June, 2007
American soldiers who have been sent to Iraq are now being killed there at a rate of 3 or 4 every day. That's two dozen a week, more than 100 men and women each month who will die in order to sustain the illegal occupation of a sovereign nation.
There will almost certainly be 300 more dead soldiers and 3,000 more wounded by Sept. 1, when our government will provide the American people with a progress report. After that date, more soldiers will die so that our government can keep a military presence in a country it invaded without cause. The only questions left are how many more will be killed, and how long will our government continue to sacrifice their lives?
The blood of every soldier killed in Iraq stains the hands of not only the President and Vice President, but also everyone who ever voted to fund the military invasion and occupation of Iraq. That includes 280 of our current members in the House of Representatives and 80 of our Senators who just voted to spend more tax money to keep American troops in Iraq.
It doesn't matter if they are Republican or Democrat; it doesn't matter if they are enthusiastic supporters or reluctant enablers of this act of aggression that violates international law. What matters is the absolute failure of both House and Senate - but especially the Senate – to exercise their Constitutional responsibility to determine national policy, especially military policy.
House Appropriations Chairman David Obey, who voted against the latest funding package, stated his disappointment by saying, "I hate this agreement. We simply did not have the votes to force the president to change policy."
Under the Constitution, the President does not set any national policy; he can only implement the policies set by Congress. The President does not command Congress; he is accountable to Congress.
Under the Constitution, only Congress can authorize military action. Only Congress can authorize funds to support a military action. If Congress withdraws funding, then the troops must come home.
The President is commander-in-chief of the armed forces only; he can conduct a Congressionally approved military action any way he deems best, within the existing military budget, but he must ask Congress for all supplemental funds, materials and troops necessary for any large-scale actions.
Many of the 360 elected officials who approved the recent supplemental request will explain their vote as Supporting The Troops On The Ground. They say that as if soldiers would be stuck in Iraq without proper equipment if they didn't get more money; they say it as if soldiers would go hungry or be forced to go on patrol without ammunition or without a medic to treat the wounded.
Here's how we all can best Support Our Troops – train them well and provide them with the best equipment; pay them a wage that truly reflects their importance to society; give them a clear, honorable mission and a way home; and take proper care of those who fall along the way. Anything else is politics at its worst.
A vote to continue funding the illegal occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with Supporting The Troops. Those "aye" votes were cast out of political fear or in defiance of the framework of the American Republic. They stand for cowardice, or they stand for subservience to a Unitary President, a Strong Leader who promises to Protect Our Children at any cost.
Those "aye" votes were cast in support of an act that violates international law. They cannot be justified under any standard of common humanity.
The cost of all this ... wrongness ... is the blood of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens flowing into the sands of Arabia every day, symbolically mixing with the oil pumped out of that same sand every day. Those lives will continue to be sacrificed to provide American access to oil that doesn't belong to us and to prop up a false promise of safety here at home.
12.28.2007
Everywhere is up from here...
"The Constitution is being trampled, the very form of our government is being perverted, and nothing less than American democracy itself is endangered. A presidential coup is taking place."
Jim Hightower
When it comes to living up to our own ideal as a nation, we've just about hit rock bottom. We kidnap and torture suspected terrorists, we owe nine trillion dollars to everybody and our soldiers are dying in a country we invaded "by mistake". How low is that?
We weren't all that great a country in the first place – not when right from the start, in the Land of the Free, white men could own black people and women couldn't even vote. But whatever greatness America ever achieved it owes to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents that describe an ideal still valid after more than two centuries. We've been at our best whenever we've honestly tried to live up to those ideals in the real world.
We aren't even trying anymore. Every level of government hides behind layers of secrecy while legislators mock the law with decisions that favor the interests of corporations over the rights of the citizenry. The occupation of Iraq has made us a debtor nation and the value of a US dollar has dropped until it's worth less than a Canadian loonie.
For a political junkie, one of the most interesting things about Hawai‘i is its political transparency. Malfeasance is usually done right in the open in the islands, with the current Superferry mess offering a perfect example of why American government sucks most of the time.
The ferry owners used loans cosigned by the federal government to build two ferryboats and start a business in Hawai‘i. Legislators committed public money for harbor improvements to accommodate the ferries and told the owners that environmental laws didn't apply to them. Citizens on Maui believed otherwise; they hired an attorney and sued for compliance.
When the state Supreme Court ruled that the laws must be followed, Gov. Lingle called a special legislative session to create a new law that allows the Superferry to operate while it conducts an environmental review.
That's not exactly democracy in action. In a true Republic that could never happen, but that form of bias and repression is now common all over our country.
It's certainly alive in the Aloha State. When people took to the water and blockaded the ferry from entering Nawiliwili Harbor, Lingle responded by declaring the harbor to be a "high-security zone" whenever the ferry comes to Kaua‘i. Her action is part of a growing national pattern of elected "public servants" abusing the Public Commons in the name of security and for the benefit of commerce.
Lingle went one step further and threatened to use state agencies to take the children of demonstrators away from their parents. That threat goes even beyond being unconstitutional and an impeachable offense; it's reprehensible behavior, immoral in every way.
Sadly, Lingle is not alone in her cynical disdain for the Rule of Law in the Land of the Free. The scales of justice are so far out of alignment that two priests were recently sentenced to five months in federal prison for trespassing on a military base. Their intent was to deliver a letter protesting the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Both priests were arrested while kneeling in prayer in a driveway. They pled no contest and were taken straight to jail after sentencing.
Lewis Libby, however will serve no jail time after his conviction for obstruction of justice. He lied to a grand jury about leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer – an act akin to treason, some say – but was handed a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card by the president. The two priests who want our government to stop torturing people won't be getting any such cards from George Bush, however. They'll sit behind bars because national security is at stake.
Our federal government may also have reached a record low in hypocrisy with its recent attempt to label a century-old massacre of Armenians by Turks as an act of genocide. Our own history of genocide against Native Americans doesn't give us any moral authority on that issue, but it didn't stop that bit of history from being discussed on the floor of the House and in the Senate chamber. In doing so, Congress confirmed that they are as irrelevant as the British House of Lords in the eyes of the world.
We do have a few politicians willing to speak the truth as they see it. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are the most prominent among a handful of elected officials from both major political parties who want to change the way we govern our country. They're proof that Americans will vote honest, reasonable people into positions of power when they can find them.
It's going to take more than a handful of conscientious individuals to solve our current problem, however. Government in America has slipped so far off its foundation that it may never sit on solid ground again. But we can build a better government – or install a new one – any time we choose. We do, after all, still own the country.
The momentum for a fundamental change in politics is rising slowly but it's rising all across the nation.
On Oct. 27, anti-war protests were held across the land in cities as diverse in character as San Francisco and Salt Lake City, Seattle and Orlando and Jonesborough, Tennessee. Tens of thousands in each city took to the streets to voice their anger over the occupation of Iraq and to protest Dick Cheney's plans to bomb Iran.
Garret Keizer, writing in the October issue of Harper's Magazine, has called for a general strike on Nov. 6 – Election Day, a date that Keizer calls "The Feast of the Hanging Chads." He proposes that everyone who can afford not to work should stay home for as long as possible. The rest of us should stay out of shopping malls and retail stores as long as possible, buying only food and essentials. An economic message of that magnitude could change the level of political discourse across the nation, just as it has done in dozens of other countries during the past century.
More demonstrations and peace actions are being scheduled across the land every day. Confrontations with lawmakers are increasing as more citizens are demanding answers to some very difficult questions. Military families, religious groups and coalitions of true conservatives are calling for our soldiers to return home. Grassroots media are carrying that same call with blogs, email campaigns calls to talk radio, letters to editors and a dozen other forms of expression.
We haven't actually hit bottom yet – that moment could come however, if Cheney is able to bomb Iran before he slinks out of Washington and goes home to his Wyoming ranch – or moves to Dubai to run Halliburton once again – where he can dream of WWIII and an Armageddon that he hopes will bring redemption to his murderous soul.
We can prevent that if we ignore the political divisions in this country and unite to chart a new course for government to follow. It's the one right that can't be taken from us, and it's past time for us to exercise that right in full.
Jim Hightower
When it comes to living up to our own ideal as a nation, we've just about hit rock bottom. We kidnap and torture suspected terrorists, we owe nine trillion dollars to everybody and our soldiers are dying in a country we invaded "by mistake". How low is that?
We weren't all that great a country in the first place – not when right from the start, in the Land of the Free, white men could own black people and women couldn't even vote. But whatever greatness America ever achieved it owes to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents that describe an ideal still valid after more than two centuries. We've been at our best whenever we've honestly tried to live up to those ideals in the real world.
We aren't even trying anymore. Every level of government hides behind layers of secrecy while legislators mock the law with decisions that favor the interests of corporations over the rights of the citizenry. The occupation of Iraq has made us a debtor nation and the value of a US dollar has dropped until it's worth less than a Canadian loonie.
For a political junkie, one of the most interesting things about Hawai‘i is its political transparency. Malfeasance is usually done right in the open in the islands, with the current Superferry mess offering a perfect example of why American government sucks most of the time.
The ferry owners used loans cosigned by the federal government to build two ferryboats and start a business in Hawai‘i. Legislators committed public money for harbor improvements to accommodate the ferries and told the owners that environmental laws didn't apply to them. Citizens on Maui believed otherwise; they hired an attorney and sued for compliance.
When the state Supreme Court ruled that the laws must be followed, Gov. Lingle called a special legislative session to create a new law that allows the Superferry to operate while it conducts an environmental review.
That's not exactly democracy in action. In a true Republic that could never happen, but that form of bias and repression is now common all over our country.
It's certainly alive in the Aloha State. When people took to the water and blockaded the ferry from entering Nawiliwili Harbor, Lingle responded by declaring the harbor to be a "high-security zone" whenever the ferry comes to Kaua‘i. Her action is part of a growing national pattern of elected "public servants" abusing the Public Commons in the name of security and for the benefit of commerce.
Lingle went one step further and threatened to use state agencies to take the children of demonstrators away from their parents. That threat goes even beyond being unconstitutional and an impeachable offense; it's reprehensible behavior, immoral in every way.
Sadly, Lingle is not alone in her cynical disdain for the Rule of Law in the Land of the Free. The scales of justice are so far out of alignment that two priests were recently sentenced to five months in federal prison for trespassing on a military base. Their intent was to deliver a letter protesting the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Both priests were arrested while kneeling in prayer in a driveway. They pled no contest and were taken straight to jail after sentencing.
Lewis Libby, however will serve no jail time after his conviction for obstruction of justice. He lied to a grand jury about leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer – an act akin to treason, some say – but was handed a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card by the president. The two priests who want our government to stop torturing people won't be getting any such cards from George Bush, however. They'll sit behind bars because national security is at stake.
Our federal government may also have reached a record low in hypocrisy with its recent attempt to label a century-old massacre of Armenians by Turks as an act of genocide. Our own history of genocide against Native Americans doesn't give us any moral authority on that issue, but it didn't stop that bit of history from being discussed on the floor of the House and in the Senate chamber. In doing so, Congress confirmed that they are as irrelevant as the British House of Lords in the eyes of the world.
We do have a few politicians willing to speak the truth as they see it. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are the most prominent among a handful of elected officials from both major political parties who want to change the way we govern our country. They're proof that Americans will vote honest, reasonable people into positions of power when they can find them.
It's going to take more than a handful of conscientious individuals to solve our current problem, however. Government in America has slipped so far off its foundation that it may never sit on solid ground again. But we can build a better government – or install a new one – any time we choose. We do, after all, still own the country.
The momentum for a fundamental change in politics is rising slowly but it's rising all across the nation.
On Oct. 27, anti-war protests were held across the land in cities as diverse in character as San Francisco and Salt Lake City, Seattle and Orlando and Jonesborough, Tennessee. Tens of thousands in each city took to the streets to voice their anger over the occupation of Iraq and to protest Dick Cheney's plans to bomb Iran.
Garret Keizer, writing in the October issue of Harper's Magazine, has called for a general strike on Nov. 6 – Election Day, a date that Keizer calls "The Feast of the Hanging Chads." He proposes that everyone who can afford not to work should stay home for as long as possible. The rest of us should stay out of shopping malls and retail stores as long as possible, buying only food and essentials. An economic message of that magnitude could change the level of political discourse across the nation, just as it has done in dozens of other countries during the past century.
More demonstrations and peace actions are being scheduled across the land every day. Confrontations with lawmakers are increasing as more citizens are demanding answers to some very difficult questions. Military families, religious groups and coalitions of true conservatives are calling for our soldiers to return home. Grassroots media are carrying that same call with blogs, email campaigns calls to talk radio, letters to editors and a dozen other forms of expression.
We haven't actually hit bottom yet – that moment could come however, if Cheney is able to bomb Iran before he slinks out of Washington and goes home to his Wyoming ranch – or moves to Dubai to run Halliburton once again – where he can dream of WWIII and an Armageddon that he hopes will bring redemption to his murderous soul.
We can prevent that if we ignore the political divisions in this country and unite to chart a new course for government to follow. It's the one right that can't be taken from us, and it's past time for us to exercise that right in full.
10.16.2007
A time for intervention: get in the way
In 1866 the US Supreme Court issued an explicit ruling that no emergency – not even an open civil war like the country had just suffered through – can justify the suspension or removal of any rights recognized by the Constitution. Although five of the justices were appointed by Abraham Lincoln, the Court delivered a message that Lincoln's deliberate disregard of the law of the land during his "war presidency" was illegal.
Their words were clear: "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances."
The same rights those justices were trying to protect 140 years ago are still being trampled today. The rights of the people of Kaua‘i to assemble and protest are violated by Gov. Lingle and others in her administration as she orders the Coast Guard to arrest anyone who enters hastily-drawn "emergency security zones" in Nawiliwili Harbor whenever the Superferry comes to port.
Any government promotion of corporate and military interests over the rights of free citizens is a call for resistance. The brave folks on Kaua‘i responded; across the country many other groups and individuals have begun to take direct action as well.
Representatives of 33 antiwar and environmental organizations have agreed to hold a national "intervention" this month to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq and strong action on the climate crisis. At a meeting last spring, representatives of those groups agreed to escalate their current activities. As a result of their commitment, the intervention will involve nonviolent civil disobedience.
Local solidarity actions are being planned to take place Oct. 20-22 during the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C, with the day of intervention set for Monday, October 22.
"We will hold an intervention by taking over Capitol Hill on a day that Congress is in session," according to a statement posted on the No War, No Warming website at www.nowarnowarming.org. "We will be putting our bodies on the line to say enough is enough. We will be taking positive action to make visible the cost of these failed government policies and to creatively manifest the world we know is possible."
The coalition will help local groups across the country and world to deliver their message by demonstrating outside of federal buildings, US embassies and the offices of corporate profiteers. As the organizers state, "Until our government representatives change course off the path of destruction, we have no choice but to get in the way."
Their voices are needed to counter the advice coming into the White House and the propaganda that keeps flowing from it as Bush, Cheney and the war hawks in the inner circle try to redefine the occupation of Iraq as a strategic battle between the US and Iran.
Norman Podhoretz, a neoconservative mouthpiece who is also a senior foreign policy adviser to Rudy Giuliani, met with Bush last spring in New York.
"I urged Bush to take action against Iranian nuclear facilities and explained why I thought there was no alternative," said Podhoretz.
John Bolton, our former ambassador to the United Nations, spoke recently with members of Britain's Tory party, saying he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike against Iran. He also showed his yearning for more of the illegal, immoral behavior by the American government that has caused so much death and grief around the world.
"I think we have to consider the use of military force," Bolton said. "It should be accompanied by an effort at regime change. The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back."
Tony Teolis of Veterans for Peace, a veteran of the first Gulf War with a long family history of military service, has been courageous in speaking about the need to return to the rule of Constitutional law.
"As veterans, we believe in the Constitution as the law of the land, and we took an oath to preserve, protect and defend it," he said. "The way I see it, we have two options for going forward. We can either throw out the Constitution as our laws and start all over again, or we have to act like we mean what we say – and that goes for the president, for Congress, for soldiers and veterans and citizens."
This year our government will give $650 billion to the war machine but claims it can't afford $7 billion a year for children's health care. That policy is in direct opposition to the will of the majority, but it will remain in place.
And it's our fault because we allowed – in fact, we enabled – empire-building warmongers to seize the reins of power. It will take a massive effort on our part to dismantle their war machine before it ruins our country.
Governments rise and fall, as do the politicians and policies that make up any governmental body. The nation remains when the tide of government changes, for a nation is defined by a land and its people. Today the American people need to reclaim control over their government.
As a beginning, our current "leaders" must be held accountable for the damage they have done. They will never face criminal charges for the blood on their hands but they can be impeached and removed from power as soon as possible. We are obligated; it is a requirement of honor towards those who have died.
We can then pursue a new and different path. For every single neoconservative, neofascist or warmonger in this land, there are probably fifty people who want to live in peace and freedom under a system based on honest justice.
You, gentle reader, are just one person but there are 100 million others just like you. Collectively we still own the Republic. We can hire new managers any time we choose and chart a new course for them to steer.
For that to happen, we first must stop being afraid. We who seek to live free are the true Silent Majority; our voices have been stilled by fear for too long. Our worst nightmares have already come true and we no longer have much to lose. Our day of freedom has arrived.
As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold."
Their words were clear: "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances."
The same rights those justices were trying to protect 140 years ago are still being trampled today. The rights of the people of Kaua‘i to assemble and protest are violated by Gov. Lingle and others in her administration as she orders the Coast Guard to arrest anyone who enters hastily-drawn "emergency security zones" in Nawiliwili Harbor whenever the Superferry comes to port.
Any government promotion of corporate and military interests over the rights of free citizens is a call for resistance. The brave folks on Kaua‘i responded; across the country many other groups and individuals have begun to take direct action as well.
Representatives of 33 antiwar and environmental organizations have agreed to hold a national "intervention" this month to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq and strong action on the climate crisis. At a meeting last spring, representatives of those groups agreed to escalate their current activities. As a result of their commitment, the intervention will involve nonviolent civil disobedience.
Local solidarity actions are being planned to take place Oct. 20-22 during the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C, with the day of intervention set for Monday, October 22.
"We will hold an intervention by taking over Capitol Hill on a day that Congress is in session," according to a statement posted on the No War, No Warming website at www.nowarnowarming.org. "We will be putting our bodies on the line to say enough is enough. We will be taking positive action to make visible the cost of these failed government policies and to creatively manifest the world we know is possible."
The coalition will help local groups across the country and world to deliver their message by demonstrating outside of federal buildings, US embassies and the offices of corporate profiteers. As the organizers state, "Until our government representatives change course off the path of destruction, we have no choice but to get in the way."
Their voices are needed to counter the advice coming into the White House and the propaganda that keeps flowing from it as Bush, Cheney and the war hawks in the inner circle try to redefine the occupation of Iraq as a strategic battle between the US and Iran.
Norman Podhoretz, a neoconservative mouthpiece who is also a senior foreign policy adviser to Rudy Giuliani, met with Bush last spring in New York.
"I urged Bush to take action against Iranian nuclear facilities and explained why I thought there was no alternative," said Podhoretz.
John Bolton, our former ambassador to the United Nations, spoke recently with members of Britain's Tory party, saying he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike against Iran. He also showed his yearning for more of the illegal, immoral behavior by the American government that has caused so much death and grief around the world.
"I think we have to consider the use of military force," Bolton said. "It should be accompanied by an effort at regime change. The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back."
Tony Teolis of Veterans for Peace, a veteran of the first Gulf War with a long family history of military service, has been courageous in speaking about the need to return to the rule of Constitutional law.
"As veterans, we believe in the Constitution as the law of the land, and we took an oath to preserve, protect and defend it," he said. "The way I see it, we have two options for going forward. We can either throw out the Constitution as our laws and start all over again, or we have to act like we mean what we say – and that goes for the president, for Congress, for soldiers and veterans and citizens."
This year our government will give $650 billion to the war machine but claims it can't afford $7 billion a year for children's health care. That policy is in direct opposition to the will of the majority, but it will remain in place.
And it's our fault because we allowed – in fact, we enabled – empire-building warmongers to seize the reins of power. It will take a massive effort on our part to dismantle their war machine before it ruins our country.
Governments rise and fall, as do the politicians and policies that make up any governmental body. The nation remains when the tide of government changes, for a nation is defined by a land and its people. Today the American people need to reclaim control over their government.
As a beginning, our current "leaders" must be held accountable for the damage they have done. They will never face criminal charges for the blood on their hands but they can be impeached and removed from power as soon as possible. We are obligated; it is a requirement of honor towards those who have died.
We can then pursue a new and different path. For every single neoconservative, neofascist or warmonger in this land, there are probably fifty people who want to live in peace and freedom under a system based on honest justice.
You, gentle reader, are just one person but there are 100 million others just like you. Collectively we still own the Republic. We can hire new managers any time we choose and chart a new course for them to steer.
For that to happen, we first must stop being afraid. We who seek to live free are the true Silent Majority; our voices have been stilled by fear for too long. Our worst nightmares have already come true and we no longer have much to lose. Our day of freedom has arrived.
As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold."
5.21.2007
I'm getting a little spooked here...
Is it just me, or is there something especially ominous in the latest Presidential Directive? National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20, documents released earlier this month by the Bush administration, give the president some new powers in the event of a national emergency.
Actually, the new National Continuity Policy outlined in those documents formalizes the current reality in Washington, where the White House has exerted firm control over most branches of government. It simply defines and extends that control while giving it some legitimate-sounding cover.
According to this new policy "...any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function" would be sufficient cause for the President to assume full directorial control over every branch of the US government. In the policy language, it states: "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."
Not much attention was paid to this directive, especially in the largest media outlets. That's not too surprising, as most of the newspapers and all of the television news programs report the same stories, the kind that can be easily digested, while this story takes some explaining for most folks to understand its significance.
But I'm sure that you, gentle reader, understand the danger of centralizing power over a massive social services system. We've seen the failure of FEMA to respond well when a national disaster occurs. The agency is hampered by its own structure and bulk, along with its top-down management style that falls apart when an incompetent manager is sitting in the top chair – and in government, incompetence is obviously not career-threatening.
But that's not what has me spooked, you see... I'm probably just being paranoid, but this particular action by the President has me sniffing the wind. I smell something bad here...
The attack on New York and Washington on 9/11 caught most of America by surprise, but not everyone. There were many people in civilian and military intelligence who reported signs of an imminent attack in tthe summer months of 2001. They were ignored by the White House at the time, but they proved to be correct later on...
The "catastrophic emergency" of 9/11 resulted in a vast expansion of Federal powers. Today we have evidence of the President granting himself full control over those expanded powers. It makes me wonder, "Why now?"
Does the White House suspect another "catastrophic emergency" to happen soon? Is that why they've taken this extraordinary step that violates the separation of powers written into the US Constitution? Are they hearing from their intelligence officers again and listening to them now?
If some bad shit happens on a large scale real soon, it won't look like a coincidence to me. But it will close the lid and pound the first nail in the coffin of Freedom in America....
Actually, the new National Continuity Policy outlined in those documents formalizes the current reality in Washington, where the White House has exerted firm control over most branches of government. It simply defines and extends that control while giving it some legitimate-sounding cover.
According to this new policy "...any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function" would be sufficient cause for the President to assume full directorial control over every branch of the US government. In the policy language, it states: "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."
Not much attention was paid to this directive, especially in the largest media outlets. That's not too surprising, as most of the newspapers and all of the television news programs report the same stories, the kind that can be easily digested, while this story takes some explaining for most folks to understand its significance.
But I'm sure that you, gentle reader, understand the danger of centralizing power over a massive social services system. We've seen the failure of FEMA to respond well when a national disaster occurs. The agency is hampered by its own structure and bulk, along with its top-down management style that falls apart when an incompetent manager is sitting in the top chair – and in government, incompetence is obviously not career-threatening.
But that's not what has me spooked, you see... I'm probably just being paranoid, but this particular action by the President has me sniffing the wind. I smell something bad here...
The attack on New York and Washington on 9/11 caught most of America by surprise, but not everyone. There were many people in civilian and military intelligence who reported signs of an imminent attack in tthe summer months of 2001. They were ignored by the White House at the time, but they proved to be correct later on...
The "catastrophic emergency" of 9/11 resulted in a vast expansion of Federal powers. Today we have evidence of the President granting himself full control over those expanded powers. It makes me wonder, "Why now?"
Does the White House suspect another "catastrophic emergency" to happen soon? Is that why they've taken this extraordinary step that violates the separation of powers written into the US Constitution? Are they hearing from their intelligence officers again and listening to them now?
If some bad shit happens on a large scale real soon, it won't look like a coincidence to me. But it will close the lid and pound the first nail in the coffin of Freedom in America....
4.24.2007
Hanging On By Tooth And Nail
Paul Wolfowitz is being advised to resign his position at the World Bank by almost everyone with connections past or present to that organization. He won't quit, however, until he's forced into doing so to avoid being indicted for corruption.
Alberto Gonzales is being advised by people on both sides of the political spectrum to step down as Attorney General. He has the full support of his immediate supervisors, however, so he has no plans to walk away, even when he's being told that he can no longer be effective in his job by some of the same folks who supported his nomination. Gonzales will be sacrificed once it becomes necessary, but not until his presence threatens the ongoing attempt to impose a neoconservative dominance on the American government.
The Vice President, Dick Cheney, has less credibility than any VP since Spiro Agnew. Even Dan Quayle held a higher level of respect from the general public that Cheney does. He won't be quitting, of course – and no matter what he does, from enriching Halliburton to outing a CIA officer to accidentally shooting a friend in the face with a shotgun, he has the full support of the man who relies on him for direction, his nominal superior, George Bush. At this moment, Cheney is even testing the possibility of making a third try for President himself in 2008.
Condileeza Rice has worked in the highest levels of the government for seven years now, with little to show for her efforts except mistakes and failures. She's guilty of telling the same lies to Congress that others in this administration have uttered, but she's not going to be held accountable, ever.
And the Architect, Karl Rove, has Bush firmly attached to his hip. Rove is never going to be held accountable for his political meddling in all aspects of government policy and the process of determing the laws of the land – unless the Office of Special Counsel can remain independent long enough to complete the full-scale investigation of Rove that they have just begun...
But deputies and underlings at a variety of levels are quitting to avoid accountability or being forced to resign under indictment for their behavior while following orders. They are quickly replaced by the equivalent of a partisan clone.
This is the condition of federal goverment in America today – personal and political loyalty to "leadership" is the overriding consideration behind every act of governance. Competence and good management skills are not valued unless they are used to politicize departmental operations and policy.
The Bush legacy will be this attempt to subvert the rule of law into a rule of men. This administration has created a kind of government similar to that which inspired the American revolution 200 years ago, one in which the people have no representation in a government that imposes its will against their wishes.
But this isn't 1770, its 2007. The American people lack the quality of courage that their ancestors possessed, so a new revolution to restore their Constitutional rights simply isn't going to happen. As a result, we no longer live in an American Republic; we live instead under an Amerikan Empire.
Fortunately, for the rest of the world, the NeoConservative political movement won't be able to sustain this New World Order for much longer – but we will pay a high price here at home for allowing this takeover of our own government to happen in the first place, and for not reclaiming what is rightfully ours once the theft became apparent. It's a price we deserve to pay...
Alberto Gonzales is being advised by people on both sides of the political spectrum to step down as Attorney General. He has the full support of his immediate supervisors, however, so he has no plans to walk away, even when he's being told that he can no longer be effective in his job by some of the same folks who supported his nomination. Gonzales will be sacrificed once it becomes necessary, but not until his presence threatens the ongoing attempt to impose a neoconservative dominance on the American government.
The Vice President, Dick Cheney, has less credibility than any VP since Spiro Agnew. Even Dan Quayle held a higher level of respect from the general public that Cheney does. He won't be quitting, of course – and no matter what he does, from enriching Halliburton to outing a CIA officer to accidentally shooting a friend in the face with a shotgun, he has the full support of the man who relies on him for direction, his nominal superior, George Bush. At this moment, Cheney is even testing the possibility of making a third try for President himself in 2008.
Condileeza Rice has worked in the highest levels of the government for seven years now, with little to show for her efforts except mistakes and failures. She's guilty of telling the same lies to Congress that others in this administration have uttered, but she's not going to be held accountable, ever.
And the Architect, Karl Rove, has Bush firmly attached to his hip. Rove is never going to be held accountable for his political meddling in all aspects of government policy and the process of determing the laws of the land – unless the Office of Special Counsel can remain independent long enough to complete the full-scale investigation of Rove that they have just begun...
But deputies and underlings at a variety of levels are quitting to avoid accountability or being forced to resign under indictment for their behavior while following orders. They are quickly replaced by the equivalent of a partisan clone.
This is the condition of federal goverment in America today – personal and political loyalty to "leadership" is the overriding consideration behind every act of governance. Competence and good management skills are not valued unless they are used to politicize departmental operations and policy.
The Bush legacy will be this attempt to subvert the rule of law into a rule of men. This administration has created a kind of government similar to that which inspired the American revolution 200 years ago, one in which the people have no representation in a government that imposes its will against their wishes.
But this isn't 1770, its 2007. The American people lack the quality of courage that their ancestors possessed, so a new revolution to restore their Constitutional rights simply isn't going to happen. As a result, we no longer live in an American Republic; we live instead under an Amerikan Empire.
Fortunately, for the rest of the world, the NeoConservative political movement won't be able to sustain this New World Order for much longer – but we will pay a high price here at home for allowing this takeover of our own government to happen in the first place, and for not reclaiming what is rightfully ours once the theft became apparent. It's a price we deserve to pay...
2.11.2007
And all the King’s Men: laying down the law on Bush and his cronies
In March 2002, more than a year before the invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush interrupted a meeting between National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and three U.S. Senators, who were in her office discussing how to deal with Iraq through the United Nations.
“Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out,” he said.
According to one of the participants, the senators laughed uncomfortably at the President’s comment while Rice merely smiled. Bush then left the room, as he wasn’t part of the work being done there.
Later in the year, Vice President Dick Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy to “...go fuck yourself...” as he walked away from their argument on the floor of the Senate about Cheney’s ties to Halliburton.
While this kind of language could be seen as inappropriate, even embarrassing, coming from the two highest elected officials in the land, it isn’t a legal problem.
The Constitution allows anyone to speak freely whenever they choose. Even grandiose dreams of an American military empire aren’t impeachable acts unless the dreamers engage in illegal conduct to further their ambitions.
But Cheney and Bush have done exactly that. They have, as the articles of impeachment brought against President Richard Nixon state, “acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
They’ve broken the laws of the country and violated the Constitution in a wide variety of ways, surpassing the crimes committed during even the Nixon and Reagan years – which is no small accomplishment, considering how criminally active those administrations were.
But don’t expect the current Congress to hold Cheney or Bush accountable. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment is “off the table” because it’s “a waste of time.” But while Pelosi may be correct in that she lacks the necessary votes to impeach either man, articles of impeachment can still be filed. In fact, they already have been. Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia) filed Articles of Impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee in *******, where they will likely sit and gather dust until they become irrelevant in 2009.
Illegal, impeachable conduct by Cheney and Bush is documented in the perjury trial of Lewis Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff. Cheney told Libby in June 2003 that the President had authorized Libby to disclose the classified identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer and wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, in retaliation for Wilson blowing the whistle on Bush’s false statement that Iraq was trying to buy enriched uranium from the African nation of Niger.
Despite subsequent lies spoken by Cheny, Bush, Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell, we now know that the CIA and other sources warned the White House not to make that false claim, and that it had been taken out of an earlier Presidential speech.
After Plame’s CIA status and identity were leaked by at least four White House operatives to a half-dozen journalists, Bush told the American people that it was unlikely that the individuals who blew her cover would ever be found.
“I mean, this is a town full of people who like to leak information,” Bush said. “And I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there’s lots of senior officials. I don’t have any idea.”
Game over, Mr. President. That was a stone cold lie. Bush knew exactly who the leakers were, because he gave explicit approval to publicly disclose the identity of a CIA officer. And the extent of the deception was worse than most of us could have even imagined. According to The Washington Post, “...Martin explained how she, Libby and Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley worked late into the night writing a statement to be issued by George Tenet in 2004 in which the CIA boss would take blame for the bogus claim in Bush’s State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Africa. After ‘delicate’ talks, Tenet agreed to say the CIA ‘approved’ the claim and ‘I am responsible’ – but even that disappointed Martin, who had wanted Tenet to say that ‘we did not express any doubts about Niger.’”
Compromising the integrity of the CIA and disclosing classified information for political and personal reasons are actions that meet any standard for impeachment. Betraying an oath to uphold the Constitution and deceiving Congress also meet that standard.
But any discussion of impeachment must center on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Bush authorized a war of aggression in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter, the Nuremberg Principles and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The badly misnamed “Siege of Fallujah” along with the “Shock and Awe” bombing of the city of Baghdad are war crimes under both U.S. and international law. The facts regarding those events have been reported by only a few U.S. news sources, but the truth is that Bush authorized military actions he knew would cause the deaths of hundreds or possibly thousands of innocent civilian residents in those two cities.
And there’s more to the story. Here’s a brief timeline of Bush administration lies:
IRAQ
March 6, 2003:
George W. Bush: “I’ve not made up our mind about military action. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully.”
March 7, 2003
UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix reports that Iraq is cooperating with weapons inspectors, and that they cannot confirm any presence of WMDs. Blix asks for two more months to complete his task, as Iraq is cooperating better by the day and progress is being made.
March 8, 2003
Bush says in a speech, “We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq.” Nine days later he publicly advises weapons inspectors to leave Iraq immediately and includes the following lie in his comments: “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
July 14, 2003
Bush makes the following statement: “The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And therefore ... we decided to remove him from power.”
EASEDROPPING
December 2000
During the transition prior to taking office, Bush issues a classified executive order to authorize electronic eavesdropping on American citizens. Four years later he speaks publicly about it, saying, “Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.”
December 2001:
Bush admits that the spying program was far more extensive than the law allowed and that court orders were not always sought. He also states, “I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks,” and justifies the illegal behavior as “necessary to protect Americans.”
January 2006:
In an open session of the House, Rep. Conyers (D-Michigan) says: “There can be little doubt that we’re in a constitutional crisis that threatens the system of checks and balances that have preserved our fundamental freedoms for over 200 years. There’s no better illustration of that crisis than the fact that the President of the United States is violating our Nation’s laws by authorizing the National Security Administration to engage in warrantless surveillance of United States citizens.”
August 2006:
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor rules that the NSA wiretapping program violates the First and Fourth Amendments.
“There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,” Judge Taylor said. “The public interest is clear in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution. It was never the intent of the Framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.”
Taylor quotes a statement made by Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1967: “It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of those liberties which makes the defense of the nation worthwhile.”
TORTURE
February 2002:
Bush authorizes forms of interrogation that are considered inhumane under the Geneva Accords and the War Crimes Act, a law approved by Congress that makes the Geneva rules a corollary to federal laws. Cheney and Bush both deny that they approved the torture of suspects by describing it as “tough interrogation” and “taking the gloves off” when dealing with illegally imprisoned “detainees” in secret prisons around the world. The Supreme Court has since ruled that military tribunals used by the administration to try those “detainees” were illegal.
Excuse me, has anyone seen the legislative branch?
The only reason not to pursue the Conyers and McKinney resolutions to investigate the Vice President and President for possible impeachment is a lack of Congressional courage. But honest and full inquiries are required to preserve what little remains of the American Republic while restoring the government to its proper role of serving the will of the people.
Supporters of Cheney and Bush are claiming that those charges have already been investigated by the Senate, but the few hearings that were held on those matters were carefully restricted in their scope. The administration first tried to prevent any investigation at all, according to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who said that the pressure came directly from Cheney.
“We've abdicated our responsibilities,” Chuck Hagel, the Republican Senator from Nebraska, said recently. “That has to do with the fact that the Republican Party controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate. When that happens, you get no probing, no questioning, no oversight. If Bill Clinton had invaded Iraq and after two years he was having the same problems, do you think the Republican Congress would have put up with that? I don't think so.”
Faced with that lack of oversight by Congress, at least a dozen citizen groups have drafted their own Articles of Impeachment, citing some of the following actions as their cause:
“The Bush Administration authorized, under the doctrine of 'preemptive war' and a policy of 'regime change', a war of aggression against Iraq. It did so not in self-defense or under the authorization of the United Nations Security Council. The doctrine of ‘preventive war’ is not recognized as a justification for war under international law. The goal of 'regime change' is also not recognized as a legitimate purpose for waging war under international law.”
“The Bush Administration declared the city of Fallujah, a population of 350,000 people, a free-fire zone. As a result, the Bush Administration bombed 70 percent of the city in 2004. The Bush Administration also extensively and indiscriminately bombed Ramadi, Samara, Haditha, Alkaim, Abuhisma, Sania, Najaf, Kut, Baghdad, Musul and other Iraqi cities causing substantial civilian deaths and severe injuries.”
“The use of force beginning with the campaign of 'Shock and Awe' was not a necessary means or necessary measure to attain a lawful objective, and it was a severe example of overwhelming, indiscriminate, and disproportionate use of military force against a nation state.”
“The indiscriminate use of weapons such as cluster munitions, incendiary bombs, depleted uranium, and chemical weapons, for which it is reasonably foreseeable would have caused and have indeed caused significant civilian injuries.”
“The invasion of Iraq was the supreme war crime and the resultant occupation of Iraq is itself a war crime. The occupation consisted of additional war crimes such as intentional and targeted attacks upon civilian populations, hospitals, medical centers, residential neighborhoods, electrical power stations and water purification facilities; the wide spread use of torture against the Iraqi people, mass arrests and detention of civilians and civilian home demolitions, and the destruction and desecration of the cultural and archeological heritage of the Iraqi people.”
Investigations are being called for to examine the fact that Bush took $2.5 billion appropriated by Congress for Afghanistan and used it to improve Kuwaiti airfields and fuel pipelines that would be used in the invasion of Iraq. There are also questions regarding why four huge, permanent military bases in Iraq are still under construction and why the Pentagon is building a massive communication system that will link those bases with bases in Qatar and Afghanistan – despite the fact that Congress has prohibited further spending on those so-called “superbases.” Both of those actions violate Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution (“No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law”) and rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
David Swanson, former press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, sums up things in just a few words: “This president believes that laws passed by Congress can be overturned by the president. Only after the Supreme Court has ruled on each point of law is the president obliged to obey and properly execute. So, why have a Congress at all?”
“Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out,” he said.
According to one of the participants, the senators laughed uncomfortably at the President’s comment while Rice merely smiled. Bush then left the room, as he wasn’t part of the work being done there.
Later in the year, Vice President Dick Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy to “...go fuck yourself...” as he walked away from their argument on the floor of the Senate about Cheney’s ties to Halliburton.
While this kind of language could be seen as inappropriate, even embarrassing, coming from the two highest elected officials in the land, it isn’t a legal problem.
The Constitution allows anyone to speak freely whenever they choose. Even grandiose dreams of an American military empire aren’t impeachable acts unless the dreamers engage in illegal conduct to further their ambitions.
But Cheney and Bush have done exactly that. They have, as the articles of impeachment brought against President Richard Nixon state, “acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
They’ve broken the laws of the country and violated the Constitution in a wide variety of ways, surpassing the crimes committed during even the Nixon and Reagan years – which is no small accomplishment, considering how criminally active those administrations were.
But don’t expect the current Congress to hold Cheney or Bush accountable. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment is “off the table” because it’s “a waste of time.” But while Pelosi may be correct in that she lacks the necessary votes to impeach either man, articles of impeachment can still be filed. In fact, they already have been. Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia) filed Articles of Impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee in *******, where they will likely sit and gather dust until they become irrelevant in 2009.
Illegal, impeachable conduct by Cheney and Bush is documented in the perjury trial of Lewis Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff. Cheney told Libby in June 2003 that the President had authorized Libby to disclose the classified identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer and wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, in retaliation for Wilson blowing the whistle on Bush’s false statement that Iraq was trying to buy enriched uranium from the African nation of Niger.
Despite subsequent lies spoken by Cheny, Bush, Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell, we now know that the CIA and other sources warned the White House not to make that false claim, and that it had been taken out of an earlier Presidential speech.
After Plame’s CIA status and identity were leaked by at least four White House operatives to a half-dozen journalists, Bush told the American people that it was unlikely that the individuals who blew her cover would ever be found.
“I mean, this is a town full of people who like to leak information,” Bush said. “And I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there’s lots of senior officials. I don’t have any idea.”
Game over, Mr. President. That was a stone cold lie. Bush knew exactly who the leakers were, because he gave explicit approval to publicly disclose the identity of a CIA officer. And the extent of the deception was worse than most of us could have even imagined. According to The Washington Post, “...Martin explained how she, Libby and Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley worked late into the night writing a statement to be issued by George Tenet in 2004 in which the CIA boss would take blame for the bogus claim in Bush’s State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Africa. After ‘delicate’ talks, Tenet agreed to say the CIA ‘approved’ the claim and ‘I am responsible’ – but even that disappointed Martin, who had wanted Tenet to say that ‘we did not express any doubts about Niger.’”
Compromising the integrity of the CIA and disclosing classified information for political and personal reasons are actions that meet any standard for impeachment. Betraying an oath to uphold the Constitution and deceiving Congress also meet that standard.
But any discussion of impeachment must center on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Bush authorized a war of aggression in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter, the Nuremberg Principles and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The badly misnamed “Siege of Fallujah” along with the “Shock and Awe” bombing of the city of Baghdad are war crimes under both U.S. and international law. The facts regarding those events have been reported by only a few U.S. news sources, but the truth is that Bush authorized military actions he knew would cause the deaths of hundreds or possibly thousands of innocent civilian residents in those two cities.
And there’s more to the story. Here’s a brief timeline of Bush administration lies:
IRAQ
March 6, 2003:
George W. Bush: “I’ve not made up our mind about military action. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully.”
March 7, 2003
UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix reports that Iraq is cooperating with weapons inspectors, and that they cannot confirm any presence of WMDs. Blix asks for two more months to complete his task, as Iraq is cooperating better by the day and progress is being made.
March 8, 2003
Bush says in a speech, “We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq.” Nine days later he publicly advises weapons inspectors to leave Iraq immediately and includes the following lie in his comments: “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
July 14, 2003
Bush makes the following statement: “The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And therefore ... we decided to remove him from power.”
EASEDROPPING
December 2000
During the transition prior to taking office, Bush issues a classified executive order to authorize electronic eavesdropping on American citizens. Four years later he speaks publicly about it, saying, “Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.”
December 2001:
Bush admits that the spying program was far more extensive than the law allowed and that court orders were not always sought. He also states, “I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks,” and justifies the illegal behavior as “necessary to protect Americans.”
January 2006:
In an open session of the House, Rep. Conyers (D-Michigan) says: “There can be little doubt that we’re in a constitutional crisis that threatens the system of checks and balances that have preserved our fundamental freedoms for over 200 years. There’s no better illustration of that crisis than the fact that the President of the United States is violating our Nation’s laws by authorizing the National Security Administration to engage in warrantless surveillance of United States citizens.”
August 2006:
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor rules that the NSA wiretapping program violates the First and Fourth Amendments.
“There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,” Judge Taylor said. “The public interest is clear in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution. It was never the intent of the Framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.”
Taylor quotes a statement made by Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1967: “It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of those liberties which makes the defense of the nation worthwhile.”
TORTURE
February 2002:
Bush authorizes forms of interrogation that are considered inhumane under the Geneva Accords and the War Crimes Act, a law approved by Congress that makes the Geneva rules a corollary to federal laws. Cheney and Bush both deny that they approved the torture of suspects by describing it as “tough interrogation” and “taking the gloves off” when dealing with illegally imprisoned “detainees” in secret prisons around the world. The Supreme Court has since ruled that military tribunals used by the administration to try those “detainees” were illegal.
Excuse me, has anyone seen the legislative branch?
The only reason not to pursue the Conyers and McKinney resolutions to investigate the Vice President and President for possible impeachment is a lack of Congressional courage. But honest and full inquiries are required to preserve what little remains of the American Republic while restoring the government to its proper role of serving the will of the people.
Supporters of Cheney and Bush are claiming that those charges have already been investigated by the Senate, but the few hearings that were held on those matters were carefully restricted in their scope. The administration first tried to prevent any investigation at all, according to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who said that the pressure came directly from Cheney.
“We've abdicated our responsibilities,” Chuck Hagel, the Republican Senator from Nebraska, said recently. “That has to do with the fact that the Republican Party controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate. When that happens, you get no probing, no questioning, no oversight. If Bill Clinton had invaded Iraq and after two years he was having the same problems, do you think the Republican Congress would have put up with that? I don't think so.”
Faced with that lack of oversight by Congress, at least a dozen citizen groups have drafted their own Articles of Impeachment, citing some of the following actions as their cause:
“The Bush Administration authorized, under the doctrine of 'preemptive war' and a policy of 'regime change', a war of aggression against Iraq. It did so not in self-defense or under the authorization of the United Nations Security Council. The doctrine of ‘preventive war’ is not recognized as a justification for war under international law. The goal of 'regime change' is also not recognized as a legitimate purpose for waging war under international law.”
“The Bush Administration declared the city of Fallujah, a population of 350,000 people, a free-fire zone. As a result, the Bush Administration bombed 70 percent of the city in 2004. The Bush Administration also extensively and indiscriminately bombed Ramadi, Samara, Haditha, Alkaim, Abuhisma, Sania, Najaf, Kut, Baghdad, Musul and other Iraqi cities causing substantial civilian deaths and severe injuries.”
“The use of force beginning with the campaign of 'Shock and Awe' was not a necessary means or necessary measure to attain a lawful objective, and it was a severe example of overwhelming, indiscriminate, and disproportionate use of military force against a nation state.”
“The indiscriminate use of weapons such as cluster munitions, incendiary bombs, depleted uranium, and chemical weapons, for which it is reasonably foreseeable would have caused and have indeed caused significant civilian injuries.”
“The invasion of Iraq was the supreme war crime and the resultant occupation of Iraq is itself a war crime. The occupation consisted of additional war crimes such as intentional and targeted attacks upon civilian populations, hospitals, medical centers, residential neighborhoods, electrical power stations and water purification facilities; the wide spread use of torture against the Iraqi people, mass arrests and detention of civilians and civilian home demolitions, and the destruction and desecration of the cultural and archeological heritage of the Iraqi people.”
Investigations are being called for to examine the fact that Bush took $2.5 billion appropriated by Congress for Afghanistan and used it to improve Kuwaiti airfields and fuel pipelines that would be used in the invasion of Iraq. There are also questions regarding why four huge, permanent military bases in Iraq are still under construction and why the Pentagon is building a massive communication system that will link those bases with bases in Qatar and Afghanistan – despite the fact that Congress has prohibited further spending on those so-called “superbases.” Both of those actions violate Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution (“No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law”) and rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
David Swanson, former press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, sums up things in just a few words: “This president believes that laws passed by Congress can be overturned by the president. Only after the Supreme Court has ruled on each point of law is the president obliged to obey and properly execute. So, why have a Congress at all?”
2.06.2007
"Enduring Camps" in Iraq portend a long stay
As a New Year full of uncertainties begins, there's one thing you can be certain of – many thousands of US soldiers will still be in Iraq on New Year's Day of 2008. That sad fact will be true every year in the foreseeable future, based on activities at the four largest military bases in Iraq where construction continues at a high pace.
It doesn't matter what the President or anyone else says about those bases, what matters is the reality of concrete and steel growing into buildings on the sand. Once labeled "enduring camps" but now called "contingency operating bases", the large facilities – primarily air bases with hardened runways – are still under construction in every province in Iraq.
The Iraqi people have seen little or no reconstruction projects at work in their shattered cities, but more than one hundred billion dollars have been spent on military housing and infrastructure to serve a permanent contingent of American troops. Camp Victory North, near Baghdad International Airport, is designed to house at least 14,000 soldiers in relatively comfortable conditions. Balad Air Base north of Baghdad, the largest American base in the country, holds 20,000 troops now and is still growing. Al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province sprawls across 20 square miles of desert.
The intention to have a permanent military force strategically placed across the region in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq was part of the overall Mideast strategy of the people in this administration many years before the Bush/Cheney team took office. That policy has its roots in a Defense Policy Guidance report crafted by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in the months following the first Gulf War. The 46-page memorandum from 1992 describes itself as "definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense", who at that time was Dick Cheney.
After reading the report, West Virginia's Senator Robert Byrd offered his summary of its contents, saying, "The basic thrust of the document seems to be this: We love being the sole remaining superpower in the world and we want so much to remain that way that we are willing to put at risk the basic health of our economy and well-being of our people to do so."
The first President Bush also rejected the policy of using military superiority to create a global American Empire. He described it as "undesirable" and "unachievable" before ordering Cheney to rewrite the document.
Jump ahead to the spring of 1998 when the neoconservative movement was gearing up for a serious run at the White House. The Project For A New American Century, a self-styled advisory panel, was formed and began to publish policy papers that offered a refinement of the original Wolfowitz/Cheney policy, culminating in an extraordinary 2000 document titled "Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century."
The opening pages contain a description of America's world status that serves today as a stark reminder of how far this country has fallen since the invasion of Iraq:
"Today, the United States has an unprecedented strategic opportunity. It faces no immediate great-power challenge; it is blessed with wealthy, powerful and democratic allies in every part of the world; it is in the midst of the longest economic expansion in its history; and its political and economic principles are almost universally embraced. At no time in history has the international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals."
It refers to the 1992 Wolfowitz/Cheney report as "a blueprint for maintaining US pre-eminence" throughout the world, but then makes the strange and false claim that the report "was subsequently buried by the new (Clinton) administration".
The rest of the document, signed by more than a dozen men who were later given posts in the Bush administration, openly calls for US military and economic expansion across the planet in the name of peace.
"The presence of American forces in critical regions around the world is the visible expression of the extent of America’s status as a superpower and as the guarantor of liberty, peace and stability," according to the theorists at the PNAC.
In particular, the report speaks of the need to "...protect enduring American interests" in the Persian Gulf:
"The need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region."
What exactly are the "American interests" that the report refers to repeatedly? The answer isn't in the report itself, because that kind of naked truth is rarely written into policy documents that the public might actually read. There is one brief reference to the "resource-rich regions" of the Middle East, but no actual explanation of why it's in America's best interest to station US soldiers in the sands of Arabia.
"Rebuilding America's Defences" also included an amazingly accurate bit of prophecy, as it described the need for "a Pearl Harbor-type event" to occur before the American people would support an invasion of Iraq. When the Twin Towers of New York came crashing down in 2001, the entire neoconservative geopolitical dream instantly became a fully operative strategy.
Recent comments indicate that it's still the operative strategy as far as Cheney is concerned, and that the President still believes in the dream of an American Empire. US troops may be kept off the streets of Baghdad to avoid being human targets, but there will be US soldiers in the deserts of Arabia through 2008 and beyond, eating at Burger King and Pizza Hut outlets and playing on miniature golf courses and bowling alleys that already exist on several huge – and permanent – US military bases in Iraq.
It doesn't matter what the President or anyone else says about those bases, what matters is the reality of concrete and steel growing into buildings on the sand. Once labeled "enduring camps" but now called "contingency operating bases", the large facilities – primarily air bases with hardened runways – are still under construction in every province in Iraq.
The Iraqi people have seen little or no reconstruction projects at work in their shattered cities, but more than one hundred billion dollars have been spent on military housing and infrastructure to serve a permanent contingent of American troops. Camp Victory North, near Baghdad International Airport, is designed to house at least 14,000 soldiers in relatively comfortable conditions. Balad Air Base north of Baghdad, the largest American base in the country, holds 20,000 troops now and is still growing. Al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province sprawls across 20 square miles of desert.
The intention to have a permanent military force strategically placed across the region in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq was part of the overall Mideast strategy of the people in this administration many years before the Bush/Cheney team took office. That policy has its roots in a Defense Policy Guidance report crafted by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in the months following the first Gulf War. The 46-page memorandum from 1992 describes itself as "definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense", who at that time was Dick Cheney.
After reading the report, West Virginia's Senator Robert Byrd offered his summary of its contents, saying, "The basic thrust of the document seems to be this: We love being the sole remaining superpower in the world and we want so much to remain that way that we are willing to put at risk the basic health of our economy and well-being of our people to do so."
The first President Bush also rejected the policy of using military superiority to create a global American Empire. He described it as "undesirable" and "unachievable" before ordering Cheney to rewrite the document.
Jump ahead to the spring of 1998 when the neoconservative movement was gearing up for a serious run at the White House. The Project For A New American Century, a self-styled advisory panel, was formed and began to publish policy papers that offered a refinement of the original Wolfowitz/Cheney policy, culminating in an extraordinary 2000 document titled "Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century."
The opening pages contain a description of America's world status that serves today as a stark reminder of how far this country has fallen since the invasion of Iraq:
"Today, the United States has an unprecedented strategic opportunity. It faces no immediate great-power challenge; it is blessed with wealthy, powerful and democratic allies in every part of the world; it is in the midst of the longest economic expansion in its history; and its political and economic principles are almost universally embraced. At no time in history has the international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals."
It refers to the 1992 Wolfowitz/Cheney report as "a blueprint for maintaining US pre-eminence" throughout the world, but then makes the strange and false claim that the report "was subsequently buried by the new (Clinton) administration".
The rest of the document, signed by more than a dozen men who were later given posts in the Bush administration, openly calls for US military and economic expansion across the planet in the name of peace.
"The presence of American forces in critical regions around the world is the visible expression of the extent of America’s status as a superpower and as the guarantor of liberty, peace and stability," according to the theorists at the PNAC.
In particular, the report speaks of the need to "...protect enduring American interests" in the Persian Gulf:
"The need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region."
What exactly are the "American interests" that the report refers to repeatedly? The answer isn't in the report itself, because that kind of naked truth is rarely written into policy documents that the public might actually read. There is one brief reference to the "resource-rich regions" of the Middle East, but no actual explanation of why it's in America's best interest to station US soldiers in the sands of Arabia.
"Rebuilding America's Defences" also included an amazingly accurate bit of prophecy, as it described the need for "a Pearl Harbor-type event" to occur before the American people would support an invasion of Iraq. When the Twin Towers of New York came crashing down in 2001, the entire neoconservative geopolitical dream instantly became a fully operative strategy.
Recent comments indicate that it's still the operative strategy as far as Cheney is concerned, and that the President still believes in the dream of an American Empire. US troops may be kept off the streets of Baghdad to avoid being human targets, but there will be US soldiers in the deserts of Arabia through 2008 and beyond, eating at Burger King and Pizza Hut outlets and playing on miniature golf courses and bowling alleys that already exist on several huge – and permanent – US military bases in Iraq.
The Long War Moves to Iran
On Jan. 10, one day before his televised speech outlining a "new way forward" in Iraq, President Bush spoke to representatives of several network news organizations on the condition that he not be quoted. His purpose was to provide those individuals with more background and context than he would offer in the speech itself, and rely on them to deliver his full message to the American people.
A lot of folks who listened to the President's speech got that message quite clearly, without any help. The first clue came just 193 words into the script, when Bush read the following words from his teleprompter – "Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads."
We've heard this kind of diversion before, where a partial truth is inflated into an active threat and given a false priority. Introducing Iran into a speech about Iraq is the same tactic as introducing Iraq into speeches about Al-Qaida, a diversion that Vice President Cheney still uses today.
Three paragraphs later, the President was more direct: "Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons." And one sentence later came the phrase that is always written into Bush's speeches: " On Sept. 11, 2001..."
We've heard this kind of verbal linking before, too. It was pretty successful four years ago, when half of America came to believe that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were partners in crime. A surprising number of people still hold that false belief, despite the fact that the two men were cultural enemies with nothing but contempt for each other.
Bush's speechwriters, who are quite good, got the key elements of the new link into the same paragraph and in their proper order. First the word "Iran", then the phrase "nuclear weapons", followed by the date the towers fell in New York. The rest of the speech was very Presidential – eloquent phrases containing little or no content, aside from the no-surprise announcement that 21,500 more troops will be added to the US forces occupying Iraq.
The spokesperson for Military Families Speak Out, an organization of over 3,100 military families opposed to the war in Iraq, certainly got the escalation message. "Military families across the country were deeply saddened and outraged to hear President Bush once again engage in fear-mongering to continue and expand the war in Iraq," said Nancy Lessin, co-founder of the group, before reciting the long list of lies used by the administration to justify the original invasion.
Bush's pre-speech briefing featured the same warlike message the rest of the country heard the following day, according to television news reporters Tim Russert and Brian Williams, who shared their reaction to the briefing in their own words.
"There's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue – in the country and the world – in a very acute way," Russert said after Bush's speech.
"The President's inference was this: that an entire region would blow up from the inside, the core being Iraq, from the inside out," Williams said.
In his briefing, Bush defended the invasion of Iraq by arguing that if Saddam Hussein had remained in power, "... he and Iran would be in a race to acquire a nuclear bomb and if we didn't stop him, Iran would be going to Pakistan or to China and things would be much worse," Russert said. "That's the way he sees the world. His rationale, he believes, for going into Iraq still was one that was sound."
Chris Matthews, another news show host invited to the briefing, added to Russert's comments by saying, "And it could be the rationale for going into Iran at some point."
This not-so-new Bush/Cheney message of increased US military action in the sands of Arabia and Persia was previewed in public weeks ahead of Bush's speech. Just before Christmas, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was quoted as saying, "I think the message that we are sending to everyone, not just Iran, is that the United States is an enduring presence in this part of the world. We have been here for a long time. We will be here for a long time and everybody needs to remember that."
In his speech, Bush showed his willingness to extend military action beyond Iraq's borders, saying it was necessary to "disrupt the attacks on our forces" in Iraq.
"We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria," Bush said. "And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
The next morning Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began spreading the message by saying, "The President made very clear last night that we know Iran is engaged in activities endangering our troops... and that we're going to pursue those who may be involved in those activities."
And on that same day, US soldiers entered Iranian government offices in northern Iraq, detained six people, including embassy diplomats, and seized documents and computers. Iran, of course, condemned the raid, calling it an "extreme provocation" and Bush's speech "a declaration of war" on Iran.
In the week before Bush's speech the Treasury Department named Iran's Bank Sepah as a "proliferator of weapons of mass destruction", banned all US companies or citizens from doing business with the bank and seized all of its assets that are under American jurisdiction.
During that same week Bush replaced his two top-ranking military commanders in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey, who both had opposed sending more soldiers into Iraq or sending any across the border into Iran. Bush also demoted Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who insisted that intelligence estimates showed no near-term threat from Iran's nuclear program.
"Our assessment is that the prospects of an Iranian weapon are still a number of years off, and probably into the next decade," Negroponte said last April. "I think it's important that this issue be kept in perspective."
Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Gates have a different perspective; when they look at the Middle East, they see "The Long War". They clearly believe that US soldiers, innocent Iraqis – and now, innocent Iranians as well – must continue to sacrifice their lives in "the decisive ideological struggle of our time", as Bush's own words reveal:
"Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue, and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties."
In closing, he added a statement that many other leaders have made before: "Fellow citizens, the year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve."
If President Bush had shown patience with international efforts to deal with Saddam Hussein; if he had sacrificed the neoconservative dreams of a global American Empire: if he had kept his resolve to pursue the true terrorists of Al-Qaida – if the President had done four years ago what he asks of us all now, several thousand Americans and untold thousands of Iraqis would still be alive.
Instead we will have more war, more "preemptive military action", and more innocent victims bombed in their own homes. The President has made his decision and he cannot be stopped – because in the aftermath of 9/11, the American people traded their ownership of the Republic for a false promise of safety.
A lot of folks who listened to the President's speech got that message quite clearly, without any help. The first clue came just 193 words into the script, when Bush read the following words from his teleprompter – "Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads."
We've heard this kind of diversion before, where a partial truth is inflated into an active threat and given a false priority. Introducing Iran into a speech about Iraq is the same tactic as introducing Iraq into speeches about Al-Qaida, a diversion that Vice President Cheney still uses today.
Three paragraphs later, the President was more direct: "Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons." And one sentence later came the phrase that is always written into Bush's speeches: " On Sept. 11, 2001..."
We've heard this kind of verbal linking before, too. It was pretty successful four years ago, when half of America came to believe that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were partners in crime. A surprising number of people still hold that false belief, despite the fact that the two men were cultural enemies with nothing but contempt for each other.
Bush's speechwriters, who are quite good, got the key elements of the new link into the same paragraph and in their proper order. First the word "Iran", then the phrase "nuclear weapons", followed by the date the towers fell in New York. The rest of the speech was very Presidential – eloquent phrases containing little or no content, aside from the no-surprise announcement that 21,500 more troops will be added to the US forces occupying Iraq.
The spokesperson for Military Families Speak Out, an organization of over 3,100 military families opposed to the war in Iraq, certainly got the escalation message. "Military families across the country were deeply saddened and outraged to hear President Bush once again engage in fear-mongering to continue and expand the war in Iraq," said Nancy Lessin, co-founder of the group, before reciting the long list of lies used by the administration to justify the original invasion.
Bush's pre-speech briefing featured the same warlike message the rest of the country heard the following day, according to television news reporters Tim Russert and Brian Williams, who shared their reaction to the briefing in their own words.
"There's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue – in the country and the world – in a very acute way," Russert said after Bush's speech.
"The President's inference was this: that an entire region would blow up from the inside, the core being Iraq, from the inside out," Williams said.
In his briefing, Bush defended the invasion of Iraq by arguing that if Saddam Hussein had remained in power, "... he and Iran would be in a race to acquire a nuclear bomb and if we didn't stop him, Iran would be going to Pakistan or to China and things would be much worse," Russert said. "That's the way he sees the world. His rationale, he believes, for going into Iraq still was one that was sound."
Chris Matthews, another news show host invited to the briefing, added to Russert's comments by saying, "And it could be the rationale for going into Iran at some point."
This not-so-new Bush/Cheney message of increased US military action in the sands of Arabia and Persia was previewed in public weeks ahead of Bush's speech. Just before Christmas, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was quoted as saying, "I think the message that we are sending to everyone, not just Iran, is that the United States is an enduring presence in this part of the world. We have been here for a long time. We will be here for a long time and everybody needs to remember that."
In his speech, Bush showed his willingness to extend military action beyond Iraq's borders, saying it was necessary to "disrupt the attacks on our forces" in Iraq.
"We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria," Bush said. "And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
The next morning Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began spreading the message by saying, "The President made very clear last night that we know Iran is engaged in activities endangering our troops... and that we're going to pursue those who may be involved in those activities."
And on that same day, US soldiers entered Iranian government offices in northern Iraq, detained six people, including embassy diplomats, and seized documents and computers. Iran, of course, condemned the raid, calling it an "extreme provocation" and Bush's speech "a declaration of war" on Iran.
In the week before Bush's speech the Treasury Department named Iran's Bank Sepah as a "proliferator of weapons of mass destruction", banned all US companies or citizens from doing business with the bank and seized all of its assets that are under American jurisdiction.
During that same week Bush replaced his two top-ranking military commanders in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey, who both had opposed sending more soldiers into Iraq or sending any across the border into Iran. Bush also demoted Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who insisted that intelligence estimates showed no near-term threat from Iran's nuclear program.
"Our assessment is that the prospects of an Iranian weapon are still a number of years off, and probably into the next decade," Negroponte said last April. "I think it's important that this issue be kept in perspective."
Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Gates have a different perspective; when they look at the Middle East, they see "The Long War". They clearly believe that US soldiers, innocent Iraqis – and now, innocent Iranians as well – must continue to sacrifice their lives in "the decisive ideological struggle of our time", as Bush's own words reveal:
"Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue, and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties."
In closing, he added a statement that many other leaders have made before: "Fellow citizens, the year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve."
If President Bush had shown patience with international efforts to deal with Saddam Hussein; if he had sacrificed the neoconservative dreams of a global American Empire: if he had kept his resolve to pursue the true terrorists of Al-Qaida – if the President had done four years ago what he asks of us all now, several thousand Americans and untold thousands of Iraqis would still be alive.
Instead we will have more war, more "preemptive military action", and more innocent victims bombed in their own homes. The President has made his decision and he cannot be stopped – because in the aftermath of 9/11, the American people traded their ownership of the Republic for a false promise of safety.
9.06.2006
Fear Not
From where I sit, here in the woods of Oregon, it's looking pretty ugly out across the country towards the South and East.
The weather is brutal and the political climate reeks of decay.
People are choosing sides once again, as another round of Us vs Them gets ready to rumble.
Believers in Doomsday feel the Rapture of Armageddon approaching, getting anxious as the fulfillment of both their deepest fear and greatest wish is at hand.
The concept of government has been eroded, fundamentally altered beyond repair, perhaps, done with deliberate intent.
Idol-worshipping false Christian "leaders" sanction the killing of innocents.
American bombs and rockets are used around the world, by Americans or by others, to kill more innocents.
The Truth is being told in a few places, but few are listening.
Lies are being repeated everywhere and accepted by too many as if true.
Fear still rules the lives of far too many, as is still used as a Control Mechanism by too many.
Yet I can turn away from all of that, for a while, out here in the coastal mountains where few care to live. There's little sign of the world whose pictures are carried to me through the cable across the road. Here the timelessness of the natural world lives on in secret places, seldom visited, carefully preserved...
In those places, Hope lives. Like water from a spring, it flows from the Earth, bearing the historical record that reminds us that all things change.
My wish for all of you who read this is for you to find that place for yourself where the Earth's story can be heard, where humanity's role in that history can be understood, and where your own place in the story resides. For Hope will be needed; Faith will be your best defense against the shitstorm that human ignorance has spawned.
The End is not at hand, not for Earth – and not for human kind, either. The end comes to each of us in Time, but collectively we have a future that is yet to unfold. We can influence that unfolding process, we cannot help but to influence it, with the choices we make each day.
I choose Hope over Fear. I chose Faith over Religion. I choose acceptance over aggression. I choose reason over belief.
Those choices work for me. More people every day are coming to the point where they must choose, and many choose well. Not many are in business or government, but they don't need to be - because the changes that are coming will come from outside, from those places of that allow us to be reawakened to the Truth of who and what we are.
Always go forward, always be strong when facing the illusion of Fear. You cannot be defeated, you cannot be harmed, you canot lose unless you surrender to the illusion.
Tabu Soro. Never Surrender.
The weather is brutal and the political climate reeks of decay.
People are choosing sides once again, as another round of Us vs Them gets ready to rumble.
Believers in Doomsday feel the Rapture of Armageddon approaching, getting anxious as the fulfillment of both their deepest fear and greatest wish is at hand.
The concept of government has been eroded, fundamentally altered beyond repair, perhaps, done with deliberate intent.
Idol-worshipping false Christian "leaders" sanction the killing of innocents.
American bombs and rockets are used around the world, by Americans or by others, to kill more innocents.
The Truth is being told in a few places, but few are listening.
Lies are being repeated everywhere and accepted by too many as if true.
Fear still rules the lives of far too many, as is still used as a Control Mechanism by too many.
Yet I can turn away from all of that, for a while, out here in the coastal mountains where few care to live. There's little sign of the world whose pictures are carried to me through the cable across the road. Here the timelessness of the natural world lives on in secret places, seldom visited, carefully preserved...
In those places, Hope lives. Like water from a spring, it flows from the Earth, bearing the historical record that reminds us that all things change.
My wish for all of you who read this is for you to find that place for yourself where the Earth's story can be heard, where humanity's role in that history can be understood, and where your own place in the story resides. For Hope will be needed; Faith will be your best defense against the shitstorm that human ignorance has spawned.
The End is not at hand, not for Earth – and not for human kind, either. The end comes to each of us in Time, but collectively we have a future that is yet to unfold. We can influence that unfolding process, we cannot help but to influence it, with the choices we make each day.
I choose Hope over Fear. I chose Faith over Religion. I choose acceptance over aggression. I choose reason over belief.
Those choices work for me. More people every day are coming to the point where they must choose, and many choose well. Not many are in business or government, but they don't need to be - because the changes that are coming will come from outside, from those places of that allow us to be reawakened to the Truth of who and what we are.
Always go forward, always be strong when facing the illusion of Fear. You cannot be defeated, you cannot be harmed, you canot lose unless you surrender to the illusion.
Tabu Soro. Never Surrender.
7.27.2006
Back from the heart
I've been away for a bit. I've been immersed in the heart of America, filling in as a freelance relief editor for the West Lane news, a weekly newspaper published in the small town of Veneta, Oregon. The paper has more than four decades of history behind it, with huge binder files of past editions – pure treasure to a history freak like me.
I've just been watching the current world news, not writing about events or even talking about them much. I've been tightly focused on covering the local news, which is based in a reality that is impacted by world politics, but isn't connected to those events in any other way – except when a local soldier dies in the ongoing occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But my temporary gig in small town America, where the true heart of nation lives on, will end next week and I came back into focus on the world stage again – just in time to hear Newt Gingrich and Bill Bennett claim on national tv that we are already well into World War III.
Fuck that, Newt and Bill. Go sell your fear and lies elsewhere, there's no market for them at this house.
We might be killed by terrorists tomorrow, sure – anything can happen. Our house might get hit be a meteor at any minute, too. Both events are on the same magnitude of likelihood – nil, essentially zero, so low that it would be foolish to worry about it. We're all gonna die of something, and probably sooner than we think.
I'm far more worried about the people, like Bill and Newt, Dick and George, Condi and Karl and Scooter, who believe that the President must be the most powerful man in the world, and must not be restrained by the American people, or by American law or international law, from doing whatever he wants – in the name of freedom. If that includes sanctioning murder and torture, if that includes poisoning the earth and destroying the life-sustaining infrastructure of towns, cities and even whole regions – then so be it. If it's acceptable to George and Dick, then We the People should accept it, too – in the name of security.
Well, fuck that too, I say to all of you believers in the Great White Father on the Potomac. The time of military power and the Quest for Empire is over. It ended when weaponry advanced enough to allow small groups of people to inflict big damage to a standing army. Global empire will only be possible when small arms and munitions are eliminated, and that will never happen.
If there is a surplus of anything on this planet, it's effective weaponry. We've gots tons of those things just lying about, apparently, as even the poorest of militias anywhere in the world seem well-armed. They've generally got more guns than food or money, at least. And bullets, too – one gun may serve a warrior for the cause during several years of battle, but each bullet or rocket needs replacing the next day.
That never seems to be a problem...
So the empire builders are doomed to fail, in the long run – which won't be much longer, it seems. But a lot of people are gonna get hurt before they surrender their dream of Empire that is a living nightmare for the rest of the world.
The real problem for we who watch as power brokers and fear mongers carve up our planet, is that it's our collective fault for letting it happen...
So we should put a stop to it. We can, you know. We've done it before here in America, and it's been done before in other places. A state of relatively peaceful coexistance of humanity never seems to last for long, but it can be achieved once again, if only for a while.
And we need to be in that state to deal with what Mother Nature is about to bring us...
I've just been watching the current world news, not writing about events or even talking about them much. I've been tightly focused on covering the local news, which is based in a reality that is impacted by world politics, but isn't connected to those events in any other way – except when a local soldier dies in the ongoing occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But my temporary gig in small town America, where the true heart of nation lives on, will end next week and I came back into focus on the world stage again – just in time to hear Newt Gingrich and Bill Bennett claim on national tv that we are already well into World War III.
Fuck that, Newt and Bill. Go sell your fear and lies elsewhere, there's no market for them at this house.
We might be killed by terrorists tomorrow, sure – anything can happen. Our house might get hit be a meteor at any minute, too. Both events are on the same magnitude of likelihood – nil, essentially zero, so low that it would be foolish to worry about it. We're all gonna die of something, and probably sooner than we think.
I'm far more worried about the people, like Bill and Newt, Dick and George, Condi and Karl and Scooter, who believe that the President must be the most powerful man in the world, and must not be restrained by the American people, or by American law or international law, from doing whatever he wants – in the name of freedom. If that includes sanctioning murder and torture, if that includes poisoning the earth and destroying the life-sustaining infrastructure of towns, cities and even whole regions – then so be it. If it's acceptable to George and Dick, then We the People should accept it, too – in the name of security.
Well, fuck that too, I say to all of you believers in the Great White Father on the Potomac. The time of military power and the Quest for Empire is over. It ended when weaponry advanced enough to allow small groups of people to inflict big damage to a standing army. Global empire will only be possible when small arms and munitions are eliminated, and that will never happen.
If there is a surplus of anything on this planet, it's effective weaponry. We've gots tons of those things just lying about, apparently, as even the poorest of militias anywhere in the world seem well-armed. They've generally got more guns than food or money, at least. And bullets, too – one gun may serve a warrior for the cause during several years of battle, but each bullet or rocket needs replacing the next day.
That never seems to be a problem...
So the empire builders are doomed to fail, in the long run – which won't be much longer, it seems. But a lot of people are gonna get hurt before they surrender their dream of Empire that is a living nightmare for the rest of the world.
The real problem for we who watch as power brokers and fear mongers carve up our planet, is that it's our collective fault for letting it happen...
So we should put a stop to it. We can, you know. We've done it before here in America, and it's been done before in other places. A state of relatively peaceful coexistance of humanity never seems to last for long, but it can be achieved once again, if only for a while.
And we need to be in that state to deal with what Mother Nature is about to bring us...
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