Sunday, June 29, 2008

Okay for President In The Name Of National Security to Torture or to Bury The Child of A detainee Alive

Torture is a matter of intent & not the extent of pain & suffering
If the President of the United States or leader of any country believes it is in the interest of that nation to pull out a person's fingernails or burying alive the child of a detainee to extract information- The only rule of law is that of the laws which protect the President or other members of the executive or members of the ruling regime of any country.Whatever the King decrees is by definition legal and moral. When lawyers work for a dictator or king they bend the law to suit the King or President. The law is merely a tool to be used by those in power to justify their power , their actions and their whims. The law therefore has little to do with justice or with protecting the weak and the innocent.

These members of the Bush regime are unable to differentiate between right and wrong and legal or ilegal. It seems they believe if something is legal then it is ok . As we know under Hitler many vile and horrifying actions were according to the Nazi Party legal and therefore justified. But the rulings at the Nuremberg trials mad a distinction between that which is legal and that which is immoral, unethical as an affront to human conscience and therefore wrong and evil.

They ( Yoo and Addington ) seem to suggest that torture and even burying someone's child alive would be ok in certain circumstances. So much for Conservatives and the religious right and their claim to have more respect and regard for human life .When Saddam did such things it was considered to be torture but when Americans do such things it is some sort of justifiable and even holy act.

They also seem to imply that if one causes someone a great deal of physical pain for no particular reason or in fact gets pleasure from inflicting physical or psychological harm then it might be called torture. So the only question we should ask of the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada or whomever is whether or not he enjoyed inflicting pain on his prisoners.

The Real News Network
American News Project: D.C. SNAPSHOT - On June 26, 2008, John Yoo and David Addington, two leading architects of the Bush administration's policies on torture, testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Even seemingly simple questions yielded evasive answers.




Book of note which I am currently reading The Terror Dream by Susan Faludi pub. 2007.

Faludi offers the thesis that of Men who are the capable rescuers of women in peril. This she claims is an ongoing mythology going back to the Old West and the so-called Indian wars back to 1500's which persisted up to recent times. She uses the film The Searchers as the paradigm for this American myth of manly men rescuing their femine helpless women in distress. In such a mythology there is no room for capable independent women who are not in need of being protected or rescued by manly men. There is also little if any room for women who are just as capable as men and who also able to act as heroes , protectors and rescuers. This trumped up phony myth permeates the post 9/11 American culture.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Iraq story buried by US networks- features Lara Logan of CBS

Iraq story buried by US networks- features Lara Logan of CBS
From The Real News Network



CBS's Lara Logan Slams American Coverage Of Iraq War
Troops feel they have been forgotten
The Young Turks



also see article from The New York Times.COM
Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner
BRIAN STELTER June 23, 2008

Getting a story on the evening news isn’t easy for any correspondent. And for
reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is especially hard, according to Lara
Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News. So she has devised a
solution when she is talking to the network.

According to data compiled
by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network
evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been “massively scaled back this year.”
Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of
Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The “CBS Evening
News” has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC’s
“World News” and 74 minutes on “NBC Nightly News.” (The average evening newscast
is 22 minutes long.)

CBS News no longer stations a single full-time
correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.
Paul Friedman, a senior vice president at CBS News, said the news division
does not get reports from Iraq on television “with enough frequency to justify
keeping a very, very large bureau in Baghdad.” He said CBS correspondents can
“get in there very quickly when a story merits it.”


and so it goes,
GORD.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

McCain Too Busy With Oil Barons To Bother About Midwest Diaster/ Nuking Iran/ Bob Woodward's " State Of Denial "

The John McCain Disaster ~Olbermann & Rachel Maddow
June 17, 2008 MSNBC Keith Olbermann



Bush's tepid response to disaster.
McCain's lack of interest .
Obama goes to disaster area and at least appears interested and concerned.
Natural disaster takes toll on failing infrastructure- levees etc.
McCain more interested in paying homage to Big Oil and their profits which are growing exponentially.


Israel military maneuver confirmed...June 20



So if Israel attacks Iran and the situation escalates will Israel or America drop nukes on Iran and a few other countries to be certain they get all the threats to Western Civilization where democracy, freedom, equality & pursuit of happiness are protected for the rich and the powerful - as for everybody else just shit outta luck-
And Oh My the price of oil will go up and Americans will blame the Iranians - them arrogant Persians whose culture goes back about 3,000 years and America's traditional and ancient culture goes back about 250 years. But those Persians these Great Wisemen tell us that is Bush and Cheney and the CNN and Fox News them Persians are not like us they are not even Christian and don't even speak a proper language like English ...them Persians are a godless barbaric race who envy the American Way of Life ie. Amway, Pepsi, Coca cola , Starbucks materialism, nihilism, relativism, cynicism- Christian Materialism and Prosperity for the Faithful and the Beautiful and those of the Right Fascistic Mind Set like those Great Western Intellectuals Leo Strauss, Douglas Feith, Bush, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears or some empty headed journalist or Jock or Bad Actor making 5 to 20 million a year. Oh yes our culture is so Superior. Nah! time to call it a day - since there's little left to defend or needs to be perpetuated what like Reality TV, the Osbourne's and COPS and America's got talent and reruns of Friends , Cheers, Archie Bunker - this is why people are encourage to take Law degrees and do PHDs so they become more vacuous consumes of TV and stuff they don't need or to go skydiving because their lives are empty and unrewarding- is this worth fighting for - Nah! Forget about it just move back to Jersey where you belong-

And here's some background to the deception and Dumbing Down of the Media and The American People
and I fear we Canadians are moving in the same direction as we buy into all this American Exceptionalism BullShit !!!



Anyway I just finished reading Bob Woodward's State of Denial. My reaction was that there was little new in his book; it was all old news before 2005.

But the American media having gulped down gallons of the KOOLAIDE was shocked and disturbed by all of Woodward's vindictive and pernicious accusations ( in their view )- 60 Minutes at least gave hima fair hearing while others just attacked Woodward as being anti-Bush and therefore pro-terrorist and probably a Pinko Communist- after all he Woodward that is brought down one of America's great Presidents Nixon according to the Consrvatives and Neocons who as we know have little interest in truth, justice, equality, fairness, freedom or democracy. All of these are just slogans Conservatives use in order to get elected and maintain power so they can swindle the average citizen while funnelling more and more wealth to the the Rich and powerful.

State of Denial did provide a lot of background details and gave some sense of all the dysfuntional, inept, incompetent , gutless ,sycophantic people working in the Bush Regime. Bush himself is more difficult to categorize except as being dysfunctional non-drinking alcoholic who's brain was pickled long ago and is now propped up by his egomaniac enablers Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice , Karl Rove and 60s 70s flashback political Guru of Real Politik Henry Kissinger who helped carpet bomb Cambodia and then overthrow democratically elected President Allende of Chile and then used the CIA to help Pinochet's military and Death Squads to arrest, torture and murder unarmed University professors and students and labour leaders, social workers, human rights lawyers and other evil people who actually took America's at its word that America believed in Democracy, Freedom, Freedom of Speech and equality. They forgot America believes only in America. Everbody else's freedom is a matter of America's interests and whims. .



and so it goes,
GORD.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Amnesty International | Working to Protect Human Rights

Amnesty International | Working to Protect Human Rights

Bill Moyers addresses NCMR 2008

In case you missed it :This is an important speech made by Bill Moyers about the need to fight for an independent and free press. Given that much of the media has become either vacuous or irrelevant or as being the promulgators of propaganda for the rich and powerful and the Neocons and the extremist Religious Right etc.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Bush War Crimes The Media Doesn't Cover the Story

UPDATE: Sunday June 22, 2008


And they dare to call it Democracy when only one opinion or view is permitted by the Republicans Bush & McCain
As Arianna Huffington points out:

Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup June 22, 2008


This week, the dueling
parties fell into odious and all-too-familiar patterns. As expected, the GOP,
unable to run on its disastrous record, played the fear card. Leaping on Obama's
defense of the rule of law (dear god, not that!), the Republicans pulled out
their 2004 playbook and opened it to "Scare Tactics." Newt Gingrich said
supporting habeas corpus could lead to the obliteration of a U.S. city. Rudy
Giuliani (surprise) evoked 9/11 a bunch of times. John Bolton predicted an Obama
presidency would lead to more terrorist attacks. And John McCain lapped it up.
Buying into the 2004 mindset, House Democrats promptly removed their gonads and
capitulated on telecom immunity and Iraq war funding. That, more than the
fear-mongering of the right, is what sent a shiver down my spine.

and also from the Huffington Post
Talk Radio Host speaking for Bush supporters and Republicans that all dissidents and protesters " should be shot " since America is in a state of war??? Yes, it is worse than you think.

Right Wing Talk Host Michael Reagan Calls for Murder of Anti War Activists

On June 13, talk radio host Michael Reagan, the adopted son of former president Ronald Reagan and occasional guest anchor on Fox News, called for the murder of anti-war activists who, according to Reagan, are sending letters to U.S. soldiers arguing that the U.S. government had a role in 9/11.
Reagan told his nationally-syndicated radio audience:
"Take em out and shoot em. . . . You take em out, they are traitors to this country, and shoot them. . . . Anybody who would do that doesn't deserve to live. You shoot them. You call them traitors, that's what they are. And you shoot em dead. I'll pay for the bullets."


Anyway Bush is continuing to commit more crimes as he lies about the war in Iraq and the coming war with Iran to capture their oil. People in the West may want and need more oil but is it right to steal it. As the price of gas and tea in China well if the US government had spent a few billion on alternative sources maybe the oil and coal companies couldn't fill the people with such fear as the price of oil and food etc. keep going up. Instead the US government chose to spend 500 Billion on an unnecessary war with Iraq. The war has cost about 450 Billion more than Cheney or Rumsfeld said it would. So how many wind mills or solar panels could one build with 500 Billion dollars.

Here's a song to fit the news ;
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds performing Abattoir Blues on the Jules Holland show-
from YOUTUBE.



Jon Stewart on War Crimes
Bush War Crimes - Media Doesn't Care



Olbermann interviews Bill Moyers
Media Propaganda Obama
Internet & free speech





Mission A-FREEKIN-ccomplished!!! ~Olbermann & Rachel Maddow
June 19, 2008/MSNBC Keith Olbermann
It is all about the oil



Jon Stewart - Iraq: The First 5 Years
Cheney doesn't care what Americans think about the war !!!



And so it goes ,
GORD.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Vincent Bugliosi and Prosecution of George Bush For War Crimes

Anyway no matter how strong the case is to prosecute George W. Bush or even to impeach him the American Media is too much enamoured with George Bush or have been too complicit in his crimes to be willing to seriously discuss the issue. Yes they will talk about the issue of impeachment or prosecution but only in order to denigrate anyone who dares to criticize their man in the White House. We also see this with how the Media treats McCain as being the only one worthy of becoming president after George Bush. McCain would continue to defend and to further expand the American Empire and to promote so-called American values and or religion of Capitalism and of materialism and greed . The Christian God they tell us is all about prosperity and wealth .

It is difficult for millions of well informed people in America to understand why Bush has not been impeached while the Conservatives and some fanatical Christian Fundamentalists defend Bush no matter what. Is it because they see him as an agent of God or Jesus moving the world towards Armageddon or towards the promised Christian Millennium. As for the wealthy citizens of America George Bush has helped them to maintain their wealth and in many cases increase their wealth greatly. But more than this Bush and the Media have defended the rich explaining that being rich is a good thing and that it is a sign from God of one's worthiness. The Wealthy need not feel guilt or shame about being rich. And the Rich are not required by God or Jesus to help the poor or the weak and the meek. They owe the poor nothing. God made the poor poor. As HE made the weak and disabled according to HIS will to punish them for their lack of Faith. The rich according to this view or philosophy of faith cannot be blamed for taking advantage of the average American citizen or worker since each citizen has a role to play according to God's will; therefore the poor are poor because it is God's will. America no matter what it does is to be viewed as necessary and good because God wills it since America is God's chosen nation. Sometimes referred to as " Manifest Destiny " or " American Exceptionalism " or even as " Fate " or " Fortune "(" Fortuna ") or " Karma " Therefore to criticize or attempt to impeach or prosecute George Bush and those around him is to ultimately question God's Will and this cannot be permitted.

Whatever one calls it or how one dresses it up in political or economic philosophies or theories it is still a matter of " FAITH ". The so-called rationalists and atheists who defend America are the victims as it were of the same delusional thinking or leap of faith.

Jon Stewart on Bush War Crimes and Lies And Propaganda
From Crooks and Liars:Jon Stewart Slams Media for Blacking Out Iraq War Lies Report
By: SilentPatriot on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008


The Daily Show reports on the media’s failure to report on the Senate report that proves the Bush administration knowingly lied to us about the reasons for war. Surely the “Big Three” have more important things to cover
Stewart: “Let’s go back to the Big Three, that’s where real Americans get their news. Charlie Gibson, cover it!”

Gibson: “Something that doesnt happen every day, and certainly doesn’t happen twice..a well-know French daredevil named ‘Spiderman’…”

Stewart: “Yes, he was climbing the New York Times building. Perhaps looking to read the story about the administration leading us into a war that you didnt cover at all! At all!

For a “fake news” anchor, Jon Stewart sure does a better job reporting actual news than the entire mainstream media combined. I’m sure Stewart wouldn’t take offense when I say that that’s pretty sad.

-------


The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder: Vincent Bugliosi



Excerpts

The Legal Framework for the Prosecution
With respect to the position I take about the crimes of George Bush, I want to state at the outset that my motivation is not political. Although I've been a longtime Democrat (primarily because, unless there is some very compelling reason to be otherwise, I am always for "the little guy"), my political orientation is not rigid.

Palpable Anger
My anger over the war in Iraq, some will say, is palpable in the pages of this book. If I sound too angry for some, what should I be greatly angry about — that a referee gave what I thought was a bad call to my hometown football, basketball, or baseball team, and it may have cost them the game? I don't think so.

Bush's Reaction to War
How has George Bush reacted to the hell he created in Iraq, to the thousands of lives that have been lost in the war, and to the enormous and endless suffering that the survivors of the victims — their loved ones — have had to endure?


The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

Famed prosecutor and #1 New York Times bestselling author Vincent Bugliosi has written the most powerful, explosive, and thought-provoking book of his storied career. As a prosecutor dedicated to seeking justice, he delivers a non-partisan argument, free from party lines, based upon hard facts and pure objectivity.



"SOMEONE HAS TO PAY"

In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting in Iraq. Watch this video interview to learn why he believes we must bring those responsible for the war in Iraq to justice.







Jon Stewart on War Crimes
Bush War Crimes - Media Doesn't Care



Olbermann interviews Bill Moyers
Media Propaganda Obama
Internet & free speech



Chances are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Gonzales etc will not be prosecuted for anything. Obama will call for change and for a time to move forward rather than go up against the status quo of Big Business, Big Oil , Big Coal and Business as usual and Corruption American style. What matters in the end is that the American Myth be maintained at all costs. America is not a shining example of Democracy and freedom and this fact must be kept a secret. America has a president who was elected by means of what many claim to be a fixed election, he took the country to war under false pretenses while he insists on the right to detain anyone to have them kidnapped and tortured who are then not given a fair trial since the assumption is that if one is a detainee then one is guilty. So according to Bush and most Americans all those who are detained are guilty. Those who appear to be found to be innocent just happened to have unprincipled immoral lawyers who are themselves anti-Bush and anti-American.
and so it goes,
GORD.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Bush Regime War Crimes , Torture and More

CNN: Maj. Gen. Taguba Accuses Bush Administration of War Crimes



The Young Turks
Bush Does War Crimes



Democracy Now
Democracy Now!Retired General Antonio Taguba Bush Committed War Crimes

Retired General Antonio Taguba who led the US army’s investigation into the Abu Ghraib abuses has accused the Bush administration of “a systematic regime of torture” and war crimes. Taguba’s accusations appear in the preface to a new report released by Physicians for Human Rights. The report uses medical evidence to confirm first-hand accounts of eleven former prisoners who endured torture by US personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay.

Taguba writes “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

The report was published in the midst of two days of Congressional hearings on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held an 8-hour hearing that exposed the role of top Bush administration officials in authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques. The committee released a series of previously classified documents detailing how the Pentagon and the CIA transformed the military’s SERE resistance training program into a blueprint for interrogating terrorist suspects. Committee Chair Senator Carl Levin explained the timeline of implementing the SERE or Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape techniques and the role of military psychologists in devising these routines.


Ex-State Dept. official: Hundreds of detainees died in U.S. custody, at least 25 murdered By Think Progress

19/06/08 -- -- At yesterday's House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides:

NADLER: Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered?

WILKERSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108.

A February 2006 Human Rights First report found that although hundreds of people in U.S. custody had died and eight people were tortured to death, only 12 deaths had “resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official.”

Transcript:

NADLER: Colonel Wilkerson, in your prepared testimony, you write that “as I compiled my dossier for Secretary Powell, and as I did further research, and as my views grew firmer and firmer I had to reread that memo (of February 7, 2002), “I needed to balance in my own mind the overwhelming evidence that my own government had sanctioned abuse and torture, which at its worse had led to the murder of 25 detainees and at least 100 detainee deaths. We have murder at least 25 people in detention. That was the clear low point [lower end of the range] of the evidence.” Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered?

WILKERSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108, and the total number that were declared homicides by the military services, or by the CIA, or others doing investigations, CID, and so forth — was 25, 26, 27.

NADLER: Were declared homicides?

WILKERSON: Right, starting as early as December 2001 in Afghanistan.

NADLER: And these were homicides committed by people engaged in interrogations?

WILKERSON: Or in guarding prisoners, or something like that. People who were in detention.

NADLER: They were in detention, not trying to escape or anything, declared homicides by our own authorities.

and so it goes: Paul Craig Roberts at Information Clearing House argues that John Yoo believes that what many Americans take as being their inalienable rights can in fact be terminated by a president and the executive branch . Habeas Corpus is therefore not some sort of sacred or important right but merely a legal hurdle to be cast aside by the President or by otheres with the proper delegated authority. Human Rights or legal rights are not in any way guranteed or sacred.

And on the necessity of torture

John Yoo, Totalitarian/By Paul Craig Roberts

19/06/08 "ICH" - -- - John Yoo stands outside the Anglo-American legal tradition. His views lead to self-incrimination wrung out of a victim by torture. He believes a president of the US can initiate war, even on false pretenses, and then use the war he starts as cover for depriving US citizens of habeas corpus protection. A US attorney general informed by Yoo’s memos even went so far as to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Constitution does not provide habeas corpus protection to US citizens.

Yoo’s animosity to US civil liberties made him a logical choice for appointment to the Bush Regime’s Department of Justice (sic), but his appointment as a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, shatters that university’s liberal image.

Habeas corpus is a centuries-old British legal reform that stopped authorities from arbitrarily throwing a person into a dungeon and leaving him there forever without presenting charges in a court of law. Without this protection, there can be no liberty.

Yoo is especially adamant that “enemy combatants” have no rights to challenge the legality of their detentions by US authorities before a federal judge. Yoo would have us believe that the detainees at Guantanamo, for example, are all terrorists who were attacking Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The question is whether any of the detainees are “enemy combatants.” Yoo would have it so because the president says it is so. As the president has already decided, what is the sense of presenting evidence to a judge? For Yoo, accusation by the executive branch is the determination of guilt.

But what we know about the detainees is that many are hapless individuals who were captured by war lords and sold to the Americans for the bounty that the US government offered for “terrorists.”

-------
Leaked U.S. Military Manual:How to Train Death Squads and Quash Revolutions from San Salvador to Iraq
From Wikileaks


How to covertly train paramilitaries, censor the press, ban unions, employ terrorists, conduct warrantless searches, suspend habeas corpus, conceal breaches of the Geneva Convention and make the population love it

JULIAN ASSANGE (investigative editor)
Monday June 15, 2008

Wikileaks has released a sensitive 219 page US military counterinsurgency manual. The manual, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces (1994, 2004), may be critically described as "what we learned about running death squads and propping up corrupt government in Latin America and how to apply it to other places". Its contents are both history defining for Latin America and, given the continued role of US Special Forces in the suppression of insurgencies, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, history making.

The leaked manual, which has been verified with military sources, is the official US Special Forces doctrine for Foreign Internal Defense or FID.

FID operations are designed to prop up a "friendly" government facing a popular revolution or guerilla insurgency. FID interventions are often covert or quasi-covert due to the unpopular nature of the governments being supported ("In formulating a realistic policy for the use of advisors, the commander must carefully gauge the psychological climate of the HN [Host Nation] and the United States.")

The manual directly advocates training paramilitaries, pervasive surveillance, censorship, press control and restrictions on labor unions & political parties. It directly advocates warrantless searches, detainment without charge and (under varying circumstances) the suspension of habeas corpus. It directly advocates employing terrorists or prosecuting individuals for terrorism who are not terrorists, running false flag operations and concealing human rights abuses from journalists. And it repeatedly advocates the use of subterfuge and "psychological operations" (propaganda) to make these and other "population & resource control" measures more palatable.

The content has been particularly informed by the long United States involvement in El Salvador.

In 2005 a number of credible media reports suggested the Pentagon was intensely debating "the Salvador option" for Iraq.[1]. According to the New York Times Magazine:

The template for Iraq today is not Vietnam, with which it has often been compared, but El Salvador, where a right-wing government backed by the United States fought a leftist insurgency in a 12-year war beginning in 1980. The cost was high — more than 70,000 people were killed, most of them civilians, in a country with a population of just six million. Most of the killing and torturing was done by the army and the right-wing death squads affiliated with it. According to an Amnesty International report in 2001, violations committed by the army and associated groups included ‘‘extrajudicial executions, other unlawful killings, ‘disappearances’ and torture. . . . Whole villages were targeted by the armed forces and their inhabitants massacred.’’ As part of President Reagan’s policy of supporting anti-Communist forces, hundreds of millions of dollars in United States aid was funneled to the Salvadoran Army, and a team of 55 Special Forces advisers, led for several years by Jim Steele, trained front-line battalions that were accused of significant human rights abuses.


And so it goes,
GORD.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

MCCAIN & PAX AMERICANA: Freedoms Fought For By Founding Fathers Merely Quaint

UPDATE : 1:24 PM

Here's a couple of items from the Center For Media and Democracy illustrating what the goals , aims and policies of the American Empire really are as represented by American corporations and the rich and powerful and their political stooges . They may pay lip service to freedom and human rights and Democracy but this is not what they actually which to achieve. The rich and powerful and their true-believing worshippers and followers desire to be richer and more powerful while convincing the citizenry through propaganda that they the people are in fact free and are living the " Good Life ". Meanwhile the corporations act as gate-Keepers for the Chinese Government and so police their employees and the Internet to crush all signs of dissent. In how many other countries do these and other companies work as partners with the various despotic, authoritarian or tyrannical & brutal and deadly governments . Without the aid of the American government and Western Corporations in their complicity with these regimes many of these regimes would fall apart and be crushed by those countries citizenry. But this doesn't happen very often since it is not in America's or the corporation's interest. When such ruthless regimes are overthrown as in Chile, Guatemala, Argentina, Iran or Iraq etc. the Americans are always there to re-establish the old regime or a different but more suitable anti-democratic corrupt and brutal but of course pro-authoritarian/ pro-business/ pro-American Regime .

PAX Americana: Conquest Not Freedom

Center For Media and Democracy /Jun 17, 2008
How Not to Win Friends and Influence People/Source: National Security Archive, June 13, 2008


"The U.S. military has long sought an agreement with Baghdad that gives American forces virtually unfettered freedom of action, casting into doubt the Bush administration's current claims that their demands are more limited," concludes the National Security Archive's analysis of recently declassified documents. In a 2003 cable, then-Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer wrote that any agreement with the future government of Iraq must give U.S. forces authority "to detain, intern, and interrogate"; "to retain custody of current POWs / detainees / internees"; and "unlimited authority to conduct military operations." Bremer added that U.S. personnel, including military contractors, "must be accorded ... full criminal immunity and immunity from civil process for official acts." In related news, the Wikileaks website has published what it says is "a sensitive U.S. military counterinsurgency manual." The document points to U.S. involvement in El Salvador and elsewhere in describing how to control foreign populations. Suggested tactics include martial law, censorship, psychological operations, supporting "civilian self-defense forces" and persuading "individuals among the general populace to become informants," by using as motives "civic-mindedness, patriotism, fear, punishment avoidance, gratitude, revenge or jealousy, financial rewards."


Bush , Cheney , McCain & America Companies envious of Chinese Model for Closing Down Dissent
Center For Media and Democracy :China's Online Persuaders/
Source: BusinessWeek, June 12, 2008


China's webspace is infamous for censorship, but increasingly, public relations firms there are helping their clients "manage" online conversations. China-based firms such as Daqi, Chinese Web Union and CIC "charge $500 - $25,000 monthly to monitor postings and squelch negative information or to create positive buzz," reports BusinessWeek. Their clients include Nike, PepsiCo, McDonald's, Toyota and L'Oreal. Chinese Web Union (CWU) "pays thousands of people to write nice things about clients, and it compensates forum leaders who spread positive information and quash bad publicity." For Subaru, the firm helped manage criticism that the company's Chinese name "sounds like 'death to the Eighth Route army,' which was perceived as insulting to a Chinese unit that battled Japan in World War II. CWU urged forum leaders to delete negative comments, then asked its writers to post positive news about Subaru." Daqi and CIC "acknowledge pampering online opinion leaders," including by inviting them to events "where they can test and discuss new products."


Anyway John McCain proves he is as tough and unfeeling as the Bush/Cheney tyranny . All that matters is power and the spread and defence of the American Empire. The concerns of other peoples and nations are not as important as those of America and its people. Like Bush and Cheney McCain believes if America needs oil or whatever it will get it by hook or crook . In the end they believe as God's chosen nation they have been given the right to do as they please and to take what they need or want. Being blessed by God or Destiny or Fortune(a ) whatever they do is justified and permissible . The American people must be convinced to sacrifice everything for the betterment of the Empire and for the Rich and Powerful who have been blessed by God .

Not That Important when troops will return from Iraq - Troops not of importance as long as Bush's legacy is kept in tact
McCain will fight to the last willing or unwilling American soldier
Physical and mental health of troops not that important

Olbermann Special Comment McCain on Troops Coming Home pt.1



Freedoms fought for by America's Founding Fathers Merely Quaint
Mccain and Bush / Cheney Regime claim notions such as Habeus Corpus or right to a fair trial or other such rights are not as important as security and fighting terrorists. In a time of perpetual war individual citizens must relinquish their rights. Or as we see below America has an empire to build maintain and defend which must be protected by those who are willing to do that which is necessary. So torture , intensive bombing of cities and napalming civilians to terrorize and keep them under control is they believe necessary .

Meanwhile the Americans in Iraq stay in their relatively safe and luxurious Megabases and in the famed Emerald City with all the comforts of home . These Megabases have a steady supply of water and electricity and food and fuel while much of Iraq is till without clean water or reliable sources of electricity. They have their MacDonalds and WalMarts while the Iraqi people do without the necessities of life. The Iraqi people live in a constant state of fear of American troops and insurgents and death squads and lawless competing gangs . Ah well the conquerors believe the native population being barbaric and uncivilized are used to such privations.

McCain Takes Gitmo Ruling Personally/Why Does GOP Candidate Scorn Supreme Court's Affirmation Of Right Of Habeus Corpus?
June 15, 2008




(CBS) John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, told a crowd of supporters in New Jersey Friday that the Supreme Court’s latest Guantanamo Bay ruling is “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

Why would the normally stoic senator become so hyperbolic about a ruling that, at its essence, strengthens the vitality of the “Great Writ” of habeas corpus - a bedrock constitutional right?

There are several reasons. As a political matter, McCain clearly understands that in his quest to enchant the hard-right wing of the Grand Old Party, he must rail upon the Supreme Court whenever it happens to disagree with the Bush Administration on legal aspects of the war on terrorism.

This is why, just a few weeks ago, McCain delivered a speech that hammered the federal judiciary, sweeping away any lingering notion that he intends to govern as a moderate on legal policy and priorities.

So, whether or not McCain really believes what he says, it is good politics (read: inaccurate and unfair) to declare that the Court just sided with the terrorists over the President when five Justices ruled that the terror suspects detained in Cuba may challenge their detentions in our civilian courts.

Contrary to the angry candidate’s remarks, last week’s Boumediene ruling is not on a par with the Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision that tagged slaves as “property;” its 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that endorsed the “separate but equal” doctrine; or its Korematsu v. United States decision that affirmed the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

In fact, the recent ruling on detainee rights will be revered, not reviled, by future generations, who will study the first decade following the terror attacks on America with a curious mix of regret and sadness about lost opportunities, legal and otherwise, that hampered our collective response.

------------
and as for the abuse of detainees it was and is widespread from Iraq to Gitmo to Afghanistan - Once the American government under George W. Bush decided and proclaimed that all combatants were to be deemed as being outside the protection of American Law or of International Law and the Geneva Conventions

Monday, June 16, 2008/U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan — American soldiers herded the detainees into holding pens of razor-sharp concertina wire, as if they were corralling livestock.



The guards kicked, kneed and punched many of the men until they collapsed in pain. U.S. troops shackled and dragged other detainees to small isolation rooms, then hung them by their wrists from chains dangling from the wire mesh ceiling.



Former guards and detainees whom McClatchy interviewed said Bagram was a center of systematic brutality for at least 20 months, starting in late 2001. Yet the soldiers responsible have escaped serious punishment.



The public outcry in the United States and abroad has focused on detainee abuse at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but sadistic violence first appeared at Bagram, north of Kabul, and at a similar U.S. internment camp at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan.



The eight-month McClatchy investigation found a pattern of abuse that continued for years. The abuse of detainees at Bagram has been reported by U.S. media organizations, in particular The New York Times, which broke several developments in the story. But the extent of the mistreatment, and that it eclipsed the alleged abuse at Guantanamo, hasn't previously been revealed.



Guards said they routinely beat their prisoners to retaliate for al Qaida's 9-11 attacks, unaware that the vast majority of the detainees had little or no connection to al Qaida.



Former detainees at Bagram and Kandahar said they were beaten regularly. Of the 41 former Bagram detainees whom McClatchy interviewed, 28 said that guards or interrogators had assaulted them. Only eight of those men said they were beaten at Guantanamo Bay.



Because President Bush loosened or eliminated the rules governing the treatment of so-called enemy combatants, however, few U.S. troops have been disciplined under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and no serious punishments have been administered, even in the cases of two detainees who died after American guards beat them.




------------
Empire and the End of Freedom

The Greatest Story Never Told
Finally, the U.S. Mega-Bases in Iraq Make the News By Tom Engelhardt


16/06/08 "Tom Dispatch" -- -

In fact, in the last five-plus years, untold billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on the construction and upgrading of those bases. When asked back in the fall of 2003, only months after Baghdad fell to U.S. troops, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer then "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, proudly indicated that "several billion dollars" had already been invested in those fast-rising bases. Even then, he was suitably amazed, commenting that "the numbers are staggering." Imagine what he might have said, barely two and a half years later, when the U.S. reportedly had 106 bases, mega to micro, all across the country.

By now, billions have evidently gone into single massive mega-bases like the U.S. air base at Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. It's a "16-square-mile fortress," housing perhaps 40,000 U.S. troops, contractors, special ops types, and Defense Department employees. As the Washington Post's Tom Ricks, who visited Balad back in 2006, pointed out -- in a rare piece on one of our mega-bases -- it's essentially "a small American town smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq." Back then, air traffic at the base was already being compared to Chicago's O'Hare International or London's Heathrow -- and keep in mind that Balad has been steadily upgraded ever since to support an "air surge" that, unlike the President's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 ground troops, has yet to end.

-----------
Joby Warrick writing for the Washington Post argues there is ample proof that the Pentagon early on in the war on terror decided on the use of tougher interrogation methods aka torture techniques though when America tortures it is justifiable because it is in the name of freedom, justice and the American way. Like the arrogant empire builders before them they believe they need to by force if necessary teach the natives to bring them its /their superiour culture or simply steal their natural resources and use the conquered peoples as cheap labor .

Even Barack Obama seems at times to blame the iraqi people as the creators of their own misfortune. This has little to do with the reality in Iraq. And Obama too is willing to attack Iran for some perceived wrong.

It appears to me that Americans believe Iran has done some great evil to America. But the anxiety is really based on the events which took place when the Iranian people rose up against the American backed butcher and tyrant the Shaw of Iran and the taking of American hostages which was seen as an insult and a direct attack on America for which the American people are still seeking revenge. But given the history of America and Iran it is little wonder that there is mistrust of American governments . It was the Americans who sponsored the Iraqi government in its illegal unjustified war against Iran. But don't tell Americans that it does not fit with their deluded ,erroneous, arrogant view of their own country and its mythologized history.

Report Questions Pentagon Accounts/Officials Looked Into Interrogation Methods Early On/By Joby Warrick/Tuesday, June 17, 2008

A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.

Haynes and other senior administration officials also visited Guantanamo Bay in September 2002 to "talk about techniques," said one congressional official. Also on the trip was David S. Addington, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney.

The Guantanamo Bay visit and the effort to compile interrogation tactics appear to show that Pentagon officials were moving toward a formal policy on interrogation before military commanders at the detention camp requested special measures, the officials said. However, top military officers objected to the proposals in a series of memos in November 2002, much earlier than previously reported, congressional investigators said. In early 2003, Rumsfeld formally authorized the techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Canadian Government Apologizes to Aboriginals

Canadian Government apology to aboriginals

So anyway in case you missed it here is Prime Minister Harper's Government apology to Aboriginal Canadians :

June 11, 2008
Formal Apology to Residential School
Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a historic apology for more than a century of abuse and cultural loss involving Indian residential schools.

The Prime Minister acknowledged the government's role in removing and isolating children from their homes, families and culture.

Speaking in the House of Commons Harper acknowledged, "The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter of our history," "Some sought, as was infamously said, to kill the Indian in the child."

Harper continued, "This policy was wrong, caused great harm and has no place in our country,"

Residential school survivors from across Canada -- many wearing traditional clothing -- filled the House of Commons, which postponed other business for the day, to hear the Government of Canada's official apology, which began at 3 o'clock.

Close to 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and M tis children were removed from their communities throughout most of the last century and forced to attend residential schools.




National Chief Phil Fontaine - Response to Formal Apology





So here are a couple of videos for some background info on the treatment of Aboriginal Peoples by our society and those in positions of authority. This info is for those who have been as they say living under a rock or who keep themselves blissfully unaware of anything they find disturbing and those who are unable to sympathize or empathize with anyone who is different or whose experiences are different from theirs. And so it goes ... This is possible given the credo of our age or the credo of the Middle Class in our society who say : They achieve their goals by not thinking about that which they do not wish to think about : that is that which may cause them pain or doubt or fear instead they only have happy thoughts since they have the intellectual and emotional depth of a gnat. These are the Neocon drones who are now in power in our sad desperate land.

This Short Film is a Documentary by Chief Moon " on what happened to the North American Indians (Plains Indians) in the 1800 & 1900's. During the English Settlers movement to North America, they forced change on North American Indians as they dominated their land. The English Settlers killed them, put them on Reservations, took their land, and even their children.

What you are about to see maybe disturbing, but these are just some of the stories that have been documented and witnessed in the past.

Assimilation or Annihilation: The Plains Indians







--------------
A song sung by Australian, Archie Roach about the forcible removal of the children of his people. Pictures are Canadian First Nations Children who were also forcibly removed from their homes in the late 1800's and early to late 1900's.




Johnny Cash God' Gonna Cut You Down



We were not the savages!
A video tribute to the Residential School victims.
Residential schools First Nations Mi'Gmaq Canada



and so it goes,
GORD.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

" Daylight Robbery " : BBC Film Details How Cheney's Halliburton and other American Corporations Steal From Their Own Government

Anyway the brutal war continues in Iraq even though the media seems to believe the war is over and Iraq is now peaceful . Meanwhile President Bush again says he was right to go into Iraq to bring down Saddam and then have Saddam lynched by a Kangaroo court. Besides Bush says the world is safer without Saddam yet studies show and the facts on the ground show the world is less safe since the USA invaded Iraq killing a million or so people.

Great documentary from the BBC on the theft , fraud and mismanagement of contractors in Iraq . 23 billion stolen . Bush ,Cheney and friends make a killing as War Profiteers and the American people do nothing about it. Little of the information is new yet most Americans prefer not to know about it . And many Americans agree with Bush and Cheney that all Whistleblowers are Traitors and are anti-American. Whereas before the Iraq war many western nations believed that government whistleblowers were actually were performing a service for the public and now whistleblowers are told to shut up . Besides what's the point of getting a government job or position in government if you can't use insider information to help yourself or at least your friends financially. That's how the world works .

As I have said before I find it disturbing, hypocritical and ludicrous to teach children that honesty is the best policy or virtue is its own reward when our society says its okay for a corporation to cheat the government or its clients and that the President has a right to lie and to have people kidnaped and tortured on a whim and that the leaders of our countries are above and beyond the law of the land that no one has a right to challenge or judge them.

Part of the problem is that too many Americans actually profit from this on-going corruption. If Hillary Clinton or other Americans are able to profit by the Iraq War or any other war then why would they be against going to war as long as it is not their children or loved ones who are being killed. Besides what else is the working class good for except as cheap labor and as throw -away-soldiers. But it is not just the wealthy that profit from war. Many Middle Class Americans profit by the jobs they have and or by the investments they have made in companies such as Halliburton and KBR . If your investments increase exponentially during a war then why would you be against war in general. War is therefore a means to generate business and profits for companies; for its CEOs; for its workers; for its shareholders . So one should lie and hope you can get away with it . The main problem is being caught . Those who attempt to be honest and truthful as much as possible are just plain naive and possibly just plain stupid since everyone we are now told lies and that's okay.

Cheney's company Halliburton made a few billion in Iraq . Cheney may have messed up the war but he found ways to make money on the WAR. No need to get upset - this is the American Way of War and Profit. And as we have been told we the general public have no say when it comes to important issues such as war.According to Americans it is ok for companies to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them including ripping -off the US government and military.This Cheney would describe as capitalism at its best.

Americans don't respect human life the way the rest of the world does. America's government and businesses will endanger peoples lives in order to save money and to increase profits . Dick Cheney wonders out loud " So What's Wrong With That ?"

Iraq - What Happened To The $23Billion?
The Greatest Heist In History
AKA : Daylight Robbery
When the US goes to war, corporate America goes too.

Panorama investigates claims that as much as $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or not properly accounted for in Iraq.

There are contracts for caterers, tanker drivers, security guards and even interrogators, many of them through companies with links to the White House. Now more than 70 whistleblower cases threaten to reveal the scandals behind billions of dollars worth of waste, theft and corruption during the Iraq war. Gagging orders A total of $23bn (£11.75bn) is under scrutiny.

The US justice department has imposed gagging orders which prevent the real scale of the problem emerging. But Panorama's Jane Corbin has spoken to some of those involved - with astonishing stories to tell of who got rich and who got burned. She hears allegations of mismanagement, fraud and waste; tales of contractors chosen for their US government connections without a competitive bidding process; contractors inflating their costs and double counting to increase their profits and billions supposed to be used to rebuild the Iraqi military allegedly ending up in the pockets of some Iraqi government officials. Even the contract to oversee the expenditure went to a company with no relevant qualification in accounting. "They are the quintessential war profiteers," said a witness to one of the most notorious companies involved. "They made money out of chaos."


BBC - Broadcast 10/06/08
BBC probe: Gag orders hide contractor corruption in Iraq



Here's a clip of the first part of the documentary under a different title sinc the original embedded full version was deleted. For copywrite reasons. For political or legal reasons. Since much of what is discussed has been banned from publication by the Bush Regime. Truth is too dangerous to be leaked to the public? The problem for the Bush Regime is that most of this sensitive and secret information is already out there for the public to see or read .

TOTAL CORRUPTION, TOTAL LAWLESSNESS. AMERICA IN IRAQ PT1



Halliburton Stocks rise as More US Troops Die In Iraq
The more chaos the better the profits



June 11, 2008
George Galloway proven right again as BBC Panorama investigates the MISSING BILLIONS of IRAQ. Galloway accused the the Senate to their FACES of this, THREE years ago George Galloway proven right again as BBC Panorama investigates the MISSING BILLIONS of IRAQ. Galloway accused the the Senate to their FACES of this, THREE years ago. The BBC show is subject to a GAGGING order from the US Authorities, WHAT and the UK OBEYS?? yep, me have given in and done as any other poodle Country would.



also see Iraq For Sale : The War Profiteers by Robert Greenwald
Trailer



US Troops in Iraq talk about Halliburton & KBR
Soldiers forced to wait for hours in Chow Line for food while Insurgents Take Aim




also see the following books for more information :

The Mess They Made By Gwynne Dyer

Fall of the House of Bush By Craig Unger

Betraying Our Troops By Robert Bauman & Dina Rasor

Fiasco By Thomas E. Ricks

Utter Incompetents By Thomas Oliphant

The Assault On Reason By Al Gore

and so it goes,
GORD.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Obama :AIPAC, Israel and the Status-Quo

Is Obama preparing his country and the world for an attack on Iran by Israel and the United States . Is this the next war that Americans and their Israeli allies . Will Obama take the US to war

Funny bit by Jon Stewart

Jon Stewat on AIPAC
And Obama, McCain & Clinton kowtow to AIPAC
Is this Obama's first sell out to the powerful lobbyists . Will there be more i.e. Big Coal, Big Oil, the Auto Industry -
Does Obama not see this as a sell out . Why should he support Israel unconditionally while Palestinian children are left to starve and to suffer and to do without proper medical treatment due to the inhumane draconian blockade against Palestine .



June 04, 2008
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel US lobby, has earned a reputation for professionalism.

Al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher looked behind the scenes of the lobby's annual conference, finding a staged press conference, rather than an arena for learning and debate.




Obama should pay attention to President Jimmy Carter and others who have spoken out about human rights violations by the Israeli Government or does Obama's sincerity and desire for change end when it comes to supporting Israel above all other countries and no matter what Israel may do.

If Israel drops a few nukes on Palestinians or Arabs or on Iran is that OK and permissible since Israel is so special . Is Obama buying into the Biblical view of Israel and therefore he is unable to use his reason and intelligence when it comes to Israel. Is he hoping that by protecting Israel he is doing God's will. Does he believe Israel must be protected to help bring about the Second Coming of Jesus. Is it a matter of the collective guilt that Westerners have concerning their lack of action during the rise of Hitler and his fanatical and deadly anti-semitism which led to the extermination of six million Jews while the world did nothing.

Now is it possible to convince Obama that unconditional support for Israel or any country is just plain wrong.

Jimmy Carter On Israel and Apartheid in Palestine



----


Robert Fisk refers to the Western nations support of Israel as immoral and obscene given the human rights abuses of the Israeli government . Fisk further points out the West's blind spot when it comes to the rest of the Middle East and its reluctance to view the Middle East as more than just a matter of Israel's security. And of course the West is also interested in the vast oil reserves in the Middle East and will do what's necessary to keep the oil flowing . But if the the West wants to have better relations in the Middle East it should accept that the suffering of Lebanese and Iraqis and Palestinians is just as important as the suffering of the Israelis.
And the sad thing is that even Obama after all his promises and hope and talk of change he too buys into Israeli propaganda and one sided view of the issues facing the Middle East. So will America continue to play the same old game as previous American administrations.

The West's weapon of self-delusion:There are gun battles in Beirut – and America thinks things are going fine

By Robert Fisk

07/06/08 "The Independent" -- - -So they are it again, the great and the good of American democracy, grovelling and fawning to the Israeli lobbyists of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), repeatedly allying themselves to the cause of another country and one that is continuing to steal Arab land.

Will this ever end? Even Barack Obama – or "Mr Baracka" as an Irish friend of mine innocently and wonderfully described him – found time to tell his Jewish audience that Jerusalem is the one undivided capital of Israel, which is not the view of the rest of the world which continues to regard the annexation of Arab East Jerusalem as illegal. The security of Israel. Say it again a thousand times: the security of Israel – and threaten Iran, for good measure.

Yes, Israelis deserve security. But so do Palestinians. So do Iraqis and Lebanese and the people of the wider Muslim world. Now even Condoleezza Rice admits – and she was also talking to Aipac, of course – that there won't be a Palestinian state by the end of the year. That promise of George Bush – which no-one believed anyway – has gone. In Rice's pathetic words, "The goal itself will endure beyond the current US leadership."

Of course it will. And the siege of Gaza will endure beyond the current US leadership. And the Israeli wall. And the illegal Israeli settlement building. And deaths in Iraq will endure beyond "the current US leadership" – though "leadership" is pushing the definition of the word a bit when the gutless Bush is involved – and deaths in Afghanistan and, I fear, deaths in Lebanon too.

It's amazing how far self-delusion travels. The Bush boys and girls still think they're supporting the "American-backed government" of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. But Siniora can't even form a caretaker government to implement a new set of rules which allows Hizbollah and other opposition groups to hold veto powers over cabinet decisions.

Thus there will be no disarming of Hizbollah and thus – again, I fear this – there will be another Hizbollah-Israeli proxy war to take up the slack of America's long-standing hatred of Iran. No wonder President Bashar Assad of Syria is now threatening a triumphal trip to Lebanon. He's won. And wasn't there supposed to be a UN tribunal to try those responsible for the murder of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005? This must be the longest police enquiry in the history of the world. And I suspect it's never going to achieve its goal (or at least not under the "current US leadership").

There are gun battles in Beirut at night; there are dark-uniformed Lebanese interior ministry troops in equally dark armoured vehicles patrolling the night-time Corniche outside my home.



Obama should also take note that not all Israelis or American Jews agree with Israel's governments policies in relation to the Palestinians or to the Gaza strip or support the settler's movement which is an extremist group who wish to drive all Arabs and non-Jews out of Israel while holding onto the areas occupied by the Israelis during the six day war in 1967. The United Nations has insisted again and again that these occupied territories should be handed over to the countries to which they rightfully belong. But of course Israel like the United States only accepts rulings by the United Nations or or other International bodies when they rule in Israel's or the United States favor . Both countries have also rejected the Geneva Conventions so that they can torture and abuse enemy combatants and detainees. Both also believe that they have the right to use pre-emptive strikes and if they see fit that they believe they can use nuclear weapons on non-nuclear states.

New Jewish group aims to win US hearts and minds - 04 Jun 08
June 03, 2008/ AlJAZEERA
Several high profile policymakers and politicians, including Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the US presidential election, will address the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) conference this week.

But Aipac is not the only organisation competing for the hearts and minds of Jewish Americans.

A new group known as J Street has launched an ambitious effort to make alternative views on the Middle East heard in the US capital.




and so it goes,
GORD.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Obama : America's Historical Moment And Hillary Clinton & The Israeli Lobby

UPDATE: June 10/ 5:43 PM

Yes it is an historic moment for the United States as Obama becomes the presidential candidate for the Democratic party in the November election . If he becomes president will he be able to move the country beyond the politics and policies of the status-quo. Are those who represent the rich and powerful and the lobbyists too entrenched or embedded to be dislodged from the body politic in such a way that meaningful and profound change can take place. Will Obama as it were be able to re-invigorate America and American democracy or is it already too late. Or to put it another way will Obama change Washington or will Washington change him.

I cannot see how he would be able to accomplish much if he takes on Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Yes she is able and capable and an Obama-Hillary ticket might be winnable but at what cost. Hillary represents the old guard, the status-quo with a feminist twist. But I still don't see Hillary as a champion of the lower classes including lower class women . She also appears to believe that she and other members of her elite class can claim entitlement that is that because of their wealth and power and elitist education that they are the ones who are entitled to hold power and make policies I don't see Hillary as someone willing to approve of policies which may undermine her class or those who are the wealthiest and most powerful in America including the various Corporations and Multi-nationals for whom she has worked and I believe would continue to work. I further cannot imagine Hillary going up against the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical companies or Big Oil or Big Coal or the Auto Industry.

I still believe that Obama would be better off with John Edwards or someone else whose politics are more progressive and a little bit radical when compared to Hillary. During this campaign I believe Hillary waged a nasty negative bitter attack campaign against Obama that cannot be easily over-looked. How can anyone get past the fact that she was more willing to embrace McCain as her equal as opposed to Obama. Obama didn't have the experience; Obama she characterized as too naive;Obama didn't understand how dangerous America's enemies are; Obama was too willing to be an appeaser to America's enemies; and further Hillary argued Obama made great speeches but had no real policies to put forth etc.




from Truthout http://www.truthout.org/article/one-historic-night-two-americas"> One Historic Night , Two Americas 08 June 2008 by: Frank Rich, The New York Times

Remarkably, neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. McCain had the grace to offer a salute to Mr. Obama's epochal political breakthrough, which reverberated so powerfully across the country and throughout the world. By being so small and ungenerous, they made him look taller. Their inability to pivot even briefly from partisan self-interest could not be a more telling symptom of the dysfunctional Washington culture Mr. Obama aspires to mend.

Yet even as the two establishment candidates huffed and puffed to assert their authority, they seemed terrified by Mr. Obama's insurgency, as if it were the plague in Edgar Allan Poe's 'Masque of the Red Death.' Mrs. Clinton held her nonconcession speech in a Manhattan bunker, banishing cellphone reception and television monitors carrying the news of Mr. Obama's clinching of the nomination. Mr. McCain, laboring under the misapprehension that he was wittily skewering his opponent, compulsively invoked the Obama-patented mantra of 'change' 33 times in his speech.

Mr. McCain only reminded voters that he, like Mrs. Clinton, thinks that change is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. He has no idea what it means. 'No matter who wins this election, the direction of this country is going to change dramatically,' he said on Tuesday. He then grimly regurgitated Goldwater and Reagan government-bashing talking points from the 1960s and '70s even as he presumed to accuse Mr. Obama of looking 'to the 1960s and '70s for answers.'


and continues that Obama should not be underestimated :

The Obama forces out-organized the most ruthless machine in Democratic politics because the medium of their campaign mirrored its inclusive message. They empowered adherents in every state rather than depending on a Beltway campaign hierarchy whose mercenary chief strategist kept his day job as chief executive for a corporate P.R. giant. Such viral organization and fund-raising is a seamless fit with bottom-up democracy as it is increasingly practiced in the Facebook-YouTube era, not merely by Americans and not merely by the young.

You could learn a ton about the Clinton campaign's cultural tone-deafness from its stodgy generic Web site. A similar torpor afflicts JohnMcCain.com, which last week gave its graphics a face-lift that unabashedly mimics BarackObama.com and devoted prime home page real estate to hawking 'McCain Golf Gear.' (No joke.) The blogs, video and social networking are static and sparse, the apt reflection of a candidate who repeatedly invokes 'I' as he boasts of his humility.

Mr. Obama's deep-rooted worldliness - in philosophy as well as itinerant background - is his other crucial departure from the McCain template. As more and more Americans feel the pain of spiraling gas prices and lost jobs, they are also coming to recognize, as Mr. Obama does, that the globally reviled American image forged by an endless war in Iraq and its accompanying torture scandals is inflicting economic as well as foreign-policy havoc.

and concludes referring to McCain's three week planned inept response to Obama's win last tuesdayJune the third :

Anything can happen in politics, and there are five months to go. But Tuesday night's McCain pratfall - three weeks in the planning by his campaign, according to Fox News - should be a clear indication that Mr. Obama must accept Mr. McCain's invitation to weekly debates at once. Tomorrow if possible, and, yes, bring on the green!

Mr. Obama must also heed Mr. McCain's directive that he visit Iraq - as long as he avoids Baghdad markets and hits other foreign capitals on route. When the world gets a firsthand look at the new America Mr. Obama offers as an alternative to Mr. McCain's truculent stay-the-course, the public pandemonium may make J.F.K.'s 'Ich bin ein Berliner' visit to the Berlin Wall look like a warm-up act.

--------
Though I have favored Obama over Hillary Clinton there are issues on which he is either not clear or is sending the wrong message . One of these hot button issues is the relationship between the United States and Israel. Is Obama as he recently said going to continue to support Israel unconditionally that is support Israel no matter what it does. Will Obama not object to The Israeli's abusive treatment of the Palestinians and ignore the human rights violations on the part of the current Israeli government. Will Obama not objecrt to Israel's ghettoizing of the peoples in the occupied territories . Obama unfortunately has also said that Jerusalem should not be divided and should continue as the capital of Israel. Further he appears to be making excuses for Israeli's extreme and illegal military actions against Syria, Lebannon Palestine etc.

So let's take a look at a video from The Real News Network of an analysis of Obama's speech before AIPAC last week. It makes one wonder if he can make real changes in foreign policies concerning the Middle East if he is unwilling to take a stance which might differ from that of the extremist who now run Israel who see nothing wrong with the Apartheid system they have set up in the occupied territories. Nor it seems is Obama willing to insist that Israel obey the hundred or so UN resolutions made which were not in Israel's favor. Are other country's to be given the same royal treatment as Israel by President Obama.



And in an article from Media With Conscience we also get a critique of Obama's policies in regards to Israel. Maybe Obama should read Jimmy Carter's informed and impassioned book on Israel and the Palestinians. Or does he too discount the human worth, value and aspirations of these people as opposed to all others. Simply put are Palestinians and Arabs in the Israeli sphere of influence to be treated as second class citizens as Black South Africans once were treated by the racist white South Africans . These white racist were often supported by American like the powerful Senator Jesse Helms and Barry Goldwater, J. Edgar Hoover and millions of other American racists and White Supremacists who saw South African Apartheid as part of the natural order and as a defense against Communism. Is this the sort of legacy which Obama as president would wish to continue. One hopes he will tone down his rhetoric and begin trying to mend fences in the Middle East rather than stoking the fires of religious and racial bigotry which is so prevalent especially in Israel by the Extremist Jewish groups such as the fanatical so called settlers and the Khanists.

Barack Obama at Israel lobby conference/No, I Can't!/ June 7, 2008 MWC

AFTER MONTHS of a tough and bitter race, a merciless struggle, Barack Obama has defeated his formidable opponent, Hillary Clinton. He has wrought a miracle: for the first time in history a black person has become a credible candidate for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world.

And what was the first thing he did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning.

That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked.


and the article goes on to explain how far Obama is willing to go to appease Israel

The outstanding thing that distinguishes him from both Hillary Clinton and John McCain is his uncompromising opposition to the war in Iraq from the very first moment. That was courageous. That was unpopular. That was totally opposed to the Israel lobby, all of whose branches were fervidly pushing George Bush to start the war that freed Israel from a hostile regime.

And here comes Obama to crawl in the dust at the feet of AIPAC and go out of his way to justify a policy that completely negates his own ideas.

OK he promises to safeguard Israel's security at any cost. That is usual. OK he threatens darkly against Iran, even though he promised to meet their leaders and settle all problems peacefully. OK he promised to bring back our three captured soldiers (believing, mistakenly, that all three are held by Hizbullah - an error that shows, by the way, how sketchy is his knowledge of our affairs.)

But his declaration about Jerusalem breaks all bounds. It is no exaggeration to call it scandalous.

NO PALESTINIAN, no Arab, no Muslim will make peace with Israel if the Haram-al-Sharif compound (also called the Temple Mount), one of the three holiest places of Islam and the most outstanding symbol of Palestinian nationalism, is not transferred to Palestinian sovereignty. That is one of the core issues of the conflict.

And the writer concludes with relating how similar the founding myths of Israel and America are in which both groups conquered a land occupied by a people whom they did not recognize as their equals but as inferior beings who lacked a soul or were possibly a little less worthy of being treated as human beings.

---The Mayflower passengers, much as the Zionists of the first and second aliya (immigration wave), fled from Europe, carrying in their hearts a messianic vision, either religious or utopian. (True, the early Zionists were mostly atheists, but religious traditions had a powerful influence on their vision.) The founders of American society were "pilgrims", the Zionists immigrants called themselves "olim" - short for olim beregel, pilgrims. Both sailed to a "promised land", believing themselves to be God's chosen people.

Both suffered a great deal in their new country. Both saw themselves as "pioneers", who make the wilderness bloom, a "people without land in a land without people". Both completely ignored the rights of the indigenous people, whom they considered sub-human savages and murderers. Both saw the natural resistance of the local peoples as evidence of their innate murderous character, which justified even the worst atrocities. Both expelled the natives and took possession of their land as the most natural thing to do, settling on every hill and under every tree, with one hand on the plow and the Bible in the other.

True, Israel did not commit anything approaching the genocide performed against the Native Americans, nor anything like the slavery that persisted for many generations in the US. But since the Americans have repressed these atrocities in their consciousness, there is nothing to prevent them from comparing themselves to the Israelis. It seems that in the unconscious mind of both nations there is a ferment of suppressed guilt feelings that express themselves in the denial of their past misdeeds, in aggressiveness and the worship of power.

HOW IS it that a man like Obama, the son of an African father, identifies so completely with the actions of former generations of American whites? It shows again the power of a myth to become rooted in the consciousness of a person, so that he identifies 100% with the imagined national narrative. To this may be added the unconscious urge to belong to the victors, if possible.

Therefore, I do not accept without reservation the speculation: "Well, he must talk like this in order to get elected. Once in the White House, he will return to himself."

I am not so sure about that. It may well turn out that these things have a surprisingly strong hold on his mental world.

Of one thing I am certain: Obama's declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people.

If he sticks to them, once elected, he will be obliged to say, as far as peace between the two peoples of this country is concerned: "No, I can't!"
As this article points out it is difficult even for those who belong to an outsider group in society to be able to see beyond the predominant mythos of a society . America was first founded by adventurers seeking their fortune or a shorter passage to China or were minorities escaping persecution or martyrdom who wanted to create a theocracy and spread their version of Christianity and later to convert the native Americans and if they did not convert to exterminate or enslave them. The early Americans as it were were not champions of true democracy and equality. When America became a country it was ruled by white Christian males who were property owners. Women, Free Blacks or Slaves and other nonChristians were not given the right to vote nor did they have equal rights. It is not until the late 1960s that America could be said to be almost a true democracy in which the majority of adult citizens were given the right to vote and were granted equal rights. Even today there are those in the Federal government and in the state legislatures who push for legislation which for all intents and purposes disenfranchise large groups of Americans who belong to ethnic minorities or visible minorities and most White Americans have tended to defend such practices.

and so it goes,
GORD.