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January 24, 2009
OT 09-04
Comments
Flashback:
It’s secret justice for some and public justice for everyone else.
Also see, Secret Justice: Secret Dockets
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 24 2009 20:12 utc | 2
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 24 2009 20:30 utc | 4
bbc impartiality – i’ll be laughing to the grave – i wonder whose cock the fuckwit matt frei will begin to suck – they really, really make me more ill than i am
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 24 2009 20:33 utc | 5
bbc indeed. They are SKY news with better looking babes, I wonder what the blackmail Mossad had on Thompson.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 24 2009 21:00 utc | 6
fuck this
w/video
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ second White House press briefing started with a series of questions on economics and the stimulus package, but it wasn’t long before a reporter asked about alleged US missile strikes in Pakistan which reportedly killed 15 early Friday morning.
But Gibbs refused to answer the question by NBC News’ Chuck Todd, saying, “I’m not going to get into this matter.”
…
It was the second suspected US missile attack in northwest Pakistan on Friday, just hours after eight people were killed in North Waziristan.
Friday’s suspected US missile strikes were the first since US President Barack Obama took office in Washington and came one day after he appointed veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
i guess we can just bomb whoever the fuck we want.
Posted by: annie | Jan 24 2009 21:22 utc | 7
ô annie
yes, the killings will continue, of that there is no question – the israelis for example continue to shell gaza from their ships at sea – extraordinary rendition will continue & some of the secret prisons. in iraq today a family was slaughtered by us forces
but it is true, what jesus rivas suggests in an article i linked to yesterday – that the people have had their fill of the lies & treachery of power & the world is changing
(as an aside presstv consistently show very strong & important documentaries, & the commentary for the most part intelligent & reasoned – tho i have no doubts sloth would hate it as all the commentators appear also at counterpunch – for example this week tho – there have been extended interviews & commentary with un rapporteur richard falk which are not covered anywhere else, the same is true of the courageous john ging of unrwa in gaza)
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 24 2009 21:32 utc | 8
Swearing upon the Bible or whatever holy text, regardless of what you are swearing to do for whomever, is mostly hot air with little, if any, substance. So whenever a POTUS takes the oath of office, vowing to do the right thing for America, this amounts to just about the same amount of weight as a man standing before the wedding altar, vowing to be faithful to his newly-made bride.
No one needs to look any further than Bush Two to know that for any POTUS to swear to us that he’ll do everything in his power to do the right thing for America is nothing more than a bunch of hot air. After all, he got off scot free for sending us down a path to two wars to nowhere with an economy going nowhere but straight to hell.
And now what bothers me most about our most recent presidential inauguration is that it’s not only the most expensive one in US history, but it was largely bought and paid for by those in the banking industry, the very people who are largely responsible for putting us in this hell hole in the first place. I don’t know about anyone else, but to me, this is a kind of change that I can do without!
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/20/public_citizen_obamas_inauguration_sponsored_by
Posted by: Cynthia | Jan 24 2009 21:34 utc | 9
there was a reported suicide attack on AMISOM troops in mogadishu today, followed by AMISOM forces opening fire on civilians, but the news reports & the pix aren’t fitting together
13 killed in Mogadishu violence triggered by suicide bomber
MOGADISHU, Somalia Jan 24 (Garowe Online) – At least 13 people were killed Saturday in Somalia’s war-wracked capital Mogadishu after a suspected suicide bombing triggered street fighting, Radio Garowe reports.
A Somali police officer stopped a vehicle loaded with explosives at a checkpoint along Maka al Mukarrama Road, where the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) maintains a base, witnesses said.
The car exploded immediately, killing both the driver, the police officer and civilians inside a nearby public bus.
A Mogadishu local government official, Mr. Abdifatah Shaweye, blamed “foreigners” for the suicide bombing.
“More than 13 people including three women died and we found the hand of the suicide bomber, who was clearly a foreigner,” Mr. Shaweye told reporters after the attack.
Mogadishu hospital sources said more than 20 wounded persons, including seven children, were admitted for treatment, following a 30-minute battle that ensued after the bombing, which involved the use of AMISOM tanks.
“There were no casualties on our side but we are truly saddened by the civilian deaths,” said Maj. Behoku Barigye, the AMISOM spokesman in Mogadishu.
take a look at these pictures of a bus & 8 or more bodies (warning – photos of the dead at the following link)
Ku dhowaad 15 ruux oo ku geeriyooday qarax ka dhacay wadada Maka Al Mukarama iyo duqeyn ka dambeysay oo loo geystay qeystay qeybo ka mid ah Muqdisho
look at the bus. see any signs of it being involved in an explosion? the windows are intact. no signs of a blast. and doesn’t that look like bullet holes in the front?
do the dead show signs of shrapnel or bullet wounds?
the report from AFP states
The explosives-laden car was heading to a control point manned by the AU forces in Mogadishu’s southern K4 intersection when a policeman opened fire at the vehicle which then rammed into a passenger bus.
Somali police chief Abdi Hassan Qeybdiid said the death toll from the explosion rose to 17 after three more people died of their wounds.
…
Earlier, Mogadishu’s deputy governor Abdifatah Ibrahim Shaweye said 14 civilians died in the blast.
Five civilians were also killed and 23 wounded in gunbattles between the peacekeepers and insurgents after the explosion, a doctor said.
“We collected five bodies and (admitted) 23 people injured during the fighting,” said Ali Muse of the Mogadishu hospital.
…
Witness Ali Hasan Molaim said: “I saw the car pass by the bus I was boarding and it was heading towards the Ugandan forces, but some Somali policemen intercepted it and the car exploded destroying another bus.”
“There was heavy explosion and clouds of smoke,” he added.
i only see one bus in these pictures. i’m assuming there are other pictures that show the wreckage from the destroyed car somewhere. is the a destroyed bus nearby? how many buses were involved?
but the numbers in the body count don’t add up. the pictures there would indicate that this is the bus where 13 or 14 were killed right away, based on the number of corpses on the ground, and, combined w/ the additional three victims who succumbed to their wounds, that make it the scene of 17 of the 22 reported total number of deaths.
i would suggest that the AMISOM and TFG spokesmen are telling a lie and that the so-called “peacekeepers” opened fire on the nearest moving targets following the explosion – though i don’t see any sign of a such a blast in any of these pictures. that the civilians in the bus died from gunfire at the hands of the people that are allegedly there to protect them.
it’s an all-too-common tragedy in somalia – whenever the ethiopians or AMISOM forces have been fired on or happened to trigger an IED, they are known for recklessly opening fire on passersby, including buses.
until i see any evidence to the contrary, i have to assume this is the same situation, and that the body count will be falsely attributed throughout the western press to the suicide bomber, which was in all likelihood associated w/ al shabaab
Posted by: b real | Jan 24 2009 22:47 utc | 11
in my spare time
During my long, boring hours of spare time
I sit to play with the earth’s sphere.
I establish countries without police or parties
and I scrap others that no longer attract consumers.
I run roaring rivers through barren deserts
and I create continents and oceans
that I save for the future just in case.
I draw a new colored map of the nations:
I roll Germany to the Pacific Ocean teeming with whales
and I let the poor refugees
sail pirates’ ships to her coasts
in the fog
dreaming of the promised garden in Bavaria.
I switch England with Afghanistan
so that its youth can smoke hashish for free
provided courtesy of Her Majesty’s government.
I smuggle Kuwait from its fenced and mined borders
to Comoro, the islands
of the moon in its eclipse,
keeping the oil fields in tact, of course.
At the same time I transport Baghdad
in the midst of loud drumming
to the islands of Tahiti.
I let Saudi Arabic crouch in its eternal desert
to perserve the purity of her thoroughbred camels.
This is before I surrender America
back to the Indians
just to give history
the justice it has long lacked.
I know that changing the world is not easy
but it remains necessary nonetheless.
Fadhil al-Azzawi
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 25 2009 2:24 utc | 13
AN ELEGY FOR AL-HALLAJ
Your green poisonous plume,
your plume whose veins are filled with flames,
with the star rising from Baghdad,
is our history and imminent resurrection
in our land-in our repeated death.
Time lay upon your hands.
And the fire in your eyes
is sweeping, reaching the sky.
O, star rising from Baghdad,
laden with poetry and new birth,
O, poisonous green plume.
Nothing is left
for those coming from afar
with the echo and death and ice
in this land of resurrection.
Nothing is left but you and the presence.
O, you the language of Galilean thunder
in this land of discarded skins.
You, poet of the roots and mysteries.
THE FALL
I live between the plague and the fire
with my language,
with these speechless worlds.
I live in heaven and gardens of apples,
in the first ecstasy and despair,
between the hands of Eve –
Lord of that accursed Tree,
and lord of the fruits.
I live between the clouds and sparks,
in a stone that grows and grows,
in a book that teaches
the secrets and the Fall.
A STONE
I worship this peaceful stone
in whose countenance I see
my face
and my lost poetry.
adonis
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 25 2009 2:31 utc | 14
one of the few pleasures of this world isreading or watching a whol slew of ‘journalists’ who are ‘turning their vest’ as the french say – they really believe that the people do not posses memories. they think we will forget their lies. they will think they we will forget their words that led to bloody murder in iraq. they think we will forget the fictions they created from the most sordid of cloths
they do not understand – that they are forever demeaned
bush was their man & under him they were revealed for what they are – servants of those who rule from the roll of dollars
& now it is our time to laugh as they change their ‘expertise’ from week to week – visibly crumbling before the collosus that is the collapse of capitalism. i was not surprised some months ago when they attacked the poor for being the cause of the crisis trying to cover the asses of their bosses – but this fiction did not even last the week it was conceived & from thereon in – it’s been all giggles because even the” dumbest of us can tell they do not know which side is up or down, they do not know head from ass, what they do know is what side of their bread is being buttered & even that is not a sure thing
laughed my head off when heard the news of an english ‘paper’ being bought by an old kgb hand – things are as they should be – says my ailing heart
noted somewhere that boss at cnn called john king the best ‘journalist’ of his times – & after i finished vomiting all over the shop – consumed by cacaphonies within me as if a hurricane – i realise at their level of mimicry – of information – this barely human piece of coffeecake, more a cartoon character from some perverse amsterdam designer – that their level of information is so poor, so very impoverished – that a person who can breathe well – can get by – or he proves woody allen’s thesis that 90% is just being there
& even through the slaughterhouse of israels bloody terror in gaza – all the spokesperson were mad, mad as meataxes, mad as snakes – completely fucking mad – reaching its zenith when that clown regev – sd it was hamas who used phosporous – & there’s the learned professor from tel aviv university – with his eichmann eyeglasses & heydrich manner – wanting to smash this, explode that, tear asunder this, crush that or that mass murderer with a doctorate, gissing gaggling, gnarling & grinding his way through the i d f lie-book – everything except der fuhrer was alive & well in a bunker in central gaza, all the sabras who come on with their blond blond hair & broken noses looking like something out of mel brooks – i mean mad, seriouslly fucking mad – they make my old friend quadaffi seem quite quite serene & perhaps he is – now he knows that israel has the monopoly of madness in the middle east & it’s only going to get better. israel has a choice of crooks to lead its so called liberal democratic state – these fucking monsters wouldn’t know a liberal democracy if it came out the comatose ass of the devil himself – ariel sharon like something from alien
as mu mother would have sd
what-a-fucking-world
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 25 2009 3:12 utc | 15
I am an habitual downloader, an extreme downloader is how my ISP describes when it is angry at my bandwidth use and frustrated at it’s inability to prevent it. Long story short NZ’s telecommunications network is controlled by a privatised monopoly which successfully withstood all pressure for change with the usual mixture of bribery and extortion on pols and media players until it made a bad slip up coupla years back. Then it had to allow a freeing up of the net where it promptly went back on it’s deal and shaped traffic it promised would remain untampered with. Slap on the wrist from regulators small cash payout to the 3 or 4 thousand of us who had been most effected along with a promise that we select few would not have any download cap.
So I download 24/7 and share the product with anyone who needs it and has a blank disk.
Within certain provisos. No pr0n of course and some other more idiosyncratic rules. For example if the item is an artistic endeavour from a nation outside of shrub’s coalition of the willing, I generally lean on the requester to buy the thing.
That has only been on a handful of occasions most people want corporate product. Hollywood or USuk music and since my own weird indulgences (like David I used to enjoy John D MacDonald’s novels {the title you mention David is Free Fall In Crimson Sony ebook format- reader available free from sony dot com} although I preferred the more ‘hip’ Ross McDonald when enjoying mid 20th century amerikan crime fiction) preclude any chance of setting up as an arbiter of taste, I generally get what people ask me to get. I can remember refusing to get an xvid of ‘an american psycho’ outta solidarity for women who describe the book and movie as a pitiful attempt to disguise rape porn as art, and there were a few really bad examples of amerikan exceptionalism parading as kiddie entertainment outta the disney studio I ‘forgot’ to get for my children when they were younger.
Despite that I generally get whatever hollywood junk that I’m asked to on the grounds that if I don’t get it for them there is a good chance the people will pay to watch the shit, thereby rewarding amerikan corporations monetarily for their brainwashing.
The first I heard of Waltz with Bashir was a piece at the height of the Gaza masscre pointing out that israelis were celebrating the Golden Globe awards and potential for oscars for this israeli movie, even though few were prepared to go and see it.
Since then I’ve read a bit about the movie, enough to persuade me not to do israel the favour of downloading and disseminating it. The articles also reassured me that this was a movie I wouldn’t enjoy watching. Not because it contained unpalatable truths, but that it celebrated lies. lies which would undoubtedly cause me to become too angry to enjoy whatever ‘artistic merit’ the flick contains.
Nevertheless I was only moderately surprised when Tom Englehardt’s most recent Dispatch contained a link to the graphic novel of Waltz with Bashir which is due to be released simultaneously into the movie’s markets.
I have had a lot of respect for englehardt ever since I first found his long time ago. But on the other hand a great many other amerikan sites which I had a deal of respect for until now also proved to me a disappointment during the Gaza massacres. Not just the pissweak dem ones like dkos but some of the more perceptive blogs such as Jesus General who spent the duration of israel’s slaughter of the innocents posting about obscure Obama nominees.
Englehardt tries to cover his ass by reposting a piece from Salon which says
“Of course, Israel’s moral culpability for the 1982 massacre [in Sabra and Shatila] is not the same as its moral responsibility for the civilians killed in the current war. But there are painful similarities. Sooner or later the patriotic war fervor will fade, and Israelis will realize that their leaders sent them to kill hundreds of innocent people for nothing. And perhaps in 2036, some haunted filmmaker will release ‘Waltz With Hamas.'”
ass covering on all sides. Tryig to get onside with those who are devastated by the gaza murders with a mention of that horror in the same breath as the 82 genocide, but then ingratiating himself to the zionist ‘lefties’ with ” with Israel’s moral culpability for the 1982 massacre [in Sabra and Shatila] is not the same as its moral responsibility for the civilians killed in the current war
First what war? A war implies two armies fighting each other, the Gaza murders are simply a bunch of armed thugs slaughtering whomsoever they decide , the adults killed by the IDF weren’t soldiers they were civilians: government officials, policemen and politicians.
The implication in englehardt’s post – like so much of the garbage in amerika’s mainstream media, is that the israeli attck on Gaza was justified, that the only wrongdoing if any, was killing the children. So far from what I’ve read of the graphic novel, this is the same cop out for the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
That is, if everyone murdered had been a member of the PLO, the slaughter would have been ‘ok’.
So I decided to click on the link and read part one of ‘Waltz with Bashir’ and I’m afraid it pretty much met my expectations.
From the first coupla chapters Englehardt posted, the tenor appears to be: Not content with making us murder all the Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla, now those filthy arabs have wormed their way into my dreams. The pure consciences of all of us brave soldiers who ‘reluctantly’ slaughtered them have been sullied by a recent Palestinian invasion of my dreams.
That is what I had suspected the movie was meant to tell israelis and zionist jews.
Meanwhile gentiles, zionist or not, are being given the message “See only we israelis would torture ourselves over having to kill those people, those so-called ‘refugees’ and still you want to try us as war criminals? So! All you gentiles are anti-Semites. Surely it was enough that some of us ran off to europe to become millionaires, we felt so guilty?”
This movie won’t cause any rethink by israelis about israel’s butchery of the indigenous people of the Jordan Valley, it will enable more butchery because it will be used as both an excuse for murder and proof that the israeli behaviour of homicidal rage is ‘normal behavour’ by normal people. Some even have a sense of mis-guided guilt about it.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 25 2009 3:22 utc | 16
let us remember for example – that in their hubris – these nietzchean puppied(in fact ayn randian ringworms) were going to create their own realities, construct their own histories, create new facts on the ground that we plebians would tearfully have to follow
well – what-a-fucking-world – & in such a short time – exceptit like a very bad burlesque by ernst lubitsch on cortisone – you couldn’t get any worse actors than richard perle who imagines himself faust but is merely some fool from some forgotten fiction & mr wolfowitz who imagined himself worthy of his fascist overlords strauss & schmitt – but who became the don knotts of foreign policy
these aren’t even apes. apes posses the capacity to communicate in sophisticated & subtle ways – these fools tried to transform their grunting & groaning into strategy & tactic – then like some syphlitic dancer went the whole hog to create foreign policy
now, as john mccain would say, my friends – these are very very dark times but ya gotta laugh
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 25 2009 3:36 utc | 17
re my #11, here’s an al jazeera video segment showing two buses, neither of which looks like it took either a ramming from another vehicle nor the blast of an explosion, esp of the size of a force that demolished the remnants of the toyota pickup shown in a couple of the frames
those folks were obviously shot in the aftermath
Posted by: b real | Jan 25 2009 8:15 utc | 18
Malooga had a long top post about the Zionist control of US policy. here
I wanted to add something.
Outside, or rather around, the actions and methods described in the post, there is a potent fear of standing up to Israel, of offending Jews, or even daring to imagine that one could treat ‘them’ like everyone else, or argue against their demands, or tell them get over it already etc. Israeli / Jewish exceptionalism is accepted, it is part of the culture.
That is the reason why it is so important for Israel to maintain the very particular status of the Holocaust, to render it holy and other-worldly; to enforce a view of Jews as victims of continuing, grave, overt or subterranean anti-semitism (this acts on Jews themselves, particularly the expats who then may adhere to the ‘safe haven’ idea, even if they don’t consider that relevant to themselves personally.) Israel and its lobbies, clout, have accomplished this by forcing others to adopt anti-racist, anti-anti-semitic, anti-revisionist, anti-negationist, etc. laws, stances, opinions, views, etc., and generally obliging others to treat Jews as special, thus separate.
Israel fears attacks on this dimension perhaps more than anything else.
It also is apprehensive of any movement, any shift, in any direction because it finds itself in the paradoxical position of having to defend, uphold, exaggerate the existence of anti-semitism, while ostensibly objecting to it and acting to eliminate it. Jews are at the same time exceptional ppl with a unique past..but must be treated like everyone else. A similar double image exists for Israel itself: an extraordinary country with status or privileges like no other, yet, the only normal ‘capitalist democracy’ in the ME…
Example. One occasion, public and typical: Saturday is traditionally (and still by law) a working day in Switz. Schools and all educational institutions ran activities on Sat. morning. In 1993 (iirc, my son was 7 I think) Sat. morning school, to 16 years, was dropped, but all higher education, apprenticeship to doctoral level, continued, on occasion, to run ‘obligatory’ activities on Sat, for practical reasons. In 1995, the anti-racist laws were voted in. A few years later, the Jewish lobby woke up and …oh yes…tried to get Saturday school banned. The Swiss law contains a provision that states refusing public service to someone because of their ethnicity, religion, provenance (etc.) is punishable by.. – the idea was that Jewish students were being refused the opportunity to take exams (typically often scheduled on a Sat.) because they were not allowed to accept the service offered.. that Sat. school was racist, anti-semitic, that Jewish students required special treatment (in fact forbidden by the same laws)…and on and on it went. I was amazed to see high officials, figures of authority, politicians, on the ground teachers, students, secretaries, my neighbor, take this crackpot proposal seriously and argue clumsily for a Jewish exception. Passions ran high … finally the demand died mysteriously and was never mentioned again. Everyone breathed a exhausted sigh of relief. All through this nothing was heard from the Jewish students themselves. (The very few orthodox ones were accommodated anyway.)
Btw the Swiss Commission that votes on suspending military sales to foreign countries voted during the Gaza invasion NOT to suspend delivery to Israel, to my astonishment – they have done it often in the past.
Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 25 2009 10:17 utc | 19
Gary Trudeau has an intriguing and maybe even perspicacious take on Obama’s cabinet choices in today’s Doonesbury
Posted by: Juannie | Jan 25 2009 15:12 utc | 20
& it would seem that the media which serves those who rule from the role of dollars continue their long tradition of hating the people
africans, chief amongst them – are apallingly or demonically covered – if at all. the counties of latin america do not exist except when to demonise morales or chavez. barely a mention that yet another country on that continent – el salvador will choose the left proposition from the old guerillas in march & has alrady won regional elections. the movements in greece, iceland & france – not a word – because it merely undelines that fact that the people on the street know, sometimes instintually – that the ‘experts’ do not know shit about the economic crisis the people are breathing
really these scribblers are the detrius who ought to be thrown on the dustbin of history
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 25 2009 16:05 utc | 21
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 25 2009 16:12 utc | 22
Its amazing how quick the military industrial complex came out with the Git-mo study about former detainees going back to the battlefield. Obama needs to fire anyone who was involved in releasing the study.
The Pentagon needs a hair cut to the tune of about half its budget or more. They will fight, fight, fight, to keep their power.
Posted by: jdp | Jan 25 2009 16:31 utc | 23
@ #9
Cynthia, my understanding is that the figure of 170 mill$ slung out in this report is quite misleading — the money going to security has never before ever been included in figuring the bill.
Inaugurations 1 & 2 for the Codpiece each went for 40+ mill$, so the one we had just now is quite comparable, accounting for the devaluation of the $ since the miscreant took office.
This meme that this inauguration quadrupled previous bashes, came from the Repugnant noise machine.
That said, it would have been cool if the thing was toned down to the level of a hamburger and a milk shake — my cousin’s wife is a (gasp) McDonald’s manager and she says things are going great! People ain’t chowing down in the nicer/real restaurants and even when they do, they don’t eat steak….
Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Jan 25 2009 17:25 utc | 24
a small poem on the nature of progress
The furry green centipede
Crawled inside the woman’s coffin.
“How,” he asked,
“Have you come so far, so fast
With only two legs?”
Posted by: whimsy mugwump | Jan 25 2009 17:37 utc | 25
continuing w/ my focus (comment #’s 11 & 18) on the lies presented in the deaths of somali civilians in the aftermath of the suicide bombing
al jazeera: AU troops ‘shell Somali civilians’
African Union troops in Somalia have been accused of indiscriminately shelling a Mogadishu neighbourhood after an attempted suicide bomb attack on their base.
…
Several homes were hit by artillery fire just minutes after the vehicle blew up, residents of the Hodan neighbourhood said.
“We are civilians – we don’t have weapons – yet we are caught in the middle of the fighting from the African troops who allegedly came here for peacekeeping,” Adam Abdi said.
“This area was bombed more than six times but there are no military bases here.”
Locals were also angered after two people were reportedly killed and two mosques hit during the violence.
“First, they hit the minaret, 10 minutes later they shelled the mosque, this shows how much they hate Islam,” the imam of the Nawawi mosque told Al Jazeera.
“I appeal to the Muslims and brothers to support their brothers here against their enemies, whether the Ethiopians or from Burundi.”
…
A spokesman for the Uganadan [sic] military said that the AU forces had not opened fired after the blast.
this fits the pattern of indiscriminate shelling of the bakara market & surrounding neighborhoods in retaliation for insurgency ambushes.
here are some additional photos of what was left of the vehicle used in the suicide attack – somali mirror – Fal Istish-haadi ah oo ka dhacay Muqdisho – with a couple shots of the bus, showing signs of heavy use, but, again, no impact from a blast. (the language barrier makes it difficult to follow this from the local accounts, but i think the photo evidence supports my interpretation)
Posted by: b real | Jan 25 2009 18:41 utc | 26
Deb is dead-I went to look for my copy of Free Fall in Crimson to check the publishing date, and I couldn’t find it on the shelve with all the other paperback John MacD books, but it was there, right at the head of the line as my only glorious Mcgee hardback and a first addition to boot (what thrift store and how many years ago, I’d never guess) printed in 1981, those were simpler times for sure…
remembereringgiap-Calling wolfowitz “The Don Knotts of foreign policy” was a great image for me to digest with my coffee this morning, thank you. 🙂
Reading though these post and I see annie and remembereringgiap using the f-word (fuck) more than I’ve ever seen in the short time I’ve been here. There is something hopeful in their well focused anger and the harsh language they choose to write. I don’t think they use profanity as loosely as I do, and to see them commit it to writing means that there must be a sea-change about to take place. Being nice, being polite, has not changed the direction of the herd yet, so maybe it’s time to start shouting and waving our arms.
Posted by: David | Jan 25 2009 18:48 utc | 27
clearly, i am an imperfect communist – heart like a wheel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 25 2009 22:13 utc | 28
For those lamenting the fall of Lehman Bros., this heartwarming example of conjugal love in stressful times will undoubtedly inspire admiration for the afflicted.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 26 2009 10:05 utc | 29
I’d be interested in hearing a Turkish view of this and this,
both regarding Ergenekon, apparently a Turkish version of Italy’s Gladio. Background information helping “beginners” to establish a context would be appreciated, including possible links to the figures and organizations involved in the Susurluk incident.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 26 2009 11:52 utc | 30
This could get really interesting:
TEHRAN, January 25 (RIA Novosti) – Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will arrive in Tehran in February to discuss Iran’s controversial nuclear program, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported on Sunday.
Schroeder’s trip was approved by the German Foreign Ministry and also follows consultations with the new U.S. administration led by Barack Obama, IRNA said, referring to German mass media.
felicitations must go to the bolivian people who decisively have called forth a new constitution. if this had been in the time of reagan & thatcher without a middle east – the people & their leaders in latin america – would be dead. they knowit. we know it
it is a beautiful thing whenh a people throw off the cloak of tyranny – u s imperialism & it must never be forgotten that the people are the decisve factor – it is they & not their cadre or leaders who are creating these changes – though that cadre is incredibly courageous – it is the people – relentless in their desire to not be a servant to empire
again if you watched & read dominant media – you would know nothing of this most important victory. what is happening in el salvador is also important but to find information on its details is difficult
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 26 2009 21:12 utc | 32
have just read some of the filth of andré glucksmann & mr bernard henry levy. useful enough for the embassy of israel her to use it
i do not know how low they can go, how ignoble can their self fascination become that they walk over the dead bodies of children – to grab a banner here or there. they were never philosophers – deleuze made that clear a very long time ago – but as scribblers they just go from one infamy to the next
i will not even link to their sordid apologies for terror – their delight in the disproportion – the line of their lies pulverise truth as f11 bombers pulverise homes, bones & babies
levy glucksmann & a number of others are a contemptible crew – every bit as venal & vile as brasillach, rebatet & celine. loathsome
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 26 2009 21:47 utc | 33
Spiegel On Line gives a useful partial response to my request @ 30 above.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 27 2009 7:21 utc | 34
Stimulous appropriations spending items, (Some of them).
What follows are a number of the spending projects included in the economic stimulus bill filed by Democrats late on Friday, which will be voted on in coming days by the House of Representatives.
This is not a complete list. Instead, it is an overview of some of the major items found in this bill in terms of spending. No judgments are made about the need for these expenditures.
That is up to you, the voter, and your elected members of the House and Senate.
You can find the full text of the bill, H.R. 1 at: http://www.rules.house.gov/111/LegText/111_hr1_text.pdf
Soundtrack for the above reading…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 27 2009 7:50 utc | 35
This article from The Oil Drum and the associated comments are probably too reasonable and too technical to convince their intended audience (the current Washington “ins”), but they seem well worth reading for anyone seeking something other than the usual claptrap. The assertions are open to debate, but the level of debate seems stratospheric when confornted with campaign rhetoric and lobbyist propaganda.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 27 2009 10:48 utc | 36
HR645:National emergency Centers in Mil Bases
Also see, Text of H.R. 645: To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 28 2009 7:41 utc | 37
FMLN wins legislative elections in El Salvador, poised to win the presidency in March. WOW.
Posted by: anna missed | Jan 28 2009 8:57 utc | 38
How risk management works in high finance:
At the Interbourse golf tournament held last May at Cabo San Lucas on the tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, some participants suspected something amiss with Bernard Madoff.
It was not that the traders and financiers present were worried about the feted New York broker’s 200-person market-making firm [..]
No, what bothered some participants about the former Nasdaq chairman was his golf handicap. They suspected he had understated his skill to boost his chances of winning a prize. “It makes a difference if your handicap is the right or wrong one. I always had the impression that he was playing off a 14 or a 15,” says one who took part. But Mr Madoff’s score on the Golf Handicap and Information Network was 9.8, leading the fellow player to infer that the broker was better at the game than he told the organisers.
“He wasn’t altogether straightforward,” the participant says.
Madoff: Off the fairway (ft.com, link goes to google to avoid their stupid registration)
Posted by: DharmaBum | Jan 28 2009 11:39 utc | 39
I know that it is bad manners to have a post headlined and then disappear, without answering any questions. I apologize to all; that seems to be all I can do these days. Yet, it is great to see how fertile the ole bar has been lately. B’s posts have been of extraordinary quality. (Note: I am surprised that no one linked “Domestic Spying” together with the next post, “From Policy Intention To Legal Justification,” as they are two sides of the same coin of the realm: Laws for you, none for us.) Nevertheless, it is gratifying when I am unable to post to see almost all the points I would make, made — often better — by others. It is great to see the energy brought by a whole new generation of posters, just as it is great to see the many longtime ones who have stuck with this exercise. (I recently re-read a census post from four(?) years ago where b attempts to ascertain just who is reading MOA.)
Clearly, there is a small — but real — paradigm shift transpiring among people today. We must take whatever opening we are given and enlarge upon it.
As we are having snow upon snow upon snow up here in New England, I leave you all with what little offering I am capable of these days.
*******
r’giap (Marxist Fruitcake):
Can you email me at “mushlila [at] “gis” [dot] “net” ? Thanks.
*********
Letter to a Friend on a Snowy Day
Phil-
How are you? Are you at work on this quiet snowy day? Did you risk your life and brave the roads so that the children of privilege can buy the New York Times and read Tom Friedman’s latest epiphany of how truly great and wondrous the world we live in is?
It is true, I have been so stuck in my internal reality, and so in denial of the stark choices facing me in my external reality, that it is hard to pull myself out of my shell and relate to others. The splendid isolation of my own personal pain. A magical castle for magical thinking.
Yes, we have shared “1900,” and have spoken about “The Traveling Players.” I have thought about these things. And I have been struggling in my own ineffectual way. Two weeks ago, I wrote like a madman — trying to make sense of my reality, trying to reach out to others — a hundred pages perhaps, and posted continuously to my favorite blog. All worthless, detestable, it seems in retrospect. Last week, I sunk into dark depression at my inability to change things, to accept things, even to illuminate things. The intractability of reality.
Why is the world the way it is? Why do people work so hard — against their very self-interests — to keep it that way? How are people controlled by others, and how do they control themselves? The productivity of this planet we live on has not changed from last year to this one; and yet, another 10% of us Homo Sapiens will be plunged into poverty and despair. Those below them — the vast masses we barely acknowledge — will be crushed even more, and blamed by many of us for the wretchedness of it all. A precious few will be gifted with riches “beyond the dreams of avarice.” All without question, it seems — or at most, a timorous inquiry as to whether such unprecedented changes were “planned.”
The best of us are no different from the worst. In many ways the best of us, satisfied with the goodness of our own intentions, are worse than the worst of us. What good is unmoored Hope and the thin promise of gradual Change to the hundreds of millions who have been “Shock-Doctrined” into insecurity, driven to the very edge of existence? And yet, we demand that they accept the injustice of their impoverishment in exchange for a small future amelioration of conditions. We demand of them that they drop all resistance in favor of another round of amorphous promises. To those suffering injustice and deprivation, there is no difference between a good cop and a bad cop: both are sent to maintain the infernal pecking order.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I chanced upon Wallace Shawn’s “The Fever,” (1990), yesterday.
I knew Wally back in the mid-eighties. He was a customer at my organic food store, and lived in an apartment in the tenement above it on Sixth Street in the East Village, at the end of Taras Shevchenko place. This was after “My Dinner With Andre,” and, despite the fact that he appeared little different from the sad-sack persona of the film, only perhaps more lost, I was in awe of him.
Little did I know that even then the little Leprauchaun was working on the same concerns I have now. “The Fever” is an extraordinary work. It is not lyrically beautiful like Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony,” nor is it enigmatic and beguiling like the “Mona Lisa.” It is not iconoclastic like “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” nor is it magnificently complex like “Finnegan’s Wake.” Rather, it is the most profoundly direct examination I have encountered of the moral quandaries we face today; and there can be no higher purpose to the aspirations of art.
In contrast to the ubiquitous blandishments of airy Hope and static Change we are bombarded with today, his work is grounded in the manifest reality of our lives: that is, the “preferential option for the wealthy.” While that may appear implacable, the work is infused with the righteous incision of Marx, the “Great Revolutionary Love” of Che, and the empowering breath of the Liberation Theologists.
Despite being designed to be read to small groups in someone’s living room, the work is no parlor entertainment. It is not easy and it only engages — which it does with great power — to the extent that one is prepared to give the work the full attention of mind, heart, and soul. More austere than “My Dinner With Andre,” and stripped of even that work’s limited theatricality, “The Fever” consists of a single hour and forty one minute soliloquy without a break. The one character engages in an extended monologue which, in actuality, is a vast, multi-faceted internal dialogue: between sanity and fever, between idealism and realism, between Socratic and Marxist dialectics, between truth and rationalization, between the comfortable and aesthetic life of his friends, and the precarious ascetic existence of the lone revolutionary. The privileged protagonist is led through a subtle inner journey, directly confronting and addressing all of the slippery and sanctimonious justifications thrown at him by members of his own station in life — the very same justifications for monstrous behavior which we face daily almost twenty years later. In this, the work holds universal currency.
And yet the play is not pedantic in the least. “The Fever” gains extraordinary life because the personality of the single character (whose name we never know) — their inner and outer space — is nevertheless subtly and lovingly limned out for us, so that we would not be at a loss to have a full and emotional conversation with them if we were to meet, say in a taxi, for instance. This allows us to inhabit the character’s inner thoughts and struggles just as we would those of a very close friend.
In the end there is no great awakening, no final “answer” to the eternal question, but there is some small resolution of the great contradictions facing the protagonist, and — unlike the great Cult of Personality developed around Obama — it is a rather limited and separate peace which takes form: for one must take one’s personal insights, such as they are, climb down the mountain, and live in the real world. Material conditions do not lose their hold upon social relations, and yet, with deep understanding, small, real changes are possible.
I cannot recommend the work more highly. I know we are all very busy these days and we take our edification in five minute Youtube-sized bites. But I would really appreciate it if you could find the time to listen to Wallace Shawn’s reading of “The Fever” sometime soon. The work can be listened to here, on Real Player, in a 1999 reading at the remarkable Lannan Foundation. I recommend following along by viewing the text here, but giving conscious preference to the audio experience. There are a number of meaningful differences between text and live performance, generally favoring the live performance. The NYTimes review is here; it goes without saying that they refuse to “get it.” If one should have the temerity to criticize the “natural order of things,” one is expected to present a full theology with answers to every ill affecting Mankind since time immemorial as minimal conditions of disputation.
If “everything changed on 9-11,” someone clearly forgot to tell Mr. Shawn , because he has keenly been more aware than most of us that for the “Wretched of the Earth” nothing has ever changed, and that nothing will ever change for them, even under the spell of the “Blessed One,” unless we ourselves change first. “The Fever” points the way to a few small steps for Mankind.
Hoping you are well,
Richard (Malooga)
Posted by: Malooga | Jan 28 2009 19:48 utc | 41
malooga
i’ve emailed you my friend
just a question for other europeans – i notice when there is a ‘problem’ in the middle east – the canal ‘arte’ ups its anti arab programming, last week a debate so impoverished it made me think of murdoch, & tonight a terrible piece of proaganda of ‘arab terrorism’ – the arabophobia fucking fatigues me, i’m tired of it – the sneer of the ‘civilised’
tommorrow night i do a public reading in hommage to mahmoud darwisk & i will honour the anniversary of the death of that grate palestinian, dr george habash
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 28 2009 20:26 utc | 42
i am so tired at the way that a relatively few actions by a desperate people with a minimum of means at their disposal is used to hide the more generalised crimes of the state of israel
this particular documentary continues the mythology that the group of the rote armee fraktion – suicided in stanheim. my friends film ‘wundkanal’ makes it quite clear that that was not the case. they were murdered & their is sufficient evidence to be clear about that
but this or that faction, in this or that action – happened also at a moment when the palestinains were being wiped off the map literally & figuratively. you may not support thos action but it would be ignoble to not understand why they happened
but the systematic murder, disenfranchisement, stealing of property, stealing of land – always taken to new levels since 1967 – passed over in silence by an industry of communication & propaganda that systematises terror & ignores completely the plight of the palestinians
enough
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 28 2009 21:17 utc | 43
Malooga,
I feel ya’ and your post above was eloquently stated and as powerful as everything you post. Your words aren’t wasted, your views are held by many who seek justice in a world unjust.
The horror of Eve’s apple was knowledge, and with knowledge came memories of the past and the ability to imagine a future. And for many of us who won’t or can’t buy into the idea of some wonderful life after death, we realize humanity is wasting its self and its potential fighting each other, rather than trying to come together and rationally solve the real problems all peoples face. Clean water, hunger, employment, housing… Are these so hard to solve in the 21st Century that we have to resort to killing each other?
You write well and present compelling arguments for your case, it has been a shame not reading your post. I find your writing to be engaging and informative; your point of view is as jaded as mine, but where I go with my gut and too often shoot from the hip, you provide links, quotes and other resources so others can see how you come to your conclusions.
These are dark days, but no darker than other days have been, it’s only we can see the darkness and feel it in realtime thanks to computers. The best thing a person can do is get some exercise in the sunshine (if it’s not too freaking cold) or where ever you can. I find the punching bag is my favorite, but I keep running out of photos of politicians to stick on it.
My heart too cries for the innocents who are only born into suffering and then die without ever getting to smile or having a reason to. I’ve been wishing for at least 37, of the past 40 years, to magically make it all stop and it has only gotten worse. Other than wishing, I don’t see how to change 6.5 billion humans way of thinking, or even a billion people’s way of thinking. I stick to picking-up litter, giving change to bums and being nice to children and animals; these are my agents of change.
Malooga, I hope your heart heals without hardening and the ever-increasing daylight helps clear your head of those dangerous dark swarms buzzing between your ears. 🙂
Posted by: David | Jan 28 2009 22:09 utc | 44
Malooga: I was wondering where you had gone off to, been watching for your name on the sidebar. Your writing has been a comfort to me as I have been climbing down off my own mountains of fear and outrage. I still want to know what’s going on in the world, but I don’t want to care in ways that are destructive to my soul and to the beauty of the small world around me.
Did you catch the link in another thread to this Derrick Jensen piece on going forward after giving up hope? Seems to fit.
Looking forward to listening to the Shawn piece.
Posted by: catlady | Jan 28 2009 22:15 utc | 45
i apologise but i want to cut & paste a speech that al-hakim, dr george habash founder of the popular front for the liberation of palestine gave after an action in jordan in 1970 – nearly 4 years ago – it is even truer today :
Address of Dr. George Habash, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) at the Jordan International Hotel in Amman at 5:00 am on June 12, 1970.
Ladies and gentlemen;
I feel that it is my duty to explain to you why we did wht we did. Of course, from a liberal point of view of thinking, I feel sorry for what happened, and I am sorry that we caused you some trouble during the last 2 or 3 days. But leaving this aside, I hope that you will understand, or at least try to understand, why we did what we did. Maybe it will be difficult for you to understand our point of view. People living different circumstances think on different lines. They cannot think in the same manner and we, the Palestinian people, and the conditions we have been living for a good number of years, all these conditions have modeled our way of thinking. We cannot help it. You can understand our way of thinking when you know a very basic fact. We, the Palestinians for 22 years, for the last 22 years, have been living in camps and tents. We were driven out of our country, our houses, our homes and our lands, driven out like sheep and left here in refugee camps in very inhumane conditions. For 22 years our people have been waiting in order to restore their rights but nothing happened. 3 years ago circumstances became favorable so that our people could carry arms to defend their cause and start to fight to restore their rights, to go back to their country and liberate their country. After 22 years of injustice, inhumanity, living in camps with nobody caring for us, we feel that we have the very full right to protect our revolution. We have all the right to protect our revolution. Our code of morals is our revolution. What saves our revolution, what helps our revolution, what protects our revolution is right, is very right and very honourable and very noble and very beautiful, because our revolution means justice, means having back our homs, having back our country, which is a very just and noble aim. You have to take this point into consideration. If you want to be, in one way or another, cooperative with us, try to understand our point of view.
We don’t wake up in the morning to have a cup of milk with Nescafe and then spend hal an hour before the mirror thinking of flying to Switzerland or having one month in this country or one month in that country. We don’t have the thousands of millions of dollars that you in America and Britain have. We live daily in camps. Our wives wait for the water, whether it will come at 10 o’clock in the morning, 12 o’clock or 3 o’clock in the afternoon. We cannot be calm as you can. We cannot think as you think.
We have lived in this condition, not for one day, not for 2 days, not for 3 days. Not for one week, not for 2 weeks, not for 3 weeks. Not for one year, not for 2 years, but for 22 years.
If any one of you comes to these camps and stays for one or two weeks, he will be affected. He cannot think and handle things regardless of the conditions he will be living.
When our revolution started three years ago, so many attempts were planned to strike our revolution. Actually all commando organizations after June 1967, a very well-known date to you, started and their eyes aimed at the conquered land. But when the revolution went on, so many forces – our enemies – put so many plans to beat this revolution. America is against this. We know this very well. We feel this very well. We felt it last year from the aid of the Phantoms. America is against our revolution. They work to crush our revolution. They work through the reactionary regime in Jordan and the reactionary regime in Lebanon. They tried on the fourth of November in 1968 to crush the revolution. Nevertheless, during events here, all of us were aiming for the conquered land. This was the first attempt on the 4th of November 1968. A second attempt, four months ago, on the tenth of February and during the last week we lived the 3rd attempt. Actually, they are working daily against the revolution. Every day. These dates are the peaks only, when their attempts reached a certain high level. Every time we lose men, we lose blood, we give sacrifices. On the 10th of February, there was something like 50 casualties at least. Regarding this third attempt from the reactionary regime to smash the revolution – and people who live here in Jordan know it very well and feel it very well – the reactionary regime started this. Anybody who lives in Jordan knows this very well. We cannot base our revolution on lies. I am talking facts here.
Last Saturday there was an incident here in Amman. On Sunday there was an incident in Zerqa and then things flared. This time we felt, to be frank with you, that this attempt, at least from their own point of view, seems to be the final attempt. I mean to say, we felt that this time they are determined to smash the revolution no matter what level the sacrifices were.
Here, we felt that we have all the right in the world to protect our revolution. We remembered all the miseries, all the injustices, our people and the conditions they lived, the coldness with which world opinion looks at our case, and so we felt that we will not permit them to crush us. We will defend ourselves and our revolution by every way and every means, because – as I told you – our code of morals is our revolution. Anything that protects our revolution would be right. This is our line of thinking. So we put counterplans deciding that we should win.
One of the items in this plan was you, what happened here. We felt that we have the full right to make pressure here on the reactionary regime and in America and all forces, and this will be a winning card in our hand. I am talking very frankly and I also have to be frank and tell you something. We were really determined. We were not joking.
I am so glad that things and conditions went they way they should, because – to be frank – we were fully determined, that in case they will smash us in the camps, we will blow all this building and the Philadelphia all over. We were really determined to do this. Why? Because we know that our revolution will continue even if they crush us here in Amman and we want your governments to know that from now on the Front will mean every word it says.
We were fully determined to blow this hotel and the Philadelphia Hotel on one condition and in one circumstance. We were very keen not to lose our nerves. They are very determined, by their tanks, artillery and airplanes, to smash us. You are not better than our people. In the last incidents there were something like 500 casualties, the least number, believe me, the least number.
Yesterday, I was in one hospital only, where the doctors told me that there are 280 wounded and 60 dead. Dead fighters.
Ladies and gentlemen;
I fell so much released now that we were not put in the corner and forced to do all that we were determined to do in case conditions went in that way.
I know the liberal way of thinking. I know it very well. I know how much it would be difficult to convince you. I know that some of you will be saying at present; “What do I have to do with these conditions? This is very unfair and very unjust and rude and selfish.” All right.
Conditions in which people live – these conditions, actually, determine their way of thinking and code of morals.
We tried our best – and I hope we succeeded in this – that during your presence in this hotel under the auspices of the Front, that you would be treated the best way we can.
This is the first time we manage a hotel. Our men, I am sure, know how to fight very well, but I don’t know to what extent they were good at managing the hotel. But instructions were very clear. I hope they succeeded in this. I think we always helped you by keeping our nerves. The day before yesterday, Al-Wahdat camp was shelled for more than half an hour. Any one of you can go to Al-Wahdat camp and see the places affected. It is very natural to start thinking that time of executing the item. We held our nerves very well.
Ladies and gentlemen;
You have to excuse my English. From the personal side, let me say, I apologize to you. I am sorry about your troubles for three or four days. But from a revolutionary point of view, we feel, we will continue to feel that we have the very, very full right to do what we did.
Thank you very much.
resistance is not terrorism
Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 28 2009 22:21 utc | 46
me, evidently & it should have sd nearly 40 years since that adress
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 28 2009 22:23 utc | 47
@41 Liked that. Nice piece of characterization, to set it up in such a way that the narrator’s self-concept is shaken just by realizing that he stepped in shit, he’s lucky (and impotent, since his luck could easily run out.) My impression was Shawn’s pushing you to step outside the narrator – it’s all about him, like empathy’s not painful enough without the self-loathing.
Posted by: …—… | Jan 28 2009 22:40 utc | 48
remembereringgiap@46,
An eloquent speech, could have been spoken by one of america’s founding fathers, thank you for sharing, In forty years what has changed except the number of dead? It must be heartbreaking to be a people that have never known peace, never known justice.
Posted by: David | Jan 28 2009 23:34 utc | 49
Obama lawyers set to defend Yoo
In Democratic legal circles, no attorney has been more pilloried than former Bush Justice Department official John Yoo, chief author of the so-called torture memos that Barack Obama last week sought to nullify.
But now President Obama’s incoming crew of lawyers has a new and somewhat awkward job: defending Yoo in federal court.
Next week, Justice Department lawyers are set to ask a San Francisco federal judge to throw out a lawsuit brought against Yoo by Jose Padilla, a New York man held without charges on suspicion of being an Al Qaeda operative plotting to set off a “dirty bomb.”
The suit contends that Yoo’s legal opinions authorized Bush to order Padilla’s detention in a Navy brig in South Carolina and encouraged military officials to subject Padilla to aggressive interrogation techniques, including death threats and long-term sensory deprivation.
That’s not all. On Thursday, Justice Department lawyers are slated to be in Charleston, S.C., to ask a federal magistrate there to dismiss another lawsuit charging about a dozen current and former government officials with violating Padilla’s rights in connection with his unusual detention on U.S. soil, without charges or a trial.
The defendants in that case are like a who’s who of Bush administration boogeymen to Obama’s liberal followers — former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The two cases raise the question of how aggressively the Obama administration intends to defend alleged legal excesses of the Bush administration in the war on terror. The Supreme Court recently gave the new president until March to decide whether to defend the detention without trial of another man held as an enemy combatant, Ali Saleh Al-Marri.
And with more than a hundred court cases pending relating to Guantanamo, the Obama team faces a fast and furious series of deadlines to adopt or reject the Bush administration’s stance regarding specific detainees.
The Dems are just as complicit. As I said in b’s excellent, ‘Obama Has No Afghanistan Strategy’ thread, what we are seeing here is an insider elite power struggle, where the new kids on the block are trying to wrest away long time entrenched power brokers of the Bushco mafia.
So entrenched that they go way back.
Jose Padilla’s Mind has been Effectively Erased
Why is that?
what was done to Jose Padilla – radical mind control techniques- including sensory deprivation to erase his personality, and thereby his memory, and I suspect, one of the effective links, one of the questions that can be answered if asked is, Who is John Doe II?
John Doe II is the Timothy McVeigh accomplice (some say, and I believe FBI informant) from police sketches, in regards to the federal office building in Oklahoma, aka,Oklahoma city bombing in 95 under Clinton, that can tie this whole conspiracy plot together.
I argue that this has been a shadow government drive spanning decades, right up to and beyond 911. They were effectively going to take over the country. And nearly did, only their mafia competition stopped them.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 28 2009 23:42 utc | 50
Yeah yeah, tin foil… I know.
In the following essay, Parenti makes so many essential points so very well that his case seems to me to be unanswerable. Five years before 9/11 had even taken place, he anticipates and rebuts practically all of the non-arguments, rhetorical ruses and anti-thoughts subsequently presented as higher wisdom by Corn, Cockburn, Taibbi, Monbiot, and too many other gurus to list, including (sadly) Noam Chomsky.
Michael Parenti: Conspiracy Phobia on the Left.
Note: Michael Parenti’s position on 9/11 at this German website: Wissenswertes zum 11.9.2001 (The quotes are all left in English, easy to locate, and well worth reading in themselves.)
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 28 2009 23:48 utc | 51
Michael Parenti’s position on 9/11 at this German website: Wissenswertes zum 11.9.2001 (The quotes are all left in English, easy to locate, and well worth reading in themselves.)
Michael Parenti: Conspiracy Phobia on the Left
In the following essay, Parenti makes so many essential points so very well that his case seems to me to be unanswerable. Five years before 9/11 had even taken place, he anticipates and rebuts practically all of the non-arguments, rhetorical ruses and anti-thoughts subsequently presented as higher wisdom by Corn, Cockburn, Taibbi, Monbiot, and too many other gurus to list, including (sadly) Noam Chomsky.
Definitive!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 28 2009 23:50 utc | 52
christ, imperialism is repellent right down to its bootstraps.
when the danish left iraq – they took all their translators & their families back to denmark while the us, australia & especially the u k have tried to wash their hands of their moral responsibilities with these people & effectively – because they have been seen to be a part of the occupation they have been assasinated by the resistance. quite a number, in fact. & their employers to a soldier – have looked the pther way. willing to use them as tools & intermediaries – & beause they represent the failure of the occupation – they are thrown like so much meat to the dogs
power is a scandalous fucking thing – it is empty & cruel & exists because it depends on the people having no memory. how many times have imperialism(s) conducted their business in such a shabby way – what the french did with those algerians – ‘harkis’ -who fought with them against their own people – is a dark stain on french history
england considers it high manners to betray the people who serve it
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 29 2009 0:42 utc | 55
U$@51&52 😉
Michael Parenti: Conspiracy Phobia on the Left-Nice piece, well written and well argued, thanks. Thank you also for the Kiswahili saying” When elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers” from another thread. Good feces, and a truer statement couldn’t be said about power struggles.
Posted by: David | Jan 29 2009 1:00 utc | 56
And Now For Something Completely Different: Davos Features “Refugee Run”
Posted by: b real | Jan 29 2009 5:49 utc | 58
Someone has been listening to me:
Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) — Draft legislation that would change how over-the-counter derivatives are regulated might prohibit most trading in the $29 trillion credit-default swap market.
House of Representatives Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota circulated an updated draft bill yesterday that would ban credit-default swap trading unless investors owned the underlying bonds. The document, distributed by e-mail by the committee staff in Washington, would also force U.S. trading in the $684 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market to be processed by a clearinghouse.
“This would basically kill the single-name CDS market,” said Tim Backshall, chief strategist at Credit Derivatives Research LLC in Walnut Creek, California. “Given the small size of many issuers’ bonds outstanding, this would make it practically impossible for the CDS market to exist.”
b real, how completely bizarre. here is the group creating the theme park, complete w/ security forces.
Posted by: annie | Jan 29 2009 10:47 utc | 60
anybody know whats up with Arthur Silber? Malooga do you know him?
Posted by: anna missed | Jan 29 2009 11:22 utc | 62
b real@58 (and thanks for the link annie)-
Hmmmm… What can one say? I spent several unproductive years in Aspen, CO working for a guide service that also did event planning. We’d get groups from the Aspen Institute, groups of rich industrialist who’d come out to the institute to mingle with others of their kind while attending workshops and events very similar to the “Refugee Run”.
These gatherings are supposed to help the wealthy develop as sense of philanthropy and understanding for their fellow man. Here is the link to more informations: about AI
The organization is more or less the Bohemian Grove with cowboy hats rather than funny robes. But sometimes there are probably funny robes too.
The people who start businesses like Crossroads prey on these rich think-tanks and prey also on the legions of twenty-somethings, fresh from liberal arts collages who want to feel “involved” (But want a hot shower after a long, hard day of pretending to be a refugee) trust me, I know these groups very well.
Call up the winemaker at Firestone in California; tell him you want one of his “private reserve” bottles of red (it will be either a fat zin or buttery-smooth merlot). It’s blended and aged in a single barrel and never sold – he only gives it as a gift to his closest of friends. I don’t fall into that group, but maybe you know someone who does, if so, bring that bottle over here to the bar and pour everyone a glass and I’ll tell you some stories about those days…
Yeah, Aspen may not be the center of wealth’s sphincter, but it is certainly one of its wrinkles. Unless you’ve been in the belly of this beast, you might never believe how much money, and how many wacky “rituals”, billionaires will subject themselves to in order to absolve themselves from their sin of gluttony. There is money to be made in this line of work. And for attractive singles, possible short term hook-ups, paying long term dividends. If you need proof, ask Kevin Costner how much sushi at Kenichi cost, but be advised, you should be at least a couple of bar stools down from him when you do.
Posted by: David | Jan 29 2009 13:55 utc | 63
b,
I don’t know if it is just my problem of if it is more general but I don’t get any comments on any of the Threads listed on the Moon’s front page.
Your headlines comes through fine but no comments.
Strange. Never encountered this symptom before. Hope it is just a passing glitch.
Posted by: Juannie | Jan 29 2009 21:00 utc | 64
Hummm. Comments are back. That was fast.
Thanks, if thanks are due. 🙂
Posted by: Juannie | Jan 29 2009 21:23 utc | 65
We have often joked in MoA about how, just like his old sheriff George W Shrub, everything Tony Bliar touches, turns to shit. They call it the reverse Midas touch. The invasion of Iraq and the failed search for weapons of mass destruction were the shining examples, but if you can cast your mind back to 04 and 05you may remember how day after day in both domestic (Katrina- bush and Pay to play – Bliar) and international issues (shrub Niger Uranium – bliar Saudi arms bribes) Bliar just like his owner was regularly getting sprung in flagrante, with his fingers jammed in the cash drawer.
Well fellow cynics and loathers of the slimy bliar, will be pleased to know nothing has changed.
Even though bliar seems to have decided that he could best outwit the forces of chance in his role as a jet setting apologist for israel’s theft and murders by starting out with shit. If you begin with shit surely that can’t turn to shit, can it?
Yes it van if you are a low rent scumbag like Tony Bliar any other outcome is inconceivable. The Independent tells the story.
Israeli strikes leave Blair project with major repairs
Gaza plant designed to protect 10,000 lives suffers damage
One of Tony Blair’s flagship projects as international Middle East envoy – and one of his most concrete achievements to date – was emergency work on a sewage plant in northern Gaza to stop it overflowing and endangering the lives of some 10,000 people.
Now, it has emerged that Israeli forces severely damaged parts of the plant during their 22-day offensive and the project – which was due for completion at the end of this week – has been delayed for two months, with repairs expected to cost $200,000 (£140,000).
Although the damage to Mr Blair’s project close to the border with Israel in northern Gaza is modest compared with the overall destruction across the Strip and a Gazan death toll put by the Palestinian Ministry of Health at more than 1,200, it has considerable political and diplomatic significance. It is virtually the only major development aid project which has been allowed to go ahead since Israel imposed its blockade on Gaza 18 months ago. . .
Blair, who has already raised the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, had worked intensively to secure Israeli approval for vital components to be brought into Gaza for the works despite Israel’s 18-month-long economic siege. . .
The damage to the project also prolongs the period before pressure can be relieved on the waste water lagoons at Beit Lahiya. This is necessary to remove the risk of a repeat of the flood which engulfed a nearby Bedouin encampment in March 2007, when five Palestinians were killed in the overflow of raw sewage after the earth walls of the cesspool collapsed and another 1,500 local residents were displaced. A lesser risk is that the level of the sewage lakes will reach the overflow which would pump the sewage on to the crowded streets of Jabalya, another northern Gaza town. . .
Those zionists sure showed old bliar what they think of his limpwristed efforts to have peace break out in the ME didn’t they? As Norman Finkelstein wrote yesterday in Counterpunch* : ” The fundamental motives behind the latest Israeli attack on Gaza lie elsewhere: (1) in the need to restore Israel’s “deterrence capacity,” and (2) in the threat posed by a new Palestinian “peace offensive.”
The issue would be side-splittingly funny if it weren’t for the reality of what the israeli sub plot of demeaning the bliar, spelled out for the people of gaza ie “See you filthy Arabs you even sleep and eat in your own shit.” – no mention of the israeli role in creating that circumstance of course.
Sadly for the already shat upon beyond belief, Congolese peoples, during the Gaza horror, showing that even a thicko like Bliar can read the signs, we were told by the bliar spin machine that “Tony Bliar has announced he plans to use his statesmen’s skills to bring peace to central Africa, that he has appointed himself ‘Peace Envoy’ to the Congo.”
Even though a bullet is too good for the bloke, I would prefer to see him suffer the rendition process which he airily condemned so many others to, a bullet would at least prevent him from causing any more harm to people who have no knowledge of, or interest in the ugly and ultimately futile attempts of the Bliars to elevate themselves to membership of the inner elite.
The Congo must seem inviting to the Bliars. So many other whitefellas, some even stupider, but equally greedy as the bliars have made themselves quadrillionaires from that beautiful if repeatedly raped, part of our planet. Of course Bliar is gonna go there, where alliances shift every day and even a somewhat intellectually challenged mainchancer, who is blessed with the gift of the gab, can wheedle, wheel, deal and betray his way into a few billion dollars and a few million dead humans.
It was the Congo where whitey first introduced the appalling practise of hacking off the arm of a child to force obedience from the child’s parents. Yes although we are now told that this is one of the insidious horrors of black African self rule, in fact it was white Belgique plantation overseers who first decided that the way to counter the workers (slaves in actuality) laziness (more likely fatigue brought about by a lack of nutrition) and ‘encourage’ them to meet the plantation’s targets was to hack a limb of the children of any worker who failed to meet his/her quota.
Time have not improved the lot of the average human living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, so the Bliar with his usual toadying hypocrisy laden demeanour plans on playing the saint interested only in the welfare of the darkies, whilst he carves out a nice little piece of the action for himself.
Like I said, a bullet is too good for scum of this ilk.
* no more linkage (thanks typepad) so I will try to steer to Finkelstein’s piece with this (cut and paste into address bar on yer browser):
http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein01282009.html
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 29 2009 21:32 utc | 66
does anybody here know anything about Illinois politics, especially the impeachment of Blogojovich? He just gave a closing speech to the rascals who will finally hang him after giving him a fair trial.
it is quite fashionable to hate him and it seems he has few friends. I think he would probably be an interesting guy.
here is the transcript of the speech he gave a little while ago. I really would like to know how much of what he says is pure bull and how much is true.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 29 2009 22:03 utc | 67
performed the mahmoud darwish tonight to a large public with a palestinian group who work normally in the basque country & a palestinain academic, a medievalist who read the poems in arab
on a day where between 2 – 3 million people went on general strike. in my town – enormous
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 30 2009 1:11 utc | 68
performed the mahmoud darwish tonight to a large public with a palestinian group who work normally in the basque country & a palestinain academic, a medievalist who read the poems in arab
on a day where between 2 – 3 million people went on general strike. in my town – enormous
& wonderin if malooga has my email
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 30 2009 1:12 utc | 69
r’giap…
performed the mahmoud darwish tonight
Nice, so does that mean your health is better? I hope so comrade. None the less, I envy you. That’s got to be some good medicine, body, soul and psyche.
As for malooga, I could be mistaken, however, I think he has said before that his internet abilities are intermittent, meaning, I think he has to log on from his local cafe’ or library and only does so as time permits. Hope that helps…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 30 2009 2:06 utc | 70
thanks uncle – meanwhile the turkish president moons the pitiful peres at davos
& the courageous correa gave a fantastic speech in belem
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 30 2009 2:16 utc | 71
I have a buddy, Dan, who is a marvelous photographer. I really admire him for his talent, (he is one of the few photographers I wish I shot like) and he always sending me images from his latest assignment or project, to fan the flames of envy and keep me dreaming about maybe trying to restart my former career.
Right now he has cornered the market on Kodak’s Kodachrome film with the hopes of shooting the last roll ever developed. He has been trying to convince Kodak to continue making the film through its the 75th anniversary which will be 2010. He has a site devoted to the whole project at:Kodachrome project
As neat as his site there is, he just emailed me Kodachrome images he shot at the inauguration, which rock!
He told me he got a wild hair and at the last minute found a place to crash, a plane ticket and hooked up with some nice people at the event. Here is the link to his flickr site:Dan’s photos
I thought you might appreciate these, and maybe I’ll get some brownie points too:)
Posted by: David | Jan 30 2009 4:34 utc | 72
Teşekkür ederim bay Erdogan – Thank you Mr. Erdogan
Turkey PM storms off stage over Peres remarks on Gaza
Yuk!!!
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 01/30/2009 | Former USS Cole commander slams Obama on Guantanamo
The former commander of the USS Cole, the American war ship that was struck by a suicide boat in Yemeni waters more than eight years ago, on Thursday slammed President Barack Obama’s orders to close the Guantanamo detention center and reassess the prisoners being held there.
”We shouldn’t make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups,” retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kurt Lippold said in a telephone interview. “We should consider what is best for the American people, which is not to jeopardize those who are fighting the war on terror — or even more adversely impact the families who have already suffered loses as a result of the war.”
Lippold was responding to the decision by a U.S. military judge in Guantanamo to reject a request by Pentagon lawyers to delay next week’s scheduled arraignment of Abd el Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian who’s charged with helping orchestrate the October 2000 suicide bombing of the Cole. The bombing killed 17 U.S. sailors.
Posted by: Fran | Jan 30 2009 17:34 utc | 74
I’ve spent the morning listening to Wallace Shawn’s The Fever, recommended above by Malooga. Astonishing honesty. How do I go on with my day after listening to this piece? By willing myself to obliviousness once again, and begging forgiveness again and again.
Dear God, every muscle in my body aches with the effort of constant lying. I’m twisted, contorted—lying from the minute I get up each day till the minute I go to bed, and even when I’m asleep I think I’m lying. I can’t stop, because the truth is everywhere, it’s in plain sight—
Posted by: catlady | Jan 30 2009 17:52 utc | 75
For some reason I turned up the volume on the TV tonight when a picture flashed up if amerikan prez Obama sitting back in his chair legs splayed wide, obviously in full denunciation mode, while another bloke sitting next to him all hunched up, hung his head in shame.
Hmm thinks I, “Betcha that bloke is getting well paid for his role of public scapegoat.” Interest piqued I turned up the sound to hear B.O. pretending to rip into amerika’s bogeyman de jour, ‘fat cat Wall St executives’. Lehman Brothers boss Dick Fuld has become the poster boy for the assholes, That should be a good thing right? But the banksters aren’t being chatised for their prediliction for loan sharking to African gangsters, so they can become political leaders who then offer up the nation whose political structure they joyfully sabotaged, as collateral to the banks, which then leech every drop of blood they can from the most materially impoverished humans on the planet.
No Obama was ‘angry’ (well that’s what he claimed) because after the pols gave Citibank a $35 billion bailout, the Citibank execs bought a new toy a $50 million Dreamliner from the French!. Obama has been exploiting this on TV to gull the electorate into believing “he’s on their side”.
The tongue-lashing was cover of course. Cover for the fact that Obama is rewarding Wall St, throwing good money after bad by giving the leeches new vast sums, unimaginable wealth.
As far as the plane goes Citibank will just have to pay more for a less efficient boeing with a even more delayed delivery date, and then Obama will shut up.
From Wall Street economist Michaek Hudson’s latest article
After (1) threatening for eight years that the prospect of a trillion-dollar deficit spread over a generation or so is sufficient reason to stiff Social Security recipients and abolish debts to the nation’s retirees, and (2) after the Bush administration provided $8 trillion over the past three months in cash-for-trash swaps of good Treasury bonds for Wall Street junk derivatives, the Obama Administration is now speaking of (3) some $2 to $4 trillion more to be given in just the next week or so.
Remember that phrase which became so popular in the 90’s, Cognitive dissonance? Cognitive dissonance, we were told, was uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously.
Like ” I will protect amerikan workers from cheap imports made by sweatshop labour” as Clinton signs another Free Trade Agreement, or “I did not have sex with that woman” while old Cigar Bill takes his dick outta a young intern’s mouth.
That feeling of Cognitive dissonance, should be returning by now. The lies about a new way forward where amerika will talk to muslim leaders, that provided cover for an amerikan drone attack in Pakistan last weekend which slaughtered an entire family.
Now the whitehouse kabuki of bankers being remonstrated, just to provide cover for the biggest banking giveaway yet.
Say what you like about shrub, I loathe the man, but at least he owned what he did. He was proud of his torturing, same with his attacks on the Pashtu people.
But this Obama mis direction, based around lying, telling people what you think they want to hear, then doing the opposite will cause far more damage to the notion of an amerikan ‘left’ than any rethug could ever hope to do.
Eventually many Obama supporters who wanted some meat of action on the bones of his words, will become his biggest critics whilst the other mob, those who imagine the dem party is the political equuivalent of a football team will become even more vituperative in their attacks on rethugs since that will be the only way of discerning any difference between rethugs and dems. Of course the biggest target for abuse from the ‘dems to the death’ fanbois will be the ‘traitors’ on the left who will be pouring out their contempt for obama by then.
Lotsa talk but no one acknowledging that the solution can never be found in the amerikan political system, that it is the electoral infrastructure that is the real problem.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 30 2009 19:03 utc | 76
catlady
yes, it’s quite a piece
so thanks malooga/please write
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 30 2009 23:09 utc | 77
b, something is up with typepad, posts don’t appear for many minutes after posting leading many to post again.
is there some kind of filtering going on now? it is really quite annoying.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 31 2009 11:33 utc | 79
b, something is up with typepad, posts don’t appear for many minutes after posting leading many to post again.
The process of generating a new page after comment has been posted is sometimes slow. Can’t help it.
catlady-
Thanks for sharing that experience with me. I hope others will take the time to share too.
Posted by: Malooga | Jan 31 2009 13:07 utc | 81
uncle #50, re Minds Effectively Erased
national geographic/cia mind experiments, check out the video.
Posted by: annie | Jan 31 2009 16:35 utc | 82
recommended: From the front-line: Sean Langan and the Taliban – video
Sean Langan will be talking about his Taliban kidnap experiences with award-winning foreign correspondent Sam Kiley at the Frontline Club tonight. Sean, a Frontline Club member and Channel 4 Dispatches journalist, was kidnapped in early 2008 and held hostage for three months.
good interesting tale – funny: minute 50-65 interesting: all of it.
De plus ça change…
Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool – Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington — The CIA’s secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 1 2009 8:06 utc | 86
Is this a repeat of the Awakening Councils program run in Iraq whereby the Taliban will be paid not to attack NATO forces? Shades of M & M Enterprises.
Awakening Councils of Afghanistan?
US-funded program to arm Afghan groups begins
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jan 31, 6:41 am ET
AP –
KABUL, Afghanistan – A U.S.-funded program to train and arm community members in Afghanistan’s most dangerous regions as a way to defend against the Taliban has begun, the country’s interior minister said Saturday.
The U.S. will provide funds to arm the community force with the same weapons used by Afghan police — Kalashnikov rifles, said Interior Ministry Mohammad Hanif Atmar.
Brother, can you spare some change?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 1 2009 9:26 utc | 87
@b
the comments on pages 3 & 3 of the “behind fighting piracy” thread have completely disappeared. please tell me they’re not lost for good!
Posted by: b real | Feb 1 2009 20:06 utc | 88
Yes, I have noticed many page 2 & 3’s “disappeared” or with dead links.
Posted by: Malooga | Feb 1 2009 23:07 utc | 90
re:89&90
their not the only ones, I was hunting the archives earlier and brought up several posts WITHOUT the comment sections in them. I guess b, has just decided to stick with typepad no matter what… sigh.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 2 2009 2:48 utc | 91
for example here’s one, From May 22, 2007, b’s The Violent U.S. Character it has three pages of comments however, pages 2&3 are not accessible…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 2 2009 3:12 utc | 92
@88 – the comments on pages 3 & 3 of the “behind fighting piracy” thread have completely disappeared. please tell me they’re not lost for good!
Page 3, 2, 1 seem normal to me.
yes, they are showing up now. however, they did disappear for at least a period this afternoon. i verified this on two separate machines just to rule out it being an issue on the client end. uncle’s link at #92 works for me now too. glad to see there was no data loss, anyhow.
Posted by: b real | Feb 2 2009 6:26 utc | 94
This link to a January 30 page from China Matters, probably already noted here, is worth a look. So too is this link on Erdogan Brouhaha at Davos. Both contain further links, and both topics might merit “front pageing” here.
In passing, I second RGiap’s endorsement of PressTV: it frequently has excellent coverage and commentary.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Feb 2 2009 9:07 utc | 95