cross is currently experiencing that phenomenon firsthand. Her son completed his sentence last October, but due to the nature of his crime and the effect it's had on their family, Cross and her relatives could not take him in during his parole period. Since there is no approved public facility in Cross's area that houses sex crime parolees, her son was denied release.
"We had 48 government-approved beds in the state for sex offenders and that's been cut to 28, so he won't ever get one of those," Cross told Truthout.
Therefore, her son is serving out his parole time in prison. He will not be released until October 2010 - two full years after his intended release date.
"There is no one to help him at all or even visit but me," Cross said. "He made the statement to me last week that he knows what it feels like to be dead."
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Homeland Security Phones Hacked
And these are the people who are suppose to secure the homeland and they cannot keep hackers out of their phone system. Data is stolen from the Veterans Administation, NIH and the Pentagon. There's so much lying and prying and spying. The Bush Idiocracy has let the country go to the dogs and it's getting worse. Secret detention camps have been built in the U.S. and is ready to receive the cattle. That day is so near.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2008
(AP) A hacker broke into a Homeland Security Department telephone system over the weekend and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia.
The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system in Emmitsburg, Md., on Saturday and Sunday, according to FEMA spokesman Tom Olshanski.
FEMA is part of Homeland Security, which in 2003 put out a warning about this very vulnerability.
The voicemail system is new and recently was installed. It is a Private Branch Exchange, or PBX, a traditional corporate phone network that is used in thousands of companies and government offices. Many companies are moving to a higher tech version, known as Voice Over Internet Telephony.
This type of hacking is very low-tech and "old school," said John Jackson, a St. Louis-based security consultant. It was popular 10 to 15 years ago. Telecommunications security administrators now know to configure security settings, such as having individual users create unique passwords and not continue to use the password assigned to users in the initial setup.
"In this case it's sort of embarrassing that it happened to FEMA themselves - FEMA being a child of DHS, with calls going to the Middle East," Johnson said.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen are among the countries calls were made to, Olshanski said. Most of the calls were about three minutes long, but some were as long as 10 minutes.
Sprint caught the fraud over the weekend and halted all outgoing long-distance calls from FEMA's National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg.
FEMA's chief information officer is investigating who hacked into the system and where exactly the calls were placed to.
At this point it appears a "hole" was left open by the contractor when the voicemail system was being upgraded, Olshanski said. Olshanski did not know who the contractor was or what hole specifically was left open, but he assured the hole has since been closed.
In 2003, Homeland Security and the FBI investigated multiple reports about private industry being breached by these types of hackers.
"This illegal activity enables unauthorized individuals anywhere in the world to communicate via compromised U.S. phone systems in a way that is difficult to trace," according to a department information bulletin from June 3, 2003.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2008
(AP) A hacker broke into a Homeland Security Department telephone system over the weekend and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia.
The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system in Emmitsburg, Md., on Saturday and Sunday, according to FEMA spokesman Tom Olshanski.
FEMA is part of Homeland Security, which in 2003 put out a warning about this very vulnerability.
The voicemail system is new and recently was installed. It is a Private Branch Exchange, or PBX, a traditional corporate phone network that is used in thousands of companies and government offices. Many companies are moving to a higher tech version, known as Voice Over Internet Telephony.
This type of hacking is very low-tech and "old school," said John Jackson, a St. Louis-based security consultant. It was popular 10 to 15 years ago. Telecommunications security administrators now know to configure security settings, such as having individual users create unique passwords and not continue to use the password assigned to users in the initial setup.
"In this case it's sort of embarrassing that it happened to FEMA themselves - FEMA being a child of DHS, with calls going to the Middle East," Johnson said.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen are among the countries calls were made to, Olshanski said. Most of the calls were about three minutes long, but some were as long as 10 minutes.
Sprint caught the fraud over the weekend and halted all outgoing long-distance calls from FEMA's National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg.
FEMA's chief information officer is investigating who hacked into the system and where exactly the calls were placed to.
At this point it appears a "hole" was left open by the contractor when the voicemail system was being upgraded, Olshanski said. Olshanski did not know who the contractor was or what hole specifically was left open, but he assured the hole has since been closed.
In 2003, Homeland Security and the FBI investigated multiple reports about private industry being breached by these types of hackers.
"This illegal activity enables unauthorized individuals anywhere in the world to communicate via compromised U.S. phone systems in a way that is difficult to trace," according to a department information bulletin from June 3, 2003.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
You Call This Freedom?
I got the following information from the ACLU via email. I found this very interesting because they said the exact same thing on Democracy NOW! this morning. Privacy is gone and America is finished. We hear all this talk from both presidential candidates about rights and freedom, but why is it that so much of those rights and freedoms is being taken away? The people who make policy and run this country have gone insane and the worse is still yet to come.
Traveling shouldn’t mean checking your rights when you’re checking your luggage.
Did you know...
Border security can seize your laptop, cell phone or camera with no suspicion or explanation.
Many airports use scanners that conduct a virtual "strip search" of passengers.There are over one million names on the terrorist watch list.
The TSA recently expressed interest in having every airline passenger wear "electro-muscular disruption" bracelets that could be used to shock passengers into submission.
Law and order: Curfew America
War zone security has arrived in the US as cities are shut down at night by police struggling to control a deadly wave of gun crime. David Usborne reports from Hartford, Connecticut
The police state has not arrived quite yet but it may feel like it to the residents of some American cities, where a handful of embattled mayors and police chiefs are imposing strict and sometimes sweeping curfews as a last resort to quell new waves of gun violence this summer.
"We must do this because we cannot and will not tolerate innocent people, especially children, to be victims," insists Eddie Perez, the Mayor of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, where a night-time curfew was introduced last week and will remain in effect for a month for those under 18 years old.
Nor are there any apologies from the authorities in Helena-West Helena on the banks of the Mississippi in Arkansas, small pockets of which are under a24-hour curfew that all ages must respect. Police are enforcing it, moreover, with night-vision goggles and M16 military rifles.
In Hartford, the centre of America's insurance industry, the approach is not quite as militaristic. Children found on the streets between 9pm and 5am are approached and escorted by officers to their homes. Most nights since the curfew came into effect last Thursday have seen only a dozen or so picked up.
But there was nothing softly-softly about the violence that prompted Hartford to take such action. Two weekends ago, 11 people were shot in three different attacks, the worst at the annual West Indian Parade in the city's North End, which left one man dead and two children hurt. A toddler in a pushchair was grazed by bullet on her leg. A seven-year-old boy remains in hospital with serious head wounds.
"I am still traumatised," says Darlene Johnson, 44, who had a food stall at the parade with her husband and father. "I see this man pulling this long gun from under his shirt and he started shooting. I just couldn't believe it. Some people thought it was firecrackers but I knew different. I saw the little girl rubbing her leg and the boy with blood coming out of his head."
Much of the city cannot believe it either, yet 150 shootings have been recorded this year In summer, bored teenagers have little to do but wander the streets. Gangs mark out turf. Insults are traded and revenge is taken. The man killed at the parade, Ezekial Roberts, had been running with gangs.
While curfews sound like they belong in war zones or natural disaster areas, they have long been a popular tool of US police departments. And it is in the dog days of summer, when humidity and violence seem to join hands, that they most often come into vogue. For the duration of the school holidays this year, for instance, Baltimore has an 11pm curfew (midnight on Fridays and Saturdays) for children under 17. Those who violate it are taken to a school until a parent or guardian picks them up.
It is a trend the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), does not welcome. The group "opposes juvenile curfews because they're essentially a violation of fundamental rights of innocent people," said David McGuire of the Connecticut ACLU. "Curfews essentially are placing an entire demographic, in this case, youth, under house arrest for the inappropriate actions of a few."
Residents of Connecticut's north end, however, tired of the shootings, seem mostly to support the curfew, though few believe it alone will solve the larger problems of young people with little to do, attracted by gangs and lacking discipline. "We need to keep the young people off the streets," says Ms Johnson on the front steps of her home. "And the parents need help. The law is the law." Taquana Quan, 18, standing outside Burger and Pizza Land on Barbour Avenue, where two other men were shot on the same weekend, also supports the Mayor's decision. So does his cousin, Shantay Taytay, who is 21. They have had enough. "This dude pulled a gun on me last week to take my bike. We are moving to Atlanta, the whole family."
"We'll see if it works," says Barbara Shannon, who lives across from the restaurant and said she starting praying when she heard the shots. But it will not be enough. The problem lies in the upbringing of the teenagers, she says, mostly by single mothers. Indeed, of all the households with children in Hartford, almost 70 per cent are headed by single parents. And nearly always they are the mothers. "Babies are having babies and kids are having kids," she asserts confidently. "And the mothers are always looking to have fun. They don't make time to look after their young ones."
Valencia Coleman, 68, who has a dance studio in the north end and witnessed the shooting at the parade, is more blunt. "The children can't stay in their homes because of what their mothers are doing behind the bedroom door. They are having sex. The boys especially have a big problem with that. Every kid I know who is in trouble, it's always the same story. They can't handle their mothers' boyfriends."
More dubious still is Alisha Jackson, whose oldest child is 12. She thinks the curfew is a "band-aid" that will only deepen tensions between young people and the police. "I hope it works. But I think it's going to cause a lot of trouble. A lot of kids are going to end up being locked up, I bet you."
And what of the young targets of the curfew, such as Rackwon Hicks, who is hanging out with a cousin and two friends on the front steps of another dour brick apartment building on Barbour Street? (Never mind the metal sign by the door prohibiting the "Peddleing of drugs" (sic) as well as sitting on the entryway steps".)
He is 10 years old and says staying at home after 9pm is not an option. His mother is there. "I just can't be there, that's all. They can't coop us up like that, it's not right"
One of the friends, Rashad Hassan, a burly 16-year-old, is cocky. "I really don't care about it. I will still be outside anyways."
A few doors down a teenage girl has turned a speaker of her stereo out onto the street to fill it with tinny dance music. A dope dealer lingers by a corner store and offers the wisdom that the curfew is "garbage".
Interesting? Click here to explore further
The police state has not arrived quite yet but it may feel like it to the residents of some American cities, where a handful of embattled mayors and police chiefs are imposing strict and sometimes sweeping curfews as a last resort to quell new waves of gun violence this summer.
"We must do this because we cannot and will not tolerate innocent people, especially children, to be victims," insists Eddie Perez, the Mayor of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, where a night-time curfew was introduced last week and will remain in effect for a month for those under 18 years old.
Nor are there any apologies from the authorities in Helena-West Helena on the banks of the Mississippi in Arkansas, small pockets of which are under a24-hour curfew that all ages must respect. Police are enforcing it, moreover, with night-vision goggles and M16 military rifles.
In Hartford, the centre of America's insurance industry, the approach is not quite as militaristic. Children found on the streets between 9pm and 5am are approached and escorted by officers to their homes. Most nights since the curfew came into effect last Thursday have seen only a dozen or so picked up.
But there was nothing softly-softly about the violence that prompted Hartford to take such action. Two weekends ago, 11 people were shot in three different attacks, the worst at the annual West Indian Parade in the city's North End, which left one man dead and two children hurt. A toddler in a pushchair was grazed by bullet on her leg. A seven-year-old boy remains in hospital with serious head wounds.
"I am still traumatised," says Darlene Johnson, 44, who had a food stall at the parade with her husband and father. "I see this man pulling this long gun from under his shirt and he started shooting. I just couldn't believe it. Some people thought it was firecrackers but I knew different. I saw the little girl rubbing her leg and the boy with blood coming out of his head."
Much of the city cannot believe it either, yet 150 shootings have been recorded this year In summer, bored teenagers have little to do but wander the streets. Gangs mark out turf. Insults are traded and revenge is taken. The man killed at the parade, Ezekial Roberts, had been running with gangs.
While curfews sound like they belong in war zones or natural disaster areas, they have long been a popular tool of US police departments. And it is in the dog days of summer, when humidity and violence seem to join hands, that they most often come into vogue. For the duration of the school holidays this year, for instance, Baltimore has an 11pm curfew (midnight on Fridays and Saturdays) for children under 17. Those who violate it are taken to a school until a parent or guardian picks them up.
It is a trend the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), does not welcome. The group "opposes juvenile curfews because they're essentially a violation of fundamental rights of innocent people," said David McGuire of the Connecticut ACLU. "Curfews essentially are placing an entire demographic, in this case, youth, under house arrest for the inappropriate actions of a few."
Residents of Connecticut's north end, however, tired of the shootings, seem mostly to support the curfew, though few believe it alone will solve the larger problems of young people with little to do, attracted by gangs and lacking discipline. "We need to keep the young people off the streets," says Ms Johnson on the front steps of her home. "And the parents need help. The law is the law." Taquana Quan, 18, standing outside Burger and Pizza Land on Barbour Avenue, where two other men were shot on the same weekend, also supports the Mayor's decision. So does his cousin, Shantay Taytay, who is 21. They have had enough. "This dude pulled a gun on me last week to take my bike. We are moving to Atlanta, the whole family."
"We'll see if it works," says Barbara Shannon, who lives across from the restaurant and said she starting praying when she heard the shots. But it will not be enough. The problem lies in the upbringing of the teenagers, she says, mostly by single mothers. Indeed, of all the households with children in Hartford, almost 70 per cent are headed by single parents. And nearly always they are the mothers. "Babies are having babies and kids are having kids," she asserts confidently. "And the mothers are always looking to have fun. They don't make time to look after their young ones."
Valencia Coleman, 68, who has a dance studio in the north end and witnessed the shooting at the parade, is more blunt. "The children can't stay in their homes because of what their mothers are doing behind the bedroom door. They are having sex. The boys especially have a big problem with that. Every kid I know who is in trouble, it's always the same story. They can't handle their mothers' boyfriends."
More dubious still is Alisha Jackson, whose oldest child is 12. She thinks the curfew is a "band-aid" that will only deepen tensions between young people and the police. "I hope it works. But I think it's going to cause a lot of trouble. A lot of kids are going to end up being locked up, I bet you."
And what of the young targets of the curfew, such as Rackwon Hicks, who is hanging out with a cousin and two friends on the front steps of another dour brick apartment building on Barbour Street? (Never mind the metal sign by the door prohibiting the "Peddleing of drugs" (sic) as well as sitting on the entryway steps".)
He is 10 years old and says staying at home after 9pm is not an option. His mother is there. "I just can't be there, that's all. They can't coop us up like that, it's not right"
One of the friends, Rashad Hassan, a burly 16-year-old, is cocky. "I really don't care about it. I will still be outside anyways."
A few doors down a teenage girl has turned a speaker of her stereo out onto the street to fill it with tinny dance music. A dope dealer lingers by a corner store and offers the wisdom that the curfew is "garbage".
Interesting? Click here to explore further
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
NSA Security Officer: We Should Just Kill Troublesome Bloggers
Richard Volaar / OpEd News August 19, 2008
When somebody within your own government calls you out, do you show up? How do you handle it?
Wayne Madsen, always spoiling for a fight with Bush and Cheney, or the chance to show off his undies to minimum wage airport TSA workers, has an executive level NSA staff person on record saying that significant sentiment exists within the NSA to kill troublesome bloggers and journalists.
The NSA executive staffer was, apparently, not the source of the sentiment, but this individual did pass along the context and the precise wording of the “junior G-man” working in the NSA.
Prominent names listed in the NSA database of troublemakers?
1. Bill Gertz
2. James Bamford
3. Vernon Loeb
4. Jim Risen
5. Dr. John C. K. Daly
6. Wayne Madsen
7. Seymour Hersh
These were all the names Madsen published, but there are, of course, many others. Possibly you, gentle reader.
If not now, probably later.
As much as Madsen hates Daily Kos, I would think that if Kos was in the database, he would have published his name, too. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga — a name that should just roll off the Hebroid-Russian tongue of George Soros, and frequently does — is he NOT in the NSA’s database of journalists and bloggers to be put out of Cheney’s misery?
Wear nice underwear when you travel, bloggers. The TSA will soon be checking your anal orifice for that extra 3 ounces of shampoo you just can’t live without.
Award winning poet, writer and refugee from the educational testing industry. Richard agitates, supports and motivates activists of all kinds, the most well-known being Cindy Sheehan. Web developer and designer by day, writer by night, Richard has the disposition of an observer and essayist. Richard has fallen in love, one day at a time, with the writing of Raymond Carver, while sparring, verbally, with the flying monkey right since 1998. Richard built his first computer from scratch in 1977 and had his heart broken for the first time in 1980. It has been stomped on and dragged behind a Chevrolet for many miles since that time. Thanks in no small part to Republican partisan politics and internecine policies.
When somebody within your own government calls you out, do you show up? How do you handle it?
Wayne Madsen, always spoiling for a fight with Bush and Cheney, or the chance to show off his undies to minimum wage airport TSA workers, has an executive level NSA staff person on record saying that significant sentiment exists within the NSA to kill troublesome bloggers and journalists.
The NSA executive staffer was, apparently, not the source of the sentiment, but this individual did pass along the context and the precise wording of the “junior G-man” working in the NSA.
Prominent names listed in the NSA database of troublemakers?
1. Bill Gertz
2. James Bamford
3. Vernon Loeb
4. Jim Risen
5. Dr. John C. K. Daly
6. Wayne Madsen
7. Seymour Hersh
These were all the names Madsen published, but there are, of course, many others. Possibly you, gentle reader.
If not now, probably later.
As much as Madsen hates Daily Kos, I would think that if Kos was in the database, he would have published his name, too. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga — a name that should just roll off the Hebroid-Russian tongue of George Soros, and frequently does — is he NOT in the NSA’s database of journalists and bloggers to be put out of Cheney’s misery?
Wear nice underwear when you travel, bloggers. The TSA will soon be checking your anal orifice for that extra 3 ounces of shampoo you just can’t live without.
Award winning poet, writer and refugee from the educational testing industry. Richard agitates, supports and motivates activists of all kinds, the most well-known being Cindy Sheehan. Web developer and designer by day, writer by night, Richard has the disposition of an observer and essayist. Richard has fallen in love, one day at a time, with the writing of Raymond Carver, while sparring, verbally, with the flying monkey right since 1998. Richard built his first computer from scratch in 1977 and had his heart broken for the first time in 1980. It has been stomped on and dragged behind a Chevrolet for many miles since that time. Thanks in no small part to Republican partisan politics and internecine policies.
Large U.S. bank collapse ahead, says ex-IMF economist
By Jan Dahinten
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.
"The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come'," he told a financial conference.
"We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks," said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004.
"We have to see more consolidation in the financial sector before this is over," he said, when asked for early signs of an end to the crisis.
"Probably Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- despite what U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said -- these giant mortgage guarantee agencies are not going to exist in their present form in a few years."
Rogoff's comments come as investors dumped shares of the largest U.S. home funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday after a newspaper report said government officials may have no choice but to effectively nationalize the U.S. housing finance titans.
A government move to recapitalize the two companies by injecting funds could wipe out existing common stock holders, the weekend Barron's story said. Preferred shareholders and even holders of the two government-sponsored entities' $19 billion of subordinated debt would also suffer losses.
Rogoff said multi-billion dollar investments by sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East in western financial firms may not necessarily result in large profits because they had not taken into account the broader market conditions that the industry faces.
"There was this view early on in the crisis that sovereign wealth funds could save everybody. Investment banks did something stupid, they lost money in the sub-prime, they're great buys, sovereign wealth funds come in and make a lot of money by buying them.
"That view neglects the point that the financial system has become very bloated in size and needed to shrink," Rogoff told the conference in Singapore, whose wealth funds GIC and Temasek have invested billions in Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.
In response to the sharp U.S. housing retrenchment and turmoil in credit markets, the U.S. Federal Reserve has reduced interest rates by a cumulative 3.25 percentage points to 2 percent since mid-September.
Rogoff said the U.S. Federal Reserve was wrong to cut interest rates as "dramatically" as it did.
"Cutting interest rates is going to lead to a lot of inflation in the next few years in the United States."
(Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.
"The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come'," he told a financial conference.
"We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks," said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004.
"We have to see more consolidation in the financial sector before this is over," he said, when asked for early signs of an end to the crisis.
"Probably Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- despite what U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said -- these giant mortgage guarantee agencies are not going to exist in their present form in a few years."
Rogoff's comments come as investors dumped shares of the largest U.S. home funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday after a newspaper report said government officials may have no choice but to effectively nationalize the U.S. housing finance titans.
A government move to recapitalize the two companies by injecting funds could wipe out existing common stock holders, the weekend Barron's story said. Preferred shareholders and even holders of the two government-sponsored entities' $19 billion of subordinated debt would also suffer losses.
Rogoff said multi-billion dollar investments by sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East in western financial firms may not necessarily result in large profits because they had not taken into account the broader market conditions that the industry faces.
"There was this view early on in the crisis that sovereign wealth funds could save everybody. Investment banks did something stupid, they lost money in the sub-prime, they're great buys, sovereign wealth funds come in and make a lot of money by buying them.
"That view neglects the point that the financial system has become very bloated in size and needed to shrink," Rogoff told the conference in Singapore, whose wealth funds GIC and Temasek have invested billions in Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.
In response to the sharp U.S. housing retrenchment and turmoil in credit markets, the U.S. Federal Reserve has reduced interest rates by a cumulative 3.25 percentage points to 2 percent since mid-September.
Rogoff said the U.S. Federal Reserve was wrong to cut interest rates as "dramatically" as it did.
"Cutting interest rates is going to lead to a lot of inflation in the next few years in the United States."
(Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
Monday, August 18, 2008
Where Is The Outrage?
Note: I wrote this last year when I saw all the hoopla surrounding Michael Vick, Paris Hylton and so on. It's so amazing how the American public is so easily distracted by stupidity and senselessness. With the president admitting to torturing the detainees to the recent meeting VP "Shotgun" Dick Cheney had planning and staging terrorist attacks, yet the American public remains numb. The society has been dumbed down to the point that the people don't care. When the fighting broke out between Russia and the Republic of Georgia, people here thought that the state of Georgia (USA) was being attacked. This is the real America. Where is the outrage???
Wow, with all the problems in the world, why all the outrage over the Michael Vick case? Whitey is up in arms over dog fighting and has been calling for Michael Vick’s head ever since the allegations surfaced. I heard dog lovers speak of these “poor animals being tortured.” WHAT??? The federal government has a policy of torturing detainees (human beings) in secret detention centers all over the world. Where’s the outrage in that? Animal rights? How about human rights? In the U.S. government’s kidnapping and torture program, they’ve taken children as young as seven years old. Where is the outrage? With the slaughter of cows, chickens, hogs, turkeys and fish, where is the outrage? Raised in crowded, unsanitary conditions and shipped off to the market for human consumption, where many get sick and even die. Where is the outrage?
White people treat their dogs better than Black people. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said a long time ago that whitey would set a place at their table for a dog before they would a Black man. I’m sure most of you have already seen the news that Michael Vick has agreed to plead guilty in the dog fighting case. It’s bad enough that his boys turned state’s evidence against him and now his NFL career is in jeopardy. And to add further insult, the state of Virginia announced last week that they will be filing charges against Vick as well. This bullshit is pathetic.
America’s corporate media has helped to create a bloodlust for Michael Vick. I would not be surprised if a lynch mob is down at the courthouse the day he enters his plea. And speaking where is the outrage:
Where is the outrage (whitey in particular) for the Jena Six in Louisiana? An injustice is taking place before our very eyes, the target our children. Six young Black men face prison time over a fight with a white boy. One of the boys has been convicted by an all white jury, and faces a possible 22 years in prison. The other five boys were charged with attempted murder and face a possible sentence up to 100 years if convicted. Where’s whitey’s outrage when the prosecutor told the Black students at an assembly that he can ruin their lives with the stroke of a pen? These same devils speak of America being this beacon of human rights and justice in the world, but have problems giving Black people justice (due process). It’s blatant hypocrisy and these devils are full of shit.
Where is the outrage in the Kenneth Foster case? An innocent Black man is about to be executed by the state of Texas on August 21, 2007. The state acknowledged that Mr. Foster did not commit the murder, however he was convicted and sentence to death under the states’ “law of parties” statute. I can’t help wondering how many whites have been sentenced to death under this same statute? And how about the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal? Despite the fact he was not given a fair trial and all the constitutional violations committed in the process, Mumia has been unsuccessful at trying to get his conviction overturned, much less a retrial despite the overwhelming evidence that supports such action. To this day, brother Mumia still sits on Pennsylvania’s death row. The Supreme Court has refused to hear his petition. He sits on death row even though, police coerced witnesses into giving false testimony, Mumia’s hands were never tested for gunpowder residue to see if he even fired a gun, and the deceased officer’s partner said that Mumia allegedly confessed to committing the crime, which the officer reported about 60 days later. And that was entered into evidence. Where is the outrage? Where is whitey’s outrage, since they’re torchlight of justice and human rights for the rest of the world?
Where is the outrage in Bush’s illegal NSA spying program? Where is the outrage in the passage of the Military Commissions Act? Patriot Act II? The president now has the power to designate ANYBODY as a terrorist/enemy combatant and take people into military custody indefinitely. Congress recently passed the so-called Protect America Act of 2007, which goes beyond just wiretapping. It was recently revealed that this same law permits physical searches and financial records gathering without a warrant. The Bush Idiocracy’s (administration for the sensitive) attorney general for national security, Ken Wainstein told former [In]Justice Department lawyer Bruce Fein the administration does not consider itself bound by Congressional restrictions. Where the hell is the outrage? The president is running afoul of the law and not even a wimper. Let’s not forget the president and his propaganda machine lied the nation into a war that has resulted in the deaths of over one million Iraqi people and close to 4,000 U.S. soldiers and no impeachment for these high crimes. But Michael Vick is indicted and on his way to prison for dog fighting. It’s good to know that the American people got their priorities straight.
It’s rampant hypocrisy and it’s a goddamn shame that people in this country sit around and pretend nothing is going on. The media has joined the government’s scheme and now journalistic integrity is dead. From cuts in education and healthcare to rising unemployment and outsourcing of American jobs to places like India and China, I ask where is the outrage? But it doesn’t matter, the latest media blitz has passed with Paris Hilton’s confinement, to K-Fed and Britney Spears’ custody battle to Lindsay Lohan’s drug induced madness to the media lynching of Michael Vick over dogs. What’s going to be the next media blitzkrieg event that takes our focus off of government scandals and corruption? When the next political scandal breaks, outrage will be nowhere to be found.
-Aquil Aziz
Wow, with all the problems in the world, why all the outrage over the Michael Vick case? Whitey is up in arms over dog fighting and has been calling for Michael Vick’s head ever since the allegations surfaced. I heard dog lovers speak of these “poor animals being tortured.” WHAT??? The federal government has a policy of torturing detainees (human beings) in secret detention centers all over the world. Where’s the outrage in that? Animal rights? How about human rights? In the U.S. government’s kidnapping and torture program, they’ve taken children as young as seven years old. Where is the outrage? With the slaughter of cows, chickens, hogs, turkeys and fish, where is the outrage? Raised in crowded, unsanitary conditions and shipped off to the market for human consumption, where many get sick and even die. Where is the outrage?
White people treat their dogs better than Black people. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said a long time ago that whitey would set a place at their table for a dog before they would a Black man. I’m sure most of you have already seen the news that Michael Vick has agreed to plead guilty in the dog fighting case. It’s bad enough that his boys turned state’s evidence against him and now his NFL career is in jeopardy. And to add further insult, the state of Virginia announced last week that they will be filing charges against Vick as well. This bullshit is pathetic.
America’s corporate media has helped to create a bloodlust for Michael Vick. I would not be surprised if a lynch mob is down at the courthouse the day he enters his plea. And speaking where is the outrage:
Where is the outrage (whitey in particular) for the Jena Six in Louisiana? An injustice is taking place before our very eyes, the target our children. Six young Black men face prison time over a fight with a white boy. One of the boys has been convicted by an all white jury, and faces a possible 22 years in prison. The other five boys were charged with attempted murder and face a possible sentence up to 100 years if convicted. Where’s whitey’s outrage when the prosecutor told the Black students at an assembly that he can ruin their lives with the stroke of a pen? These same devils speak of America being this beacon of human rights and justice in the world, but have problems giving Black people justice (due process). It’s blatant hypocrisy and these devils are full of shit.
Where is the outrage in the Kenneth Foster case? An innocent Black man is about to be executed by the state of Texas on August 21, 2007. The state acknowledged that Mr. Foster did not commit the murder, however he was convicted and sentence to death under the states’ “law of parties” statute. I can’t help wondering how many whites have been sentenced to death under this same statute? And how about the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal? Despite the fact he was not given a fair trial and all the constitutional violations committed in the process, Mumia has been unsuccessful at trying to get his conviction overturned, much less a retrial despite the overwhelming evidence that supports such action. To this day, brother Mumia still sits on Pennsylvania’s death row. The Supreme Court has refused to hear his petition. He sits on death row even though, police coerced witnesses into giving false testimony, Mumia’s hands were never tested for gunpowder residue to see if he even fired a gun, and the deceased officer’s partner said that Mumia allegedly confessed to committing the crime, which the officer reported about 60 days later. And that was entered into evidence. Where is the outrage? Where is whitey’s outrage, since they’re torchlight of justice and human rights for the rest of the world?
Where is the outrage in Bush’s illegal NSA spying program? Where is the outrage in the passage of the Military Commissions Act? Patriot Act II? The president now has the power to designate ANYBODY as a terrorist/enemy combatant and take people into military custody indefinitely. Congress recently passed the so-called Protect America Act of 2007, which goes beyond just wiretapping. It was recently revealed that this same law permits physical searches and financial records gathering without a warrant. The Bush Idiocracy’s (administration for the sensitive) attorney general for national security, Ken Wainstein told former [In]Justice Department lawyer Bruce Fein the administration does not consider itself bound by Congressional restrictions. Where the hell is the outrage? The president is running afoul of the law and not even a wimper. Let’s not forget the president and his propaganda machine lied the nation into a war that has resulted in the deaths of over one million Iraqi people and close to 4,000 U.S. soldiers and no impeachment for these high crimes. But Michael Vick is indicted and on his way to prison for dog fighting. It’s good to know that the American people got their priorities straight.
It’s rampant hypocrisy and it’s a goddamn shame that people in this country sit around and pretend nothing is going on. The media has joined the government’s scheme and now journalistic integrity is dead. From cuts in education and healthcare to rising unemployment and outsourcing of American jobs to places like India and China, I ask where is the outrage? But it doesn’t matter, the latest media blitz has passed with Paris Hilton’s confinement, to K-Fed and Britney Spears’ custody battle to Lindsay Lohan’s drug induced madness to the media lynching of Michael Vick over dogs. What’s going to be the next media blitzkrieg event that takes our focus off of government scandals and corruption? When the next political scandal breaks, outrage will be nowhere to be found.
-Aquil Aziz
FREE THE MOVE 9!!
via: onamovellja@aol.com
=========================
Today MOVE women were denied parole and this is an immediate response---
ONA MOVE, Ramona
Today, April 22, 2008, MOVE women that survived the August 8, 1978 police attempt to kill off MOVE were denied parole by the Pennsylvania Department of Probation and Parole. The parole board says that MOVE women were denied parole because they minimized or denied the nature and circumstances of the offense; refused to accept responsibility; lacked remorse and because the prosecutors office said MOVE should not be paroled because we act outside the “law”. In fact, it’s the parole board that is “acting outside the law” by demanding that any inmate (especially those that have maintained their innocence from the very beginning) say that they are guilty when they are not. MOVE is innocent, we ain’t guilty, we ain’t gonna say we’re guilty and the parole board has no authority to demand that we lie and say we’re guilty. That is the height of arrogance when the parole board knows that countless people are convicted in the courts daily, are sent to jail and end up being released after 20, 25, 30 years because they are innocent just like they said they were. Where would any “remorse” come from when you are innocent? Why would anybody take responsibility for a crime that they didn’t commit? Where is the wrong in denying something that you did not do. It is obvious that these officials are sending a very clear message to the people. The message is that they’re gonna do whatever they want to do and they don’t care about the truth , they don’t care that they’re breaking they very laws that they claim to have MOVE and millions of others in prison for breaking and they don’t even care that people know that they’re the ones that are breaking the law. Lynn Abraham (the district attorney of Philadelphia that used to be a judge) says that MOVE “acts outside the law” so we should stay in prison? In fact, She acted outside the law when she signed warrants for MOVE in May of 1977 even though the police commissioner said MOVE had committed no crime. Then mayor, Rizzo, “acted outside the law” on August 8, 1978 when he ordered MOVE HQ., vital evidence in a murder trial, the “scene of the crime” destroyed. The courts “acted outside the law” when they proceeded with the trial after destroying the scene of the crime because when they destroyed the evidence they destroyed the bases for any trial. Judge Malmed, the trial judge in the August 8th murder trial “acted outside the law” when he sentenced 9 innocent MOVE people to a maximum 900 years in prison for a crime that he could not say or prove that any 1 of the 9 committed, a crime that he admitted publicly that he didn’t have the “faintest idea” who committed. Lynn Abraham “acted outside the law” when she knowingly signed fraudulent warrants for cops to come out and murder innocent MOVE people in May of 1985. The proof of just how fraudulent those warrants were lie in the fact that every single charge listed in those warrants were dismissed as having no basis, every single charge. Is there any question why MOVE people are so bitter, so full of fight and so motivated to keep revolting against this rotten ass system? JOHN AFRICA has opened our eyes and HE keeps us motivated, keeps us full of fight. They can hurt MOVE because we’re alive, we have feelings, but thanks to JOHN AFRICA they WILL NEVER STOP MOVE!
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA! LONG LIVE REVOLUTION!
=========================
Today MOVE women were denied parole and this is an immediate response---
ONA MOVE, Ramona
Today, April 22, 2008, MOVE women that survived the August 8, 1978 police attempt to kill off MOVE were denied parole by the Pennsylvania Department of Probation and Parole. The parole board says that MOVE women were denied parole because they minimized or denied the nature and circumstances of the offense; refused to accept responsibility; lacked remorse and because the prosecutors office said MOVE should not be paroled because we act outside the “law”. In fact, it’s the parole board that is “acting outside the law” by demanding that any inmate (especially those that have maintained their innocence from the very beginning) say that they are guilty when they are not. MOVE is innocent, we ain’t guilty, we ain’t gonna say we’re guilty and the parole board has no authority to demand that we lie and say we’re guilty. That is the height of arrogance when the parole board knows that countless people are convicted in the courts daily, are sent to jail and end up being released after 20, 25, 30 years because they are innocent just like they said they were. Where would any “remorse” come from when you are innocent? Why would anybody take responsibility for a crime that they didn’t commit? Where is the wrong in denying something that you did not do. It is obvious that these officials are sending a very clear message to the people. The message is that they’re gonna do whatever they want to do and they don’t care about the truth , they don’t care that they’re breaking they very laws that they claim to have MOVE and millions of others in prison for breaking and they don’t even care that people know that they’re the ones that are breaking the law. Lynn Abraham (the district attorney of Philadelphia that used to be a judge) says that MOVE “acts outside the law” so we should stay in prison? In fact, She acted outside the law when she signed warrants for MOVE in May of 1977 even though the police commissioner said MOVE had committed no crime. Then mayor, Rizzo, “acted outside the law” on August 8, 1978 when he ordered MOVE HQ., vital evidence in a murder trial, the “scene of the crime” destroyed. The courts “acted outside the law” when they proceeded with the trial after destroying the scene of the crime because when they destroyed the evidence they destroyed the bases for any trial. Judge Malmed, the trial judge in the August 8th murder trial “acted outside the law” when he sentenced 9 innocent MOVE people to a maximum 900 years in prison for a crime that he could not say or prove that any 1 of the 9 committed, a crime that he admitted publicly that he didn’t have the “faintest idea” who committed. Lynn Abraham “acted outside the law” when she knowingly signed fraudulent warrants for cops to come out and murder innocent MOVE people in May of 1985. The proof of just how fraudulent those warrants were lie in the fact that every single charge listed in those warrants were dismissed as having no basis, every single charge. Is there any question why MOVE people are so bitter, so full of fight and so motivated to keep revolting against this rotten ass system? JOHN AFRICA has opened our eyes and HE keeps us motivated, keeps us full of fight. They can hurt MOVE because we’re alive, we have feelings, but thanks to JOHN AFRICA they WILL NEVER STOP MOVE!
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA! LONG LIVE REVOLUTION!
Judge to ex-pastor: 'You lied'
By ROCCO LaDUCA
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:25 PM
Last update Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:27 PM
UTICA — When the Rev. William Procanick put his hand on the Bible during his sex-abuse trial in Oneida County Court earlier this year, he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But as the former Clinton pastor was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl at his home last March, Judge Michael L. Dwyer said Procanick sacrificed his honesty the day he testified.
“As a minister of God, you got on the stand and you lied,” Dwyer told Procanick, the 54-year-old former pastor of Resurrection Assembly of God church on Kirkland Avenue.
A jury found Procanick guilty Jan. 22 of first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
Dwyer said he believes Procanick was being honest when he told the girl's mother in a recorded phone call that he was wrong to caress the girl's body while she was trying to fall asleep.
However, Procanick instead testified in court that he did nothing wrong other than spend time alone with the girl, who was a friend of the family, Dwyer noted.
If Procanick had accepted responsibility from the beginning instead of straying from the truth, Dwyer said, Procanick would likely have faced a lesser punishment and possibly avoided jail time.
“The truth would have set you free,” Dwyer said. “You had a chance to be a man and say, 'I made a mistake.' But as always, the cover-up is much worse than the original crime.”
Procanick's defense attorney, George Aney, noted that Procanick still received a sentence less than the maximum, which was up to seven years in prison.
“It's considerably less than the maximum, but considerably more than he deserved,” Aney said.
Aney also took issue with how Dwyer and the victim's mother used harsh language to attack Procanick's Christian values.
“You are just an evil man,” the victim's mother said Friday in court. “You lied, and you had your wife lie. And all these people who showed up in court to support you, did you lie to them, too?”
The Observer-Dispatch does not identify sex-abuse victims and their families.
The victim's mother said her daughter is still waking up scared at night because of what happened, and she continues to see a therapist. The young girl also feels that everybody is mad at her, the mother said.
Assistant District Attorney Doug DeMarche Jr. then read a note written by the girl, who did not appear in court Friday.
“Bill made me sad and scared,” DeMarche read. “I thought I did something wrong, because I trusted him.”
Dwyer gave Procanick an opportunity to speak in court, but Procanick had nothing to say to the victim and her family.
Aney did not plan to speak in court, he told Dwyer, but he felt obligated to respond to what the victim's mother said about Procanick and his wife.
“I believe she shows her own lack of Christianity by referring to people as liars,” Aney said.
After the sentencing, Aney further commented about what was said in court.
“I respect Judge Dwyer for what he said this morning, but I have to say I disagreed with him,” Aney said. “I have every right to express my feelings, and my feelings are that we are not permitted to call anybody a liar. That's a judgment someone higher than I makes.”
DeMarche, however, said he can understand why the girl's mother spoke of Procanick in such harsh terms.
“She had a lot of faith and trust in Mr. Procanick, and he violated that trust,” DeMarche said. “I think she's justified in being angry.”
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:25 PM
Last update Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:27 PM
UTICA — When the Rev. William Procanick put his hand on the Bible during his sex-abuse trial in Oneida County Court earlier this year, he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But as the former Clinton pastor was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl at his home last March, Judge Michael L. Dwyer said Procanick sacrificed his honesty the day he testified.
“As a minister of God, you got on the stand and you lied,” Dwyer told Procanick, the 54-year-old former pastor of Resurrection Assembly of God church on Kirkland Avenue.
A jury found Procanick guilty Jan. 22 of first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
Dwyer said he believes Procanick was being honest when he told the girl's mother in a recorded phone call that he was wrong to caress the girl's body while she was trying to fall asleep.
However, Procanick instead testified in court that he did nothing wrong other than spend time alone with the girl, who was a friend of the family, Dwyer noted.
If Procanick had accepted responsibility from the beginning instead of straying from the truth, Dwyer said, Procanick would likely have faced a lesser punishment and possibly avoided jail time.
“The truth would have set you free,” Dwyer said. “You had a chance to be a man and say, 'I made a mistake.' But as always, the cover-up is much worse than the original crime.”
Procanick's defense attorney, George Aney, noted that Procanick still received a sentence less than the maximum, which was up to seven years in prison.
“It's considerably less than the maximum, but considerably more than he deserved,” Aney said.
Aney also took issue with how Dwyer and the victim's mother used harsh language to attack Procanick's Christian values.
“You are just an evil man,” the victim's mother said Friday in court. “You lied, and you had your wife lie. And all these people who showed up in court to support you, did you lie to them, too?”
The Observer-Dispatch does not identify sex-abuse victims and their families.
The victim's mother said her daughter is still waking up scared at night because of what happened, and she continues to see a therapist. The young girl also feels that everybody is mad at her, the mother said.
Assistant District Attorney Doug DeMarche Jr. then read a note written by the girl, who did not appear in court Friday.
“Bill made me sad and scared,” DeMarche read. “I thought I did something wrong, because I trusted him.”
Dwyer gave Procanick an opportunity to speak in court, but Procanick had nothing to say to the victim and her family.
Aney did not plan to speak in court, he told Dwyer, but he felt obligated to respond to what the victim's mother said about Procanick and his wife.
“I believe she shows her own lack of Christianity by referring to people as liars,” Aney said.
After the sentencing, Aney further commented about what was said in court.
“I respect Judge Dwyer for what he said this morning, but I have to say I disagreed with him,” Aney said. “I have every right to express my feelings, and my feelings are that we are not permitted to call anybody a liar. That's a judgment someone higher than I makes.”
DeMarche, however, said he can understand why the girl's mother spoke of Procanick in such harsh terms.
“She had a lot of faith and trust in Mr. Procanick, and he violated that trust,” DeMarche said. “I think she's justified in being angry.”
A Picture of What is Coming in America
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