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January 13, 2006
OT 06-05
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Newly released military documents show U.S. Army investigators closed a probe into allegations an Iraqi detainee had been abused by a shadowy military task force after its members used fake names and asserted that key computer files had been lost.
Shadowy US Unit.
Well we all know who that might be.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 13 2006 13:52 utc | 1
Riverbend Thank You for the Music…
We went to Alan not just to buy music. It always turned into a social visit. He’d make you sit down, listen to his latest favorite CD and drink something. Then he’d tell you the latest gossip- he knew it all. He knew where all the parties were, who the best DJs were and who was getting married or divorced. He knew the local gossip and the international gossip, but it was never malicious with Alan. It was always the funny sort.
As I didn’t get any comments or feedback the last time I posted these links, I would again like to to strongly besiege MOA’s to see this documentary. It will explan alot to what I suspect is the riddle of the Bushco support. For those whom are familiar w/ torrents darren Browns show can be found online .
Also, a working hash is as follows:
[4bdb47bcaabc889cfd9a6912a295b5357cb8d511]
Three out of four middle-managers are theives.
Mr. Derren Brown , psycho-illusionist, gives a business-motivational seminar. Or so it seems. Really, he’s using techniques of suggestion to ‘program’ his marks so that when presented with the opportunity (and a toy gun) they will commit armed robbery. Not everyone thinks its funny. Less grisly than his previous stunts. Nifty flash website he’s got.
Also see: ‘Like A Duck In A Noose’
And
TELEVISION AND THE HIVE MIND
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 13 2006 14:36 utc | 3
uncle, although i couldn’t watch the video i did follow the links the previous time you posted and checked out his site this morn. also of interest is the connection to the conversation yesterday concerning the military questionaire
and the susceptibility to fire on us citizens.
one’s sense of boundary between self and the outside world, where/how that boundary begins and ends largly determines our reality, or unreality.
the child must learn moreover at some point early in his life another sort of boundary only somewhat less crucial to him. It is the boundary between that realm of his environment in which ”facts” occur that are of importance and relation to him, and that realm of his environment where things do not concern him to the point of emotional and physical reaction that would be appropriate. This can be conceived of in Lewinian terms as a boundary too.
derren brown breaks down that barrier , demonstrating how the strength of ‘relevancy boundary’ largely determines ones view of the world (and one’s sanity)
Posted by: annie | Jan 13 2006 16:28 utc | 4
Uncle I followed the links. I have seen a few minutes of his shows, it’s summer here and they have been showing his trashy TV show here along with a couple of the other ones mentioned in the links that also do that same crap that has been going on at carny sideshows for a hundred years. I didn’t take it seriously.
Maybe it’s real but I felt that his show in particular made ‘Survivor’ seem cinema verite. It is very tacky and relies on lots of hype before and after the shows, as you can see from the links, to make them seem more than what they are.
There used to be a group in Australia called Sceptics United or some such that would always debunk these guys whenever they came to Oz. The sceptics were fairly well known Australian writers, artists and businessmen. Their main technique was to deconstruct the ‘illusion’ to show how it was done and then replicate it themselves.
Most eg Uri Geller were simple conjuring tricks. They did a job on Geller that kept him away from Oz for quite a while.
When my bro was starting out in the journalism game he was working for some alleged broadsheet that had all the quality of a piece of toilet paper. The main opposition paper had run an article that was basically a press release for some Indian ‘mystic’. The bro’s boss told him to go out and see if he could ‘pull this smart arse apart’. A good story for the paper made even better by the fact the ‘Herald’ was also going to look silly.
Since the mystic’s PR was full of all the wonders this bloke had performed in Australia on his way to NZ, a phone call across the Tasman seemed in order.
Two calls later ‘Scoop’ found out the guy had conned a couple of little old ladies out of quite a bit of money plus the sceptics had given him a good going over so it was time to organise an interview with the master himself.
The chance of more publicity appealed to this low life who agreed to meet with the bro at his hotel. When ‘Scoop’ got there he was treated to the full performance of bullshit and outrageous claims of helping the blind see, lame walk and all the usual claptrap, so the reporter started off with a gentle “what can you tell me about ‘Mrs blah blah’ in Melbourne?”
The blood drained from the mystics face for a minute, then he recoverd. Lots of bluster about how organised religion sought to discredit him and Mrs ‘blah blah’ was a pawn in their game.
Scoop just kept hitting with one more fact after another until the mystic said:
“You’re not going to print all that are you?”
To which Scoop replied:
“You’re the fortune teller. You tell me.”
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 13 2006 18:37 utc | 5
Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11
Who could have thought that?
Thanks for the story DiD. Uncle $cam: When “Television and the Hive Mind” was linked before, I printed it and passed it around to anyone I could get to read it. Thanks for linking it again. It’s what’s wrong with u.s., I believe.
Posted by: beq | Jan 13 2006 19:15 utc | 7
If they put Scalito on the court, It’s Over. He’s Mussolini’s Wet Dream of a “Jurist”. Filibuster is still very possible according to Mark Crispin Miller’s Very Knowledgeable Posts today. PLEASE HEAD OVER THERE & GET TO WORK. We have to Defeat this beady-eyed thoroughly evil Constitution Torcher NOW.
Posted by: jj | Jan 13 2006 19:17 utc | 8
Ahh, just a reporting issue….
2 Million Displaced By Storms
The Federal Emergency Management Agency yesterday increased its count of people displaced from the Gulf Coast by hurricanes Katrina and Rita by nearly a third, to about 2 million people. A FEMA spokeswoman attributed the sharp rise to a reporting error.
2 Million Displaced By Storms
So the elite know that they can displace almost 1% of the population, give a little speech, and face practically no repercussions, if anything, a strengthening of their control. These are indeed dark days.
Confirmation that his Unitary Executive has successfully cast New Orleans straight into hell.
“a heckuva place to bring your family”
Posted by: citizen | Jan 13 2006 19:58 utc | 12
Pakistan Says U.S. Planes Crossed Border and Killed 18
American planes crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal region and fired on residential compounds in a Pakistani village early this morning, killing 18 people and wounding 6 others, Pakistani officials and eyewitnesses said.
This is the second time in a few days. Does the U.S. want to destabalize Musharaff???
How many more are being cast out into homelessness & starvation after their retirement – IBM ended/froze their pensions this week – a thriving outfit of Pirates – and no one I noticed in blogville cared enough to comment – let alone suggest this must be fought…Big Tough LIberal Blogs – apologies if it was discussed somewhere & I missed it – I hope so…This is what I thght. of when I read Malooga’s post about PBS prog. on 2 boys in Appalachia.
I’m cutting & pasting this from Mark C. Miller’s blog ‘cuz it’s the most important, but is posted below so many other interesting ones, I fear many won’t see it. It’s a message from today.
Call for a FILIBUSTER!
From Sheila:
I have just come from a meeting with two Kennedy aides – about Alito.
This is about a filibuster
Two free numbers for D.C Capitol Switchboard: 1-866-340-9281 and 1-866-340-9279
We must get enough Democratic votes for a filibuster
EVERYONE SHOULD CALL FEINSTEIN IN CA. SHE IS ON THE COMMITTEE
Each state must work on their Senator – those that voted for Roberts. Call, email, visit, etcetcetc. Probably we should all work on all these Sens, but they will often not pay attention to those out of state
Those up for election are especially vulnerable (of course, this precludes the e-voting machines)
Everyone should call Feingold – (this from us: 202-224-5323 – or the above numbers
As far as working on the Repubs, there is always Chafee, Snowe and Collins, but working on the Dems is better.
CHOICE IS THE KEY ISSUE we were told
Thanks
Posted by: jj | Jan 13 2006 20:24 utc | 14
Found a beautiful blog – have skunk
An Excerpt
When is America going to wake up? WHAT does it take?
Believe it our not, the Bush family played a critical role in Hitler’s rise to power.
In 1938, Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was Adolph Hitler.
In 2004, Time Magazine’s Person of the Year was Monkey Boy, King George.
The pResident is signing laws that include signing statements that exempt him from the laws.
Like a terrorist, this man is using the American system against its own citizens.
OR
I have a feeling of dread and disgust about my government. I don’t fear it as much as I fear for our country’s future under this government’s ongoing destructive policies at home and abroad.
Let’s get something straight: I’ve never been a left-winger. I’m a hawk when it comes to national defense. I grew up in a military family and spent years living overseas during the Cold War. It takes real provocation, personal and direct, to get me to “go political.”
However. This fool from Texas has pretty much made a mockery of himself, our country and our freedoms with his reactionary, fearful, panicky response to events that were his responsibility to prevent in the first place: The 9/11 attacks happened on his watch.
It’s interesting to note that on the morning of 9/11, George Bush senior was meeting with Osama Bin Laden’s brother in New York City.
King George isn’t really a joke to me any more as much as he is a clear and present threat to our nation’s most sacred values and security.
Posted by: citizen | Jan 13 2006 21:45 utc | 15
Hugh Thompson, the warrant officer and helicopter pilot who put himself and his crew between the My Lai massacre and several Vietnamese near-victimes, died Friday January 6. I’m not sure if we commemorated his passing here, but I want to add a personal note.
I met him in 2000 when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Connecticut College. It was the first higher education institution in the country to ever honor him (and his gunner), ending thirty two years of intellectual/institutional silence with a bit of public acknowledgment.
Thompson was a real solid person, and nearly everyone there seemed to feel that it was we who were honored to meet him. Thompson and his gunner grinned over the novelty and called each other Doctor Colburn and Doctor Thompson. He seemed at peace with the decades of cold shoulders, but a wee bit hopeful that institutions in the U.S. might be beginning to make a place in their mindsets for difficult and humanitarian heroism as well. Many students, including me, were electrified to actually meet someone who had proved he was not helpless in a sordid time and place.
Which is where we are again.
Hugh – welcome to the Council of Elders. Your work has just begun.
Posted by: citizen | Jan 13 2006 22:24 utc | 16
@citizen I don’t think anyone did note Thompson’s passing I remember reading of it in a brit fishwrap earlier in the week. You are spot on when you remind us that individual acts can change the course of juggernauts sometimes and even on a lesser scale they save other human’s lives.
This is a message that needs to be reinforced particularly by those whose feel totally disconnected from the machine propagating this slaughter around the planet. Thompson and Colburn were presented with an immediate situation that required someone to shout enough. They didn’t hesitate. The bulk of us will never (thank goodness) be confronted by such a stark choice, but that doesn’t mean we can’t apply a little clear-headed and creative thinking to the mechanics of the slaughter machine and come up with a strategy that may throw the proverbial spanner into the works.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 13 2006 23:00 utc | 17
Continuing on the subject of individuals throwing a spanner into the killing machine, a fierce war is being fought off the coast of antarctica right now and I suspect many MoA habitues are totally unaware of it. True the lives at stake aren’t human they are ‘only’ the largest mammal on our planet, whales.
As the Japanese who last time I looked were living in the Northen side of the equator so I’m not sure why they imagine that they can impudently sail up to this neck of the woods and slaughter the locals, are having more and more difficulty in slaughtering these grand beasts, they have taken to attacking their perceived tormentors.
It came to a literal crunch last week when Greenpeace who unlike the Sea Shepherd commando are opposed to violent interventions, got into a collision with the Japanese ‘mother’ ship.
The Japanese bluster immediately went into high gear.
The reality of what had actually happened was difficult to comprehend since both sides had videoed the collision, but their point of view was from their own vessel so that without any independent perspective it is extremely difficult to work out who is deliberately putting themself into the others path.
However in this part of the world the anti-whaling school of thought prevailed.
The Sea Shepherd squad decided to take no prisoners and retaliation was immediate.
Politicians in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are running for cover as they are being called out on their mealy mouthed mutterings :
“Australia is a staunch critic of Japan’s whaling program and Prime Minister John Howard reiterated his opposition in a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on the margins of a regional summit in Malaysia last week.
Howard warned both Greenpeace and the Japanese whalers on Thursday against any dangerous behavior.
“I do not support action which endangers lives or breaks the law,” he told reporters in Sydney. “
It shouldn’t escape MoA reader’s notice that the only proven lawbreaking is from the Japanese whalers who are slaughtering whilst illegally trespassing in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and they are illegally trespassing in the Australian Antarctic Territory.
Here is a short profile of one of the whale defenders, a North American who decided that a person could make a difference.
If anyone is interested in reading more Here and Here are links to more info on this conflict.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 14 2006 0:28 utc | 19
I’m pretty sure it was mentioned & linked here, not sure exactly when.
Posted by: anna missed | Jan 14 2006 0:31 utc | 20
citoyen citizen thanks
& debs – i think most of us are aware of most conflicts most of the time, mostly
that is the blessing of our mid century – to be tortured into our dotage with the criminal antics of buffoons
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 14 2006 1:57 utc | 22
@rgiap perhaps the judge has calculated that the rehabilitation of Saddam Hussein is indeed a possibility in this vortex of insanity that was once the ancient city of Baghdad. Therefore the only smart thing to do is be elsewhere asap.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 14 2006 2:21 utc | 23
The sharon story is turning positively ghoulish. Whatever we had planned for him is nothing compared to what his friends and colleagues have in mind. THe war crim looks like becoming the next Schiavo, no doubt in the hope that the voters will convince themselves that a vote for Kadima will put the ‘great peacemaker’ back in charge once he has risen from his unexpectedly long nap.
Oh damn I just thought of a very sick little pythonesque skit where the voter goes into the electoral commission to point out that the prime minister is no longer extant, only to have the bureaucrat behind the counter claim that the prime minister is in fact an israeli blue.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 14 2006 2:59 utc | 24
Bernhard it seems that whilst the USAF is still doing the old “air raid what airaid?” about the levelling of a Pakistani village, ‘anonymous sources’ are claiming that Ayman al-Zawahri was the target, although they have ‘no information’ about whether he was one of the 18 who died. Naturally there was the usual surfeit of women and children amongst the 18.
Given that whatever these anonymous sources claim rarely intersects with the ‘truth’ we can probably assume Ayman al-Zawahri is still sucking up oxygen a long ways from this crater.
The only real question is whether the attack over the border into Pakistan was deliberate or whether this latest line of bs is to cover for an accidental incursion on Pakistan’s sovereign territory.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 14 2006 3:23 utc | 25
Did, I am not amongst the barflies ignorant of the battle. I’ve been checking the Sea Shepherd site constantly for updates.
I think your characterization of Sea Shepherds as favoring “violent interventions” is over stating things. I think they are Heroes for the Age. What they want to do is prevent the slaughter of whales, using their boats to get in the way of the Japanese slaughters, who send out huge whale killing factory ships then label them “Research Vessels” to provide cover for the 1000 whales they plan to slaughter. I haven’t read anything about them shooting the crew of the Japanese ships, which I would consider “violent intervention”. Greenpeace, by contrast, just wants to hang protest banners, hoping that merely pricking consciences a zillion miles away will get the job done.
To generalize a bit, we have a Major problem w/Northern nations who can’t provide much food for their populations, royally screwing up the Oceans to provide meat. While Japan slaughters our beloved whales, Norway also is a big time sea culprit in this regard. They provide very little food, being so far north. Rely heavily on fishing. Last yr. they sent out an industrial vessel which basically vacuumed the entire sea off the coast of India. This not only wiped out vast fishing grounds millions or more Indians depend on for their livelihoods & food, but devastates the ocean. I saw a picture on bbc this week of what happens to the ocean floor when these vessels come along. There is no life left at all. found the picture. check this out – ocean floor teeming w/life in photo 1. Photo 2 – Nothing – Dead Sea.
As an afterthought, we kill off the oceans, and ummm we have no oxygen to breathe…for starters…
Too many people on the planet…quick outlaw abortion…that’ll fix things…What kind of lunatics are running the asylum anyway…
Posted by: jj | Jan 14 2006 3:55 utc | 26
Did, I don’t get yr. comment on Sharon at all. The Major Questions to be asked concern who & why made the Decision to put him on blood thinners w/the brain disease he had. Throw in not keeping him hospitalized, or living next door to a hospital in the interim. That is where the issue is. Something smells a tad fishy there. Oh, I forgot, Jews make shitty doctors!!
Now, they’re just making the transition from Matters of State, to the concerns of the family. As leading doctors said when he was initially treated, had he been anyone else, they would never have gone through the surgeries they have in the last week. 80% of patients die in the first month. For the rest, the extent of the brain injury is almost certainly such that it makes a mockery of “saving the patients life”. In the immediate future, the chance that he’ll die of an opportunistic infection that overwhelms his aged & overwhelmed immune system is Huge. Nobody who has dealt w/cases even remotely like this expected him to pop back from his coma immediately.
But the deal is this – you can poke back through the Haaretz archives from the past week if you haven’t been following it. The laws that dictate who governs if he’s in “deep sedation” are different, from those that dictate procedures had he been left to die in the arms of his family when he arrived at the hospital. In the former case, his appointed deputy steps in & forms a govt – ie consolidates power in advance of elections…Hence the decision. Plus let the masses ease their way gradually into accepting the loss.
Now they can let him die as the family wishes, as the State is secure.
Posted by: jj | Jan 14 2006 4:13 utc | 27
It is ironic, if not criminal, that his medical treatment would be screwed up.
Anyway, the best leader is a comatose one. Leave him in office. He has finally taken the peace process to heart (and mind).
Completed Qaeda Application Said to Be Filled Out by Padilla
Federal prosecutors on Friday released an application to join a training camp of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that they say was filled out by Jose Padilla.
The “Mujahideen Data Form” bears the signature of Abu Abdallah al Muhajir, which the F.B.I. says is the Muslim name that Mr. Padilla adopted after he converted to Islam.
Defense lawyers have questioned the authenticity of the document, potentially a critical piece of evidence for prosecutors trying to prove that Mr. Padilla sought to become a terrorist.
Stephanie Pell, a federal prosecutor, has said Mr. Padilla completed the form to begin training in Afghanistan on July 2000. Ms. Pell said it was found by American forces in late 2001 in a binder that contained other terror-camp applications.
Next: Padillas tax records found in Peshawar…
@jj I doubt that the blood thinners was anything more than an accident which seems obvious with the benefit of hindsight yet when someone has had a stroke from a clot it is a logical thing to do.
No I just don’t understand why they are keeping him in a sort of suspended animation. I have no reason to believe anything the hospital PR team (because it is a hospital PR team) or the Israeli politicians (chiefly because they are politicians, secondarily because they are Israeli as to whether they are jewish or not I don’t know and it isn’t relevant as far as I can see) say. I think that in a civilised world he would have been allowed to die rather more quickly than he has. On the other hand this is the type of death I had wished on a low life war criminal such as sharon, but ironically it seems he is being held in a state of suspended animation at the behest of his friends and colleagues who appear to have more use for a live, but unconscious sharon than they do for a dead one. What with an election on the horizon and all.
I am fully prepared to concede this is almost entirely supposition on my part. Shortly after Sharons grand stroke some right-wing nutter zionist rag claimed that they had it on good evidence that he was in fact dead but was being held in limbo for a more propitious time. That included such complicated calculations like what was the best week to get the full ‘A’ list heads of state in a way that it could be within 24 hrs of his announced ‘death’. This is for religious reasons but also fits in with security in that the less time the ‘enemy’ has to plan on taking all the shit bags out with one round the better.
But also the fact that the war crim’s party is very new needs to be factored in. the war crim was their only real attraction. Heaven forfend those laborites could get elected if the right vote is split between Likud and Kadima.
Mind you the amerikan media is doing what it can. This story here manages to talk about the campaign without mentioning labour who had the government until Sharon was PM. It’s a voice of america publication titled ‘today in korea’ and written in english. Go figure why they have a story on the Israeli election.
Back to the unconscious war crim.
If he dies too soon with a way to go until the election campaign; harping on about him throughout the campaign may be misread by the voters as some sort of opportunism. I’m sure that if you put your mind to it you could come up with a few more variables that will need to be factored in to calculate the final ‘pull the plug’ day.
I’m picking 10 days before polling day as much closer than that and all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth could leave the public too drained to go out and tick the correct box.
I suppose if we all get this angry and cynical MoA could have a topic dedicated to a sweep on ‘pull the plug day’ everyone throws a bottle of their finest on the bar and the winner takes all.
Lastly if I did use the word violent in relation to the Sea Shepherd organisation is was a reflection of the description Paul Watson gave the group. He did hasten to point out that he only damaged property and that attacking any living creature including humans was not a Sea Shepherd tactic.
I am pleased to see so many are across the whaling war. One of the reasons the Japanese go after the whales apart from selling the flesh at extortionate prices is that like many fishers japanese fishers believe that whales eat fish that they could be catching and selling, so killing the whales means more fish for them. If only any ecosystem could be that simple and straightforward, we’d have this ‘most large mammals on the verge of extinction’, bizzo sorted in a flash.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 14 2006 7:31 utc | 30
The Depraved Heroes of 24 Are the Himmlers of Hollywood
Slavoj Zizek kicks ass!
Also, mary over at firedoglake
does a excellent account of the Jose Padilla issue in the comment section.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 14 2006 7:35 utc | 31
don’t get upset with me for bringing up new orleans once again,i know i’m not falling in line with the thread but this is my reality so bear with me.with very few friends left in the city this is one of my only outlets.having said that, i had an interesting day.first i finally found the courage to visit a few friends homes in the lower ninth and st bernard,had to pull off the road and cry for awhile.put 40mi on the car and saw no desernable life at all.i turned a corner and thought it was a a dead end then realized the road ran through the house as it sat in the middle of the road.i’d seen it on tv but wow the impact is unreal.anyway on the way home i saw a sign “free supplies for a free people” only a few blocks from my house.i keep a
Posted by: onzaga | Jan 14 2006 11:53 utc | 32
can of quarters in my car and had an impulse to give this to whoever it was helping the neighborhood.turns out it was mamma d,she testified before congress a few weeks ago.she seems to totally believe the levey in lower 9th was blown up.now considering there now seems to have been almost 20 breeches in the system i find this hard to believe but i plan on going back to talk to her,and see what proof she has.its not like it hasn’t been done before.have you grown tired of my rants or should i let you know what she has to say.
Posted by: onzaga | Jan 14 2006 12:03 utc | 33
@Onzaga – please tell us more. NO got raped, first by nature and now by men. It is important to public that story again and again. If you want the front page and some threads, please send to MoonofA at aol.com.
If you have any other idea how one might help plese let us know too.
I second that bernhard. What can we do onzaga!? Really. What can we do?
Posted by: beq | Jan 14 2006 14:33 utc | 35
Again. You are a vital link to all of this and we need to know more.
Posted by: beq | Jan 14 2006 14:36 utc | 36
Cheney-Rumsfeld Surveillance Plans Date Back to 1980s
Editor’s Note: Illegal eavesdropping and illegal detentions of U.S. citizens marks a revival of presidential powers curtailed since Watergate, and likely grew out of a secret Reagan-era program that planned to suspend the U.S. Constitution in the event of a national emergency.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 14 2006 16:29 utc | 37
Iraq now has a Constitution (passed in a National Referendum). A permanent Government will be elected on December 15, 2005. There is simply no reason why Iraq should not repay the aid given by the United States.
We are not suggesting that this repayment from Iraq be done in a harsh way. Rather we are stating that the repayments occur over a period of time so that Iraq can continue to rebuild and grow economically.
Repayments form Iraq would encourage the Iraqi people to quicken the pace of providing for their own security. Thereby bringing the war to a successful conclusion and allowing American troops to return home safely.
We have found through “focus groups” that over 70% of the people support this proposal, regardless if they are Republicans or Democrats, for or against the war. In short, this proposal has overwhelming support among the American people.
Even better
The money to rebuild the Gulf Coast is available, and the Federal Government has the resources to acquire these funds.
The United States has spent over $200 Billion to aid in the reconstruction and defense of Iraq. Iraq has the third largest proven oil reserves in the world, 115 Billion barrels worth over $6 Trillion. There is simply no reason that Iraq should not repay this aid to the United States. This money, knowing that it will be repaid, would immediately be spent to fully fund the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast.
We are not suggesting that this repayment from Iraq be done in a harsh or vindictive way. Rather we are stating that the repayment occurs over a period of time so that Iraq can continue to rebuild and grow economically.
From the response we have received to this petition, we know that there is a groundswell of support from the American people. But as you know, every signature counts. Please show your support by informing your family, friends and neighbors of this petition.
Petition to Rebuild the Gulf Coast With Repayments From Iraq
Yes, tell us as much as you find out, onzaga. I’m especially interested in how $$$ are being apportioned to reconstruction of rich white areas and withheld from the 9th ward in preparation for the recently announced ethnic cleansing law (neighborhood property improvement).
@debs-
I doubt that the blood thinners was anything more than an accident which seems obvious with the benefit of hindsight yet when someone has had a stroke from a clot it is a logical thing to do.
Stroke Specialists handle five or more cases a day for years on end. This is the MOST common harmful drug effect. This was no oversight. What you are saying is akin to sticking somebody’s frostbitten hand into a fire and then being surprised when it becomes charred.
What happened to Sharon could be only one of three things: Overcare of important people, which happens because the stakes are so high doctors don’t follow accepted protocol; second and related, protocol not being followed because of political pressures to show that Sharon is hale and hearty during a political campaign (the most likely scenario), or third, attempted murder. If it was attempted murder, then I would look to see if any of his doctors or pharmacists were from the extreme Israeli right, probably orthodox jews, opposed to any capitulation whatsoever with the Palestinians–a similar scenario to Rabin’s murder. Most likely his doctors were secular jews. Still, I would like to know the concentration of blood thinner in his oversized body at the time of stroke. A last possibility comes to mind: In the case of liver problems, his body could have had problems breaking the medicine down, leading to an over concentration of blood thinner in his blood. This should have been monitored with liver and blood tests.
I think you are being a bit conspiratorial thinking that Sharon is being kept alive for political purposes. Not because I am so naive as to believe that they wouldn’t do it, but because opinions are in so much flux, they could not be sure what the effect of the actions would be. Therefore, with nothing assured of winning, play it straight. Probably, his doctors are petrified that one of their heads might role, at least destroying a career, and leading to extra ginger handling at this time.
Finally, while I agree that Sharon is a war criminal extraordinaire, let us not loose focus of what elite theory tells us. Almost all of Israel’s leaders have been, and ruling elite, are, war criminals, or at the very least involved in supporting or condoning war crimes. Ben-Gurion murdered jews in sinking the Altalena. And to quote wikipedia on Manachim Begin: “Begin has been accused of being responsible for what transpired on the April 9, 1948, when commandos of the Irgun and the Lehi attacked Deir Yassin, an Arab village of about 750 residents located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and according to Plan Dalet, it was to be destroyed and the residents evacuated. Yet over 100 people were killed. Soon after the incident, Begin stated: “Accept my congratulations on this splendid act of conquest. Convey my regards to all the commanders and soldiers. We shake your hands. We are all proud of the excellent leadership and the fighting spirit in this great attack … Tell the soldiers: you have made history in Israel with your attack and your conquest. Continue this until victory. As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, Thou has chosen us for conquest.””
Again, I recommend this excellent review of Speiberg’s “Munich.”
The United States has spent over $200 Billion to aid in the reconstruction and defense of Iraq
Reconstruction of 14 enduring bases. Defense of Iraq from Iraqis.
And yet the dominant media feigns innocence for the effects of how the news is framed.
We are not suggesting that this repayment from Iraq be done in a harsh or vindictive way. Rather we are stating that the repayment occurs over a period of time so that Iraq can continue to rebuild and grow economically.
No, not in a harsh and vindictive way. We didn’t kill 120,000+ Iraqis in a harsh and vindictive way, we don’t run Abu Graib and the other gulags in a harsh and vindictive way, no, we did it to help the defend and rebuild their country. As long as we do things with love and caring, we can bleed those mother-fucking arabs dry.
thankyou for listening.as monday is MLK day there will be to many things going on to have a sit down with momma d until the middle of the week.she is a very interesting woman and has been here since day one helping people,giving out free water,clothing and food.she has a house full over there i’ll tell ya.one man goes fishing every few days and she cooks up the catch of the day and everyone is welcome.i believe she will be the one to lead the march to save this neighborhood.the newly announced plan said there would be no reconstuction east of broad st which had me worried.i’d heard of momma d but didn’t realize how close she lived.i’ll also see if there is a way to get donations to her directly.she was very glad to get mine and i could see with my own eyes where the $ was gonna go, so i will keep you posted.again thankyou.
Posted by: onzaga | Jan 15 2006 3:20 utc | 43
@Malooga – it definitely was Not Overcare of Impt. people. Even minimal standards would have dictated that he have had a team of the nations finest doctors w/him until surgery. And a helicopter handy should there be a problem – as there almost certainly would have been expected to be. When he started not feeling well, he had an EMT period!! Overcare??
As for who made the decisions on protocol, it’s interesting that his team isn’t led by the military. Could any of them have had input, or State Political Police. Can’t exclude outsiders leaning on doctors.
There’s a lot we are not being told. And I expect doctors are getting threatened for talking. Head of Israeli Med. Assoc. wrote that they should shut up.
Posted by: jj | Jan 15 2006 5:11 utc | 44
Perhaps someone who is more familiar with NBC News could tell me what an NBC News Analyst is. For spme reason the main news in NZ tonight included a full NBC story. It was on the murder of 18 people in Pakistan on friday night. The actual story which is normally all they run here showed a few thousand Pakistani people ready to rip the joint being described a a couple of hundred concerned townsfolk.
Then cut to a couple of village headmen pointing out that there were no foreigners in the village, no afghanis and certainly no arabs. cut to a pakistani security bigwig saying that this was not on and BushCo better lift their game if they wanted continued co-operation. Then cut to an NBC news analyst who blithly rabbits on about what the implications of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s death would be.
It was just as if the rest of the story where it was shown and agreed by everyone on the spot that Ayman al-Zawahiri wasn’t in the village hadn’t been ib the village that winter and certainly hadn’t been hit by the attack was just mindless prattle that shouldn’t be listened to.
He then when on to explain to the amerikans in words of no more than two syllables that this was a joint Pakistani US operation and everything was hunky dory. Absolutely no evidence was offered to support these wild assertions other than his word, the word of an NBC news analyst.
I’m actually really wound up about this whole bombing the village thing. I’m not sure why it is.
These events happen with all too frequent regularity that it should be easy to be as blase and full of bluff as the NBC news analyst, but for some reason this latest terrorism and murder feels like the final straw.
A family from that region around the Pakistani/Afghani border connected with our whanau (family) by marriage about 30 years ago.
They are the usual cosmopolitan mixture that one can see in any urban environment around the world, some are catholics, quite a few of the men have become really staunch on Islam, some are like me, extremely anti-organised religion but mostly, they are just good same as everyone else people.
Damn digression again! Anyway the point I wanted to make was that I let this particular mass murder get me so mad I was gonna start screaming “how can you just sit by and let this happen?”
The NBC news analyst sort of answered that question so now I think that amerikans have to find a way to negate this bullshit ground into pap they are fed my their media.
I don’t just mean setting up alternative media outlets on the web. I mean taking these bullshit artists head on and demanding the news outlets stop slanting, spinning and acquiesing to the executive branch of government.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 15 2006 10:49 utc | 45
demanding the news outlets stop slanting, spinning and acquiesing to the executive branch of government.
???? and how do you propose we do that?
Posted by: annie | Jan 15 2006 11:00 utc | 46
onzaga: Idle thought. Is it safe to fish there? I mean to eat the fish you catch there?
Posted by: beq | Jan 15 2006 13:14 utc | 47
I seem to remember that German prisoners of war were held in the USSR well into the 1950’s because they were expected to stay & help rebuild the country they destroyed by invading it.
At least the USA has the option of just writing a check to cover the damage it did to Iraq.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Jan 15 2006 19:12 utc | 49
@Annie in the end these organisations believe it or not, do depend on the customers they are lying to, for their income.
When the xtian-fascists started out, they selectively targetted certain publications, journalists and media outlets and it wasn’t always Penthouse. They were at their most effective when they targetted Time or Newsweek. It was like observing a train wreck in slow motion watching it from afar.
Ultimately the people living in the US have to decide what to do and how to do it. It’s pointless picking Fox, although they should be talked about. Fox would turn the attack around and thrive on it. They don’t care if normal people don’t watch. They have enough looney tunes watching to set the agenda they want to set.
For me NBC would be a good target because it wasn’t so long ago their coverage while not great was OK.
Sit down and look at all the bits between the news items ie the sponsors. Pick a couple of the biggest national sponsors and start a campaign that these corporations are funding the lying to the people. Use specific examples which I imagine wouldn’t be too hard to find, judging by the aplomb with which NBC distorted the murder of 18 Pakistanis.
You know the rest. An internet based campaign would carry it to the point where the sensitive souls marketing for these corporations would begin to shit their pants.
This is stuff the dems would never do even though they should.
They would say. “Its endangering amerikan jobs”. Bullshit. Whats happening now is endangering amerikan lives.
Then they would say that it is an attempt to restrict the constitutional right to freedom of speech. Bullshit to that too. I’m not overly familiar with the constitution but I bet it’s got nothing about the freedom to lie. And anyway the FCC nipped freedom of speech on broadcast media in the bud about a century ago.
What they mean is these guys gave us n thousand dollars last campaign and they are threatening to cut it this year if we don’t speak out.
Bullshit to that too. By continuing this campaign the people will assist in liberating the dems from their corporate shackles.
It wouldn’t be easy and there’s probably a thousand better ways to skin this cat than what I have just ‘scrawled on the back of a napkin’. But something needs to be attempted otherwise the brainwashing will get well past the point of no return.
I’m not having a go at anyone one here because I understand just how powerless the individual can feel in the face of the monolith of corporate might, but this BS will only end when some people in the US do grasp the nettle and fight back.
I have no great hopes for this idea I suspect that people have become so ground down that if they bother to respond at all it will be in two streams. One “the oh that idea, we tried that in 1995 and it didn’t work” is actually not far from the other stream which is nitpicking the details on what I suggested.
Brainstorming a concept with the view to improving it is a very different function with a totally different outcome than chipping away at something trying to find reasons not to do it. Yet the first is a far more pleasurable activity than the second and just doing it will probably energise people even more.
I’m feeling like an insurance salesman or something here Annie. The only point I wanted to make is that there are plenty of ways of shouting enough, that will work, but what is required is an energy and a willingness that understandably isn’t there but could be/ should be/ will be eventually.
The only question is whether it is going to come now or after another decade of absolute crushing and debilitating misery.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 15 2006 20:10 utc | 50
Annie in the end these organisations believe it or not, do depend on the customers they are lying to, for their income.
actually i believe the advertisers take care of that. pretty soon we’ll all be so bankrupt we won’t be able to afford the lunesta they advertise
thanks debs, i realize i was a little defeatist when i wrote that last night. this morn i just emailed the seattle times ‘why aren’t you covering the impeachment polls?’
i never watch the tv news and don’t have cable but i did contact pbs last week and chew them out for something. sometimes my head swims in this stuff.
newspapers don’t make money from their circulation, only their advertisers. seems pretty clear the major outlets are just tools for those in power. air america, the internet, anyone interested can get real news and i believe as many people here know the truth as those who just follow the lies. i’m just not so sure we have any power. the election is an example. if they don’t get the approval or endorsement for their ideas they lie and steal what they want anyway. we only have a choice if its the choice they like. most people are not cut out for initiating political change, it would take everyone changing their life priorities. i just got off the phone w/a good friend from college. school superintendent, science buff, brilliant son who got accepted @davis and is depressed. she told me about her dinner last night w/another friend who just attended the funeral of the 18 yr old son of another friend. she follows politics sort of. only so much, says if she followed everything she’d get depressed. she mentions world hunger and i’m like ,whats the point of tackling that if you don’t go after the corporations (monsano etc)at the same time. if you don’t have political leaders you get nowhere. meanwhile her son is questioning college experience vs life experience and all the mothers i know are saying, how do you mentor kids going into the world? what do they have to depend on? how does a generation confronting peak oil prepare. this friend lives in an area where the living wage is sky high. my son got attacked friday night and robbed. he doesn’t know what the hell he wants to do. changing society is a full time job. and it’s not that people don’t care, or don’t try. its just that we are a drop in the bucket and surviving in itself can be a challenge. is it more worthwhile to set up an alternate news source than tackling the msm?
i don’t believe alito is a done deal. they just keep printing it. my friends husband is in academia also and they just don’t get it that their kids are questioning college. so much depression, so few solutions. the majority of my friends w/teens are confronting this issue.
the kind of solutions i consider to balance the supreme court i would be afraid to print here. not because i think you’d all scream or anything, just because it could get me imprisoned.
we need some leaders.
i was a type A as a kid. now i don’t know . a little wind out of my sails lately.
Posted by: annie | Jan 15 2006 21:10 utc | 51
i forgot to mention, that funeral was a suicide, makes me shudder, so sad. the world they are facing….
Posted by: annie | Jan 15 2006 21:13 utc | 52
Mayor Nagin has even proposed a law permitting casinos in most hotels. Ten years from now, if Nagin has his way, New Orleans may be Las Vegas South.
how shocking
Posted by: annie | Jan 15 2006 21:54 utc | 53
@annie I know exactly what you’re saying and I don’t wanna come off as some smartarse telling others what to do but the point that you bring up about young people is critical.
Youngsters being what they are can’t be pushed steered, cajoled or even begged into anything without a billion dollar marketing campaign. I’m sorry if that sounds overly cynical but peer pressure seems even more powerful than it was when we were young.
That said, it is young people who will force the change if there is to be one. Now inasmuch as there is a concerted effort to keep people ignorant, a conspiracy if you will, it is the youth that are the most heavily targetted because the assholes remember last time. The counter-culture movement of the 60’s.
Now you can’t sing the same tune twice and expect 2 encores so whatever happens this time will need to be different. Nevertheless the nexus between the mass marketers and young (18-25 y.o) people must be broken.
If it isn’t we all know what happens next. By the time the kids wake up they have a mortgage and the idea of ‘choice’ has become a fantasy.
All of that said, its not ‘give up and die time’ either.
The sponsors of this bullshit need to be held accountable. How many of the letters from xtian-fascists to Newsweek in the late 80’s were actually sent by newsweek readers? I think we know the answer to that, because by definition a person who reads about issues is unlikely to be so close-minded as to want to repress debate.
So it wasn’t simply about sales (though ultimately of course it was) it was about perception and if companies thought that by advertising in a newsweek that had stories which suggested being gay was just another choice, or women have a right to expect certain standards of behaviour from their partners, they may be boycotted by every god-botherer in redneck Tennessee (sorry Tn if that seems a bit harsh, I just picked yer state at random), then they decided that the game wasn’t worth the candle.
So if pressure was put upon whatever car/deodorant/detergent/finance corporation that filled in the gaps between NBC’s spiel of half truths; and at least part of that pressure came from the young people that corporation hopes to capture for life, then things would start to change.
It is hard. I don’t know if I would have the energy to fight the fight, especially since our peers aren’t young and have definite points of view of their own. That means that most of us will always come up with a ‘better’ way of skinning the cat. However a point is reached in society when people realise that seeing just one idea through to fruition is worth at least trying. That people suspend their disbelief and give it a go.
Maybe that stage hasn’t been reached in the states yet, I’m not there I don’t know, but from this distance it looks like it must be getting close.
I’m sorry to hear that your friend’s child and his/her peers are hitting that horrible spot where mortality becomes suddenly very real. The herd of ne’er do wells hanging around our house, expecting to be fed and watered at the drop of a hat, aren’t quite old enough for that yet.
I’m not sure if I am ready for it when they do or even if I will ever be ready.
Sometimes I think that I’m still dealing with that period in my life.
Eleven of us went off to a Rolling Stones concert longer ago than I can exactly remember but we were all kids and had a great day. Of the eleven, all there is left is me, plus a woman friend living in Australia who is about the longest surviving HIV+ woman known. We are happy to catch up when in each other’s town. There is also one other guy, who, believe it or not, lives in Houston and is a staunch republican. We bumped into each other again on the net by a crazy set of coincidences in the mid 90’s. Had a ball reliving our youth. When this whole Iraqi thing started he and I found it increasingly difficult to talk to each other. I understand his position completely. He comes from an Oklahoman oil family who had to shift to NZ in the 60’s for a while, when Dad had a falling out with a bigger oil family.
When I first caught up with him again he was scratching around at various things trying to make a quid. Now that the whole oil thing is making real money again his family holdings are generating real dollars and he’s back into it.
I know he’s a good bloke. He was with me, actually probably in front of me all those years ago when we decided we were going to kick up about some bar in Kansas not letting a black family in to hear their daughter play.
Even so, at the moment he doesn’t need me coming over all hestitant when he’s over the moon about some win he’s had in the oil game.
I don’t need him reminding me that many of the day to day hassles I confront could be solved if I had always been a bit more ‘flexible’ about what it was I did 8 hours a day.
If/when this is over we will catch up and be really happy to see each other. Neither of us want to endanger that moment in the future by being too over the top now.
Back to where I was which was kids, their introduction to mortality and whether they will ever get engaged in real life issues to the point where enough of them will work together for change.
I dunno. I mean in the end they will but I don’t know any failsafe way of encouraging kids to become engaged.
My kids are a good mob but this ‘dollar in the jar’ stuff I was rabbiting on about t’other day leads me to believe (understatement of the year) that I have blown it by talking about this stuff with them too much, from too young an age.
That’s if they’re like I was at that age but fortunately they don’t show any sign of that.(LOL)
Anyway after that extended ‘spouting off’ what happens in the US is very much in the hands of the citizens, if it wasn’t, why would corporations bother to lie to you?
Until sufficient people in the US recognise that, nothing anyone from outside says or does will amount to more than preaching to the choir.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 16 2006 0:49 utc | 54