The Lone Star Iconoclast Online:
"Depeted Uranium Bill Introduced Into Congress
WASHINGTON, D.C. � Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), a medical doctor, on May 17 introduced legislation with 21 original co-sponsors in the House of Representatives that calls for medical and scientific studies on the health and environmental impacts from the U.S. Military�s use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in combat zones, including Iraq. The McDermott bill also calls for cleanup and mitigation of sites in the U.S. contaminated by DU.
�The need is urgent and imperative for full, fair and impartial studies,� McDermott said. �We may be endangering the health and lives of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. All we�ve gotten so far from the Pentagon are assurances. We need facts backed by science. We don�t have that today.�
Because of its density, the military uses DU as a protective shield around tanks, and in munitions like armor piercing bullets and tank shells. DU tends to spontaneously ignite upon impact, disintegrating into a micro-fine residue that hangs suspended in the air where it can be inhaled and falls to the ground to leach into the soil.
DU is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process; it is chemically toxic. and DU has low-level radioactivity. About 300 metric tons of DU munitions were fired during the first Gulf War, and about half that amount has been used to date in the Iraq War. "
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
With great respect.
“With great respect and love I welcome you with all my heart.” That was how my teacher used to open all his talks. Sometimes he would explain his reasons for using these words. I heard him speak around 1980 and I have no copy to draw on, so I will have to remember him and use my own reflections. It took nearly 12 years of meditation, therapy and study before I felt it within myself to open one of my seminars on psychotherapy practice with the same words, and on this subject matter. I am sad to say I would not feel enough integrity to do so today.
At the Oxford School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, my co-founder, Mary, and I decided to base our assessment of therapists on these capacities. I was just about giving myself a pass mark then. It is not easy to show great love and respect. Most versions of love are just versions of buying and selling, social contracts as Blair calls them. Most versions of respect are based on fear rather than love, deference rather than appreciation of the great value of another human being. It is difficult to reopen the heart into a world which closes people down into a premature consumerist psychosexuality, and pitches children into competitive examinations which grade and degrade at an ever younger age. Only in Blairy England would my step son be labelled a “wonky donkey” at six.
Suddenly Mr Blair wants to morally rearm us. He wants to bring back respect into civic life. I am happy to say that many of us writers have responded very quickly to this challenge, telling him where he is misguided and misguiding us. Jenni Russell writes in the Guardian that his New Labour has done little but nurture selfish individualism. She charts Blair’s move from the 1997 manifesto, “I want a Britain we all feel a part of, in whose future we all have a stake, in which what I want for my own children I want for yours,” to the much bleaker 2005 statement, “It is our social contract. We help you, you help yourself, you benefit and the country benefits….Self interest and national interest go together.” I am appalled by the poverty of the English usage here. But the message is clear enough. It is all buying and selling now. There is nothing here about respect. Human relations have shrunk to commerce and competition. I scratch your back so you will scratch mine. I compete at school to be best so I can help my country beat the French in selling arms, or whatever else we might still produce. No more “Ethical Foreign Policy”. We cannot afford that. This later Blair is less like a Rousseau, more like a Thomas Hobbes. We must all be tied together in Blair’s Leviathan, our National Identity cards tied around our necks like millstones, or our lives will be brutish, nasty, and short, like it is for the people we bombed in Iraq. Wasn’t the United Nations meant to end all that war and inequality? Did not all Nations unite after the Second World War to combat rogue states, which go to war without proper international agreement, universally accepted principles. You took away respect for the rule of International Law, Mr Blair, when you lost the argument in the Security Council, and started an unauthorised war, that the Secretary General of the United Nations has declared to be illegal. You took the world back to the law of the jungle, with power in the hands of the lion and the eagle, which the world now sees as vulture and jackal.
Jenni Russell suggests Blair may have changed his mind once again during the election. He has returned to “respect” after listening to us, she thinks. But a Channel Four documentary on New Labour chicanery during the election suggests Blair never met a real elector during the campaign. Every meeting was staged, it claimed. It seems more likely to me that Blair is just jumping on the latest moral panic about youngsters in hoodies as a way of promoting his agenda of increasing social control. Jenni ends her piece saying she is concerned that the respect agenda will be nothing more than a demand that the most alienated be required to show more respect to the rest of us. I think it is all part of softening us up to accept a New Labour Police State, where respect will be forcibly extracted from those who do not fit in. We will have nice Guantanamo orange jackets for all deviants, on parade as examples to the rest of us. I wonder if our new school head locally will feel obliged to ban the hoodies, which are currently official school uniform.
What is the first bill before the new parliament? Blair has chosen Identity cards; another step away from a free and respectful society. Meanwhile, he ignores MI5 suggesting we can downgrade the terror alert. Oh No, that does not fit with the politics of fear and oppression at all. One of the most important pillars of freedom in England is the right to walk the streets of any town without let or hindrance. Blair will rob us of that right, that expectation of respect as an English citizen. Only those able to show an identity card will be respectable then.
Blair’s next step is to put his most intransigent reactionary minister in charge of the committee to consider electoral reform, indicating just how happy he is with the country continuing to be run with the backing of one voter in five. Give respect to that man, he is a New Labour voter. He is worth four of the rest of us.
Do I digress? Respectfully returning to the main theme, I am immediately distracted by other politician’s misuse of the word. Many of them use this turn of phrase when interviewed on the Today Programme, though Jack Straw always comes to mind first for some reason. “With the greatest respect,” they begin their sentence; which is as sure an indicator as we are likely to be given that what follows will trash the previous statement made by questioner if not the questioner himself. If they are particularly rattled it may be shortened to the aggressive interruption,” With respect.” Perhaps this is to be the new policy; to declare one’s respect for the other whenever one is about to treat them disrespectfully, or contradict them utterly. Roughly translated it will read: “Please don’t take offence, but what you just said was a load of nonsense.”
Off the air waves among the under-class the word is also very fashionable. “Respect, man,” says the youngster wagging school to his mate. It is a word attached to street status, street credibility. To gaze at such a child, hooded or otherwise, might easily be construed as lack of respect, even a challenge. To restore it the boy will need to prove his machismo, sometimes violently. After all, Mr Blair set the example. Saddam Hussein’s intransigence before the Anglo Saxons was surely enough to justify a good hiding, even if his aggression consisted in no more than a defiant stare. Boys failing at school will look for other ways of earning respect from their peers, which usually means delinquency of some kind. In Blairy England, it is not possible to gain respect when not being successful. Now it is ASBO takes the hindmost. Someone is bringing out a book about the need to offer the ordinary person in the street respect, as a fundamental tenet of a just society. He wants to have respect as the common currency used to validate the unexceptional. The idea is that we don’t need to be the best, the richest, the most successful to be respected and respectable. That isn’t very New Labour. Under Blair the rich are ever more rewarded and the poor are getting poorer faster than they were under the Tories. In this culture of increasing indulgence of the rich, where poor children’s schools are handed to rich car dealers to run for huge cash incentives, what is gaining respect is the accumulation of wealth. Not surprisingly the poor but ambitious youngster goes out and takes what he wants backed by a gun. Is that not the example you set him in Iraq, Mr Blair?
Once upon a time I worked at a Centre for Human Relations. Our fundamental principle was an attitude of profound respect both for ourselves and for another human being. This is very different from following a pattern of good manners, though the members were among the most courteous people I have ever met. A highly respected American visiting teacher described us as “higher than average good-hearted”. He preferred coming to us teach for us than to his own institute, making him rather unpopular there on one occasion. I like the idea of “good-heartedness”. It sounds like the quality an Englishman or woman should possess. I am not sure you can teach it, but you can draw it out of people.
I found it more difficult to come to terms with the concept of respect. Fear was inextricably linked to respect for me then. At school in the fifties and sixties, I found the culture of deference utterly stifling. I will always remember being forced to answer to a name that is not my own, because a teacher demanded it of me, though I had told him and he understood it was not my name. Respect was what you had to offer your elders and betters. They had no obligation to show any kind of respect to you in return. In fact the reverse was the norm. The sadistic abuse of junior prep school was followed by a very positive experience of senior prep school, where the headmaster emanated respectfulness. But this in turn was replaced by degradation at a middle ranking public school. At first thoroughly cowed, I slowly found some courage to resist. The Institutional freedom of University felt like paradise. 1968 saw revolution in Europe. We reaped the rewards in the England of 1969.
I emerged from University with no respect for authorities, political or otherwise. Too many people in power had abused my trust, had failed to provide an example of good authority. Power and Authority were decoupled. It was from Mary, the psychotherapist and ex-nun, that I learned about respect. Everything about the way she interacted with you made you feel an accepted person, whatever your intellectual or social merits or emotional state. Perhaps this rubbed off on me a little. I think it rubbed off on all of us around her. This goes far beyond the remarkable intellectual persuasiveness of a Thatcher or the powerful seductive manipulations of a Blair. It is intimately connected with love. Without love it is perhaps impossible.
We must speak then of love. It is not an emotion, though it is always warm and sometimes burning. It is not a feeling, though many positive feelings flow out of love. It is not indiscriminate, for some people cannot be reached by love. My teacher said that there are eight kinds of people; seven can be influenced by love, the eighth, requires a stick. Love is the energy of the open heart in action. It is the greatest force in the universe. It powers our sexuality, our parenting, and our care for each other. It is not created by the mind or by the body. It comes from a higher place. It springs from experience of dimensions beyond the western egoic self. It is a connection to a wholeness that transcends individuality, yet is profoundly human and individual. Out of it flows respect for the other human being as another source of what one might call the divine.
Dear Mr Blair, would you not like to be respected again? Are you not trying to book your place in history? You already told us that history will judge you kindly. Yet one of the distressing things about respect is how hard it is to regain after you have lost it. We were so ready to take you and your “pretty straight guys” to our hearts. But you weren’t a straight guy. You lied and lied and lied. There are Tories still out there who want the curriculum refilled with tales of the British Empire, of when the Englishman commanded respect all over the world, just by being English. I suspect you want to be up there with those old Imperial heroes, who went out and fought heroically for King and country, painting the globe red. But you sent our troops out to fight, not for the good of all, or even for justice for the poor, but for George W. Bush and his greedy American Empire, and all on a great big lie.
Many ordinary little men have held power, Mr Blair. But to have true authority you need to have trust and respect from people. You have squandered that trust and that respect.
No, we won’t pass on from Iraq, as you keep demanding. It was a high crime.
No, it is not simply a matter of disagreement. You deliberately misled us all.
No, we don’t believe in your integrity. You lied and lied and lied.
We want you to understand that you have betrayed us shamefully. Do not wait for the International Court to shame us all. The best you can do as our prime minister now is respectfully retire.
At the Oxford School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, my co-founder, Mary, and I decided to base our assessment of therapists on these capacities. I was just about giving myself a pass mark then. It is not easy to show great love and respect. Most versions of love are just versions of buying and selling, social contracts as Blair calls them. Most versions of respect are based on fear rather than love, deference rather than appreciation of the great value of another human being. It is difficult to reopen the heart into a world which closes people down into a premature consumerist psychosexuality, and pitches children into competitive examinations which grade and degrade at an ever younger age. Only in Blairy England would my step son be labelled a “wonky donkey” at six.
Suddenly Mr Blair wants to morally rearm us. He wants to bring back respect into civic life. I am happy to say that many of us writers have responded very quickly to this challenge, telling him where he is misguided and misguiding us. Jenni Russell writes in the Guardian that his New Labour has done little but nurture selfish individualism. She charts Blair’s move from the 1997 manifesto, “I want a Britain we all feel a part of, in whose future we all have a stake, in which what I want for my own children I want for yours,” to the much bleaker 2005 statement, “It is our social contract. We help you, you help yourself, you benefit and the country benefits….Self interest and national interest go together.” I am appalled by the poverty of the English usage here. But the message is clear enough. It is all buying and selling now. There is nothing here about respect. Human relations have shrunk to commerce and competition. I scratch your back so you will scratch mine. I compete at school to be best so I can help my country beat the French in selling arms, or whatever else we might still produce. No more “Ethical Foreign Policy”. We cannot afford that. This later Blair is less like a Rousseau, more like a Thomas Hobbes. We must all be tied together in Blair’s Leviathan, our National Identity cards tied around our necks like millstones, or our lives will be brutish, nasty, and short, like it is for the people we bombed in Iraq. Wasn’t the United Nations meant to end all that war and inequality? Did not all Nations unite after the Second World War to combat rogue states, which go to war without proper international agreement, universally accepted principles. You took away respect for the rule of International Law, Mr Blair, when you lost the argument in the Security Council, and started an unauthorised war, that the Secretary General of the United Nations has declared to be illegal. You took the world back to the law of the jungle, with power in the hands of the lion and the eagle, which the world now sees as vulture and jackal.
Jenni Russell suggests Blair may have changed his mind once again during the election. He has returned to “respect” after listening to us, she thinks. But a Channel Four documentary on New Labour chicanery during the election suggests Blair never met a real elector during the campaign. Every meeting was staged, it claimed. It seems more likely to me that Blair is just jumping on the latest moral panic about youngsters in hoodies as a way of promoting his agenda of increasing social control. Jenni ends her piece saying she is concerned that the respect agenda will be nothing more than a demand that the most alienated be required to show more respect to the rest of us. I think it is all part of softening us up to accept a New Labour Police State, where respect will be forcibly extracted from those who do not fit in. We will have nice Guantanamo orange jackets for all deviants, on parade as examples to the rest of us. I wonder if our new school head locally will feel obliged to ban the hoodies, which are currently official school uniform.
What is the first bill before the new parliament? Blair has chosen Identity cards; another step away from a free and respectful society. Meanwhile, he ignores MI5 suggesting we can downgrade the terror alert. Oh No, that does not fit with the politics of fear and oppression at all. One of the most important pillars of freedom in England is the right to walk the streets of any town without let or hindrance. Blair will rob us of that right, that expectation of respect as an English citizen. Only those able to show an identity card will be respectable then.
Blair’s next step is to put his most intransigent reactionary minister in charge of the committee to consider electoral reform, indicating just how happy he is with the country continuing to be run with the backing of one voter in five. Give respect to that man, he is a New Labour voter. He is worth four of the rest of us.
Do I digress? Respectfully returning to the main theme, I am immediately distracted by other politician’s misuse of the word. Many of them use this turn of phrase when interviewed on the Today Programme, though Jack Straw always comes to mind first for some reason. “With the greatest respect,” they begin their sentence; which is as sure an indicator as we are likely to be given that what follows will trash the previous statement made by questioner if not the questioner himself. If they are particularly rattled it may be shortened to the aggressive interruption,” With respect.” Perhaps this is to be the new policy; to declare one’s respect for the other whenever one is about to treat them disrespectfully, or contradict them utterly. Roughly translated it will read: “Please don’t take offence, but what you just said was a load of nonsense.”
Off the air waves among the under-class the word is also very fashionable. “Respect, man,” says the youngster wagging school to his mate. It is a word attached to street status, street credibility. To gaze at such a child, hooded or otherwise, might easily be construed as lack of respect, even a challenge. To restore it the boy will need to prove his machismo, sometimes violently. After all, Mr Blair set the example. Saddam Hussein’s intransigence before the Anglo Saxons was surely enough to justify a good hiding, even if his aggression consisted in no more than a defiant stare. Boys failing at school will look for other ways of earning respect from their peers, which usually means delinquency of some kind. In Blairy England, it is not possible to gain respect when not being successful. Now it is ASBO takes the hindmost. Someone is bringing out a book about the need to offer the ordinary person in the street respect, as a fundamental tenet of a just society. He wants to have respect as the common currency used to validate the unexceptional. The idea is that we don’t need to be the best, the richest, the most successful to be respected and respectable. That isn’t very New Labour. Under Blair the rich are ever more rewarded and the poor are getting poorer faster than they were under the Tories. In this culture of increasing indulgence of the rich, where poor children’s schools are handed to rich car dealers to run for huge cash incentives, what is gaining respect is the accumulation of wealth. Not surprisingly the poor but ambitious youngster goes out and takes what he wants backed by a gun. Is that not the example you set him in Iraq, Mr Blair?
Once upon a time I worked at a Centre for Human Relations. Our fundamental principle was an attitude of profound respect both for ourselves and for another human being. This is very different from following a pattern of good manners, though the members were among the most courteous people I have ever met. A highly respected American visiting teacher described us as “higher than average good-hearted”. He preferred coming to us teach for us than to his own institute, making him rather unpopular there on one occasion. I like the idea of “good-heartedness”. It sounds like the quality an Englishman or woman should possess. I am not sure you can teach it, but you can draw it out of people.
I found it more difficult to come to terms with the concept of respect. Fear was inextricably linked to respect for me then. At school in the fifties and sixties, I found the culture of deference utterly stifling. I will always remember being forced to answer to a name that is not my own, because a teacher demanded it of me, though I had told him and he understood it was not my name. Respect was what you had to offer your elders and betters. They had no obligation to show any kind of respect to you in return. In fact the reverse was the norm. The sadistic abuse of junior prep school was followed by a very positive experience of senior prep school, where the headmaster emanated respectfulness. But this in turn was replaced by degradation at a middle ranking public school. At first thoroughly cowed, I slowly found some courage to resist. The Institutional freedom of University felt like paradise. 1968 saw revolution in Europe. We reaped the rewards in the England of 1969.
I emerged from University with no respect for authorities, political or otherwise. Too many people in power had abused my trust, had failed to provide an example of good authority. Power and Authority were decoupled. It was from Mary, the psychotherapist and ex-nun, that I learned about respect. Everything about the way she interacted with you made you feel an accepted person, whatever your intellectual or social merits or emotional state. Perhaps this rubbed off on me a little. I think it rubbed off on all of us around her. This goes far beyond the remarkable intellectual persuasiveness of a Thatcher or the powerful seductive manipulations of a Blair. It is intimately connected with love. Without love it is perhaps impossible.
We must speak then of love. It is not an emotion, though it is always warm and sometimes burning. It is not a feeling, though many positive feelings flow out of love. It is not indiscriminate, for some people cannot be reached by love. My teacher said that there are eight kinds of people; seven can be influenced by love, the eighth, requires a stick. Love is the energy of the open heart in action. It is the greatest force in the universe. It powers our sexuality, our parenting, and our care for each other. It is not created by the mind or by the body. It comes from a higher place. It springs from experience of dimensions beyond the western egoic self. It is a connection to a wholeness that transcends individuality, yet is profoundly human and individual. Out of it flows respect for the other human being as another source of what one might call the divine.
Dear Mr Blair, would you not like to be respected again? Are you not trying to book your place in history? You already told us that history will judge you kindly. Yet one of the distressing things about respect is how hard it is to regain after you have lost it. We were so ready to take you and your “pretty straight guys” to our hearts. But you weren’t a straight guy. You lied and lied and lied. There are Tories still out there who want the curriculum refilled with tales of the British Empire, of when the Englishman commanded respect all over the world, just by being English. I suspect you want to be up there with those old Imperial heroes, who went out and fought heroically for King and country, painting the globe red. But you sent our troops out to fight, not for the good of all, or even for justice for the poor, but for George W. Bush and his greedy American Empire, and all on a great big lie.
Many ordinary little men have held power, Mr Blair. But to have true authority you need to have trust and respect from people. You have squandered that trust and that respect.
No, we won’t pass on from Iraq, as you keep demanding. It was a high crime.
No, it is not simply a matter of disagreement. You deliberately misled us all.
No, we don’t believe in your integrity. You lied and lied and lied.
We want you to understand that you have betrayed us shamefully. Do not wait for the International Court to shame us all. The best you can do as our prime minister now is respectfully retire.
Monday, May 30, 2005
John Conyers, Jr. -- Letter to Pres Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"
Apparently we need 100,000 signatures to back this letter
Not being American I cannot sign it.
Perhaps you can?
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to 'look at all options' and that there was 'no timetable' for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that '[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq.'
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remains a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a 'massive intelligence failure,' in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Not being American I cannot sign it.
Perhaps you can?
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to 'look at all options' and that there was 'no timetable' for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that '[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq.'
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remains a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a 'massive intelligence failure,' in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Sunday, May 29, 2005
t r u t h o u t - British Troops Face War Crimes Trial
And so it begins. As usual the Americans are ahead of us. But will our trail lead all the way to Blair. I do hope so.
Dropping cluster bombs on civilian areas is a war crime. Don't doubt it.
But the big war crime was the invasion. Today we know the air war was begun even before 1441 was passed.
" The UK is facing a formal investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague over allegations that the UK broke international law in Iraq by using cluster bombs in urban areas and by attacking power stations. The ICC is also studying war crimes claims based on the Mousa case and the deaths of other Iraqi civilians.
The ICC has written formally to the Ministry of Defence, asking for comments on allegations raised in a detailed legal dossier submitted by the British legal group PeaceRights, and earlier complaints by the Athens Bar Association.
A QLR spokesman said yesterday: 'We are full square behind the Baha Mousa investigation and if individuals are found guilty of being involved in the tragedy, the regiment wants them out more quickly than anybody else does.' "
Dropping cluster bombs on civilian areas is a war crime. Don't doubt it.
But the big war crime was the invasion. Today we know the air war was begun even before 1441 was passed.
" The UK is facing a formal investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague over allegations that the UK broke international law in Iraq by using cluster bombs in urban areas and by attacking power stations. The ICC is also studying war crimes claims based on the Mousa case and the deaths of other Iraqi civilians.
The ICC has written formally to the Ministry of Defence, asking for comments on allegations raised in a detailed legal dossier submitted by the British legal group PeaceRights, and earlier complaints by the Athens Bar Association.
A QLR spokesman said yesterday: 'We are full square behind the Baha Mousa investigation and if individuals are found guilty of being involved in the tragedy, the regiment wants them out more quickly than anybody else does.' "
t r u t h o u t - Inside America's Most Powerful Megachurch
Be afraid, be very afraid.
The new soldiers of Christian Jihad (holy war) are on the march.
Up till now the flow of missionaries into Blairy England has come from Africa.
But are the storm troopers of an American Neo-con Christ beginning to infiltrate?
The 911 Conspiracy gave them the excuse to declare those not with them as against them, and to invade Iraq.
Yes, sir. You can boil our enemies alive if you support us in the war on terror.
We will keep quiet while your people try to overthrow you for democracy. What do we care for democracy if it isn't our version?
Look out for Armaggedonists marching into a church or community near you.
Will we be seeing another Edge Hill (English civil war battle) as these new round heads try to impose their hideous old religion on us moderns.
" 'Colorado Springs,' Jayson told me, 'this particular city, this one city, is a battleground' - he paused - 'between good and evil. This is spiritual Gettysburg.' Why here? I asked. He thought about it and rephrased his answer. 'This place is just a watering hole for Christians. For God's people. Something extra powerful's about to pour out of this city. I hope not to stay in Colorado Springs, because I want to spread what's going on here. I'm a warrior, dude. I'm a warrior for God. Colorado Springs is my training ground.' "
The new soldiers of Christian Jihad (holy war) are on the march.
Up till now the flow of missionaries into Blairy England has come from Africa.
But are the storm troopers of an American Neo-con Christ beginning to infiltrate?
The 911 Conspiracy gave them the excuse to declare those not with them as against them, and to invade Iraq.
Yes, sir. You can boil our enemies alive if you support us in the war on terror.
We will keep quiet while your people try to overthrow you for democracy. What do we care for democracy if it isn't our version?
Look out for Armaggedonists marching into a church or community near you.
Will we be seeing another Edge Hill (English civil war battle) as these new round heads try to impose their hideous old religion on us moderns.
" 'Colorado Springs,' Jayson told me, 'this particular city, this one city, is a battleground' - he paused - 'between good and evil. This is spiritual Gettysburg.' Why here? I asked. He thought about it and rephrased his answer. 'This place is just a watering hole for Christians. For God's people. Something extra powerful's about to pour out of this city. I hope not to stay in Colorado Springs, because I want to spread what's going on here. I'm a warrior, dude. I'm a warrior for God. Colorado Springs is my training ground.' "
How the Mighty Hath Fallen (mparent7777.blog-city.com)
In this article we see the history of American military expansionism and imperial aggression. But the U.S. is struggling to hold Iraq. It is bleeding heavily financially. But the fourth estate is pathetic in failing to hold up a mirror to all this.
Where would we be without the internet blogger?
"Short of a few exceptions, like Bill Moyers, the mainstream media has forsaken their duty as the Fourth Estate. Rather than informing the American people of the truth about our corrupt and malevolent government, they bow to the pressure of their corporate masters and feed us versions of the truth that withhold details and present criminal act by our government in a benign manner. A British Member of Parliament recently showed the guts to openly challenge several of our venal Senators (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4556113.stm). When will our own elected representatives and members of the press show that kind of spine? Perchance most of them have simply sold out and become party to the 'Dark Side' of our national identity.
The Bush administration has demonstrated its commitment to making the Twenty First Century the 'American Century'. However, the reality is that the invasion of a small country like Iraq has stretched our military to its limits. After two years of US military occupation, Iraq is still in a state of chaos, and many Iraqis want our military to withdraw. The sun is setting on the 'American Empire' as Bush and his people desperately struggle to fan the dying embers and rekindle the flames. There are multiple countries with nuclear capabilities. China wields a great deal of economic power over the United States as it continues to parlay its colossal trade surplus into an opportunity to finance a large portion of the US debt. Terrorist acts, over-dependence on credit, and weaker nations with nuclear capabilities are proving to be the David to our Goliath. Redefining the term 'debtor nation' with a $7.5 trillion national debt, America is bleeding red ink. The failing effort in Iraq is costing billions of dollars that this country does not have. America's dominance "
Where would we be without the internet blogger?
"Short of a few exceptions, like Bill Moyers, the mainstream media has forsaken their duty as the Fourth Estate. Rather than informing the American people of the truth about our corrupt and malevolent government, they bow to the pressure of their corporate masters and feed us versions of the truth that withhold details and present criminal act by our government in a benign manner. A British Member of Parliament recently showed the guts to openly challenge several of our venal Senators (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4556113.stm). When will our own elected representatives and members of the press show that kind of spine? Perchance most of them have simply sold out and become party to the 'Dark Side' of our national identity.
The Bush administration has demonstrated its commitment to making the Twenty First Century the 'American Century'. However, the reality is that the invasion of a small country like Iraq has stretched our military to its limits. After two years of US military occupation, Iraq is still in a state of chaos, and many Iraqis want our military to withdraw. The sun is setting on the 'American Empire' as Bush and his people desperately struggle to fan the dying embers and rekindle the flames. There are multiple countries with nuclear capabilities. China wields a great deal of economic power over the United States as it continues to parlay its colossal trade surplus into an opportunity to finance a large portion of the US debt. Terrorist acts, over-dependence on credit, and weaker nations with nuclear capabilities are proving to be the David to our Goliath. Redefining the term 'debtor nation' with a $7.5 trillion national debt, America is bleeding red ink. The failing effort in Iraq is costing billions of dollars that this country does not have. America's dominance "
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Matthew Rothschild | Stripping Rumsfeld and Bush of Impunity | July 2005 issue
Believe it or not there is a human rights net out there somewhere, and it is just beginning to tighten around the war criminals who run America.
No news as yet on progress in the pursuit of Blair.
"Bush failed to recognize that the Geneva Conventions provide universal protections. 'The Conventions and customary law still provide explicit protections to all persons held in an armed conflict,' Human Rights Watch says in its report, citing the 'fundamental guarantees' in Article 75 of Protocol I of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions. That article prohibits 'torture of all kinds, whether physical or mental,' 'corporal punishment,' and 'outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.'
In the February 7, 2002, memo, Bush tried to give himself cover by stating that 'our values as a Nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not entitled to such treatment.' He added that the United States, 'to the extent appropriate and "
No news as yet on progress in the pursuit of Blair.
"Bush failed to recognize that the Geneva Conventions provide universal protections. 'The Conventions and customary law still provide explicit protections to all persons held in an armed conflict,' Human Rights Watch says in its report, citing the 'fundamental guarantees' in Article 75 of Protocol I of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions. That article prohibits 'torture of all kinds, whether physical or mental,' 'corporal punishment,' and 'outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.'
In the February 7, 2002, memo, Bush tried to give himself cover by stating that 'our values as a Nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not entitled to such treatment.' He added that the United States, 'to the extent appropriate and "
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Respect, Man!? But have we earned it?
Meet the folks
It is that time of year again, when the school reports come through the door, and the exam papers arrive to be marked.
I thought I would take a moment to see how we are doing.
First a caveat: there is something profoundly wrong with a society that spends so much time in grading and assessing performance to the detriment of real achievement.
At school I always felt a phoney because I only supposed I could perform on paper. Today, children are deliberately schooled to pass tests to the exclusion of developing real abilities that count in life. To make things worse, the examining system is chaotic, with lorry loads of scripts stolen and many scripts never even being seen by a marker.
One of the more interesting points made so far in the National debate about the restoring of "Respect" is that Blair’s England is only meritocratic.
Ordinary good people are not given the respect they should be given in a healthy society.
Sometimes I have tried to downplay my own specialness. I wrote “Local Government Officer” on my first marriage certificate.
That said and done, this is at least partly us. We are unashamedly, a bit special.
N
Winner school rifle competition, age 12.
Failed English language O level aged 14.
3 A levels at 16.
“The most creative historian I have taught at my time at this public school,” R.K.B., history head.
Top in the A level English exams. 2% better than anyone else, in a field of 100, including Jeremy Paxman.
Second in County Schools javelin.
B.A. 2.1 hons; with first class marks in special subject, Philosophy of Mind
M.A. (equivalent), Counselling and Psychotherapy. (Dissertation so good, the marker was convinced it could not have been written by a student.)
Director of a Nationally Accredited School of Psychotherapy aged 42, and the youngest member of the UK Council for Psychotherapy. Curriculum described as “excellent” by the Tavistock.
Currently failing to progress beyond the short list for the BBC Today programme election web log, and the BBC Oxford “Write On” competition.
Play read at Chipping Norton theatre.
Starting to direct a play, to be performed in September.
Praised for long essay “More gold into led”, critiquing modern psychotherapy regulation, which is widely read on the web.
G
Had her first story published nationally by Puffin books after winning a competition, aged 6.
1000 posters of winning Art Work printed, aged 12.
Winner, English Studies School Prize at 18.
Exhibition to Oxford University to read English.
First Class degree.
Assessed best young teacher in Cornwall.
Passed driving test (after 5 attempts).
Head of Departments in English and drama in secondary schools.
Assistant Chief Examiner.
Winner; World Book Day poetry prize
Member, Prince of Wales Shakespeare School at the RSC
H
Voted “Most likely to be Prime Minister”, Perse School for Girls, (better known as St Trinians,) and still one of the top schools in England.
Also voted “Queen of Gossip.”
4 A grade “A” levels.
British psychological Society Prize for A level Psychology. (Highest marks in England)
Assessed as Excellent by Romanian Embassy as gap year teacher.
Led large group of student teachers to China
2.1 Hons, in English. Bristol University.
Dancing Queen of the “Lizard Lounge.” Night Club, Bristol.
Place at cambridge University to study Teaching.
R
Winner of at least 6 Art Prizes. (We lost count). 1,000 posters of her work printed as one prize.
Twice overall County Swimming Champion, winning events in every stroke and distance.
Has held 6 County championship meeting records.
County Judo champion, (assessed as likely to become better than her teacher).
Junior Witney Club Captain, swimming.
County Swimming team member.
Talented actress: Title role in “The Grinch who stole Christmas.”
School swimming team Captain.
Best sportswoman of her year group, all round.
Fourth in her whole secondary school talent contest, singing her own composition,
unaccompanied.
C
Waiting for year 6 SATS results.
Teacher assessed as brightest boy in class and centre of class social life
Merit + in beginners oboe competition
Boy Scout
Tag Rugby tournament player
J
Waiting for Year 2 SATS evaluation from teachers.
Enthusiastic member of Centre Stage theatre school
Talented story teller, including some whoppers.
Recently completed 10 kilometre bicycle cross country challenge.
50 metre swim certificate.
It is that time of year again, when the school reports come through the door, and the exam papers arrive to be marked.
I thought I would take a moment to see how we are doing.
First a caveat: there is something profoundly wrong with a society that spends so much time in grading and assessing performance to the detriment of real achievement.
At school I always felt a phoney because I only supposed I could perform on paper. Today, children are deliberately schooled to pass tests to the exclusion of developing real abilities that count in life. To make things worse, the examining system is chaotic, with lorry loads of scripts stolen and many scripts never even being seen by a marker.
One of the more interesting points made so far in the National debate about the restoring of "Respect" is that Blair’s England is only meritocratic.
Ordinary good people are not given the respect they should be given in a healthy society.
Sometimes I have tried to downplay my own specialness. I wrote “Local Government Officer” on my first marriage certificate.
That said and done, this is at least partly us. We are unashamedly, a bit special.
N
Winner school rifle competition, age 12.
Failed English language O level aged 14.
3 A levels at 16.
“The most creative historian I have taught at my time at this public school,” R.K.B., history head.
Top in the A level English exams. 2% better than anyone else, in a field of 100, including Jeremy Paxman.
Second in County Schools javelin.
B.A. 2.1 hons; with first class marks in special subject, Philosophy of Mind
M.A. (equivalent), Counselling and Psychotherapy. (Dissertation so good, the marker was convinced it could not have been written by a student.)
Director of a Nationally Accredited School of Psychotherapy aged 42, and the youngest member of the UK Council for Psychotherapy. Curriculum described as “excellent” by the Tavistock.
Currently failing to progress beyond the short list for the BBC Today programme election web log, and the BBC Oxford “Write On” competition.
Play read at Chipping Norton theatre.
Starting to direct a play, to be performed in September.
Praised for long essay “More gold into led”, critiquing modern psychotherapy regulation, which is widely read on the web.
G
Had her first story published nationally by Puffin books after winning a competition, aged 6.
1000 posters of winning Art Work printed, aged 12.
Winner, English Studies School Prize at 18.
Exhibition to Oxford University to read English.
First Class degree.
Assessed best young teacher in Cornwall.
Passed driving test (after 5 attempts).
Head of Departments in English and drama in secondary schools.
Assistant Chief Examiner.
Winner; World Book Day poetry prize
Member, Prince of Wales Shakespeare School at the RSC
H
Voted “Most likely to be Prime Minister”, Perse School for Girls, (better known as St Trinians,) and still one of the top schools in England.
Also voted “Queen of Gossip.”
4 A grade “A” levels.
British psychological Society Prize for A level Psychology. (Highest marks in England)
Assessed as Excellent by Romanian Embassy as gap year teacher.
Led large group of student teachers to China
2.1 Hons, in English. Bristol University.
Dancing Queen of the “Lizard Lounge.” Night Club, Bristol.
Place at cambridge University to study Teaching.
R
Winner of at least 6 Art Prizes. (We lost count). 1,000 posters of her work printed as one prize.
Twice overall County Swimming Champion, winning events in every stroke and distance.
Has held 6 County championship meeting records.
County Judo champion, (assessed as likely to become better than her teacher).
Junior Witney Club Captain, swimming.
County Swimming team member.
Talented actress: Title role in “The Grinch who stole Christmas.”
School swimming team Captain.
Best sportswoman of her year group, all round.
Fourth in her whole secondary school talent contest, singing her own composition,
unaccompanied.
C
Waiting for year 6 SATS results.
Teacher assessed as brightest boy in class and centre of class social life
Merit + in beginners oboe competition
Boy Scout
Tag Rugby tournament player
J
Waiting for Year 2 SATS evaluation from teachers.
Enthusiastic member of Centre Stage theatre school
Talented story teller, including some whoppers.
Recently completed 10 kilometre bicycle cross country challenge.
50 metre swim certificate.
t r u t h o u t - Amnesty Says US Leads Global Assault on Human Rights
Look!
This could not be more serious.
Democracy is being strnagled across the globe.
"Wednesday 25 May 2005
London - Four years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, human rights are in retreat worldwide and the United States bears most responsibility, rights watchdog Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the picture is bleak. Governments are increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the U.S.-led war on terror, it said.
'The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide,' Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International's 2005 annual report.
'When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity,' she said."
This could not be more serious.
Democracy is being strnagled across the globe.
"Wednesday 25 May 2005
London - Four years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, human rights are in retreat worldwide and the United States bears most responsibility, rights watchdog Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the picture is bleak. Governments are increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the U.S.-led war on terror, it said.
'The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide,' Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International's 2005 annual report.
'When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity,' she said."
Phil Berg Press Release May 19, 2005
"�I know many of you recall Golfer Payne Stewart. His plane was off course and fighter jets were called out to check on Stewart's plane -- as fighter jets did 62 times in the year prior to 911. They saw no evidence of life and followed it to South Dakota, where it crashed. Likewise just a week ago, on May 11, 2005, when a small plane wandered off course toward the White House, it was intercepted within minutes by fighter planes. Now, question � Where were the fighter jets on 911? They had about an hour to intercept an airliner that had left its flight path and was heading for Washington D.C. But they never even made it into the air before the Pentagon crash.�"
911 law suit against Bush.
Below I quote from a law suit against Bush from a 911 survivor.
It becomes ever clearer that 911 was an inside job.
What I want to know now is whether Blair was in on it too.
In England right now we are facing the first bill of the new parliament, the most oppositional of all bills, the bill to inflict identity cards on us all.
It is all a part of the price we are paying for the 911 conspiracy, on a day when the official National security threat actually went down.
reopen 911 comes to town in London this Friday. We will be going.
"The blanket of “national security” does not cover criminal complicity in the murder of 3,000 people, most of them American citizens, on American soil, to advance an agenda of warmaking and “Patriot Act” type repressive legislation, warrantless searches, a national ID card, and other such erosions of Constitutional liberty at home.
This is not a negligence action. What Rodriguez alleges, in the alternative, is that either: (A) many of the defendants, as well as persons not known to Rodriguez, were actively complicit in the sponsorship, planning and execution of the 9-11 attacks; or (B) defendants — if not actively complicit in carrying out the attacks — had knowledge that the attacks were impending, which knowledge was sufficient for defendants to take counter-measures to prevent the attacks, but they failed to do so, not by reason of mere negligence, confusion, or ineptitude, but because they affirmatively desired such attacks to occur.
That certain of the defendants, at present occupying prominent and influential positions in the Bush II Administration, believed a “catastrophic and catalyzing event — such as a new Pearl Harbor” to be in the national interest is a matter of public record. "
It becomes ever clearer that 911 was an inside job.
What I want to know now is whether Blair was in on it too.
In England right now we are facing the first bill of the new parliament, the most oppositional of all bills, the bill to inflict identity cards on us all.
It is all a part of the price we are paying for the 911 conspiracy, on a day when the official National security threat actually went down.
reopen 911 comes to town in London this Friday. We will be going.
"The blanket of “national security” does not cover criminal complicity in the murder of 3,000 people, most of them American citizens, on American soil, to advance an agenda of warmaking and “Patriot Act” type repressive legislation, warrantless searches, a national ID card, and other such erosions of Constitutional liberty at home.
This is not a negligence action. What Rodriguez alleges, in the alternative, is that either: (A) many of the defendants, as well as persons not known to Rodriguez, were actively complicit in the sponsorship, planning and execution of the 9-11 attacks; or (B) defendants — if not actively complicit in carrying out the attacks — had knowledge that the attacks were impending, which knowledge was sufficient for defendants to take counter-measures to prevent the attacks, but they failed to do so, not by reason of mere negligence, confusion, or ineptitude, but because they affirmatively desired such attacks to occur.
That certain of the defendants, at present occupying prominent and influential positions in the Bush II Administration, believed a “catastrophic and catalyzing event — such as a new Pearl Harbor” to be in the national interest is a matter of public record. "
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
t r u t h o u t - McNamara: US Nuke Policies 'Immoral and Dangerous'
" 'If I were to characterize U.S. and NATO nuclear policies in one sentence, I would say they are immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, very, very dangerous in terms of the risk of inadvertent or accidental launch and destructive of the non-proliferation regime that has served us so well,' he said.
Well now,
If this guy, who would have been prosecuted as a war criminal had the west lost WW2, thinks the current policy is as bad as this
Goddess help us.
Naturally the non proliferation conference will be forced to concluse America can go on making bombs while everyone lese must stop.
That is fair, surely.
Well now,
If this guy, who would have been prosecuted as a war criminal had the west lost WW2, thinks the current policy is as bad as this
Goddess help us.
Naturally the non proliferation conference will be forced to concluse America can go on making bombs while everyone lese must stop.
That is fair, surely.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
AlterNet: What Really Happened at Guantanamo Bay?
It is becoming clear that whatever comes into the media only does so with permission of the ruling elite in the media.
So why does this come out now?
Why does Newsweek print and then retract?
Why does this stuff follow?
Could there be a struggle among the power media brokers over whether to go to war with all Moslems or just the more extreme elements.
Does this prove that the Armaggedonists are winning?
You decide.
"Mubanga, a 32-year-old Londoner who was arrested in Zambia in 2002 and taken to Guantanamo, was released without charge in January 2005, after 33 months in captivity. He says that offensive treatment of the Qu'ran was ongoing, even routine, over the three years he was a prisoner. Mubanga says complaints by inmates about the desecration of the Qu'ran fell upon deaf ears, and often resulted in severe punishment, including pepper-spraying of prisoners.
Laura Flanders' exclusive interview with Martin Mubanga was produced by Christabel Nsiah-Buadi and broadcast on The Laura Flanders Show on Air America Radio on Sunday, May 22. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview."
So why does this come out now?
Why does Newsweek print and then retract?
Why does this stuff follow?
Could there be a struggle among the power media brokers over whether to go to war with all Moslems or just the more extreme elements.
Does this prove that the Armaggedonists are winning?
You decide.
"Mubanga, a 32-year-old Londoner who was arrested in Zambia in 2002 and taken to Guantanamo, was released without charge in January 2005, after 33 months in captivity. He says that offensive treatment of the Qu'ran was ongoing, even routine, over the three years he was a prisoner. Mubanga says complaints by inmates about the desecration of the Qu'ran fell upon deaf ears, and often resulted in severe punishment, including pepper-spraying of prisoners.
Laura Flanders' exclusive interview with Martin Mubanga was produced by Christabel Nsiah-Buadi and broadcast on The Laura Flanders Show on Air America Radio on Sunday, May 22. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview."
Americans Target of Largest Media Brainwashing Campaign in History
Are You Brainwashed?
"Are you brainwashed? What about some of your neighbors, are they brainwashed? Before you answer, let us ask you a few questions. Do you believe that the United States was struck by a terrorist attack on Sept. 11? Do think that the people behind that attack were ``Arabs'' and that its ``mastermind'' was this fellow Osama bin Laden, operating from the cave of Afghanistan? Do you believe that the way to stop terrorism is to hit them hard, to hit them at their ``bases'' in such places as Afghanistan, and to hit the nation's that might sponsor them, like, say Iraq? And what about the economy, do you think that the recent fall of the stock market and the weakness in the economy have been caused by the Sept. 11 attacks? Well, if you answered yes to any of these questions, you probably are brainwashed? If you answered yes to more than one, you are definitely a ``goner.'' "
Nearly everyone around here would count as brainwashed, I am sad to say. The local MP is happy to keep selling the story.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, more information escapes the net of Cheney's control. I no longer think I am a paranoid conspiracy theorist when I doubt the public face of 911.
One of the more convincing new bits of evidence that has emerged is that the piece of engine that fell out of the sky from the towers and was found at least partly intact was from a 737 not a 767 as claimed.
We have known for a long time that whatever hit the pentagon was not a big jet.
Security men removed all video real-time evidence of that crash immediately after it happened.
Does that not tell you something, dear reader.
The news reel coverage of the lawn infront of the pentagon shows no signs of a crashed plane.
We have also heard how American fighter planes, which could have been sent towards the hijack planes were sent in the opposite direction.
And what of the 40 pages of the report that are published blank, because they focus on Mr Bush's friends the Saudis, who provided the men to do the supposed hijacking.
We know that only a tiny force was sent to Afghanistan to tackle Bin Laden, the supposed enemy mastermind, and that he has not been caught.
We know now that the real target for attack, the supposed retaliation, was always Iraq, even before 911.
We know now that Bush and Blair were aware how thin the WMD case for war was, and that it was spun into arsenic candy floss for us all to swallow.
Scott Ritter, the UN arms inspector who told us there were no weapons long before the war now tells us that Iran will be hit in June.
Other sources say the Israelis will be used, just as they were to destroy Saddam's nuclear programme years ago.
Now we are hearing of a killing made on the stock market by insiders who knew about 911.
Terrorists of course!
Except they appear to be connected to Israelis.
Or is that just another slur on Israel?
Maybe we will find out.
Don't hold your breath.
They even managed to hush up the stock market crash at the time.
"Are you brainwashed? What about some of your neighbors, are they brainwashed? Before you answer, let us ask you a few questions. Do you believe that the United States was struck by a terrorist attack on Sept. 11? Do think that the people behind that attack were ``Arabs'' and that its ``mastermind'' was this fellow Osama bin Laden, operating from the cave of Afghanistan? Do you believe that the way to stop terrorism is to hit them hard, to hit them at their ``bases'' in such places as Afghanistan, and to hit the nation's that might sponsor them, like, say Iraq? And what about the economy, do you think that the recent fall of the stock market and the weakness in the economy have been caused by the Sept. 11 attacks? Well, if you answered yes to any of these questions, you probably are brainwashed? If you answered yes to more than one, you are definitely a ``goner.'' "
Nearly everyone around here would count as brainwashed, I am sad to say. The local MP is happy to keep selling the story.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, more information escapes the net of Cheney's control. I no longer think I am a paranoid conspiracy theorist when I doubt the public face of 911.
One of the more convincing new bits of evidence that has emerged is that the piece of engine that fell out of the sky from the towers and was found at least partly intact was from a 737 not a 767 as claimed.
We have known for a long time that whatever hit the pentagon was not a big jet.
Security men removed all video real-time evidence of that crash immediately after it happened.
Does that not tell you something, dear reader.
The news reel coverage of the lawn infront of the pentagon shows no signs of a crashed plane.
We have also heard how American fighter planes, which could have been sent towards the hijack planes were sent in the opposite direction.
And what of the 40 pages of the report that are published blank, because they focus on Mr Bush's friends the Saudis, who provided the men to do the supposed hijacking.
We know that only a tiny force was sent to Afghanistan to tackle Bin Laden, the supposed enemy mastermind, and that he has not been caught.
We know now that the real target for attack, the supposed retaliation, was always Iraq, even before 911.
We know now that Bush and Blair were aware how thin the WMD case for war was, and that it was spun into arsenic candy floss for us all to swallow.
Scott Ritter, the UN arms inspector who told us there were no weapons long before the war now tells us that Iran will be hit in June.
Other sources say the Israelis will be used, just as they were to destroy Saddam's nuclear programme years ago.
Now we are hearing of a killing made on the stock market by insiders who knew about 911.
Terrorists of course!
Except they appear to be connected to Israelis.
Or is that just another slur on Israel?
Maybe we will find out.
Don't hold your breath.
They even managed to hush up the stock market crash at the time.
t r u t h o u t - Steve Weissman | Neo-Cons and Theo-Cons at Armageddon
It would seem from this essay that the U.S. is moving into one hell of a big conflict. The winners will be the ones who write the history.
But it will be Armaggedon, all right if the crusaders win and head of for the final battle with the ghost of Osama.
"Nor will the theo-cons stop with a few judicial victories. Long before Mr. Bush first spoke of his 'higher father,' they began their campaign to turn America into what they called 'a Christian nation.' Long after Mr. Bush steps down, they will remain a continuing threat to the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state - and to the religious freedom of us all.
Self-righteous and self-serving, the theo-cons have told us where they are heading and how they plan to get there. Whether fighting to force biblical Creationism into public schools or to stop gay marriage and 'partial-birth abortions,' they will use every supposedly single-issue struggle to subvert the Constitution and impose whatever they think their Bible tells them - and the rest of us - to do.
Islam has its politicized Ayatollahs and Taliban. As Americans, we face their evil twin - our own Christian Nationalists, who threaten our freedom at home while moving heaven and earth to turn a fight against terrorists into Armageddon.
Stopping these hell-bent Christian Nationalists will not be easy. But for freedom-loving Americans to win, the Democratic Party needs to join with Republican moderates to make a clear, uncompromising defense of Constitutional principles"
But it will be Armaggedon, all right if the crusaders win and head of for the final battle with the ghost of Osama.
"Nor will the theo-cons stop with a few judicial victories. Long before Mr. Bush first spoke of his 'higher father,' they began their campaign to turn America into what they called 'a Christian nation.' Long after Mr. Bush steps down, they will remain a continuing threat to the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state - and to the religious freedom of us all.
Self-righteous and self-serving, the theo-cons have told us where they are heading and how they plan to get there. Whether fighting to force biblical Creationism into public schools or to stop gay marriage and 'partial-birth abortions,' they will use every supposedly single-issue struggle to subvert the Constitution and impose whatever they think their Bible tells them - and the rest of us - to do.
Islam has its politicized Ayatollahs and Taliban. As Americans, we face their evil twin - our own Christian Nationalists, who threaten our freedom at home while moving heaven and earth to turn a fight against terrorists into Armageddon.
Stopping these hell-bent Christian Nationalists will not be easy. But for freedom-loving Americans to win, the Democratic Party needs to join with Republican moderates to make a clear, uncompromising defense of Constitutional principles"
Monday, May 23, 2005
Local anti war protest march and camp
This is what happens when we start to protest locally. Apparently we few unarmed protesters have no right to disrupt this local military community, who supposedly have a right to bomb Iraq, and invade another sovereign state with no support or endoresement from the International Community.
"Every protester was handed 5 sheets of A4 paper, each listing a series of instructions & restrictions under Sections 12 (about processions) & 14 (about assemblies) of the 1986 Public Order Act, and contained the following statement from Assistant Chief Constable John Donlon: �I reasonably believe that it [the assembly or procession] may result in serious disruption to the life of the community or that the purpose of the persons organising this public assembly is intended to intimidate others to do or not to do something they have a right.� Restrictions included the max no. of persons allowed present (400); no leafleting; no burning of effigies of other structures; no offensive placards to be displayed; along with defined routes and specific timings. In 25 years of protesting, I have never seen such a pre-emptive strike by the state. Practising for the G8 summit perhaps, or based on the sort of intelligence that took us to war in Iraq?"
"Every protester was handed 5 sheets of A4 paper, each listing a series of instructions & restrictions under Sections 12 (about processions) & 14 (about assemblies) of the 1986 Public Order Act, and contained the following statement from Assistant Chief Constable John Donlon: �I reasonably believe that it [the assembly or procession] may result in serious disruption to the life of the community or that the purpose of the persons organising this public assembly is intended to intimidate others to do or not to do something they have a right.� Restrictions included the max no. of persons allowed present (400); no leafleting; no burning of effigies of other structures; no offensive placards to be displayed; along with defined routes and specific timings. In 25 years of protesting, I have never seen such a pre-emptive strike by the state. Practising for the G8 summit perhaps, or based on the sort of intelligence that took us to war in Iraq?"
Baghdad Burning
This is a brilliant description of America's chief exporter of democracy and liberator from tyranny.
This is one of the best blogs on the planet
check it out.
... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The Dead and the Undead...
?She stood in the crowded room as her drove of minions stood around her...?A huddling mass trying to draw closer to her aura of evil. The lights flashed against her fangs as her cruel lips curled into a grimace. It was meant to be a smile but it wouldn't reach her cold, lifeless eyes? It was a leer- the leer of the undead before a feeding...
The above was not a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer- it was just Condi Rice in Iraq a day ago. At home, we fondly refer to her as The Vampire. She's such a contrast to Bush- he simply looks stupid. She, on the other hand, looks utterly evil. "
This is one of the best blogs on the planet
check it out.
... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The Dead and the Undead...
?She stood in the crowded room as her drove of minions stood around her...?A huddling mass trying to draw closer to her aura of evil. The lights flashed against her fangs as her cruel lips curled into a grimace. It was meant to be a smile but it wouldn't reach her cold, lifeless eyes? It was a leer- the leer of the undead before a feeding...
The above was not a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer- it was just Condi Rice in Iraq a day ago. At home, we fondly refer to her as The Vampire. She's such a contrast to Bush- he simply looks stupid. She, on the other hand, looks utterly evil. "
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | PM attacks yob culture and pledges to help bring back respect
This is the first of a series of articles on respect.
It takes a lead from Mr Blair's wish to make his last period of power on this concept.
"Mr Blair coupled a personal endorsement of a shopping centre's decision to ban the wearing of threatening hoods by teenage boys with a renewed willingness to blame voters' own shortcomings as parents.
Musing on the 'deep-seated causes' of children growing up without proper discipline, the prime minister told reporters at his monthly press conference: 'I can start a debate on this and I can legislate but what I can't do is, I can't raise someone's children for them.'"
What would the country be like if you had parented all our children, Mr Blair?
Your son seems to be one of the yobs we need to be afraid of. He goes out binge drinking as do many students in Bristol. Not so many fall down in the street and get beaten up as he is reported as doing, however.
You kept it out of the news, Mr Blair; but the underground press suggests your daughter Katherine tried to kill herself around the time you were taking us off to fight an illegal war. It is reported that that is the reason you nearly resigned. We can only speculate that she was unhappy at Daddy being a war criminal.
We should not defer to you, Mr Blair. We cannot respect you. You lied about the reasons for going to war. You sent people to their deaths for no good reason. You authorised mass killings of foreign civilians by cluster bombs in civilian areas.
You have brought up unhappy, disturbed, and poorly behaved children.
You set an example to young people of disrespect for law, for honesty, for shared decision making. You have been a tyrant Mr Blair and have set an example of unsanctioned international violence.
How can we be surprised when people go out into the streets and attack other people, breaking the law, and committing acts of violence for no reason.
No wonder your back is breaking Mr Blair. You cannot go on carrying the burden of such terrible responsibility.
Mr Blair, we do not want you to raise our children for us. You cannot even raise your own well.
Stop intruding in our lives. We want less of your interventions at home and abroad.
Permit us to be responsible for our own parenting.
We don't want your tyranny, and we don't want your appointed petty tyrants to run our schools and set our parenting parameters for us.
One voter in five supporting your party gives you no kind of mandate to interfere more with our lives.
Give us proportional representation. Give us real democracy.
Then go, Mr Blair. Just go.
It takes a lead from Mr Blair's wish to make his last period of power on this concept.
"Mr Blair coupled a personal endorsement of a shopping centre's decision to ban the wearing of threatening hoods by teenage boys with a renewed willingness to blame voters' own shortcomings as parents.
Musing on the 'deep-seated causes' of children growing up without proper discipline, the prime minister told reporters at his monthly press conference: 'I can start a debate on this and I can legislate but what I can't do is, I can't raise someone's children for them.'"
What would the country be like if you had parented all our children, Mr Blair?
Your son seems to be one of the yobs we need to be afraid of. He goes out binge drinking as do many students in Bristol. Not so many fall down in the street and get beaten up as he is reported as doing, however.
You kept it out of the news, Mr Blair; but the underground press suggests your daughter Katherine tried to kill herself around the time you were taking us off to fight an illegal war. It is reported that that is the reason you nearly resigned. We can only speculate that she was unhappy at Daddy being a war criminal.
We should not defer to you, Mr Blair. We cannot respect you. You lied about the reasons for going to war. You sent people to their deaths for no good reason. You authorised mass killings of foreign civilians by cluster bombs in civilian areas.
You have brought up unhappy, disturbed, and poorly behaved children.
You set an example to young people of disrespect for law, for honesty, for shared decision making. You have been a tyrant Mr Blair and have set an example of unsanctioned international violence.
How can we be surprised when people go out into the streets and attack other people, breaking the law, and committing acts of violence for no reason.
No wonder your back is breaking Mr Blair. You cannot go on carrying the burden of such terrible responsibility.
Mr Blair, we do not want you to raise our children for us. You cannot even raise your own well.
Stop intruding in our lives. We want less of your interventions at home and abroad.
Permit us to be responsible for our own parenting.
We don't want your tyranny, and we don't want your appointed petty tyrants to run our schools and set our parenting parameters for us.
One voter in five supporting your party gives you no kind of mandate to interfere more with our lives.
Give us proportional representation. Give us real democracy.
Then go, Mr Blair. Just go.
Blair faces US probe over secret Iraq invasion plan - Sunday Times - Times Online
Let all the evils of the Bush Blair world hatch out.
It seems we may have Americans coming to London to examine the way we were spun into a war that we, the people did not want.
Is this the beginning of the end for Blair
I hope so.
But the American have not shown much talent in investigating anything recently, have they?
"Conyers said the memo raised �very serious questions about an abuse of power , . . it is a very serious constitutional matter�. Under the US constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, and it was not until mid-October 2002 that Bush obtained the necessary authorisation to begin military preparations.
�There are members saying that if they knew then what they know now they wouldn�t have given him those powers (to wage war),� Conyers said.
By sending investigators to London, Conyers hopes to stir the US media into re-examining a story largely ignored in America since Bush�s re-election victory in November. "
It seems we may have Americans coming to London to examine the way we were spun into a war that we, the people did not want.
Is this the beginning of the end for Blair
I hope so.
But the American have not shown much talent in investigating anything recently, have they?
"Conyers said the memo raised �very serious questions about an abuse of power , . . it is a very serious constitutional matter�. Under the US constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, and it was not until mid-October 2002 that Bush obtained the necessary authorisation to begin military preparations.
�There are members saying that if they knew then what they know now they wouldn�t have given him those powers (to wage war),� Conyers said.
By sending investigators to London, Conyers hopes to stir the US media into re-examining a story largely ignored in America since Bush�s re-election victory in November. "
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Pledge of allegiance
Pledge of Allegiance for Amerikkka 2005 as it enters it's swan song:
I pledge allegiance to the Corporations
who have destroyed our democracy.
And to the Criminals who run this world,
my soul, my worldly goods, and my children's lives.
To a memory of what could have been,
and the chipped, watched and mind controlled public.
I pledge allegiance to my television, my radio and my lying newspapers.
I pledge allegiance to truth light, gatekeepers of the night,
because after all Amerikkkans can't take the truth.
I pledge allegiance to laziness, drug companies, GMO's, fast food,
chemtrails, flouridated water, poisoned air ,water
and the fear that keeps me silent.
And to the republic of Nazism, weapons in space,
wars for colonialism, hatred and prejudice of all kinds,
One World Government, trodding the poor for the elitist illuminati,
I will give my power, my life, my rights and most of all my soul.
Meria Heller 5/20/05.
"THE MERIA HELLER SHOW "- 5th yr On The Net- #1 on Net! http://www.meria.net/
"Meria is the best weapon of Mass instruction we have" - Greg Palast
We have a pledge now for new people joining us inBritain.
I am thinking of an alternative version of a pledge of allegiance to Blairy England
Any suggestions
I pledge allegiance to the Corporations
who have destroyed our democracy.
And to the Criminals who run this world,
my soul, my worldly goods, and my children's lives.
To a memory of what could have been,
and the chipped, watched and mind controlled public.
I pledge allegiance to my television, my radio and my lying newspapers.
I pledge allegiance to truth light, gatekeepers of the night,
because after all Amerikkkans can't take the truth.
I pledge allegiance to laziness, drug companies, GMO's, fast food,
chemtrails, flouridated water, poisoned air ,water
and the fear that keeps me silent.
And to the republic of Nazism, weapons in space,
wars for colonialism, hatred and prejudice of all kinds,
One World Government, trodding the poor for the elitist illuminati,
I will give my power, my life, my rights and most of all my soul.
Meria Heller 5/20/05.
"THE MERIA HELLER SHOW "- 5th yr On The Net- #1 on Net! http://www.meria.net/
"Meria is the best weapon of Mass instruction we have" - Greg Palast
We have a pledge now for new people joining us inBritain.
I am thinking of an alternative version of a pledge of allegiance to Blairy England
Any suggestions
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Brit fries senators in oil
The Independent has a good piece on galloways American stopover.
It seems the media, where it stood up and took notice at all has observed the American senators given a drubbing.
Theyw ere very foolish to try to cover their own national sins in the oil for food scandal by trying to dump on George galloway.
"'Brit Fries Senators in Oil' was the headline on a news story that noted the 'stunning audacity' of Mr Galloway's performance, how he had caught Mr Coleman and his colleagues 'flatfooted' (only one of whom was left when the chairman brought the embarrassment to an end).
A brief perusal of the US press suggests that the Post's Andrea Peyser was also the only columnist to weigh in. As might be expected, she excoriated Mr Galloway as a thug and a bully, 'a lefty lackey for butchers'. Mr Coleman and his subcommittee had let the side down, she wrote. 'Our Senators did not pipe up. Rather, they assumed the look of frightened little boys, caught with their pants around their ankles, nervously awaiting punishment.' She concluded: 'It's time to take the gloves off, senators. Kick this viper where it hurts.'"
It seems the media, where it stood up and took notice at all has observed the American senators given a drubbing.
Theyw ere very foolish to try to cover their own national sins in the oil for food scandal by trying to dump on George galloway.
"'Brit Fries Senators in Oil' was the headline on a news story that noted the 'stunning audacity' of Mr Galloway's performance, how he had caught Mr Coleman and his colleagues 'flatfooted' (only one of whom was left when the chairman brought the embarrassment to an end).
A brief perusal of the US press suggests that the Post's Andrea Peyser was also the only columnist to weigh in. As might be expected, she excoriated Mr Galloway as a thug and a bully, 'a lefty lackey for butchers'. Mr Coleman and his subcommittee had let the side down, she wrote. 'Our Senators did not pipe up. Rather, they assumed the look of frightened little boys, caught with their pants around their ankles, nervously awaiting punishment.' She concluded: 'It's time to take the gloves off, senators. Kick this viper where it hurts.'"
Stop the Crime of the Century
This article is asking why the New York times and the Washington Post don't run the British memo that exposes the Bush conspiracy to invade Iraq.
The sad truth is that the elite consensus accepts this behaviour. We needed to ensure the oil supply.
I have been talking to David Wasdell, this morning, who has been a consultant to a number of global governance organisations. He points out that the world is fast running short of resources of all kinds. Many people, not just the Bush administration, are being triggered into a frenzy of greedy consumption faced by the prospect of the taps running dry.
This recapitulates many babies experience of panic as their increasing size presssurises the placenta and reduces their nutrition supply further.
Babies are rescued by going through birth. Feeding can switch to the mouth and nose. their is an outside supply of food and oxygen.
We dont have a new bigger planet to move onto.
The next transition for those of us that are born is death.
So eat drink and be merry, folks, tomorrow we die.
But before we die the American army will probably arrive to steal what is left of our resources. Why else is it getting bigger when there is no other power that can oppose them at the moment?
"Think about that for a second. Apart from 9/11, has there been a more important story in the last decade than that the president lied to the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq, and then proceeded to plunge the country into an illegal war which has alienated the rest of the world, lit a fire under the war's victims and the Islamic world generally, turning them into enemy combatants, locked up virtually all American land forces in a war without end in sight, cost $300 billion and counting, taken over 1600 American lives on top of more than 15,000 gravely wounded, and killed perhaps 100,000 Iraqis? "
The sad truth is that the elite consensus accepts this behaviour. We needed to ensure the oil supply.
I have been talking to David Wasdell, this morning, who has been a consultant to a number of global governance organisations. He points out that the world is fast running short of resources of all kinds. Many people, not just the Bush administration, are being triggered into a frenzy of greedy consumption faced by the prospect of the taps running dry.
This recapitulates many babies experience of panic as their increasing size presssurises the placenta and reduces their nutrition supply further.
Babies are rescued by going through birth. Feeding can switch to the mouth and nose. their is an outside supply of food and oxygen.
We dont have a new bigger planet to move onto.
The next transition for those of us that are born is death.
So eat drink and be merry, folks, tomorrow we die.
But before we die the American army will probably arrive to steal what is left of our resources. Why else is it getting bigger when there is no other power that can oppose them at the moment?
"Think about that for a second. Apart from 9/11, has there been a more important story in the last decade than that the president lied to the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq, and then proceeded to plunge the country into an illegal war which has alienated the rest of the world, lit a fire under the war's victims and the Islamic world generally, turning them into enemy combatants, locked up virtually all American land forces in a war without end in sight, cost $300 billion and counting, taken over 1600 American lives on top of more than 15,000 gravely wounded, and killed perhaps 100,000 Iraqis? "
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
t r u t h o u t - British MP Delivers Blistering War Critique
I thought it was worth giving you the whole transcript. George gets the Unacknowledged award of the week for Telling it like it is.
"Galloway vs. the US Senate: Transcript of Statement
The Times UK
Wednesday 18 May 2005
George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement to US Senators today who have accused him of corruption.
George Galloway after arriving in the Senate committee room to give evidence.
(Photo: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
'Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.
'Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.
'Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.
'I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein.
'As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to t"
"Galloway vs. the US Senate: Transcript of Statement
The Times UK
Wednesday 18 May 2005
George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement to US Senators today who have accused him of corruption.
George Galloway after arriving in the Senate committee room to give evidence.
(Photo: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
'Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.
'Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.
'Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.
'I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein.
'As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to t"
t r u t h o u t - US Backed Illegal Iraqi Oil Deals - Report
t r u t h o u t - US Backed Illegal Iraqi Oil Deals - Report:
Thank whatever God you belive in, George Galloway threw it in their faces.
"Tuesday 17 May 2005
Report claims blind eye was turned to sanctions busting by American firms.
The United States administration turned a blind eye to extensive sanctions-busting in the prewar sale of Iraqi oil, according to a new Senate investigation.
A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.
The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua."
Thank whatever God you belive in, George Galloway threw it in their faces.
"Tuesday 17 May 2005
Report claims blind eye was turned to sanctions busting by American firms.
The United States administration turned a blind eye to extensive sanctions-busting in the prewar sale of Iraqi oil, according to a new Senate investigation.
A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.
The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua."
Telegraph | News | Unborn baby pictures fuel abortion debate
prenatal psychologists have known for many years that the 12 week old foetus is an intelligent sentient being. At that age it is in most respects fully human, but smaller.
But we are such a visual culture that it is only with these so-called 4D ultra sound cameras that we all can see pictures of how human this little creature is.
But what do we write about? Whether to abort them or not.
I want to see people writing about educational and relationship dynamics.
We need to start to relate in a more positive way to the baby inside mum.
We need to make birth a social event instead of a medical nightmare.
I founded the Oxford Prenatal and Perinatal Education Research and Awareness trust in 1998 to help educate people about having intelligent social babies.
At last maybe people are beginning to take it all seriously.
The TV series "From here to Paternity" may move things on from the over long and factually rather weak "Unborn child" TV film.
"His pictures showed that at 12 weeks, unborn babies looked like they were 'enjoying jumping off the womb like a trampoline'. At 14 and 15 weeks they sucked their thumbs and at 18 weeks they opened their eyes. Experts had said babies did not open their eyes until 26 weeks.
One image he took captured a 14-week-old standing up, stretching and then sitting down again inside his mother's womb. "
But we are such a visual culture that it is only with these so-called 4D ultra sound cameras that we all can see pictures of how human this little creature is.
But what do we write about? Whether to abort them or not.
I want to see people writing about educational and relationship dynamics.
We need to start to relate in a more positive way to the baby inside mum.
We need to make birth a social event instead of a medical nightmare.
I founded the Oxford Prenatal and Perinatal Education Research and Awareness trust in 1998 to help educate people about having intelligent social babies.
At last maybe people are beginning to take it all seriously.
The TV series "From here to Paternity" may move things on from the over long and factually rather weak "Unborn child" TV film.
"His pictures showed that at 12 weeks, unborn babies looked like they were 'enjoying jumping off the womb like a trampoline'. At 14 and 15 weeks they sucked their thumbs and at 18 weeks they opened their eyes. Experts had said babies did not open their eyes until 26 weeks.
One image he took captured a 14-week-old standing up, stretching and then sitting down again inside his mother's womb. "
AlterNet: MediaCulture: Moyers Addresses PBS Coup
If they could have, the corporate controllers would have censored the interney already.
And they won't give up. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Bill Moyers did some wonderful interviews with joseph Campbell on the Power of Myth. I had not realised that he also did politically related journalism.
But Campbell and Moyers were also close to George Lucas of Star Wars.
Here we can all see a strong political message.
Those evil empire storm troopers look so like the U.S. marines in Iraq.
"But the real hope 'lies within the internet with its 2 billion or more Web sites providing a wealth of information drawn from almost unlimited resources that span the globe. ... If knowledge is power, one's capacity to increase that power increases exponentially through navigation of the Internet for news and information.'
Surely this is one issue that unites us as we leave here today. The fight to preserve the web from corporate gatekeepers joins media, reformers, producers and educators -- and it's a fight that has only just begun."
And they won't give up. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Bill Moyers did some wonderful interviews with joseph Campbell on the Power of Myth. I had not realised that he also did politically related journalism.
But Campbell and Moyers were also close to George Lucas of Star Wars.
Here we can all see a strong political message.
Those evil empire storm troopers look so like the U.S. marines in Iraq.
"But the real hope 'lies within the internet with its 2 billion or more Web sites providing a wealth of information drawn from almost unlimited resources that span the globe. ... If knowledge is power, one's capacity to increase that power increases exponentially through navigation of the Internet for news and information.'
Surely this is one issue that unites us as we leave here today. The fight to preserve the web from corporate gatekeepers joins media, reformers, producers and educators -- and it's a fight that has only just begun."
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Today they sentenced Sabrina for this crime.
They should have been sentencing George W Bush and his colleagues.
Bush and co took Liberty and tortured her upon a pedastal. Then they blamed a poor young woman who was following their orders. Apparently she showed no shame or remorse.
What are we to think of the U.S.A. today?
While revolution spreads through central Asia and tyrants start to topple, Bush sits on his hands.
Tyrants are us when it is a matter of supporting the U.S.
We Brits sack our ambassador for objecting to these rulers boiling their enemies to death.
Same story.
Exporting democracy.
Pull the other one (till it falls off)
Monday, May 16, 2005
Devvy Kidd -- Forced Mental Health Screening for Your Children
On the day that "Today" told us about the bedtime police, we have the Americans panicking about Bush taking control of all American children.
I think we are right to be afraid of the state insinuating its way into family life.
our children are our children. They are our responsibility.
They are not the future work-slaves of the country in a never ending commerical war with foreign competitors, as the Government sees it.
This Government has a member of an extrme right wing Catholic Christian sect in charge of education. It has the active backing of just one person in five, and only a grudging support from many of its own members of parliament,
But Blair has now set a new aggressive programme of new labour adventures in changing the way we live.
i think before too long we are going to see an alliance of the libertarians on right and left against this micro management with no real meaning or values.
"In his September 14, 2004 commentary, Congressman Ron Paul blasted the latest Communist ideology being put forth by President Bush:
'A presidential initiative called The �New Freedom Commission on Mental Health� has issued a report recommending forced mental health screening for every child in America, including preschool children. The goal is to promote the patently false idea that we have a nation of children with undiagnosed mental disorders crying out for treatment......The greater issue, however, is not whether youth mental health screening is appropriate. The real issue is whether the state owns your kids. When the government orders �universal� mental health screening in schools, it really means �mandatory...The political right has now joined the political left in seeking the de facto nationalization of children, and only informed resistance by parents can stop it. The federal government is slowly but surely destroying real families, but it is hardly a benevolent surrogate parent.� "
I think we are right to be afraid of the state insinuating its way into family life.
our children are our children. They are our responsibility.
They are not the future work-slaves of the country in a never ending commerical war with foreign competitors, as the Government sees it.
This Government has a member of an extrme right wing Catholic Christian sect in charge of education. It has the active backing of just one person in five, and only a grudging support from many of its own members of parliament,
But Blair has now set a new aggressive programme of new labour adventures in changing the way we live.
i think before too long we are going to see an alliance of the libertarians on right and left against this micro management with no real meaning or values.
"In his September 14, 2004 commentary, Congressman Ron Paul blasted the latest Communist ideology being put forth by President Bush:
'A presidential initiative called The �New Freedom Commission on Mental Health� has issued a report recommending forced mental health screening for every child in America, including preschool children. The goal is to promote the patently false idea that we have a nation of children with undiagnosed mental disorders crying out for treatment......The greater issue, however, is not whether youth mental health screening is appropriate. The real issue is whether the state owns your kids. When the government orders �universal� mental health screening in schools, it really means �mandatory...The political right has now joined the political left in seeking the de facto nationalization of children, and only informed resistance by parents can stop it. The federal government is slowly but surely destroying real families, but it is hardly a benevolent surrogate parent.� "
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Iraq Elections may have made things worse, not better. Surprise, surprise!
Anyone who has studied history at all, let alone someone who has studied the history of this region, could tell you that having an election would not improve things in Iraq very quickly.
Like Yogoslavia, it needed a hard man to hold it together. It does not hang together naturally. It is an externally generated political entity.
History is already repeating itself.
When the British threw out the Sunni regime after the first world war, they changed their minds after 18 months and reestablished the Sunni minority in power through what became the Baath regime that they and the Americans have just overthrown. they found the Shia difficult to manage.
But the Americans and British do not want a stable democracy any more than they did before. They just want to control the oil.
The Baathists had built up a stable and quite wealthy city society based on oil wealth. They had a good hospital service; better than ours, I believe.
Are the Americans and British rebuilding that? No chance. they are rebuilding the oil business, which was running down, and they are building permanent miltary bases to control things from the background.
They won't mind too much about a little civil war, as long as they are safe behind their concrete walls.
But as the Shia grow stronger they will grow nervous. They might even be silly enough to invade Iran, as the Shia people get together across boundaries.
It is official U.S. policy to export democracy. The real policy is to divide and rule.
With little social cohesion, violence has soared, fueled by anger over foreign occupation and religious differences, while a semi-sovereign, disjointed government has taken over with little ability to control or appeal to groups behind the killings. At least 400 Iraqis have died in two weeks. U.S. casualties are also up. According to Icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks Iraq coalition casualties, 46 American service members died under fire in April, and 28 have died so far in May.
The heady, hopeful days surrounding the election seem more distant with each early-morning explosion that rouses Baghdad with the reliability of an alarm clock."
Like Yogoslavia, it needed a hard man to hold it together. It does not hang together naturally. It is an externally generated political entity.
History is already repeating itself.
When the British threw out the Sunni regime after the first world war, they changed their minds after 18 months and reestablished the Sunni minority in power through what became the Baath regime that they and the Americans have just overthrown. they found the Shia difficult to manage.
But the Americans and British do not want a stable democracy any more than they did before. They just want to control the oil.
The Baathists had built up a stable and quite wealthy city society based on oil wealth. They had a good hospital service; better than ours, I believe.
Are the Americans and British rebuilding that? No chance. they are rebuilding the oil business, which was running down, and they are building permanent miltary bases to control things from the background.
They won't mind too much about a little civil war, as long as they are safe behind their concrete walls.
But as the Shia grow stronger they will grow nervous. They might even be silly enough to invade Iran, as the Shia people get together across boundaries.
It is official U.S. policy to export democracy. The real policy is to divide and rule.
With little social cohesion, violence has soared, fueled by anger over foreign occupation and religious differences, while a semi-sovereign, disjointed government has taken over with little ability to control or appeal to groups behind the killings. At least 400 Iraqis have died in two weeks. U.S. casualties are also up. According to Icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks Iraq coalition casualties, 46 American service members died under fire in April, and 28 have died so far in May.
The heady, hopeful days surrounding the election seem more distant with each early-morning explosion that rouses Baghdad with the reliability of an alarm clock."
The Power of Nightmares
CNN posted this piece apparently. I watched this 3 part documentary. It showed us the way we are manipulated by politicians ans corporate media as nothing else including Fahrenheit 911 has. It was a brilliant political documentary.
Sadly the nightmare fantasy world created by Blair and Bush is still the dominant picture out there.
Blair still holds power even though barely one in five of us voted for him or his party.
Democracy!
They offfered postal voting as a remedy. Something easy to rig.
No, Mr Blair. Let's have real democracy.
No taxation without valid representation of peoples views and aspirations.
You don't represent us, Mr Blair. You don't have a mandate for the New Labour agenda .
You have not learned.
You are not listening.
The message is very clear:
Go now.
"A British documentary arguing U.S. neo-conservatives have exaggerated the terror threat is set to rock the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, the way "Fahrenheit 9/11" stirred emotions here a year ago."The Power of Nightmares" re-injected politics into the festival that seemed eager to steer clear of controversy this year after American Michael Moore won top honors in 2004 for his film deriding President George W. Bush's response to terror.At a screening late on Friday ahead of its gala on Saturday, "The Power of Nightmares" by filmmaker and senior BBC producer Adam Curtis kept an audience of journalists and film buyers glued to their seats and taking notes for a full 2-1/2 hours.The film, a non-competition entry, argues that the fear of terrorism has come to pervade politics in the United States and Britain even though much of that angst is based on carefully nurtured illusions.It says Bush and U.S. neo-conservatives, as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are exaggerating the terror threat in a manner similar to the way earlier generations of leaders inflated the danger of communism and the Soviet Union.It also draws especially controversial symmetries between the history of the U.S. movement that led to the neo-cons and the roots of the ideas that led to radical Islamism -- two conservative movements that have shaped geopolitics since 1945.Curtis's film portrays neo-cons Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld as counterparts to Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri in the two respective movements."During the Cold War conservatives exaggerated the threat of the Soviet Union," the narrator says. "In reality it was collapsing from within. Now they're doing the same with Islamic extremists because it fits the American vision of an epic battle."Illusory fearIn his film, Curtis argues that Bush and Blair have used what he says is the largely illusory fear of terror and hidden webs of organized evil following the September 11, 2001, attacks to reinforce their authority and rally their nations.In Bush's government, those underlings who put forth the darkest scenarios of the phantom threat have the most influence, says Curtis, who also devotes segments of his film to criticize unquestioning media and zealous security agencies.He says al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has a far less powerful organization than feared. But he is careful to avoid suggestions that terror attacks won't happen again. Included are experts who dismiss fears of a "dirty bomb" as exaggerated."It was an attempt at historical explanation for September 11," Curtis said, describing his film in the Guardian newspaper recently. "Up to this point, nobody had done a proper history of the ideas and groups that have created our modern world."But Curtis said there were worlds of difference between his film and Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", which won the "Golden Palm" and gave the festival a charged political atmosphere that prompted this year's return to a more conservative program."Moore is a political agitprop filmmaker," he said. "I am not. You'd be hard pushed to tell my politics from watching it.""The Power of Nightmares" was a three-part documentary aired in Britain and won a British film and television industry award (Bafta) this year.
Sadly the nightmare fantasy world created by Blair and Bush is still the dominant picture out there.
Blair still holds power even though barely one in five of us voted for him or his party.
Democracy!
They offfered postal voting as a remedy. Something easy to rig.
No, Mr Blair. Let's have real democracy.
No taxation without valid representation of peoples views and aspirations.
You don't represent us, Mr Blair. You don't have a mandate for the New Labour agenda .
You have not learned.
You are not listening.
The message is very clear:
Go now.
"A British documentary arguing U.S. neo-conservatives have exaggerated the terror threat is set to rock the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, the way "Fahrenheit 9/11" stirred emotions here a year ago."The Power of Nightmares" re-injected politics into the festival that seemed eager to steer clear of controversy this year after American Michael Moore won top honors in 2004 for his film deriding President George W. Bush's response to terror.At a screening late on Friday ahead of its gala on Saturday, "The Power of Nightmares" by filmmaker and senior BBC producer Adam Curtis kept an audience of journalists and film buyers glued to their seats and taking notes for a full 2-1/2 hours.The film, a non-competition entry, argues that the fear of terrorism has come to pervade politics in the United States and Britain even though much of that angst is based on carefully nurtured illusions.It says Bush and U.S. neo-conservatives, as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are exaggerating the terror threat in a manner similar to the way earlier generations of leaders inflated the danger of communism and the Soviet Union.It also draws especially controversial symmetries between the history of the U.S. movement that led to the neo-cons and the roots of the ideas that led to radical Islamism -- two conservative movements that have shaped geopolitics since 1945.Curtis's film portrays neo-cons Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld as counterparts to Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri in the two respective movements."During the Cold War conservatives exaggerated the threat of the Soviet Union," the narrator says. "In reality it was collapsing from within. Now they're doing the same with Islamic extremists because it fits the American vision of an epic battle."Illusory fearIn his film, Curtis argues that Bush and Blair have used what he says is the largely illusory fear of terror and hidden webs of organized evil following the September 11, 2001, attacks to reinforce their authority and rally their nations.In Bush's government, those underlings who put forth the darkest scenarios of the phantom threat have the most influence, says Curtis, who also devotes segments of his film to criticize unquestioning media and zealous security agencies.He says al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has a far less powerful organization than feared. But he is careful to avoid suggestions that terror attacks won't happen again. Included are experts who dismiss fears of a "dirty bomb" as exaggerated."It was an attempt at historical explanation for September 11," Curtis said, describing his film in the Guardian newspaper recently. "Up to this point, nobody had done a proper history of the ideas and groups that have created our modern world."But Curtis said there were worlds of difference between his film and Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", which won the "Golden Palm" and gave the festival a charged political atmosphere that prompted this year's return to a more conservative program."Moore is a political agitprop filmmaker," he said. "I am not. You'd be hard pushed to tell my politics from watching it.""The Power of Nightmares" was a three-part documentary aired in Britain and won a British film and television industry award (Bafta) this year.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Falluja, an unfolding story
Falluja-in-C******y, a trilogy in search of a quartet.
I first heard of Falluja a little time after the illegal invasion of Iraq by the United States of America and its satellite states. I read of a small town 70 miles north west of Baghdad, and equated it with our town 70 miles north west of London. Iraq had not put up much of a fight against western "Shock and Awe" tactics, a modern day version of the German Blitz Krieg 65 years ago. Fallujans had not resisted the Americans entering their town. But when the troops occupied their primary school the people gathered peacefully to protest. It seemed like the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland that led to Bloody Sunday, the murder of 15 unarmed protesters in a crowd. There were claims, then as now that someone fired a gun.
The news story was incorrect in many ways. But I think these poems tell an important symbolic truth. I have watched the story of Falluja unfold, from more or less peaceful aquiesance to violent resistance and brutal suppression and ultimate devastation. I look forward to the day the city is rebuilt by and for its own people, when I can turn this trilogy into a celebratory quartet. As I write today the Americans have begun the process of exploring war crimes committed in Iraq and elsewhere by their own administration. Proceedings have already begun against the Blair regime in Europe.
Falluja-in-C*****y
Dazzle-blue dragonflies
A dance of delight
Among yellow flag iris
Soft haze of summer by the waters edge
Arcadian Oxfordshire
Cool waters slipping silently through Cotswold stone
A moment away
In cyberspace
Cavalier copters clash and crash
An unholy mating
Death in the desert
Closer still
Not even a breath away
In a parallel universe
The copters have landed
Safely on our playing close
These young missionaries
Schooled in a games-of- war Arcadea
Chew gum
And slither through the streets
A base they make of our primary school
A place of safety
Big boys, fearsome toys
Uncertain of their liberator status
Settling in
They don't seem to understand
We want our school back for our children
As yet uneducated Into politicians death squads
Into weapons of your war
C******y folk
Famous in the County
A dash of colour splattered on the uniformity
Of Oxfordshire's dull Tory blue
March in protest to our school
Fifteen dead todayIn this parallel universe
We wanted our school back
For our children's future.
A vast peaceful army of protesters marched through London to protest the illegal war of aggression. It made no difference. The war went ahead. Many of us felt disenfranchised. By the autumn the occupation was a fait-accompli. Our local anti-war group had disbanded. But the Fallujans refused to submit. An American helicopter was shot down. 15 Americans were killed. I wrote a second poem.
Falluja-in-C*****y Revisited
The old manWavesTwisted stumps of steel into the sky
Abuzz with whirring mosquito men
Agitated AmericansFlash by in their copters
Trigger unhappy
A big one is down
Down
Down
This bird will no longer fly
This eagle will not command their skies again
The Fallujans have brought down a big helicopter
15 Americans are dead
Revenge is sweet for some
A strange poetic justice
In C*****y
The Kingfisher dives into the stream
The swallows have fled
War seems to be over
The rebels have disbanded
The banner that stood before Parliament is gone
We wave nothing
Either in anger or in greeting
At the American planes flying in from the gulf
We place no masks of Bush or Blair
On our bonfire festival effigies
We are more successfully oppressed
Than our angry Arab brothers
Today
Guy Fawkes is an immigrant burned on the cricket ground
We will keep on burning his impiety
Full of shallow good cheer
His fight for freedom
Burnt out
Like our indignation
It has taken months to find a way to write this third poem. This was the Guernica of our own time. In quiet rural Britain it is almost incomprehensible, unimaginable. The destruction of the city of Falluja, and the removal of its 300,000 people in November 2004 is the equivalent of emptying Oxfordshire and destroying Oxford. At the centre of Oxford is a memorial to protestant Christian martyrs. One day there will be a memorial in Falluja to the martyrs who stood against the American tyrant, George W. Bush, and his invasion force.
Falluja 3
Led bellied blackness
Heavy rain
Clouds rushing westward
Bombing through my lovely countryside
They are born out of the eye
Of a most savage storm
How they oppress
Oppress
My life
My world
My Wychwood forest
A dreadful mess
This is no battlefield
Only fox and pheasant are slaughtered here
YetI am
And we are all
Among the fallen
With faltering steps, Gill and I stumble forward
Bewildered
Stammering
The forces of a vengeful biosphere
Like an evil empires army
Have swept with awesome power through these trees
Now the storm has left us
We struggle through this smashed-down landscape
Sycamores, like unarmed soldiers,
Hacked off at the knees.
We can find our way safe homeward
This is not Falluja
This was not the will of Man
I try to comprehendThe annihilation of a city
And the suffering of its people
I witness
What I can.
I first heard of Falluja a little time after the illegal invasion of Iraq by the United States of America and its satellite states. I read of a small town 70 miles north west of Baghdad, and equated it with our town 70 miles north west of London. Iraq had not put up much of a fight against western "Shock and Awe" tactics, a modern day version of the German Blitz Krieg 65 years ago. Fallujans had not resisted the Americans entering their town. But when the troops occupied their primary school the people gathered peacefully to protest. It seemed like the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland that led to Bloody Sunday, the murder of 15 unarmed protesters in a crowd. There were claims, then as now that someone fired a gun.
The news story was incorrect in many ways. But I think these poems tell an important symbolic truth. I have watched the story of Falluja unfold, from more or less peaceful aquiesance to violent resistance and brutal suppression and ultimate devastation. I look forward to the day the city is rebuilt by and for its own people, when I can turn this trilogy into a celebratory quartet. As I write today the Americans have begun the process of exploring war crimes committed in Iraq and elsewhere by their own administration. Proceedings have already begun against the Blair regime in Europe.
Falluja-in-C*****y
Dazzle-blue dragonflies
A dance of delight
Among yellow flag iris
Soft haze of summer by the waters edge
Arcadian Oxfordshire
Cool waters slipping silently through Cotswold stone
A moment away
In cyberspace
Cavalier copters clash and crash
An unholy mating
Death in the desert
Closer still
Not even a breath away
In a parallel universe
The copters have landed
Safely on our playing close
These young missionaries
Schooled in a games-of- war Arcadea
Chew gum
And slither through the streets
A base they make of our primary school
A place of safety
Big boys, fearsome toys
Uncertain of their liberator status
Settling in
They don't seem to understand
We want our school back for our children
As yet uneducated Into politicians death squads
Into weapons of your war
C******y folk
Famous in the County
A dash of colour splattered on the uniformity
Of Oxfordshire's dull Tory blue
March in protest to our school
Fifteen dead todayIn this parallel universe
We wanted our school back
For our children's future.
A vast peaceful army of protesters marched through London to protest the illegal war of aggression. It made no difference. The war went ahead. Many of us felt disenfranchised. By the autumn the occupation was a fait-accompli. Our local anti-war group had disbanded. But the Fallujans refused to submit. An American helicopter was shot down. 15 Americans were killed. I wrote a second poem.
Falluja-in-C*****y Revisited
The old manWavesTwisted stumps of steel into the sky
Abuzz with whirring mosquito men
Agitated AmericansFlash by in their copters
Trigger unhappy
A big one is down
Down
Down
This bird will no longer fly
This eagle will not command their skies again
The Fallujans have brought down a big helicopter
15 Americans are dead
Revenge is sweet for some
A strange poetic justice
In C*****y
The Kingfisher dives into the stream
The swallows have fled
War seems to be over
The rebels have disbanded
The banner that stood before Parliament is gone
We wave nothing
Either in anger or in greeting
At the American planes flying in from the gulf
We place no masks of Bush or Blair
On our bonfire festival effigies
We are more successfully oppressed
Than our angry Arab brothers
Today
Guy Fawkes is an immigrant burned on the cricket ground
We will keep on burning his impiety
Full of shallow good cheer
His fight for freedom
Burnt out
Like our indignation
It has taken months to find a way to write this third poem. This was the Guernica of our own time. In quiet rural Britain it is almost incomprehensible, unimaginable. The destruction of the city of Falluja, and the removal of its 300,000 people in November 2004 is the equivalent of emptying Oxfordshire and destroying Oxford. At the centre of Oxford is a memorial to protestant Christian martyrs. One day there will be a memorial in Falluja to the martyrs who stood against the American tyrant, George W. Bush, and his invasion force.
Falluja 3
Led bellied blackness
Heavy rain
Clouds rushing westward
Bombing through my lovely countryside
They are born out of the eye
Of a most savage storm
How they oppress
Oppress
My life
My world
My Wychwood forest
A dreadful mess
This is no battlefield
Only fox and pheasant are slaughtered here
YetI am
And we are all
Among the fallen
With faltering steps, Gill and I stumble forward
Bewildered
Stammering
The forces of a vengeful biosphere
Like an evil empires army
Have swept with awesome power through these trees
Now the storm has left us
We struggle through this smashed-down landscape
Sycamores, like unarmed soldiers,
Hacked off at the knees.
We can find our way safe homeward
This is not Falluja
This was not the will of Man
I try to comprehendThe annihilation of a city
And the suffering of its people
I witness
What I can.
The Raw Story | Ranking Judiciary Democrat in House, along with others, call for counsel on alleged U.S. 'war crimes'
So it begins. This is not the trail that leads to sperm stains on a blue dress, but the trail of tortured bodies that leads back to the fundamental betrayal of humanity that lies at the heart of the Bush/Blair administration.
The Raw Story | Ranking Judiciary Democrat in House, along with others, call for counsel on alleged U.S. 'war crimes':
"Dear Mr. Attorney General:
We are writing to request that you appoint a special counsel to investigate whether high-ranking officials within the Bush Administration violated the War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 2441, or the Anti-Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. 2340 by allowing the use of torture techniques banned by domestic and international law at recognized and secret detention sites in Iraq, Afghanistan Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.
One year and 10 investigations after we first learned about the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib, there has yet to be a comprehensive, neutral and objective investigation with prosecutorial authority of who is ultimately responsible for the abuses there and elsewhere. While more than 130 low-ranking officers and enlisted soldiers have been disciplined or face courts-martial for the abuses that occurred, there have been no criminal charges against high-ranking officials. Yet the pattern of abuse across several countries did not result from the acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules. It resulted from decisions made by senior U.S. officials to bend, ignore, or cast rules aside."
The Raw Story | Ranking Judiciary Democrat in House, along with others, call for counsel on alleged U.S. 'war crimes':
"Dear Mr. Attorney General:
We are writing to request that you appoint a special counsel to investigate whether high-ranking officials within the Bush Administration violated the War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 2441, or the Anti-Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. 2340 by allowing the use of torture techniques banned by domestic and international law at recognized and secret detention sites in Iraq, Afghanistan Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.
One year and 10 investigations after we first learned about the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib, there has yet to be a comprehensive, neutral and objective investigation with prosecutorial authority of who is ultimately responsible for the abuses there and elsewhere. While more than 130 low-ranking officers and enlisted soldiers have been disciplined or face courts-martial for the abuses that occurred, there have been no criminal charges against high-ranking officials. Yet the pattern of abuse across several countries did not result from the acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules. It resulted from decisions made by senior U.S. officials to bend, ignore, or cast rules aside."
Friday, May 13, 2005
t r u t h o u t - Marjorie Cohn: Navy Judge Finds War Protest Reasonable
t r u t h o u t - Marjorie Cohn: Navy Judge Finds War Protest Reasonable: "'This is a huge victory,' said Jeremy Warren, Pablo's lawyer. 'A sailor can show up on a Navy base, refuse in good conscience to board a ship bound for Iraq, and receive no time in jail,'"
Hey! An American judge finds Bush's war illegal.
Now that is NEWS
Hey! An American judge finds Bush's war illegal.
Now that is NEWS
Indignation Grows in U.S. Over British Prewar Documents
< While the British media have gone back to sleep, the LA Times is just waking up to the conspiracy to invade Iraq. It seems the Americans are not very happy with Mr Bush about it.
"'While the president of the United States was telling the citizens and the Congress that they had no intention to start a war with Iraq, they were working very close with Tony Blair and the British leadership at making this a foregone conclusion,' the letter's chief author, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, said Wednesday.
If the documents are real, he said, it is 'a huge problem' in terms of an abuse of power. He said the White House had not yet responded to the letter."
"'While the president of the United States was telling the citizens and the Congress that they had no intention to start a war with Iraq, they were working very close with Tony Blair and the British leadership at making this a foregone conclusion,' the letter's chief author, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, said Wednesday.
If the documents are real, he said, it is 'a huge problem' in terms of an abuse of power. He said the White House had not yet responded to the letter."
New Statesman - Let's face it - the state has lost its mind
New Statesman - Let's face it - the state has lost its mind: "In 1987, the sociologist Alex Carey, a second Orwell in his prophesies, wrote 'Managing Public Opinion: the corporate offensive'. He described how in the United States 'great progress [had been] made towards the ideal of a propaganda-managed democracy', whose principal aim was to identify a rapacious business state 'with every cherished human value'. The power and meaning of true democracy, of the franchise itself, would be 'transferred' to the propaganda of advertising, public relations and corporate-run news. This 'model of ideological control', he predicted, would be adopted by other countries, such as Britain."
Go read the rest of this article. It describes even Paxman as under leash. It seems that even my personal shadow figure is now only a shadow of the truth.
If only the same number saw this blog that watch Paxo.
Go read the rest of this article. It describes even Paxman as under leash. It seems that even my personal shadow figure is now only a shadow of the truth.
If only the same number saw this blog that watch Paxo.
t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | One of These Days
t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | One of These Days: "picture this moment. There I was, trying to drive down one of the worst roads in Cambridge with a cell phone the size of a gallon of milk stuck to my ear, and I have this MSNBC producer telling me that if I go on the show, I have to dump all over the inspectors who at that time had been in-country about a week. Coincidentally, that was exactly the same line of rhetoric being pushed by the White House at exactly that time. I'm sure the look on my face was priceless, and I'm lucky me, the car and the giant cell phone didn't wind up in the Charles River.
I asked her if she knew who she was talking to. She didn't understand. My book, I told her, says there are no weapons of mass destruction and therefore no reason to go to war there. I'm the last person on the planet, therefore, who is going to haul water for the idea that there are weapons in Iraq. Furthermore, I said, I don't know where you get off trying to gin up resentment against the inspectors. They just got there, and if they can finish their work without getting derailed by nonsense like this, it'll hopefully keep a lot of people from getting killed. The MSNBC producer laughed quietly - that's the part I will never forget, how she laughed - and hung up. "
Frighteneing is it not? But is it true over here as well?
The BBC Today prog lays into Blair evry day at the moment, but it headkines the attack on George Galloway. Why should that be the top story of the day?
In the war our journalist were as embedded as theirs and ones who were not were sometimes killed by our side. On purpose? How can we judge?
The attack on Bliz was all part of a spin to cover up the false prospectus of this war.
It should be war crimes accusations against Blair and Bush we hear every day not accusations that won't stand legal test against Galloway
I asked her if she knew who she was talking to. She didn't understand. My book, I told her, says there are no weapons of mass destruction and therefore no reason to go to war there. I'm the last person on the planet, therefore, who is going to haul water for the idea that there are weapons in Iraq. Furthermore, I said, I don't know where you get off trying to gin up resentment against the inspectors. They just got there, and if they can finish their work without getting derailed by nonsense like this, it'll hopefully keep a lot of people from getting killed. The MSNBC producer laughed quietly - that's the part I will never forget, how she laughed - and hung up. "
Frighteneing is it not? But is it true over here as well?
The BBC Today prog lays into Blair evry day at the moment, but it headkines the attack on George Galloway. Why should that be the top story of the day?
In the war our journalist were as embedded as theirs and ones who were not were sometimes killed by our side. On purpose? How can we judge?
The attack on Bliz was all part of a spin to cover up the false prospectus of this war.
It should be war crimes accusations against Blair and Bush we hear every day not accusations that won't stand legal test against Galloway
Thursday, May 12, 2005
"When you gotta go, oh you betta go now go now go now." Moody Blues/reds
Blair defies calls to quit from party - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News: "Blair, once the party's biggest electoral asset, gave no hint as to when he would stand aside, saying only he understood the need for a 'stable and orderly transition'.
NOT ENOUGH
This was not enough for some of his party.
'We need him to tell us when he's stepping down and how he's going to do it ... he's opened up the Pandora's box of his stepping down,' Labour's Glenda Jackson said after the meeting. 'I made it clear he was the vote loser in my constituency.'
Another lawmaker said Blair was 'in denial' about being unpopular and had told him he should go."
Glenda Jackson told Blair she was fighting him in Hampstead not the Tories!
The Today Programme kept up presssure with Prescott.
My feeling is that the journalists think they can make it happen just by keeping on about it.
Blair has just been elected. He won't listen. He hasn't learned, and he will only go kicking and screaming.
I hope I am wrong.
NOT ENOUGH
This was not enough for some of his party.
'We need him to tell us when he's stepping down and how he's going to do it ... he's opened up the Pandora's box of his stepping down,' Labour's Glenda Jackson said after the meeting. 'I made it clear he was the vote loser in my constituency.'
Another lawmaker said Blair was 'in denial' about being unpopular and had told him he should go."
Glenda Jackson told Blair she was fighting him in Hampstead not the Tories!
The Today Programme kept up presssure with Prescott.
My feeling is that the journalists think they can make it happen just by keeping on about it.
Blair has just been elected. He won't listen. He hasn't learned, and he will only go kicking and screaming.
I hope I am wrong.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
The Fallujah story
Wildfire: feature/114: "The bus is following a car with the nephew of a local sheikh and a guide who has contacts with the Mujahedin and has cleared this with them. The reason I�m on the bus is that a journalist I knew turned up at my door at about 11 at night telling me things were desperate in Falluja, he�d been bringing out children with their limbs blown off, the US soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or be killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they were being stopped at the US military checkpoint on the edge of town and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down. "
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Breaking!: ABC's Jim Lampley calls Election 2004 theft 'the biggest crime in the history of the nation' (mparent7777.blog-city.com)
Breaking!: ABC's Jim Lampley calls Election 2004 theft 'the biggest crime in the history of the nation' (mparent7777.blog-city.com):
If you read the Independent this morning you would see as big a crime as the stolen American election
We now have a British Parliament with a hugely disproportionate number of labour members based on the numbers voting for them.
It is a crime and yet nobody cheated. Even if by some chance labour git the vast majority of postal votes cast.
"At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Election Day, I checked the sportsbook odds in Las Vegas and via the offshore bookmakers to see the odds as of that moment on the Presidential election. John Kerry was a two-to-one favorite. You can look it up.
People who have lived in the sports world as I have, bettors in particular, have a feel for what I am about to say about this: these people are extremely scientific in their assessments. These people understand which information to trust and which indicators to consult in determining where to place a dividing line to influence bets, and they are not in the business of being completely wrong. Oddsmakers consulted exit polling and knew what it meant and acknowledged in their oddsmaking at that moment that John Kerry was winning the election.
And he most certainly was, at least if the votes had been fairly and legally counted. What happened instead was the biggest crime in the history of the nation, and the collective media silence which has followed is the greatest fourth-estate failure ever on our soil."
If you read the Independent this morning you would see as big a crime as the stolen American election
We now have a British Parliament with a hugely disproportionate number of labour members based on the numbers voting for them.
It is a crime and yet nobody cheated. Even if by some chance labour git the vast majority of postal votes cast.
"At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Election Day, I checked the sportsbook odds in Las Vegas and via the offshore bookmakers to see the odds as of that moment on the Presidential election. John Kerry was a two-to-one favorite. You can look it up.
People who have lived in the sports world as I have, bettors in particular, have a feel for what I am about to say about this: these people are extremely scientific in their assessments. These people understand which information to trust and which indicators to consult in determining where to place a dividing line to influence bets, and they are not in the business of being completely wrong. Oddsmakers consulted exit polling and knew what it meant and acknowledged in their oddsmaking at that moment that John Kerry was winning the election.
And he most certainly was, at least if the votes had been fairly and legally counted. What happened instead was the biggest crime in the history of the nation, and the collective media silence which has followed is the greatest fourth-estate failure ever on our soil."
Monday, May 09, 2005
t r u t h o u t - Fallujah, City of Ghosts
" I haven't seen many TV reporters standing in the ruins of Falluja, breathlessly describing how, in 30 years of reporting, they've never seen a human tragedy on this scale. The Pope hasn't appealed for everyone to remember the Iraqi dead in their prayers, and MTV hasn't gone silent in their memory.
Nor are Blair and Bush falling over each other to show they recognise the scale of the disaster in Iraq. On the contrary, they have been doing their best to conceal the numbers killed. "
We remember the Russian dead today in the fight against Hitler.
Britain and America would like us to forget Iraqi dead. They won't let us even count them.
I am trying to write a poem to complete the trilogy on Fallujah. A city of 300,000 people laid to waste to punish a community that felt no liberation when the Americans invaded and who dared to resist them.
This was an illegal war of agression. This was mass destruction. This was war crime.
I cannot come near to the full experience of this carnage. I can only compare it to the trees brought down in my local forest by the fierce winds of a planet that is drying out.
Nor are Blair and Bush falling over each other to show they recognise the scale of the disaster in Iraq. On the contrary, they have been doing their best to conceal the numbers killed. "
We remember the Russian dead today in the fight against Hitler.
Britain and America would like us to forget Iraqi dead. They won't let us even count them.
I am trying to write a poem to complete the trilogy on Fallujah. A city of 300,000 people laid to waste to punish a community that felt no liberation when the Americans invaded and who dared to resist them.
This was an illegal war of agression. This was mass destruction. This was war crime.
I cannot come near to the full experience of this carnage. I can only compare it to the trees brought down in my local forest by the fierce winds of a planet that is drying out.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
England is still Blairy. The Blog must go on till he's gone.
The election has come and gone. The local school head has resigned. But that is all that has changed. Mr Blair remains as Prime Minister. The head is still in place and has made no apology for her mismanagement of relationships with parents.
I have decided to continue with this web-log until Blair has resigned and the head has accepted her mistakes. So it is, that after a pause in the lovely spring sunshine I am going back to work.
Yesterday I went with G to Birmingham. It was a study day there for SATS examiners. It is a great relief to see G energetically engaged with the working world again, after a very extended period of recovery from the break down she suffered in the face of an overwhelming teaching situation in Surrey.
I had not realised that G has been an assistant chief examiner, or that she was one of the first SATS Shakespeare exam writers. She shared with me that she now believes it was wrong to co-operate with the Government in writing tests which have only served to alienate teachers and pupils alike from learning about Shakespeare. At the time she believed that it was the only way to ensure Shakespeare continued to be taught in schools. Yes, the Thatcher-Blair approach to education is that bad!
I had a wonderful day on my own; my first in the second city for about forty years. The place is unrecognisable. The Jacob Epstein sculpture I loved so much is no longer on show in the art gallery, but there are others I did not see when I came before. His Lucifer is a winged angel tormented by a band that constricts his torso beyond endurance. It is torture to look at this distorted figure, otherwise so well formed, with such beautiful wings. The outdoor city centre is now filled with sculptures. Very modern sphinxes guard the corners of the square. Anthony Gormley has contributed. But Birmingham’s figure does not appear to be an angel. It is wingless, and almost armless, looking like a clothes-peg man, with his poor feet hammered into the pavement. A large female nude bathes in the central fountain, which cascades to a pool below, in which a second and smaller female sits contemplating. Above, on the edge of a commercial amenity building, a big crowd of young Goths had assembled. I walked down Broad Street with some of them, and we were accosted by Jesus freaks with their “good news” pamphlets. I expect you would prefer the other place, I suggested. They agreed. I am happy to say that a little further on from these sad desperados with their aggressive message that they alone know how to reach God, or the devil, I came across a very joyous sound of a Hare Krishna group. It was a little piece of heaven to sing or clap and dance with them in the street, as the cold north wind tossed dust in our eyes, and incense into our nostrils. They were devotees of Vishnu, someone said, but my Shaivism was fine too, as far as they were concerned.
A bit further on, I was more or less blown away by the awesome power of the main God of this place. On Saturday afternoon most people are out worshipping Mammon. He has no statue, but they have had the most amazing temple built by Saint Selfridges. At the equivalent of a high altar, a group of people were sipping their own version of communion wine. They call it Veuve Cliquot. It is wine, but more exciting, more intoxicating, than normal wine, and much more expensive, though no priest has transformed it into blood. Only those favoured by Laxmi, Goddess of wealth, can partake. They have machines in there, which can play or store all the music you ever wanted to hear in a tiny little box.
Perhaps the most amazing thing of all was the exhibition in the millennium square. I have seen many of the pictures before. They are photos of our world from the air. What seized my imagination was the huge world map on the pavement, which I was allowed to wander over in my shoeless feet. I could take in the empires of Genghis Khan, Caligula, Alexander and George W Bush almost at the same time. So many countries end in “Istan”. As the Russians retreat the Americans seem to move in. But “Dumbfuckistan,” the new American States conglomerate where Bush rules, is not yet officially marked on this map. Maybe they will call it “Jesus land” instead.
One of the things I learned in the election campaign is that an alternative “United States of Canada” ruled by democrats rather than the little emperor who has taken over the old republican group is no real alternative. They were all too happy to go along with the elite consensus that thinks invading Iraq was an acceptable thing to do. Perhaps that is unfair on the Canadians. But Kerry ended up more gung-ho than Bush.
I have learned much over this election period, not all of which has yet been written down. There seems to be no left and right in politics any more. All compete for a narrow strip of centre ground. No one even discusses the way the real ground will shrink as the seas rise, if we do not get some better policies on confronting global warming. Only a few thousand people living in marginal seats really influence politicians. More people refrained from voting once again than voted for this Government.
There is something called an "elite consensus" in Britain and America. The media and the parliaments are all controlled by this oligarchy. We, the people, do not count. Only the internet can help us make a difference. The web log is the only free medium till the bad guys find a way to censor it. Through the web a vast collection of people like you and me can communicate about the real needs of the planet and provide pressure groups to make the necessary changes.
We all need to change the way we live. It is an ecological imperative. Our present political masters are seriously corrupt and unlikely to face up to these challenges. The rich grow richer, the poor go to the wall. The Christians in Jesus Land are keen to speed up the coming of Armageddon and their Rapture. The Middle East contorts itself ever more deeply into pain.
I have decided to continue with this web-log until Blair has resigned and the head has accepted her mistakes. So it is, that after a pause in the lovely spring sunshine I am going back to work.
Yesterday I went with G to Birmingham. It was a study day there for SATS examiners. It is a great relief to see G energetically engaged with the working world again, after a very extended period of recovery from the break down she suffered in the face of an overwhelming teaching situation in Surrey.
I had not realised that G has been an assistant chief examiner, or that she was one of the first SATS Shakespeare exam writers. She shared with me that she now believes it was wrong to co-operate with the Government in writing tests which have only served to alienate teachers and pupils alike from learning about Shakespeare. At the time she believed that it was the only way to ensure Shakespeare continued to be taught in schools. Yes, the Thatcher-Blair approach to education is that bad!
I had a wonderful day on my own; my first in the second city for about forty years. The place is unrecognisable. The Jacob Epstein sculpture I loved so much is no longer on show in the art gallery, but there are others I did not see when I came before. His Lucifer is a winged angel tormented by a band that constricts his torso beyond endurance. It is torture to look at this distorted figure, otherwise so well formed, with such beautiful wings. The outdoor city centre is now filled with sculptures. Very modern sphinxes guard the corners of the square. Anthony Gormley has contributed. But Birmingham’s figure does not appear to be an angel. It is wingless, and almost armless, looking like a clothes-peg man, with his poor feet hammered into the pavement. A large female nude bathes in the central fountain, which cascades to a pool below, in which a second and smaller female sits contemplating. Above, on the edge of a commercial amenity building, a big crowd of young Goths had assembled. I walked down Broad Street with some of them, and we were accosted by Jesus freaks with their “good news” pamphlets. I expect you would prefer the other place, I suggested. They agreed. I am happy to say that a little further on from these sad desperados with their aggressive message that they alone know how to reach God, or the devil, I came across a very joyous sound of a Hare Krishna group. It was a little piece of heaven to sing or clap and dance with them in the street, as the cold north wind tossed dust in our eyes, and incense into our nostrils. They were devotees of Vishnu, someone said, but my Shaivism was fine too, as far as they were concerned.
A bit further on, I was more or less blown away by the awesome power of the main God of this place. On Saturday afternoon most people are out worshipping Mammon. He has no statue, but they have had the most amazing temple built by Saint Selfridges. At the equivalent of a high altar, a group of people were sipping their own version of communion wine. They call it Veuve Cliquot. It is wine, but more exciting, more intoxicating, than normal wine, and much more expensive, though no priest has transformed it into blood. Only those favoured by Laxmi, Goddess of wealth, can partake. They have machines in there, which can play or store all the music you ever wanted to hear in a tiny little box.
Perhaps the most amazing thing of all was the exhibition in the millennium square. I have seen many of the pictures before. They are photos of our world from the air. What seized my imagination was the huge world map on the pavement, which I was allowed to wander over in my shoeless feet. I could take in the empires of Genghis Khan, Caligula, Alexander and George W Bush almost at the same time. So many countries end in “Istan”. As the Russians retreat the Americans seem to move in. But “Dumbfuckistan,” the new American States conglomerate where Bush rules, is not yet officially marked on this map. Maybe they will call it “Jesus land” instead.
One of the things I learned in the election campaign is that an alternative “United States of Canada” ruled by democrats rather than the little emperor who has taken over the old republican group is no real alternative. They were all too happy to go along with the elite consensus that thinks invading Iraq was an acceptable thing to do. Perhaps that is unfair on the Canadians. But Kerry ended up more gung-ho than Bush.
I have learned much over this election period, not all of which has yet been written down. There seems to be no left and right in politics any more. All compete for a narrow strip of centre ground. No one even discusses the way the real ground will shrink as the seas rise, if we do not get some better policies on confronting global warming. Only a few thousand people living in marginal seats really influence politicians. More people refrained from voting once again than voted for this Government.
There is something called an "elite consensus" in Britain and America. The media and the parliaments are all controlled by this oligarchy. We, the people, do not count. Only the internet can help us make a difference. The web log is the only free medium till the bad guys find a way to censor it. Through the web a vast collection of people like you and me can communicate about the real needs of the planet and provide pressure groups to make the necessary changes.
We all need to change the way we live. It is an ecological imperative. Our present political masters are seriously corrupt and unlikely to face up to these challenges. The rich grow richer, the poor go to the wall. The Christians in Jesus Land are keen to speed up the coming of Armageddon and their Rapture. The Middle East contorts itself ever more deeply into pain.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | International court hears anti-war claims
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | International court hears anti-war claims
Blairy England still exists. The news is that there has already been a battle over the members of the new cabinet.
Action has started to bring Blair to court as a war criminal.
We must keep the pressure up. Only one in five people voted for a Labour Government. Many of them will have voted holding their noses.
Give us something to be merry about Mr Blair. We have had enough of Blairy England. We do not wish to be complicit in your war crimes.
You said you had listened and learned. Already it is plain that this is just another lie.
We want you to go Mr Blair, so that we can have a fair England once more.
Blairy England still exists. The news is that there has already been a battle over the members of the new cabinet.
Action has started to bring Blair to court as a war criminal.
We must keep the pressure up. Only one in five people voted for a Labour Government. Many of them will have voted holding their noses.
Give us something to be merry about Mr Blair. We have had enough of Blairy England. We do not wish to be complicit in your war crimes.
You said you had listened and learned. Already it is plain that this is just another lie.
We want you to go Mr Blair, so that we can have a fair England once more.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
THE BRAD BLOG: If Bush could steel the election, and he did,...
This may be my last election post, so I thought I would remind you that elections are there for the steeling. Now that the judge has decided we are a banana republic in terms of vulnerability to election fraud, we should not be surprised over much if there is another landslide tonight.
THE BRAD BLOG: "Tribune Syndicate Spikes Robert Koehler's Latest Column!": "Koehler's original ground-breaking column from April -- the first by an American Mainstream Media journalist that we know of to out-and-out charge that the 2004 Election was stolen -- was written a few days after Koehler attended the National Election Reform Conference last month in Nashville. The piece was headlined 'The Silent Scream of Numbers: The 2004 election was stolen � will someone please tell the media?'"
An end in sight for a Blairy dystopia?
We live in a place that is a candidate for Utopia.
My parents always hoped I would settle here in the Cotswolds. The hills are gentle and caressing. The honey coloured stones of its small towns and villages are sculpted into houses in the folds of the valleys in a way that makes them seem a part of nature.
A publisher friend in our town likes to remark that England is the best country in the world in which to live, and C…….y is the best place to live in England. Various cultural surveys have confirmed this assessment.
At the heart of the town is its only school. There was a secondary school once, but that has long gone. The Anglican Church membership has recovered, under the guidance of the muscular (if not quite brainless) Christianity of a woman who everyone swears was the model for the Vicar of Dibley.
But the real heart of the community is the primary school. In this place, dreams of Utopia began to be replaced with a nightmare Blairy dystopia. (the spell check asks if I want to replace Blairy)
I was idyllically happy here for the first few months after arrival in 1992. The view from home onto ancient forest land was stunning. I was about to become a father again. My professional work was flourishing. The wheel of my fortunes had almost reached its zenith.
13 years on, the magic still remains in the countryside, the buildings, the friendliness of people in the street, the gentle climate. But the underlying social dynamics are very disturbing. The neo-conservatives are becoming the dominant group. The balance between the individual, the family, and the state is undermined.
At least, that was the story as I described it a few months back.
Suddenly, to my great surprise, the school's head has resigned. No formal reasons have been given. Those of us who were on the point of removing our children have an opportunity to rethink the situation.
Things could get worse. But now there is a chance for the situation to turn around.
We have a choice. We can contribute to an improvement.
However, we do not have much in the way of choice in the National election. Many people will not bother to vote. Labour will be elected with a big majority. But there will be more people who did not vote than people who voted labour. We need proportional representation, like all the rest of Europe, so our votes can mean something.
The only way to remove the conservatives here would be for David Cameron to cross the floor as his predecessor did. That will not happen, even though Cameron writes for the Guardian.
As Policy co-ordinator of the current team, Cameron cannot be badly placed for a tilt at the leadership when Howard is staked out. He is a very able man and a good constituency MP. He is talking about increasing parent power in education and alternative ways of teaching our children.
But his party may be on the way into history, as its mainly elderly supporters die out.
They were out in large numbers voting this morning, though. Round here there are many over ninety and still walking. The Liberal Democrats will take second place. Only in the County Council election will Brian Hodgson win for Labour by dint of hard work.
My parents always hoped I would settle here in the Cotswolds. The hills are gentle and caressing. The honey coloured stones of its small towns and villages are sculpted into houses in the folds of the valleys in a way that makes them seem a part of nature.
A publisher friend in our town likes to remark that England is the best country in the world in which to live, and C…….y is the best place to live in England. Various cultural surveys have confirmed this assessment.
At the heart of the town is its only school. There was a secondary school once, but that has long gone. The Anglican Church membership has recovered, under the guidance of the muscular (if not quite brainless) Christianity of a woman who everyone swears was the model for the Vicar of Dibley.
But the real heart of the community is the primary school. In this place, dreams of Utopia began to be replaced with a nightmare Blairy dystopia. (the spell check asks if I want to replace Blairy)
I was idyllically happy here for the first few months after arrival in 1992. The view from home onto ancient forest land was stunning. I was about to become a father again. My professional work was flourishing. The wheel of my fortunes had almost reached its zenith.
13 years on, the magic still remains in the countryside, the buildings, the friendliness of people in the street, the gentle climate. But the underlying social dynamics are very disturbing. The neo-conservatives are becoming the dominant group. The balance between the individual, the family, and the state is undermined.
At least, that was the story as I described it a few months back.
Suddenly, to my great surprise, the school's head has resigned. No formal reasons have been given. Those of us who were on the point of removing our children have an opportunity to rethink the situation.
Things could get worse. But now there is a chance for the situation to turn around.
We have a choice. We can contribute to an improvement.
However, we do not have much in the way of choice in the National election. Many people will not bother to vote. Labour will be elected with a big majority. But there will be more people who did not vote than people who voted labour. We need proportional representation, like all the rest of Europe, so our votes can mean something.
The only way to remove the conservatives here would be for David Cameron to cross the floor as his predecessor did. That will not happen, even though Cameron writes for the Guardian.
As Policy co-ordinator of the current team, Cameron cannot be badly placed for a tilt at the leadership when Howard is staked out. He is a very able man and a good constituency MP. He is talking about increasing parent power in education and alternative ways of teaching our children.
But his party may be on the way into history, as its mainly elderly supporters die out.
They were out in large numbers voting this morning, though. Round here there are many over ninety and still walking. The Liberal Democrats will take second place. Only in the County Council election will Brian Hodgson win for Labour by dint of hard work.
t r u t h o u t - Greg Palast | Tony Blair Can't Win
t r u t h o u t - Greg Palast | Tony Blair Can't Win:
I begin the last day of my election blog with a link to one of our American cousins, Greg Pallast. He is writing to uneducated americans about the English system of voting. He also thinks Blair can't win. I am afraid he is wrong.
I think that it is the same situation for us as Blair said it had been for Iraq.
If we don't take him out now, he will be emboldened and will become an ever greater threat to out freedoms and liberty.
This is the only moment in five years when he is vulnerable to the will of the people. and he has promised to stay a full term, if we re-elect him.
Will Labour be strong enough to throw him out.
No.
Labout is scarcely brave enough not to stick his face on its election literature.
"I watched the machinery called Tony Blair up close as a Yankee in King Blair's court (first as an advisor on the inside, then as a journalist also on the inside, but with a hidden tape recorder).
And it was eerie. Because what I saw was a man who, while Britain's erstwhile leader, scorns his own country. That is, he scorns the union workers that wanted to keep filthy coal mines open; he scorns the nostalgic blue-haired ladies who wanted to keep the Queen's snout on their nation's currency; he scorns his nation of maddeningly inefficient little shops on the high street, of subjects snoozy with welfare state comforts and fearful of the wonders of cheap labor available in far-off locales.
Blair looks longingly at America, land of the hard-charging capitalist cowboy, of entrepreneurs with big-box retail discount stores, Silicon Valley start-ups and Asian out-sourcing.
Blair doesn't want to be Prime Minister. He wants to be governor in London of America's 51st state.
Britons know this. They feel deeply that their main man doesn't like the Britain he has. And that is why the average punter in the pub longs to be led by that most English of British politicians - who is not English at all - Gordon Brown, the Scotland-born Chancellor of the Exchequer. "
I begin the last day of my election blog with a link to one of our American cousins, Greg Pallast. He is writing to uneducated americans about the English system of voting. He also thinks Blair can't win. I am afraid he is wrong.
I think that it is the same situation for us as Blair said it had been for Iraq.
If we don't take him out now, he will be emboldened and will become an ever greater threat to out freedoms and liberty.
This is the only moment in five years when he is vulnerable to the will of the people. and he has promised to stay a full term, if we re-elect him.
Will Labour be strong enough to throw him out.
No.
Labout is scarcely brave enough not to stick his face on its election literature.
"I watched the machinery called Tony Blair up close as a Yankee in King Blair's court (first as an advisor on the inside, then as a journalist also on the inside, but with a hidden tape recorder).
And it was eerie. Because what I saw was a man who, while Britain's erstwhile leader, scorns his own country. That is, he scorns the union workers that wanted to keep filthy coal mines open; he scorns the nostalgic blue-haired ladies who wanted to keep the Queen's snout on their nation's currency; he scorns his nation of maddeningly inefficient little shops on the high street, of subjects snoozy with welfare state comforts and fearful of the wonders of cheap labor available in far-off locales.
Blair looks longingly at America, land of the hard-charging capitalist cowboy, of entrepreneurs with big-box retail discount stores, Silicon Valley start-ups and Asian out-sourcing.
Blair doesn't want to be Prime Minister. He wants to be governor in London of America's 51st state.
Britons know this. They feel deeply that their main man doesn't like the Britain he has. And that is why the average punter in the pub longs to be led by that most English of British politicians - who is not English at all - Gordon Brown, the Scotland-born Chancellor of the Exchequer. "
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
BB IV: Drawing The Line
BB IV: Drawing The Line
The comment in the Guardian is clear and strong today. It is time to go, Mr Blair.
You may prefer to hold your nose and vote Labour but I agree with the other columnist who said he could not vote for a leader who made an alliance with a foreign power to launch an illegal war of aggression.
Before you do that, view this linked flash montage of the crimes committed in our name by our Government in Iraq.
I will feel little but disgust for a people who are prepared to give another big majority to a party who endorse this kind of violence, unsanctioned by the United Nations or even the great majority of our electorate.
2 million of us marched to stop this war crime and we made no difference.
Go out and make a difference now.
The comment in the Guardian is clear and strong today. It is time to go, Mr Blair.
You may prefer to hold your nose and vote Labour but I agree with the other columnist who said he could not vote for a leader who made an alliance with a foreign power to launch an illegal war of aggression.
Before you do that, view this linked flash montage of the crimes committed in our name by our Government in Iraq.
I will feel little but disgust for a people who are prepared to give another big majority to a party who endorse this kind of violence, unsanctioned by the United Nations or even the great majority of our electorate.
2 million of us marched to stop this war crime and we made no difference.
Go out and make a difference now.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
A war crimes trial: too bloody right!
The Observer | Politics | Full transcript of interview with Admiral Sir Michael Boyce:
It looks as if some service people's families may be starting a war crimes trial now. From this transcript of the Observer interview it seems pretty clear that the military do not feel well protected against it.
As Robert Graves said through Claudius the God
Let all the evils of the earth hatch out.
"AB: [...] if a serious complaint was made by families of troops or somebody to bring it before the International Criminal Court (ICC), do you think you have got the legal cover necessary to...?
MB: No! I think I have done as best as I can do. But I have always been troubled by the ICC. Although I was reassured at the time, as I say, when this was going through Whitehall...about five years ago - I was patted on the head and said: 'Don't worry on the day it will be fine'. I don't have 100% confidence in that.
I have to say, although it doesn't have anything to do with the ICC, the way Trooper Williams was handled doesn't give me any more confidence.
[MB explains facts of Trooper Williams case]
MB: The trauma that person went through and the fact the government didn't protect him, or the system didn't protect him rather than the government, doesn't make me feel any more confident...that if some badly-behaved nation used the ICC to try to bring some charge against either one or a collective number of people, that we would necessarily get all the cover we wanted. So that's why I wanted to make sure we had this anchor which has been signed by the government law officer to show that at least we were operating under...it may not stop us from being charged, but by God it would make sure we brought other people in the frame as well
AB: So if you were called to account it would also be Lord Goldsmith and the prime minister...
MB: Too bloody right!"
It looks as if some service people's families may be starting a war crimes trial now. From this transcript of the Observer interview it seems pretty clear that the military do not feel well protected against it.
As Robert Graves said through Claudius the God
Let all the evils of the earth hatch out.
"AB: [...] if a serious complaint was made by families of troops or somebody to bring it before the International Criminal Court (ICC), do you think you have got the legal cover necessary to...?
MB: No! I think I have done as best as I can do. But I have always been troubled by the ICC. Although I was reassured at the time, as I say, when this was going through Whitehall...about five years ago - I was patted on the head and said: 'Don't worry on the day it will be fine'. I don't have 100% confidence in that.
I have to say, although it doesn't have anything to do with the ICC, the way Trooper Williams was handled doesn't give me any more confidence.
[MB explains facts of Trooper Williams case]
MB: The trauma that person went through and the fact the government didn't protect him, or the system didn't protect him rather than the government, doesn't make me feel any more confident...that if some badly-behaved nation used the ICC to try to bring some charge against either one or a collective number of people, that we would necessarily get all the cover we wanted. So that's why I wanted to make sure we had this anchor which has been signed by the government law officer to show that at least we were operating under...it may not stop us from being charged, but by God it would make sure we brought other people in the frame as well
AB: So if you were called to account it would also be Lord Goldsmith and the prime minister...
MB: Too bloody right!"
Sunday, May 01, 2005
The secret Downing Street memo - Sunday Times - Times Online
The secret Downing Street memo - Sunday Times - Times Online: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
This secrest memo does not prove that Blair lied as far as I can tell from reading it. It merely confirms what we all know already that Blair was on board the military expedition based on false intelligence a year in advance.
What is very clear is that there is a very determined insider plot to destroy Blair timed carefully to keep the pressure up till election day.
Somehow I doubt this will be the end of it. Let us hope for a new revelation every day.
Why did Brown step in again to resuce Blair.
He has to know by now that you can't make a deal with Blair unless you are George Bush.
This secrest memo does not prove that Blair lied as far as I can tell from reading it. It merely confirms what we all know already that Blair was on board the military expedition based on false intelligence a year in advance.
What is very clear is that there is a very determined insider plot to destroy Blair timed carefully to keep the pressure up till election day.
Somehow I doubt this will be the end of it. Let us hope for a new revelation every day.
Why did Brown step in again to resuce Blair.
He has to know by now that you can't make a deal with Blair unless you are George Bush.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)