Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
Listening to Democracy Now
by Thomas Boothe and Danielle Follett A small group of activists in the rural northeastern corner of Tennessee in the United States persuaded their local public radio station, WETS, to start broadcasting the progressive news-hour Democracy Now two years ago.
This pocket of Appalachia would seem to be unwelcoming territory for such an endeavour, since the economically depressed farming and mining region votes overwhelmingly Republican -- by as much as 75% in the last presidential election -- and is, according to Joseph Fitsanakis, organiser of Democracy Now Tri-Cities (DNTC), “the kind of place where 30 years ago you couldn’t really do anything politically unless you were a Klan member.”
Hillary's Real MLK Problem
by Barbara Ehrenreich At first I took it as another -- yawn -- white rip-off of black culture and creativity: the Rolling Stones appropriating the Bo Diddley beat, Bo Derek sporting corn rows, and now Hillary giving Lyndon Baines Johnson credit for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
If you had to give this honor to a white guy, LBJ was an odd choice, since he'd spent the 1964 Democratic convention scheming to prevent the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party from taking any Dixiecrat seats.
By Clinton's standards, maybe Richard Nixon should be credited with the legalization of abortion in 1972.
Bringing Back Democracy
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
In a campaign where there has been much talk about change, bringing new people into the process, and high voter turnout (at least on the Democratic side), the recent lawsuit in Nevada attempting to bar nine at-large districts created so that shift-workers could vote was indeed a low moment.
Fortunately, a District judge made the right decision, protecting voters and rejecting a transparent effort to suppress turnout for Barack Obama.
Shouldn't Democrats be on the side of getting more voters to the polls, not turning them away? Leave that to the Republicans.
Amnesia at the Cineplex
by Lakshmi Chaudhry "For all the pain and loss that The Kite Runner depicts, it is still a film of exhilarating, redemptive humanity, conveying an enduring sense of hope," gushed Ann Hornaday in her Washington Post review of the cinematic adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's literary blockbuster.
While other movie critics were less enthusiastic, almost all emphasized the "universal" appeal of a story of childhood friendship, betrayal and atonement, set against the backdrop of three decades of recent Afghan history.
by Andre Vltchek During the Cold War, Eastern block countries used to be bombarded by radio broadcasts glorifying free-market economic system and consumerism.
The message from the Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and BBC World Service had been clear:
"no matter where, capitalism brings home great services, variety of goods, consumer protection, lower prices and desire to serve the clients. In short: "customer is always king and he is always right!"
Propaganda broadcasts forgot to mention that there is Indonesia - a country almost as populous as the Soviet Union before its decomposition - a country staunchly "pro-market" (and "against the people") where customers have to pay more money for goods and services than in the West, while often receiving worse service than in PRC or Cuba.
Hucksters know more and something different from what they’re telling their potential buyers. Hucksters do great infomercials. Don King is a huckster. Managers for professional wrestlers, certain evangelical preachers, (Swaggart, Hagee, Haggard) – are all hucksters. They sell hollow products by agitating false needs and cruelly exploiting genuine ones.
Government is an attractive haven for hucksters. Rumsfeld was a government huckster. He had an impatient, incredulous look when someone challenged his product. His exasperated sighs would say, you have no idea how good for you what I’m selling you is, and that’s just too bad – for you.
Condoleezza Rice furrows her brow and is amused by a questioner’s lack of edification as they cast doubt on her product. You can almost hear the sympathetic, “tsk, tsk, tsk” beneath her patronizing quizzical look.
Rush Limbaugh yells and pops blood vessels as he makes a case for whatever the administration is making a case for. He’s hyper huckster empowered by his lack of respect for the people to whom he’s pitching. His contempt for them creates a special intimacy – a bond between consumer/victim and huckster.
Pere Jean-Juste Comes Home
by Bill Quigley Pere Gerard Jean-Juste, an outspoken Haitian voice for human rights, economic justice and democracy, returned to Haiti last weekend for the first time since being hustled out of a prison cell by heavily armed guards and put on a waiting plane to Miami in January of 2006.
Pere Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest, had spent nearly six months in a series of Haitian prisons for refusing to stop his public criticisms of human rights abuses by the coup government which overthrew elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide. Once in Miami, Father Jean-Juste was immediately hospitalized for treatment of leukemia by Dr. Paul Farmer, a long-time friend, who had secretly performed a biopsy on Jean-Juste in his prison cell.
Federal Budget 2008: Bracing for downturn?
by CBC News
Sixteen years of almost uninterrupted job growth has produced an embarrassment of riches in Canada's Employment Insurance account — a surplus, in fact, of $54 billion at current reckoning.
But with economic storm clouds gathering south of the border, the Conservative government looks to be preparing for some turbulence ahead. It is creating a special cushion of $2 billion in a side account to help pay for any quick surge in payouts caused by an economic downturn.
Prepare for hard economic times: Harper
by CBC News Canadians cannot afford to be complacent about the economy because recent problems in the financial markets won't be disappearing any time soon, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told members of his caucus on Friday.
Harper, speaking in Ottawa on the second anniversary of his election, said that even though the Canadian economy is still strong, jobs are threatened in traditional industries and Canadian families are coping with budget strains.
"Recent volatility in financial markets, emanating mostly from the U.S., may be with us for some time to come," Harper said.
No Science in the PM’s Ear: Canada Dismisses National Science Adviser at its Peril
by Bob McDonald (host of the CBC science radio program Quirks & Quarks.) The one scientist in this country who had direct access to the Prime Minister is being dismissed. Canada’s National Science Adviser, Dr. Arthur Carty, was appointed by former Prime Minister Paul Martin to provide expert advice on the government’s role in matters of science and science policy.
Call Wednesday to Close the School of the Americas Half-Hour for Haiti Congress Votes this Week to Cut Funding to the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC. SOA Watch has received confirmation that this week Congress will vote on an amendment to close the School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/ WHINSEC). Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts will introduce an amendment to the Foreign Operations appropriations bill to cut funding for the school!
Please take the time to call the DC office of your Representative through the Capitol Hill Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Ask to speak with the foreign affairs legislative assistant.
by Half-Hour for Haiti Last Friday was the two-month anniversary of the abduction of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.
Lovinsky has been one of Haiti’s most persistent and effective human rights activists in Haiti for almost 20 years. He founded several organizations, including the September 30th Foundation, which has maintained weekly vigils for justice in Haiti for over a decade, through hurricanes, coup d’états and economic privation.
For more information about Lovinsky, his disappearance, and taking action to save Lovinsky's life, see our website, www.HaitiJustice.org.
Credit where it's due; I'm occasionally pleasantly shocked to find sensible analysis printed in Victoria's sole daily, The Times-Colonist. The T-C is an organ of the CanWest Global media empire of the Asper family, until recently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The late patriarch, Israel "Izzy" Asper once boasted, his chain would NEVER publish criticism of Israeli government policies. Were the Asper's media interests confined, it would be of little matter, but true to Izzy's word, the largest news corporation in Canada is today more propagandist than credible news source, and not only in its "coverage" of the cultural and literal genocide being conducted against Palestine.
Harper Dodging Investigation with Election Call?
by C. L. Cook
After the 2006 Canadian election, the head of the
emerging minority government, prime minister Stephen Harper did
something unprecedented. Bucking the tradition begun in England's
parliamentary democracy and adopted at Canada's confederation in 1867,
Harper changed the way elections are called, dictating Canada would now
move to a system of fixed election dates similar to that used in the
republic of the United States of America.
Until then, calling an
election was at the discretion of the prime minister, within a maximum
five year term. That is, the election call is the PM's prerogative in
the case of a majority government, wherein the ruling party has a clear
majority of seats and votes in the House of Commons, something Harper
has yet to experience; or, in the case of Harper's minority Conservatives a vote of
no, or non-confidence can force an election should the House reject
the government's continuance.
Stephen Harper tried mightily in 2008 to force just such a vote;
tabling legislation that clearly went against the policy grain of the
official opposition Liberals. Harper even took to the airwaves,
taunting Liberal leader, Stephane Dion and daring him to bring down the
government. Dion refused to take the bait.
Why Harper would want to
bring down his own government, if he really did want it, is an open
question.
Update: A forensic audio expert reports the tapes corroborating the late MP Chuck Cadman's contention Stephen Harper's Conservatives made an improper overture to the independent for his vote in a non-confidence vote against the then governing Liberal party undoctored.
15. Harper on Hold (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Chris Cook
Three Strikes and Stephen Harper is Out
by C. L. Cook
Though there are myriad reasons Canadians should have a quick end to the public service career of Mr. Harper, - his personality, arrogant disregard of both Canadian tradition and sensibilities, and his too cozy relationship with the Republican regime to the south leap immediately to mind - three recent “initiatives” are enough to sink the remnant Conservative Party, and in so doing turn back too the latest and greatest threat to her sovereign survival Canada has faced yet in four centuries of resistance to American expansionist designs.
Harper Promises Most Divisive Election in Canadian History
by C. L. Cook
Canada's minority government prime minister, Stephen Harper has threatened a Fall election saying the current government was not "tenable." It's an unsurprising move to any who have watched Harper hit the stump over the summer, or to those receiving flyers in the mail emblazened with what will be one of Harper's key issues, 'Youth Crime.'
Taking a cue from the Karl Rove school of political manipulation, Harper's hit squad, the shadowy Conservative Research Group, is behind the mass mailings, already controversial for their use of parliamentarian's access to free postage from Canada Post.
State news organ, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation simplify the issue below.
Heresay Okay for Khawaja: Another Red Letter Day for Canadian Justice
by C. L. Cook The case of accused Canadian, Momin Khawaja, an alleged terrorist wannabe, broke again new ground in Canadian jurisprudence in Ottawa last week (July 25, 2008) when Justice Douglas Rutherford deferred ruling on the admissibility of "evidence" in the case defence lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon argued was heresay.
Justice Rutherford allowed instead the testimony of Mohammed Junaid Babar, convicted in Britain as an operative of al-Qaida, (the shadowy organization long claimed to have masterminded the 9/11 and other terrorist attacks), and current agent for various government legal proceedings against Muslims held in Britain and elsewhere alleged to have ties to Osama bin Laden's reputed network. Rutherford ruled Babar's testimony would remain "in play" for the time being.
Hillier: The General Does Not Debate
by C. L. Cook Canada's Numero Uno military man, shoot from the lip Rick Hillier mounted a pre-emptive attack on those parliamentarians with the temerity to voice doubt over the course the country has taken in Afghanistan.
In fact Hillier says those expressions are in essence aiding the "Taliban" and could be proving the impetus for the spate of suicide attacks mounted against Canadian soldiers over the last several weeks.
Hurricane Felix Strengthens to Category 5 CBC News Hurricane Felix in the Caribbean was upgraded Sunday night to a Category 5 storm as it plowed its way towards Central America, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
As Sunday progressed, Felix was upgraded to a Category 5 storm from a Category 2 storm. The hurricane centre changed to a higher level on a scale of one to five as winds increased to 270 kilometres per hour from 160 km/h.
Hackers Take Aim at Voices of Dissent
by Chris Floyd As many of you have surely noticed, Empire Burlesque has been under sustained attack by hackers for the past several weeks, with occasional slowdowns or cut-offs in service, and viral infections. What we are seeing is a very serious, very concentrated effort to cripple the site, make it toxic and bring it down -- to shut us up, in other words. The same kind of attacks are being directed at our associated site, Atlantic Free Press, as well. These are not just hacker pranks; the attacks are almost certainly politically motivated: a deliberate attempt to destroy two platforms which offer news and opinions that some powerful entities -- or their bootlicking wannabes -- don't like.
We just want you to know that we will not be silenced by these cowardly attacks.
Two years ago, a group of Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians -- including women and children cowering in their own homes -- in a revenge rampage in Haditha. Once the story emerged from the usual layers of lies and cover-up, the atrocity flared briefly on the public stage and eight of the Marines and their officers were charged "with murder or failing to investigate an apparent war crime," as the Post reports.
But public attention moved swiftly on, and over the past few months, the Pentagon's "military justice" system has quietly reduced or dropped charges against most of the men. Yesterday's announcement signaled the final climb-down in the case, leaving only a single Marine, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, facing a charge of voluntary manslaughter, and lesser charges against one other enlisted man and two officers.
People often write to Empire Burlesque in search of an answer to one of the great conundrums of these modern times, namely: "Why are the American people such suckers? How could they -- or, to be more exact, how could a significant number of them -- ever have fallen for the transparent bullshit of such third-rate goobers as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all the rest? How could the American people be so ignorant and misinformed about what goes on in the world? How can they be so ignorant and misinformed of their own history, of the dirty deals done in their names for years on end? How can this be?"
Good folk, look no further, for we do indeed have the answer here. If you want to know precisely how the American people are kept deliberately ignorant, simply click on the link to this story in the nation's "newspaper of record," the journal which sets the standard for and largely determines the news agenda of the American press: The Defiant Despot Oppressed Iraq for More than 30 Years. There, in the stately pages of The New York Times, you will find some 5,200 words written by Neil MacFar quhar detailing the rise, reign and fall of the Iraqi dictator. You will thrill to the usual gory details of torture, murder and savagery; you will tut at the violent barbarism of the rural riff-raff who got so far above his raising; you will snarl with condemnation at the mad aggressor who launched "continual wars" in the region, as the diligent scribe informs us.
[The actual total number of wars launched by Saddam Hussein was, er, two: the same number launched by George W. Bush -- if, that is, you don't count the never-ending, ever-expanding, great googily-moogily "Global War on Terror and Extremists and Radicals," in which case, Bush's "continual wars" far exceed the two conflicts instigated by Saddam -- one of which was overtly approved by Reagan Administration, the other tacitly approved by the Bush I administration.]
Stubborn Independence: Hanging on at the End of the Internet Holocene
by Chris Floyd
As you may know, Empire Burlesque was hit by a major hack last night. The culprits were the usual broken, twisted spirits, a gang of what seem to be some kind of Turkish militarists -- at least that's their cover. Their own postings to hacker bulletin boards indicate their intent in wrecking EB is "political." Whether they are operating on their own, or are just thugs for hire, whoring for other entities who might not wish to leave fingerprints, I can't say.
Whatever their ultimate provenance, their intention is clear: to shut down political viewpoints they don't like and impose their own, by force. Thus they are the perfect little Terror War minions of the Bush-bin Laden Imperium, having fully imbibed the ethos of this corrupted age.
Kilgore Trout Has Left the Building: Kurt Vonnegut Dead
by Chris Floyd
Sad news comes today of Kurt Vonnegut's death. Like so many people, I discovered his books when I was young -- back in the olden days, when his best-known novels were still being written -- and was much taken with his dark deadpan wit, his vigorous humanism and the flatland Midwest voice of his prose, so much in the American grain. In his prime, Vonnegut was often compared to Mark Twain -- another great favorite and formative figure in my autodidactic meanderings -- and he was certainly worthy of the comparison, not only for his wit and literary skill (which, like Twain's, was often masked by the surface simplicity of his tales), but also for the fierce outrage he voiced against the poltroons in power, the bloody-handed empire builders and backroom grease-grabbers dripping with public piety. Camus' description of Dr. Reiux in The Plague is also a perfect encapsulation of Vonnegut's work:
"The language he used was that of a man who was sick and tired of the world he lived in -- though he had much liking for his fellow man -- and had resolved, for his part, to have no truck with injustice and compromise with the truth."
You would think that
by now we would have "supp'd full with horrors" on the New York Times
op-ed pages. What could be worse than the atrocities that have filled
those gray columns in the past few years,
the loud brays for war, the convoluted excuses for presidential
tyranny, the steady murmur of chin-stroking bullshit meant to comfort
the comfortable elite and confirm them -- at all times, at any cost --
in their well-wadded self-righteousness? Surely, you would think, we
have seen the worst.
If
this was your thought, then alas, alas, alack the day, you were
bitterly mistaken, my friend. Comes now before us the portly,
fur-lipped figure of Thomas Friedman, Esq., who today has penned what
must be the most morally hideous and deeply racist column ever to
appear in those rarefied journalistic precincts: "Ten Months or Ten Years."
It
seems that this very enthusiastic promoter of the unprovoked war of
aggression against Iraq - which he proudly called "a war of choice,"
apparently not realizing that he was parroting the propagandists of the
Nazi regime that killed millions of his ethnic kindred -- has now
discovered that Iraqi Arabs are hopeless, worthless barbarians, broken
by "1,000 years of Arab-Muslim authoritarianism" and can only be held
together by an "iron fist." (He got all this from reading a new book,
apparently. Well, a little literacy, like a little learning, is a
dangerous thing, I reckon -- and as anyone who has ever exposed
themselves to the dull, flat buzz of Friedman's prose can attest, his
literacy is little indeed.)
In
fact, the only thing America did wrong in its "effort to bring
progressive politics or democracy to this region" was not coming down
hard enough on this darky riff-raff: "Had we properly occupied the
country, and begun political therapy, it is possible an American iron
fist could have held Iraq together long enough to put it on a new
course. But instead we created a vacuum by not deploying enough
troops." Instead, we took it easy on them -- I mean, Jesus H. Jiminy
Cricket Walker Christ, we only killed 600,000 of them; what kind of
pussyfooting around is that? -- and look what happened. A Sunni
insurgency sprang up, whose only goal -- whose ONLY goal, mind you --
was to make America look bad: "America must fail in its effort to bring
progressive, etc., etc. America must fail – no matter how many Iraqis
have to be killed, America must fail." What was their "only one goal"
again, Tom? Oh yeah: America must fail. Not a single ding-dang one of
them ornery critters ever had any other motive whatsoever to take up
arms against an army of foreigners who had invaded and occupied their
country.
Trojan Horse: How Israeli Backdoor Technology Penetrated the US Government's Telecom System and Compromised National Security
by Christopher Ketcham
Since the late 1990s, federal agents have reported systemic communications security breaches at the Department of Justice, FBI, DEA, the State Department, and the White House.
Several of the alleged breaches, these agents say, can be traced to two hi-tech communications companies, Verint Inc. (formerly Comverse Infosys), and Amdocs Ltd., that respectively provide major wiretap and phone billing/record-keeping software contracts for the US government.Together, Verint and Amdocs form part of the backbone of the government's domestic intelligence surveillance technology.
Both companies are based in Israel – having arisen to prominence from that country's cornering of the information technology market – and are heavily funded by the Israeli government, with connections to the Israeli military and Israeli intelligence (both companies have a long history of board memberships dominated by current and former Israeli military and intelligence officers).
So, BBC’s Panorama has cracked the Litvinenko case. As the opening titles quickly tell: it was Putin, in the Pine Bar, with the teacup.
Moreover, Panorama ‘reveals’ there were multiple attempts to kill Litvinenko. Hmmm. Did they keep making him cups of tea he didn’t drink? What happened to all the other ‘dirty’ teacups? Why do Russians spill tea everywhere they go?
It’s nonsense of course and even any schoolboy science concerning Polonium 210 is studiously avoided. All you need to know, as far as Panorama is concerned, is Britain good, Russia bad. And if it takes some of the wobbliest witnesses ever assembled in a TV documentary, so be it.
Let’s line up the suspects appearing for the BBC. Mario Scaramella, now in jail for a conspiracy of lies against Italy’s Prime Minister. A dodgy ‘re-creation’ of a six year old telephone call from Trepashkin, also in jail and incommunicado. Trofimov, dead and unverifiable for many years. An anonymous Russian who can’t be filmed or named, the ‘Godfather’ Boris Beresovsky and Marina Litvinenko - who by her own admission never knew what her husband did all day. Not forgetting Litvinenko, the traitor and conspiracy theorist whose raving claims include that Putin masterminded the 7/7 bombings and is a paedophile.
Would you object to any of these witnesses in a court of law? Too damn right you would, but this is just a Panorama of propaganda. Actually by no means a first for the programme.
How quickly the news frame changes.
Discussions of the bailout have given way to speculation about the
Palin-Biden debate or NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to run for
a third term.
Even a good old apocalyptic crisis only gets its 15
seconds of fame these days. Today, the House votes again.
Home of the Brave?
by Dave Lindorff Several years ago, I warned that as the Bush/Cheney administration sought to reduce politically problematic casualty rates in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would resort to increased use of air attacks to combat the growing insurgency in Iraq and the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
I also predicted that the result of this switch in tactics would lead to higher civilian casualties in those two countries.
by David Schreck It will be February before we know how much the
Canada Pension Plan recently lost on the stock market, but a fair guess
is $25 billion disappeared between the end of the first quarter on June
30th and October 8th.
Canadian Prime Minister and Calgary School-trained economist advises: "Buy stock."
Of course, CPP's third
quarter doesn't end until December 31st, so it will be February before
we see a report to the end of the third quarter. We can all hope that
the index is above 10,056 by then, but it could be even lower.
What
is happening to the CPP is also happening to pension plans, RRSPs,
RRIPs and investment accounts. That is why it is irresponsible for
Prime Minister Harper to dismiss the stock market as something that
always goes up and down, and to say that it probably presents good
buying opportunities today. Mr. Harper isn't showing the kind of
empathy that Canadians expect and deserve.
Heroes, Sung and Unsung
by David Swanson Last night in a bar in Austin, Texas, we held a family reunion for the peace movement. The occasion was the presentation of the Camp Casey Peace Awards. Much of the evening was devoted to the incredibly powerful antiwar music of Carolyn Wonderland, Emma's Revolution, Hank Woji and Jesse Dyen, each of whom had a crowd on their feet and moving as well as sitting and feeling like crying. Carolyn sang Willie Nelson's "What Happened to Peace on Earth" beautifully, with Willie and his wife Annie sitting ten feet away and cheering.
The Nelsons were given an award for all the work they've done to promote peace and all the help they've given to Camp Casey. Cindy Sheehan presented the award. Mimi Kennedy presented an award to the amazing Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink. Jim Hightower gave an award to Ann Wright and Veterans for Peace, without whom I don't think we'd have a peace movement or a Camp Casey. Ann Wright presented an award to the Crawford Peace House and its leaders, who brought peace activism to Crawford before Camp Casey and made Camp Casey work when it arrived. And Cindy gave an award to the young creator of online peace videos, Ava Lowery. It would be hard to imagine a more deserving bunch.
But appreciation was handed out also to many others in the room, which was filled with a mix of Texans and peace activists from around the country.
32. Honesty in Iraq (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : David Swanson
By David Swanson
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
recently published an editorial that said of Bush: "His pronouncements now bear
no resemblance to reality." Now? Oh, never mind.
Marc
Sandalow, the Washington Bureau Chief for the San Francisco Chronicle, recently
wrote: "There is mounting evidence that the world of public Bush-speak -- from
his vigorous support for al-Maliki and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to his
rejection of direct diplomacy with Syria and Iran -- bears
little relation to what goes on behind the scenes." Mounting? Forget it.
Robert Fisk recently asked about
George W. Bush: "How does he do it? How does he
persuade himself - as he apparently did in Amman
yesterday - that the United
States will stay in Iraq 'until the
job is complete'?" Persuade
himself? I give
up.
Frank
Rich writes that Bush "is completely untethered from reality. It's not that he
can't handle the truth about Iraq. He doesn't know what the truth
is." He doesn't? Look at a couple of well-known Bush
quotes again:
"What's the difference? The possibility that [Saddam] could
acquire weapons, if he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger." (Bush on why he lied about weapons of
mass destruction.)
"I
didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a
campaign. And so the only way to
answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that
answer." (Bush on why he lied about
keeping Rumsfeld on.)
Congress Members of both parties, not to mention the White House, have already forgotten the anti-war and anti-Bush vote of November 7th (the Republicans lost one more seat in a runoff on Wednesday) and are dreaming of big Christmas presents for war profiteers. Since we Americans apparently have no other need for any money, and since we enjoy paying our taxes so much, they're planning to approve another $160 billion in "emergency" (off the books) cash for the war early next year. That's billion with a B. This will be on top of the $70 billion they provided in October. I hate to play Scrooge here, but ain't that a bit much?
The strange thing is that Congress doesn't even know where the money goes. The Democrats have announced plans to try to find out, but Speaker Designate Nancy Pelosi has simultaneously announced that the money will be approved. It's as if she were announcing that the Democrats would do investigations of Bush's crimes, but that they would not impeach him no matter what they found. Oh wait, I forgot: she has announced that too. There must be something I'm just not understanding about the way Washington works today.
Pelosi and other Democrats have tried to explain it. They say they will commit to approving the additional money in order to "support the troops." But they must be talking about the handpicked pro-Bush troops Sean Hannity recently pretended to have "organically" stumbled upon in Iraq (the ones who had all by sheer coincidence brought along cameras to take Hannity's picture, and who amazingly all agreed with him exactly). Otherwise, Pelosi's latest RNC talking point makes no sense to me.
Zogby International's poll of U.S. servicemen and women serving in Iraq in early 2006 found that 72 percent of them wanted to stop the war by the end of 2006, a date that is fast approaching. So, how do we "support the troops" if the troops want us to stop "supporting" them?
[ David Swanson is a member of United for Peace and Justice Legislative Working Group and Cofounder of AfterDowningStreet.org ]
President George Bush deflects criticism of his war plans by claiming that his critics have no plans of their own. Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, asserts that matters of war must be left in the hands of the President (presumably no matter how brilliant your alternative plan).
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) has had an exit plan on his website for over three years. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D., Calif.) has held several hearings discussing exit plans over the past year and a half. Peace activists, including Tom Hayden, have published and promoted a variety of exit plans over the past couple of years, and have even gone so far as to meet and discuss them with members of the Iraqi Parliament.
More recently, former Senator George McGovern and William Polk have published a detailed exit plan, one that helped shape a bill introduced on January 17th by a dozen Democrats led by Woolsey. It's a comprehensive bill that lays out a plan to safely bring our troops home, end the war, reconstruct Iraq, and take care of our veterans for a change. The Woolsey bill is one of several new bills in Congress that would end the war. At least two others, sponsored by Congressmen Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) and Jerrold Nadler (D., New York) include, as does Woolsey's, a key component that shatters Cheney's vision of executive power: they cut off the funds for the war. Of course, they do so while providing for the safe return of our troops.
35. Hang em' High (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Ed Naha
by Ed Naha
If the execution of Saddam Hussein has proven anything, it’s that the new, democratically elected Iraqi government has learned a lot of valuable lessons from the Bush administration. One lesson: when caught in a Big Lie, Lie BIGGER.
Witness the evolving (or devolving) narrative regarding the hanging. Shortly after Saddam’s death and the official “silent” video of Hussein on the gallows was released, news outlets like CNN and the BBC were regaled by eye-witnesses who described Saddam’s last moments as a combination of vintage Jimmy Cagney or Al Pacino in “Scarface.”
Judge Munir Haddad described Saddam’s demise thusly: "He was reciting, as it was his custom, 'God is Great!' and also some political slogans like: 'Down with the Americans!' and 'Down with the Invaders!'"
Haddad went on: "One of the guards present asked Saddam Hussein whether he was afraid of dying.
“Saddam's reply was that 'I spent my whole life fighting the infidels and the intruders', and another guard asked him: 'Why did you destroy Iraq and destroy us? You starved us and you allowed the Americans to occupy us.'
Does anyone besides me find it telling that the keepers of the “Doomsday Clock” plan to move its minute hand forward this Wednesday for the second time during the Bush administration? (Note to Dubya: That would be Mickey’s “big hand.”)
For anyone unfamiliar with the clock, scientists who were spooked after working on The Manhattan Project created it back in 1947. Maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the clock is currently set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight marking global catastrophe. The group said it was making the move based on worsening nuclear and climate threats.
I’m not saying that the Bushistas’ worldview is directly responsible for the move but when you have Veep Cheney declaring on Fox re: Iraq: “This is an existential conflict,” you’ve got to wonder about how much brain matter is involved in this government. (”Sergeant Sartre, Corporal Camus, incoming dangerous philosophies! Get the bunker brain busters!”)
In a press release from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, its board stated the clock’s forward march was because of “growing concerns about a ‘Second Nuclear Age’ marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, (and) the continuing ‘launch-ready’ status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia.”
The board also cited “escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.” The press release called our present tense the most perilous period since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Archives
During the Cold War, Eastern block countries used to be bombarded by radio broadcasts glorifying free-market economic system and consumerism.
Hucksters know more and something different from what they’re telling their potential buyers. Hucksters do great infomercials. Don King is a huckster. Managers for professional wrestlers, certain evangelical preachers, (Swaggart, Hagee, Haggard) – are all hucksters. They sell hollow products by agitating false needs and cruelly exploiting genuine ones. 
Pere Gerard Jean-Juste, an outspoken Haitian voice for human rights, economic justice and democracy, returned to Haiti last weekend for the first time since being hustled out of a prison cell by heavily armed guards and put on a waiting plane to Miami in January of 2006. 
Congress Votes this Week to Cut Funding to the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC. SOA Watch has received confirmation that this week Congress will vote on an amendment to close the School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/ WHINSEC). Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts will introduce an amendment to the Foreign Operations appropriations bill to cut funding for the school!
Last Friday was the two-month anniversary of the abduction of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. 
Credit where it's due; I'm occasionally pleasantly shocked to find sensible analysis printed in Victoria's sole daily, The Times-Colonist. The T-C is an organ of the CanWest Global media empire of the Asper family, until recently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. 
The case of accused Canadian, Momin Khawaja, an alleged terrorist wannabe, broke again new ground in Canadian jurisprudence in Ottawa last week (
Canada's Numero Uno military man, shoot from the lip Rick Hillier mounted a pre-emptive attack on those parliamentarians with the temerity to voice doubt over the course the country has taken in Afghanistan. 
Hurricane Felix in the Caribbean was upgraded Sunday night to a Category 5 storm as it plowed its way towards Central America, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
As many of you have surely noticed, Empire Burlesque has been under sustained attack by hackers for the past several weeks, with occasional slowdowns or cut-offs in service, and viral infections. What we are seeing is a very serious, very concentrated effort to cripple the site, make it toxic and bring it down -- to shut us up, in other words. The same kind of attacks are being directed at our associated site, Atlantic Free Press, as well. These are not just hacker pranks; the attacks are almost certainly politically motivated: a deliberate attempt to destroy two platforms which offer news and opinions that some powerful entities -- or their bootlicking wannabes -- don't like.
The headline in Friday's Washington Post says it all: "
Good folk, look no further, for we do indeed have the answer here. If you want to know precisely how the American people are kept deliberately ignorant, simply click on the link to this story in the nation's "newspaper of record," the journal which sets the standard for and largely determines the news agenda of the American press: 
Sad news comes today of 
You would think that
by now we would have "supp'd full with horrors" on the New York Times
op-ed pages. What could be worse than the atrocities that have filled
those gray columns in the past few years,
the loud brays for war, the convoluted excuses for presidential
tyranny, the steady murmur of chin-stroking bullshit meant to comfort
the comfortable elite and confirm them -- at all times, at any cost --
in their well-wadded self-righteousness? Surely, you would think, we
have seen the worst.
So, BBC’s 
Several years ago, I warned that as the Bush/Cheney administration sought to reduce politically problematic casualty rates in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would resort to increased use of air attacks to combat the growing insurgency in Iraq and the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
It will be February before we know how much the
Canada Pension Plan recently lost on the stock market, but a fair guess
is $25 billion disappeared between the end of the first quarter on June
30th and October 8th. 
Last night in a bar in Austin, Texas, we held a family reunion for the peace movement. The occasion was the presentation of the Camp Casey Peace Awards. Much of the evening was devoted to the incredibly powerful antiwar music of Carolyn Wonderland, Emma's Revolution, Hank Woji and Jesse Dyen, each of whom had a crowd on their feet and moving as well as sitting and feeling like crying. Carolyn sang Willie Nelson's "What Happened to Peace on Earth" beautifully, with Willie and his wife Annie sitting ten feet away and cheering.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
recently published an editorial that said of Bush: "His pronouncements now bear
no resemblance to reality." Now? Oh, never mind.
Congress Members of both parties, not to mention the White House, have already forgotten the anti-war and anti-Bush vote of November 7th (the Republicans lost one more seat in a runoff on Wednesday) and are dreaming of big Christmas presents for war profiteers. Since we Americans apparently have no other need for any money, and since we enjoy paying our taxes so much, they're planning to approve another $160 billion in "emergency" (off the books) cash for the war early next year. That's billion with a B. This will be on top of the $70 billion they provided in October. I hate to play Scrooge here, but ain't that a bit much?
President George Bush deflects criticism of his war plans by claiming that his critics have no plans of their own. Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, asserts that matters of war must be left in the hands of the President (presumably no matter how brilliant your alternative plan).
If the execution of Saddam Hussein has proven anything, it’s that the new, democratically elected Iraqi government has learned a lot of valuable lessons from the Bush administration. One lesson: when caught in a Big Lie, Lie BIGGER.
