« Never Another Decade Like the '60s: A Vet's Perspective | Main | What Becomes Us »
When Fear Equals War
Today's threader was guest-written by our Australian friend Wendy Lohse, aka woz.
Frequently, I'm reminded of the huge range of people I come across on the DCP blog. I love the mix. I love the snippets from home that slide into posts every now and then. I love the range of personalities. And I love the examples of your energetic activism.
Events like the demonstrations that DiAnne reports on for the DCP provide creative inspiration to us here as well as to yourselves. Karen's continued perseverance and the actions of the Code Pink women also show that even small actions can provide the spark that will grow into a flame. Code Pink didn't begin big -- it has grown big. Code Pink is now a force to be reckoned with.
But while reading the blog this morning, I was jolted into reality when I came across this line from Indie Liberal:
"I bet Rove is just laughing his tail off at the way we continue to eat our own."
I say "jolted", because that's how it hit me. Smack! Right in the gut! We are heading for a continued catastrophe unless we are able to harness the criticisms of our own and turn them into positive, published, public awareness. While we "eat our own" we allow fear to escalate and translate into war. As yet we have no idea what the consequences will be.
We know the consequences of the Vietnam war. The consequences live in broken bodies and minds amongst us. They live in the deformed and damaged bodies and brains of Vietnam's population. What do we call American defoliants that rained down on our own soldiers and allies in Vietnam? Friendly fire? Defoliants that cause sickness and deformity through who knows how many generations? Friendly? Fire?
From across the world we look to America to never again let the United States' mainstream media take away from us the things we most value. Peace. Truth. Justice. Freedom.
Through this media the lies, trickery and criminal activity run rampant, unencumbered by facts. Fear sells. War sells. Peace is placid. It's time to engage Americans in a media investigation. I know that I see some horrifying things that are done in your name, but without your knowledge. I remember watching a documentary about 20 years ago, made by American journalists, about one of the South American nightmares. This documentary was banned in the US at the time. I have no link because I don't remember the country or the concerns raised. I remember it BECAUSE it was banned in the US.
I understand the problem of your mainstream media being used to manipulate people's thoughts and beliefs. It's the same here. I forget that because I never watch or read it. A friend asked me, "How do you know all that?" And then I realized why people vote, the way they vote. It's because of the information that seeps silently into their psyche. What can we do to protect ourselves against that?
People will never know how they really feel until we start using the mainstream media in the way the tricksters use it. Meet propaganda and lies head on. It takes money and that's the most unfortunate thing. But some people are getting the message out. Michael Moore has done a lot. Al Gore has done a lot. John and Teresa Kerry have tentacles reaching out into all kinds of multi-faceted spheres. And information is getting through. But we still need more. We need it everywhere. Otherwise the politicians who use fear as a weapon and lies as excuses will still have the upper hand.
People will never know how they really feel until we start using the mainstream media in the way the tricksters use it. Meet propaganda and lies head on. It takes money and that's the most unfortunate thing. But some people are getting the message through. Michael Moore has done a lot. Al Gore has done a lot. John and Teresa Kerry have tentacles reaching out into all kinds of multi-faceted spheres. And information is getting through. But we still need more. We need it everywhere. Otherwise the politicians who use fear as a weapon and lies as excuses will still have the upper hand.
George Bush is supposed to have said of the judgement of his presidency by historical accounts, "Who cares, I'll be dead." Not so. His presidency is already being weighed and found wanting. British author and respected military historian, Antony Beevor, is here in Australia and soon to deliver a lecture to the Australian Defence Force Academy in which he describes the Iraq invasion as perhaps the biggest disaster of modern warfare. Beevor, whose award-winning books on the battles for Stalingrad and Berlin have sold nearly 2.5 million copies worldwide, draws on historical parallels with Iraq, where he says bad decisions were made after intelligence was manipulated to feed an ideological bias.
According to Beevor, "From whatever direction it comes ideology is the greatest threat to sound decision making because it acts as a blinker in one direction and encourages the worst form of wishful thinking in the other. ... Right-wing ideology is just as dangerous as left-wing ideology. Right-wing ideology here meant that they were trying to apply the idea of a reverse domino theory. In Vietnam, the Americans felt that if we lose Vietnam, every other country's going to go Communist. The idea in Iraq was that if we can turn Iraq into an icon of democracy in the Middle East, the whole of the rest of the Middle East will go democratic. I'm afraid to say it was one of the most unsuccessful applications of political theory we've ever seen."
When fear and lies are in command, as with Iraq, terrible things happen. We send young people to war in a country where the enemy is unknown, where there is no indicator of who is our enemy or our friend. Hang on -- isn't that what we did in Korea? Vietnam? Didn't the enemy look just like the friend? But we don't want to waste time training our soldiers in the culture, the language, the taboos and the customs. No. Better to send them to a far off land where there appear to be no physical differences between enemy and friend. We'll train them to regard everyone as an enemy. We'll send them there without the safest body armour that is available. We'll send them with half the numbers we'd need to secure success. We are all mighty. We are the Super Military Power of the Universe. We just need the boots on the ground. And the drums continue to beat.
We are embroiled in a preventable horror the like of which we haven't seen since our mistaken, fear-induced involvement in Vietnam. Australia sent many young men to Vietnam due to its fear of communism. The commies of North Vietnam were headed our way, down through South Vietnam. Next stop: Australia. We were so paranoid that we jailed members of the Australian Communist Party. Meetings of this political party were forbidden by our leaders of democracy. "All the way, with LBJ!" was the slogan, even here. We were hit with a daily dose of fear of communism on our tv screens, our radios and front pages. And the same thing still continues to happen today.
Remember 2000? Remember 2004? How can we forget? On November 10th 2001, when fear was at its highest, 60 days after the WTC had been hit and thousands died, Australia held a Federal Election, called by then PM John Howard. To unseat him at such a time would have been unthinkable. He was our Protector.
During the campaign we were alerted to a situation involving asylum seekers throwing their children overboard into the ocean. Remember -- this is less than 60 days after America's horror. Howard convinced people that asylum seekers aren't all they pretend to be. Look, he said, they throw their children into the ocean. That's how despicable they really are. We don't want them here! Howard used this incident as a campaign platform on security under his government. He claimed this showed that the ALP couldn't be trusted with our security. He convinced voters that the ALP would sympathise with such despicable people as those who would toss their children overboard in order to save themselves. And, just in case there was any doubt, these asylum seekers were actually terrorists, he claimed. Not all of them, but certainly some of them. And he won that election. Of course.
The truth was exposed a year later, in November 2002. The ALP couldn't come up with a suitable alternative PM so Howard won a 3rd victory in 2004. People hated voting for a confirmed frequent liar but there was no alternative.
It seemed that exposed blatant lies would not thwart John Howard's Liberal Coalition Party, until the Australian Wheat Board scandal of bribes to Saddam Hussein became public knowledge and there was a to and fro -- what did the government know and when did it know it?
The government set up a Royal Commission into the situation but the government also provided the terms of reference. Under the terms of reference, the commissioner couldn't ask government ministers questions that might implicate the government in any way.
(Gee -- kind of like a Mickey Mouse version of the Gonzales "I can't recall" defense being hailed as up-front and totally honest by your president...)
The Royal Commission laid the blame at the door of the AWB, but claimed that there were many unanswered questions. Of course there were. The terms of reference ensured that. "See," said John Howard. "We're innocent!"
We have a Federal election in October/November this year. You have your top job up for grabs in 2008. Could it be possible that the leaders of either of our countries might actually be elected by reason rather than by fear this time? Perhaps so. But it will only happen if we do our part to spread the truth instead of putting up with lies.
-- Wendy Lohse
Thank you for this wonderful threader, woz!
Please, PLEASE throw that Howard bum out, and denounce your former fellow countryman, Rupert Murdoch, in the strongest terms possible.
Australia ranks up there with South Korea as the worst corruptor of American politics, and it doesn't have to be that way.
Mark Danner | Words in a Time of War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060107E.shtml
Mark Danner writes: "The image remains, will always remain, with us; for truly the weapon that day was not box cutters in the hands of 19 young men, nor airliners at their command. The weapon that day was the television set."
[Note: This commencement address was given to graduates of the Department of Rhetoric at Zellerbach Hall, University of California, Berkeley, on May 10, 2007]
Excerpt:
I give you my favorite quotation from the Bush administration, put forward by the proverbial "unnamed Administration official" and published in the New York Times Magazine by the fine journalist Ron Suskind in October 2004. Here, in Suskind's recounting, is what that "unnamed Administration official" told him:
"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors.... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"
I must admit to you that I love that quotation; indeed, with your permission, I would like hereby to nominate it for inscription over the door of the Rhetoric Department, akin to Dante's welcome above the gates of Hell, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
Both admonitions have an admirable bluntness. These words from "Bush's Brain" - for the unnamed official speaking to Suskind seems to have been none other than the selfsame architect of the aircraft-carrier moment, Karl Rove, who bears that pungent nickname - these words sketch out with breathtaking frankness a radical view in which power frankly determines reality, and rhetoric, the science of flounces and folderols, follows meekly and subserviently in its train. Those in the "reality-based community" - those such as we - are figures a mite pathetic, for we have failed to realize the singular new principle of the new age: Power has made reality its bitch.
{{{Somewhere, Orwell must be rolling in his grave over the quote from the 'unnamed Administration official.' I've read it before and wondered who thought to use the tactics employed by the Ministry of Truth in his book 1984 to be used against us.}}}
Another excerpt:
As for the Bush administration's broader War on Terror, as the State Department detailed recently in its annual report on the subject, the number of terrorist attacks worldwide has never been higher, nor more effective. True, al-Qaeda has not attacked again within the United States. They do not need to. They are alive and flourishing. Indeed, it might even be said that they are winning. For their goal, despite the rhetoric of the Bush administration, was not simply to kill Americans but, by challenging the United States in this spectacular fashion, to recruit great numbers to their cause and to move their insurgency into the heart of the Middle East. And all these things they have done.
How could such a thing have happened? In their choice of enemy, one might say that the terrorists of al-Qaeda had a great deal of dumb luck, for they attacked a country run by an administration that had a radical conception of the potency of power. At the heart of the principle of asymmetric warfare - al-Qaeda's kind of warfare - is the notion of using your opponents' power against him. How does a small group of insurgents without an army, or even heavy weapons, defeat the greatest conventional military force the world has ever known? How do you defeat such an army if you don't have an army? Well, you borrow your enemy's. And this is precisely what al-Qaeda did. Using the classic strategy of provocation, the group tried to tempt the superpower into its adopted homeland. The original strategy behind the 9/11 attacks - apart from humbling the superpower and creating the greatest recruiting poster the world had ever seen - was to lure the United States into a ground war in Afghanistan, where the one remaining superpower (like the Soviet Union before it) was to be trapped, stranded, and destroyed. It was to prepare for this war that Osama bin Laden arranged for the assassination, two days before 9/11 - via bombs secreted in the video cameras of two terrorists posing as reporters - of the Afghan Northern Alliance leader, Ahmed Shah Massood, who would have been the United States' most powerful ally.
Politicians Feed Terrorism
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060107G.shtml
"Were it not for the blindness of the political class - with the Bush administration first in line - Islamist terrorism would have quickly been given a pounding," according to internationally-reputed criminologist Xavier Raufer.
{{{IMHO, by endlessly repeating the words 'war on terror,' 'terror,' and 'terrorist' only gives them more power than they would have had if - sensibly - law enforcement people from around the globe had gone after them and arrested them for the criminals and gang thugs they really are. They are not a majority in any country, but criminals whose acts make victims and survivors fearful after-the-fact just makes it seem like they are more organized than they really are, and imbues them with more power than they really have. These criminals are not an army, they do nor represent any country. Starting a war because of a few criminals who represent no one but themselves is the action of a moron. Worse, that moron's subordinates write speeches that give criminals more power than they have and they use those words of fear as a weapon to keep sheeple scared and voting to keep the criminals in power. Lamestream media is culpable in keeping sheeple scared; they repeat sound bytes endlessly, which only brainwashes sheeple into believing them. They terrorize the general populace by scaring them, counting on the fact that uneducated people will never step back and think about the words and realize how lies and almost-half-truths are implausible, if only they would use any reasoning ability they could muster to deconstruct the lies and almost-half-truths.}}}
Excellent thread-header, woz! :-)
I realize those of us on this blog and on other web sites have been deconstructing administration lies for years, but I still shake my head in astonished wonder and downright disbelief when I realize so few people actually use their brains to figure out how they've been duped. A prevailing mass insanity and war hysteria took hold of this country in late 2001, and we've not recovered from the web of lies and deceit.
I'm wondering if we will see reality in time to stop the downward spiral into a fascist dictatorship.
http://tinyurl.com/22xj47
Posted by: monkey at June 1, 2007 04:20 PM
Huh?
Interview With Cindy Sheehan: "We'll Come Back Stronger"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060107R.shtml
Prominent anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan tells NOW's David Brancaccio that she
plans to rest, spend time with her family, and then continue her struggle against the Iraq war. "We're going to pull back and regroup
and figure out a better way to come at this," Sheehan said in a NOW on the News
web-exclusive audio interview.
--Interesting she did her interview with someone who used to have a business show. That may actually be a plus. I really liked him on public radio. One of my favorite reporters is Adam Davidson, who is a business reporter on NPR. He actually had the guts to live outside the Green Zone. It's archived on "This American Life."
Media-wise, I live back in the 1940s and want to sit around a giant wooden radio with my family and hear FDR. It's my nostalgic bent. I wasn't even born yet. It was better in the days of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, I think. & when I was tiny, it was Whitey Larsen on radio.
We need to do better (at least in this one area) on the information wars between Bush's baloney/propaganda and the truth/our position.
1) We should harp on the fact THAT BUSH HAS FAILED to stop Al Qaeda and those that planned the 9-11 attack. BUSH HAS FAILED TO KILL OR CAPTURE OSAMA BIN LADEN ( in fact, it is assumed by many insiders that the Bushies have give up on getting Osama). I was reading the other the Iraq Study Group report which quoted Al Zawahiri saying that if the U.S. withdrew from Iraq it would be viewed as a victory for Al Qaeda. I though WHY IS ZAWAHIRI still available for quotes?!?!??!?!?!
2) Remind people CONSTANTLY that the stated reason we invaded Iraq was that Iraq had WMD, was working on a nuclear bomb and was a threat to the region. All of these turn out to be lies from Bush and Cheney. The American people and the Congress were lied to by the Bush administration. (and don't let people use the out-dated 1998 quotes about WMD in Iraq - they are irrelevant)
3) Harp on the fact that the Bush administration refuses to be held accountable for anything. They refuse to release records and documents to Congress. Emails are destroyed or lost. Bush officials testify before Congress and can't remember or won't tell the truth.
4) All areas of the federal government have been policitized (and corrupted) - the military; the justice department; the C.I.A.; the EPA and the Interior department etc..
And remind the American people of some other Big Facts:
We were attacked by 19 hijackers on 9-11:
NONE of the 19 was from Iraq
IRAQ and Saddam had NOTHING to do with the attack on 9-11
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Friday called on Tehran to release four detained Iranian-Americans "immediately and unconditionally."
"Several of our fellow American citizens -- including Haleh Esfandiari, Parnaz Azima, Kian Tajbakhsh and Ali Shakeri -- are being held against their will by the Iranian regime," Bush said in a statement released by the White House. "I strongly condemn their detention at the hands of Iranian authorities."
more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/01/bush.iran.detentions/index.html
Yeah, and I strongly condemn your detention of untold numbers of innocent human beings by American authorities against their will, too.
Posted by: Ralpheh at June 1, 2007 07:04 PM
Actually, we were not "attacked" (in the military sense) on 9/11. 19 hijackers, most from Saudi Arabia, hijacked planes (a criminal offense on a federal level) and flew them into buildings (which resulted in mass murder, another criminal act).
It's Bu$hSpeak (dumbed-down version of Newspeak) to say we were "attacked" which associates the criminals and criminal events of 9/11 with an "attack" in a military sense, as in another country with an organized army "attacking" us.
The hijackers were not part of an army representing any country whatsoever. They may have operated on an international level in their criminal activities, but since they did not act in any official capacity on behalf of any other nation, the criminal offenses they committed can not in any way be construed as an "attack" on the scale of Pearl Harbor (which was accompanied by a declaration of war delivered to US officials).
When Georgie and Dickie and their criminal cohorts use the word "attacked" they mean it in a military sense, something done by another country with an organized army, in an attempt to keep people off-balance and supporting their illegal (war crime) invasion of a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.
Criminal offenses done by criminals (of an international gang variety, but they operate on the same principles as any big city gang anywhere in the world) happened on 9/11, but we were not "attacked" by any country in a military sense, and the event was not accompanied by a declaration of war by any country.
It's a matter of semantics, and the criminals "leading" our country have misleading and deceptive warmongering rhetoric down to a fine art.
No regulation of business, by God - profit is the bottom line.
Beware Chinese toothpaste - may contain antifreeze. It's the poor who shop at the dollar store. Well, I do sometimes, but have discovered all their toiletry products are watered down, therefore not a bargain. Didn't realize some are toxic.
http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2007/06/01/678676.html&cvqh=itn_toothpaste
4) All areas of the federal government have been policitized (and corrupted) - the military; the justice department; the C.I.A.; the EPA and the Interior department etc..
Posted by: Ralpheh at June 1, 2007 06:58 PM
At least 12 of the major departments have faith-based grants. I will seek out the link - it's not far off from that.
Biden scolds other Dems for bowing out of debate - it's FOX but it's at the request of the Congressional Black caucus. Another is an Iraq-only debate.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/06/01/biden_scolds_other_dems_for_bowing_out_of_fox_debates/
The other one not to bow out if Dennis Kucinich.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/interviewing-gore-on-the_b_50234.html
Interviewing Gore: On the Pollution of Our Environment, Our Politics, and Our Souls
"It's a problem that George Bush invaded Iraq," Gore told me. "It's a problem that he authorized warrantless mass eavesdropping on American citizens. It's a problem that he lifted the prohibition against torture. It's a problem that he censored hundreds of scientific reports on the climate crisis -- but it's a bigger problem that we've been so vulnerable to such crass manipulation and that there has been so little outcry or protest as American values have been discarded, one after another. And if we pretend that the magic solution for all these problems is simply to put a different person in the office of the president without attending to the cracks in the foundation of our democracy, then the same weaknesses that have been exploited by this White House will be exploited by others in the future."
~~~~~
Gore kept returning to this theme during our conversation: that it's not enough to just throw George Bush and the Republicans out, we need to address the root causes of the rot afflicting our politics. He highlighted some of the elements of the rot, particularly what has happened to our media culture, and the dominant influence of money:
"Money has replaced reason as the wellspring of power and influence in the American political system," Gore told me. "What was revolutionary about the United States of America was that individuals could use knowledge as the source of influence and power on a sustained basis for the first time since the agora [the center of Athenian democracy]... Now that money buys 30-second TV ads, lobbyists, computer banks, and Machiavellian political consultants, the wielding of power depends so much on money and so little on ideas that all of the organizations that Americans have formed to pursue progressive ideas to promote the public interest have been badly weakened."
That's why the Internet is so important to Gore. He sees it as a powerful countervailing force to these poisonous influences. "We need to reengage the America people in the process of democracy," he told me. "We have to convince them that their opinions do matter, that their wisdom is relevant, and that their political power can be used effectively. And the Internet is beginning to bring about some very positive changes in this area -- it's why it is so important that bloggers are now able to hold newspapers and politicians accountable in ways they couldn't even just a few years ago. The E=MC2 of American democracy is John Locke's formulation that all just power derives from the consent of the governed -- and that consent assumes an environment where there can be an open and accessible exchange of ideas."
{{{More on link. Some of the comments following Huffington's article are good, too....}}}
Posted by: not my president at June 1, 2007 08:15 PM
The fact that religions get tax money elevates my blood pressure to levels that could send me into an apopletic seizure.
What happened to separation of church and state?!?
Aren't donations to churches a tax write-off for people who choose to give money to religious charities? Churches need to get their money the tradional way: browbeating their parishoners with guilt.
Memo to religious charities: Hands OFF our tax dollars! Period!
DON'T WE HAVE A CONSTITUTION, NOT A KING?
By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet
Bush has issued a directive that would place all governmental powers in his hands in the case of a catastrophic emergency. If a terrorist attack happens before the 2008 election, could Bush and Cheney use this to avoid relinquishing power to a successor administration?
http://www.alternet.org/stories/52801/
One of the posters published this link to Jim McDermott's web site and his speech about it, along with (surprise!) the ABC news story about it done by Brian Ross on McDermott's web site.
http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp070523.shtml
Wow we can play BIG BROTHER on each other with "Google Street Level" - I'm going to try this when I get home.
http://maps.google.com/maps?tab=wl
Posted by: not my president at June 1, 2007 08:19 PM
Re Biden on Fox. Remember the statistic of 98% of Fox News watchers vote Republican?
What a sorry way to shore up their base. It's ambush time at the O.K. Corral.
I think they should all stay out of it - it's a set up by the Rovian Right if I've ever seen one.
Well, maybe Biden thinks he has the stomach for it. It may well make him or break him.
Appearing does take courage and guts, but I don't know how intelligent it is.
Woz, great article and thread header!
Thank you! It is one of my favorites to date. I love Rick's and everyone elses articles too.
What I love the most around here is the rhetoric. I know we need articles and links to back words up, but I find I learn alot by listening to people just talk....thank you for sharing part of your treasure of information with us. I love it that I can ask questions here and get them answered.
As far as the Dems eating their own - one thing I think that lends itself to that is the diversity on the left, and the right has learned very well how to play that in the media.
It is my thought that the left has a multitude of variety in it's population in regards to freedom of choice (about ANYTHING)and once again B's Brain knew how to capitalize on that.
Hell, don't people know they aren't supposed to think for themselves? How dare they be different!
They are either going to hell or are pond scum if they don't conform. And thus is the reasoning of the authoritarian leadership style of the right.
The left think for themselves and are a very diverse lot. The very fact that there is no authoritarian leadership in the Dem party is what The Brain counts on. He plays to it. He knows what works and what doesn't....and most people want strong leadership. Especially in a world like today where everything is so "scarey". Terrrrists and all.
Woz, I really want to thank you. You know how sometimes you see something but you don't see all of the facets of it, like on a diamond?
I had an aha moment tonight because of your post. Our horror of reality is eery. Who could ever have thought that someone could come up with a way to control so many people?
I'm not saying the authoritarian leadership style is the way to go. I just see that it is very effective.
The fact that religions get tax money elevates my blood pressure to levels that could send me into an apopletic seizure.
What happened to separation of church and state?!?
Posted by: NonnyO at June 1, 2007 08:25 PM
Not only does W's government spend taxpayer money on religious groups, DOMESTIC and FOREIGN, that want me DEAD, but W himself has made it impossible for me to sponsor anyone for immigration through marriage.
Separation of church and state is a sorry joke.
This government does NOT represent me, and neither does the bleeding-red suburb that continues to support this criminal cabal at 70+% approval ratings. I'm voting - with my feet - in a few months.
I'm not saying the authoritarian leadership style is the way to go. I just see that it is very effective.
Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at June 1, 2007 09:44 PM
That's something that W's South Korean (and to a lesser extent, Taiwanese) fascist mentors know too well. Their fabulous economic booms started under fascist leaderships of Park Chung-Hee and Chiang Kai-Shek.
Wow we can play BIG BROTHER on each other with "Google Street Level" - I'm going to try this when I get home.
http://maps.google.com/maps?tab=wl
Posted by: not my president at June 1, 2007 08:48 PM
NMP, Google Maps shows your home in the middle of the block, when I know that it's on a corner.
It's not 100% accurate, in other words. :)
Posted by: not my president at June 1, 2007 08:13 PM
China has gone from total Marxism to total opposite of Marxism. And it's taken the worst of both worlds.
Posted by: Ally McRepuke at June 1, 2007 02:23 PM
Ally, Rupert has sold off his media interests here in Australia - via son Lachlan who split with his father and came back to Australia to manage the Australian arm of the Media Dynasty. He sold it so that he could go-a-gambling with Daddy's fortunes. Not much of a gamble though. He is building a casino on the great gambling strip of Las Vegas. And all was done with daddy's permission of course.
I'm just glad that he's now out of our media. However, despite all the trickery and firings and hirings and director weightings, the Age et al have maintained an independence. I believe that we need to deal only with the very best journalists. They'll be the ones to get their stories out - and maybe lose their positions in Rupert's empire - but they'll be back with their voice in another. We have to appeal to the best journalists we know.
Luckily for us in oz, the ALP has got Maxine McKew formally of ABC television news and current affairs. She is going to run for government in John Howard's seat. No wonder he's so frazzled lately.
And I think the boy George and Howard have been on the phone again. They've both announced their commitment to climate change on the same day. Both announced their non-policies for reducing greenhouse emissions that won't be compulsory until we've talked about it for about 20 years or so.
And yes, we now have a great alternative PM who is increasingly popular. He's preempted the government on climate change and energy emissions with a plan to have the first geothermal power plant up and running within 4 years! He's also stated that everyone in the country will have Broadband access. Howard doesn't really understand the need for that.
Posted by: Ralpheh at June 1, 2007 06:58 PM
Ralpheh, point one, we should never concentrate on Bush's failures. His successes are the ones that might hit the front pages of lazy editors. They'll read success and print. Hopefully. But he has major successes to boast of.
Bush Successes:
Providing the platform for terrorist
a) recruitment
b) a Middle Eastern location
c) a fear and distrust of security everywhere
d) bringing the west down to the level of terrorists by having them engage in terrorist behaviours - hidden torture and drawn out murder cells in secret locations throughout Europe
e) emergence and encouragement of dormant terror cells
f) setting westerners against each other through fear and uncertainty
I'm certain we could come up with a lot of his achievements. We want to expose all of this administration's achievements. To list the failures becomes a double negative and people can't be bothered to work it out - or they are too damned busy trying to earn the taxes to pay for our young people to carry the load for us. To highlight the Bush Admin's achievements - with photographs - would be mighty powerful I believe.
Posted by: NonnyO at June 1, 2007 03:01 PM
NonnyO - some great quotes and excerpts here. Yes, the greatest weapon was certainly the television set. How many times over those early days and weeks did we see that short fragment of planes flying into the WTC accompanied by a couple of shocked remarks? 50? 100? Probably 1000 at least were beamed into every single persons subconscious over those first weeks. Subliminal learning. Osmosis. Brainwashing. These are the greatest weapons of our time.
It can only happen through our media. That has the greatest impact.
I'm not saying the authoritarian leadership style is the way to go. I just see that it is very effective.
Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at June 1, 2007 09:44 PM
Yes it is effective, TSP. So effective that it's scary. We don't have to think. Paternalism in the extreme. After all we elected him to take care of us and he's doing just that, he tells us. What we need to do is cover our front pages with well written articles and photographs that will be plastered over the world's newspapers. Newspapers that also have a place on American newstands.
What was the most valued thing that I got from my pater? Respect. Does George Bush respect anyone? I don't believe so. Even the lap dogs panting around his feet like Gonzales - he'll be thrown out at the first sign of the Impeachment Gang entering the White House. GB will betray Gonzo in the blink of an eye - or a smirk of the nervous. GWB doesn't even respect the people who voted for him. He knows they were duped. Why would he respect people so easily duped?
Interesting Thread.
Does anyone truly believe that Rove or Bush, the Oil industry or Weapons manufacturers care what the general public think..? They dont, they never have, and never will. The public is manipulated at will, There is no effective response to the marketing strategy developed by the group occupying the White House.
The counter strategy must be long term to overcome damage resulting from the philosophy of Greed and Power. It took a Generation starting with "morning in America" campaign by President Reagan, it will take a Generation to fix the result.
The effectiveness of the GOP was sealed with the alliance of Religious right (We will register, we will vote) with Neocon and right wing polical strategists. This all occured in the early 80's, right out in the open.
Liberals need to own up to lost opportunities not by greiving, but by action. Coordinated national strategies not to counter but to LEAD the nation out of its current situation. Merely coutering the GOP does not lead to progress, it is a self canceling avenue.
We need to develop National strategies to correct problems, not settle with adjusting for inflation. If the Religious right can organize churches, why cant we? if the religious right can market themselves as the moral majority, why cant we market ourselves as democracy defenders.
We have brilliant minds in the DNC, on this website, and many others that are willing to step up and be counted. We need cohesive leadership that can harness this energy and intelligence and focus it on solving problems.
The solution to problems is where real power lies. The GOP is excellent at creating a problem, with the solution prepared and ready. The results are always the same; increasing power and the wealth of supporters.
We dont need to create problems...there are donzens looking at us in the face. Solve them, and the results will be increased constituency and increased voting power. THAT is where real power lies in a Republic.
U.S. ship fires on Somalia
Navy destroyer aims for 'high value terrorist targets' on lawless country's north coast, NBC News reports.
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 57 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The destroyer USS Chafee fired her deck guns at two or three suspected "high-value terrorist targets" in the Puntland area along the northern coast of Somalia on Saturday, U.S. officials told NBC News. The suspects are accused of taking part in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
According to the officials, the U.S. had "actionable intelligence” gathered by U.S. Special Operations Forces and local tribal leaders that the suspects were in the area.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18993264/
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- The United States and Spain share concerns on many fronts, but Spain is going its own way in its relations with Cuba, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says.
The two countries have recovered from the rift over Spain's withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, she said, but Spain's communications with the Cuban government remain a sore spot.
Rice said the United States had problems with the way Spain withdrew from Iraq, not the fact that it took its troops out.
"We can say that the relations are normalized after the ups and downs you all know about," said Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who appeared at a Madrid news conference with Rice.
Both the United States and Spain would like democracy in Cuba, which Moratinos visited in April. His aides visited Havana earlier this week.
Referring to the fact that Moratinos did not meet with dissidents in Cuba, Rice said she was concerned "that they get the right message, which is that the free world stands with them and is not prepared to tolerate an anti-democratic transition in Cuba."
"This Socialist government has no problem in talking to the dissidents," responded Moratinos. "I would ask you, 'Who has seen more of the dissidents?' "
Spain has diplomatic ties with Cuba; the United States doesn't.
"I expect that the issue on Cuba is going to continue to be an issue between us," Rice said on her first visit to Spain as secretary of state.
"I have real doubts about the value of engagement with a regime that is anti-democratic, and that appears to me to be trying to arrange a transition from one anti-democratic regime to another anti-democratic regime," she said.
-snip-
In response to Rice's call for a democratic transition, Alarcon said, "I wish that some day there will be a democratic transition in the United States, that there will be a regime change in your country, a change from war to peace, a change from arrogance, and for this kind of interfering in everybody's affairs, and looking back a little bit at home and ... facing the real problems that Americans have."
Rice: Venezuela should respect sovereignty of its neighbors
Rice also addressed what she considers an increasingly anti-democracy attitude in Venezuela.
"There has been active interference by Venezuela in the affairs of its neighbors and so the issue there that Venezuela should respect the sovereignty of its neighbors and Venezuela should act in a democratic way toward its own people," Rice said.
Relations between Washington and Madrid have been frosty since Jose Zapatero ousted Bush ally Jose Asnar and the newly elected prime minister hastily withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq in 2004.
Things got so bad that Bush refused to take a congratulatory phone call from Zapatero after winning re-election.
more...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/06/01/rice.spain/index.html
"There has been active interference by Venezuela in the affairs of its neighbors and so the issue there that Venezuela should respect the sovereignty of its neighbors and Venezuela should act in a democratic way toward its own people," Rice said.
Oh, ya mean the way the United States has respected the sovereignty of its "neighbors" by firing missiles from a ship offshore at Somalia, or a by invading (illegally) and occupying a sovereign nation???
Ya mean like THAT kind of respect?
Lead the world you f*ckin loon, and others might just follow.
monkey,
They think they ARE leading the world. The problem is a lack of appropriate outcomes for that leadership.
We need a "No Government Left Behind" model. Some tough love strategies for new learning, with appropriate rewards and consequences, and a grading system with some high stakes built in.
Oh yeah--we already have the high stakes--global warming and the collapse of democracy. They are just denying the precipitous drop in the grade-point average...
Time for a school takeover!
I'm all for storming the Vice-Principals office...
Reading, Righting, Rhythm Tick
I'm all for storming the Vice-Principals office...
Reading, Righting, Rhythm Tick
Posted by: monkey at June 2, 2007 09:03 AM
I love it and I'm IN!!!
woz,
Really great thread header. I agree with what you've stated in it but also with what you've said in this thread.
The fact is that the media has been allowed to steal our democracy. And though we now have the internet, so do they.
But using interesting pictures, words, and videos are the only way to get people to see what the media has hidden.
Time to storm the castle?
Let me tell you....
I just filled up on gas yesterday $3.39/gallon (a 20c price drop since just prior to the holiday) and people at the gas station are so full of RAGE.
Mutiny may be coming.
A little note of REALITY................check the last three!
Subject: THE PRICE OF GAS AROUND THE GLOBE
Oslo, Norway - $6.82 a gallon for unleaded regular, in US dollars
London, UK $5.96
Rome, Italy $5.80
Brussels, Belgium $6.16
Hong Kong $6.25
Tokyo, Japan $5.25
Sao Paulo, Brazil $4.42
Buenos Aires, Argentina $2.09
Mexico City $2.22
Sidney, Australia $3.42
Johannesburg, South Africa $3.39
New Delhi, India $3.71
----------------------------------------------
Here's the kicker!
Caracas $0.12!!!
Kuwait $0.78!!
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia $0.91!!
The prices make sense though--you do not have to transport the gas when it's home grown!
What does not make sense is the thinking that if we control the country we get all the gas. No one seems to understand economics...
Army in retreat over 'stop loss'
Military told to limit unpopular policy
As the U.S. moves into its fifth year in Iraq and escalates troop levels there, the Pentagon has kept combat units manned by forcing as many as 80,000 soldiers to stay in uniform and in war zones even after their enlistment obligations have been met or their retirement dates have passed.
The policy, known as "stop loss" and utilized more during the war in Iraq than ever before, has sparked such a spate of lawsuits and backlash in the ranks that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered all branches of the services to formulate plans to minimize use of the unpopular policy while still maintaining combat readiness.
The policy, practically speaking, means that a soldier who signs up for four years can expect to be held on the job five years or more if his unit is deploying. In addition, those who have completed 20 years of service—the time previously required for unquestioned retirement with full benefits—increasingly have seen their applications for retirement denied. And the vast majority of these troops find that stop loss means one thing: Instead of beginning new lives in the civilian world, they are headed back to Iraq for their second, third or even fourth combat tours, a practice critics say amounts to nothing less than an involuntary draft.
"I know a lot of people like to call it a 'back-door draft,' " said Suzanne Miller, a Jacksonville lawyer whose son expects to be stop lossed this summer. "I like even more to call it indentured servitude. It's the perfect analogy: You have no control over your own destiny and are being forced, under threat of prison, to work for an employer you no longer want to work for."
read the rest here:
http://tinyurl.com/2ahsjm = Chicago Tribune
How Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler's Rise to Power
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html .....A proud family heritage .........
This is so incredibly sad. MySpace will be the 'wall' on the net for all those fallen after they started the war on lies and after they started the surge to 'win'.
http://starbulletin.com/2007/06/01/news/story02.html
Sgt. Richard V. Correa, 25, was a squad leader assigned to A Company, 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), based in Fort Drum, N.Y....
The 2nd Brigade Combat Team was deployed to Iraq in July on a 12-month tour. But the tour was recently extended by four months. Correa was due to return to Fort Drum in October or November, said spokeswoman Karin Martinez....
Announcement of the tour extension prompted Correa to write on his MySpace page, "I got extended!!! I ain't ever coming home!!!"...
He is survived by his parents.
They're fighting for our freedom, right? Well, a vet honorably discharged is now facing charges and an revision of his discharge to read dishonorable for a protest at the Hart building.
I'm really upset about this. Everything is backwards here. You're punished for dissenting but you're rewarded for killing, torturing, and maiming. The corruption is through and through our government. With all the talk of 08, I'm worried about all the lives destroyed here and now. I'm worried that our 08 candidates don't recognise the level of gangrene through out our whole system.
http://www.ivaw.org/node/763
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9XTl1Nou8g
It can only happen through our media. That has the greatest impact.
Posted by: woz at June 2, 2007 12:32 AM
Yes, Gore talking about The Assault on Reason and media hyperbole, and the other things that go with it, has certainly been an advantage. It's given me a glimmer of hope that perhaps this will be the beginning of a national dialogue that will re-teach and re-acquaint people with their own innate common sense and powers of reason and logic again. It doesn't take a genius to use common sense. Because of the Pavlovian conditioning we've been put through all these years (thanks to a compliant corporate Lamestream Media), people now need "permission" to start using their common sense again, and re-learn how to ask simple "Why?" questions. Gore will have to have an extended book tour to get his points across, I believe. In a week or so something else will take the attention of Lamestream Media and Gore and his talking points will be forgotten unless he keeps it up, or unless someone takes the ball and runs with it from there.
The fact is, we lost our reasoning ability and our common sense as a nation in a flood of media hyperbole after 9/11. Prior to that the ineffective bumbler in the White House had ratings sliding into a bottomless ocean, and no amount of media hype was bringing up those ratings or his public image because people were still upset with the SCOTUS decision only a few months earlier, and it was only within days of 9/11 when his ugly, cross-eyed mug was force fed to us (along with his garbled use of language) that things really took off and media bobbleheads suddenly started talking about him as a 'leader.' Media bobbleheads on Sunday political shows went nuts with all sorts of inflammatory fear- and war-mongering language (which still hasn't stopped) on cue from the White House propaganda blitz that followed 9/11. 'We wuz attak'd! We gotta go kill somebody 'cuz we wuz attak'd!' No sane, rational, person with any amount of common sense would have come up with that!!!
Criminal acts were done (hijacking planes and mass murder, but it was not an act of war); the criminals died with their victims. No one to bring to trial for justice; tragic in the extreme, yes, but the only rational thing to do was clean up the mess, bury what was left of the dead, and move on since there was no one to bring to justice for such heinous acts - criminal acts, but still not an act of war done by military people of any country, nor accompanied by a declaration of war by any country, because if it had been a genuine act of war, Bu$hCo would have had to attack Saudi Arabia where most of the hijackers were from, but Saudi Arabia was never, ever mentioned by media bobbleheads or the administration as a location to invade because the hijackers were from there, thanks to the financial ties of the Bush family and the bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia; it was illogical not to attack Saudi Arabia, in a sense, since that's where most of the hijackers were from, that's where OBL's family is from, and with military bases already there it would have been easy to attack Saudi Arabia from within. Bush and Cheney and PNAC blew 9/11 way out of proportion and media followed suit. It was right about that time that I noticed the hysterical tones of voice in media anchors; it's irritated me all these years, which is why I find it so difficult to take them seriously when I try to listen to anyone in Lamestream Media snooze. Who wants to listen to hysterical news anchors who come across as quivering lumps of fear?
I knew during the debates of 2000 that if Bush was elected he'd invade Iraq to finish his daddy's war there; I journaled about it; yes, the implication was that plain (to me). The Bush-Cheney pre-election plans to invade Iraq and get Saddam out of power that Bush and Cheney had not yet been able to implement without any just cause between inauguration day and September were almost immediately mentioned in association with 9/11 and it snowballed in a flood of media hype from there by media bobbleheads (who had suddenly developed a catch of fear in their voices). Infotainment and sensationalism was suddenly the rage, and there's no end in sight; I wonder if they will ever calm down, start to ask reasonable questions, and start deconstructing the lies.
Whatever reasoned and rational discourse saner and cooler heads had to talk about was drowned in a sea of fear-and war-mongering post-9/11. I barely remember that sane statements were made by rational people back then; rational statements were quoted in "news" but mentioned only in passing; one had to listen carefully to hear sane quotes in those days (and at that time I was listening to TV news daily; I didn't have a computer or access to the internet at that point in time, but I do remember that occasionally sane quotes were used, even if I had to listen carefully to hear them).
We are only now barely - just barely - waking up to the fact that we were fed a pack of lies as a causus belli (and some of us have known they were lies since the beginning; or, at least people on the internet have known about the lies all along and have blogged endlessly about it, including on this blog), but Gore seems to have a grasp of what was done, and his saner discourse is now like a breath of fresh air. All of a sudden a few (very few) people are taking a step back and looking at things from a different angle, just barely starting to deconstruct the media hype and propaganda we've been brainwashed with through the years. The only media people who have used their brains as anything other than a place for wooly cowbwebs to collect from lack of use have been Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Moyers. I consider it a minor miracle that they are still on the air, sane voices in a sea of inanity and insanity.
Looking at things from a different angle, deconstructing the lies, is a start, but if Lamestream Media bobbleheads figure out they have two brain cells between them and start to talk common sense for a change, or even (gasp!) ask simple 'why' questions, for the first time in many, many years, I expect the White House will come up with something else that will make them forget they do have brains and we'll be showered with more hyperbole (and lies and/or half-truths and much implication without facts to connect the dots) to keep sheeple scared of their own shadows (I don't put it past Bu$hCo to create or allow another 9/11-type of event to happen just prior to the '08 election; they certainly did not heed the warning in the Aug. '01 PDB, so they allowed it to happen for their own gain - I'm of the firm belief that they could have stopped it had they wanted to). It's only through Pavlovian brainwashing tactics and White House and Pentagon propaganda, repeated endlessly, daily, by Lamestream Media, that they can keep sheeple in a fearful state of mind. When people doubt their own ability to reason or use their own common sense, they allow authoritarian patriarchal types to rule, even if they know, deep down, that what they're hearing is a pack of lies. The seeds of doubting one's own ability to use common sense and reason are used to the advantage of the current criminals in the White House (as well as the faux religious "leaders" who support their extreme political agendas).
Someone in the White House (Rove, I presume) knows how to use and/or induce mass hysteria to cause people to doubt themselves, which, in turn, allows them to rule as dictators (straight out of Orwell's 1984; it only surprises me that we haven't all been forced to buy web cams so they can introduce the same concepts as the telescreens from the novel to monitor all of us...!), and it seems to have worked on our Congress Critters as well as the general population via media hyperbole, or else the Congress Critters would never have passed the crappy legislation that has given the criminal "leaders" their extraordinary (and unconstitutional) powers; they would have been impeached long ago. Aside from massive blackmail and huge amounts of money paid to Congress Critters who benefit from corporate donations, there is no other reason for Congress Critters to abdicate their constitutional powers and give in to every single dictatorial demand of Bush's and Cheney's throughout these miserable, nightmarish, surreal years since the SCOTUS decision of December 2000, other than being affected by group hysteria and Pavlovian conditioning. The very, very few who do seem to be able to use their reasoning ability and common sense have been drowned in a sea of Lamestream Media hyperbole (and outright lies) that they get straight from the White House or Pentagon. If Congress Critters doubt their leadership ability that much, or if the dollars they get from corporations mean more to them than their constituents, they can be voted out of office.
When my Dem representative (who has been in the House for many, many years) replied to my email about impeachment he referred to 'Republican backlash' as a reason for no longer supporting impeachment (he had signed on to Conyers' impeachment in the past). My thought when reading the email was "What Republican backlash?" It's not Republican backlash he and others like him need to worry about - and besides which, he didn't define 'Republican backlash,' so I have no idea what he's talking about. I've seen that 'Republican backlash' phrase used before, but no one's ever defined it. The Dems now have a majority (albeit a slim majority), so I don't see what harm the neoCons can do unless the Dems continue to let the neoCons walk all over them just as they did when they were a minority. It seems the Dem legislators have succumbed to Pavlovian conditioning....
It's "Voter Backlash" that both Dems and 'Publicans need to worry about in '08.... The Dems got a majority last fall (the first signs of a Voter Backlash!) for the simple reason the people want Bu$hCo's illegal war stopped. Congress Critters have seen fit to not go forward with impeachment proceedings, much to the disappointment of many voters - and there is more than ample just cause to move on impeachment what with massive war crimes at the top of the list. Refinancing the Iraq war and not moving on impeachment will work against all legislators running for re-election in '08. IF there is no artificially orchestrated reason for Bu$hCo to cancel elections and declare martial law in '08 (and if there are not too many places with e-voting machines that can be rigged), which would all cause mass hysteria again, I predict "Voter Backlash" in '08 (on a larger scale than Voter Backlash in '06 that gave Dems a majority) will be a nasty surprise to many politicians from both sides of the aisle who will lose their seats - if we, as a people, regain our reasoning ability and common sense by '08, that is, and if we can convince Congress Critters to do their constitutional duty by their constituents. As I see it, we may need to de-program the Pavlovian brainwashing done to our cowardly Congress Critters by shock therapy (voting them out of office).
Talking about The Assault on Reason has, for the first time since 2000, given people "permission" to once again start using their common sense and innate reasoning powers. It's a baby step in the right direction. If we are really, really, really lucky, those baby steps will become giant strides and the effect will snowball. If we are not lucky, the de facto fascist corporate dictatorship we currently have will become the official political climate in this country for years to come because we have no Congress Critters with enough balls or spine to use their constitutional powers to stop them.
As a nation, for several years our toes have been metaphorically hanging over the edge of the abyss and edging closer as more war talk continues and Bu$hCo & criminal cronies continue to say threatening words about other countries (it would continue the pattern of war crimes by breaking the Geneva Conventions and it's still unconstitutional if more illegal acts of war are perpetrated by this illegal administration). Whether we go over the edge or not remains to be seen. Do we have the courage to rescue ourselves? Or will someone have to take pity on us and rescue us from the criminals "leading" us to certain doom?
Posted by: monkey at June 2, 2007 08:06 AM
Posted by: monkey at June 2, 2007 08:16 AM
Posted by: monkey at June 2, 2007 08:24 AM
Iran, N. Korea, Venezuela, Spain, Somalia... Iraq goes without saying... several other countries... How many more will they piss off beyond all reason...?
It "seems to me" that Bush and Cheney and their evil minions are determined - come hell or high water - to foment a world war (probably with nuclear consequences).
The sooner our Congress Critters realize the whole lot of 'em are the most insane creatures to ever occupy *our* highest offices, impeach the bam dastards, and put someone in office who has some semblance of maturity and sanity, the better off we'll be.
Otherwise it's a guarantee that someone in one of those nations that Bu$hCo & evil minions have pissed off WILL do another 9/11-type of attack; their warmongering and insulting rhetoric practically guarantees it... which, ultimately, is their goal. It would (in their eyes, legislative foundations already laid down with MCA '06, control of the guard and reserves, Patriot Acts, etc.) "legitimize" their instituting martial law and setting up their de facto dictatorship in fact....
Gawd, but I SO want to crawl out of this surreal painting in which I find myself trapped...!
Wow! This poll from Iowa is interesting.
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070520/NEWS/305200007/-1/iowapoll07
I'm particularly awed by the numbers for Condiliar.
NonnyO
Now that is a rant. You keep talking sense! After 9/11, I immediately thought, "Who are they going to go and bomb?" (meaning our government). You can't locate the nexus of terrorism because it doesn't even have to be and isn't even usually state-sponsored. You have a needle in a haystack chance of doing anything about it by bombing a city. I knew they had that all mixed up, so just thought, "Here we go..it'll be an excuse to go into Iraq or any other place they have a gripe with, and terrorists will be the excuse."
Speak of the devil....
WNBC-TV: Feds arrest 3 in alleged terror plot on Kennedy Airport
Congressman Sestak at FDL answering questions.
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/02/blue-america-rep-joe-sestak-pa-07/#comments
... and we'll be welcomed with flowers...
"Massive Assualts"
Protests turn violent ahead of G-8 summit
German official reports ‘massive assaults’ on police as thousands gather
Updated: 4 minutes ago
ROSTOCK, Germany - Masked demonstrators protesting the upcoming G-8 summit meeting hurled stones and flagpoles at police on Saturday, a spokeswoman said, describing a scene of chaos in the harbor of this northern port city.
Some 13,000 police were on hand, and authorities said about 30,000 protesters had come for the daylong demonstration under the motto “another world is possible.”
“There are massive assaults on police officers at the city’s harbor right now,” said Cordula Feichtinger, a police spokeswoman. “The situation is currently very chaotic and we have to get it under control before I can tell you how many people have been arrested.” She said one officer was slightly injured.
Earlier, a group of protesters attacked the hotel where an American delegation was supposed to stay during the G-8 summit this week, and some demonstrators also battered police cars with rocks, bottles and paint bombs, authorities said.
Police helicopters hovered overhead as thousands of demonstrators marched behind a truck streaming out soap bubbles and carrying a rock band that played anti-globalization songs.
‘A world of war, hunger, social divisions ...’
The march began without violence, and most of the demonstrators remained peaceful. But some taunted members of the police detachment, and several hundred wore bandanas across their faces with sweat shirt hoods pulled down low to obscure their identities.
The protesters from around Europe and the rest of the world gathered at two locations early in the day for rallies, then marched in two groups along three-mile routes to converge on the harbor for the main demonstration—the biggest so far against the June 6-8 summit in the northern resort town of Heiligendamm.
“The world shaped by the dominance of the G-8 is a world of war, hunger, social divisions, environmental destruction and barriers against migrants and refugees,” organizers said in leaflets handed out on the streets.
Most stores along the route had nailed up their windows ahead of the protests—with the exception of sausage stands and other fast food restaurants.
‘They want to impose their wills’
Dozens of different groups, including communists, anarchists and environmentalists, were taking part and messages were mixed: Some urged action from the G-8 countries in the fight against HIV/AIDS, African poverty and climate change, while others questioned the legitimacy of the existence of the G-8 itself. Among the organizers were the anti-globalization group Attac, radical leftists, Christian groups, the Green Party and others.
The protest comes ahead of the three-day summit that opens Wednesday in the nearby northern resort town of Heiligendamm, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts the leaders of the other G-8 nations—Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Canada, and the United States.
Kay Stenzel woke at 3 a.m. to drive in from the eastern city of Bautzen with four friends to voice their discontent with the G-8 leaders.
“They want to impose their wills upon the poor nations,” he said, waving a red flag emblazoned with a black cat—an animal he chose because it was “unruly.”
One moment while I digress...
"The resort town of Heiligendamm"???
Man, that's a Helluvagawdamm appropriate place for the G-8 summbit!
Feelin hot, hot, hot...
A lot to read, but the headlines themselves are interesting. Living outside of NYC we don’t hear anything about this.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/03/23/2007-03-23_families_of_sept_11_victims_accuse_city_.html
Families of Sept. 11 victims accuse city of losing remains
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/06/02/2007-06-02_wtc_dig_unearths_1400_remains-1.html
WTC dig unearths 1,400 remains
http://www.amny.com/news/local/ny-bc-ny--attacks-remains0601jun01,0,986696.story?coll=am-topheadlines
NYC searching sewer line for 9/11 remains, ends dig at WTC road…Across from the site, workers over the past two years found another 785 bones at a 40-story vacant skyscraper that is being razed. Searching of the lower floors of the former Deutsche Bank building and of the service road ended this week, Skyler said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/03/24/2007-03-24_911_remains_fill_potholes_worker_claims.html
9/11 remains fill potholes, worker claims …The pulverized remains of bodies from the World Trade Center disaster site were used by city workers to fill ruts and potholes, a city contractor says in a sworn affidavit filed yesterday in Manhattan Federal Court. Eric Beck says debris powders - known as fines - were put in a pothole-fill mixture by crews at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, where more than 1.65 million tons of World Trade Center debris were deposited after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Just catching up here...
Posted by: NonnyO at June 1, 2007 08:06 PM
Well-made point, NonnyO
Posted by: not my president at June 2, 2007 12:15 PM
:-) Well, actually, this time I didn't write anything with a rant in mind. I didn't feel 'ranty' when I wrote it. I just wrote until I ran out of things to say.
I have always wanted to take the heated fear- and war-mongering rhetoric down a hundred notches and have people calmly and rationally deconstruct the fear- and war-mongering rhetoric vs actual events. What REALLY happened on 9/11 vs. what Georgie and Dickie want us to believe happened, that is.
What REALLY happened on 9/11 was criminal in nature (some might call it criminally insane on the part of the hijackers, and I believe that would be correct). But it was still NOT an 'act of war' by any stretch of the imagination, for the simple reason no other country's army was involved, no country sanctioned it, no country declared war on us, and the people involved in the extremely criminal activity were "only" part of a gang of thugs. They all died in the commissionon of their crime. Any co-conspirators who knew about it should have been sought by international law enforcement agencies. But it was no reason to start a war anywhere.
Take away all the flaming post-9/11 rhetoric designed to imbue us all with fear and ready to go start an illegal war on Georgie's and Dickie's behalf and in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 and one is left with REALITY. Everything Georgie and Dickie did after 9/11 falls under the prohibitions of the Geneva Conventions and they have, indeed committed war crimes (and they've acted unconstitutionally, since the Geneva Conventions become part of our constitution under the treaties clause).
That just leaves me feeling more depressed than I can put into words.
I'm particularly awed by the numbers for Condiliar.
Posted by: sparrow at June 2, 2007 12:15 PM
Eeeeeeow! I'm shocked speechless.
I'll likely change my mind many times over before election day next year, but right now, if I were voting today, I'd vote a Gore-Kucinich, or Gore-Clark, or Gore-Feingold ticket.
But that's only as my opinion stands today. I reserve the right to change my mind as events unfold in the future.
Posted by: dwahzon at June 2, 2007 01:33 PM
Thanx! :-)
Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060207Y.shtml
In the rough and tumble of Alabama politics, the scramble for power is often a blood sport. At the moment, the state's former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed US attorneys. Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy.
In Clash With Marines, Reservists Gain Ally in VFW
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060207Z.shtml
The national commander of the proud, patriotic, 2.4 million strong Veterans of Foreign Wars (motto: "Honor the dead by helping the living") took one look at the mushrooming dispute between three antiwar Marine reservists and the US Marine Corps, and knew where his sympathies lay: with the protesters.
Excerpt:
While all three reservists wore parts of their uniforms during demonstrations, at least one of the charges seems to involve speech only: Liam Madden, 22, of Boston, is accused of making disloyal statements in a speech where he accused the Bush administration of "war crimes"; said the conflict is a war "of aggression" and "empire building"; and said Bush "betrayed U.S. military personnel." Madden says he was not in uniform during that February speech in New York.
{{{Errrr.... WHAT, specifically, is "disloyal" about telling the TRUTH? The Iraq war IS a war crime because it IS a war of aggression, per the definition in the Geneva Conventions (ergo, part of our Constitution, ergo unconstitutional, besides), and since Georgie and Dickie and their ilk want to build permanent military bases in Iraq (and stay there like we did in Korea, except, of course, the oil wells have more value for the oil corporations than any piece of land in Korea), and they are already building the world's largest embassy in Baghdad, that also constitutes "empire building" (not to mention the dictated Iraq constitution which, if voted on in the Iraq legislature, would give US oil corporations control of the Iraq oil fields, with only smaller amounts of money finding its way back to the Iraq treasury). And, yes, by ordering the US military to Iraq and killing innocent civilians, Georgie IS "betraying the U.S. military personnel" for the simple reason that fighting his war (war crime) makes them accessories to Georgie's crimes, participants in Georgie's war crimes. Betrayal doesn't get any worse than that, because it makes the troops culpable and liable to be brought up on war crimes charges for the sake of Georgie's illegal and unconstitutional war. BTW, I still remember the 2000 prez debates when Georgie specifically retorted to Vice President Al Gore that he didn't intend to do any "empire building." It was his lying body language that gave him away, and it was in that specific instant that I KNEW that if Georgie was elected he would invade Iraq. I recommend reading the entire article for context. If Georgie and Dickie find themselves out of favor with the VFW, they're toast. Heh.}}}
Posted by: NonnyO at June 2, 2007 02:04 PM
As a P.S. to my own post....
Remember the Lt. Ehren Watada case? That was quietly dropped, too, when part of his statement of 'guilt' included his reasons for not going to Iraq: Geneva Conventions, war of aggression, war crimes.....
If you read another paragraph from that same article, no statement was forthcoming from the Pentagon. They KNOW Georgie's and Dickie's war in Iraq is a war crime per the Geneva Conventions.
If they don't quietly drop their 'disloyal' crap (like they did for Lt. Watada), people may wake up and actually read the Geneva Conventions for themselves, which has to lead to reading the treaties clause of the US Constitution, to find out the Marines ARE telling the truth. While they read the Geneva Conventions, they'll figure out right quick that the torture and imprisonment of people at Gitmo is also a war crime....
Which could lead to questions about why they haven't been impeached... et cetera and so on and so forth.
The only thing they can really do that would make any sense is just not give the Marines any air time in Lamestream Media (like Lt. Watada has not been mentioned). That won't stop the news flow on the internet, but it will keep reality from being broadcast to sheeple who still believe the Iraq war is somehow 'justified' (at least in Georgie's and Dickie's pea-brains).
Posted by: not my president at June 2, 2007 10:16 AM
Not just the Bush family.
Plenty of other Americans were sympathetic to Hitler's cause, notably Henry Ford.
Posted by: monkey at June 2, 2007 08:16 AM
The Cuban exiles need to all be sent back. They are a CANCER on our government and politics.
We admitted them to enjoy the freedoms denied back home, not to let them f**k up our government!
Let this also be a warning to Koreatown and Little Saigon here in California.
Posted by: sparrow at June 2, 2007 10:28 AM
"Protecting Our Freedom" is a very popular phrase in the suburbs of Red California, where it is written under the names of a given suburban town's armed forces members.
I puke at the sight of these banners. These men and women in uniform are definitely sacrificing so much, and definitely deserve our recognition and support, but "protecting our freedom" they are NOT.
WNBC-TV: Feds arrest 3 in alleged terror plot on Kennedy Airport
Posted by: monkey at June 2, 2007 12:23 PM
Keeping a population in fear is the best way for the fascists to prolong their grip on power, and consolidate support.
I know it too well.
Posted by: Ralpheh at June 1, 2007 06:58 PM
Ralpheh, point one, we should never concentrate on Bush's failures. His successes are the ones that might hit the front pages of lazy editors. They'll read success and print. Hopefully. But he has major successes to boast of.
Bush Successes:
Providing the platform for terrorist
@@@@@@@@
We have to do both on Bush/Cheney:
We have to lay out their failures and their dubious successes.
WE HAVE TO define Bush and Cheney... not the Lamestream media or the puppet-master Karl Rove.
This is what is so frustrating about the DEms in Congress - they need some talking points ( kind of like Clinton's old "It's the economy stupid") and hammer away at those points. Say that Bush misled and deceived (if you don't want to use the word "lie") us into a disastrous war. Osama has NOT been caught; Afghanistan is still a mess 5 1/2 years after we invaded; Lebanon is a mess; Israel/ Palestine is a mess etc...
The Dems need a media guru to constantly push our talking points... Right now half of America thinks that Saddam attacked us on 9-11....
Congress Wants Ashcroft's Testimony
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060207A.shtml
The Senate and House Intelligence Committees are asking former attorney general John Ashcroft to testify about a March 2004 hospital-room confrontation during which he refused to sign off on a continuation of President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program, according to congressional and administration sources.
White House Follows New Path to Secrecy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060207D.shtml
A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.
California Ballot May Include Question About Iraq Withdrawal
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060207G.shtml
California is poised to become the first state to ask voters whether they favor an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
{{{Don't know 'bout you, but this proposal sounds like a smashingly good idea to me... I could only wish that all states do the same.... Congress Critters would have no choice but to listen to their constituents or face being thrown out of office.}}}
US May Keep Troops in Iraq Well Beyond 2009
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060207C.shtml
Defense Secretary Robert Gates envisions "some presence" on the part of the United States that "provides reassurance to our friends and to governments in the region, including those that might be our adversaries, that we're going to be there for a long time," Gates said.
Excerpt (at top of page TO notes this story, which aired on ABC, has now been taken off their web site):
A senior official said one long-term plan would have 30-50,000 U.S. forces in Iraq for 5-10 years beyond 2009.
{{{So much for Georgie's 2000 pledge of "no nation building."}}}
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8pf0Q4LfkqA
New Rules with Bill Maher May 25th
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/02/lack-of-donors-forces-rnc-to-lay-off-phone-workers/
Lack Of Donors Forces RNC To Lay Off Phone Workers
;-) Heh....
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/02/saturday-cartoons-5/
Saturday Cartoons
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/06/saturday-cartoons.html
{{{Sucker Fish cartoon is particularly apt at this point....}}}
California Ballot May Include Question About Iraq Withdrawal
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060207G.shtml
California is poised to become the first state to ask voters whether they favor an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
Posted by: NonnyO at June 2, 2007 07:40 PM
It'll be a close vote (and will pass only in the Bay Area and pockets of Los Angeles), and will have no legal power, as the article mentions.
But it will definitely have repercussions like the illegal immigrant proposition, as the article also mentions.
I do hope it makes it to the ballot.
It still doesn't change the fact that the California Democrats are irrelevant to motorists and sportsmen, though.
Wow - huge protests at G8 in Germany.
Bush is going there too.
Posted by: Elizabeth at June 2, 2007 08:48 PM
Yeah, and look at this 'headline' from an AP news story about it... flaming media hyperbole. It's flat-out announcing the belligerent little twerp is going there to announce that he wants things his way or no way...! (And kool-aid drinkers wonder why he's so universally hated around the world...?!? Sheesh.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070603/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_europe
Bush brings pre-emptive agenda to Europe
Posted by: Ally McRepuke at June 2, 2007 08:12 PM
If America were a true democracy, it would have been on every ballot across this nation last fall, since the majority of people want that war crime ended, immediately, and DimWit would have had to obey the will of the majority.
It's why democracy was looked upon as 'mob rule' by the ancient Greeks - think it was Aristotle who called democracy 'mob rule' - the will of the majority prevailed, no matter what; the ancient Greeks didn't think that was always wise, which is why they also had a republic, chose from the elite to be the representatives of the people. The Romans followed suit in many respects; they had a Senate, I remember, and I think they had something equal to our House, too, but I don't remember what it was called right now. It's been a long while since I read any philosophy books regarding ancient forms of government.
We've never had a democracy, so it irritates me no end when candidates running for office call our form of government a 'democracy.' They apparently don't remember our Pledge of Allegiance: "... and to the Republic for which it stands...". They're only imitating DimWit who talks about 'exporting democracy to Iraq.' It doesn't help that both Dems and Cons keep repeating his ignorant (ill-educated) phrases.
** new thread **
(and a nice non-headbusting one it is, too -- we all can all use a break from the outrage and the ranting every now and again)