The anti-empire report: Some things you need to know before the world ends
Land of the free, home of the War on Terrorism
"They told us this was one of the world's worst terrorists, and he got the sentence of a drunken driver," said Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, referring to David Hicks, a 31-year-old Australian who in a plea bargain with a US military court will serve nine months in prison, largely in Australia. That's after five years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba without being charged with a crime, without a trial, without a conviction. Under the deal, Hicks agreed not to talk to reporters for one year (a slap in the face of free speech), to forever waive any profit from telling his story (a slap -- mon Dieu! -- in the face of free enterprise), to submit to US interrogation and testify at future US trials or international tribunals (an open invitation to the US government to hound the young man for the rest of his life), to renounce any claims of mistreatment or unlawful detention (a requirement which would be unconstitutional in a civilian US court).
"If the United States were not ashamed of its conduct, it wouldn't hide behind a gag order," said Wizner.)[1]
"They told us this was one of the world's worst terrorists, and he got the sentence of a drunken driver," said Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, referring to David Hicks, a 31-year-old Australian who in a plea bargain with a US military court will serve nine months in prison, largely in Australia. That's after five years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba without being charged with a crime, without a trial, without a conviction. Under the deal, Hicks agreed not to talk to reporters for one year (a slap in the face of free speech), to forever waive any profit from telling his story (a slap -- mon Dieu! -- in the face of free enterprise), to submit to US interrogation and testify at future US trials or international tribunals (an open invitation to the US government to hound the young man for the rest of his life), to renounce any claims of mistreatment or unlawful detention (a requirement which would be unconstitutional in a civilian US court).
"If the United States were not ashamed of its conduct, it wouldn't hide behind a gag order," said Wizner.)[1]
Dead dogs don't bleed
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Mayor Giuliani seemed as sure a bet as you could hope for as the Republican candidate destined to seek the White House in 2008. He rallied his city amid the rubble of the Twin Towers. His, not Bush's, was the firm voice of resolve.
Since that apex in popular esteem, Giuliani's course has been unsteady. His business enterprises and associates have come under unsparing scrutiny, prime among them his former New York City police chief, Bernie Kerik, a former prison warder plucked from obscurity by Giuliani. Last week, prosecutors informed Kerik he will be indicted for serious offenses including tax evasion and misleading federal investigators (Martha Stewart's ticket to conviction).
Since that apex in popular esteem, Giuliani's course has been unsteady. His business enterprises and associates have come under unsparing scrutiny, prime among them his former New York City police chief, Bernie Kerik, a former prison warder plucked from obscurity by Giuliani. Last week, prosecutors informed Kerik he will be indicted for serious offenses including tax evasion and misleading federal investigators (Martha Stewart's ticket to conviction).
Devil weed
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
So of course a guy like Bernie Ellis — who signs his letters with this catchphrase, and who lives it in so many ways, doing what needs to be done, putting himself in the vanguard of vital social movements like the one for fair elections (which is how I know him) — would eventually get nailed for crossing a line.
How easy to have played it safe, but Ellis, who until a year and a half ago lived on a 187-acre farm 40 miles southwest of Nashville, Tenn., and worked as a public health epidemiologist, had been growing, along with other crops, a small amount of medical marijuana on his farm. The recipients over the years, via their social workers, were terminally ill AIDS and cancer patients, who obtained nausea and pain relief from what has been called (by no less than Francis Young, a Drug Enforcement Administration law judge) “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”
So of course a guy like Bernie Ellis — who signs his letters with this catchphrase, and who lives it in so many ways, doing what needs to be done, putting himself in the vanguard of vital social movements like the one for fair elections (which is how I know him) — would eventually get nailed for crossing a line.
How easy to have played it safe, but Ellis, who until a year and a half ago lived on a 187-acre farm 40 miles southwest of Nashville, Tenn., and worked as a public health epidemiologist, had been growing, along with other crops, a small amount of medical marijuana on his farm. The recipients over the years, via their social workers, were terminally ill AIDS and cancer patients, who obtained nausea and pain relief from what has been called (by no less than Francis Young, a Drug Enforcement Administration law judge) “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”
The Martin Luther King you don't see on TV
It's become a TV ritual: Every year on April 4, as Americans
commemorate Martin Luther King's death, we get perfunctory network news
reports about "the slain civil rights leader."
The remarkable thing about these reviews of King's life is that several years - his last years - are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.
Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV.
Why?
It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.
The remarkable thing about these reviews of King's life is that several years - his last years - are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.
Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV.
Why?
It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.
That was an antiwar vote?
Has the end of America's war on Iraq been brought closer by the recent vote in the House of Representatives? On March 23, the full House voted 218 to 212 to set a timeline on the withdrawal of U.S. troops, with Sept. 1, 2008, as the putative date after which war funding might be restricted to withdrawal purposes only. It's not exactly a stringent deadline. It only requires Bush to seek Congressional approval before extending the occupation and spending new funds to do so.
On Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi's website we find her portrait of what U.S. troops will be doing in Iraq following this withdrawal or "redeployment," should it occur late next year on the bill's schedule: "U.S. troops remaining in Iraq may only be used for diplomatic protection, counterterrorism operations and training of Iraqi Security Forces." But does this not bear an eerie resemblance to Bush's presurge war plan? Will the troops being redeployed out of Iraq even come home? No, says Pelosi, as does Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. These troops will go to Afghanistan to battle al Qaeda.
On Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi's website we find her portrait of what U.S. troops will be doing in Iraq following this withdrawal or "redeployment," should it occur late next year on the bill's schedule: "U.S. troops remaining in Iraq may only be used for diplomatic protection, counterterrorism operations and training of Iraqi Security Forces." But does this not bear an eerie resemblance to Bush's presurge war plan? Will the troops being redeployed out of Iraq even come home? No, says Pelosi, as does Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. These troops will go to Afghanistan to battle al Qaeda.
While McCain walks in McNamara’s footsteps
The media spectacle that John McCain made of himself in Baghdad on
April 1 was yet another reprise of a ghastly ritual. Senator McCain
expressed “very cautious optimism” and told reporters that the latest
version of the U.S. war effort in Iraq is “making progress.”
Three years ago, in early April 2004, when an insurrection exploded in numerous Iraqi cities, U.S. occupation spokesman Dan Senor informed journalists: “We have isolated pockets where we are encountering problems.” Nine days later, President Bush declared: “It's not a popular uprising. Most of Iraq is relatively stable.”
For government officials committed to a war based on lies, such claims are in the wiring.
When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara visited Vietnam for the first time, in May 1962, he came back saying that he’d seen “nothing but progress and hopeful indications of further progress in the future.”
Three years ago, in early April 2004, when an insurrection exploded in numerous Iraqi cities, U.S. occupation spokesman Dan Senor informed journalists: “We have isolated pockets where we are encountering problems.” Nine days later, President Bush declared: “It's not a popular uprising. Most of Iraq is relatively stable.”
For government officials committed to a war based on lies, such claims are in the wiring.
When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara visited Vietnam for the first time, in May 1962, he came back saying that he’d seen “nothing but progress and hopeful indications of further progress in the future.”
Symbolism and duct tape
"The Army has yet to provide the family with a copy of the original narrative required by Army Regulation to support the award of the Silver Star."
The simplest truths bedevil chronic liars, even those with multibillion-dollar budgets. So as the family of Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal football player who enlisted in the Army shortly after 9/11 and died as the result of friendly fire in Afghanistan three years ago, stand their ground with quiet dignity and insist only on a true accounting of what happened to him, I ponder the phenomenon of a society in a state of arrested development.
Who would have guessed that the war on terror and its vast supporting infrastructure — indeed, the whole conspiracy of militarism — depend at some core level on a 10-year-old boy in combat boots, pointing his toy gun at the air and making shooting noises? The Bush administration's war on terror is a children's crusade, or the facade of one: unsullied valor in the service of freedom.
The simplest truths bedevil chronic liars, even those with multibillion-dollar budgets. So as the family of Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal football player who enlisted in the Army shortly after 9/11 and died as the result of friendly fire in Afghanistan three years ago, stand their ground with quiet dignity and insist only on a true accounting of what happened to him, I ponder the phenomenon of a society in a state of arrested development.
Who would have guessed that the war on terror and its vast supporting infrastructure — indeed, the whole conspiracy of militarism — depend at some core level on a 10-year-old boy in combat boots, pointing his toy gun at the air and making shooting noises? The Bush administration's war on terror is a children's crusade, or the facade of one: unsullied valor in the service of freedom.
How's the Progressive Caucus progressing?
Seventy-one members of Congress, all Democrats, most House Members, two Senators, belong to the Congressional Progressive Caucus. For a couple of years now, the CPC has had a staff person. More recently it created a website http://cpc.lee.house.gov
Since most of the positions generally labeled progressive are backed by either a majority or a large minority of Americans, it certainly seems useful to have at least a small minority in Congress pushing for them. If anything good is ever to come out of Congress, this seems a likely source for it.
The CPC operates from within the Democratic Party, and that party is now in the majority. So, the question arises: what influence does the CPC have with the rest of its party or with Republicans, and what goals will it attempt to achieve?
Since most of the positions generally labeled progressive are backed by either a majority or a large minority of Americans, it certainly seems useful to have at least a small minority in Congress pushing for them. If anything good is ever to come out of Congress, this seems a likely source for it.
The CPC operates from within the Democratic Party, and that party is now in the majority. So, the question arises: what influence does the CPC have with the rest of its party or with Republicans, and what goals will it attempt to achieve?
Halt the Holt Bill Tonight!
This will be quick. We're almost out of time. If you have a fax or a phone and ten minutes, your democracy needs you. At 10:00 tomorrow (Thursday 3/29) , the well-meaning, but misinformed members of the House Adminstration Committee will be marking up Rush Holt's HR. 811. This bill is called the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007. Many many election integrity activists and groups have serious problems with the bill. It cannot, it must not pass as it stands.
All you have to do, is print up the Thirteen Issues with the Holt Bill and fax it to the congressional offices in the column on the right. If you can't fax, call. Please, please, do something.
13 ISSUES with the HOLT BILL
"Hacking Democracy" on DVD See it and Weep
Read "Cheated!" - the graphic novel about Ohio 2004, that illustrates the true events
All you have to do, is print up the Thirteen Issues with the Holt Bill and fax it to the congressional offices in the column on the right. If you can't fax, call. Please, please, do something.
13 ISSUES with the HOLT BILL
"Hacking Democracy" on DVD See it and Weep
Read "Cheated!" - the graphic novel about Ohio 2004, that illustrates the true events