If anyone knows anyone who even considers patronizing a starbucks, they may want to send them this:
Coffee drinkers in the US could soon get Jesus with their morning jolt as Starbucks plans to put a religious message on its cups next spring.
The cups will carry a religious quote from the Rev Rick Warren, the author of the blockbuster self-help book The Purpose-Driven Life. Help Starbucks Go Broke

Posted by: jj | Oct 22 2005 7:02 utc | 4

A Left-Handed Commencement Address
by Ursula K. Le Guin
happy birthday
Maybe we’ve had enough words of power and talk about the battle of life. Maybe we need some words of weakness. Instead of saying now that I hope you will all go forth from this ivory tower of college into the Real World and forge a triumphant career or at least help your husband to and keep our country strong and be a success in everything – instead of talking about power, what if I talked like a woman right here in public? It won’t sound right. It’s going to sound terrible. What if I said what I hope for you is first, if — only if — you want kids, I hope you have them. Not hordes of them. A couple, enough. I hope they’re beautiful. I hope you and they have enough to eat, and a place to be warm and clean in, and friends, and work you like doing. Well, is that what you went to college for? Is that all? What about success?
Success is somebody else’s failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty. No, I do not wish you success. I don’t even want to talk about it. I want to talk about failure.
Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you’re weak where you thought yourself strong. You’ll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself – as I know you already have – in dark places, alone, and afraid.
What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.(…)
Why did we look up for blessing – instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls…. (more)

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 22 2005 8:46 utc | 6

opps…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 22 2005 8:47 utc | 8

Another senseless waste of life …

October 21, 2005 By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes. [Excerpt]
WASHINGTON – Veterans groups and House Democrats blasted VA plans to review all post-traumatic stress disorder claims because of irregularities in their compensation system, calling it insulting to heroes who have served their country.
“To the VA, this is simply a process seeking out voids in paperwork,” said Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., at a Thursday hearing on Capitol Hill. “But to veterans, it’s a jolting realization that their day-to-day struggles are being questioned again.”
Critics called it a way for the department to save money by shirking its duty to care for disabled veterans. Quentin Kinderman, deputy director of legislative service for the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, called the IG report flawed and the proposed review a waste of money.
“There is very little potential to reduce the number of cases here,” he said. “And we’ve very concerned about the impact of the review and publicity on veterans, especially those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, who need the kind of counseling that the VA can provide.”
Udall said in one case, a veteran in his district committed suicide after hearing about plans for the review. Officials from New Mexico found the man, a Vietnam veteran, with information regarding the review beside his Purple Heart when he took his life.
This new rule, designed to cut thousands off the VA rolls, demands that a Vet document the “specific incident” that caused his or her PTSD. Since most armed forces PTSD is brought on by an extended period of cumulative stress in combat, rather than a “specific incident,” that makes meeting the new requirement nearly impossible. Then, no more disability payments. This is nothing less than murder. But it’s important murder. Got to save money somewhere. The Bush Buddy war-profiteers need their billions. Can’t have Halliburton going without. What are some dead Vets compared to that?

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 22 2005 10:17 utc | 10

Are’nt quite satisfied with the current level of domestic opposition to the Iraq War ?
Outraged at the exploitation of the most vulnerable elements of society being shanghaid as cannon-fodder ?
Tired of feeling a little depressed at the way things are … are you craving for a touch of empowerment ?
Want to know what you can do to make a practical difference … would you like a wicked, twisted, little taste of ‘Be all that you can be’ ?
At the very least, waste some of a rabid recruiters time and give yourself an invigorating ‘pick me up’/’cheer me up’ as well ?
Read on … 😉

Army Recruitment Woes – and the Four-Letter Explanation
by Rick Mercier
Feeling a little extra pressure at work lately? Cheer up. For most of you it could be worse. You could be an Army recruiter.
The guys charged with replenishing the Army’s ranks are as welcome in some quarters as carriers of bird flu.
– snip –
Since a lot of the “stay the course” crowd is a little shy when it comes to approaching a military recruiter, perhaps the rest of us can give them a little push by passing their information along to the Army.
You probably know some of these pro-war types. Maybe you’ve had to endure the guy next door or the guy in church talking up the war.
Well, why not log on to goarmy.com and sign him up for an info pack? Old Earl can slap that flag magnet of his on the Hummer he’ll be driving through Sadr City.
And high-school students, how about “volunteering” the teachers and administrators who’ve welcomed recruiters and JROTC programs into your classrooms? With any luck, school will be out for quite a while for Mr. Crabtree…

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 22 2005 11:11 utc | 12

The Republican, as he looks over this morning’s news, wonders what it
would be like to break ranks, to name evil where he sees it. To say,
as other conservatives have, that this administration has failed, that
it is a sh-t-encrusted assault on the very foundations of the things
the Republican loves about America, about politics, about governing.
The Republican knows that it would only take one – that once he turns,
others will join him, like a branch that pushes through a logjam. And
he could save his party from this amateur, this manchild, this
pretender, this Bush. He could lead the way, showing that the
Republicans put the good of the nation above loyalty to criminals.
God, what a magnificent thing that would be: the hearings, the
resignations, the housecleaning that would elevate discourse and set
the country at least back on the proper path.

from the Rude Pundit

Posted by: mistah charley | Oct 22 2005 16:15 utc | 14

In honor of World Series Time – Fitzy’s City Will Win!! – Someone attempted a rewrite of “Casey at Bat”: The Empire Strikes Out
The oddmakers aren’t hopeful about the Bushland team today;
Their poll numbers are dropping fast with few years left to play.
Once Delay got indicted, with Rove facing much the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the masters of the game.
A frightened few broke with the pack, in deep despair. The Rest
Clung to faint hope which “springs eternal in the human breast”;
They thought their slugger still could rise from this Nixonian fate,
There’s yet a chance to tough it out with Georgie at the plate.
…

Posted by: jj | Oct 22 2005 17:40 utc | 16

?noitsinimdA tnerruc eht ot ecnerefer a s’ti ebyaM

Posted by: r guod | Oct 22 2005 21:00 utc | 18

Now why would US officials want to suppress anything like that?
ylgnimmiws gniog si raw eht esuaceb

Posted by: annie | Oct 22 2005 21:10 utc | 20

“would you like a wicked, twisted, little taste of ‘Be all that you can be’ ?”
Ah, memories. We used to cut and modify those bumper stickers to say “BEAR ALL YOU CAN”. And that was during the ‘good’ years.

Posted by: Pat | Oct 22 2005 21:49 utc | 22

Credit where credit is due – the above is a misquote of the following from Fafblog comments:

“…and God said:
Build a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day.
Set a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.”
Jimmy Olson, Chapter VI, verse 23
(right between Habbakuk, & 1st and 2nd Bizarro)
so.
¡El Gato Negro!

Posted by: Freddy the Shredder | Oct 22 2005 22:33 utc | 24

Prosecutor in AIPAC affair is named new U.S. deputy AG
WASHINGTON – President George Bush announced Saturday his intention to nominate Paul J. McNulty, of Virginia, to be Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice.
I’ll bet McNulty got some very specific instructions related to the AIPAC case along with the new job. Probably bundled with a speech about “Good of the nation” and “Special Relationship with Israel”.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 22 2005 23:15 utc | 26

Maybe we need a Top 10 Ways You Know You’ve Lost the War Thread…
Here’s definitely a contender for #1: When Burt Bacharach, now 77, is writing songs against it. link
(Cross reference this w/Top 10 Ways You Know Dylan has Completely Sold Out List.)

Posted by: jj | Oct 23 2005 3:37 utc | 28

Outraged: Of course you are outraged. But rather than outing all the people who outrage you, by ratting them to Go Army, or ratting out their sysop, trying dealing with your outrage itself.
You could, in your first post, visit the vet psych wards and talk with people having a hard time. In the sixties, we called it, ‘talking someone down’. Smoke a joint with ’em. Find out where they were stationed, and what they did.
You could, in your second post, help returning vets find jobs, to make up for the loss of that bonus. Many of them return to a final pay check, a notice to vacate the barracks, and then, the street. The cold, hard, f–king mean streets. For those who’ve never lived on the streets, you do not want to, and neither do our returning vets.
And you could, instead of turning strangers in to the mil.meatgrinder.gov, no matter how poorly you think of their values, you could instead make some poor person a little richer by sharing your time at a half-way house or a food kitchen.
Otherwise, whether it’s worth $1,096,336.68 or pennies, this billmon blog is be-yatch bulls–t.

Posted by: tante aime | Oct 23 2005 4:19 utc | 30

…they’d support ousting bush after the outing of aristide and hussein
Not likely, Lenin’s ghost, behold:
BUSH FAMILY FINANCED BY FOREIGN $$$
Israeli Oligarch’s Ill-Gotten Loot Channeled to Dubya’s Brother.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 23 2005 5:00 utc | 32

According to this website: Congress set to pass law eliminating liability for vaccine injuries (Action alert) , congress was set to pass law eliminating Liability For Vaccine Injuries 19 Oct 2005. Does anybody have any info on this?
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is calling it the “Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005” (S. 1873).
Also see:
The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: An Assault on Civil Liberties in the Name of Homeland Security ?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 23 2005 6:54 utc | 34

Interesting that CNN, which did so much through it’s staff to shill garbage stocks, should publish this. Perhaps I’m wrong in being concerned that a report like this could trigger selling building into a panic.
NEW YORK (Fortune) – Tom Barrack, arguably the world’s greatest real estate investor, is methodically selling off his U.S. real estate holdings as prices drive the market to nosebleed levels.
He likens the current real estate market to a game of polo.
“I feel totally safe playing polo on a field full of pros,” says the bronzed 58-year old. “But when amateurs are all over the field, someone can get killed. They have more guts than brains. They charge after every ball and don’t know when to hold back.”
It’s the same with U.S. real estate right now. “There’s too much money chasing too few good deals, with too much debt and too few brains.” The amateurs are going to get trampled, he explains, taking seasoned horsemen, who should get off the turf, down with them.
Says Barrack: “That’s why I’m getting out.”
Investors take heed. Barrack may be an amateur at polo, but when it comes to judging markets, he’s the ultimate pro.
Arguably the best real estate investor on the planet, he runs a $245 billion portfolio of trophy assets, from the Raffles hotel chain in Asia to the Aga Khan’s former resort in Sardinia to Resorts International, the largest private gaming company in the U.S.
Barrack’s Colony Capital, one of the largest private equity firms devoted solely to real estate, has racked up returns of 21 percent annually since 1990, handing investors, chiefly pension funds and college endowments, 17 percent after all fees. link

Posted by: jj | Oct 23 2005 8:18 utc | 36

I haven’t been posting at my usual pace (some may or may not have noticed) the reason is two fold, I have been doing legislative (Government docs)research on campus, in my searching I ran across a very interesting book that has engrossed me entitled:
All Honorable Men by James Stewart Martin
Interestingly enough, I plugged it into the internets and found it on line here . The website and Subsequent character Dave Emory may be a whacko, but the information he conveys is food for thought in these matters. It’s uncomfortable to hear (audio). things that disagree with your experiences, realities and beliefs. And it’s also quite likely that one will classify these negatively, especially if they do conflict with one’s own determinations. As wise friend once told me “It’s all data” then followed up with the koan, “who makes the grass green”
Make of it what you will.
Snip:
One of the main reasons that the Third Reich’s commercial relationships with American corporations remained hidden was the fact that the personnel assigned to oversee the economic reconstruction of Germany were drawn largely from the U.S. firms that were involved with Hitler. Not surprisingly, these individuals saw to it that the status quo was maintained, and the economic de-nazification and de-cartelization of Germany was subverted. (All Honorable Men by James Stewart Martin, published in hardcover by Little Brown & Co.; Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler; Anthony C. Sutton; ’76 Press [HC]. Note that the Sutton text contains some excellent information. It also has some serious and [probably] deliberate distortions. Caveat Emptor.)
Snip:
One of the most shocking of the commercial arrangements between the U.S. and Germany was a reinsurance agreement between U.S., German and Swiss insurance companies. This arrangement provided the Germans with all of the information about the cargoes, sailing times, courses and destinations of Allied ships leaving the U.S. for Europe. Equipped with intelligence like this, the Nazi U-boats were able to wreak havoc on Allied shipping leaving the U.S. The losses among Navy and Merchant Marine personnel resulting from this glaring counterintelligence shortcoming were enormous. (All Honorable Men by James Stewart Martin, published in hardcover by Little Brown & Co.)
Snip:
“The ecopolitical masters of Germany boosted Hitler and his program into the driver’s seat at a time when the tide in the political fight between the Nazis and the supporters of the Weimar Republic was swinging against the Nazis. All of the men who mattered in banking and industrial circles could quickly agree on one program and throw their financial weight behind it. Their support won the election for the Nazis. We must assume that the same thing is not yet true in the United States. We do have economic power so concentrated that it would lie in the power of not more than a hundred men—if they could agree among themselves—to throw the same kind of combined economic weight behind a single program. They have not agreed yet. . . .If the United States should run into serious economic difficulties, however, most of the conditions for a re-enactment of the German drama would already exist on the American stage. The slight differences within the camp of the fraternity then may be the only real barrier to the kind of integration of the financial and industrial community behind a single repressive program, like that which the financiers and industrialists of Germany executed through Hitler. Are we safe in assuming that it would take a grave economic crisis to precipitate the dangers inherent in economic concentration? The basic integration of the financial and industrial groups in the United States is evident when we look at the increase of concentration in the past few years. . . .” (All Honorable Men; James Stewart Martin; Copyright 1950 [HC]; Little, Brown & Co.; p. 295.)
Snip:
…”The moral of this is not that Germany is an inevitable menace, but that there are forces in our own country which can make Germany a menace. And, more importantly, they could create a menace of their own here at home, not through a deliberate plot to bring bout a political catastrophe but as a calm judgment of “business necessity.” The men who would do this are not Nazis, but businessmen; not criminals, but honorable men.
The nation must to a degree take it on faith that we too are honorable men devoted to her service. — Richard Helms, CIA
Director [found guilty of committing perjury]

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 23 2005 12:47 utc | 38

to be sure, this view of the significance of elite legitimation as crucial to rise of nazism is emphasized by ian kershaw.

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 23 2005 17:19 utc | 40

Yes, Uncle we’ve noticed & hope it doesn’t become a habit!!

Posted by: jj | Oct 23 2005 18:07 utc | 42

Critical Pedagogy and Class Struggle in the Age of
Neoliberal Globalization: Notes from History’s
Underside
Abstract:
Within the North American progressive education tradition, critical pedagogy has been a widely discussed project of educational reform that challenges students to become politically literate so that they might better understand and transform how power and privilege works on a daily basis in contemporary social contexts. As a project of social transformation, critical pedagogy is touted as an important protagonist in the struggle for social and economic justice, yet it has rarely ever challenged the fundamental basis of capitalist social relations. Among the many and varied proponents of critical pedagogy in the United States, Marxist analysis has been virtually absent; in fact, over the last decade, its conceptual orientation has been more closely aligned with postmodernism and poststructuralism. This paper argues that unless class analysis and class struggle play a central role in critical pedagogy, it is fated to go the way of most liberal reform movements of the past, melding into calls for fairer resource distribution and allocation, and support for racial diversity, without fundamentally challenging the social universe of capital in which such calls are made.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 23 2005 20:27 utc | 44

@Uncle
One of the thousands of issues ignored by the media last year during the BushCo election buyout was the involvement of grandad US senator Prescott Bush in developing the links between Nazi Germany and US business elites.
There was a reasonably objective examination of this in the UK Guardian last year.
Some may choose to see this a s proof of a vast right wing conspiracy to subvert democracy but I fear the truth is rather more mundane than that.
This is pretty normal behaviour from a family who have always believed that rule number one when close to power is to use and abuse it for your own selfish needs.
So many people were eager to jump on the ‘lets kick Michael Moore in the crutch bandwagon’ last year that they ignored the incontrovertible evidence that Moore revealed of Bush family involvement in using their political connections for personal gain. Not just within the US either; Bush 41 wasn’t only hanging with the Bin Ladens on 9/11 he had former UK Prime Minister and appalling sycophant/opportunist John Major in the tent as well.
I have often wondered when reading fiction of Washington powerplays if the Bush family greed and mendacity was such an open secret that Richard Condon had them in mind when he wrote the Manchurian Candidate .
Len Deighton also wrote a series of novels about a German banking/warrior elite called the Winters and they had a US cousin well placed in the Washington/ New York circle of bankers and politicians. Did Deighton have the Bushes in mind when he drew this caricature or is this such a common syndrome that he could have been using any one of the American dynasties as a model?
The interesting thing about the Bushes is that they travelled under the radar for so long.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 23 2005 21:15 utc | 46

anything outside the sciences modified by the adjective critical causes me to spew profanity. It is an allergy of sorts.

Posted by: eftsoons | Oct 23 2005 22:02 utc | 48

The ‘powers that would be if we let them be’, have done a great job of convincing us that they apply all of the obscure rules and regulations, laws and etiquettes that they try to hold us to, to themselves. So much so that we can forget how much like a medieval principality the workings in the top echelon of a major corporation are.
Ol Rupert Murdoch is not getting any younger and he has moved his base of operations out of Australia and registered News Ltd in Delaware.
A move that must make Lachlan Murdoch and the other Oz heirs’ succession less secure.
The Gruniad has an interesting account of News Corp’s annual stockholder meeting.
It finishes with:

” it was tempting to ask the question no shareholder dared to raise: ultimately, who will have more influence over the future of News Corp after Rupert: John Malone, or Wendi Deng Murdoch?”

If I were a punter I’d have a bottle of Jamiesons on Wendi.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 23 2005 22:41 utc | 50

@Uncle I will listen to it this evening as I have bandwidth issues at the moment (ie teenagers need of MP3’s) so I will wait until I can stream the audio cleanly.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 23 2005 22:49 utc | 52

Internet Center for Corruption Research
How corrupt is the country you live in?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 24 2005 4:08 utc | 54

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his Bolivarian Revolution
The elected President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezeula, Hugo Chavez, is a Bolivarian. That means he believes in a world free of poverty and pain. Chavez is a man who quite clearly wants to save the world.
Ahah ! No wonder Bush & Co consider him and his ideas so very, very dangerous …

Peter Buckley on Hugo Chavez
from the ACA listserv, 29.09.2005 19:58, link
…Chavez is a revolutionary, and you can agree with him or not with how far he goes with his rhetoric, but he has placed the resources from his country’s oil sales into health care and literary programs for the poorest of the poor. I have to admire that. I know of no credible sources claiming that he is enriching himself at his peoples’ expense. That has been the clear habit of Latin American leaders in the last several decades, but Chavez seems clean. He is an avowed leftist and friend of Fidel, but a corrupt militarist he’s not.
The Washington Post has an interview with him from a few days back that people can google for if they are interested.
I look at South America and Central America and see a good deal of
hope. Even Mexico looks as if it is going to elect a progressive
president in their next election. Bolivia is a fascinating case study as well, with a true grassroots movement demanding the end of a non-representative government that sells the country’s natural
resources to the highest bidder with no benefit for the people.
Progress is coming to us from the south. We also have a good
progressive movement in Canada as well. It’s time for us to not only
move in the same direction, but to help lead.
Thanks & Onward,
Peter Buckley
Ashland Democrat, Oregon

Venezuela: Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution
Thursday 20 October 2005, Australian Radio National (roughly an NPR equivalent …)
Listen Real Media | Windows Media | Download MP3
Most Sundays you can turn on Venezuelan TV and find President Hugo Chavez on his all-day program called ‘Alo Presidente, sometimes there are other guests, but other days he just talks about whatever comes to mind…baseball, politics, Jesus and himself. Chavez calls the US a ‘terrorist state’; President Bush ‘Mr Danger’. And he has offered cheap oil and free eye care to the poor of the United States.
Chavez’s ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ is hodge-podge of social and health programs, nationalisation of industry, and populist nationalism that is inspiring many Latin Americans.
Behind all this is some serious geo-political tension: Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves outside of the Middle East – and with the US distracted with the War on Terror, Chavez has been using his oil money to become the favourite benefactor of Latin America.
No wonder US televangelist Pat Robertson called for the CIA to go in and assassinate him…

For background the following is an extract from Chavez’s speech to the UN Millennium summit. It is well worth a read in its entirety.

“Without a doubt, in the most recent decades, these summits have been repeated intensely. We jump from summit to summit, but sadly, the majority of our peoples keep moaning from abyss to abyss. Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of South America and the inspiration of the revolution that is taking place now in Venezuela, dreamed one day, in his vision for justice, dreamed about scaling the Chimborazo Summit, and there, over the perpetual snows of the spine of the Andes, he received a mandate from the lord of times, that wise long-bearded old man: “Go and tell the truth to man”. Today, I have come here as the banner bearer of this Bolivarian dream.”
Link To Full Speech…

The first interview of Hugo Chavez in the US (audio, video, transcript)

Tuesday, September 20th, 2005, DemocracyNow.Org
Venezuela’s President Chavez Offers Cheap Oil to the Poor…of the United States

To obtain an insight into the sustained propaganda stream and (reading between the lines) why Chavez and his ‘ideas’ are seen as ‘so dangerous’ (Not).
General Health Warning: To avoid the onset of an unctrollable desire to regurgitate, suggest you just glance thru the headlines and exit promptly … 😉
Hugo Chavez articles @ Free Republic

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 24 2005 5:26 utc | 56

@Hannah K. O’Luthon
Hannah, I heard the same interview on a syndication of the BBC interview too, it prompted me to source some articles and create the previous post, something I’ve been wanting to do for some time.
In many ways he makes me recall JFK, and some of his most idealistic speeches … how very odd … well, they assassinated Kennedy, did’nt they ?
I also percieved the ’embarrassment’ of the BBC interviewer, given he was obviously ‘directed’ to follow a line of loaded and leading questions that Chavez handled extremely well, IMHO.
Damned if I can find an online transcript of the interview though, it was quite wide ranging …
Re the future assassination of Chavez, possible, yet not very probable … Why ?
Because after the abortive failed coup in 2002(?) the Venezuelans finally learnt the lessons of American interference in Latin America … terminate all military assistance and aid programs, officer exchange and diplomatic assiatnce/exzchange progranms so that key venezuelans are less suscepatable to recruitment, subornment, coercion for actionable events in times of crisis, i.e. coups …
They, the intelligence community, primarily Operations, on behalf of Bush & Co, will still try, but the mutual individual relationships that would normally be leveraged (having been nurtured and developed over time) and the agents and operatives (mostly sleeping, laying low, out of sustained contact) who show thier hand may well be identified and ‘dealt with’ …
The other key issue is that in almost every regard Chavez is populist and has major support across the electoral spectrum … because he was’nt overthrown, nor assinated, he has been able to demonstarte a vision and early and sustained substantive benfits to a large portion of the previously destitute Venezuelans ( sliding unemployement, reduced poverty, highest growth global growth in GDP, etc) … what is regarded as a ‘hostile’, low likely success, environment for covert intelligence operations driven by an external political agenda (ie.e the US) … 🙂

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 24 2005 6:17 utc | 58

I recently heard an interview w/Phil Agee, a man of the moment shall we say. He’s helping Chavez figure out how CIA working to foment the overthrow of his govt. & writing for http://www.venezuelanalysis.com. link
One thing they’ve done is unify the opposition. He only won by 60-40% last time, so they don’t have to shift the vote that much. If he & his slate for Congress only run against one candidate, US puppets could legally prevail.

Posted by: jj | Oct 24 2005 7:27 utc | 60

I normally ignore tante aime…I know Bernhard thinks he/she is trollish and advises the same.
But since he/she is obviously unfamiliar with the history that Outraged has provided here…one that includes service to the powers that be…
I can think of nothing better than taking papers to sign up the little frat boys who support the troops, as long as it costs them nothing, and tell them to put their ass on the line for Bush.
Let them live in a war zone without proper armor, while Halliburton rolls in the dough of war profiteering, and let’s see if their support is for Bush goes past the first layer of their chicken-skin flesh.
Why should PTSD be limited to the lower and middle classes? Why shouldn’t amputations and head injuries be the privilege of upper class children as well?
They hypocrisy of the war “supporters” is astounding to me. Do they conserve oil? Do they downsize their houses? Do they tell their sons and daughters to drop out of college and sign up for this so-called global war?
I so fucking hate any and all of those ribbons (Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House!) I think Outraged has a great idea.

Posted by: fauxreal | Oct 24 2005 12:36 utc | 62

Rosa Parks has died

Posted by: R.I.P. Rosa Parks | Oct 25 2005 2:35 utc | 64

Non-Invasive Brain Damage the most significant injury coming out of the Iraq War for US Troops…

soldier injured in Iraq on long road to recovery
10/22/2005 By Marianne Love, Staff Writer, Whittier Daily News
GLENDORA — He made it six months into his second tour of duty in Iraq before a sniper’s bullet found him as he stood guard on top of a police station.
The bullet never actually entered his body, rather it zipped around the inside of his helmet and back out, shaking his head violently and injuring his brain.
In the next few weeks, Army Staff Sgt. Jarod Behee, 26, will face more surgery at a private hospital in Pomona.
Doctors will insert a permanent shunt to drain the fluid on Behee’s brain. After that, a cranioplasty will be performed to relieve pressure on his brain.
His right eye won’t stay open, so he’ll face a third surgery.
And when he moves from the hospital setting into a transitional living center at Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation, that’s when his wife, Marissa, says she’s not sure his insurance will pay for his treatment.
“That’s why we are fund-raising. We are unsure what the military will continue to cover,” said Marissa, 26.
Marissa transferred her husband from the Palo Alto Veterans Hospital in Northern California two months ago to the private Pomona hospital, because she said the Palo Alto facility was not equipped to treat serious head injuries.
“They deal with a lot of strokes. Jarod had so many more needs, it was like he was a guinea pig,” Marissa said.
Casa Colina spokesman Fred Aronow said “closed-head” injuries represent the most significant injury coming out of the Iraq war because of improved armor.
“It stops bullets. Bullets have a tremendous amount of force. … There’s no break in the skull, but the brain is moved around inside from the velocity just as when someone is in a car crash and they hit the windshield,” Aronow said…

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 25 2005 3:37 utc | 66

@jj
When is enough … enough ?
Apart from disseminating the rallying cries of jingoistic rhetoric, our troops are to the elites, just another commodity to be exploited … objectively simply a different category of victims …
On a different level the corruption and injustice continues unabated … after all we’ll have to cut more welfare programs (life sustaining) to make up the difference …

Pentagon paying top dollar for goods
Prime vendor program seems to spur price gouging
By LAUREN MARKOE and SETH BORENSTEIN
Knight Ridder News Service
Last Updated: Oct. 22, 2005
Washington – The Pentagon paid $20 apiece for plastic ice cube trays that once cost it 85 cents. It paid a supplier more than $81 apiece for coffeemakers that it bought for years for just $29 from the manufacturer …
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And it’s costing taxpayers 20 percent more than the old system, a Knight Ridder investigation found.
The higher prices are the result of a Defense Department purchasing program called prime vendor, which favors a handful of firms.
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“I resent it as a taxpayer,” said the firm’s chief executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing business. “Before we’d sell it to them (the Defense Department) at a hell of a lot less money. I don’t make that money on it. Dietary (one of the prime vendors) is making money hands over fist. … It makes no sense.”
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Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., called for an investigation of the program.
“Can Congress do anything? Yes. Will Congress do anything? No,” he said…

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 25 2005 4:07 utc | 68

@Outraged
Same thing happened in the 80’s under Reagan. It’s a bookkeeping trick, nothing more. They are still paying 81 cents for ice cube trays and funnelling the remaining $19.19 into projects they could never dream of getting passed through Congress (or, more probably, into private offshore bank accounts). History has demonstrated that taxpayers get disgusted by “wasteful expenditures” and never look any further. It only looks like gouging (which is tolerable to the public), but it is actually laundering (which will get your mugshot posted all over the internet if you get too brazen about it).

Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 25 2005 4:25 utc | 70