Saturday, April 01, 2006

Good morning. We're going to dive right in with Democracy Now!

Pentagon Bars Non-Issued Body Armor
In military news, the Pentagon has announced it will no longer allow soldiers to wear body armor other than what is given to them as part of their army service. Thousands of soldiers and their families have turned to purchasing extra armor amid complaints they have not been equipped with adequate protection. A secret Pentagon study last year concluded that up to 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from upper-body wounds could have survived had they been given extra body armor. The Pentagon says it is banning outside armor because of concerns soldiers are purchasing untested or insufficient gear.

They won't provide "inside" armor, but they'll ban outside armor? Sounds like the whole "Canadian drugs might not be up to standard!" medical "cure" Bully Boy was pushing awhile back, doesn't it? They won't address the situation but they won't let individuals address it either. We have an incompetent administration or a non-caring one or maybe a combination of both. But there should be a huge outcry over this latest announcement of policy change.

And it should also be remembered that from the safety of DC Bully Boy issued his infamous "Bring It On!" boast -- putting a bullseye on the back of every man and woman in Iraq. Not just American troops but on other troops, other observers and Iraqis themselves. Did no one wonder about that? About the fact that he was then (and continues to) claiming that we were there to liberate and bring democracy while at the same time boasting that we would fight "terrorists" there to avoid having them in the United States?


Carroll Criticized For Saying Captors Treated Her Well
Meanwhile, Jill Carroll is already coming under attack for saying that she was treated well by her captors. Writing for the National Review, John Podhoretz wrote: "It's wonderful that she’s free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn’t beaten or killed -- while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is -- I expect there will be some Stockholm Syndrome talk in the coming days."

Elaine's covering that item this morning and C.I. noted the attack Friday morning in "Other Items (Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now! today)" so I'll just say that I think it's interesting who the press decides to put on the couch and who they decide not to.

My guess? They would have been happier if Carroll wouldn't have made it out alive. Then they could have spoken "for her" and used her death to justify that the illegal war go on. The same way they tried to use Jessica Lynch to sell their war. Since they can't hide Carroll away on a military base and prevent her from talking to the press, they get their flunkies to attack her. And if you read Friday's New York Times you weren't surprised by "Reporter Freed in Iraq, 3 Months After Abduction" because this war hasn't had a bigger cheerleader than Dexter Filkins.
Actually a bigger "liarist." :D

C.I. used that in "And the war drags on ...(Indymedia Roundup)" -- calling fluffers "liarists" instead of "journalists" and saying they practiced "liarism" instead of "journalism." I liked those word.

Yes, C.I. did do "And the war drags on ...(Indymedia Roundup)." When I went to bed Thursday night, it wasn't up and I was thinking, "Good, C.I. needed a night off." But C.I. was doing it it was just taking a lot of time.

"And the war drags on ...(Indymedia Roundup)" didn't get read by Technorati so I'm going to stick in C.I.'s tags for that entry. If you see something below that interests you, click on
"And the war drags on ...(Indymedia Roundup)" to read about it. Here are the tags:




















































All of that, and a lot more, is in "And the war drags on ...(Indymedia Roundup)" so check it out and be sure to check out Like Maria Said Paz for Elaine's take on the news. We both thought we'd have time to blog Friday evening and that didn't happen. We did have time to go out to eat and see a play with Rebecca and Fly Boy. That was a lot of fun. It was late when we were winding down so we dropped Nina off and came back home (they're staying over through Sunday). Elaine had packed some CDs and she and Dad were going through them and playing them and we were all just talking and the next thing I know, it's almost two o'clock.

It was a really fun evening and a great way to start the weekend. And I got to hear Etta James' new CD. It's called All The Way. Reading "Kat's Korner: Etta James Takes It All The Way," I thought, "That sounds interesting." But it's not one I was going to rush out and buy. I just got Ben Harper's Both Sides of the Gun and have been listening to that nonstop. But that's one of the CDs Dad and Elaine picked to play and it's really great. I probably won't buy it because I know Dad or Ma will and I can just be a cheapskate and listen to their copy. :D

But you should really check it out. Ma's planning to do her usual Saturday posting at Trina's Kitchen later today but I don't know if she will. It was a pretty late night. I think everyone's asleep except for me and maybe Elaine. She was going to blog and then go to bed and she types faster than me -- an elephant types faster then me. :D

But one good thing about waiting is that I get to note Maria's roundup of headlines from Democracy Now! which is how I'll end this post.

Before that, though, did you watch Democracy Now! today or listen? ""EXCLUSIVE...Noam Chomsky on Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy" was the interview for the hour. ("For the hour!" as me and Wally like to holler. :D) Here's some of that and hopefully you'll make time to check it out if you missed it:

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Failed States, what do you mean?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, over the years there have been a series of concepts developed to justify the use of force in international affairs for a long period. It was possible to justify it on the pretext, which usually turned out to have very little substance, that the U.S. was defending itself against the communist menace. By the 1980s, that was wearing pretty thin. The Reagan administration concocted a new category: terrorist states. They declared a war on terror as soon as they entered office in the early 1980s, 1981. 'We have to defend ourselves from the plague of the modern age, return to barbarism, the evil scourge of terrorism,' and so on, and particularly state-directed international terrorism.
A few years later -- this is Clinton -- Clinton devised the concept of rogue states. 'It's 1994, we have to defend ourselves from rogue states.' Then, later on came the failed states, which either threaten our security, like Iraq, or require our intervention in order to save them, like Haiti, often devastating them in the process. In each case, the terms have been pretty hard to sustain, because it's been difficult to overlook the fact that under any, even the most conservative characterization of these notions -- let's say U.S. law -- the United States fits fairly well into the category, as has often been recognized. By now, for example, the category -- even in the Clinton years, leading scholars, Samuel Huntington and others, observed that -- in the major journals, Foreign Affairs -- that in most of the world, much of the world, the United States is regarded as the leading rogue state and the greatest threat to their existence.
By now, a couple of years later, Bush years, same journals' leading specialists don't even report international opinion. They just describe it as a fact that the United States has become a leading rogue state. Surely, it's a terrorist state under its own definition of international terrorism, not only carrying out violent terrorist acts and supporting them, but even radically violating the so-called "Bush Doctrine," that a state that harbors terrorists is a terrorist state. Undoubtedly, the U.S. harbors leading international terrorists, people described by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department as leading terrorists, like Orlando Bosch, now Posada Carriles, not to speak of those who actually implement state terrorism.
And I think the same is true of the category "failed states." The U.S. increasingly has taken on the characteristics of what we describe as failed states. In the respects that one mentioned, and also, another critical respect, namely the -- what is sometimes called a democratic deficit, that is, a substantial gap between public policy and public opinion. So those suggestions that you just read off, Amy, those are actually not mine. Those are pretty conservative suggestions. They are the opinion of the majority of the American population, in fact, an overwhelming majority. And to propose those suggestions is to simply take democracy seriously. It's interesting that on these examples that you've read and many others, there is an enormous gap between public policy and public opinion. The proposals, the general attitudes of the public, which are pretty well studied, are -- both political parties are, on most of these issues, well to the right of the population.

I'm going to do my tags and I'll only add ones that aren't already noted above. After that, you got Maria offering twelve items Amy Goodman covered this week. First up, Spanish, then English.









Soldado estadounidense declara en audiencia de asilo en Canada
Maria: Buenas noches. De parte de "Democracy Now!" doce cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana. Paz.

Periodista secuestrada, Jill Carroll, liberada en Irak
Luego de estar cautiva durante casi tres meses, la periodista estadounidense secuestrada, Jill Carroll, fue liberada. Carroll es una periodista independiente que trabaja para el periódico "Christian Science Monitor" en Irak. Fue secuestrada en enero frente a las oficinas de un destacado político sunita en Bagdad. En una breve entrevista televisiva en Bagdad, Carroll dijo que se encuentra en buenas condiciones y que los secuestradores la trataron bien. Los secuestradores la liberaron dejándola en una calle cercana a las oficinas del Partido Islámico iraquí. Carroll entró a las oficinas y los empleados llamaron a los funcionarios estadounidenses. A pesar de que los secuestradores amenazaron dos veces con matarla en grabaciones, Carroll dijo que nunca la golpearon o amenazaron con hacerlo. Carroll dijo que la mantuvieron encerrada en una habitación con una ventana y una ducha, pero que no sabía donde estaba. Y agregó: "Simplemente estoy feliz de estar libre. Quiero estar con mi familia". El miércoles, la hermana de Jill Carroll, Katie Carroll, había leído una declaración en la televisión árabe suplicando que su hermana fuera liberada sana y salva. Hacía dos meses que no se tenía noticias de los secuestradores de Carroll. Los secuestradores habían exigido que liberaran a todas las mujeres detenidas en las prisiones iraquíes. Se calcula que cinco de cada nueve prisioneras fueron liberadas en enero.

Soldado estadounidense declara en audiencia de asilo en Canadá
Y en Canadá, el caso de asilo de un soldado estadounidense que huyó para evitar luchar en Irak, está siendo considerado por un tribunal de inmigración. Josh Key, que sirvió en Irak durante ocho meses, dijo que decidió desertar del servicio militar tras presenciar varias atrocidades cometidas por las Fuerzas Armadas estadounidenses. En una entrevista con la BBC, Key dijo: "A las únicas personas que estábamos dañando era a las inocentes; eran personas iraquíes inocentes y soldados inocentes".

Iraquí acusa a Estados Unidos de masacre en mezquita chiita
Funcionarios iraquíes acusan a las Fuerzas Armadas estadounidenses de masacrar a por lo menos 16 devotos chiitas durante el asalto a una mezquita chiíta el sábado por la noche. El periódico "Guardian" informa que los asesinatos han provocado la mayor ruptura hasta el momento entre Estados Unidos y los chiitas iraquíes. Los líderes chiitas suspendieron las conversaciones acerca de la formación de un nuevo gobierno iraquí. El ministro del interior iraquí calificó el ataque de Estados Unidos de injustificado y horrible. La alianza gobernante dirigida por los chiitas está exhortando a Estados Unidos a que le devuelva a los iraquíes el control absoluto de la seguridad. El gobernador provincial de Bagdad suspendió toda la cooperación con las fuerzas estadounidenses. El jeque Abdul Arman Al-Shwaili dijo: “Los ocupantes deben rendir cuentas de este crimen despreciable. Fue cometido por los ocupantes contra devotos desarmados y exhortamos al gobierno iraquí que adopte una postura honesta y positiva con respecto a este ataque despiadado contra el Islam y los devotos”. A pesar de la gran protesta política, las Fuerzas Armadas defendieron el asalto del lunes. Un funcionario lo describió como una operación “muy exitosa” contra un escondite insurgente. Estados Unidos negó que sus soldados hayan matado a iraquíes y dijo que la masacre fue planeada.

Ex jueces de FISA exhortan al Congreso a rechazar argumento de vigilancia
En Washington, cinco ex jueces del tribunal de Vigilancia de Inteligencia en el Extranjero (FISA, por sus siglas en inglés) exhortaron al Congreso a rechazar el argumento del gobierno de Bush de que tiene autoridad inherente para realizar espionaje sin ordenes judiciales. Los jueces expresaron en la audiencia del Comité Judicial del Senado el martes, su apoyo a una medida propuesta por el Senador Republicano Arlen Specter, para otorgarle al tribunal la participación formal en la supervisión de la vigilancia del gobierno.

Nueva York admite que filmó regularmente manifestaciones políticas
La ciudad de Nueva York reveló que oficiales de la policía encubiertos han filmando regularmente manifestaciones políticas durante los últimos dos años. La ciudad sostiene que la vigilancia era legal en virtud de las facultades de la policía que fueron ampliadas en 2003 para detener ataques terroristas. En una audiencia de un tribunal esta semana, un abogado de la ciudad dijo que era necesario filmar porque las manifestaciones podrían convertirse en blanco de ataques terroristas. Pero Jethro Eisenstein, un abogado de derechos civiles, cuestionó las filmaciones y dijo que la política era "orweliana", y acusó a la ciudad de adoptar "una postura intimidante sobre la amenaza del terrorismo para impedir el pensamiento crítico".

Figura independentista puertorriqueña arrestada en San Juan
Y una destacada figura del movimiento independentista de Puerto Rico fue arrestada en San Juan. El martes, agentes del FBI arrestaron a Antonio Camacho Negron por presuntamente violar los términos de su libertado condicional. El arresto se produjo sólo meses después de que el líder independentista, Filiberto Ojeda-Rios, fue asesinado en un allanamiento federal.

40.000 estudiantes se retiran de clase para protestar en Los Ángeles
La votación del Comité Judicial del Senado se produjo dos días después de que más de 1 millón de personas protestaran en Los Ángeles contra el proyecto de ley contra los inmigrantes de la Cámara de Representantes. El lunes, continuaron las protestas en todo el país. En Los Ángeles, 40.000 estudiantes se retiraron de clase. También se informó de este tipo de manifestaciones estudiantiles en Dallas y Phoenix. En Detroit, miles de manifestantes marcharon por la ciudad. Y en Washington, cientos de líderes religiosos y activistas llevaron a cabo sus propias protestas. Muchos se pusieron esposas para protestar contra una propuesta en el Proyecto de ley 4437 de la Cámara de Representantes que convertiría en delito que los grupos religiosos y de caridad ayuden a los trabajadores indocumentados.

Huelga nacional en Francia mientras más de 1 millón de personas protestan
En Francia, estudiantes y sindicatos llevaron a cabo una huelga masiva en todo el país que cerró las escuelas, negocios, paralizó los servicios públicos y provocó que más de 1 millón de manifestantes salieran a las calles. La huelga fue convocada en respuesta a una ley del gobierno que facilita que los empleadores despidan a los trabajadores jóvenes. En Francia, se efectuaron más de 800 arrestos. En París, la policía arrojó gas lacrimógeno al final de una manifestación luego que algunos oficiales fueron golpeados con proyectiles.

Trabajadores británicos protestan contra medida de jubilación del gobierno
En Gran Bretaña, más de 1,5 millones de funcionarios gubernamentales llevaron a cabo el martes una huelga en todo el país para protestar contra una medida del gobierno que dificulta que los trabajadores se jubilen a una edad temprana. Once sindicatos participaron en la huelga, una de las más grandes de Gran Bretaña en los últimos 80 años.

Universidad de Miami acepta exigencias de trabajadores tras protesta estudiantil
Y esta actualización es sobre una noticia que hemos estado cubriendo. Los estudiantes de la Universidad de Miami llevaron a cabo una sentada el martes para apoyar a los conserjes que están en huelga. La sentada terminó hoy temprano luego que funcionarios de la Universidad de Miami emitieron una declaración que aseguraba el derecho de sus trabajadores a formar parte de los sindicatos sin ser intimidados. Los conserjes que trabajan para la empresa contratista de la Universidad UNICO, dicen que la empresa ha intentado impedir que se unan al Sindicato Internacional de Empleados de Servicio.

Miles de personas conmemoran el 30 aniversario del golpe de estado en Argentina
En Argentina, miles de personas se congregaron este fin de semana para condenar el aniversario número 30 del golpe de estado apoyado por Estados Unidos, que provocó la muerte y desaparición de decenas de miles de personas.

Documentos: Kissinger ordenó apoyo estadounidense para junta militar argentina
Mientras tanto, documentos desclasificados recientemente revelan que el Secretario de Estado Henry Kissinger, ordenó apoyo inmediato de Estados Unidos para la junta militar poco después de que esta tomó el poder en Argentina, hace 30 años. Según las actas de una reunión, Kissinger dijo: "Quiero alentarlos. No quiero dar la impresión de que Estados Unidos los está hostigando". Kissinger dijo esto a pesar de que su principal delegado en América Latina predecía que Argentina afrontaría "bastante represión [y] probablemente mucha sangre" bajo el nuevo régimen. Además, los cablesgramas del Departamento de Estado indican que los funcionarios estadounidenses conocían de antemano los planes de dar el golpe de estado. Más de una semana antes del golpe, el comandante de la Armada argentina le pidió a la embajada de Estados Unidos que le recomendara empresas de relaciones públicas en Estados Unidos que trabajaran para la futura junta militar.

Maria: Good evening. Now in English, here are twelve news stories from Democracy Now! Peace.

Kidnapped Reporter Jill Carroll Freed in Iraq
After nearly three months in captivity, kidnapped U.S. reporter Jill Carroll has been released. Carroll is a freelance reporter working for the Christian Science Monitor in Iraq. She was seized in January outside the offices of a prominent Sunni politician in Baghdad. In a brief television interview in Baghdad, Carroll said she is in good condition and had been treated well by her captors. Her captors freed her by leaving her in a street near the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party. She walked inside, and people there called US officials. Although her captors threatened twice in videotapes to kill her, Carroll said they never hit her or threatened to do so. Carroll said she was kept in a room with a window and a shower, but she did not know where she was. She went on to say: "I'm just happy to be free. I want to be with my family." On Wednesday, Jill Carroll's sister, Katie Carroll, had read a statement on Arab television pleading for her sister's safe release. There had been no word from Carroll's captors in nearly two months. They had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraqi prisons. Five out of an estimated nine women prisoners were released in January.

US Soldier Testifies at Asylum Hearing in Canada
And in Canada, a US soldier who fled to avoid serving in Iraq is having his asylum case heard in front of an immigration board. Josh Key, who served in Iraq for eight months, said he decided to desert military service after witnessing several atrocities commited by the US military. In an interview with the BBC, Key said: "The only people that were getting hurt was the innocent; that was innocent Iraqi people, as well as innocent soldiers."

Iraqi Accuses U.S. of Massacre At Shiite Mosque
Iraqi officials are accusing the U.S. military of massacring at least 16 Shiite worshippers during a raid on a Shiite mosque Sunday night. The Guardian newspaper reports the killings have opened the biggest rift yet between the United States and Iraqi Shiites. Shiite leaders have suspended talks over forming a new Iraqi government. Iraq's Interior Minister called the U.S. raid unjustified and horrible. The leading Shiite governing alliance is urging the U.S. to return full control of security to Iraqis. The Baghdad provincial governor has suspended all cooperation with U.S. forces. "The occupiers should be bought to account for this despicable crime,” said Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Shwaili. “It is committed by the occupiers against unarmed worshippers and we urge the Iraqi government to take an honest and positive stand towards this vicious attack against Islam and the worshippers Despite the political outcry, the U.S. military defended the raid on Monday. One official described it as a "hugely successful" operation against an insurgent hideout. The U.S. has denied its troops killed any Iraqis and said the massacre was staged.

Ex-FISA Judges Urge Congress to Reject Surveillance Argument
In Washington, five former FISA court judges have urged Congress to reject the Bush administration’s argument it holds the inherent authority to conduct warrantless eavesdropping. Appearing before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, the judges voiced support for a measure proposed by Repubican Senator Arlen Specter to grant the court a formal role in overseeing government surveillance.

New York Admits To Routine Videotaping of Political Rallies
The city of New York has revealed undercover police officers have been routinely videotaping political demonstrations over the last two years. The city maintains the surveillance was legal under police authority expanded in 2003 to stop terrorist attacks. At a court hearing this week, one city attorney said the taping was necessary because rallies could become targets of terrorist attacks. But Jethro Eisenstein, a civil rights lawyers challenging the videotaping, said the policy was "Orwellian," and accused the city of adopting "a bullying view of the terrorism threat to block critical thinking."

Puerto Rican Independence Figure Arrested in San Juan
And a major figure in the Puerto Rican independence movement has been arrested in San Juan. On Tuesday, FBI agents arrested Antonio Camacho Negron for allegedly violating the terms of his parole. The arrest comes just months after independence leader Filiberto Ojeda-Rios was killed in a federal raid.

40,000 Students Stage Walk-Out in LA to Protest
The Senate Judiciary committee vote came two days after upwards of one million people protested in Los Angeles against the anti-immigrant House bill. On Monday protests continued across the country. In Los Angeles, as many as 40,000 students walked out of classes. Student walk outs were also reported in Dallas and Phoenix. In Detroit, thousands of protesters marched through the city. And in Washington hundreds of religious leaders and activists held their own protest. Many wore handcuffs to protest a proposal in House Bill 4437 that would make it a crime for religious and charitable groups to aid undocumented workers.

France Hit With Nationwide Strike As Over 1 Million Demonstrate
In France, students and unions staged a massive country-wide strike that shut down schools, businesses and public services and brought more than a million demonstrators into the streets. The strike was called in response to a government law that makes it easier for employers to fire young workers. More than 800 arrests were made around France. In Paris, police fired tear gas at the end of a rally after some officers were hit with projectiles.

British Workers Demonstrate Against Government Pension Measure
In Britain, up to 1.5 million government workers went on strike across the country Tuesday over a government measure that would make it more difficult to retire at an earlier age. Eleven unions took part in the strike -- one of the biggest Britain has seen in 80 years.

U. of Miami Agrees to Worker Demands After Student Sit-Ins
And this update on a story we've been following -- students at the University of Miami held a sit-in Tuesday in support of striking janitor workers. The sit-in ended earlier today after University of Miami officials released a statement affirming the right of its workers to join unions free of intimidation. Janitors working for the university contractor UNICO say the company has tried to prevent them from joining the Service Employees' International Union.

Thousands Mark 30th Anniversary of Coup in Argentina
In Argentina, thousands gathered this weekend to condemn the 30th anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup that resulted in the deaths and disappearances of tens of thousands. "The Mothers are here with you, the people, and we will continue to be with you in this fight until we know what happened to each and every one of our children," said Marta Vazquez of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. "What was their final destiny? Who gave the order? Who executed it? Because it's the least we could demand to know."

Papers: Kissinger Ordered U.S. Support for Argentine Military Junta
Meanwhile newly declassified documents reveal that then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered immediate U.S. support for the military junta shortly after it seized power in Argentina 30 years ago. According to the minutes of one meeting, Kissinger said "I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States." Kissinger said this even though his own top deputy in Latin America was predicting Argentina would face "a fair amount of repression [and] probably a good deal of blood" under the new regime. In addition State Department cables show that U.S. officials had prior knowledge of coup plotting. More than a week before the coup, the commander of the Argentine Navy requested the U.S. embassy recommend public relations firms inside the United States which would work for the future military junta.








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Thursday, March 30, 2006

Jill Carroll is released, Bully Boy bullies Iraq and Repubes say money grows on trees

Starting later tonight for a reason. I'll get to that in bit, but first, let's do Democracy Now!

Kidnapped Reporter Jill Carroll Freed in Iraq
After nearly three months in captivity, kidnapped U.S. reporter Jill Carroll has been released. Carroll is a freelance reporter working for the Christian Science Monitor in Iraq. She was seized in January outside the offices of a prominent Sunni politician in Baghdad. In a brief television interview in Baghdad, Carroll said she is in good condition and had been treated well by her captors. Her captors freed her by leaving her in a street near the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party. She walked inside, and people there called US officials. Although her captors threatened twice in videotapes to kill her, Carroll said they never hit her or threatened to do so. Carroll said she was kept in a room with a window and a shower, but she did not know where she was. She went on to say: "I'm just happy to be free. I want to be with my family." On Wednesday, Jill Carroll's sister, Katie Carroll, had read a statement on Arab television pleading for her sister's safe release. There had been no word from Carroll’s captors in nearly two months. They had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraqi prisons. Five out of an estimated nine women prisoners were released in January.

After all this time, and with Tom Fox of Christian Peacemaker Teams being brutally murdered,
I was really surprised by this news. I don't say "good news" because I'm assuming she'll be headed back to America. (I would be if I were her.) That's great for her family and she certainly earned a rest and then some. But in terms of journalism, we just lost one of the few real reporters who bothered to talk to and write about the Iraqis. She was a brave reporter and there aren't a whole lot of reporters that you can say that about. (And let me say one more time, I would go home if I were her. I think that's what she should do because most of us would really need to be around our family after something like that. I think it's great that she's going to be able to and I hope she gets plenty of rest and has some really good times over the next few months. But a real reporter leaving Iraq is a blow considering the fluffers that are over there.)

Iraqi PM Criticizes US Over Resignation Pressure
In news from Iraq, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has lashed out at growing US pressure to block him from serving a second term as prime minister. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has asked Iraqi Shiite politicians to seek the withdrawal of al-Jaafari's nomination for a second term. In an interview with the New York Times, al-Jaafari said: "[There's] concern among the Iraqi people that the democratic process is being threatened."

This reminded me of what C.I. wrote this morning:

Not a lot of attention is paid to the issue that Jaafari was elected in what I'd call questionable elections but what the mainstream media hailed at the time (and Thomas Friedman many times since) as "free and fair elections" [!] another 'step on the road to democracy!' and so much more.Exactly who is in charge of this country? (Answer, the US but we're apparently not supposed to say such things -- we live in such 'polite company.') Exactly what business is of the Bully Boy's who the Iraqis elect (or "elect") and whom they don't?


If you want Iraq to be a democracy, don't you have to treat it like a democracy?

Rebecca and I are doing the same two things tonight so be sure to go to Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude for her take and all. (Elaine's off on Thursdays.)

The community's been busy since I posted last. So let me do heads up here.


First up, music & Kat lovers take note: "Kat's Korner: Etta James Takes It All The Way."
Kat also wrote "Etta James and Bonnie Faulkner" and "The downward spiral of democracy under the Bully Boy." Elaine's "Peace comes from being able to contribute the best we have" is something you shouldn't have missed so be sure you don't. Rebecca's "iraq in crisis and chaos - the us continuing the occupation will destroy the country" is really strong (and also made me want to highlight as much as I could tonight). I love what C.I. has to say about Mr. We Can't Pull Out! in "Democracy Now: Chellie Pingree, Edmund L. Andrews; Ruth Conniff speaks what others can't." Wally's going to make you laugh (and may offend a few delicate souls but I thought it was hilarous) with "THIS JUST IN! SECRETARY OF STATE RICE TRIES NEW DIPLOMATIC STRATEGY." Cedric's "Afghanistan the forgotten 'liberation'" just went up tonight, hot off the presses and I was waiting for him and one more post so that I could highlight everyone. Betty's latest chapter "Thomas Friedman's Frostings and Facials" was the other thing I was waiting for. It, too, is hot off the presses so make sure you read it.

That's a lot to read and remember that C.I. does "And the war drags on" tonight, too. (If C.I. ends up exhausted when finally home and goes straight to sleep, I won't complain. We all think C.I. needs a break. I'd bet that there will be no break tonight. I'll be real happy to lose that bet, though.)

Now Rebecca's also going to cover Flashpoints so be sure to check her out tonight.

Do you have all the money in the world? I sure don't. But House Republicans seem to think that the country does (our money). We can't give a higher amount of our money to colleges and schools (unless they'r faith-based probably) and we can't do more for anyone who really needs it. But House Republicans on the intelligence committee think that there's so much money to spare (maybe they're planning on donating their salaries to the government?) that they can stop the Democrats from asking how much Bully Boy's illegal, warrantless NSA spying on Americans is costing. The proposal was that there would be no funding until the Congress learned how much Bully Boy was spending on that illegal program. But Republicans said, "Oh go spend what you want. Money grows on trees. If we need it, we'll just tax every dollar the working class earns." That's my sarcastic summary of this article.












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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Guantanamo prisoners and the clown Gail Collins

Good evening. Let's put Hump Day to bed by kicking things off with Democracy Now!

Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Landmark Gitmo Case
In Supreme Court news, oral arguments began Tuesday in a case that will decide whether the Bush administration can use military tribunals to try detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who worked as Osama bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan, is challenging the tribunals. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took part in Tuesday's hearing despite growing calls for his recusal. In a recent speech, Scalia dismissed the idea detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions.


Did you notice what you read? I ask for a reason. If you read C.I.'s "Other Items" this morning you know that Linda Greenhouse in the New York Times and Charles Lane in the Washington Post wrote lengthy articles on the trial but failed to mentioin Scalia's speech or the issue of whether or not Scalia should have recused himself. On Democracy Now! today, this was just one item in the headlines and Amy Goodman managed to note it. I think that's called "Doing your job." Remember who does their job and who doesn't. It's not a one time thing, it happens over and over in many ways.

With Roberts recusal this means the vote could be a tie. I don't think it will be. C.I. and my dad both say a tie means the lower court's verdict is affirmed. I'm hoping for a strong vote to support the rights of the prisoners to have their days in court.




France Hit With Nationwide Strike As Over 1 Million Demonstrate
In France, students and unions staged a massive country-wide strike that shut down schools, businesses and public services and brought more than a million demonstrators into the streets. The strike was called in response to a government law that makes it easier for employers to fire young workers. More than 800 arrests were made around France. In Paris, police fired tear gas at the end of a rally after some officers were hit with projectiles.



Today's show was devoted to the protests in this country. If you missed it, you should check it out. The protests going on against the Congressional proposals having to do with immigrants are happening for a reason. You won't find that reason in the New York Times which offers pure crap in an editorial. I read that and thought, "Gail Collins thinks she's so cute and funny." She's not. Writing about how to kill a cow wasn't cute. Is she trying to compare immigrants to cow? How would she feel if she was compared to a cow? She showed her lack of awareness and caring when she refused to write an editorial on Coretta Scott King (though she could write one on her friend) and refused to commission an op-ed on Coretta Scott King either. Gail Collins doesn't seem to care too much for people of color or maybe it's just people who aren't her friends.

Now in France you've got protests. (Elsewhere too and Elaine's grabbing a different protest headline.) And you've got protests in this country. But you don't really hear about it. You hear people like Gail Collins distort what's going on. She's praising the a Senate bill, calling it "a smart, tough Senate measure." I wonder how "smart" and "tough" she'd think it was if she found out that she could be detained for an unnamed length of time? Maybe she'd see it as a way to lose weight? (I'm not calling her overweight. She looks thin. She does need to do something about those eyebrows -- Betty always gets some good jokes from those eyebrows.)

The bill that Collins praises is like a bill saying "We'll have slavery still but we'll call it something else." Her shame will be remembered and should.

And in France, you see the same thing with the New York Timid. CounterSpin talked about this last week. How the paper was distorting reality and acting like "Shame on you, foolish French!" They're protesting for a reason and the sneers from our papers don't deal with what's going on there. It's part, my opinion, of the whole spread neoliberalism all around the world, destroy unions, piss on workers' rights and give it all up for corporations. They really should be ashamed of themselves. Every last one. But we saw the same thing when they were covering the MTA strike and couldn't deal with real issues, just try to shame the strikers. Call them law breakers, but when Peter Kalikow, MTA chair, admits to breaking the law, the Times calls it an "error."

They really are disgusting and you can see how disgusting they are when it comes to the protests in France or here. They push the neoliberal line and don't give a damn about the rights of the workers. People should shame Gail Collins. If she ever walks in where any of you work, refuse to wait on her or at least make her wait and mess up her request. She doesn't give a damn about workers so we shouldn't give a damn about her. And in ten years or so when the paper drops her and she's trying to write her "I was a first" book, scream back, "Yeah and you didn't do a damn thing that made a difference. You were a sell out then and you always will be."

I'm serious. She's disgusting. And if she doesn't agree with the editorial's position, if they come from the board, that's no excuse. She's fronting for a board that wants to destroy workers. She has no self-respect and she doesn't have the strength to fight for anyone.

That's the generous take; the harsher one is that she supports every position she writes about. Either way, she's useless.

Now I wanted to note this yesterday. It's C.I.'s take on the NSA hearing by the Senate Judiciary committee:

Before highlights, let's talk the concluded hearing. And? Yawn. **Leahy and Specter seem to be in a competition over who'll be the first to start a fan club for the other.*** And Miss Priss Instant Cuckoo? America, get worried. O Hatch felt the need to play the ticking time bomb. "Millions of lives at stake" Miss Priss said. Repeatedly. And at one point, "I can tell you personally that very well may be the situation." That being "millions of lives at stake." Congressional police, arrest that man!
Exactly what information does Miss Priss have and what is Miss Priss planning? "I can tell you personally," claimed Miss Priss.
Seriously, don't get worried, O Hatch has nothing and knows nothing -- as has been the case so often in his career. But he wants to scare us all. (Couldn't he just send out 8x10 glossies?) So he plays the fear card, Extreme Fear Card.
Watch for him on NBC. He'll be happy to announce the events but he won't hop in a coffin of bugs or any other situation. Not Miss Priss.
Sadly, while O Hatch worries about the mythical lives, he forgets that lives really are at stake. If we have to trample liberties today, lives are at stake. If we abandon what we stand for, lives are at stake. (I should add "American lives" -- those were the lives that O Hatch was referring to.)
O Hatch likes to forget that a war was fought, around the time he first learned to snarl (1700s), for rights and liberties.


Did you know that yesterday was the anniversary of the Three Mile Island disaster? If you want to know what was going on then, check out Rebecca's post. Also Cedric added some more to the backstory of what was going on Sunday with The Third Estate Sunday Review's latest edition. So check that out.


















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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Iraq, pouring gas on the fire and Bully Boy's got the match

Good evening. Moving straight to Democracy Now!


Iraqi Accuses U.S. of Massacre At Shiite Mosque
Iraqi officials are accusing the U.S. military of massacring at least 16 Shiite worshippers during a raid on a Shiite mosque Sunday night. The Guardian newspaper reports the killings have opened the biggest rift yet between the United States and Iraqi Shiites. Shiite leaders have suspended talks over forming a new Iraqi government. Iraq's Interior Minister called the U.S. raid unjustified and horrible. The leading Shiite governing alliance is urging the U.S. to return full control of security to Iraqis. The Baghdad provincial governor has suspended all cooperation with U.S. forces. "The occupiers should be bought to account for this despicable crime,” said Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Shwaili. “It is committed by the occupiers against unarmed worshippers and we urge the Iraqi government to take an honest and positive stand towards this vicious attack against Islam and the worshippers Despite the political outcry, the U.S. military defended the raid on Monday. One official described it as a "hugely successful" operation against an insurgent hideout. The U.S. has denied its troops killed any Iraqis and said the massacre was staged.

That's called tossing gasoline onto the fire. After two or three weeks of fretting endleslly whether or not Iraq was in the middle of a civil war or merely almost in the middle, this is what's going on in Iraq. Get the idea that Bully Boy wants a civil war? Civil war, he'll argue, means "We have to stay."

You know this "Pottery Barn" talk is really getting on my nerves. "You bought it, you broke it" isn't even the Pottery Barn policy. But let's say it's the policy somewhere. Let's say it's the policy at Toys R Us. Now would Toys R Us let you keep hanging around the store if you kept breaking everything? No, they'd kick you the hell out.

Which is probably why polls show that so many Iraqis want us out of Iraq. Can't blame them for that.


New York Times Finally Reports On Secret UK Iraq Memo
In Washington the White House is denying reports that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed in January 2003 to attack Iraq regardless of whether diplomatic efforts at the United Nations succeeded or whether inspectors found weapons of mass destruction. According to the contents of a once-secret British memo, Bush penciled in the start date of the invasion to be March 10. The contents of the memo first became public almost two months ago in the book "Lawless World" by British international law professor Philippe Sands. But the memo received little attention by mainstream media in this country until Monday when the New York Times ran a front-page article. Earlier this month, however, attorney Phillipe Sands appeared on Democracy Now in one of his first U.S. interviews to discuss the importance of the memo: "[I]t confirms the absence of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Why would the British prime minister and the American president be talking about the possibility of provoking a material breach if they had clear and compelling evidence? But more importantly, it also confirms, as some have thought and some have said, that the road to a second resolution was a sham. The decision had already been taken that already, by the end of January, a start date for the war was penciled in and the decision was set in stone and that both Bush and Blair had agreed."



I saw that C.I. noted the link to the interview Amy Goodman did so Elaine and me are doing the same. I liked C.I.'s take on this ("NYT: Bully Boy did want to go to war (despite lying to Helen Thomas last week)") and Rebecca's ("will the helen thomas attackers apologize?"). If you remember, Helen Thomas asked Bully Boy last week, "Why did you really want to go to war?"

Bully Boy denied it in his hem-and-haw way but he did want war. He wanted war all along and before he came into office (I'm reading James Risen's book, State of War, right now). But did you hear the media pick up on that? Nope.

Phyllis Bennis talked about that on CounterSpin last week. I listened to it because of the fact that Ruth wrote about it in her Ruth's Public Radio Report. So Bennis spoke about how instead of addressing issues, like Helen Thomas was trying to do, the press turned it into a "Oh Bully Boy showed he can handle the press!" sort of fan club thing.

Here's a quote from Bennis that Ruth noted:

What was evident from this press conference is that Helen Thomas remains the dean of the White House press corps and really the only one with guts in this crowd. The other thing that was so striking was the number of lies that Bush was able to tell in very quick succession, right at the beginning, in answering Helen Thomas's question. It starts with, as you mentioned, his claim that Saddam Hussein had kept US inspectors out of Iraq. Well that was certainly not true. The inspectors were on the ground and the heads of both UN inspections teams had actually already said that they were getting full compliance from the Iraqis and, indeed, that they just needed a couple more months to finish their work. Bush lied about some other things too. His beginning statements were all about Afghanistan which was really interesting given that the question was all about the war in Iraq, because he was answering about how 'they' attacked 'us.' He said, 'They attacked us, Helen, and after September 11th, everything changed.' And she said, "Mr. President, we're talking about Iraq, not Afghanistan.' And he gestured to her with a shaking finger as if he were a third grade teacher an unruly student and I must say that I found it interesting that none of the other journalists responded to that.

Tony said he was almost choked on his Frosted Flakes this morning. I go "Why?" and he goes he was reading C.I.'s thing on patsies. That was pretty damn funny so if you missed it, check out "NYT: Shane writes about patsies but may have forgotten to note all of them" -- and I'll give you Tony's favorite line, the one that made him spew his milk and cereal onto the computer screen this morning:

It's a brilliant con. Try to raise enough doubt about WMD to get some of the ones who've stopped drinking the Kool Aid to come back for the new, sugar free cyanide version and feed the press statements (unattributed) that allow you to also work your next power play and not only can you confuse the issue, you can also continue down the path of turning Russia into the new France! Why, it's only a matter of time before some Limbaugh loving diner is snapping at a waiter, "Russian dressing for my salad? No, sir! I want Liberty Dressing! Now!"At one point, Michael Scheuer laments to Shane that the release of the documents is a problem because "There's no quality control." That's a bit like complaining to the owner of a chop shop that someone stole your car stereo.

:D That was funny. I was nodding along this morning when I read it and I just now got how funny that was. I told Nina I was going to read it to her and she goes, "I read it this morning, Mi-chael." But she laughed when I read it to her.

Now where you going to go? Like Maria Said Paz. You know you wanna know what Elaine's thinking.

Now C.I. is on Rebecca and my butts about something. We've both noted Rory O'Connor before at our sites but C.I. told us that we both need to link to him on our blog lists. How come? Well he's got a lot worth saying but there's also the fact that he links to us. I didn't know that. (Rebecca didn't either. We both got calls about this topic last night, calls from C.I. We compared notes this morning.)

Rory O'Connor's blog is called Media Is Plural and, unlike me, he knows what he's doing and is real talented (and a journalist). So check him out. Here's a slice of something he wrote recently, from "CNN Responds:"

"One man's fact is another man's opinion."
That in a nutshell is Jonathan Klein's answer to the many questions and criticisms posed in this space recently by me and you concerning CNN's coverage of the ongoing war in Iraq.
To the president of CNN/US, we're "naïve, highly partisan extremists," a "definite minority out on the fringe" whose tone is strident but whose criticism is insubstantial, and clearly out of step with "the vast majority of Americans who simply do not feel" the way we do.
After a lengthy negotiation with CNN publicists (see below) Klein and I finally spoke over the phone last week. While he declined to comment on CNN’s coverage of the start of the war, “since I didn't start working at CNN until December 2004," he was more forthcoming about his positive view of CNN's current war coverage, as well as his dismissive take on anti-war critics of the mainstream media in general, and CNN in particular.
"We're being very aggressive in covering the war at the moment," Klein began. "We have lots of people with lots of expertise on the ground in Baghdad now. Generally I think we’re doing a good job of daily reporting, and we also have the capacity to do in-depth reporting and documentaries. In fact we've aired five or six docs and specials already, including an hour-long look at WMD, two hours on how war is going, and so forth."
While praising his own, Klein was critical of his critics, saying, "It's naïve for otherwise intelligent people to assume CNN has any role other than reporting the facts. They may oppose the war -- but the conduct of the war is simply not up to CNN.
"Who is the 'anti war crowd?'" Klein asked rhetorically. "Many people now oppose the war -- but how many take such an extreme position vis-à-vis the mainstream media and complain about the war coverage? It's one thing to be opposed to the war; it's another to affix blame to the media. In any event, whether that is a valid point of view or not -- it's certainly not shared by the majority of Americans."

Here's one more thing to note, "Fmr. Democratic Senator and Presidential Candidate Gary Hart: 'Both Houses of Congress Belong to the President's Party'" and that's from today's Democracy Now! and is really worth checking out.

There's actually more I wanted to note but we've got a birthday in the family coming up and I promised my sister (youngest) that I'd go shopping with her this evening so we could go together on our gift.












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Monday, March 27, 2006

War criminal Henry Kissinger outed by old documents yet again

Good evening. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Let's get to Democracy Now!


Scalia: Guantanamo Detainees Have No Rights
Questions are now being raised as to whether Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia should recuse himself from an upcoming case about the U.S. military prison at Guantanano Bay. Newsweek is reporting Scalia recently gave a speech in Switzerland, where he dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions. During the speech Scalia said he was "astounded" at the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to Guantanamo. Scalia said "War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts." On Tuesday the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a case that will decide whether the Bush administration can try Guantanamo detainees in special military tribunals. Two years ago Scalia recused himself from a case about the Pledge of Allegiance after he made public comments about the issue.

Recusal. That's what Scalia has to do here. There's no other path for him. He has given up even the appearance of an open mind on this issue. Having made these statements, he has indicated that no matter what argument comes before him, he has already decided how he would rule. He, the one who decries international law, goes out of the country to make these remarks? "While we are at war!" as Diane Sawyer would screech. (I know C.I. will get a kick out of that. Diane Sawyer tried to shame the Dixie Chicks in an interview over and over. )

He's coming to the case having already stated how he would rule. The fact that he didn't expect his comments to become public don't change that. He needs to recuse himself.


Papers: Kissinger Ordered U.S. Support for Argentine Military Junta
Meanwhile newly declassified documents reveal that then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered immediate U.S. support for the military junta shortly after it seized power in Argentina 30 years ago. According to the minutes of one meeting, Kissinger said "I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States." Kissinger said this even though his own top deputy in Latin America was predicting Argentina would face "a fair amount of repression [and] probably a good deal of blood" under the new regime. In addition State Department cables show that U.S. officials had prior knowledge of coup plotting. More than a week before the coup, the commander of the Argentine Navy requested the U.S. embassy recommend public relations firms inside the United States which would work for the future military junta.

Henry Kissinger is a war criminal and, when war criminals aren't punished, others come along and up the ante. That's how Bully Boy and others think they can get away with the crap they pull. It's why the name John Yoo is one you haven't heard the last of. He'll pop back up in a few years as something other than a law professor. This is Ted Koppel's friend and mentor. Ted Koppel loves him some war criminals.

Now, tomorrow, and this is from Ruth's Public Radio Report:

Programming notes for next week. First, Larry Bensky and KPFA will be covering Tuesday's **NSA Hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee** I assume that other Pacficia stations will carry this or some coverage of it as well but I have only heard it noted on KPFA. [Dallas note: Houston's KPFT will air the coverage beginning at 8:30 a.m. Central Time.]

So tomorrow, you can hear that on Pacficia, not NPR, but Pacficia because NPR doesn't give a damn about informing you. They just like their freeze dried programs. So you can hear it tomorrow morning on Pacficia.

Danny Schechter's got a speaking gig day after, Wednesday and this is from our note at The Third Estate Sunday Review:

The News Dissector Danny Schechter has an upcoming book presentation. We'll note this again (and how often will depend upon how many times I'm reminded):
If you are in New York City, please come out for a talk I will be giving on my new book WHEN NEWS LIES: Media Complicity and The Iraq War at Housing Works' handsome Used Book Café on Cosby Street just below Houston, one block east of Broadway at 7 PM March 29. CSPAN will be in the house broadcasting so it is especially important to have a crowd. Please tell your friends. It is free.
C.I. noted the above Friday and we wanted to be sure to do our part to get the word out. That's March 29th (Wednesday) at Used Book Cafe in NYC. We recommend the event, we recommend the book. We've noted Schechter's The Death of the Media and we've noted his documentary WMD. You can also check MediaChannel.org for more on Schecter. But most important, at 7:00 pm on March 29th, you can hear a presentation on the media's efforts in selling Bully Boy's illegal war. And it's free. No charge. So if you're in the area, make a point to show up.


So that's two things already for you this week. Meantime you can check out Dave Zirin's "Death Row Talks Back to Etan Thomas:"


This Sunday at 4pm, I am proud to be speaking at an event in San Francisco called a "Civil Rights Slam for Justice," sponsored by among others the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. The slam will be at the Malcolm X school at 350 Harbor Street. In addition to myself and a crew of young artists, activists and poets, speakers will include an NBA basketball player by the name of Etan Thomas.
Regular readers of this column know that I'm not exactly shy about singing the praises of the Washington Wizards forward. Etan plays a gritty, elbows-up style of basketball, but on a microphone he is pure Jordan. In the tradition of Amiri Baraka, his poems are sharp enough to cut glass, and generous enough to leave seedlings that can sprout in the cracks.
I first heard about Etan's political poetry when a rumor started going around Washington DC that this rather gigantic gentleman with dreads was going to U street coffee houses reading anti-death penalty, anti-racist verse in front of a crowd you could fit in a van. Since then Etan has risen to every occasion, speaking out at last September's anti-war rally, speaking out against the mistreatment of Katrina refugees, speaking out against the execution of Stan Tookie Williams, and speaking out through a published book of verse fittingly enough called "More Than An Athlete" [Moore Black Press].

Need some commentary on Iraq and the media? Check out the following:

"NYT: Bully Boy did want to go to war (despite lying to Helen Thomas last week)"
"NYT: SITE gives Dexy translations, he gives them play -- None dare call it reporting"
"And the war drags on"

And check out Betty's "The Big Boob Likes Big Boobs" which is the latest chapter in the continuing online novel.

That's really it for me. I'm tired tonight. We worked hard at The Third Estate Sunday Review this weekend. I'm usually not wiped out after one of those marathons but I am this time. Jim may write something about that and, in case he does, I don't want to steal his thunder. But if he doesn't, I might talk about it here.

Now get over to Like Maria Said Paz for Elaine's commentary.













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Friday, March 24, 2006

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq

It's Friday at last! The weekend! And grab whatever you can because it will be over before you know it. First off, let's note a breaking news story about how the phone calls of attornies and doctors could have been captured in the illegal spying program of the Bully Boy's. From Katherine Shrader's "Doctors Calls Could Have Been Captured:"

Lawmakers also asked whether federal judges on a secretive intelligence court objected to the program and, if so, how the administration responded.
The department wouldn't answer, citing the need to protect classified information. "We assure you, however, that the department keeps the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court fully informed regarding information that is relevant to the FISA process," the response said.
The department also avoided questions on whether the administration believes it is legal to wiretap purely domestic calls without a warrant, when al-Qaida activity is suspected. The department wouldn't say specifically that it hasn't been done.
"Interception of the content of domestic communications would present a different legal question," the department said.

How do you like that? Starting to get more concerned? You should be. They won't answer questions clearly. They're still hiding, still covering up. Hands in the cookie jar and all they want to do is act like it isn't.

Now let's do Democracy Now!


Iraq Death Toll Tops 80 Over Past Two Days
In other news from Iraq, at least 80 people have died over the past two days in a series of drive-by shootings, roadside bombings and executions. In one of the deadliest attacks, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the major crimes unit of the Interior Ministry killing 25.

This must be some of that news Bully Boy's worried will give people the wrong idea and make them think things aren't a cakewalk. We should all act like we didn't hear about the stuff above. Things are going wonderfully. We're in year four because it's so much fun! There is no bad news from Iraq, only good news. Look at it the way Donald Rumsfeld would: In a nation of millions, only 80 people died in the last two days! Doesn't that make you feel better?

U.S. Rounds Up All Adult Males in Iraqi Village
Meanwhile to the west of Baghdad, over 1,000 U.S. troops have surrounded a village near Abu Ghraib. After the town was cordoned off, U.S. soldiers conducted house-to-house searches and rounded up the entire adult male population of the town. Soldiers handcuffed and then interrogated every man in the village. After questioning, each man was marked with an X on the back of their necks. One U.S. colonel defended the operation saying "What we're doing is building a Michelin guide to the area."

And this is just more good news if you know how to look at it. Yes, adult males were marked, but adult women weren't! Or here's another way to look at the above, in a country with lots of towns and villages, only one was targeted! That's pretty good, right?

Bully Boy knows the news coming out of Iraq isn't good and he can blame everyone but himself for as long as he wants but that's not reality. He needs to start dealing with reality. The country needs to start facing reality: Impeachment.

I gave a speech today and big thanks to C.I. who stayed on the phone with me last night listening to me and offering tips. I think it went pretty good. The way it went is that we divided up into teams, one group against the war, one for it. And we did our research and then one person on each team gave a speech.

I spoke out in favor of the war. PSYCHE! :D

It was pretty cool actually and not I wasn't nervous like I thought I would be. I was nervous before I spoke. After about the third word, I forgot about being nervous and just focused on making the case. This was a thing that came about because I'm not quiet about being against the war and all my friends are against it too. So this pro-group wanted to do a little debate. (I say "little" because I really think we were their trial balloon before they do a really big debate next month.)

I'd love to tell you that when I got done everybody was going, "Yeah!" Especially the ones who were for the war. That didn't happen but there were a few people who came up after, war supporters, who said they hadn't heard some point before or some example and it made them think.

I helped with the research but it was done by all of us and I'll thank Tony and Nina by name. I'll thank the rest by name if they want but I forgot to ask anyone after. I was floating on a cloud because I really thought I was going to crash and burn.

C.I. helped so much with that. I don't want to give out "trade secrets" but I'll say that one thing, one tip was about how you had to use what you had and accept it. Like if you have a bad speaking voice, you're stuck with it. That wasn't my concern. My concern was being nervous and also repeating myself. I don't mean making the same point over and over but I do have something. Maybe it's a stammer? When I'm nervous, every now and then I'll repeat the same sentence. Not over and over. It happened like twice in the speech where I said a sentence and then repeated it right after. When it happened, I did like C.I. said and acted like I meant to do it. When I caught myself both times, I slowed it down like I had meant to really emphasize the point and that's why I was repeating it.

Tony knows I'll do that sometimes when I'm nervous but he didn't even think that while he was listening. He was going, "I really liked how you emphasized those two points." I told him why I did that and he wouldn't believe me for the longest. I showed him my speech, because I wrote it out and memorized it. I didn't want to be reading it but I wanted it in front of me in case I got nervous and forgot.

It went really good but I don't know how people do it all the time. Like Amy Goodman, I don't know how she does it, going all over the country and speaking. I really had to psyche myself up to get to a place where I wasn't completely freaking out before hand. I bet she doesn't get to do that. She probably doesn't need to but if she did or wanted to, she probably can't because everyone's probably, "Oh look!" and "Amy Goodman! I'm so glad to see you and I want to pass on . . ."

What else? My parents are having a house party tomorrow night. We did the protests last weekend and they want to follow that up this weekend. That's why Elaine and me have been emphasizing Iraq. That's a question Suzzanne asked in an e-mail. She wanted to know why it's "all" we talk about. I don't think it's "all" but I do know we're emphasizing it.

Like today there were plenty of strong items in Democracy Now!'s headlines but we went with those two because the fourth year is starting and we wanted to be sure that we didn't just go to the protests last weekend and then go "Okay, we're moving on."

We'll keep talking about Iraq but we will talk about other stuff (and we do already).

Or like C.I. Take the indymedia roundup. It could be on a number of things and there are things C.I. will cover in the column for the gina & krista round-robin but on the indymedia, it's focused lately on the war. Last night's was pretty cool so check out "And the war drags on (Indymedia roundup)." What else should you check out?

How about the joint entry that Wally and Cedric did today? (Links take you to the post at each of their sights and it's pretty funny so check it out.)

And you know you gotta check out Like Maria Said Paz for Elaine's thoughts. Nina's reading this over my shoulder and goes to check out C.I.'s "NYT: Edward Wong: fluffer or stand up comedian?" because it will explain why a focus on Iraq is needed.

Hope everyone had a great weekend. We started late tonight, Elaine and me. Nina and I wanted to go see V is for Vengence and knew there was a chance that we wouldn't be able to if we didn't go to the first show this evening. Elaine said that was perfect with her, us picking out our stuff on the phone after the movie because she really wanted to just go home for a change and relax as opposed to rushing to boot up the computer and log on.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.










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Thursday, March 23, 2006

Iraq, Puerto Rico, Chalmers Johnson and Richard Pryor

Good evening. Kicking things off with Democracy Now! and remember tomorrow the weekend begins!

Army Dog Handler Sentenced to Six Months For Abu Ghraib Abuse
An Army dog handler has been sentenced to six months in prison for abusing Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. The sergeant, Michael Smith, was photographed using un-muzzled dogs to terrify detainees. He could have been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison but he was given a far shorter sentence. Smith is the 10th low-ranking soldier convicted of taking part in the widespread abuse at Abu Ghraib. To date no high-ranking officer or anyone in civilian command has been held accountable for what happened at the prison.

Only the low ranking get trials. Everybody else gets a pass in the nonaccountable Bully Boy administration. Does anyone remember when he was running in 2000 and it was being touted as a CEO presidency? That was before all the corporate scandals and the stock market bust. But he has ran the nation like Tycco or Enron or any other belly up company. He's made sure the people around him pocketed as much cash as possible and the investors in this soceity got screwed.

There's another point to make too. I hope everybody read C.I.'s "NYT: When everyone below him is derelict in their duty, the Bully Boy is as well" this morning. Though no one wants to tackle torture, what has been tackled is that one person after another, from low ranking on up, has been found to be derelict in some manner (including Rumsfeld) and that goes right up the chain. He really can be charged with that in an impeachment and, if we're lucky, he will be.

Court Rejects Giving Puerto Ricans Right to Vote for President
In Washington the Supreme Court has rejected an effort to give residents of Puerto Rico the right to vote in U.S. presidential elections. "No territory of the United States has ever been able to participate in the presidential elections of the United States of America," Puerto Rican political analyst Juan Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua. "That fact only serves to underscore that Puerto Rico is now in the thinking of the United States Supreme Court a miserable colony of the United States."

So they can't have independence and they also can't vote? That's a recipe for disaster. As a colony, I'm assuming that they pay taxes to the United States and I'm remembering the third grade lesson about the Revolutionary War and the cry from what was then the British colonies of "No taxation without representation!" They can't get statehood and they can't get independence. How's this going to end? Who didn't pay attention to history?

Now Cedric and me picked out items today (and he's got an extra one) so be sure to check out Cedric's Big Mix. Elaine's off tonight but be sure you read "Musings" from last night.

Tony found a pretty amazing interview with Chalmers Johnson. This is from Tom Englehardt's "Whatever Happened to Congress?" that CounterPunch has up at their site:

The government isn't working right. There's no proper supervision. The founders, the authors of the Constitution, regarded the supreme organ to be Congress. The mystery to me--more than the huge expansion of executive branch powers we've seen since the neoconservatives and George Bush came to power--is: Why has Congress failed us so completely? Why are they no longer interested in the way the money is spent? Why does a Pentagon budget like this one produce so little interest? Is it that people have a vested interest in it, that it's going to produce more jobs for them?
I wrote an article well before Cunningham confessed called "The Military-Industrial Man" in which I identified a lot of what he was doing, but said unfortunately I didn't know how to get rid of him in such a safe district. After it appeared on the Los Angeles Times op-ed page, the paper got a couple of letters to the editor from the 34th district in downtown LA saying, I wish he was my congressman. If he'd bring good jobs here, I wouldn't mind making something that just gets blown up or sunk in the ground like missile defense in Alaska. I mean, we've already spent $100 billion on what amounts to a massive high-tech scarecrow. It couldn't hit a thing. The aiming devices aren't there. The tests fail. It doesn't work. It's certainly a cover for something much more ominous--the expansion of the Air Force into outer space or "full spectrum dominance," as they like to put it.
We need to concentrate on this, and not from a partisan point of view either. There's no reason to believe the Democrats would do a better job. They never have. They've expanded the armed forces just as fast as the Republicans.
This is the beast we're trying to analyze, to understand, and it seems to me today unstoppable. Put it this way: James Madison, the author of our Constitution, said the right that controls all other rights is the right to get information. If you don't have this, the others don't matter. The Bill of Rights doesn't work if you can't find out what's going on. Secrecy has been going crazy in this country for a long time, but it's become worse by orders of magnitude under the present administration. When John Ashcroft became attorney general, he issued orders that access to the Freedom of Information Act should be made as difficult as possible.

If that knocked you off your seat, read the whole thing. It's pretty heavy.

And here's something else to check out that Nina found, Jason McGahan's "An Iconoclast Remembered: Richard Pryor:"

Redd Foxx used to say that Richard Pryor would have been banned from every nightclub in the country had he performed his act before the Black Revolution of the 1960s. Foxx, a friend and admirer of Malcolm X since his youth, was speaking from long and bitter experience. Years before he played Fred Sanford in the hit 1970s television program Sanford & Son, Foxx was a "blue" comedian known to Black audiences throughout the Midwestern Chitlin' Circuit of the '40s and '50s for his sexually and politically explicit humor. He catered his act to the sensibility of Black underclass audiences, which embarrassed many integration-minded Blacks and missed white audiences almost entirely.
Foxx's black-or-white dilemma illustrates what historian Mel Watkins, borrowing from W.E.B. DuBois, called the "twoness" of African-American humor. Slavery created for Blacks the necessity to manage both how they were perceived by whites and how they perceived themselves. A laugh from the master could mean averting punishment, while satire, mimicry, and mockery of the master in the company of slaves could help alleviate the pain and misery of bondage. To justify slavery to themselves, the slavers rewarded foolish joviality and naïveté, while no overt act of intelligence or irony went unpunished. The richness of Black humor was secluded from the view of whites for centuries. The gulf between authentic Black ethnic humor and crude racist representations persisted unabated for more than a century.
Richard Pryor wasn't the first Black comedian to draw humor from the bitterness of racism. He wasn’t the first to substitute dazzling wit and intelligence in place of "acting the fool" for white audiences. And his mordant political satire informed by racial otherness had long since become a staple of the Chitlin’ Circuit. What first and foremost made Richard Pryor a transcendent American comedian was that he removed the racial barrier separating working-class Black ethnic humor from the predominantly white mainstream of American culture.
Jim Crow segregation after the Civil War had the effect of providing Blacks with clubs and cabarets in which to develop the humor denied them in the whites-only theater and mass media. Richard Pryor, like Redd Foxx before him, began his career performing before almost exclusively Black audiences. And like Foxx, the divergence between the types of humor suited to Black as opposed to white audiences became a defining source of conflict in Pryor's development as a comedian. He was born into the racially segregated Black underclass of Peoria, Illinois. His father was a teenage boxing champ turned pimp and bar manager. His mother was a prostitute. He grew up in one of his grandmother’s brothels. His earliest memories were peopled with the winos, addicts, con-men, prostitutes, and gangsters occupying the lowest rung of Black society in Peoria. Nowhere is this fact more evident than in his best known stand-up comedy of the '70s and '80s. But earlier in his career, Pryor suppressed his vivid remembrances of the past, believing them a hindrance to his pursuit of the financial rewards of white mainstream approval.

Now go check out Kat's latest.











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