wounded knee...
....today is the anniversary date of the wounded knee massacre of 1890 on pine ridge in south dakota. was sitting in the coffee shop this morning staring out to the still dark street....
indian people are still dying , just more slowly now, by practice and policy. genocide still an open and active force....not at all past tense (in term or effect)
leonard peltier is still in prison
the sky here, cries softly this morning
an near empty city bus stops at the stop, and rolls on, followed by a huge suv with a single occupant bearing a new 30 day tag
it's easy to connect the dots
can also see my reflection in the glass, as i peer out to the street
am still a part of the problem
by tomorrow in 1890, crimson will offer contrast to freshly fallen snow
today, the rain from the sky offers the chance for new, and continued life
peace, michael
indian people are still dying , just more slowly now, by practice and policy. genocide still an open and active force....not at all past tense (in term or effect)
leonard peltier is still in prison
the sky here, cries softly this morning
an near empty city bus stops at the stop, and rolls on, followed by a huge suv with a single occupant bearing a new 30 day tag
it's easy to connect the dots
can also see my reflection in the glass, as i peer out to the street
am still a part of the problem
by tomorrow in 1890, crimson will offer contrast to freshly fallen snow
today, the rain from the sky offers the chance for new, and continued life
peace, michael
Rumsfeld admits to "ghosting" detainee
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that he "ghosted" a detainee, meaning that he made the decision to hold a prisoner without keeping any records of the fact.
While prisoners of war can be theoretically stripped of their rights by calling them other names (like "unlawful combatants"), they are probably most effectively stripped of all rights by keeping their imprisonment secret. That is what Rumsfeld says he did.
An account of what we know on this matter can be found on page 110 of a new report by Congressman John Conyers called "The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War." http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5769
Following a catalog of evidence of other crimes sanctioned by top Bush Administration officials, the report reads:
While prisoners of war can be theoretically stripped of their rights by calling them other names (like "unlawful combatants"), they are probably most effectively stripped of all rights by keeping their imprisonment secret. That is what Rumsfeld says he did.
An account of what we know on this matter can be found on page 110 of a new report by Congressman John Conyers called "The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War." http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5769
Following a catalog of evidence of other crimes sanctioned by top Bush Administration officials, the report reads:
Journalists should expose secrets, not keep them
Journalists should be in the business of providing timely information
to the public. But some -- notably at the top rungs of the profession
-- have become players in the power games of the nation’s capital.
And more than a few seem glad to imitate the officeholders who want
to decide what the public shouldn’t know.
When the New York Times front page broke the story of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying, the newspaper’s editors had good reason to feel proud. Or so it seemed. But there was a troubling backstory: The Times had kept the scoop under wraps for a long time.
The White House did what it could -- including, as a last-ditch move, an early December presidential meeting that brought Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office -- in its efforts to persuade the Times not to report the story. The good news is that those efforts ultimately failed. The bad news is that they were successful for more than a year.
When the New York Times front page broke the story of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying, the newspaper’s editors had good reason to feel proud. Or so it seemed. But there was a troubling backstory: The Times had kept the scoop under wraps for a long time.
The White House did what it could -- including, as a last-ditch move, an early December presidential meeting that brought Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office -- in its efforts to persuade the Times not to report the story. The good news is that those efforts ultimately failed. The bad news is that they were successful for more than a year.
A New York Times editorial contemplates Iraq
These days, editorials barely matter. Few people outside the professional political classes bother to read them. It's a form of writing as dead as the dodo, so we should find a specimen that is still in decent enough condition to be stuffed for the benefit of posterity.
By great good luck, the day after Christmas, the New York Times produced an absolutely perfect specimen of the editorial genre. Devoted to the elections in Iraq held on Dec. 15, it should be carted off at once to the Museum of Natural History and put in the "journalism" diorama next to the green eyeshade.
By great good luck, the day after Christmas, the New York Times produced an absolutely perfect specimen of the editorial genre. Devoted to the elections in Iraq held on Dec. 15, it should be carted off at once to the Museum of Natural History and put in the "journalism" diorama next to the green eyeshade.
A moral issue
AUSTIN, Texas -- 2006 makes the ninth year in a row the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour. It's bad economics, it's bad policy, it's stupid, it's unfair, and it's high damn time to do something about it. It is also, as Sen. Edward Kennedy says, a moral issue.
The Democrats have a new strategy that may finally get the Republicans off the pot. They're working to get a minimum wage increase on state ballots, including Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas and Montana. The theory is that putting a minimum-wage increase on the ballot does for Democrats what putting on an anti-gay marriage proposition does for Republicans -- it gets out the base.
Of the seven states with the best chance to have minimum wage ballot initiatives, five were decided by less that 10 percentage points in the most recent presidential election. In theory, this should scare the happy pappy out of the Republicans, who will then vote to increase the minimum wage the first chance they get in Congress, thus assuring an increase either way. Clever, eh?
The Democrats have a new strategy that may finally get the Republicans off the pot. They're working to get a minimum wage increase on state ballots, including Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas and Montana. The theory is that putting a minimum-wage increase on the ballot does for Democrats what putting on an anti-gay marriage proposition does for Republicans -- it gets out the base.
Of the seven states with the best chance to have minimum wage ballot initiatives, five were decided by less that 10 percentage points in the most recent presidential election. In theory, this should scare the happy pappy out of the Republicans, who will then vote to increase the minimum wage the first chance they get in Congress, thus assuring an increase either way. Clever, eh?
White phosphorous: the U.S. used it; the U.S. says it's illegal
The U.S. military used white phosphorous as a weapon in Fallujah, and the U.S. military says such use is illegal. That's one heck of a fog fact (Larry Beinhart's term for a fact that is neither secret nor known). This fact has appeared in an article in the Guardian (UK) and been circulated on the internet, but has just not interested the corporate media in the United States.
It interests Congressman John Conyers, however. Last week, Conyers released a 273-page report titled "The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War." This 273-page report covers many war-related crimes, including the use of white phosphorous. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5769
It interests Congressman John Conyers, however. Last week, Conyers released a 273-page report titled "The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War." This 273-page report covers many war-related crimes, including the use of white phosphorous. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5769
A man without a country
Kurt Vonnegut, at age 82, has published over two dozen books. His latest is called "A Man Without a Country." It's a book that is brutally honest in its hopelessness, in fact – I think – overly hopeless, and yet humorous. It may even be hopeless in order to better be humorous. Vonnegut discusses in the book the use of tragedy to heighten laughter. But certainly the humor works to lighten the load of dismay and despair that this book ever-so-lightly dumps on us.
"I know of very few people," Vonnegut writes, "who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren." Later he writes this epitaph for the Earth: "The good Earth – we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy."
"I know of very few people," Vonnegut writes, "who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren." Later he writes this epitaph for the Earth: "The good Earth – we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy."
Rejecting Arnold
The medieval town in which Arnold Schwarzenegger grew up has rightly rejected his medieval murder of Stanley "Tookie" Williams.
The Terminator's nickname has taken on a twisted new dimension. His Austrian home town is horrified, along with sane human beings throughout the rest of the world. Above all, this was a fascist killing.
For the full horror of what Schwarzenegger has done in American terms, we must hearken back to the witch trials of the 1600s.
In Salem and elsewhere in New England, Puritan fanatics took the loud hysteria of scheming adolescents as "evidence" of deviltry. In 1692-3 a score of citizens---nearly all of them women---were "convicted" of witchcraft.
The charges were sick and absurd. Many of the accused were esteemed grandmothers. Most were independent gardeners, farmers, craftspeople or in business for themselves. In many cases, family feuds or the coveting of land and property were at the core of the accusations.
The Terminator's nickname has taken on a twisted new dimension. His Austrian home town is horrified, along with sane human beings throughout the rest of the world. Above all, this was a fascist killing.
For the full horror of what Schwarzenegger has done in American terms, we must hearken back to the witch trials of the 1600s.
In Salem and elsewhere in New England, Puritan fanatics took the loud hysteria of scheming adolescents as "evidence" of deviltry. In 1692-3 a score of citizens---nearly all of them women---were "convicted" of witchcraft.
The charges were sick and absurd. Many of the accused were esteemed grandmothers. Most were independent gardeners, farmers, craftspeople or in business for themselves. In many cases, family feuds or the coveting of land and property were at the core of the accusations.
This could scarcely be clearer
AUSTIN, Texas -- The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Thirty-five years ago, Richard Milhous Nixon, who was crazy as a bullbat, and J. Edgar Hoover, who wore women's underwear, decided some Americans had unacceptable political opinions. So they set our government to spying on its own citizens, basically those who were deemed insufficiently like Crazy Richard Milhous.
For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents. There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of our country.
The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John Yoo, who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.
For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents. There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of our country.
The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John Yoo, who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.
Fog Facts
Larry Beinhart, author of "Wag the Dog" and "The Librarian," has done us a remarkable service with the publication of a new small nonfiction book titled "Fog Facts." He has given language to a new and critically important concept, that of the fact that is neither secret nor known. By "fog facts," Beinhart means to indicate pieces of information that have been published on back pages of business sections of newspapers or picked up by a columnist or two, information that has perhaps been circulated on the internet by those with a passionate interest in the issue and enough free time, information that is accepted as known and established by reporters, editors, producers, and pundits, but which the vast majority of the public has never heard about and would find incredibly important and shocking.