The torture. We are back to the torture. Not in the mainstream media, except for some small comments about the fact that a survey was recently conducted that found over seventy-five percent of the public wants the allegations of torture investigated. It was not reported, except by a few internet sites, that certain 'unredacted,' and I love that word, parts of a House subcommittee report on the subject were revealed earlier this day. It was revealed that at least two prisoners, in one of the many institutions we have around the world, were tortured to death. Yes, they were hung in chains and cuffs by their wrists, off the ground, for days, while they were beaten. And they died from this treatment. Others, in another place, were incised with scalpels (presumably by our doctors). Their skin was 'incised,' their word not mine, about many places of their bodies, including their penises, and then 'irritating' agents were introduced into the openings the scalpels made.
No wonder there is some hesitation for even the Obama administration to have this stuff get out. If this is just two pages of an eight hundred page document, then what other outrages are in there? The whole thing is beginning to resemble the Nixon resignation. Gerald Ford was a kindly man, way out of his element as President. I think that has been pretty conclusively proven. But he gave Nixon a pass on everything he had done or might have done. Why did he do that? What is it that would have brought this country to it's moralistic knees if it had been discovered? Nixon was killing his opponents. In this country. Citizens. And that would have been quite devastating. So it was hushed up. The country went on through the most difficult time following Nixon's reign. But it is always so. We live in a Puritanical Calvinistic culture rooted in such affectations. It is always a bad time. These are always the most troubling of times. When has it ever been announced, at any time ever, that the good times have begun? That things are just great? I'll tell you when. Such times are only announced after any good time has well passed. Good times may only be revealed in America using the past tense. And here we are again. The most troubling time of all. Good grief, as you get older, this crap gets really really old. And then there is what it leads to.
We are paying the price for the Nixon pardon. Right now. We do not go back and figure out what went wrong. We did not then and we will not now. This is a country supposedly rooted in the scientific method. We do not examine. We do not publish what happened so that we can not make that mistake, or those mistakes, again. Torture is heinous. Our participation in the torture of many people around the world, no matter what the great good reasons, is dispicable, cowardly and the act of low-life maggots allowed and approved by a weak and stupified general public. And we are fixing to sweep it all under the rug....again. Which means that it is only a matter of time until these kinds of horrors will be repeated. Oh, and they will be repeated on our own people as well. You see we have freed everyone out there of constraint. All they need is a really good selfish reason, like ours. Like the small violent segment of Moslems who attacked were ever going to bring this country down. It could never happen. There are not enough of them. Even with the recruiting help we have given them in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe our bankers and financial gurus will do a better job of bringing this country down. Maybe, since torture has become a part of our culture (and if you don't believe that then witness the popularity of that jingoistic show called 24) we might consider torturing the financial people. We might even consider that same thing for Dick Cheney. You know, the penis 'incising' thing. Oh, sorry, I forgot. Dick Cheney has no dick.
Gregg has backed out as Commerce Secretary. The Republicans are still paying their sophomoric games. I was once a Young Republican (or Hitler Youth, take your pick) and remember all the dirty tricks that were planned and gamed on the poor liberal democrats. Late in the day, and after Gregg had 'volunteered himself to Obama for the post,' the White House (our bright man named Emanuel) figured out that Gregg might be positioning himself for the Secretary's job in order to influence the coming census. That national census can have a huge effect on coming elections. So he pulled the census from the Commerce Department and put the responsibility for it under the White House itself. Gregg resigned from his candidacy the same day that that move was announced! That was a direct hit Mr. E! Nice job.
The professor, my friend out here in the wilderness, is emeritus from his university in History. Last November he went on a trip through Vietnam and Cambodia. He led a bunch of college alumni through the sweaty post-monsoon parts of those countries. He brought back his well written journals, and about a thousand photos of the regions and their peoples. Of today. It was amazing to review all that stuff. I was in those countries back in the late sixties. I was fighting that Vietnam war. Forty years later all my friend saw were kind smiling faces. The people all say 'America Number One,' and they mean it. There is work and commerce everywhere. Construction and trade and tons of traffic and people. They hold no grudge against us. They liked the French, the way they tell it today, a whole lot less than us, and still hate Russians to this day. So what the hell happened over there? We lost that war. The communists won. They united the countries of North and South, after we left. We thought they would destroy one another and totally fail. But they did not. We thought that they would starve, but they have not. We thought that the few we took in when we left would fare much better, but they have not.
So what the hell are we still doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why has Obama not pulled us out? Why are we still pouring money into those places? Money that we supposedly don't have? If we just announce that we have lost those wars and come home, what do you think is going to happen? Well, take a look at Vietnam and that whole region. Why is it, when I was a kid, and even somewhat today, communism is not even something that could be discussed, much less studied. Why does it seem to be working in China? I have not put those questions to the professor. I do not have that many friends out here. I do not need to have one less. And one other thing. I did not say anything to him about all the photographs. But why were all the Americans so fat and ugly in those pictures? Here were the lithe beautiful Vietnamese and Cambodians running all around them in Western attire. And it was not age. There are a lot of old people over in those countries. And in those photos. Invariably, the natives were all smiling. The Americans never were. We are doing some things terribly wrong in our culture. Without examining exactly what those things are, and correcting them, we are never going to smile, and Jabba The Hutt will live here in the hundreds of millions.
They, the leaders of this great country, have been doing things in my name. In your name. When? When are we going to rise up and scream: "thou shalt not take my name in vain!"
from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com
http://www.themastodons.com
In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man disabled with a peripheral neuropathic disorder that left him unable to walk rose to the highest office in our nation during the midst of the worst economic disaster in U.S. history. Five sentences into his inaugural address, FDR set the course of the nation for the next 36 years, declaring “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”. Those words became the anthem that echoed throughout our nation, instilling a sense of bravery and patriotism in all Americans, just as “Yes, We Can” rings out today. U.S. citizens had no jobs; no food, and yet, one of FDR’s first accomplishments was bringing beer and wine back into American communities, and by the end of that year, prohibition of all other alcoholic beverages had ended. Until recently, ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment has been consistently overlooked or criticized for it’s lack of importance. Today historians identify it as a strategically prudent maneuver of the only U.S. presidential administration maintaining overwhelming popularity across an unprecedented four terms despite the challenges in resolving the Great Depression. Repealing Prohibition was more than a gift of Pleasure; it was a gift of Responsibility. It brought Unity and Motivation to the backbone of the nation to support FDR throughout the largest war effort of all time, culminating in the only U.S. war victory of the 20th century through today and into the foreseeable future. We can wrap a circle around the years 1933 through 1968 and rightfully call this the Rooseveltian Era. It was a time of superman, super heroes, and binary super powers. It was a time when people remained loyal to “Truth, Justice, and the American way” simply because “fear” was not a barrier.
Psycho-active chemical substances were first introduced to the American people by the U.S. Government. Students today learn that Japanese and Nazi military used amphetamines which had an impact on our opponents losing the war. The truth is that amphetamines were regarded state-of-the-art military technology during WWII and those who had the most advanced technology were more likely to have a greater abundance of amphetamines. Since U.S. technology during the war was by far, the most advanced, it is rather obvious that we exceeded others in quantity.
The assassinations of three U.S. Civil Rights leaders during the 1960s rocked the Rooseveltian Era and brought psycho-active substances into the mainstream. The general public was in mourning; the drugs became a way to heal.
While the presidential administration of Richard M. Nixon is credited with ending segregation, landing an American on the moon, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and the end of the draft and the Vietnam War, these events were either fueled by public protest or already set in motion prior to Nixon’s inauguration. The impetus of the Nixon administration lies in restoration of Fear, Ignorance, and Exclusion. Antithetical to FDR, Nixon befriended Fear and Ignorance with a chilling and ghostly pessimism that resounds not only through the tapes he left behind, but in his policies, namely, in the war on drugs (WOD). The Nixonian Era has enduring for 40 years now .
To understand why the WOD was never a logical move, consider two major issues impacting health and safety of the Boomer generation during their teen years, automobiles and drugs, and how each was handled by two distinctively different presidents, one during the Rooseveltian Era and the other in the Nixonian Era.
MOTOR VEHICLE LEGISLATION
In 1966, when automobile fatalities had topped 50,000 in one year, President Lyndon Johnson brought before Congress recommendations from a 1936 Select Committee of the United States Senate, the 1949 Hoover Commission Task Force on Transportation, President Eisenhower’s 1961 Budget Message, and a 1961 Special Study Group of the Senate Committee on Commerce in urging the US Congress to create Department of Transportation.[i] President Johnson facilitated an inclusive effort that reached out to automobile manufacturers, federal, state, and local government contractors engineering the design of roads and highways, motorists, and high schools in developing the foundation for policy that is still successful today.
DRUG WAR LEGISLATION
Exactly one month after the Stonewall Riots commenced on June 27, 1969 in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, triggering a positive turning point in the gay movement, the Nixon administration issued legislation for a comprehensive reform of federal drug enforcement laws. It was a response to constituents and others who believed that sexual perversity was caused by psycho-active substances. Until 1973, homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in the DSM, and the growth of the gay movement was incorrectly attributed to the use of illicit drugs. In Nixon’s May 13, 1971 taped conversation with John D. Ehrlichman, and H. R. Haldeman, Nixon himself states that “Homosexuality, dope, and immorality are the enemies of strong societies.”[ii] A month later, on June 17, 1971, just 10 days before the second annual Gay Pride Parade in New York City, Richard Nixon spoke before Congress with the opening words:
“In New York City more people between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five years die as a result of narcotics than from any other single cause.
"In 1960, less than 200 narcotic deaths were recorded in New York City. In 1970, the figure had risen to over 1,000…”[iii]
The mention of New York City, of course, was a blatant allusion to the gay population that stirred a rather fanatical nationwide appeal by the president in which he states:
“The magnitude and the severity of the present threat will no longer permit this piecemeal and bureaucratically-dispersed effort at drug control. If we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us. I am not prepared to accept this alternative.”[iv]
There are two ironies here.
FIRST, “piecemeal…” describes the actions reformists are taking today in a leisurely attempt to undo the WOD. However, the magnitude and severity of the threat imposed by today’s drug laws has totally eclipsed all problems resulting from drugs.
SECOND, destroying the “drug menace in America” IS destroying us, since “US” defines the American people comprised of drug users / abusers.…
Unlike Johnson, who managed the implementation of formal recommendations from experts, commissions, and panels assembled specifically to study the problem of motor vehicle accidents, Nixon excluded the voice of experience, the general public, and even the recommendations from the National Committee on Marihuana and Drug Abuse led by Raymond Shafer, a committee that Nixon personally appointed which recommended the legalization of marijuana when it was released in March 1972. Richard Nixon and members of his administration also rejected input from Dr. Roger Egeburg, Assistant Secretary of Health that he personally appointed to study 1972 in shaping the WOD. In reviewing more than 100 transcribed documents produced by Nixon with specific regard to drug abuse during the first term of his administration, his concern about drug abuse that seems admirable at first glance is actually obsessive and disturbing. However, it is Nixon’s unrefined, personal, erratic, and dangerously presumptive level of understanding about psychoactive substances and drug abuse that are alarming and without foundation. As a result, his efforts threaten rather than inform; demand rather than request; broadly assume rather than specifically identify. Discrepancies in definable terminology with the medical community have been one significant factor steering the U.S. Government directly off course from the original objective.
With support for the drug war waning during the Ford and Carter administrations, Ronald Reagan’s adoption of the WOD was an expectation. During the 1980s, the WOD began expanding in scope with increased bipartisan support and a new focus on prescription drugs. One of the great blunders of the Democratic Party has been the failure to recognize drug use as a Civil Rights issue. Zero Tolerance policy with mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines was not a deterrent to drug use / abuse; it was an invitation to the drug community to engage in other forms of crime. For example, burglary can be reduced to a sentence of a few months; the minimum for possession is 10 years. In cases across the U.S. a defendant arrested for both burglary and drug possession the latter charge might be thrown out if the defendant pleads guilty to the charge of burglary. However, if the defendant was only charged with drug possession, judges have no recourse but to sentence the defendant for 10 years. Such laws are ridiculous because drug crimes offer no reason for incarceration whatsoever.
“Too little is known about drug abuse, especially the causes, ways to treat, and prevent drug abuse.” That humiliating, show-stopping statement came from members of the 109th US Congress in January 2006, 34 years and 7 months after President Nixon declared drugs to be “public enemy number 1”, launching an effort that has cost US taxpaying citizens 2 trillion USD, clogging our courts and increasing our prison population with non-violent drug law offenders sentenced 20-to-40 years or longer under zero tolerance guidelines for something that the US Government knows “too little” about. These mandatory sentences have routinely torn families apart for simple drug possession. As parents are arrested, children, adolescents, and teenagers are taken into custody and frequently scattered among family members whose lives are inconvenienced and these minors are often left on the streets to fend for themselves. They end up without education, a bitter hostility towards law enforcement, and a lifetime of criminal activity. Our lawmakers may know “too little about drug abuse”, but when it comes to spinning out criminals, no nation has mastered this craft better than the U.S.
At the end of the first decade in the 21st century, evidence strongly reveals that the harm resulting from U.S. drug policy is inescapable. Incidents might no longer be hidden but reported daily by the mainstream press with callous interest from the general public which has been led to believe that punishment and treatment are the only ways to stop drug abuse. This is false. These are invalid approaches. Inside the walls of correctional institutions of America, drugs still proliferate. Hundreds of reform organizations have sprouted up over the years and membership is growing steadily in number. While the U.S. Government is so consumed with achieving an impossible victory in the WOD, it has neglected to notice that the collateral damage of current drug policy, by far outweighs any benefit. In fact, it is virtually impossible to determine why nothing has been done to change the course of a war between the government and the people; a war that is destabilizing our nation leading to dangers that are far more imminent than those of global warming. Impacts of the WOD can be mapped across 12 categories:
1. Human Life
2. Civil Rights
3. Healthcare
4. Medical & Pharmacological Research
5. Education
6. Criminal Justice
7. Law Enforcement
8. Corporations & Businesses
9. Economics
10. Family & Society
11. Foreign Relations
12. Future Generations
Each of these is currently defined on my website at http://www.DrugUseEducation.org, I plan to write a blog summarizing each.
RESPONSIBLE DRUG USE IS NORMAL
My website at http://www.DrugUseEducation.org explains in great detail the residual effects our drug laws, but first, to couch my point, simply and succinctly: appropriately formulated drugs are not a threat to humanity. They never have been. Using drugs and chemical substances is normal human behavior.[v] Our culture has established this with regard to using drugs which have medicinal value, while ancient civilizations established the recreational value of drugs with countless generations ever since approving the use of alcohol. The Electro-Chemical Age[vi] coinciding with the Anthropocene[vii] Epoch in which we live today is the logical springboard for introducing safer alternatives to alcohol when correctly administered. These options also make it possible for individuals of different genetic types to enjoy pleasure and relaxation that is more suitable to their body chemistry than alcohol, which is considered to be one of the most lethal substances along with tobacco and gasoline used as pleasure drugs by Americans but are not controlled substances.
THE REAL THREAT IS THE LACK OF EDUCATION
The dangers associated with drugs are specifically linked to incorrect methods of drug administration, namely: drug abuse, dependence, addiction, and misuse. President Richard Nixon was aware of this. Throughout President Nixon’s address to U.S. Congress on June 17, 1971, he specifically mentions drug abuse and drug addiction as the two central “drug problems”. Furthermore, RN presents a proposal for rehabilitation and prevention efforts. Not once does RN mention a “war on drugs” before Congress. Not once does he make the remark that “America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse”. Such comments were made during a news briefing several hours after RN addressed Congress.
ABSENSE OF STANDARDS & GUIDELINES
During the past 37 years, the WOD has evolved into an enigma of convoluted terminology, in which there are no standards and no guidelines to designate the acceptable use of recreational drugs, a pastime that has been growing among adults and will surely continue to grow well into the future with no end anticipated outside of the annihilation of the Earth before we have the opportunity to inhabit at least one other planet outside our solar system.
For that reason, I am appealing to the Obama administration and members of Congress to consider my proposal or any substitute action that will stop the condemnation of those with legitimate medical disorders using controlled substances and responsible recreational drug users and self-medicators who want -- and very well may have just cause -- to use drugs, while providing necessary education to everyone in society, especially those who are unaware how drugs should be used correctly, applying harm reduction, and providing treatment for drug abusers and those who have become chemically dependant. So far, the U.S. Government has repeatedly failed to show why anyone administering drugs one way or another -- whether they are prescribed or illicit controlled substances -- should be subjected to incarceration when they threaten no other members of society. By legalizing drugs and making them available at a fair price to individuals who have earned the privilege to use them, the unwanted illicit drug trade would diminish and cease to exist with the absence of any demand for illegal drugs.
I do not support an illicit drug trade, or the manufacturing, sale, distribution and use of impure homemade/homegrown substances that have not been FDA-approved, or the glamorization and commercial sale of drugs as has been the case with alcohol and tobacco. My philosophy is that all drugs whether they are used for medicinal, recreational, performance-enhancement or other purposes are a personal matter that requires education and qualified support by a legitimate pharmacist, physician, or perhaps some other trained and certified individual who is able work with the user to determine which drug is appropriate for them. While there is no way to assure that drugs won’t be abused, dosing restrictions provided with every drug, including alcohol and cigarettes would give the public the knowledge and the responsibility to maintain control.
In the 21st century, the problems associated with incorrect forms of drug administration are merely a cosmetic blemish compared to the life-threatening hemorrhage that defines our current drug policy. How can we even begin to estimate the number of individuals that are adversely impacted by our drug laws. There are reports on-line which suggest a lower end of 700,000 to an upper end of more than 200 million U.S. citizens that have in some way been adversely impacted by our society’s drug laws during the past two decades. Tragically, many of those directly in the line of fire have been innocent children.[viii] Even more tragically, down here in the trenches we are helplessly witnessing the self-destruction of America as faith in our democratic government wanes amidst a background of corruption, including drug laws that have created an environment far worse than the prohibition of alcohol from 1920 until 1933 since today we have included patients with legitimate medical disorders among those who use drugs for entertainment.
The longer it takes to reach a level of sane, acceptable, drug policy, the more certain we are that a far greater number of human lives will be challenged, if not lost, by hardships that result from the irrational control of psycho-active substances.
[i] Special Message to the Congress on Transportation. Lyndon B. Johnson March 2nd, 1966 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28114&st=automobile&st1=
[ii] http://www.gicomeng.com/histinsidenixon.htm Original Source: Harper’s Magazine.
[iii] http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3048&st=&st1= Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control, June 17, 1971.
[iv] Ibid
[v] See analysis at http://www.gicomeng.com/
[vi] Electro-Chemical Age (ECA) – The theoretical name that logically represents the tools of our time, which are electronic or chemical based. The ECA has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment (18the Century)that spawned the Industrial Revolution. Technically, the ECA succeeds the Industrial Revolution that took place during the early 19th century. The ceremonial start date of the ECA is May 1, 1851, the date that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert opened the Great Exhibition (aka Crystal Palace) in Hyde Park, London, England, where over 17,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered to demonstrate their inventions and trigger the start of an Age dominated by electrically-powered mechanics, and complex chemical technology.
[vii] Anthropocene is used by some scientists to describe the most recent period in the Earth's history. It has no precise start date, but may be considered to start in the late 18th century when the activities of the humans first began to have a significant global impact on the Earth's climate and ecosystems. This date coincides with James Watt's invention of the steam engine in 1784.[1] The term was coined in 2000 by the Nobel Prize winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, who regards the influence of human behavior on the Earth in recent centuries as so significant as to constitute a new geological era.
[viii]
RBC Bank President Gordon Nixon - Salary $11.73 Million
$100,000 - MISTAKE (FISHERMEN'S LOAN)
I'm a commercial fisherman fighting the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC Bank) over a $100,000 loan mistake. I lost my home, fishing vessel and equipment. Help me fight this corporate bully by closing your RBC Bank account.
There was no monthly interest payment date or amount of interest payable per month on my loan agreement. Date of first installment payment (Principal + interest) is approximately 1 year from the signing of my contract.Demand loan agreements signed by other fishermen around the same time disclosed monthly interest payment dates and interest amounts payable per month.The lending policy for fishermen did change at RBC from one payment (principal + interest) per year for fishing loans to principal paid yearly with interest paid monthly. This lending practice was in place when I approached RBC.Only problem is the loans officer was a replacement who wasn't familiar with these type of loans. She never informed me verbally or in writing about this new criteria.
Phone or e-mail:RBC President, Gordon Nixon, Toronto (416)974-6415RBC Vice President, Sales, Anne Lockie, Toronto (416)974-6821RBC President, Atlantic Provinces, Greg Grice (902)421-8112 mail to:greg.grice@rbc.comRBC Manager, Cape Breton/Eastern Nova Scotia, Jerry Rankin (902)567-8600RBC Vice President, Atlantic Provinces, Brian Conway (902)491-4302 mail to:brian.conway@rbc.comRBC Vice President, Halifax Region, Tammy Holland (902)421-8112 mail to:tammy.holland@rbc.comRBC Senior Manager, Media & Public Relations, Beja Rodeck (416)974-5506 mail to:beja.rodeck@rbc.comRBC Ombudsman, Wendy Knight, Toronto, Ontario 1-800-769-2542 mail to:ombudsman@rbc.comOmbudsman for Banking Services & Investments, JoAnne Olafson, Toronto, 1-888-451-4519 mail to:ombudsman@obsi.ca
http://www.pfraser.blogspot.com
http://www.corporatebully.ca
http://www.youtube.com/CORPORATEBULLY
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/17877
"Fighting the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC Bank) one customer at a time"
It is almost over, this painful odyssey through a tortured and labyrinthian complex of 'Alice in Wonderland' horror. George Bush is almost out of there, exiting as if he was Himmler giving his last and fond farewell. He was strong. He was loyal. He acted in spite of his supposed ideals and against certain conservative principals. And on and on into more drooling stupidity, the kind of such that we have been graced with for eight years. Eventually, this shape-shifting fool will be seen to have killed more people, more deliberately, and with less mercy, than Joseph Stalin. He and his fat 'Jobba The Hut' crony Dick Cheney. "When the land was ruled by evil idiots' ought to be the autobiographical title....that this simpering wimp purports to intend to write. If he could write any more than his shaky signature.
There is a lot of talk, out here on the internet and in the media, about the likely fact that Obama and team will not prosecute or go after Bush and his bunch of thieving killer scumbags. That may be true. There is always a tendency of those, when they are just taking over, to want to get on with things. It is there time and they do not want to give any of that time away to those that preceded them. Our culture does not do that with the common man. Your speeding ticket is never forgotten or forgiven. It is paid for with money or in 'skin.' Your credit record is never forgiven. Your criminal record is certainly never forgiven or forgotten. No, you are a common citizen. That is what the culture demands of you. It does not demand that of the aristocracy, and we all know it. We just don't talk about it very much. The thought lays there, at the bottom of our collective and individual mind. It is not fair. It is not good for the future. It is only good for those who were the criminal leaders and good for those taking over. There was no huge outcry of outrage over the pardon of Richard Nixon. He was pardoned so we could 'heal,' as a country. Just the first lie of the new incoming administration of the time. Richard Nixon was pardoned for two reasons: he had information on his own activities he could have revealed to shock the nation senseless (he was having his enemies in this country killed!) and the Ford people wanted their power complete and immediate, not based upon going over the past. It was a disservice to all of us, and we are still paying a price for it this day. Our culture has become a culture of lies and we all know it. And we don't like it. But what can we do?
Obama may not have to 'go after' Bush and his henchmen. If things get bad enough here, then the normal system of justice will not be consulted. The people will simply apply democracy to those who so badly need it. And, oh, the argument put forth lately by our fascinating leadership in Congress is that the men and women who did those torturous deeds in our name should not be punished. They were, after all, like Jack Bauer, in 24, merely following orders. The show precedes or presages what is happening in real life. We are being sold a package (secretly, as in the show, we really applaud Jack's work, but only when nobody is looking or listening!) in new wrapping. Following WWII we have the Nuremberg Trials. The argument of the defense was exactly what we are talking about today. And it did not wash. The judges listened to the argument; we were merely following orders, and then hanged the followers one and all.
But we have time. And things do not seem to be improving across this land. Both Bush and Cheney, when they get to their respective ranches, should assure that they have some big strong walls and long clear fields of fire. And they need to stay awake nights. They are retiring, and they are going to get the type of retirement they deserve. Eventually, this culture is going to have spent enough time thinking and suffering. Never forget that maggots have to eat too.
"Just Bomb the Hell Out of Them"
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment
By HOWARD LISNOFF @ counterpunch.org
I recently stopped in at a Cambodian restaurant that I have been going to for many years. Although eating the food for which a particular group is known is perhaps the most superficial of ways to communicate with people, I found myself involved in small talk with the people who staffed the restaurant on this particular winter day in Providence, Rhode Island. The young men and women who staffed the business were indistinguishable from those of their peer group. They were about my children’s ages. They spoke of their families, the holiday, and their dislike for the annoying reality program that played on the television meant to “entertain” those waiting for take-out orders.
When our conversations ended, I thought of the events of long ago that propelled me to become a war resister. The incursions of Richard Nixon into Cambodia in April 1970, purportedly to stop the flow of troops and armaments traveling down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam into South Vietnam, unleashed consequences that even Nixon could not have foreseen, but needed to avoid. National Security Archive transcripts just released relate interchanges between Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Regarding the dropping of millions of pounds of bombs on Cambodia by the U.S., Nixon responds to Kissinger: “That shock treatment [is] cracking them. I tell you the thing to do is pour it in there every place we can…just bomb the hell out of them.” ............
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.counterpunch.org/lisnoff12262008.html
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Nevada * Nevada Bible Study * Obama for Nevada * State of Nevada
If like me you are not old enough to have voted in 1960, or if you are old enough and voted for John F. Kennedy as you should have, try and imagine how it would feel if you had voted for Richard Nixon instead.
Imagine watching Kennedy's rise, in life and in death, to take his place among America's greatest presidents, knowing that you could have voted for him but didn't; and imagine then watching Nixon's descent to take his place among the worst, knowing that you voted for him perhaps not just once but two or even three times.
Imagine watching the secret bombing of Cambodia revealed, watching the sad tale of Watergate unfold, and watching Nixon's resignation in disgrace. Imagine looking back from the vantage point of 1974 and thinking of how you might have voted differently in 1960, of how at that pivotal point in time you made an unwise decision and ended up on the wrong side of history.
Now imagine how things might have been if lots more people had made the same mistake as you in 1960 and John F. Kennedy, one of America's greatest presidents, had never been elected. Imagine a world without President Kennedy.
Then, if you can bear repeating such a tragic error in judgment, go ahead and vote for John McCain.
For me, Joe the Plumber has a negative connotation. In the Nixon years the White House Plumbers went to prison for their dirty deeds! Just use Wikipedia to search for "Nixon Plumbers" and you'll see the story of deceit as they tried to get Nixon elected. They became known as the White House Plumbers or "the plumbers".
Why does the current "Joe the plumber" want to have this kind of association? Is he ignorant of political American history?
Senator Obama wants education to flourish in our country again. Without education, ignorance will bring our country into a black hole. Joe the plumber appears to be a prime example why we need to make education a priority.
For now, though, with the first presidential debate of 2008 still echoing in my ears, I just want to savor the moment and throw out a few random thoughts while getting more substantial ones together.
Are you reading or have you read Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope? If so and if you're a Baby Boomer, Barack’s confession that he’d "always felt a curious relationship to the sixties" (p. 29) must have brought a smile to your face. It certainly made me, a person who entered high school in 1960, smile–not just smile, but actually grin. And sit up a little straighter. And read a little more attentively..
History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
The Obama Campaign likes to stick to substance, but if you really want to get the point across to a middle-aged population brainwashed on television sound bites that is not big on using the Internet to inform itself, they prefer the stick-to-your-brain snippet. Here is one:
Pull your Republican friends (Yes, you have some...) spouting the "Experience!" take when they mention McCain or Palin, or they ding Obama, and lay this on them:
Being a governor or a fomer warrior means a sum total of jack squat. History proves it.
Neither George Washington nor Abraham Lincoln Had Gubernatorial Experience.
Both were men who could think on their feet, just as Barack Obama has shown time and time again that he can do.
During World War II, Allied leaders such as Winston Churchill used a new signal. They raised the back of their hand to the audience and extended their index and middle fingers to form the shape of the letter “V”. This “V for Victory” signal became the Allied symbol during World War II.
In the 1960's and the war in Viet Nam, anti-war activists in the United States inverted the “V for Victory” symbol by pointing the palms of their hands at the audience and extending their index and middle fingers. This backwards-V gesture became the new symbol for “Peace,” and it has been extremely popular, even after 40 years.
Richard Nixon decided to disarm his anti-war opponents, and he did so by displaying the Peace hand gesture himself—usually with both hands. When the hawkish President displayed the peace symbol, he devalued it and rendered it less harmful to his pro-war policies.
In 2008, Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination by emphasizing “Change” over his competitor's claim of “Experience.” John McCain had been campaigning on a platform of experience; but recently, his campaign has decided to use the “Change” slogan.
Once again, a Republican politician has tried to co-opt the slogan of the Democratic candidate. Like the hawkish Nixon who flashed a two-handed Peace sign, Republican John McCain is promising change.
Change from what? McCain is a Republican who has supported the Republican president George W. Bush on many issues: the war in Iraq, tax cuts that favor the rich, and offshore oil drilling. Both Bush and McCain support any policy that helps increase the profits of big oil companies.
Calling himself an agent of change is just another lie by John McCain.
Four years ago, I was sixteen and just getting into politics and the such. I had a very limited view and not too much exposure to much of anything outside of school, drugs, and comic books. Then I started watching the news. Not sit down with my grandmother and watch, but paying attention to the world at large. I had a surrogate family that I thought knew no wrong and basically, took them at thier word on everything. So when they said Kerry was evil in a way that we should not allow and only spoke out on being a "war hero", I assumed them to be telling me the truth.
Looking back, I've never felt so naive.
As the Bush campaign moved foward and the high school years crept by, we all started payign attention more. This is our world soon, we need to know what's going on, right? Friends started joining the military, people were starting thier college carreers and yet, everything still seemed to be getting worse. Why? "Why the hell is this happening still?", I asked myself. Then I decided to do some research.
It seems that when you're allowed to do your own research and make up your own mind, you generally come to the best conclusions. I looked back at the past twenty years of politics over a course of two weeks and what I found opened my eyes more than a Bible ever could. How the country grew more than it ever had during the Clinton administration, and how Bush Sr., Reagan, and pretty much every Republican all the way back to Nixon, had set the stage for Bush's antics. I met people from Europe, Australia, and even Canada who thought America was imploding, how we were the new international joke. The country I loved and pledged myself to, a joke in the eyes of the world? I asked myself how can we change it and who could spearhead this revolution? I prayed for 2008 to get here so I could do something about it. And finally, 2008 arrived.
By this time, I had pretty much ruled out a Republican candidate, seeing it as more of the same. Word of candidates came from everywhere, but when the dust settled, it was Hillary and Barack that stood above the others. When they came ot Austin, I heard them both. And loved them both. I figured whoever wins the candidacy, the Presidency would never be the same. And maybe that's what we needed. A change, something different to suit this new world. Something to show the doubters in the world and here at home that everybody in this country, be they Black, Hispanic, White, a woman, or anything else, has the chance to become what they want, and that this great country is not only run by rich, white men with connections in DC. I didnt attend the caucuses because I couldnt pledge myself to one or the other, but instead would vote as soon as possible to the official candidate.
Time went by and Obama eventually won. And last night, I heard possibly the most life-altering speech I've ever heard. More-so than the "I Have a Dream" speech, more than the script of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclimation. Maybe it's because I saw it live, maybe because it really was that good. Either way, after the Obama's speech last night, I believe we can finally find hope. Maybe the world can find hope in these times where we seem to be spiraling towards the Apocalypse.
In short, I want to thank Bush for opening my eyes at the sins he's committed. And I want to thank the Obama fmaily, the Biden family, and the Clinton family for giving my an epiphany on how this country should be run. With dedication to it's people. With hope and optimism. With sincerity, with a promise to bring us back to the country we once were, and to take back our country from people who are out of touch with reality and do not know how hard it is for struggling high-school grads who can barely make rent to try and get back into school so he can go make a change in this world. Most of all, I want to thank these families for not backing down in the face of the press and standing for what they believe is right. For trying to bring themselves out from where they began. Because when all is said and done, that is truly the American dream.
The McCain ad in response to the latest Obama ad ("Seven"), has no merit.
The Chicago Sun-Times report on June 18, 2007 calling Tony Rezko a top contributor to the Obama camp was written about a month before Cheryl Reed took control of the sensationalized conservative newspaper once owned by RUPERT MURDOCH.
On July 10, 2007, Reed announced that the Sun-Times would be moving away from its sensationalized conservative format based on the New York Post owned by Murdoch's News Corporation (a.k.a. FOX NEWS).
In other news, Kit Bond has launched radio ads convincing people to contact Claire McCaskill to convince people to tell her to support offshore drilling under the rouse of "secure renewable energy". Last time I checked offshore drilling was not a renewable source of energy.
In order to counter the GOPs plan to get people to blindly call Senator McCaskill, a call to Senator Bond seems in order. Gubernatoral candidate Kenny Hulshof also supports Bond and even wants to drill for oil in Missouri using the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to find oil sands in Missouri. Ask the people in Alberta, Canada how well that is working for the environment stripping the earth for resources that are in trace amounts.
Kit Bond's Washington DC number (202) 224-5721
Kit Bond's Jefferson City MO number (573) 442-8151
Kenny Hulshof's Washington DC number (202) 225-2956
Kenny Hulshof's Columbia MO number (573) 449-5111
Kenny Hulshof's Hannibal MO number (573) 221-1200
Kenny Hulshof's Washington MO number (636) 239-4001
Tell Senator Bond and Congresman Hulshof NO MEANS NO!
Renewable energy is in Wind and Solar not Oil and Nuclear!
It’s too late for impeachment but a new book lays out a clear case for criminal prosecution of Bush and Cheney for launching the Iraq war, either by the US government (obviously after they leave office) or the International Criminal Court.
The book contends – using named sources and on-the-record interviews – that the Bush administration also orchestrated the forging of a document by Iraqi defector and former intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush to create an after-the-fact justification for invading Iraq: That Saddam had WMDs and that Mohammad Atta, the lead 9/11 highjacker, trained in Iraq under Abu Nidal with Saddam Hussein’s blessing.
The first is a bill in 1991 that amended the 1947 act creating the CIA. It states “No covert action may be conducted which is intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, processes or the media.” Even worse, they could be charged under 18.USC.371 – the same law that hung most of the Watergate conspirators including Nixon – which makes it a crime to conspire to defraud the US government.
There is a legitimate question of the degree to which John McCain knowingly participated in carrying the message to the public in appearances in 2003 and 2004 on Sunday morning talk shows such as Meet The Press and in newspaper interviews.
Suskind has written two previous books sharply critical of Bush administration policies. described the alleged forgery as one of the great lies in modern American political history, likening it to Watergate. Last night on Countdown, Nixon White House counsel John Dean agreed.
The allegations in the document are completely non-sensical.
Dean titled his 2005 book Worse Than Watergate. Actually, this is worse than anything the United States has experienced, ever; it is even worse than Pearl Harbor or 9-11 itself.
UPDATE: Both the White House and CIA dismissed the Suskind book and allegations today. But it will be hard for either to dismiss the tape recorded interviews he had with people involved in the entire matter, men who agreed to let their names be used in The Way of the World.
Saint Louis Post-Dispatch poll July 2008General Election Jay Nixon 52% -- Kenny Hulshof 35% (13% undecided)Jay Nixon 53% – Sarah Steelman 34% (13% undecided)
