Open Thread – April 19 – Moon of Alabama

April 19, 2011

Open Thread – April 19

John Pilger: Barack Obama worked for a company which is a known CIA front: video – seems to be true – there is longer version of the Pilger 2009 talk the first video is cut from: Obama and Empire

Fits to a news(!) piece McClatchy had today: Obama ran against Bush, but now governs like him

AP writer vs. State Department spokesperson on human rights abuse on Bradley Manning: video

More Black Men Now in Prison System Than Were Enslaved

Please add your views and news.

Posted by b on April 19, 2011 at 17:13 UTC | Permalink

Comments

EH – can’t say more than “Holy Shit” — and thank you very much, Bernard, for being around — I value you MUCH more than I can eloquently express. I do spread the news & views from here … constant learning …

Posted by: Northern Night Owl | Apr 19 2011 17:28 utc | 1

Yes, thank you b, and more holly shit in this film (Lifting The Veil) about Obama:
http://www.metanoia-films.org/compilations.php
More facts about Obama:
http://whatinthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
And if you like the end of the film, I suggest you watching to this conference of Chris Hedges on Death of Liberal Class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNrDej7aXMs

Posted by: auskalo | Apr 19 2011 17:42 utc | 2

Growing crime rates over the past 30 years don’t explain the skyrocketing numbers of black — and increasingly brown — men caught in America’s prison system … In fact, crime rates have fluctuated over the years and are now at historical lows.

In fact, the numbers PERFECTLY explain the situation. Taking criminals off the streets has reduced crime. The strategy worked.

“If we were to return prison populations to 1970 levels, before the War on Drugs began,” she said. “More than a million people working in the system would see their jobs disappear.”

Returning to 1970 would be BAD, not good. In 1970 criminals were terrorizing the population. Street crime was horrendous. Rape, robbery, and murder are the injustice. Putting more rapists, robbers, and murderers in jail is the justice.

Posted by: Tom | Apr 19 2011 17:46 utc | 3

@Tom – In fact, the numbers PERFECTLY explain the situation.
Correlation, which you imply here, does not equal causation. It is stupid to mix those up. That rates your comment as such.

Posted by: b | Apr 19 2011 18:39 utc | 4

Libyan rebel war crimes videos in Business Insider. Nice:
http://www.businessinsider.com/libyan-rebels-war-crimes-2011-4

Posted by: auskalo | Apr 19 2011 18:59 utc | 5

It doesn’t really matter if Obama is a CIA asset or not, because he is behaving as if he were one. Looking at Obama through that lens explains a lot–all his decisions about foreign policy and civil liberties are consistent with what you would expect of a secretive, authoritarian organization like the CIA. The question is, who is it that’s pulling his strings and running the show?
Sarko is also suspected of being an asset, which is entirely consistent with his behavior. Now there’s report of a struggle within French intelligence services for supremacy, French vs. Anglo-Saxon.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article169477.html

Posted by: JohnH | Apr 19 2011 19:04 utc | 6

Interesting report from Britain verifying yet another whopping lie: “Plans to exploit Iraq’s oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world’s largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.” But Dick & Bush constantly denied that it had anything to do with oil.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-between-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html
When listing to any Washington official, the safest bet is to assume they’re just telling another bald faced lie…and then watch what they do–keep a close eye on them.
And then there’s today’s crap about Libya being a “humanitarian” mission, justifying, of course, the use depleted uranium…

Posted by: JohnH | Apr 19 2011 19:04 utc | 7

Correlation, which you imply here, does not equal causation. It is stupid to mix those up. That rates your comment as such.

That’s a cute semantic trick.
1. Your approved author says correlation would equal causation but the numbers don’t line up.
2. I point out that the numbers obviously do line up.
3. You bash me for implying correlation equals causation.
Conclusion? You are a rank hypocrite, a left-wing partisan, and perhaps even an anti-white bigot.
It’s sad that your crystal clear deconstruction of foreign policy propaganda cannot be applied to other issues.

Posted by: Tom | Apr 19 2011 19:40 utc | 8

@Tom #8: Yep, all the buzzwords are there… Tom = Republi-bot.

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Apr 19 2011 20:05 utc | 9

Re: Obama as a CIA asset
By design we don’t know who the spooks are, but my favorite candidate is Leon Panetta. Decades after leaving the Republican Party for being too liberal, and with scant intelligence experience, he was nominated and confirmed as CIA chief with nary a protest from the Party of No.
Other suspects are Louis Freeh and Pappy Bush. Maybe I sound like a hater, but they also received some sensitive appointments for which their résumés don’t provide obvious support.

Posted by: Watson | Apr 19 2011 20:55 utc | 10

Dr. Wellington Yueh sez:

Yep, all the buzzwords are there… Tom = Republi-bot.

One thing we know about the GOP is that it loves “crystal clear deconstruction of foreign policy propaganda” as I described this blog. Certainly, that’s how Sarah Palin or John Boehner would describe the M of A blog.

Posted by: Tom | Apr 19 2011 21:41 utc | 11

Tom–
I believe it was Samuel Clemens who wrote, “There are three kinds of lie; Lies, damn lies and statistics.”
I think the ’70’s were so violent in the U.S.A because of the guys coming home from Vietnam were all screwed-up in the head from the war. And I’d be willing to bet money that at some point we’re going to witness the same mess all over again thanks to number of the current conflicts we’re sending our soldiers off to. Violence begets violence.
But I’m just a dumb hick trying to keep my head down, and off the radar, while hiding in the Rockies harassing the trouts…
Peace

Posted by: DaveS | Apr 19 2011 22:01 utc | 12

I haven’t had much to say recently. Partially because being too busy with the domestic fallout from earthquakes and a government in the thrall of banksters, there simply isn’t time to write of the issues outside of the region I inhabit. But also because there is really nothing to say, the global horror continues, & I find no pleasure in being correct in predictions of where the Arab ‘revolution’ and the Libyan intervention would end.
I for one would be much happier to be wrong about those things, to be wrong about my current instinct which tells me the UN call for a temporary cease fire a week after rejecting the Libyan government offer of a permanent cease fire is nothing more than a tactic to stall the Libyan government advance until sufficient fukUS machine guns and ‘advisers’ have been shipped in to Misrata.
I am writing now cause I have just got back from a a drive into town, a trip that takes some time so I turn on the radio to listen & hasten the journey. I only ever catch fragments, cause my journey isn’t sufficient time to hear the beginning of some spiel or its conclusion. Tuning a commercial free station that favours western classical music and serious yarns about serious business, even if I violently disagree with the tenor of the music or the conversation, often the case.
Still either of those get me to to think without too much distraction from driving. The kids hate it so avoid coming if I’m gonna “have the radio on”.
This morning’s radio show featured some english literary critic who was yammering on about his new book that discussed ‘relationships’. Primarily relationships between early 20th century poets. Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen featured quite heavily along with a discussion of how they got past Rupert Brooke’s glorification of war and began writing about the horrific reality of WW1,
The un-named (while I was tuned in)literary critic referred to Brooke’s ‘different’ style. It is important to remember that afaik Brooke never actually saw action, he died en route to Gallipoli the killing ground for so many Turks, kiwis, Aussies, Indians, and Canadians as well Brooke’s mob – the warmongering english.
Despite some inquiry by the radio host, the ‘literary critic’ wasn’t at all vehement about the role which Owen, Sassoon and Graves, amongst others, played in providing a voice for the 20th century anti-war & pacifist movements.
Then this critic – book peddler or whatever his claim to fame is, went on to say that Owen & Sassoon had been enjoying a minor renaissance – that amerikan troops were being read the WW1 poems before embarkation for Afghanistan.
Apparently to better prepare them for the ‘realities of war’.
I just about swerved off the road in horror and I reckon the interviewer sounded a bit gob-smacked too cause she said something along the lines of ‘how sanitised was the poetry?’, to which the low life pommie scum replied ‘Not at all. The amerikan military decided the best was to inure their cannon-fodder to the realities of war is to present them with that reality and ‘discuss’ it before they actually confront anything horrific.
As soon as I got home I did a google on Sassoon, Owen Graves us troops Afghanistan’ or some such and found a number of hits, including this one from the Independent, which may be written by whoever it was on the radio this morning.
It appears to be true as in:

Whatever faint whiff of PR may hang about Cameron’s choice, his admiration for Owen’s poetry is probably genuine. He is reflecting a preference shared by many, including soldiers, both in the UK and the US. American troops training for Afghanistan studied not only maps and military procedures, but also poems by Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke. “Dulce et Decorum Est” in particular got through to one young sergeant from Portland, Oregon: “Just by what he said you actually can feel it, or you can get a mental picture of the death or the awful sights.”

“Jolly good, what. See we can spin up anything and resell it to amerika to prove that england is the epitome of language and culture, next an article on how John Lennon inspired the marines to slice more ears off gooks around Da Nang.”
Imagine no ears
I wonder if you can
No need for pinko lies
In and around Da Nang
Imagine all the people
giving us all the world
It is this bit here that I find most offensive:

It is true that the 1920s and 30s saw an outpouring of brilliant war memoirs – notably Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, Graves’s Goodbye to All That and Brittain’s Testament of Youth. But whether these changed broader perceptions of the war is questionable. Instead, that change came with the debunking 1960s. . . .
. . . If the 1960s politicised the Great War, the 1980s and 90s helped to humanise it.

By delaying the anti-war impact of these poets work until the 1960’s, an era which is regarded with some contempt by many younger westerners, the author is not only saying that these poets weren’t the pacifists, which some may have been led to believe, he is also laying the blame for that misconception, by putting the boot into a corpse already on the canvas. I have no interest in resurrecting some boomer Vs gen x, y & z cause I remember the disgust with which many of us considered our immediate predecessors, the WW2 generation, and how we came to regret that attitude when it became almost too late, as they were dying off.
All the evidence eg Graves and Sassoon’s antiwar opinions expressed during WW1 points to men vehemently opposed to war in all its forms.
Graves did intervene and persuade Sassoon to ease up a bit on this, but that wasn’t because he disapproved of the cause, it was because he (Graves) was concerned about the effect of military punishment on Sassoon who was already sick from exposure to gas and the bad diet inadequate facilities of the trenches in WW1.
Despite what this Ricketts bloke reckons, I reckon Siegfried Sassoon would be spinning in his grave if he knew:
“If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
the tale of a soldier who was a bit slow in getting on his gas mask had been turned into a heroic epic designed to get more young blokes out killing.
The civilian casualties in WW1 must have been large but the nature of trench warfare would have meant that fighting casualties would be much higher, so these poets relative silence on the issues of civilian casualties shouldn’t be interpreted as tolerance of the huge rate of civilian death in Afghanistan.
These creeps will pervert anything in the scramble to justify their horrors.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Apr 19 2011 23:53 utc | 13

@Debs #13:
Twisting words is easy! It’s much harder to pervert or mute such works as the paintings of Otto Dix.

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Apr 20 2011 0:09 utc | 14

Tom, don’t waste your breath talking about the color of crime on this blog. Don’t you know, it’s THE MAN that is the criminal.

Posted by: CMather | Apr 20 2011 0:24 utc | 15

Dr. Yueh, we would be remiss if we forgot to mention Dr. Kevorkian.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kevorkian/aboutk/art/war.html

The Gourmet (War)
What is war? Is it a soldier dying, or guns, or bombs, or crosses, or weeping mothers, or sport, or patriotism, or valor, or high paying jobs? What is war? Not hell. For that is merely evil. War is worse than evil. It is mind-boggling suicide –mass suicide– with humankind devouring or trying to devour itself. In vain attemps to assuage some sort of weird, innate (and apparently insatiable) appetite nurtured by our true and beloved God, Mars, we will not settle for less than the “flower of evolution” as the main course, embellished by bountiful side dishes and fanciful shakers filled with the “fruits” of our marvelous hands and big starving brains. How long will we persist in this lethal nonsense? How long before we really believe that salvation lies not in an insane paradox fostered by brute and selfish gluttony, but in the far more “nutritious” and healthful viand in the sadly neglected garden of human compassion and understanding? Considering the status of brotherhood today, possibly too long.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Apr 20 2011 1:41 utc | 16

And the end of the fight is tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, “A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.”
Kipling wrote those lines in 1892 about India. US Marine Lieutenant Philip Caputo quoted them in A Rumor of War, his 1977 Vietnam memoir. I wonder if it’s on the official reading list of NATO’s current crop of cannon fodder.

Posted by: Watson | Apr 20 2011 2:39 utc | 17

b, i recommend reading the prison industry

Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.
There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.” The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports.
What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?
“The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps.”
The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”

more @ the link.
fyi, if it was my blog i would dump tom, he’s rude.

Posted by: annie | Apr 20 2011 2:43 utc | 18

http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-14/bostonglobe/29418371_1_rebel-stronghold-civilians-rebel-positions
Posted about by Eli at Left Eye on the News: op-ed about feeling Obama lied us into Libya. Not smoking gun, but decent circumstantial evidence….
Night all.

Posted by: jawbone | Apr 20 2011 3:04 utc | 19

Tom @#3 raises a very good point. If crime is down, and historically high numbers of minorities are in prison, then there absolutely must be a PERFECT relationship between those two variables. Obviously, as Tom points out, the “strategy worked,” although Tom fails to aknowledge that this “strategy” was not invented by the GOP and he does not give proper credit to the former Soviet Union under Josef Stalin for having done such groundbreaking work in formulating this “strategy” in the first place.
The problem is that we are not following this “strategy” to its logical conclusion. It costs a great deal of money to feed and house prisoners of the state, even in situations in which prisons have become privatized for-profit industries. This privatization has certainly had an impact on the conviction rate, but the sad fact remains that criminals or impoverished potential criminals remain an unjust burden upon non-convicted affluent potential criminals.
This is easily remedied. The financial burden that a convicted criminal or impoverished potential criminal requires in order to remain in a state of semi-productivity decreases ENORMOUSLY after said individual’s demise. The logical course of action then is to speed up the demise-rate of those individuals that the “strategy” has caught up so unproductively. Work camps have historically been used towards this end, however at no time in history have so many impoverished potential criminals been incarcerated and, as the saying goes, “many hands make light work” thus mitigating the mortality rate somewhat. A more efficient means must be discovered in order to increase this rate.
Some suggestions, such as lining these impoverished potential criminals up and shooting them, while apparently the obvious solution, becomes problematic when one realizes the priority for ammunition to be shipped to international frontiers where it can be used against foreign impoverished potential criminals. A way around this would be to use chambers or mobile vans into which impoverished potential criminals may be placed where a poison gas distribution system can increase their mortality rate without using up the ammunition that is so badly needed elsewhere.
Of course, in order to maximize the utilization of deceased impoverished potential criminals, some use for their carcasses would need to be implemented. The immediate solution that presents itself is that these carcasses should be consumed directly by the affluent potential criminals. This should serve the dual purposes of decreasing the crime rate as well as lowering the cost of foodstuffs for the affluent. This strategy can, of course, only be good for the nation and I want to thank patriots like Tom for pointing us into such an obvious good direction.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 20 2011 7:50 utc | 20

Bravo, Monolycus #20!
Your modest proposal shows that you are not numbed by the horror of what is going on, and your ironic clear-eyed suggestions are brilliant lights on its reality!

Posted by: lambent1 | Apr 20 2011 9:54 utc | 21

Best news I’ve seen in a while – http://www.counterpunch.org/amin04192011.html

Posted by: Maracatu | Apr 20 2011 12:36 utc | 22

I vote for not dumping Tom. Buffoonery often tends to elicit gems from our friends who too infrequently drop in to share their enthusiastic insights.

Posted by: Juannie | Apr 20 2011 12:54 utc | 23

@20, I have just the answer. We can all get in on this ground-floor opportunity and get this thing, quite literally, rolling in no time. An IPO will be forthcoming in five years, maybe less. There’s a lot of useless eaters to prosecute and execute, and their organs are in high demand. Who says I’m not entrepreneurial?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HG21Ad01.html

The move from firing squad to lethal injection “demonstrates tremendous progress in China’s criminal-judgment proceedings”, Yin Yong, director of Zhejiang province’s Supreme Court, told the state media last month.
First tried out in 1997 in Yunnan province – a southwestern region bordering the Golden Triangle and notorious for its drug trafficking – death vans are now ready for use in booming industrialized places where crime rates have soared, such as the coastal province of Zhejiang. That province plans to start using them from September…..
The vans are now in vogue because they allow for death sentences to be carried out without the usual trip to the execution grounds and they are cheaper – each execution van is priced at about 500,000 yuan (US$60,000) and, of course, can be reused. Lethal injections require only four people to assist in the execution, while the practice of death by firing squad needs numerous guards at the execution site and along the road to the site…..
Yet as mobile execution chambers begin to roll silently into more and more towns, making capital punishment easier and faster to deliver, fears have risen among human-rights activists and death-penalty opponents that China is relying more on lethal injection because it is harvesting organs of executed prisoners in an effort to supply the country’s growing market for organ transplants.

Don’t you just love State Capitalism? Yep, a New World Order, with China at the helm will be absolutely glorious for the Inglorious Bastards.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Apr 20 2011 13:09 utc | 24

Have to agree w/Juannie @23
You can learn a lot from those we disagree.
@debs
always enjoy your erudite insights about the horror of the situation..
@Monolycus
Drink? your choice;that was worth it…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 20 2011 14:29 utc | 25

@Unca $cam #25
I’m sorry, friend. I don’t take liquids into my body. There’s a PERFECT correlation between rising crime rates in the warm summer months and the sales of beverages. Obviously, if I were to contribute to the consumption of liquids, I would inadvertently be contributing to rising crime rates… and as a responsible potential criminal citizen, my conscience will not allow me to do that.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 20 2011 14:45 utc | 26

from DaveS#12 “But I’m just a dumb hick trying to keep my head down, and off the radar, while hiding in the Rockies harassing the trouts”
please , send some of you knowledge and experience about writing and hiding.
I notice , I feel paranoic. Best and simple kripto , would be possible to maintain a web log protected?.

Posted by: an idiot | Apr 20 2011 15:19 utc | 27

Morroc Bama @ 24– Well, if the Republican plans for Medicare and SocSec go through, or if Obama gets as far too the right as he tends to go on “protecting” and “fixing” Medicare and Medicaid, even SocSec, we’ll need to have the Soylent Green plants up and running in in a little over a decade, two at the outmost.
So, yeah, organ harvesting, then body puling for Soylent Green.
Whoohooo! World hunger taken care of as well!

Posted by: jawbone | Apr 20 2011 22:16 utc | 28

To the commenter calling her/him self an idiot:
That would be the blind leading the blind… I don’t really know about either writing or hiding. I think the best defense is to play the nice harmless village idiot and lend neighbors a hand (not a handout), be nice to animals and children, and don’t take anything you say or write too seriously. Who is who said that we’re here (on earth) for a good time, not a long time? Well they nailed it.
Karma can be a harsh mistress and it’s always safer to be nice than it is to be angry. At least that’s what I tell myself when I start ranting at some hopeless knucklehead driving stupid in front of me.
Peace
DaveS
Though I still often do it that way…

Posted by: DaveS | Apr 21 2011 1:20 utc | 29

ok after reading Monolycus (inspired by tom!) i now agree w/juannie.

Posted by: annie | Apr 21 2011 2:14 utc | 30

annie, you may really appreciate this (or not;)
U$’s post on the nuclear fallout here in the U.S. got me thinking just a wee bit about all the earthquakes I’ve been watching here: CA earthquake map and for the complacent midwesterners and east coasters: U.S. earthquake map –not much there today… but there have been a rash all over the place. I hope yur trailer ain’t parked on backfill.
And this piece: Nuclear Power and Earthquake zones
Something to read before bedtime if you don’t want to sleep. But a couple of things; I’m calling BS on the fallout map dangers, I think they’re too optimistic. And while working at the paper there I toured the Diablo Canyon plant in the photo.
One of the first things people notice on that part of the coast are the emergency sirens mounted on poles everywhere for forty or fifty miles. These give residents a feeling of safety 😉 but they are useful for other emergency purposes which makes them ok in my book, regardless of original intent.
And another random note: The north entrance to the plant is from Port San Luis and painted on the pavement at the entrance is the famous ‘Blue Line’ that marks the point between public and private land, and if crossed, protesters will be arrested. That line was painted years before I moved there, and I imagine, it’s still there even after all the years it’s been since I’ve left. If you ever find yourself in the neighborhood of that line, you should have breakfast at FatCats, at the Port, which I imagine is also still there. They have awesome food. And if you’re lucky enough to be around when there is a race, you should have a cocktail with the Avila Beach Yacht Club… kinda like a place Rodney Dangerfield might have owned, But don’t tell them I sent you 😉
Peace (and sweet dreams)

Posted by: DaveS | Apr 21 2011 13:59 utc | 31

I think the ’70’s were so violent in the U.S.A because of the guys coming home from Vietnam were all screwed-up in the head from the war. And I’d be willing to bet money that at some point we’re going to witness the same mess all over again thanks to number of the current conflicts we’re sending our soldiers off to. Violence begets violence. – DavesS @ 12
Worse than then – more rejected and neglected vets, vets more badly incapacitated, less family or larger group solidarity, less community support, and more expense which will be rationed / curtailed / cut off. In Vietnam the badly injured died instead of surviving, not like today. The psychological damage (why did I shoot that little girl, who looks like my daughter? to mention only a stereotype) will be greater.
(Absolute numbers?)
What is war? Is it a soldier dying, or guns, or bombs, or crosses, or weeping mothers, or sport, or patriotism, or valor, or high paying jobs? What is war? Not hell. For that is merely evil. War is worse than evil.
-quote of Kervokian posted by Morroco Bama.
Today, war is nothing but a profit making machine for arms producers and dealers. These remain, in first place, the US and the UK, though others like Switzerland and Israel (to mention only two on a long list) do their bit to get into the trade. Encouraging, sparking war, on any pretext whatsoever, is necessary for the arms and security trade, all their subcontractors, for them to keep the money rolling in.

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 22 2011 13:08 utc | 32

“We’re a nation of laws. We don’t let individuals make their own decisions about how the laws operate. He broke the law.”
Glenn Greenwald dissects Obama’s recent comments to protesters regarding Bradley Manning.

But even more fascinating is Obama’s invocation of America’s status as a “nation of laws” to justify why Manning must be punished. That would be a very moving homage to the sanctity of the rule of law — if not for the fact that the person invoking it is the same one who has repeatedly engaged in the most extraordinary efforts to shield Bush officials from judicial scrutiny, investigation, and prosecution of every kind for their war crimes and surveillance felonies.

Posted by: catlady | Apr 24 2011 2:51 utc | 33

I just re-read Mono’s brilliant editorial and am quite horrified to realize that there are many people who think this is a good idea. the way things are going, i would not even be surprised to find out that this is how things are done even now.
with the meat industry as it is, entire animals are used up with little or no waste, to throw a couple of human corpses in with all the cows and pigs and sheep and whatever else goes into “meat products” would actually be quite simple. after all, if Chinese entrepreneurs can mix a bit of melamine into milk to raise the fat content, why can’t an eager manager at Hormel throw a few migrant workers into the sausage maker? bottom line looks better and discipline is enforced at the same time.
a rather pleasant thought for Easter Sunday.

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 24 2011 9:08 utc | 34

@catlady #33 – yes; more arguments
in a nation of law, it’s not the executive branch that decides who broke the law; Manning has been tortured instead of having access to lawyer and a fair trial
all behavior infringing on the ever-expanding and vague category of “security” has been explicitly or de facto come under the unaccountable “jurisdiction” of the executive branch
talk of being a nation of law after Guantanamo is ridiculous; and confessions extracted under torture are now being used in trials
also the systematic use of secret plea bargaining, where a weak (i.e., poor) defendant is compelled to admit to be guilty, brings the justice system outside the law; and the rich, under this system, aren’t compelled to make public their misdeeds

Posted by: claudio | Apr 24 2011 9:29 utc | 35

It’s always the darkest before the dawn.
Peace
wv:dunwug

Posted by: DaveS | Apr 24 2011 14:05 utc | 36

bon appétit!

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 25 2011 10:05 utc | 37

If you’re not feeling all that hungry, another good “strategy” for lowering the crime rate is to take as many potential criminals as you can find and put guns, batons, TASERs and badges on them.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 26 2011 5:48 utc | 38

Petreus to CIA Panetta to Pentagon
sciomachy (n.) A fighting with a shadow; a mock contest; an imaginary or futile combat.
Monolycus taught me that..

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 28 2011 1:25 utc | 39

Supreme Court strikes down Class Action lawsuits against Corporations

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 28 2011 1:39 utc | 40

DemocracyNow! headlines today:
“The Associated Press is reporting President Obama is preparing a change in leadership at the CIA and Pentagon. According to the AP, Obama will name CIA Director Leon Panetta to succeed Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, and then Gen. David Petraeus will be nominated to replace Panetta as CIA director. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern criticized the possibility of Petraeus taking the lead of the spy agency, saying it represented “the full militarization of the intelligence community.” Meanwhile, Ryan Crocker has reportedly become the top candidate to become new ambassador to Afghanistan.” [my emphasis]
This is political incest at its seamiest. The corporate, the military, the civilian leadership, are blurring into one fascist collective.

Posted by: Copeland | Apr 28 2011 2:51 utc | 41

2012 is here — are you in?
lol…
What was it, C + Augustus said, about fool me once…?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 28 2011 4:20 utc | 42

@Uncle – Petreus to CIA – as I wrote earlier:

Time for Petraeus to go and indeed Obama considers to sideline him by making him the next CIA chief. They civil spies will likely hate that move. They do want to be under military control and will do their very best to take him down as fast as possible. Something that should have been done years ago.

Posted by: b | Apr 28 2011 5:50 utc | 43

Convicted RFK assassin says girl manipulated him

By LINDA DEUTSCH The Associated Press
updated 1 hour 52 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES — Convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan was manipulated by a seductive girl in a mind control plot to shoot Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his bullets did not kill the presidential candidate, lawyers for Sirhan said in new legal papers.
The documents filed this week in federal court detail extensive interviews with Sirhan during the past three years, some done while he was under hypnosis.
The papers point to a mysterious girl in a polka-dot dress as the controller who led Sirhan to fire a gun in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel. But the documents suggest a second person shot and killed Kennedy while using Sirhan as a diversion.
For the first time, Sirhan said under hypnosis that on a cue from the girl he went into “range mode” believing he was at a firing range and seeing circles with targets in front of his eyes.
“I thought that I was at the range more than I was actually shooting at any person, let alone Bobby Kennedy,” Sirhan was quoted as saying during interviews with Daniel Brown, a Harvard University professor and expert in trauma memory and hypnosis. He interviewed Sirhan for 60 hours with and without hypnosis, according to the legal brief.

Like a duck in a noose ?
“You think my fallacy is all wrong?”
-Marshall McLuhan’s favorite line for hecklers

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 29 2011 4:04 utc | 44

“Fourth Reich culture, americana”
Rage Against The Machine – No Shelter
The main attraction, distraction
got ya number than number than numb
Empty ya pockets son, they got you thinkin that
What ya need is what they sellin
Make you think that buyin is rebellin’
From the theaters to malls on every shore
The thin line between entertainment and war
The frontline is everywhere, there be no shelter here
Spielberg the nightmare works so push it far
Amistad was a whip, the truth feather to tar
Memories erased and burned to scar
Trade in ya history for a VCR
Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth reich culture, Americana
Chained to the dream they got ya searchin for
The thin line between entertainment and war
There’ll be no shelter here!
The frontline is everywhere
There’ll be no shelter here!
The frontline is everywhere
There’ll be no shelter here!
The frontline is everywhere
There’ll be no shelter here!
The frontline is everywhere
Hospitals not profit full
The market bull’s got pockets full
To advertise some hip disguise
View the world from American eyes
Tha poor adore keep feeding for more
Tha thin line between entertainment and war
fix the need, develop the taste
Buy the products or get laid to waste
Coca-Cola was back in the veins in Saigon
In Rambo 2, he got a dope pair of Nikes on
Godzilla pure motherfuckin’ filler
Get your eyes off the real killer
Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth reich culture, Americana
Chained to the dream they got you searchin for
Tha thin line between entertainment and war
There’ll be no shelter here!
The frontline is everywhere
There’ll be no shelter here!
The frontline is everywhere
There’ll be no shelter here!
The frontline is everywhere
There’ll be no shelter here!
The frontline is everywhere
American eyes, American eyes
View the world from American eyes
Bury the past, rob us blind
And leave nothin behind
American eyes, American eyes
View the world from American eyes
Bury the past, rob us blind
And leave nothin behind
Just stare!
Just stare!
Just stare!
Just stare!
and live the nightmare!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 29 2011 6:55 utc | 45

Long”>http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MD27Df02.html>Long view speculation on Afghanistan.
Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Iraq, to take over in Afghanistan. The pattern continues to replicate itself. How long till the U.S. is again slowly squeezed out again? Not soon enough.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 29 2011 7:52 utc | 46

Wal Mart CEO: “Shoppers Are Running Out Of Money”; There Is “No Sign Of A Recovery”
Wal-Mart to bring back guns to hundreds of US stores

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 29 2011 17:45 utc | 47

behold the mighty tornado. amazing before and after pictures.
link

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 30 2011 12:38 utc | 48

Osama bin Laded dead according to the local fishwrap.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
i find the placement of his picture next to that of “Pippa the royal Hotness” most telling. La belle et la bete.
But fear not, his DNA will be tested, obama gets to speechify and happyness will ensue.
what ever….

Posted by: sabine | May 2 2011 3:18 utc | 49

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