Crooked Connections

While the great PR-firm, also known as the mainstream media, continues to focus on Barak Obama’s superficial connections to Bill Ayers and ACORN, little to no attention is being paid to the fringe groups and think tanks tied to both Republican candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin. On the surface, this might seem strange since the media is always hungry for lead stories concerning the electoral race which can be fed to their readers or watchers. What is truly bizarre is that so much time and ink has been used to spear ACORN for what amounts to a fraction of voting problems but has given far less consideration to the caging of eligible voters by Republican officials. To be honest, it seems puzzling that Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris along with Choice point are not being investigated by the FBI for the theft of the 2000 election. So since the corporate media has proven to be unwilling to focus on John McCain and Sarah Palin’s connections, all of which are far more blatant, here is a closer look at just some of the groups which propelled both candidates into their position of power.

Listening to Sarah Palin, her rhetoric consists of a barking hatred for Obama, Bill Ayers and this or that community group. She holds rallies which in many ways are reminiscent of lynch mob gatherings. It is no secret that those who go to see her are rabidly nationalistic so the climate at these events are set long before she even takes the stage. Palin must know that buzzwords like “terrorist”, “un-American”, and “unpatriotic” push her followers over to edge, into a mindless feeding frenzy. It becomes obvious when you read of audience members screaming “Kill him!” and other phrases right out of the Jim Crowe South. As the media reports the stories about Obama from which Palin draws her material and yet fails to mention her own connections to highly questionable groups, we certainly understand the great fiction which Palin surrounds herself with.

Meet the Alaskan Independent Party (AIP), the very group which Sarah Palin has to thank for getting her where she is today. According to an article entitled “Meet Sarah Palin’s Radically Right-Wing Pals,” by Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert of Salon.com, the basis of the party is to secede from the Union and all the agencies that govern it. The group has wrapped themselves in the far right wing view of family values and the elimination of all taxes, even those that go towards the very infrastructure of our country. Many of the group are armed to the teeth with high powered rifles and former Soviet sides to ward off the “New World Order,” and what they call, “the 48″ which refers to the continental Unites States. Two notably names in the group are Mark Cryson and Steve Stoll. Both were key players of AIP in getting Sarah Palin elected Mayor of Wasilla. Both were key fundraisers and organizers. While their AIP is a fringe group, they had a direct line to the town’s Mayor’s office while Palin held the position there.

While Mayor of Wasilla Sarah Palin helped Cryson pass legislation in the state that altered the local constitution to adopt anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives which would benefit anti-government militias. According to the article, “She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as ‘Black Helicopter Steve,’ to an empty Wasilla City Council seat.” Palin also allowed members of AIP to come in and out of her office with very little restriction. For more on her and the Independent Party Of Alaska check out the Salon.com link below.

John “straight talk,” “maverick,” McCain is not without his ties to highly questionable think tanks. During the early 1980s, John McCain launched his political career while sitting the board of the Ultra Right Wing group, “U.S. Council for World Freedom.” The organization has long been known for being behind the overthrow of several left leaning Governments in South and Central America by arming local death squads but its greatest scandal to date was aiding the Contras during the Iran arms deals, an affair that got them into trouble with the IRS who later revoked the group’s charity status.

The council was started by Nazi sympathizer retired Army Maj. Gen John Singlaub who was a point man for right wing death squads in South and Central America. Singlaub, according to a yahoo news report, takes some credit for teaching McCain the political ropes which he used once he was elected to the Senate. McCain has claimed that he resigned from the group as early as 1984 and asked for his name to be removed from the group’s list in 1986 but recently uncovered documents show he was still very much involved with the group in 1985. An IRS record from that year has confirmed the finding that he was still council member for the group and still active. And according to the report, “In October 1985, a States News Service report placed McCain, Rep. Tom Loeffler, R-Texas, and an Arizona congressman at a Washington awards ceremony staged by the council.”

By one account, he was also a council member for Singlaub after being elected to the Senate. After being elected to the Congress, John McCain voted for every action against Communist groups in South Americas including the support of arming the death squad, the Contras of Nicaragua, “a CIA-organized guerrilla force. In 1984, Congress cut off military assistance to the rebels.” The operation, headed by John Poindexter and Robert McFarlane, lead to a massive drug trade used to fund weapon sales to Iran. According to former DEA agent Michael Levine much of the drugs produced under the Contras wound up being consumed by the youth of the United States. In several articles, Michel Levine has mapped out exactly where those drugs wound up in the streets of every major U.S. city for the entire decade. He has also called for the prosecution of Oliver North and those others involved with the Contra project.

So when we talk about past connections, the mainstream media would be well advised to give equal time to both sides. Barack Obama’s connection to Bill Ayers begins and ends with the fact that they sat on the same chairing committee on housing, along with several former Reaganites. But this fact does not seem to matter in a time where truth takes a back seat to getting elected.

Until next time.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/10/palin_chryson/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_iran_contra

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/10/08/mccain_once_tied_to_group_linked_to_iran_contra_affair/

http://www.expertwitnessradio.org/essays/e6.htm

http://www.expertwitnessradio.org/essays/e1.htm

John McCain The Neo Con

A lot has happened since I started this piece which was be Part Two of a series focusing on the advisors of the candidates in both political Parties.   Since there are only two, yes two, Republican candidates left, and only one has any real relevancy in the race at this point, I decided to focus on John McCain who is the current media sweetheart and self proclaimed war hero.

One of the biggest misconceptions about McCain, thanks in part to a media that goes out of its way not to challenge the paradigm of the moment, is that he is the most “liberal” of all the Republican candidates   Even some Liberals have swallowed the Kool Aid on this one.  But looking at McCain’s proposed policies and the inside personalities that he surrounds himself with, it becomes painfully obvious that he is every bit the Neo Con that Bush is and maybe even more. In fact he has aligned himself with the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and other players in the Project for the New Century who support the remaking of the world in the image of the United States.
As reporter Robert Dreyfuss noted on”Democracy Now”, McCain wishes to form “The League Of Democracies” which would by-pass the United Nations when it comes to going to war with various countries and build a stronger front in NATO against Russia in Central Asia. This group would re-establish US unilateralism against his version of the “Axis of Evil” with what he calls, “Rogue State Roll-Back.”  This means targeting Governments which McCain sees as being hostile to the United States. The McCain plan would allow the US to overthrow these Governments and install those leaders that are sympathetic to the Neo Con agenda. The most often cited countries are Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria.  He is now looking to become increasingly more antagonistic towards those countries that challenge US dominance in the world, most notably, Russia and China.

In fact McCain has already called for the removal of Russia from the G8 along with inviting several former Soviet nations, like the Ukraine and Georgia into the governing body. Such a move would send a firestorm throughout Moscow. McCain said that he would forward the Bush plan of building a satellite missile systems in Poland and other Eastern European countries but he would not concern himself with Moscow. Such an act would strain the US relationship with Russia to the point that we find could ourselves in a no-win situation in some of the world’s problems including those throughout the Middle East and, equally important we could find ourselves in another arms race with Moscow.

Those who think that voting for John McCain is a vote against the neoconservative agenda,  should take a look at his advisers. The following is a detailed look at some of the men who shaped the ideas and plans that McCain the Neo Con is now pushing under the guise of “keeping out country save.”

On top of the list is Terry Nelson, a Bush-Cheney insider. According to the group Media Matters, Nelson has been linked to some perverse scandals surrounding the Republican Party in general and Tom Delay in particular.  Perhaps most infamous was campaign ad aimed at Rep. Harold Ford Jr, an African American candidate for Congress in Tennessee.  The ad closed with a white woman telling Ford to call her, an obvious attempt to incite rage from white conservative communities of Tennessee. Questions also surround Nelson’s involvement in a phone jamming operation in 2002 used to disrupt Democratic campaigns in New Hampshire.

Then there is William Kristol, ultra-conservative writer for the “Weekly Standard” and one of the architects of the neo-con think tank, falls in line with the rest of the cohorts in the far right wing media and political spin doctors, believe in American hegemony on a global scale. Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union Kristol stood at forefront of the Republican radical fringe calling for the reshaping of the global politic to serve US interests, even at the expense of the international community.

Like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and others, Kristol saw Iraq as a starting point for what has become the march for the US’s expanded empire.  He has long been promoting the idea in article after article in the Standard. In 1998 he signed onto a letter With Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld which urged the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In the letter, the group floated the erroneous claim of Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction and his intent to use them against US interests.   They claimed that the Iraqi government could cause the largest crisis in Middle East since the end of the cold war, “We are writing to you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War…”  For the full contents of the letter go to http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm.
After Bill Clinton snubbed the request, the group sent a letter to Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, saying that the US should build and maintain a strong presence in the area. The letter can be viewed through the link. http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqletter1998.htm.  To their dismay Bill Clinton absolutely rejected the proposal to overthrow the man that George H.W. Bush put into power in 1963. The authors of PNAC had to wait a few more years before they got their man George W Bush.

Every time we hope that Henry Kissinger once and for all finally disappears into the great ether of horrid war criminals, he always seems to come back. Kissinger, certainly the least deserving of recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is quietly doing what he does best inside the McCain camp. For those who know Kissinger’s history, there are far too many examples of war crimes connected to Richard Nixon’s right hand man to fit into one blog.   They range from his support for the invasions East Timor and Cambodia to the attempted cover up of the Mai Lai Massacre to the bloody ascent of Augusto Pinochet in Chile in the early 1970s.  Given this history one must really be worried about the possible war with Iran under a John McCain presidency.   Kissinger has never seen a war crime that he doesn’t support as long as it moves forward an agenda. Up until the late 1980s, he rationalized the US support for General Suharto with the excuse that it was necessary to “fight Communism”. Today he will most certainly use the generic tag of “the war on terrorism” when discussing any future violations of human rights.

While the great PR firm which calls itself the media has been transfixed on comments made by Barack Obama’s former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright, there seems to be limited interest  in speeches made by controversial reverend and John McCain supporter John Hagee.  The Texas preacher is well known among the Catholic community. He is best known for calling the Roman Catholic church as the “great whore,” apostate church,” the “anti-Christ” and “a false cult system” that inspired Adolph Hitler to initiate the Holocaust.

Recently McCain was asked about the support he received from Hagee, during ABC’s news show, “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” Host Stephanopoulos asked McCain if it was a mistake to solicit and accept the endorsement of such a figure. At first, McCain said it was a mistake but seconds later contradicted himself by saying, that he is happy to have it. According to a report by Glen Greenwald of salon.com, Tim Russert had a chance to press the issue of the support but instead, seemed content with the kid gloves approach when dealing with the issue. This came after a show where Russert continued to weigh on Obama to denounce the support he received from the Reverend Louis Farrakhan, which Obama did.

John McCain has often praised Hagee as an honest man and was proud to receive his support. But lets keep in mind Hagee’s Catholic comments are actually one of the more benign statements he has made over the years. Here are some of Hagee’s Greatest Hits. On Terry Gross’s show on NPR, John Hagee stated that “All Muslims are killers and we can thus never negotiate with any of them.”

During the same interview, he claimed that  “God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin.” Then there is this little number, “The End Times Rapture is imminent and the U.S. Government must do what it can to hasten it, which at minimum requires a war with Iran and undying, absolute support for a unified Israel, including all Occupied Territories.”

So while Barack Obama has been forced to explain comments and connections to Wright, McCain can openly hug Hagee with no real in-depth questions from any of the major networks. But this has been the pattern of the media’s handling of John McCain; not only with Hagee but with all of his advisors.  Let one of the Democratic candidates slip up, however, and you’re guaranteed that gaffe is all you will hear for months afterwards.

But John McCain, as stated above, has become the media’s new darling, to the point where they are willing to sell McCain “the moderate” while McCain the Neo-Con furthers the Project For The New American Century’s radical agenda.

Until next time.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/28/hagee/index.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200612130001

http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold02192003.html

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http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/John_McCain_China.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/21/politics/main3958889.shtml

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a7GaNy_qwACo&refer=us

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/26/a_century_in_iraq_replacing_un

http://www.antiwar.com/bandow/?articleid=12559

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&domains=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org&q=John+McCain%27s+Advisors&btnG=Search&sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=Max+Boot&btnG=Google+Search

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/05/inner_circle_john_mccain.html

http://www.zpub.com/un/wanted-hkiss.html

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0611-03.htm

The Talk Of Change Is The Latest Scam

Now that the final hours of the greatest American tragedy, known as the Bush administration, is just around the corner, the call for change is permeating the political winds from both the Democratic and Republican parties and voters have signed on to those calls lock, stock and barrel. The desire for change among the US citizens is evident in impressive showings at this year primaries in both Iowa and New Hampshire and south Carolina along with the influx of new voters. Also apparent is that the hunger for change is leading many to vote blindly for those candidates that speak of a major shake up in Washington.

 

But do any of the candidates really have the intention to bring real change to the White House? According to several reports and a list of each presidential hopeful’s advisors, the answer is an unequivocal no. Here is a list of each of Democratic presidential candidates and their advisors and how they could shape US politics over next four years.

At the head of the “change” chain is Barak Obama. As we have all heard so far from his camp is that he is the only one of the presidential candidates that can deliver change. So far this message is working very well for him but his cabinet choices tell a very different story. Two of Obama’s top advisors are pro-war Hawks .

Zbigniew Brzezinski

War hawk under former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronal Reagan, Brzezinski was notoriously instrumental in the creation of the Mujhadean of Afghanistan, something he brags about in his book “The Grand Chess Board.” During the late 1970s he worked with the CIA to help build up Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the most powerful religious fanatics of Afghanistan at the time. Working through Heckmatyar, Brzezinski was able to overthrow the secular government of the PDPA, Peoples Democratic Part of Afghanistan and, in the process, lure the Soviet Union into invading the country to quell the unrest. What Lawrence Moesha called Operation “Bait The Bear” lead to the creation of Osama Bin Laden. When asked by the French media if the fact that Afghan and Pakistani fundamentalists had taken over the country was worth the resultant bloodshed Brzezinski replied it was “worth a few stirred up Muslims”.

Anthony Lake

Under Bill Clinton, Lake advised the then president to invade Haiti and bring back Aristide under what amounts to political chains. Under Lake’s plan, enacted President Clinton, the rate of malnutrition sky rocketed as did mass destabilization of Haiti. In his earlier days, he worked under Henry Kissinger only to resign in 1970 under the protest of Nixon’s expiation of the Vietnam war. Despite that, Lake is still no where near being a dove as staff of the USIA Paul Malamud, points out, “Lake joined the Foreign Service, and was posted to Vietnam, where became a special assistant to then-ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge.
Singled out early for his talent, Lake rose quickly to become an aide to
Secretary of State Kissinger in 1969, accompanying the secretary on his
first secret meeting with North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris.”

David Axelrod (media advisor to Obama)

If it seems somewhat odd that Barak Obama is not playing the race card, you have his main media advisor to thank for that. David Axelrod of the Chicago tribune, who brought in the tag line “yes we can”, has been often praised by the John McCain camp as one of the best in the media business. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick also used Axelrod in his media campaign to deliver the same uplifting message, as Christopher Hayes of the Nation magazine points out. Both men used roughly the same message when discussing the plight of the country’s problem (black population?) that it was not a deficit of the dollar but “the deficit of leadership.” Most importantly, it is Axelrod the largely keeps Barak Obama’s message away from the issue of race. In fact, one can assume that Obama’s “African Americans have made it 90% of the way” comment most likely came from Axelrod. Far from being considered a hawk, Axelrod has some political connections with Paul Simmon, and former Mayor Harold Washington. He has also praised Martin Luther King’s movement. But in keeping race “off the table” shows that the issues concerning African Americans have little problem of getting addressed.

And then there us Dennis Ross, another former Clinton advisor. He has come out with statements that suggest that the US would take the position that Israel’s needs should come before that of the Palestine’s. Interestingly enough, he has gone after Jimmy Carter on several occasions has been known to attack Jimmy Carter.

HILLARY

Hillary Clinton’s cabinet is not much better. In fact, she is looking to bring in some the most hawkish Bill Clinton’s inner circle. On top of her advisor list is Richard Holbrooke. In 1975 Holborroke spoke with the Indonesian government which was led by general Suharto   about the US’s backing of the plan to invade East Timor. The invasion equaled to nothing less than a genocidal attack on a helpless nation. In all, 200,000 people were killed, 1/3 of the pre-invasion population. He was later placed into the role of advisor to Asian affairs under Jimmy Carter administration. After the invasion, Halborroke led a fraudulent campaign that on the surface would have put a ban on weapons sent to Indonesia. As it turned out, there was no actual ban in place and the fraud was exposed Cornell University professor Benedict Anderson. To read more on him, you can check out the Z magazine link bellow.

Then there is Madeleine Albright, a former close advisor to Bill Clinton and former ambassador to the UN and than later, US Secretary of State. Ms. Albright has a long history in what she calls humanitarian missions in foreign affairs but is in fact, acts humanitarian crisis. She has Oked several horrific acts of violence such as the Somalia where Albright, as well as Wesley Clark supported the use of sulfur shells which rained down on several towns in this poverty torn nation with, to quote a great film “with extreme prejudice.” She was also a main player in the bombing massacre of Kosovo where the Clinton administration supported the KLA, the countries answer to the drug running mob.

Sandy Berger was one of the main architects of some of Clintons most conversion policies which including plans to Yugoslavia and opening trade with China which have lead to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. But Berger will be most remembered for his theft of terrorist records from the US archives shortly before the 9/11 commission was formed. This scandal created such a fire storm, it lead to his firing from the John Kerry campaign in his presidential of 2004. Clinton’s decision to bring him on board has even raised a few eyebrows of some of her staff.

Despite his message of populism, the funding of John Edwards is well with in the inner circle of murder inc. Expect for a few exceptions, John Edwards is heavily funded my the military industrial complex and as you can see on his own campaign website, he is gearing up to take the advice about our current wars from the same brass that has stood among the rank and file in two wars that could only be described as weapons against US Democracy. For the list, you can check out the link below. Others on his advisory boards are David “Mud Cat” Saunders and Washington insider, former advisor to Howard Dean and fat cat, Joe Trippi.

Next up will be the list of Republican candidates and their band of corporate criminals .

Until Next time.

http://www.johnedwards.com/news/headlines/20070523-military-advisory-group/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Berger

http://www.examiner.com/a-977346~He_s_back__Sandy_Berger_now_advising_Hillary_Clinton.html

http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/sunil.htm

http://www.rense.com/general31/cyc.htm

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lake1.htm

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/hayes

http://jpundit.typepad.com/jci/2006/12/carters_maps_wo.html

Deconstruction of “The State of The Union Speech”

It has been about a month since George W Bush gave his latest State of the Union speech, one in which old lies were reintroduced and facts omitted, a hallmark of all Bush’s State of the Union speeches since 9/11.   Bush reiterated the message that while the mission in Iraq is in fact difficult, American troops understand the importance of succeeding in the war.  Left out of this statement was a poignant indication of just how “difficult” the Iraq mission really is; that the suicide rate of American troops has hit a 26-year high according to Yahoo news, the highest since 1980 when the military first began keeping such records.2006 alone, 99 soldiers ended their lives, one third while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Several thousand other soldiers are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. In a report from the Washington Post, a reported 40% of all US troops who are or were stationed in either of these two war-torn countries now show symptoms of the disorder. One third of these cases are Marines while nearly half are from the National Guard.  Most of them suffer from, “depression, anxiety or other potentially disabling mental disorders.”  More troubling is the fact that the mental health facilities designated to care for these soldiers have been described as, “woefully inadequate.”  Now that US troops are experiencing a level of combat unseen since that of Vietnam, according to Vice-Admiral Donald Arthur, co-chairman of the Pentagon’s mental health taskforce, the care provided is falling far short of the rapidly growing need.  As Mr. Arthur states, ” The ongoing ’surge’ of more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will exacerbate this gap, as will the rapid growth in the number of soldiers, Marines and other troops — now about half a million — who have served more than one combat tour, heightening the risk of mental illnesses”, the report said.  As was the case in Vietnam war, it is safe to assume that because of a lack of health care providers, more than a few soldiers coming home will slip through the cracks and never receive the mental care that is sorely needed.  Read more about this on the Washington post link below.

Alarmingly George W. Bush used Anbar as a model of a military “success story”.  Bush never mentioned that Anbar is actually little more than a ghost town. By the time the marines actually showed up for the invasion, letters had been placed on most of the houses saying that they left because they were afraid of US soldiers and now they (the residents) had gone to live with relatives in neighboring towns.
In the video clip posted below, as reported by the Guardian of London, the marines appear baffled by what they found upon their arrival. The few remaining residents left behind in Anbar, however, describe a bloodbath in which US forces slaughtered many of the locals in their beds wearing their nightclothes.  In the report, one can clearly see the blood soaked gowns.

Shortly after the US attack on Fallujah, which came in response for the killing of three Blackwater contractors, Bush cheerled the assault on that city also. As has been the case with the war so far, the media backed the US aggression with uncritical eyes and no details on the attack itself. An article on counterpunch.com by Chris Floyd entitled, “The White Death of Fallujah” reveals a massacre reminiscent of Nazi Germany.  According to several witnesses, including that of several soldiers present during the attack, the US troops used a high volume of phosphorous shells which burns flesh to the bone. Also used was a new form of napalm which Mr. Floyd writes, “turned human beings into ‘caramelized’ fossils, with their skin dissolved and turned to leather on their bones.”  Equally unconscionable was the targeting of ambulances by American snipers, shooting the vehicles as they entered the town to aid wounded.  Of the 20 national and international news outlets that showed up for  briefing by Health Ministry investigator Dr. Khalid Ash-Shaykhli, not one reported on the attack. This is why Bush can still flagrantly lie about the “success” of attacks of various cities and towns.

Then there is the recycling of the lie that the entire US invasion of Iraq was to bring down the perpetrators of 9-11 when, in fact, al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan, most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and al Qaeda itself is a sect of radical fundamentalist Muslims while the Ba’athist regime of Hussein was secular, “Westernized” and non-religious.  After deliberately capitalizing on American ignorance of the Middle East in their push for the 2003 invasion the Bush White House then repeatedly appeared on news broadcasts throughout 2004 stating they were unsure why Americans ever thought Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, short of them making the connection in the national mind. Not one press agent took Bush to task over this statement or the many other faux pas in the speech.  But as I have been saying for the past ten years, there is no true mainstream media in America, only a finally oiled machine that services as a PR firm for the power elite. And as Democrats crawl over themselves like swine in the pigpen of political correctness, Americans are being are being sent off to slaughter.(cut and paste URLs into browser to view stories)

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1186522656263.wmv

http://www.guardian.co.uk/video/page/0,,2125978,00.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070816/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/army_suicides_22

http://www.guardian.co.uk/video/page/0,,2135293,00.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0411-03.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061401643.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd12172005.html

Deconstructing The State Of The Union Speech

s has been his custom over the past seven years, George W Bush has once again used the latest “State of the Union” to further a political agenda that by now has grown quite thin with the American people. In his speech, he uses much of the same language he did leading up to the war in March of 2003, while omitting several of his earlier claims and ignoring several facts while in the process recycling old lies. Part one of this series focused on why the Democrats let Bush get this far. Part two is a quick look at some key points.

George Bush started his speech by giving one last farewell to “Lady Bird” Johnson before he went into what he called the “four phases” of the US mission in Iraq. The first phase Bush called the “Liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein.” What is telling here is that he makes no mention of WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction) which he and the rest of the White House used to justify the invasion of Iraq in the first place. John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney and Powell went from network to network claiming that the White house knew that the Iraqi government had weapons of some supposed “great death”. Condoleezza Rice actually referenced a radioactive cloud in the US skies. It is difficult to forget Colin Powell’s speech where he claimed that indistinct photos of trucks were mobile bio-weapons vehicles. They had no evidence for any of these claims and, true to form, the mainstream asked no questions. Finally, there was no discussion of the legality of Bush White House’s actions, or the lack there of. A preemptive strike violates international law since it flies in the face of the Nuremberg tribunals. Nazi generals were hanged for similar violations but reporters paid no attention to this fact.

The next stage of the war in Iraq, Bush claimed, was to “return sovereignty” to Iraq. Such a statement seems odd considering it was Washington who chose the first post-Saddam government along with dismantling the country’s military and police force. Ahmad Chalabi, one of the three early leaders of Iraq had not lived in Iraq for decades and was wanted in Jordan for fraud. He was a White House sweetheart which is why he was one of the first three overseers of Iraq. All construction jobs in the war-torn country were given to American contractors, most notably Halliburton. Early agreements within the first days of the new pre-election years of Iraq prohibited the Iraqi Government from kicking American troops from the country but could request the US leaves. Just recently, a US bill set for introduction in the Iraqi Parliament would give western oil companies ownership rights to the production of the country’s main resource. US Representative Geoffrey Miller still controls Iraq’s prison system. If his name sounds familiar, that is because he was the head of Guantanamo Bay since it opened. He took over for Elliot Abrams who faced the brunt of the fallout for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soliders. Abrams, who made name for himself during the Contra scandals, made the mistake of not keeping 60 minutes from learning of the Abu Graib abuses. None of this was mentioned anywhere in Bush’s speech, of course, nor was the fact that Operation “Shock and Awe” put the country in total collapse.

The third part of this war, Bush continued, was Exculpation. With the increase of US troops came the increase of abuse which despite the Pentagon’s and White House’s attempt to blackout information from Iraq, has become well known and has lead to several arrests among soldiers. There have been new charges against high ranking generals and members of the Bush White house who approved illegal policies in dealing with the residents of each neighborhood. One prime example of this was the fire bombing and not so clean “sweep” of Fallijah. The resultant death toll was so great that bodies had to be buried in a nearby soccer field. The fire bombings later spread to Najaf.

Bush went on to say that the fourth stage of the Iraq war involved deployment and an increase in troop levels. This “stage” has been protested by the vast majority of the American people. There are mixed reports about whether the increase in troop levels is working. Reports from yahoo news states there is evidence of some success pointing to a decrease in violence in Baghdad: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_crocker, but independent news sources question the accuracy of such claims with the following article claiming there is no real surge level: http://www.counterpunch.org/mindshaftgap07132007.html.Missing from the discussion is what good any increase in troops will do when the insurgence enjoys home field advantage. Furthermore, with the increasing hostility that the US presence creates, more Iraqis are now willing to join insurgency. Add in the new US threat against Iran which would expand instability in region and could very well spill over into the borders of neighboring Syria and Saudi Arabia, a situation that no increase of troop levels will be able to curb. The debate over troop levels in Iraq is a flashback to Vietnam when some thought more troops would bring the US victory but history has not been so kind to such notions. But most important, this action goes against the wishes of the American people as indicated in several polls. But, as always, Bush ignored all this and sent a clear message that public opinion means little to him.

The one area of the war that the Bush White house has successfully controlled is the language of the debate. During the early part of the speech, it became evident that Bush was working to reestablish that success. He claimed that the the debate concerning Iraq has been wrongly defined; that the argument was between those who want the troops to come home verses those who want to keep them there and that this was incorrect. Bush stated the “real debate” was between those who think the war is lost and not worth fighting and those who think the war can be won and is worth the price despite how hard it has been for American troops. He then went on to state that he supports the latter. In the history of speeches, this has got to be one of the most asinine arguments ever brought forth. Perhaps Bush forgot about his plan to create permanent military bases throughout Iraq, something the House thankfully has voted against. He could have forgotten the statement he made several months ago that he sees US troops staying in Iraq for the foreseeable future. If one was so naive, we could as easily think that he believes his own rhetoric since to believe such nonsense we would have to forget the past 7 years.

The last thing that I wanted to touch on for this piece was Bush’s comment that those who we are fighting in Iraq are the same ones who attacked us on 911. Here Bush tried to recycle an older lie for which they eventually had to own up to, sort of, since both Osama Bin Laden and the majority of the 911 high jackers came from Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda’s training camp was in Afghanistan, not Iraq and religious fanatic Bin Laden personally despised the secular “westernized” government of Saddam Hussein. The White House went on national TV saying that they did not understand why the American people thought 911 was connected with Iraq when they themselves did everything they could to blur the lines. Bush and his team continues to do their best to instill the great fiction of Iraq and Saddam being behind 9/11. The White House has clearly taken Gurbel’s statement to heart that if you tell a lie often enough, it somehow becomes truth.

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A Critical Look At Bush’s Latest Address To The Nation Speech

A Critical Look At Bush’s Latest Address To The Nation Speech

 

Part 1 Of 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just recently I spoke with a Congressional Democrat who will remain nameless about the impeachment of the Bush administration and if there was any movement by Democrats to move in that direction. At first he said simply, no. But then he gave me a lengthy explanation of why the Congress was looking to stay clear of taking any real actions against the White House. His answer came as absolutely no surprise since it was the same excuse the Congressional Democrats have been giving since the first day that they took over office. What he said was that there was no movement by the Democrats towards impeachment since it would never pass in the Senate. Even if he was impeached in the House, so what, Bush would still be in power and what would come out of the effort. By the time the hearings would come about wouldn’t be until the height of campaigning of next year and this would take attention away from Democrats struggle. And further more, he went onto say that the Republican’s would use the opportunity against the Democrats as the “lefts” way to divide the Country. After all this, he then asked me, quite rhetorically, what good could come out of it.

 

 

This glimpse into Nancy Pelosi’s reasoning to why impeachment was “off the table” was a clear sign that the Democrats are still a party that is still running scared. Quick note, it was not Pelosi for whom an I was speaking with. What he did not mention in his answer to me was that a Democrats move to impeach would at the very least would send a clear message to future occupiers of White House that they can’t by pass whatever laws they chose, that they are American employees and do not have the same rights as despots in the 1970s Chile or Sudan today and once they no longer follow the laws that come from the will of the people, then that leader Republican or Democrat, independent or whatever should be removed by the order of law immediately. Remember, in 1973 Nixon resign, not because of Democrats who were taken the cautious approach that they are taken today but from the pressure from his own party who saw him as a cancer on the ass of their political party which was evident from the outrage that was permeating throughout the country.

 

As for taking pressure of the Democrats presidential campaigns, we are being drowned by them. Looking at the early news on Yahoo news, two of the stories in the headlines alone were about the latest Democrats so called debates. And with Democrats most likely to gain even more power next year almost by default since the Republicans are in the same disarray   that plagued the Democrats from the early 1960s to the early 2000s, the idea that an impeachment trial would take away from Democrats steam is a great fiction, one that we all believed to some degree before they took power. I will focus on the fallacy later in this report. As for “dividing the country,” the fear of Karl Rove still rings today. With recent polls showing Bush’s poll numbers around 29% and Cheney’s even lower, and with 66% of the US population disapproving of the actions of the White house it is hard to figure how an impeach trial could possible divide a country at this late stage of the game.

 

But, or coarse is the great fiction. The idea that Democrats have the will to make any real change is not only unlikely but, ridicules. Since they took over the control of Congress, the spending on the Iraq war is more than twice what it was a year ago. There are also more soldiers in the desert sands of Iraq than before January of 2007. Their excuse is that the Republicans blocked their effort to stop the war but all they simply had to do is cut the purse strings and starve the war to end. As a reminder, it was only 4 months of fighting with the White house before the Democrats folded and not only gave Bush what he wanted but gave him what amounts to a green light to go after Iran which is being fattened like a lamb being readied for slaughter. Instead of debating when to bring the troops home, which the country knew Bush would pay no respect to but also we knew that any bill that passed in Congress would be vetoed. Instead of wasting their time, the Democrats could just as easily prepared articles of impeachment and once again, cut the purse strings.

 

One last thing for this piece, the Democrats have waited till it was safe to go against the war and what is their best proposal, too keep troops in Iraq for 120 mores days and at the same time say that American lives are not worth losing in this war, so what is the purpose of keeping this illegal war going into next year.

 

Until next time.

 

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The Price of Tax Cuts

For those of you who support massive tax cuts and support the idea that George Bush’s tax breaks, which mainly benefit the top 10% of the US population, should be made permanent, then you would be wisely advised to pay attention to the new situation that has suddenly crept up in Tampa Florida. After months of holding special sessions urged on by Governor Charlie Crist, the state has adopted a bill which will slash property taxes by more than 25% and will reduce next years spending to the level of what it is today. As a result several counties now face real challenges in keeping their fire department and police forces at current levels. These counties include, Hillsborough county, Hernando County and Pinellas county. There are plans in motion to put a fee on all emergencies from EMS services to the arrival of the Fire department saving your home.

The proposal would hand the bill to the insurance companies which on the surface of things would seem like a good idea but once peel back the layers of details surrounding the outcome of such a proposal it is not hard to see that the real loser in this whole affair will be the American tax pair. After all, insurance companies look loop holes that allow them to avoid paying for any of the current crises situations that we have grown accustomed to being covered for. It would be easy to assume that at some point that those who are struck with an unfortunate circumstance will have to be the ones responsible for covering charges for the needed emergency services that arrive at a crisis situation. So the question must be asked, both facetiously and partly serious, how long will it take for people to be unable to afford calling the fire department. This may sound like a stupid question seeing that no fire station would allow a home to go up in flames without attempting to save the home but, if the individual has to, in the end flip the bill, then suddenly a horrid picture develops. Remember there was a time that hospitals couldn’t withhold services but now it happened all the time. It is could very well lead to privatization of some of our most vital services.

Already, 121 employees have been cut from several of Tampa’s governmental non-emergency positions with 115 slashed altogether. In all that’s 236 jobs that no longer exist. To make matters worse, Mayor Pam Iorio have given those workers 90 days to find jobs with no severance packages. The move has reportedly cut $ 15 million dollars from the city’s budget. However, Iorio has gone on to say that more spending has to be cut from the city’s budget and more jobs will be slashed from the payroll. It seems curious that her office would allow so many workers slip through the cracks without a severance package assuming that the search for work takes many of those who were given a pink slip longer than the three months given.

We’ll see. Until Next time.

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The State Of American Politics

The State Of American Politics 

           Alberto Gonzales escaped the noose once again after the GOP blocked a Democratic no-confidence vote towards Mr. Gonzales. The republican move is more of a political move rather than a moral one since they are looking forward to the 2008 elections. This may turn back on them later on however as Americans gray more wary on Governmental corruption. From the inner circle of the Bush administration, names like Tom Delay and Louis Scooter Libby stand out due to how close they are or were to the sitting president. Alberto Gonzales though has a history with   George Bush since the Texas days, a time where Alberto helped his boss find legal technicalities to allow him by pass laws that range from sending a mentally retarded man to death to privatizing much of Texas’s social infrastructure. Today, he is still helping working on new ways to either bypass national or internationals to changing laws to serve the house’s ideology.  For this reason, it is rather unlikely that Bush will feed him to the dogs. Few within his walls know how to circumvent laws better then the long time lawyer.

 

In other political news Michael Bloomberg is creating a lot of buzz now that he left the GOP and has become unaffiliated. One of the main questions not being asked is how his change in political party is going to affect his politics as a whole. For those who live New York know that he often sides with big business at the expense of working class communities. One prime of example of this was the project of the West Side Stadium that was geared to bring the New York Jets back to New York. The outcome of such a project would be a high volume of congestion in a neighborhood where recent studies show a higher than average level of asthma in children. Further more, the project would also include the building of luxury condos and coops with little attention being given to lower income housing. And as history shows, whole areas around sports stadiums tend to be dumping grounds for the stadium itself. The issue divided the city until it was finally voted down. His connection to big business also can be seen in his decision to make CEO of Goldman Sachs, Mark Marcus the head of the rent guidelines board, a panel that makes several decisions regarding such issues as rent hikes. Marcus has an extensive history of siding with landlords, including the worst ones, when it comes to rent hikes and legal justifications for certain actions.

 

With Christmas just around the corner MTA Union begged the New York mayor to meet with them to discuss viable pay raises and to cut from a proposal by Mr. Bloomberg that would slash benefits for new MTA employees. What is not mentioned much of the time is that the Union conceded several demand before they were forced to go on strike. What is most troubling is that the New York media has chosen to over look these facts, including the usually liberal paper, “City Limits” magazine.

 

While   the Republicans are changing parties or defending criminals, the democrats are once again looking to make political hay by embracing pop culture. In introducing her new theme song, Hillary Clinton and Bill did a satire of the final episode of the Sopranos. The piece has Hillary Clinton sitting in a diner as Bill Clinton walks through the door. That’s when Hillary puts on the song, by Celine Deon’s “You and I.”    Before the Democrats re-took office in November, they had spoken of bringing troops home from Iraq, oversight and rolling back many of George Bush’s policies and creating some real change in the direction that this country has been moving in for the past 7 years. Since they have retaken control of Congress, there are more troops in Iraq now than before they took office and the spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is more than double what it was a year ago.  The oversight that the Democrats sold us was suppose to have made Bush a lame duck president but there has been little to no change in how the Bush White house has conducted business. In fact he still walks in a similar manor as that of 2002 when he had a 98% approval rate. Today his poll numbers are somewhere between, 28% and 32 %, depending, on which poll sight you follow.

 

What is most disturbing about the current climate of the Democratic Party is the language that they use when confronting George Bush. For example, the battle between Bush and Congress was not the legality of the war itself which where the focus should have been pointed along with the 600,000+ dead Iraqis according to several sources and more than 3000 dead American soldiers. Further more, the pretense of the Iraq war has also been ignored. The focus usually centers on how the war is being fought or the Iraqi Government’s lack of success in building a security force that is able to stabilize the country. This Congress often ignores the fact Bush appointed overseers who were sent to Iraq in early in 2004 dismantled the entire Iraq military, arresting several former soldiers. So what you now have is the establishment of a major lie that both parties will follow and the media will perpetuate in a manner similar to That of William Randolph Hurst. Future pieces will focus further on this great lie.   

The Death Of Jerry Falwell

 

One of the architects that set the blue print of the Neo cons died this Month. Jerry Falwell is best known for his construction of the term, “The Moral Majority,” which played on Richard Nixon’s Silent Majority. For more than forty years he has worked with his friend and founder of the CBN, Pat Robertson, pushing the idea that only the real Americans who are Jesus fearing Christians will be saved in what has been painted as the final battle between good and evil.  He was also one of those ethnologists that came out of the Barry Goldwater Campaign in 1964 and gradually infiltrated the GOP which claimed secular leanings. And he was one of the main players that convinced American’s to vote for Ronald Reagan.

 

Even though he is now gone, his reach and influence will be long lasting. During the 2000 campaign of George W Bush, Bush himself often spoke of his faith in God and that used the term “Lord O Mighty.” This was of coarse was no accident. The religious right wing implanted themselves into the GOP’s backside during the Reagan administration and heavily funded Christian candidates that spoke out against a slew of issues on “moral” grounds. This includes abortion, civil rights, workers rights and so on. By the 199s we saw a clear paradigm that arose within the party that came straight out of HL Hunt book of American politics. That is, to connect the image of Christ with capitalism and the military industrial complex. Further more, we see saw during that decade the reverberation of Goldwater message that was widely ignored in the 1964 presidential race. From this political muck, we saw the rise of Newt Gingrich and a decade earlier Pat Buchanan who himself ran for president. Even former Klansman and representatives of Louisiana David Duke even felt empowered to run for president at the time Democrat Bill Clinton ran for a second term.

 

During George Bush’s earliest days in office he wanted to take social programs out of the hands of the Government and hand them over to “faith based groups.” And as the 2000s drag along we have heard the hateful speech of not only those that followed Jerry Falwell but, also from Falwell himself. For example, shortly after 9/11 he planned the attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and
Washington on liberals, feminists and homosexuals. His body Pat Robertson went so far as to call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. The most chilling aspect this icon of the right was his success convincing those reactionaries who once spoke out against what he spoke for.

 

Until next time.    

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Democracy for Sale

When we hear about presidential candidates it this time a year, either during election years or pre-election years, it is usually regarding how much money they raised during their latest pandering tour. You can look at any one of the front runners in next year’s election. They have all eclipsed the record for the most expensive campaigns in history. This is not only the Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton camps but, also those of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, who now leads the both John McCain and Giuliani on fund raising. When the number two or three runner in a political race brings in $25,000 dollars or even 15,000 million dollars the year before the elections are even set to occur, the question that begs asking, what is the future in the importance of the voter. What has become so painfully obvious in the up election is that each candidate is set to represent the highest bidder.  

Let’s take a look at where the front runners from both parties stand on some key issues. Hillary Clinton supports perhaps the biggest weapon against the poor in the
United States that would be the Death penalty and the prison industrial system. As the first lady, she looked to expand the death penalty be demanding DNA testing to be involved in the sentencing process.  Monsanto will also make out like fat hogs if she gets elected.
Clinton is a huge supporter of ethanol. Those of use who have worked on energy issues can tell you this about any plant related fuel; the exhausted is methane gas which is a heavier and more dense green house gas that will only worsen the global warming situation. She is also in support of increased profits for the oil companies, as long as they invest them in alternative fuel. 

John Edwards also supports the death penalty which is odd considering he is running as the champion of the poor.  It has often been used against those who often can’t afford quality lawyers. Yes committing murder is wrong but, it has shown no statically relevance in working in curbing violent crimes. The vast majority of on death row come from the poorest communities across
America and often is people of color. No one on death row has a gold card. He also supports the increased funding in homeland security to sell off the
US’s borders.  

Rudolph Giuliani: Giuliani has taken the side of the big oil companies calling the human cause of global warming, debatable. This is despite endless testimony from environmental scientists who that there is little or no doubt that human activity is the main cause of climate change. He is also an avid fan of the death penalty. When it comes to health, he supports George W Bush’s plan to privatize our health care system and has come out against universal health care. Under his plan, there is no doubt more Americans would be uninsured. He also supports an increase in troops in
Iraq and an Immigration policy similar to that of George W Bush’s.  

John McCain: Well, he is clone of Bush so, just look over the last 6 years here and the listen to the Address the Nation speeches and you’ll know here McCain stands on the vast majority of the issues.  

Except for John Edwards, all the other candidates support a global economy, including Barak Obama. More importantly since the advent of institutions like IMF and WTO were formed, more major multi national corporations have had an open door into the offices of most of this nation’s major political figures. And now we can take look at the Bush administration as the perfect example of the outcome to this situation. The result has ranged from an energy policy written by the largest oil companies in the
US including Southern energy and First Energy. The reason why these two companies are important is because these are two power industries that were used in the movie “The China Project” according to Greg Palast. You also have environmental policies written by large logging companies and an international policy that lines the pockets of suck major arms dealers and paramilitary troops for hire, as “Shadow group,” Black Water,” “Doe Chemical” Monsanto and other war profiteers. If one were to listen honestly to what is being sold to us as “policy,” which is now little more than the selling off of the remainder of our rights, you will not hear about the fixing of a corrupted voting system or how to announce a war on poverty, though there does seem to be a war on poor people.  

The ugly fact that neither party can get around is the fact that they still need the voters. That ultimately goes into the political coffers of the leading candidates to persuade us why we shouldn’t vote in our own best interest, preferably a third party at this point. So while Ralph Nadar is still being paraded as a villain, it might be asked what the other side has to offer those that they come to all of once in four years,   

 

 

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