Gee, it sure does make the International Criminal Court at The Hague look like a political instrument of the Western powers when it never indicts vicious killer kleptocrat dictators like Jean-Claude Duvalier, for example. Sure, Slobodan Milosevic, Bastard Bashir of Sudan, and assorted African monsters deserve to be tried. (And executed, which the ICC isn't empowered to do. Those wimpy Europeans can't bring themselves to kill a mass murderer.) They forgot Idi Amin too- 'cause their buddies the Saudis are shielding him.
Oh, I just remembered: France, the country that has ruined Haiti for two centuries, sheltered Duvalier for the last 25 years.
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Friday, February 04, 2011
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
How Reactionary Lies Become Historical "Fact"
The short answer is: through sheer repetition.
For example, with the current "crisis" in Egypt- in fact a crisis for the U.S. rulers, not for humanity, for whom it's an exhilarating breaking of a tyrant's shackles on a people- reactionaries are trotting out the old lie that Jimmy Carter lost Iran. (Funny how the Democrats let the GOP smear them as quasi-traitors all the time, constantly "losing" U.S. property- China, Cuba (for which JFK paid with his life), Vietnam, Nicaragua, and now Egypt. The despicable Wall Street Journal in particular is pushing this lie.
Let's review the facts. In 1953, the CIA (under orders of that great foe of the military-industrial complex, Eisenhower) and MI6 overthrew the elected President of Iran, Mossadegh, and destroyed Iranian democracy, installing a weak tyrant, the Shah, on his throne. This was done because the "West" didn't like Mossadegh's plans for taking a bigger cut of Iran's own oil to use for the Iranian people. (Leaders trying to use their countries' own resources to benefit their own people is a crime that frequently leads to their overthrow by the U.S.) The CIA set up one of the most monstrous secret police organizations in history, the SAVAK, to make sure that anyone with even a thought of social reform would be tortured and murdered. Amnesty International rated Iran under the Shah as the world's worst violator of human rights.
The Shah managed to murder a quarter million Iranians during his reign, including 10,000 gunned down in the last week before he had to flee in 1979. At that point his army lost its stomach for killing the Iranian people. Unfortunately, since the CIA and SAVAK did such an excellent job of murdering any and all progressives and preventing any civic organizations at all from developing, only Islam was left as an organizing principle for society. Thus the senior religious figure, the reactionary Khomeini, and the religious cadres filled the power vacuum.
How exactly Jimmy Carter overthrew the Shah is a mystery. The Shah certainly didn't shrink from using maximum force to crush the Iranian people. There were idiotic calls at the time for the U.S. to invade Iran and pick up the murdering of the Iranians from where the Shah's army had left off. Maybe if they had killed millions, like they did in Vietnam, they would have "won" and could have reinstalled the Shah. (Oh wait, that didn't work in Vietnam anyway.)
How does this Big Lie become a fact? By constant repetition and the absence of anyone in the bourgeois media calling it out.
Here's another Big Lie that NEVER is exposed, even though simple arithmetic shows it to be false: JFK "stole" the 1960 election from Nixon by "stealing" Illinois.
To see, how ridiculously false this is, all anyone has to do (doesn't anyone ever do this?) is look up the numbers for the electoral count of 1960. Numerous websites, including government ones, have the necessary data.
The electoral count in 1960 was: JFK: 303, Nixon: 219. Illinois that year had 27 electoral votes. Now here comes the tricky part. Assume Nixon "really" won Illinois. What would the outcome have been? To determine whether history was changed by Kennedy family nefariousness, we have to use complex, advanced mathematics: subtraction and addition.
First, we subtract 27 from the election-stealing JFK's 303, leaving him with 276 electoral votes. Then we add 27 to the rightful winner Nixon, who was cheated out of what he earned by a bunch of Ivy League snobs, giving him 246. Voila: JFK: 276, Nixon: 246.
Now, in the actually-existing world that normal people habit, using the mathematical system that actual mathematicians use, 276 is bigger than 246. Thus JFK STILL WINS.
But in the imaginary "reality" that reactionary fanatics inhabit, 246 is bigger than 276, apparently. Or maybe the rule is that whoever gets fewer votes win. Whatever.
There's two points here: 1) U.S. reactionaries are as deranged as Nazis, and tell as whoppingly fantastic lies as the Nazis ever did, and 2) the entire establishment media and commentariat aids and abets them by NEVER EXPOSING OR CONTRADICTING EVEN OBVIOUS LIES LIKE THIS. Even the "alternative" paper, the NYC Village Voice, ran a rant a few years back by reactionary dog playright Tom Stoppard asserting the canard that Kennedy "stole" the election- and the "alternative" rag refused to print a correction pointing out the factual fallacy on which the canard is based. The phonies who control the rag wanted to dupe their readers with right-wing disinformation.
In such an extremely reactionary political environment, it's no wonder that the U.S. is socially, economically, and politically one of the most backward countries on earth. (Yes it is, but proving it will take another, lengthier, essay.)
For example, with the current "crisis" in Egypt- in fact a crisis for the U.S. rulers, not for humanity, for whom it's an exhilarating breaking of a tyrant's shackles on a people- reactionaries are trotting out the old lie that Jimmy Carter lost Iran. (Funny how the Democrats let the GOP smear them as quasi-traitors all the time, constantly "losing" U.S. property- China, Cuba (for which JFK paid with his life), Vietnam, Nicaragua, and now Egypt. The despicable Wall Street Journal in particular is pushing this lie.
Let's review the facts. In 1953, the CIA (under orders of that great foe of the military-industrial complex, Eisenhower) and MI6 overthrew the elected President of Iran, Mossadegh, and destroyed Iranian democracy, installing a weak tyrant, the Shah, on his throne. This was done because the "West" didn't like Mossadegh's plans for taking a bigger cut of Iran's own oil to use for the Iranian people. (Leaders trying to use their countries' own resources to benefit their own people is a crime that frequently leads to their overthrow by the U.S.) The CIA set up one of the most monstrous secret police organizations in history, the SAVAK, to make sure that anyone with even a thought of social reform would be tortured and murdered. Amnesty International rated Iran under the Shah as the world's worst violator of human rights.
The Shah managed to murder a quarter million Iranians during his reign, including 10,000 gunned down in the last week before he had to flee in 1979. At that point his army lost its stomach for killing the Iranian people. Unfortunately, since the CIA and SAVAK did such an excellent job of murdering any and all progressives and preventing any civic organizations at all from developing, only Islam was left as an organizing principle for society. Thus the senior religious figure, the reactionary Khomeini, and the religious cadres filled the power vacuum.
How exactly Jimmy Carter overthrew the Shah is a mystery. The Shah certainly didn't shrink from using maximum force to crush the Iranian people. There were idiotic calls at the time for the U.S. to invade Iran and pick up the murdering of the Iranians from where the Shah's army had left off. Maybe if they had killed millions, like they did in Vietnam, they would have "won" and could have reinstalled the Shah. (Oh wait, that didn't work in Vietnam anyway.)
How does this Big Lie become a fact? By constant repetition and the absence of anyone in the bourgeois media calling it out.
Here's another Big Lie that NEVER is exposed, even though simple arithmetic shows it to be false: JFK "stole" the 1960 election from Nixon by "stealing" Illinois.
To see, how ridiculously false this is, all anyone has to do (doesn't anyone ever do this?) is look up the numbers for the electoral count of 1960. Numerous websites, including government ones, have the necessary data.
The electoral count in 1960 was: JFK: 303, Nixon: 219. Illinois that year had 27 electoral votes. Now here comes the tricky part. Assume Nixon "really" won Illinois. What would the outcome have been? To determine whether history was changed by Kennedy family nefariousness, we have to use complex, advanced mathematics: subtraction and addition.
First, we subtract 27 from the election-stealing JFK's 303, leaving him with 276 electoral votes. Then we add 27 to the rightful winner Nixon, who was cheated out of what he earned by a bunch of Ivy League snobs, giving him 246. Voila: JFK: 276, Nixon: 246.
Now, in the actually-existing world that normal people habit, using the mathematical system that actual mathematicians use, 276 is bigger than 246. Thus JFK STILL WINS.
But in the imaginary "reality" that reactionary fanatics inhabit, 246 is bigger than 276, apparently. Or maybe the rule is that whoever gets fewer votes win. Whatever.
There's two points here: 1) U.S. reactionaries are as deranged as Nazis, and tell as whoppingly fantastic lies as the Nazis ever did, and 2) the entire establishment media and commentariat aids and abets them by NEVER EXPOSING OR CONTRADICTING EVEN OBVIOUS LIES LIKE THIS. Even the "alternative" paper, the NYC Village Voice, ran a rant a few years back by reactionary dog playright Tom Stoppard asserting the canard that Kennedy "stole" the election- and the "alternative" rag refused to print a correction pointing out the factual fallacy on which the canard is based. The phonies who control the rag wanted to dupe their readers with right-wing disinformation.
In such an extremely reactionary political environment, it's no wonder that the U.S. is socially, economically, and politically one of the most backward countries on earth. (Yes it is, but proving it will take another, lengthier, essay.)
Friday, January 28, 2011
U.S. Sweats As Its Lovely Arab Dictators Wobble
The U.S. is sweating over the "stability" of its favorite Arab dictatorships. First the Tunisian tyrant Ben-Ali fell. Now Egyptians have found their courage and are defying the state thugs of the monstrous Mubarak, armed by the U.S. The question becomes, what will the U.S. tell the Egyptian army? As that army is recipient of arms purchased with a good chunk of the $2 billion yearly U.S. bonanza, the U.S. is in a position to tell it either "Make sure Mubarak doesn't fall, or you're off the weaponry gravy train," or "Let Mubarak fall or you're off the gravy train. (By the way it's our tax money, being used to oppress and torture Egyptians- but hey, people who oppose abortion have a RIGHT not to have THEIR MONEY spent by the Federal Government on abortion- hence poor women who don't live in states willing to foot the bill, ahve to pay, and foreign population control orgs. that want U.S. funds can't even MENTION abortion, and on and on, because abortion is a MORAL issue, don't you know, unlike, say, torture, or state terrorism, or dictatorship, or police state repression. I'm SO glad the United States is sooooo moral!)
Yemen and Jordan, two other U.S.-propped-up dictatorships, are seeing their people start to rise up now, inspired by the examples of the Tunisians and Egyptians- which they know about thanks to Al-Jazeera, a force for decency and humanity- quite unlike the U.S. media. (I.e. corporate propaganda system.)
Yemen and Jordan, two other U.S.-propped-up dictatorships, are seeing their people start to rise up now, inspired by the examples of the Tunisians and Egyptians- which they know about thanks to Al-Jazeera, a force for decency and humanity- quite unlike the U.S. media. (I.e. corporate propaganda system.)
Who Promotes Democracy and Human Rights, the U.S. or Al-Jazeera?
In the Middle East, Al-Jazeera is hated by almost all arab regimes. This is because it's on the side of the people.
A perfect example is during the current crisis of stability for a number of U.S. lackey dictatorships in the region- Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Jordan so far.
In Tunisia, after a month of the people taking to the streets and standing up to "state security" thuggery, the long-time dictator and U.S. chum, a brazen thief named Ben-Ali, had to take it on the lam to Saudi Arabia (which provided sanctuary for Ugandan butcher dictator Idi Amin when he had to hotfoot it out one step ahead of his victims).
Inspired by the example, which they knew about from Al-Jazeera's coverage, the people of Egypt are now braving U.S.-supplied tear gas, bullets (both rubber-coated and the naked metal kind), armored vehicles, batons and etc. to shake the awful dictatorship of U.S. favorite Hosni Mubarak. While the U.S. pays lip service to human rights and democracy, its money doesn't go where its mouth is, but rather to weapons of repression for the dictator to the tune of $2 billion a year, second largest recipient of anti-human U.S. largesse in the world, after the sainted state of Israel.
In Yemen, seeing the examples of the Tunisian and Egyptian people on Al-Jazeera, tens of thousands are demonstrating against another tyrant pal of the U.S., "President" Saleh, a good ally in "the war on terror." (As was Ben-Ali of Tunisia.)
Turd Joe Biden, a loathsome piece of work who gave us doltish masher Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, among other crimes, insisted on PBS that Mubarak isn't a "dictator." Because he's very "responsible." "Responsible" is U.S. Imperialismspeak for "does the U.S.' bidding." Like helps oppress the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the world's largest open-air concentration camp. And makes nice with Israel. That's the most imporltant U.S. goal in the middle east, that Israel should be accepted on the regional hegemon by the arab states. Hence Syria is the "bad" arab state, because it doesn't. And they could bludgeon Lebanon into line, if only they could exterminate Hezbollah, as Israel tried and failed to do in 2006. (Right now you can read handwringing articles bemoaning Hezbollah's rising influence, in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and other such high-tone ruling class rags.) Jordan, also with a restive population, has a Made-In-USA "King," son of a previous Made-In-USA "King." Both married American uber-WASP type women, who they made their "Queens." (I put them in quotes because as a democrat, I do not recognize aristocracy as legitimate.)
So Al-Jazeera, by standing with the people, for their freedom, their human rights, and their democratic rights, is helping to shake the loathsome, backward dictatorships that keep their people in poverty and fear, armed and back by the U.S. So which one is pro-human, and which one is arab?
Now you know why the U.S. murders Al-Jazeera journalists and precision-bombs their offices in Kabul and Baghdad.
A perfect example is during the current crisis of stability for a number of U.S. lackey dictatorships in the region- Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Jordan so far.
In Tunisia, after a month of the people taking to the streets and standing up to "state security" thuggery, the long-time dictator and U.S. chum, a brazen thief named Ben-Ali, had to take it on the lam to Saudi Arabia (which provided sanctuary for Ugandan butcher dictator Idi Amin when he had to hotfoot it out one step ahead of his victims).
Inspired by the example, which they knew about from Al-Jazeera's coverage, the people of Egypt are now braving U.S.-supplied tear gas, bullets (both rubber-coated and the naked metal kind), armored vehicles, batons and etc. to shake the awful dictatorship of U.S. favorite Hosni Mubarak. While the U.S. pays lip service to human rights and democracy, its money doesn't go where its mouth is, but rather to weapons of repression for the dictator to the tune of $2 billion a year, second largest recipient of anti-human U.S. largesse in the world, after the sainted state of Israel.
In Yemen, seeing the examples of the Tunisian and Egyptian people on Al-Jazeera, tens of thousands are demonstrating against another tyrant pal of the U.S., "President" Saleh, a good ally in "the war on terror." (As was Ben-Ali of Tunisia.)
Turd Joe Biden, a loathsome piece of work who gave us doltish masher Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, among other crimes, insisted on PBS that Mubarak isn't a "dictator." Because he's very "responsible." "Responsible" is U.S. Imperialismspeak for "does the U.S.' bidding." Like helps oppress the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the world's largest open-air concentration camp. And makes nice with Israel. That's the most imporltant U.S. goal in the middle east, that Israel should be accepted on the regional hegemon by the arab states. Hence Syria is the "bad" arab state, because it doesn't. And they could bludgeon Lebanon into line, if only they could exterminate Hezbollah, as Israel tried and failed to do in 2006. (Right now you can read handwringing articles bemoaning Hezbollah's rising influence, in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and other such high-tone ruling class rags.) Jordan, also with a restive population, has a Made-In-USA "King," son of a previous Made-In-USA "King." Both married American uber-WASP type women, who they made their "Queens." (I put them in quotes because as a democrat, I do not recognize aristocracy as legitimate.)
So Al-Jazeera, by standing with the people, for their freedom, their human rights, and their democratic rights, is helping to shake the loathsome, backward dictatorships that keep their people in poverty and fear, armed and back by the U.S. So which one is pro-human, and which one is arab?
Now you know why the U.S. murders Al-Jazeera journalists and precision-bombs their offices in Kabul and Baghdad.
Rahm Emanuel Gets Ruling Class Privilege
Rahm Emanuel is running for Mayor of Chicago. He's virtually inheriting the seat from torture Mayor Richard M. Daley, the spawn of 1968 Democratic Convention Police Riot Mayor Richard J. Daley.
Emanuel is only running because Daley decided to retire.
Illinois law says a candidate for Mayor of Chicago must be a resident of the state for at least a year prior to the election. Emanuel was living in Washington D.C. during that time as chief of staff to President Barack "Pied Piper of Chump Lefties" Obama.
You probably thought "residing" means "living there." Well, that's true for Chicago civil servants, who are required to live in the city.
It doesn't mean that for Rahm, though. He gets the Establishment Made Man privilege.
The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously overturned a lower appeals court ruling that Emanuel didn't "reside" in the state while he was living in Washington. They had to reach all the way back to a musty, moldy, cobwebbed decision from 1867 to kinda sorta justify their "reasoning."That was all they could come up with.
So, does this mean Chicago's teachers, firemen, and police, etc. don't actually have to live in Chicago to be "residents"?
Don't bet on it.
It's nice to be a made member of the Establishment.
Emanuel is a thuggish product of the Chicago Democratic political machine. His stock in trade is screaming verbal abuse, especially of progressives who whine when the Democrats screw them. A super Zionist, his father is a hate-filled anti-Arab bigot.
As for the Daley's, the elder dead one unleashed his goon police on people against American slaughter of Vietnamese, in the streets of Chicago, and even had them attack convention delegates. Famously, Dan Rather was punched in the stomach on the convention floor by Daley's goons. The official government report on the violence called it a "police riot." (Rewriting history, bourgeois propagandists these days pretend the protesters were rioting, a political libel.) Even in the years before the convention, Daley's thugs clubbed peaceful anti-war marchers and chased them off the streets.
His loathsome son is an accomplice in the Chicago PD's torture program, which tortured at least 100 black men, obtaining false confessions in order to imprison them, even putting some on death row. As the City attorney, and then as Mayor, he shielded the police torture squad.
Emanuel is only running because Daley decided to retire.
Illinois law says a candidate for Mayor of Chicago must be a resident of the state for at least a year prior to the election. Emanuel was living in Washington D.C. during that time as chief of staff to President Barack "Pied Piper of Chump Lefties" Obama.
You probably thought "residing" means "living there." Well, that's true for Chicago civil servants, who are required to live in the city.
It doesn't mean that for Rahm, though. He gets the Establishment Made Man privilege.
The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously overturned a lower appeals court ruling that Emanuel didn't "reside" in the state while he was living in Washington. They had to reach all the way back to a musty, moldy, cobwebbed decision from 1867 to kinda sorta justify their "reasoning."That was all they could come up with.
So, does this mean Chicago's teachers, firemen, and police, etc. don't actually have to live in Chicago to be "residents"?
Don't bet on it.
It's nice to be a made member of the Establishment.
Emanuel is a thuggish product of the Chicago Democratic political machine. His stock in trade is screaming verbal abuse, especially of progressives who whine when the Democrats screw them. A super Zionist, his father is a hate-filled anti-Arab bigot.
As for the Daley's, the elder dead one unleashed his goon police on people against American slaughter of Vietnamese, in the streets of Chicago, and even had them attack convention delegates. Famously, Dan Rather was punched in the stomach on the convention floor by Daley's goons. The official government report on the violence called it a "police riot." (Rewriting history, bourgeois propagandists these days pretend the protesters were rioting, a political libel.) Even in the years before the convention, Daley's thugs clubbed peaceful anti-war marchers and chased them off the streets.
His loathsome son is an accomplice in the Chicago PD's torture program, which tortured at least 100 black men, obtaining false confessions in order to imprison them, even putting some on death row. As the City attorney, and then as Mayor, he shielded the police torture squad.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Push To Strip Marijuana Smokers Of Second Amendment Rights
The U.S. political elites never miss an opportunity to take away more human rights or increase their repressive powers, it seems. Now they're using- predictably- the murderous rampage by the vicious weirdo Jared Loughner in Tucson, AZ, as a wedge to strip grass smokers (who number in the tens of millions) of their "guaranteed" right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, says that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Of course there's been plenty of infringing of that right for the last century. Now "drug users" are to be banned from gun ownership, if Senator Charles Schumer (Wall Street's main agent in the Senate and a big fan of repressive legislation) and the New York Times get their way.
Schumer says that Loughner could have been barred from buying a gun had the military, which rejected his enlistment attempt because he smoked grass, had reported him as a drug user, and if "drug users" (marijuana is a plant, of course, not a "drug," not a "narcotic" either, both epithets routinely applied to it by the establishment propagandists) are excluded from gun ownership. The NY Times thinks this is a swell idea. And dwarf economist and Bill Clinton stooge Robert Reich chimed in in an op-ed piece in the Sunday NY Times Week in Review section on Jan. 23, 2011. Not only does he call for the stripping of Second Amendment rights from people who fail military "drug" tests, he also wants everyone on the Government's "terrorist watch lists" added, as well as people who receive mental health treatment.
Well, there's hundreds of thousands of people on these various "terrorist" watch lists. As it has done throughout its history, the FBI shitlists everyone it can identify with progressive political or social values. These days they're branded "terrorists." Every year the FBI sends out 50,000 demands for personal information on people from banks, ISPs, email providers, libraries, and the like. Do you really think there are hundreds of thousands of terrorists in the U.S.? Examples of people the Government considers "terrorists" include environmentalists, peace activists, Quakers, and nuns. Reich thinks all of the above and more are too dangerous to be allowed to have guns. (Too bad most of them don't even want guns- they could sure use them.)
Of course, once you establish the principle that "drug users" should be stripped of a basic constitutional right, there's no reason to stop at barring just those who try to join the military. MILLIONS of people are arrested EVERY YEAR in this very repressive country for marijuana possession. All those people have court records. (Which includes "sealed" ones, a bogus farce.) They've already stripped us of our right to be secure in our homes and possessions (and cars) using the "war on drugs" as an excuse. What's one more basic right down the toilet?
And would such massive crushing of rights have stopped a deranged missile like Loughner? Of course, Loughner could still have bought a gun at a gun show, from a private individual, or stole a gun, or borrowed a gun. Or used ID other than his own to buy in a store. The gun "controllers will never admit that their end goal is total disarming of the civilian population. All their half measures inevitably fall short of "preventing tragedies" and "keeping guns out of the hands of criminals." And they give the game away by describing their suggestions as "the minimum" or "a good first step." (NY Times anti-gun editorials do this for example.)
Schumer says that Loughner could have been barred from buying a gun had the military, which rejected his enlistment attempt because he smoked grass, had reported him as a drug user, and if "drug users" (marijuana is a plant, of course, not a "drug," not a "narcotic" either, both epithets routinely applied to it by the establishment propagandists) are excluded from gun ownership. The NY Times thinks this is a swell idea. And dwarf economist and Bill Clinton stooge Robert Reich chimed in in an op-ed piece in the Sunday NY Times Week in Review section on Jan. 23, 2011. Not only does he call for the stripping of Second Amendment rights from people who fail military "drug" tests, he also wants everyone on the Government's "terrorist watch lists" added, as well as people who receive mental health treatment.
Well, there's hundreds of thousands of people on these various "terrorist" watch lists. As it has done throughout its history, the FBI shitlists everyone it can identify with progressive political or social values. These days they're branded "terrorists." Every year the FBI sends out 50,000 demands for personal information on people from banks, ISPs, email providers, libraries, and the like. Do you really think there are hundreds of thousands of terrorists in the U.S.? Examples of people the Government considers "terrorists" include environmentalists, peace activists, Quakers, and nuns. Reich thinks all of the above and more are too dangerous to be allowed to have guns. (Too bad most of them don't even want guns- they could sure use them.)
Of course, once you establish the principle that "drug users" should be stripped of a basic constitutional right, there's no reason to stop at barring just those who try to join the military. MILLIONS of people are arrested EVERY YEAR in this very repressive country for marijuana possession. All those people have court records. (Which includes "sealed" ones, a bogus farce.) They've already stripped us of our right to be secure in our homes and possessions (and cars) using the "war on drugs" as an excuse. What's one more basic right down the toilet?
And would such massive crushing of rights have stopped a deranged missile like Loughner? Of course, Loughner could still have bought a gun at a gun show, from a private individual, or stole a gun, or borrowed a gun. Or used ID other than his own to buy in a store. The gun "controllers will never admit that their end goal is total disarming of the civilian population. All their half measures inevitably fall short of "preventing tragedies" and "keeping guns out of the hands of criminals." And they give the game away by describing their suggestions as "the minimum" or "a good first step." (NY Times anti-gun editorials do this for example.)
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Obama's Latest Crime
The "anti-business" (as the crackpot big business ideologues and CEOs of huge corps. have it) Obama has ordered the Dept. of "Justice" to exhort the Supreme Court to rule in favor of big greedy pharmaceutical companies that overcharged public hospitals and clinics serving the poor. Legally, these providers are entitled to discounts, which the evil drug corps. cheated them out of. The Obama regime, typical for U.S. administrations, and esp. for "New" Democrats in the Clinton-Gore-DLC mold, takes the side of Big Business against people. They are actually arguing on behalf of the thieving drug corps. that those they ripped off have NO RIGHT TO SUE.
But don't expect neofascist rags like the Wall Street Journal to stop raving that Obama is "anti-business." You can't appease fascists.
See "U.S. Backs Drug Firms in Lawsuit Over Prices," NY Times.
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: January 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/politics/10drug.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=us%20bakcs%20drug%20firms%20in%20lawsuit%20over%20prices&st=cse
But don't expect neofascist rags like the Wall Street Journal to stop raving that Obama is "anti-business." You can't appease fascists.
See "U.S. Backs Drug Firms in Lawsuit Over Prices," NY Times.
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: January 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/politics/10drug.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=us%20bakcs%20drug%20firms%20in%20lawsuit%20over%20prices&st=cse
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Creepy Murderer Loughner Won't Be Executed
Bad news about the nasty wacko Jared L. Loughner, who murdered 6 people in Tucson, AZ, including a Federal Judge and a 9 year old girl, and put a bullet through the brain of Representative Giselle Giffords- he won't be executed, in all probability. (Just look at the creep's mugshot- it is completely revealing of who he is. An evil Uncle Fester.) He has defending him Judy Clarke. Judy Clarke has a history of saving notorious murderers from the death penalty by some kind of legal magic.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/10/jared-loughner-mugshot-released-photo/
She got Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski off the death penalty hook. That was an extremely notorious case of multiple mailbombs, which took years to catch him. (And only because his brother turned him in after the FBI finally forced itself to overcome its hypersecretitiveness and release his philosophical writing.)
Anti-abortion cop murderer, nurse maimer, Olympics bomber Eric Robert Rudolph is another piece of vicious scum who she saved.
And toddler-slaughterer Susan Smith of South Carolina, who drove her car into a lake to drown her own children, in the delusional belief that being rid of them would enable her to hook up with a start a new life with some guy she longed for, after originally sentenced to death in that cruel southern state, got resentenced thanks to Judy Clarke.
I don't know what legal alchemy Clarke works, but she's obviously very effective. Too bad in some cases.
there are various youtube posts of the mugshot with commentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrQ2bRUbo20
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/10/jared-loughner-mugshot-released-photo/
She got Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski off the death penalty hook. That was an extremely notorious case of multiple mailbombs, which took years to catch him. (And only because his brother turned him in after the FBI finally forced itself to overcome its hypersecretitiveness and release his philosophical writing.)
Anti-abortion cop murderer, nurse maimer, Olympics bomber Eric Robert Rudolph is another piece of vicious scum who she saved.
And toddler-slaughterer Susan Smith of South Carolina, who drove her car into a lake to drown her own children, in the delusional belief that being rid of them would enable her to hook up with a start a new life with some guy she longed for, after originally sentenced to death in that cruel southern state, got resentenced thanks to Judy Clarke.
I don't know what legal alchemy Clarke works, but she's obviously very effective. Too bad in some cases.
there are various youtube posts of the mugshot with commentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrQ2bRUbo20
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Loathsome Lanny Davis Has More Blood On His Hands
Lanny Davis, one of the scummy, soulless, immoral self-promoters who latched onto the Clintons and served a key role in the regime of Bill Clinton, is at it again. These days he whores his ass out as a propagandist for dictators.
Earlier this year he was shilling for the Honduran oligarchy, which overthrew the democratically-elected president for the crime of raising the minimum wage. (The official excuse was he "tried to change the Constitution so he could run again." A lie, but even if true not a crime. He tried to put a NONBINDING resolution before the Honduran people to let them vote on the idea.) Being the enemy of poor people everywhere, and friend of the rich in all lands, the U.S. sneakily supported the coup while publicly pretending not to. (Another one of WikiLeaks "crimes" was exposing this duplicity via leaked State Department documents.)
The Honduran criminals have murdered many Hondurans since seizing power, and repressed all rights of dissent. Lanny Davis uses all his skills as a sophist and twister of reality and just flat out liar to defend this criminal regime.
Another of his "clients" is the dictator of Equatorial Guinea, who he tries to trick the world into believing is a swell guy and worthy of respect and support. And anything to the contrary is just a lie, according to Despicable Davis.
Now he's at it again. This time he's aiding the dictator of Ivory Coast, a greedy piece of work named Laurent Gbagbo. (This thug's official title is "President," but that's totally misleading.) Gbagbo refuses to admit that he just lost an election. For once, the U.S., other African "leaders,
and others are insisting that the dictator leave office and abide by the will of the people.
So who pops up spewing lies and propaganda on Gbagbo's behalf? Lanny the Lying Leech. Here's how he trashes a UN report about Gbagbo's thugs' murder of 200 (so far) people: he says he wants to "talk to who wrote it" and "see the evidence," and anyway UN "reports" (sic) about the Gaza War (there was just one, the Goldstone Report, by an eminent JEWISH, self-professed ZIONIST, South African jurist) have been "discredited." (Well, the U.S. and Israel trashed it, but that hardly constitutes "discrediting," except maybe in the propaganda sense.) The body of at least one journalist has already been dumped roadside by Davis' client's hoodlums.
Davis claims he only wants to "present the facts and the law as to why there is substantial documentary evidence that President Laurent Gbagbo is the duly elected president as a result of the Nov. 28 elections." Funny, no one else agrees with this, except the tyrant Gbagbo, and his goons.. Not even the rulers of the surrounding African states agree.
Few spewing his vile propaganda, Davis is getting $100,000 a month. Some would say he "sold his soul." That is stupid cant, since Davis obviously has no soul. He's an anti-human, not a human.
It's a mark of the moral depravity of the culture of American Power that this creep is no pariah, but a respected voice in D.C. who can charge big bucks to defend thugs. He's not the first, and he won't be the last. Until the vicious U.S. system is either overthrown, evolves into something resembling a normal human system, or self-destructs or rots to the point of collapse, there will always be loathsome dirtbags like Lanny Davis.
Update: according to the NY Times of 12/30/10, Davis apparently couldn't take the heat- and no doubt feared that damage to his reputation would hurt his chances of future propaganda gigs- so he's suddenly dropping Gbagbo as a client.
12/31/10: another Times article confirms what I said yesterday. ("Key Lobbyist's Client List Puts Him on the Defensive," p. A10.) The article is pretty disgusting in its own right, giving us copious Davis bullshit, such as Davis "said his client list reflected his philosophy [sic] that everyone deserved a voice, particularly companies and causes [sic] that challenged conventional wisdom [i.e. reality] or the public's sense of the politically correct." There's a lot more sick bullshit in this vein, pure self-serving, disgustingly self-righteous and phony Davis propaganda about himself rewritten by the Times hacks. But they're just being "balanced," I guess. Except if you're going to transmit someone's bullshit, you should also report the information that clearly shows what a load of horsecrap it is. They do mention some of his loathsome "causes," and Davis absurdly calling himself a "liberal Democrat." That in reference to his propaganda work for the kleptomaniac tyrant of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
The transcript of Davis' appearance on Democracy Now, defending the Honduran coupists, is a great example of his bullying, lying, twisting-reality methodology.
Earlier this year he was shilling for the Honduran oligarchy, which overthrew the democratically-elected president for the crime of raising the minimum wage. (The official excuse was he "tried to change the Constitution so he could run again." A lie, but even if true not a crime. He tried to put a NONBINDING resolution before the Honduran people to let them vote on the idea.) Being the enemy of poor people everywhere, and friend of the rich in all lands, the U.S. sneakily supported the coup while publicly pretending not to. (Another one of WikiLeaks "crimes" was exposing this duplicity via leaked State Department documents.)
The Honduran criminals have murdered many Hondurans since seizing power, and repressed all rights of dissent. Lanny Davis uses all his skills as a sophist and twister of reality and just flat out liar to defend this criminal regime.
Another of his "clients" is the dictator of Equatorial Guinea, who he tries to trick the world into believing is a swell guy and worthy of respect and support. And anything to the contrary is just a lie, according to Despicable Davis.
Now he's at it again. This time he's aiding the dictator of Ivory Coast, a greedy piece of work named Laurent Gbagbo. (This thug's official title is "President," but that's totally misleading.) Gbagbo refuses to admit that he just lost an election. For once, the U.S., other African "leaders,
and others are insisting that the dictator leave office and abide by the will of the people.
So who pops up spewing lies and propaganda on Gbagbo's behalf? Lanny the Lying Leech. Here's how he trashes a UN report about Gbagbo's thugs' murder of 200 (so far) people: he says he wants to "talk to who wrote it" and "see the evidence," and anyway UN "reports" (sic) about the Gaza War (there was just one, the Goldstone Report, by an eminent JEWISH, self-professed ZIONIST, South African jurist) have been "discredited." (Well, the U.S. and Israel trashed it, but that hardly constitutes "discrediting," except maybe in the propaganda sense.) The body of at least one journalist has already been dumped roadside by Davis' client's hoodlums.
Davis claims he only wants to "present the facts and the law as to why there is substantial documentary evidence that President Laurent Gbagbo is the duly elected president as a result of the Nov. 28 elections." Funny, no one else agrees with this, except the tyrant Gbagbo, and his goons.. Not even the rulers of the surrounding African states agree.
Few spewing his vile propaganda, Davis is getting $100,000 a month. Some would say he "sold his soul." That is stupid cant, since Davis obviously has no soul. He's an anti-human, not a human.
It's a mark of the moral depravity of the culture of American Power that this creep is no pariah, but a respected voice in D.C. who can charge big bucks to defend thugs. He's not the first, and he won't be the last. Until the vicious U.S. system is either overthrown, evolves into something resembling a normal human system, or self-destructs or rots to the point of collapse, there will always be loathsome dirtbags like Lanny Davis.
Update: according to the NY Times of 12/30/10, Davis apparently couldn't take the heat- and no doubt feared that damage to his reputation would hurt his chances of future propaganda gigs- so he's suddenly dropping Gbagbo as a client.
12/31/10: another Times article confirms what I said yesterday. ("Key Lobbyist's Client List Puts Him on the Defensive," p. A10.) The article is pretty disgusting in its own right, giving us copious Davis bullshit, such as Davis "said his client list reflected his philosophy [sic] that everyone deserved a voice, particularly companies and causes [sic] that challenged conventional wisdom [i.e. reality] or the public's sense of the politically correct." There's a lot more sick bullshit in this vein, pure self-serving, disgustingly self-righteous and phony Davis propaganda about himself rewritten by the Times hacks. But they're just being "balanced," I guess. Except if you're going to transmit someone's bullshit, you should also report the information that clearly shows what a load of horsecrap it is. They do mention some of his loathsome "causes," and Davis absurdly calling himself a "liberal Democrat." That in reference to his propaganda work for the kleptomaniac tyrant of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
The transcript of Davis' appearance on Democracy Now, defending the Honduran coupists, is a great example of his bullying, lying, twisting-reality methodology.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
U.S. Military Unleashes Cyberwar Against WikiLeaks
The U.S. hasn't been content to get their Swede stooges to trump up bogus sex charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (The various versions we're getting is that he didn't stop humping when two women changed his mind, or he didn't use a condom.) Nor having Interpol pu this dangerous global menace atop its Most Wanted list. (Which is doesn't do with genocidal dictators who have indictments, or CIA officers wanted in Italy and convicted in absentia, for example.) And threats of prosecution and long imprisonment, and calls for his assassination, aren't all the U.S. is doing either. WikiLeaks the website is being hounded from pillar to post. Their domain name provider unceremoniously dumped them, claiming that the tornado of cyber attacks on WikiLeaks endangered their architecture. Amazon threw them off their server after menacing grows from right wing dog Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose aide called Amazon to "inquire" about it. Amazon put out a lame excuse that W. violated Amazon's terms of use because they didn't own the copyright to the Government documents W. posts. (As a matter of law, U.S. Government documents CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED.) PayPal dropped WikiLeaks due to unspecified "illegal activity." That's funny, they haven't been indicted, at least not yet.
The U.S. military has launched what are called Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks on WikiLeaks. This means taking over numerous computers with implanted malware that causes those computers to try and log on to the target website. The idea is to crash the victim website by overwhelming it with a large number contacts that are more than the host server can handle.
December 4, 2010
The U.S. military has launched what are called Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks on WikiLeaks. This means taking over numerous computers with implanted malware that causes those computers to try and log on to the target website. The idea is to crash the victim website by overwhelming it with a large number contacts that are more than the host server can handle.
December 4, 2010
Death Threats Against Julian Assange
It didn't take long for my post of late November about the grave danger facing Julian Assange, to be confirmed very blatantly. Various politicians and "commentators" have called for imprisonment and worse for Assange. The 1917 "Espionage Act" has been dusted off. This is one of the vicious bludgeons the U.S. uses to crush dissidents. During WW I it was used to imprison socialists, pacifists, and activists of all stripes. So much as questioning the U.S. jumping into WWI was a felony. (One of the Big Lies in America, periodically exposed as a sham, is the myth of free speech, and the Constitutional "guarantee" of same. Guarantee my ass, you lying dogs.)
Various bourgeois figures have even made public threats against Assange's life, calling for his death.
Sarah Palin, who has a lavishly paid perch on Rupert Murdoch's neofascist agitprop channel Fox "News," wants Assange "hunted down." Like a moose or elk, Sarah? We know what U.S. cutthroats do when they "hunt down" people. They either disappear them into secret torture dungeons or kill them.
One of Murdoch's Minions, the deranged liar and bully Bill O'Reilly, calls WikiLeaks "despicable" and the "leaker" "a traitor" and "traitors should be executed or jailed for life."
Tom Flanagan on Canadian TV, (CBC the main channel), said Assange should be assassinated. He even suggested a method for Obana to use- a drone missile strike. Flanagan is a member of rightwing Canadian PM Harper's inner circle and campaign manager for the "Conservatives" in the last two Canadian elections. Unlike here, where the people are either rabid barbarians or politically comatose sheep, in Canada this open call for state murder created an uproar, and Flanagan had to make light of his death call and "apologize," sort of, kind of.
Michael Huckabee didn't threaten Assange specifically, but called for the execution of leakers. "Anything less than execution" for leakers to WikiLeaks "is too kind a punishment."
I wonder if he feels the same about all those anonymous government officials who plant propaganda in the media on a daily basis.
Huckabee is an arch-reactionary, GOP presidential candidate wanna-be in 2008, a pseudo-Holy Man who presents himself as a pious "Christian" to appeal to the backwoods holy rolling speaking-in-tongues primitives that infest Arkansas and so many other U.S. backwaters. He aches to get elected President in 2012. Currently he too is ensconsed in the neofascist stable of evil media czar Murdoch, for handsome pay of course.
One sickening- and unremarked upon- hypocrisy in Huckabee's Tough Guy stance is that as Governor of Arkansas, Huckabee had a bad habit of freeing dangerous, violent felons (but not deserving prisoners, like victims of the drug war) early, against official advice. One of the objects of his kindness went on to murder four police officers in Washington State. This hasn't harmed Huckabee's media standing in the slightest. Unlike what happened to Michael Dukakis, who was held responsible for a rape and assault by Willie Horton, when Horton fled during a work release program. Horton of course never should have been out, but that wasn't Dukakis' personal doing, but rather a dysfunctional work-release program. Even to this day we get reminders of Dukakis-Horton.
You see, reactionaries can do no wrong in the U.S. Another example: G. Gordon Liddy on his radio show- a travesty that that fascist thug has his own radio show!- exhorted people to shoot ATF agent. Didn't cost him a thing in consequences or media esteem. Or when Ann Coulter slimed 9/11 widows, or called for the NY Times to be bombed, that was fine. Even the NY Times has never stopped promoting her. On the other hand, Professor Ward Churchill was swiftly purged from the University of Colorado for writing in an essay that among the dead on 9/11 were "little Eichmanns." Ideological watchdogs quickly pounced, making the comment a national issue of outrage. (I remember all the posts on military.com after 9/11 ghoulishly calling for the nuking of Afghanistan. I think undoubtedly there are many little Eichmanns in America, many in the media, and no doubt some met a deserved end on 9/11. But so did many people who didn't deserve to die. That's the trouble with the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, like when, oh, say, the U.S. bombs Afghan wedding parties, or drops atomic bombs on cities like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not that two wrongs make a right, just that some LOUD MOUTHED HYPOCRITS ARE MIGHTY ANNOYING IN THEIR MORALISTIC POSTURING.
And oh, Flanagan has a perch as a university professor. You can bet he won't be purged from it.
And funny how the main U.S. "ally" in the war on terrorism is the biggest sponsor of the people the U.S. currently brands "terrorist," namely Pakistan, the country that planned and sponsored the attack on Mumbai, on the Indian parliament, and innumerable other terrorist acts. In fact, the U.S. is grumpy about the fact that the Pakistanis currently provide safe havens for the Afghan Taliban forces. David Rohde, a NY Times correspondent taken hostage by them and kidnapped to Pakistan, has given an account of how his kidnappers were protected by the Paki army. Even after his escape, they did nothing, and this with a Paki military base less than a mile from his kidnappers' lair.
December 4, 2010
Various bourgeois figures have even made public threats against Assange's life, calling for his death.
Sarah Palin, who has a lavishly paid perch on Rupert Murdoch's neofascist agitprop channel Fox "News," wants Assange "hunted down." Like a moose or elk, Sarah? We know what U.S. cutthroats do when they "hunt down" people. They either disappear them into secret torture dungeons or kill them.
One of Murdoch's Minions, the deranged liar and bully Bill O'Reilly, calls WikiLeaks "despicable" and the "leaker" "a traitor" and "traitors should be executed or jailed for life."
Tom Flanagan on Canadian TV, (CBC the main channel), said Assange should be assassinated. He even suggested a method for Obana to use- a drone missile strike. Flanagan is a member of rightwing Canadian PM Harper's inner circle and campaign manager for the "Conservatives" in the last two Canadian elections. Unlike here, where the people are either rabid barbarians or politically comatose sheep, in Canada this open call for state murder created an uproar, and Flanagan had to make light of his death call and "apologize," sort of, kind of.
Michael Huckabee didn't threaten Assange specifically, but called for the execution of leakers. "Anything less than execution" for leakers to WikiLeaks "is too kind a punishment."
I wonder if he feels the same about all those anonymous government officials who plant propaganda in the media on a daily basis.
Huckabee is an arch-reactionary, GOP presidential candidate wanna-be in 2008, a pseudo-Holy Man who presents himself as a pious "Christian" to appeal to the backwoods holy rolling speaking-in-tongues primitives that infest Arkansas and so many other U.S. backwaters. He aches to get elected President in 2012. Currently he too is ensconsed in the neofascist stable of evil media czar Murdoch, for handsome pay of course.
One sickening- and unremarked upon- hypocrisy in Huckabee's Tough Guy stance is that as Governor of Arkansas, Huckabee had a bad habit of freeing dangerous, violent felons (but not deserving prisoners, like victims of the drug war) early, against official advice. One of the objects of his kindness went on to murder four police officers in Washington State. This hasn't harmed Huckabee's media standing in the slightest. Unlike what happened to Michael Dukakis, who was held responsible for a rape and assault by Willie Horton, when Horton fled during a work release program. Horton of course never should have been out, but that wasn't Dukakis' personal doing, but rather a dysfunctional work-release program. Even to this day we get reminders of Dukakis-Horton.
You see, reactionaries can do no wrong in the U.S. Another example: G. Gordon Liddy on his radio show- a travesty that that fascist thug has his own radio show!- exhorted people to shoot ATF agent. Didn't cost him a thing in consequences or media esteem. Or when Ann Coulter slimed 9/11 widows, or called for the NY Times to be bombed, that was fine. Even the NY Times has never stopped promoting her. On the other hand, Professor Ward Churchill was swiftly purged from the University of Colorado for writing in an essay that among the dead on 9/11 were "little Eichmanns." Ideological watchdogs quickly pounced, making the comment a national issue of outrage. (I remember all the posts on military.com after 9/11 ghoulishly calling for the nuking of Afghanistan. I think undoubtedly there are many little Eichmanns in America, many in the media, and no doubt some met a deserved end on 9/11. But so did many people who didn't deserve to die. That's the trouble with the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, like when, oh, say, the U.S. bombs Afghan wedding parties, or drops atomic bombs on cities like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not that two wrongs make a right, just that some LOUD MOUTHED HYPOCRITS ARE MIGHTY ANNOYING IN THEIR MORALISTIC POSTURING.
And oh, Flanagan has a perch as a university professor. You can bet he won't be purged from it.
And funny how the main U.S. "ally" in the war on terrorism is the biggest sponsor of the people the U.S. currently brands "terrorist," namely Pakistan, the country that planned and sponsored the attack on Mumbai, on the Indian parliament, and innumerable other terrorist acts. In fact, the U.S. is grumpy about the fact that the Pakistanis currently provide safe havens for the Afghan Taliban forces. David Rohde, a NY Times correspondent taken hostage by them and kidnapped to Pakistan, has given an account of how his kidnappers were protected by the Paki army. Even after his escape, they did nothing, and this with a Paki military base less than a mile from his kidnappers' lair.
December 4, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Pope Grants Permission For Male Prostitutes to Use Condoms: Prostitutes Rejoice
Answering the long-time prayers of male prostitutes around the world, the Pope, the Holy Father, the Infallible One, True Representative of God on Earth, has decided in his infinite wisdom that it's a "step on the way to morality" if male prostitutes use condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, so maybe it's not so bad.
"This is wonderful news!" rejoiced "David," a male prostitute who did not want his full name used. "We've been waiting a long time for the Pope to grant us permission to use condoms. This doesn't come too soon as far as I'm concerned. I know too many people who succumbed to AIDS because the Pope banned them from using rubbers."
Many people saw the slight movement in the granite-like dogma of the Catholic Church as a seismic shift from its previous position that condoms were NEVER EVER justified under any circumstances. It would also seem to contradict on its face the Church's position of just a few years ago that condoms don't prevent AIDS, only abstinence or monogamy does.
But seriously, only jackasses let the pedophile-ridden Catholic Church dictate their sexual behavior to them! This is a Church that has expended great effort to PROTECT pedophile priests and stonewall their victims. (Not to mention its history of horrible tortures and mass murders over the centuries during the Inquisition and other times, and their complicity in numerous fascist regimes in the 20th century.) And considering that the Church's poohbahs are officially asexual, presumably they know NOTHING about sex...
"This is wonderful news!" rejoiced "David," a male prostitute who did not want his full name used. "We've been waiting a long time for the Pope to grant us permission to use condoms. This doesn't come too soon as far as I'm concerned. I know too many people who succumbed to AIDS because the Pope banned them from using rubbers."
Many people saw the slight movement in the granite-like dogma of the Catholic Church as a seismic shift from its previous position that condoms were NEVER EVER justified under any circumstances. It would also seem to contradict on its face the Church's position of just a few years ago that condoms don't prevent AIDS, only abstinence or monogamy does.
But seriously, only jackasses let the pedophile-ridden Catholic Church dictate their sexual behavior to them! This is a Church that has expended great effort to PROTECT pedophile priests and stonewall their victims. (Not to mention its history of horrible tortures and mass murders over the centuries during the Inquisition and other times, and their complicity in numerous fascist regimes in the 20th century.) And considering that the Church's poohbahs are officially asexual, presumably they know NOTHING about sex...
I tremble for Julian Assange
The U.S. has murdered people for a lot less than what Julian Assange, the public face and proprietor of WikiLeaks has already done. After posting U.S. military documents showing massive U.S. complicity in torture of prisoners in Iraq, now WikiLeaks is posting a quarter of a million State Dept. documents that reveal U.S. diplomats tasked with swiping credit card numbers, fingerprints, DNA, even iris (eye) scans (!) and other info from foreign diplomats. (The domestic media has focused on the trivial content, the catty gossip about foreign rulers in the state dept cables.)
As with earlier leaks, the U.S. Government is raising a bogus hue and cry about "endangering lives," which is sheer bullshit. Politicians are bellowing for Assange's arrest and persecution. Congressman Peter King, a jackass generally, demands that WikiLeaks be branded a "terrorist" organization. NBC put him on TV to rant that Assange is killing people, "has blood on his hands" and thus should be treated as a terrorist. [I.e. murdered or kidnapped to a CIA secret torture chamber and then to Guantanamo Bay, the naval base on land the U.S. stole from Cuba when it "liberated" it from Spain.]
AG Eric Holder Jr. (a Clinton regime retread) is vowing criminal charges. Ominous sounds issued from the noise hole of White House chief flack Robert Gibbs ( a real coward when it comes to answering right-wing attacks on his master, Obama), to whit: "this administration thinks it's a big deal." He said "those that have been involved in the stealing of and the dissemination of this information are criminals."
Gibbs said he "wouldn't rule anything out" when it comes to legal action against Wikileaks, stating that in addition to an ongoing criminal investigation the administration is looking at "a whole host of" options. Like what, Gibbs? More frameups on fake charges in other countries? "Dirty tricks"? We know, like JFK, that Obama is enamored of "special ops." It was JFK that brought systematic torture to Latin America, sending thugs like Dan Mitrione to the Southern Hemisphere under the aegis of the "Office of Public Safety" within the "Agency for International Development" to train Latin fascists in torture techniques, [See Office of Public Safety at Wikipedia.]
The U.S. already got their Swedish stooges to bring rape charges against Assange. The U.S. has a history of murdering dissidents generally. Sometimes they murder people by sabotaging planes they're on. Sometimes they arrange traffic "accidents." Sometimes they give people cancer or mysterious fatal illnesses. (As happened to Yasir Arafat, and was planned for Fidel Castro via a thallium poisoning plot when he was visiting New York City.)
Assange also has to worry about being kidnapped from abroad by U.S. Marshals or the DEA. (The DEA lately has branched out into kidnapping arms dealers, most recently Victor Bout, who they busted in Thailand when he fell for DEA agents pretending to be from FARC, the Colombian guerrillas the U.S. labeled "terrorists." Basically a "terrorist" is anyone the U.S. doesn't like. Thus militant environmentalists are "ecoterrorists," peace activists are "supporters of terrorists," etc.)
U.S. courts don't care how someone is dragged into U.S. courts. (Back in the 1950s the FBI kidnapped Morton Sobel, a co-defendant of the Rosenbergs, from Mexico. He was lucky. They only locked him up for 20 years instead of electrocuting him as they did the Rosenbergs.)
Seems like only a matter of time before the gangster U.S. gets Julian, one way or another. Too bad. Only hope is a future world without the U.S.
As with earlier leaks, the U.S. Government is raising a bogus hue and cry about "endangering lives," which is sheer bullshit. Politicians are bellowing for Assange's arrest and persecution. Congressman Peter King, a jackass generally, demands that WikiLeaks be branded a "terrorist" organization. NBC put him on TV to rant that Assange is killing people, "has blood on his hands" and thus should be treated as a terrorist. [I.e. murdered or kidnapped to a CIA secret torture chamber and then to Guantanamo Bay, the naval base on land the U.S. stole from Cuba when it "liberated" it from Spain.]
AG Eric Holder Jr. (a Clinton regime retread) is vowing criminal charges. Ominous sounds issued from the noise hole of White House chief flack Robert Gibbs ( a real coward when it comes to answering right-wing attacks on his master, Obama), to whit: "this administration thinks it's a big deal." He said "those that have been involved in the stealing of and the dissemination of this information are criminals."
Gibbs said he "wouldn't rule anything out" when it comes to legal action against Wikileaks, stating that in addition to an ongoing criminal investigation the administration is looking at "a whole host of" options. Like what, Gibbs? More frameups on fake charges in other countries? "Dirty tricks"? We know, like JFK, that Obama is enamored of "special ops." It was JFK that brought systematic torture to Latin America, sending thugs like Dan Mitrione to the Southern Hemisphere under the aegis of the "Office of Public Safety" within the "Agency for International Development" to train Latin fascists in torture techniques, [See Office of Public Safety at Wikipedia.]
The U.S. already got their Swedish stooges to bring rape charges against Assange. The U.S. has a history of murdering dissidents generally. Sometimes they murder people by sabotaging planes they're on. Sometimes they arrange traffic "accidents." Sometimes they give people cancer or mysterious fatal illnesses. (As happened to Yasir Arafat, and was planned for Fidel Castro via a thallium poisoning plot when he was visiting New York City.)
Assange also has to worry about being kidnapped from abroad by U.S. Marshals or the DEA. (The DEA lately has branched out into kidnapping arms dealers, most recently Victor Bout, who they busted in Thailand when he fell for DEA agents pretending to be from FARC, the Colombian guerrillas the U.S. labeled "terrorists." Basically a "terrorist" is anyone the U.S. doesn't like. Thus militant environmentalists are "ecoterrorists," peace activists are "supporters of terrorists," etc.)
U.S. courts don't care how someone is dragged into U.S. courts. (Back in the 1950s the FBI kidnapped Morton Sobel, a co-defendant of the Rosenbergs, from Mexico. He was lucky. They only locked him up for 20 years instead of electrocuting him as they did the Rosenbergs.)
Seems like only a matter of time before the gangster U.S. gets Julian, one way or another. Too bad. Only hope is a future world without the U.S.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Krazy Karzai Kracks Up, Bites Hands That Feed Him
"President" Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is like an ill-tempered Chihuahua. A lapdog who delusionally thinks he's a top dog, in response to President Obama pressuring him, once again, to "do more" about ending (sic!) corruption, and make "faster progress" on providing good government, just days later responded with a deranged rant claiming the foreign observers and UN election overseers were the ones committing electoral fraud, attacking the western media, the U.S., and threatening to join the Taliban if they didn't lay off him.
For infuriating effrontery, this must be some kind of world historical record. This SOB tried to steal the election, committed massive fraud, and eventually his opponent saw it was hopeless and dropped out. So Karzai's "reelection" was only by default. Now he whines that he would have won outright if not for the cheating of the foreign observers.
Then he calls Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and feeds her a two-faced sack of bullshit saying he didn't really mean it. What a con man.
After THAT, he's at it again, launching outrageous attacks on the foreign powers that are the only thing between him and a noose around his neck tied to a lamppost courtesy of the Taliban.
The joke is, the U.S. is still pretending, that after over 8 years of running the most corrupt, and one of the most ineffective, governments on earth, that Karzai is or will "do something about" corruption. He's the head crook. His brother is a major drug dealer. Don't you get it? Karzai is just a sleazy hustler. After this string runs out he'll retire to his Swiss bank accounts. (Assuming he can stay one step ahead of the Taliban.) If anyone deserves the Diem treatment, it's Karzai.
For infuriating effrontery, this must be some kind of world historical record. This SOB tried to steal the election, committed massive fraud, and eventually his opponent saw it was hopeless and dropped out. So Karzai's "reelection" was only by default. Now he whines that he would have won outright if not for the cheating of the foreign observers.
Then he calls Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and feeds her a two-faced sack of bullshit saying he didn't really mean it. What a con man.
After THAT, he's at it again, launching outrageous attacks on the foreign powers that are the only thing between him and a noose around his neck tied to a lamppost courtesy of the Taliban.
The joke is, the U.S. is still pretending, that after over 8 years of running the most corrupt, and one of the most ineffective, governments on earth, that Karzai is or will "do something about" corruption. He's the head crook. His brother is a major drug dealer. Don't you get it? Karzai is just a sleazy hustler. After this string runs out he'll retire to his Swiss bank accounts. (Assuming he can stay one step ahead of the Taliban.) If anyone deserves the Diem treatment, it's Karzai.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
What is the World's Worst Company to work for?
Good question. There are so many horrible choices to choose from. Companies that pay their workers slave wages. Companies that exploit "illegal" immigrants. Companies that cheat their workers out of pay, or overtime. Companies that destroy or endanger their workers' health by exposing them to dangerous substances, or unsafe working conditions. Companies that are just plain evil, involved with fascist death squads to murder workers trying to organize their fellow workers, for example. Companies that sell repressive technology and machinery to oppressive regimes. (Like western corporations selling surveillance equipment and software to China, companies that sell arms and "riot control" equipment to dictatorships, Caterpillar selling armored bulldozers to Israel to raze the homes of Palestinians, and murder the occasional activist like Rachel Corrie.)
So I guess Rio Tinto isn't the world's worst company to work for. But I sure wouldn't want to work for them. They just threw 4 employees to the wolves, abandoning them to a Chinese prison on trumped up charges. Even before the "conviction" in a bogus, secret "trial," the head of Rio Tinto was distancing his company from these expendable executives and sucking up to the Chinese rulers. Utterly disgusting. The instant they were "convicted," they were fired. Some people really do care only about money.
RT is an Australian company. One of the victims is an Australian citizen (but ethnically Chinese, which I think might be relevant in terms of the Aussie Government's attitude) and the other 3 are Chinese citizens. The Australian Government has been pretty feckless, making mealy-mouthed pleas for more "transparency" in the "trial." (The men were held virtually incommunicado for months preceding the "trial." Their lawyers had almost no input into the "process." ) It's reminiscent of the Australians' going along with the Indonesians' pathetic lies about murdering a group of Australian journalists during the invasion of East Timor back in the 1970s. Apparently caving in to thugs is an Aussie habit.
So I guess Rio Tinto isn't the world's worst company to work for. But I sure wouldn't want to work for them. They just threw 4 employees to the wolves, abandoning them to a Chinese prison on trumped up charges. Even before the "conviction" in a bogus, secret "trial," the head of Rio Tinto was distancing his company from these expendable executives and sucking up to the Chinese rulers. Utterly disgusting. The instant they were "convicted," they were fired. Some people really do care only about money.
RT is an Australian company. One of the victims is an Australian citizen (but ethnically Chinese, which I think might be relevant in terms of the Aussie Government's attitude) and the other 3 are Chinese citizens. The Australian Government has been pretty feckless, making mealy-mouthed pleas for more "transparency" in the "trial." (The men were held virtually incommunicado for months preceding the "trial." Their lawyers had almost no input into the "process." ) It's reminiscent of the Australians' going along with the Indonesians' pathetic lies about murdering a group of Australian journalists during the invasion of East Timor back in the 1970s. Apparently caving in to thugs is an Aussie habit.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Media Barons Topple 2nd N.Y. Governor in a Row
The media barons of New York (who are also national "players" with many other media properties), Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. of the New York Times, Rupert Murdoch of the New York Post, and Mortimer Zuckerman of the New York Daily News, have flexed their muscles yet again, toppling a second N.Y State Governor in less than a year.
Last year they ousted Eliot Spitzer, a genuine reform Governor. Months of attacks on Spitzer culminated in the FBI handing the media a prostitution "scandal" they could use to finally force Spitzer from office. The only possible motive must have been that despite their pseudo-moralistic fulminations against the corrupt state government, they actually oppose reform. Spitzer was attacked for having a lousy personality, and then when his underlings exposed a real scandal- Republican State Senate boss Joseph Bruno using State Police helicopters to ferry him to partisan political errands, the media twisted it into a scandal against Spitzer for leaking the info! Amazing. When that wasn't enough to oust Spitzer, the FBI helpfully came through.
Now the media oligarchs have toppled Spitzer's unelected successor, David Paterson, a political hack who dropped his "liberal" politics like a snake molting its skin to move sharply right as Governor. (For example, suddenly defending the rich from taxes and wanting to slash social services, opposing a special prosecutor to investigate police crimes, which he'd "supported" as a state senator, etc.)
The media barons are surely feeling their oats. The tabloid rags, the Post and Daily News, scream in large block letters on their front pages in the crudest terms for Paterson to "go." (See their covers from late February 2010 early March. http://www.nypost.com/, http://www.nydailynews.com/.) Not content with his dropping out of the election campaign scheduled for the fall, they want him to resign immediately. The papers are openly demanding that the current unelected Lt. Governor, Richard Ravitch, take over. Ravitch is a lifetime member of the unelected nomenklatura in New York State, one of the grey eminences who wield power behind the scenes. Since he doesn't have to answer to the people, he can savagely attack their interests with impunity, including social services, and institute even more regressive taxation. (Sales taxes in NYC, for example, are just a hair below 10% now.)
The means of ousting Paterson consisted of the Times rooting around for skeletons in his closet. They found one in the closet of his trusted aide-de-camp, David Johnson, a 6 foot 7 inch bully with a bad habit of beating up his girlfriends. The campaign started with the media hyping rumors of unspecified dirt that the Times was about to spring that would force Paterson out. After a couple of weeks of shameless rumor-mongering and wild speculation by the rest of the media, the Times came out with an article closely tying Johnson to Paterson, painting him as his main political adviser and right hand man, with some hints of legal troubles. Days later, they let the other shoe drop with the news that a girlfriend Johnson beat up was then leaned on by the State Police- specifically the unit that functions as the Governor's Praetorian Guard, and does dirty work for ALL Governors, and that Paterson himself spoke with her on the phone the day before she was due in court to seek a permanent order of protection. When she failed to show up in court, the matter was dismissed.
Now the media pile-on is unrelenting for Paterson to resign, not just not run for election in November.
The moral of the story? The major corporate media constitute the top power in the U.S. Politicians are ultimately at their mercy, because the media control the perceptions of the populace. The populace are deluded that the image of the world presented by the media constitutes reality.
Last year they ousted Eliot Spitzer, a genuine reform Governor. Months of attacks on Spitzer culminated in the FBI handing the media a prostitution "scandal" they could use to finally force Spitzer from office. The only possible motive must have been that despite their pseudo-moralistic fulminations against the corrupt state government, they actually oppose reform. Spitzer was attacked for having a lousy personality, and then when his underlings exposed a real scandal- Republican State Senate boss Joseph Bruno using State Police helicopters to ferry him to partisan political errands, the media twisted it into a scandal against Spitzer for leaking the info! Amazing. When that wasn't enough to oust Spitzer, the FBI helpfully came through.
Now the media oligarchs have toppled Spitzer's unelected successor, David Paterson, a political hack who dropped his "liberal" politics like a snake molting its skin to move sharply right as Governor. (For example, suddenly defending the rich from taxes and wanting to slash social services, opposing a special prosecutor to investigate police crimes, which he'd "supported" as a state senator, etc.)
The media barons are surely feeling their oats. The tabloid rags, the Post and Daily News, scream in large block letters on their front pages in the crudest terms for Paterson to "go." (See their covers from late February 2010 early March. http://www.nypost.com/, http://www.nydailynews.com/.) Not content with his dropping out of the election campaign scheduled for the fall, they want him to resign immediately. The papers are openly demanding that the current unelected Lt. Governor, Richard Ravitch, take over. Ravitch is a lifetime member of the unelected nomenklatura in New York State, one of the grey eminences who wield power behind the scenes. Since he doesn't have to answer to the people, he can savagely attack their interests with impunity, including social services, and institute even more regressive taxation. (Sales taxes in NYC, for example, are just a hair below 10% now.)
The means of ousting Paterson consisted of the Times rooting around for skeletons in his closet. They found one in the closet of his trusted aide-de-camp, David Johnson, a 6 foot 7 inch bully with a bad habit of beating up his girlfriends. The campaign started with the media hyping rumors of unspecified dirt that the Times was about to spring that would force Paterson out. After a couple of weeks of shameless rumor-mongering and wild speculation by the rest of the media, the Times came out with an article closely tying Johnson to Paterson, painting him as his main political adviser and right hand man, with some hints of legal troubles. Days later, they let the other shoe drop with the news that a girlfriend Johnson beat up was then leaned on by the State Police- specifically the unit that functions as the Governor's Praetorian Guard, and does dirty work for ALL Governors, and that Paterson himself spoke with her on the phone the day before she was due in court to seek a permanent order of protection. When she failed to show up in court, the matter was dismissed.
Now the media pile-on is unrelenting for Paterson to resign, not just not run for election in November.
The moral of the story? The major corporate media constitute the top power in the U.S. Politicians are ultimately at their mercy, because the media control the perceptions of the populace. The populace are deluded that the image of the world presented by the media constitutes reality.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
World's Most Expensive Show Trial Hits Snag
The world's - indeed history's - most expensive (by far) show trial hit a snag a few days ago. Obama and his "team" wanted to make a display of American righteousness with a show trial of "self-professed 9/11 mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "and four codefendants." (This is the obligatory way they are identified in ALL U.S. media accounts. On some matters, the U.S. corporate media is as slavishly conformist and hews in lockstep fashion to propaganda tropes as the Chinese media.) After years in U.S. dungeons, where they were subjected to torture- the U.S. media openly admits, without any embarrassment, let alone shame, that Mohammed was waterboarded- that is, subjected to drowning - 187 times- we are now being treated to a demonstration of the fairness and justice of the U.S. legal system.
The public is supposed to be mentally numb, like the populace in George Orwell's 1984, to glaring contradictions, such as the "right" to a speedy trial, and the presumption of innocence, blatantly violated in this case. (Just one example of the latter: David Axelrod, Obama's main political consiglieri, said on TV that they WILL be convicted and WILL be executed for their "murders." Of course, the entire American public has been convinced of their guilt, so an unbiased jury cannot be impaneled in the U.S. And if ever a case cried out for a change of venue, it's this one. Instead, holding the trial "blocks from the World Trade Center Site," was hailed as a perfect site for vengeance- er, "Justice." Like an old West hanging by a posse.
Don't get me wrong, I think they may be guilty- although we really only have the word of their torturers for that. After years of torture not many "defendants" are going to go back on the agreed upon story.
What a nightmarish, violent police state America has become.
The cost of this political theater was pegged at an incredible $200 million a year, for five years, (what could take so long? The conclusion is foregone) for a total of $1 Billion. For "security,"- i.e. overtime for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly's thugs, snipers on roofs to make us all feel nice and secure, (snipers glaring down on me alwaysgives me a warm and cozy feeling), and expensive police toys.
The billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg hailed it, and snarled dismissively at the plaintive bleats of the local community board objecting to being locked down for 5 years. (In New York City, community boards are utterly powerless bodies that supposedly "represent" neighborhood residents. The real rulers cynically set them up to give citizens a forum to exhaust themselves in ineffectual venting.) But then a funny thing happened: Commissar Kelly briefed the people who matter- the big landlords and other "business leaders"- on the police state hell he was planning on creating. So then these CLASS A citizens complained to their fellow plutocrat Bloomberg, and lo and behold, suddenly Bloomberg said it wasn't so smart to hold the trial in the crowded, congested tip of lower Manhattan, base of various high finance organizations. (He previously spat at the community board chair who'd suggested moving the trial to Governor's Island, calling her suggestion "stupid." One reason the rich love this Profile in Courage is his willingness to tell the proles off.)
So now the Obama regime is squirming. While the media claims lower Manhattan is off as the trial site, officially the regime denies that. And the torture-loving right wing of the U.S. elite insists that a military "commission" (i.e. drumhead proceeding) is all these defendants "deserve."
The public is supposed to be mentally numb, like the populace in George Orwell's 1984, to glaring contradictions, such as the "right" to a speedy trial, and the presumption of innocence, blatantly violated in this case. (Just one example of the latter: David Axelrod, Obama's main political consiglieri, said on TV that they WILL be convicted and WILL be executed for their "murders." Of course, the entire American public has been convinced of their guilt, so an unbiased jury cannot be impaneled in the U.S. And if ever a case cried out for a change of venue, it's this one. Instead, holding the trial "blocks from the World Trade Center Site," was hailed as a perfect site for vengeance- er, "Justice." Like an old West hanging by a posse.
Don't get me wrong, I think they may be guilty- although we really only have the word of their torturers for that. After years of torture not many "defendants" are going to go back on the agreed upon story.
What a nightmarish, violent police state America has become.
The cost of this political theater was pegged at an incredible $200 million a year, for five years, (what could take so long? The conclusion is foregone) for a total of $1 Billion. For "security,"- i.e. overtime for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly's thugs, snipers on roofs to make us all feel nice and secure, (snipers glaring down on me alwaysgives me a warm and cozy feeling), and expensive police toys.
The billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg hailed it, and snarled dismissively at the plaintive bleats of the local community board objecting to being locked down for 5 years. (In New York City, community boards are utterly powerless bodies that supposedly "represent" neighborhood residents. The real rulers cynically set them up to give citizens a forum to exhaust themselves in ineffectual venting.) But then a funny thing happened: Commissar Kelly briefed the people who matter- the big landlords and other "business leaders"- on the police state hell he was planning on creating. So then these CLASS A citizens complained to their fellow plutocrat Bloomberg, and lo and behold, suddenly Bloomberg said it wasn't so smart to hold the trial in the crowded, congested tip of lower Manhattan, base of various high finance organizations. (He previously spat at the community board chair who'd suggested moving the trial to Governor's Island, calling her suggestion "stupid." One reason the rich love this Profile in Courage is his willingness to tell the proles off.)
So now the Obama regime is squirming. While the media claims lower Manhattan is off as the trial site, officially the regime denies that. And the torture-loving right wing of the U.S. elite insists that a military "commission" (i.e. drumhead proceeding) is all these defendants "deserve."
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Are Islamic Jihadists Fascist?
Ex-leftist Christopher Hitchens, now ensconced with his new buddies on the right at places like the neofascist Wall Street Journal, promotes the term "Islamofascist" to describe Taliban and Al-Qaeda types. (Ironic given his new bedfellows.) These fundamentalist fanatics are certainly violent and totalitarian in the extreme. Does that make them fascist?
Well, that depends on the definition of "fascist." People who use the term virtually never define it.
But here are what I see as some commonalities between one group of undeniable fascists, the Nazis, and the vicious, terrorist murderers of the (Sunni) Islamic persuasion:
-Hyperviolent and sadistic
-Extremely fanatical (thus uncompromising- yet we keep hearing naive talk of negotiating/compromising/listening to their grievances)
-Possessors of an anti-human ideology which they impose by extreme force
-Murderously intolerant of most other people on this planet
-Terrorists- systematically use terror not just as a weapon to seize power, but as a permanent instrument of rule, used ubiquitously to keep their oppressed subjects under their power
-Uncompromising as noted, except tactically when it suits them to gain advantage and then only temporarily. (The tactics of the Taliban in Pakistan, where they negotiated to take over the Swat valley, and then immediately grabbed more territory, are reminiscent of Hitler's prewar games over Czechoslovakia and etc.)
-Feign sham interest in "peace" & "negotiations" with adversaries, as a trick or ruse or temporary expedient to grab an advantage. Any "peace" thus gained is extremely temporary. Inevitably they must be fought by force of arms
-Despite their extreme ignorance and intolerant narrow-mindedness, possess a dangerous degree of animal cunning about power, politics, and manipulating other people
-Totally ruthless, unethical, immoral, and unburdened by conscience.
So they certainly have things in common. But this description could apply to others. Perhaps "Islamofascist" is sloppy and lazy, an easy epithet used as a shortcut to a more accurate description. I guess it's serviceable if you need to reduce the description of these horrible creeps to only one word. (Forget 9/11- these shitheads throw acid on little girls to stop them from going to school, among other monstrous atrocities. What they do to other Muslims is far worse than what they've done to the U.S. And they've killed more Muslims in other countries than the number of Americans killed on 9/11 and in the attacks on the two U.S. embassies in Africa and on the USS Cole combined.)
Well, that depends on the definition of "fascist." People who use the term virtually never define it.
But here are what I see as some commonalities between one group of undeniable fascists, the Nazis, and the vicious, terrorist murderers of the (Sunni) Islamic persuasion:
-Hyperviolent and sadistic
-Extremely fanatical (thus uncompromising- yet we keep hearing naive talk of negotiating/compromising/listening to their grievances)
-Possessors of an anti-human ideology which they impose by extreme force
-Murderously intolerant of most other people on this planet
-Terrorists- systematically use terror not just as a weapon to seize power, but as a permanent instrument of rule, used ubiquitously to keep their oppressed subjects under their power
-Uncompromising as noted, except tactically when it suits them to gain advantage and then only temporarily. (The tactics of the Taliban in Pakistan, where they negotiated to take over the Swat valley, and then immediately grabbed more territory, are reminiscent of Hitler's prewar games over Czechoslovakia and etc.)
-Feign sham interest in "peace" & "negotiations" with adversaries, as a trick or ruse or temporary expedient to grab an advantage. Any "peace" thus gained is extremely temporary. Inevitably they must be fought by force of arms
-Despite their extreme ignorance and intolerant narrow-mindedness, possess a dangerous degree of animal cunning about power, politics, and manipulating other people
-Totally ruthless, unethical, immoral, and unburdened by conscience.
So they certainly have things in common. But this description could apply to others. Perhaps "Islamofascist" is sloppy and lazy, an easy epithet used as a shortcut to a more accurate description. I guess it's serviceable if you need to reduce the description of these horrible creeps to only one word. (Forget 9/11- these shitheads throw acid on little girls to stop them from going to school, among other monstrous atrocities. What they do to other Muslims is far worse than what they've done to the U.S. And they've killed more Muslims in other countries than the number of Americans killed on 9/11 and in the attacks on the two U.S. embassies in Africa and on the USS Cole combined.)
Intellectual Architect of Kent State Massacre Finally Dies
Irving Kristol, one of the endless supply of rightwing ideologues who provide intellectual justifications for the current social, economic, and imperialist order in America, has finally died. Treated as a major figure, not because of his brilliant ideas, but because of his political significance as an ideological Godfather of one of the many strands of anti-human reaction in the U.S., in his case the one called "neoconservatism." (A claque of mostly Jewish reactionaries ensconced in New York City institutions, including academia, private propaganda nests, and right-wing rags which are always copiously funded by the right-wing rich.)
Days before the Kent State massacre, Kristol met with President Richard Nixon (a truly pathological creature and one of the most evil presidents in U.S. history, which is really saying something) and urged Nixon to crush the anti-war movement on the college campuses. Days later, Republican Ohio Governor Rhodes unleashed his National Guard on defenseless students, murdering four and wounding others, including one rendered paraplegic for life. This was preceded by and followed by a reign of repression directed against the students, turning the campus into a police state. Students wandering into town were subjected to baseless, summary arrest, and assault by local louts.
Of course, the establishment rag The New York Times rolled out a huge obit, fawning over The Great Man. As usual when they fete reactionaries, they do not quote his actual "ideas," which are shockingly stupid and vicious, as always with reactionaries, no matter the verbal finery they're dressed up in to appear "intellectual."
Kristol was an enemy of humanity in everything he wrote and did.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
NY Times STILL Running Pinochet Propaganda
Chile is one of many countries in which the U.S. instigated a military coup and subsequent bloodbath in order to keep a society backward and oppressive, and ripe for economic exploitation. Immediately after the 1973 Chilean coup, led by traitorous fascist general Augusto Pinochet, the military junta put out the false story that President Salvador Allende committed suicide. In fact, he was executed in the Moneda Presidential Palace. The last photo we have of Allende is of him in a steel helmet carrying a gun, determined to defend the Moneda and Chilean democracy. And none other than the FBI, a rightwing U.S. secret police organization, concluded that the suicide story was false.
The FBI came to this conclusion in the course of investigating the murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt by terrorist bomb in Washington, D.C. Within a week of that bombing, Newsweek ran CIA disinfo in their "Periscope" column saying the junta and DINA, their secret police, had nothing to do with it. That was a lie, of course. Turned out the junta hired American terrorist Michael Vernon Townley and some fascist Cuban terrorists to make and plant a bomb in Letelier's car. Pinochet's cover story was that Letelier bombed himself to be a martyr. (So much for the credibility of their "Allende killed himself, we didn't" story.) George Bush the Elder was CIA director at the time, and thus a terrorist accomplice. The CIA also helped smuggle Townley into the country under a false passport. The Bush family's material support to terrorists also include sheltering Orlando Bosch, an architect of an airliner bombing that killed 73 people. The U.S. continued to employ, and shelters to this day the terrorists responsible for that terrorist atrocity. [See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_Flight_455 or search "Cubana airliner bombing" for more.] [There are two good books about the Letelier-Moffitt assassinations and aftermath that I know of- Assassination on Embassy Row by Landau & Dinges, and Death in Washington: The murder of Orlando Letelier by Donald Freed. Only Townley was punished, and he only served 3 years. On the other hand, "ecoterrorists" get that and heavier sentences for vandalism, and Muslims running charities for Palestinians get 65 years in prison, which just happened. Which proves how blatantly political the U.S. "justice" system is.
So now, 36 year later, the New York Times is still running fascist propaganda. And apparently so is the rest of the U.S. corporate propaganda system (aka "the media"). They cribbed an AP obituary of Allende's wife, who just died, which repeats the suicide canard intended to exonerate the regime for its murder of the President and make Allende appear cowardly.
"By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 18, 2009
"On Sept. 11, 1973, while under air and ground attack at the presidential palace, Mr. Allende killed himself rather than surrender to the military."
Of course, the Times was an enthusiastic backer and celebrator of the Chilean coup, and hired a noxious propagandist by the name of Shirley Christian to write pro-Pinochet propaganda for the paper, at which task she was quite prolific. (You can search the NYT archives under her name. Christian was also a big fan of U.S. client dictator Somoza of Nicaragua, and excoriated the U.S. press for what she took to be their insufficient enthusiasm for that butcher. But they only soured on him after his thugs murdered one of their members, a stupid move.)
It's a small lie as U.S. media lies go. Bigger ones: the Kennedy and King assassinations, "Yellow Rain" (bee pollen the U.S. media claimed was Soviet chemical warfare), the "Pope Plot," (Turkish fascist terrorist shoots a Pope, KGB and Bulgarian diplomat framed by CIA and their U.S. media pals) and on and on.
This is not the first time the Times has included political/ideological propaganda in an obituary. It seems there is no part of the Times that is off-limits for nonobjective content. (For example, after Oliver Stone came out with the movie JFK, the Times, an assiduous promoter of the official coverup of the assassination, went ballistic, and for months afterwards barbs aimed at Stone would pop up in the middle of unrelated articles. You'd be reading a restaurant review, say, and suddenly read something like "the soup left one with a feeling of nausea as if one had just viewed an Oliver Stone movie." I don't know if they put out a memo to the staff to "get Stone," or the kind of careerist creeps who work at the Times just took it upon themselves to score brownie points with their editors, but it was truly batty.)
Ironically, this pro-fascist paper (there are plenty of other examples of its support for fascist regimes, like in "South" Vietnam, Indonesia, Argentina, El Salvador, etc. etc.) is reviled as "liberal" by domestic U.S. fascists and reactionaries. Guess they don't know how to read. (Ranting, raving and reviling they do, not reading. Or thinking.)
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