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I wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and beginning of the holiday season until the break of the New Year!
I´ve been away too long and now I am back, so here´s to all- Happy Thanksgiving!  
The cost of the Iraq War is a grave issue. At Brave New Films, we are committed to spreading awareness about the devastating financial toll the war is taking on each and every one of us, let alone our economy.
$3 trillion. That is what Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the war will cost our country. Make no mistake, this $3 trillion bill is crippling our economy and causing our Iraq recession. To put this colossal amount of cash into perspective, we've designed a game to help people really understand what $3 trillion dollars can buy. Get ready to go on a 3 Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree!
When the war was already hurting our economy two years ago, President Bush announced that Americans should go shopping-a brilliant plan to remedy our ailing economy. So follow the President's advice in this virtual shopping bonanza and rack up a $3 trillion tab like he has in real life. All you have to do is stroll down through our online store, add items to your cart for yourself or friends, and check out. It's just that easy!
Whether you buy serious gifts like health care for all Americans or frivolous ones like building the world's tallest building, we hope you'll begin to see just how far $3 trillion could go and help others understand the cost of this war.
This "game" is designed to build further awareness, and we need your help to make that happen, just as you have done on previous successful campaigns from FOX Attacks to the War on Greed to Hurricane Katrina recovery. Please buy gifts for your all your friends and loved ones, and send them e-mails to let them know you've found better ways to spend our nation's money than the President. We need to help Americans understand the war's economic toll.
Yours in shopping,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Spenders
P.S. And don't miss your chance to Invest in America's Future. True Majority has events scheduled all across the country tomorrow, Tax Day, which are geared toward finding better ways of spending our money than on the war.
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Congratulations, you have been given a gift certificate by Robert Greenwald in the value of:
to be spent immediately at 3trillion.org, the web site that gives you 3 trillion dollars - the money American tax-payers are projected to spend on the Iraq war - and use it in a virtual shopping spree for your friends and family. Lets go shopping! |
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Brave New Films is located at 10510 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. You can get our latest videos on email, iTunes, RSS, Facebook, and YouTube here. To stop receiving the latest videos from us, click here.
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Is an International Financial Conspiracy Driving World Events?
By Richard C. Cook
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"They make a desolation and call it peace." -Tacitus
Was Alan Greenspan really as dumb as he looks in creating the late housing bubble that threatens to bring the entire Western debt-based economy crashing down?
Was something as easy to foresee as this really the trigger for a meltdown that could destroy the world’s financial system? Or was it done, perhaps, "accidentally on purpose"?
And if so, why?
Let’s turn to the U.S. personage that conspiracy theorists most often mention as being at the epicenter of whatever elite plan is reputed to exist. This would be David Rockefeller, the 92-year-old multibillionaire godfather of the world’s financial elite.
The lengthy Wikipedia article on Rockefeller provides the following version of a celebrated statement he allegedly made in an opening speech at the Bilderberg conference in Baden-Baden, Germany, in June 1991:
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war, but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in the past centuries."
This speech was made 17 years ago. It came at the beginning in the U.S. of the Bill Clinton administration. Rockefeller speaks of an "us." This "us," he says, has been having meetings for almost 40 years. If you add the 17 years since he gave the speech it was 57 years ago—two full generations.
Not only has "us" developed a "plan for the world," but the attempt to "develop" the plan has evidently been successful, at least in Rockefeller’s mind. The ultimate goal of "us" is to create "the supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers." This will lead, he says, toward a "world government which will never again know war."
Just as an intellectual exercise, let’s assume that David Rockefeller is as important and powerful a person as he seems to think he is. Let’s give the man some credit and assume that he and "us" have in fact succeeded to a degree. This would mean that the major decisions and events since Rockefeller gave the speech in 1991 have probably also been part of the plan or that they have at least represented its features and intent.
David Rockefeller at Harvard in 2006
Therefore by examining these decisions and events we can determine whether in fact Rockefeller is being truthful in his assessment that the Utopia he has in mind is on its way or has at least come closer to being realized. In no particular order, some of these decisions and events are as follows:
The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations has led to the elimination of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs as well as the destruction of U.S. family farming in favor of global agribusiness.
Similar free trade agreements, including those under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, have led to export of millions of additional manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere.
Average family income in the U.S. has steadily eroded while the share of the nation’s wealth held by the richest income brackets has soared. Some Wall Street hedge fund managers are making $1 billion a year while the number of homeless, including war veterans, pushes a million.
The housing bubble has led to a huge inflation of real estate prices in the U.S. Millions of homes are falling into the hands of the bankers through foreclosure. The cost of land and rentals has further decimated family agriculture as well as small business. Rising property taxes based on inflated land assessments have forced millions of lower-and middle-income people and elderly out of their homes.
The fact that bankers now control national monetary systems in their entirety, under laws where money is introduced only through lending at interest, has resulted in a massive debt pyramid that is teetering on collapse. This "monetarist" system was pioneered by Rockefeller-family funded economists at the University of Chicago. The rub is that when the pyramid comes down and everyone goes bankrupt the banks which have been creating money "out of thin air" will then be able to seize valuable assets for pennies on the dollar, as J.P. Morgan Chase is preparing to do with the businesses owned by Carlyle Capital. Meaningful regulation of the financial industry has been abandoned by government, and any politician that stands in the way, such as Eliot Spitzer, is destroyed.
The total tax burden on Americans from federal, state, and local governments now exceeds forty percent of income and is rising. Today, with a recession starting, the Democratic-controlled Congress, while supporting the minuscule "stimulus" rebate, is hypocritically raising taxes further, even for middle-income earners. Back taxes, along with student loans, can no longer be eliminated by bankruptcy protection.
Gasoline prices are soaring even as companies like Exxon-Mobil are recording record profits. Other commodity prices are going up steadily, including food prices, with some countries starting to experience near-famine conditions. 40 million people in America are officially classified as "food insecure."
Corporate control of water and mineral resources has removed much of what is available from the public commons, and the deregulation of energy production has led to huge increases in the costs of electricity in many areas.
The destruction of family farming in the U.S. by NAFTA (along with family farming in Mexico and Canada) has been mirrored by policies toward other nations on the part of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Around the world, due to pressure from the "Washington consensus," local food self-sufficiency has been replaced by raising of crops primarily for export. Migration off the land has fed the population of huge slums around the cities of underdeveloped countries.
Since the 1980s the U.S. has been fighting wars throughout the world either directly or by proxy. The former Yugoslavia was dismembered by NATO. Under cover of 9/11 and by utilizing off-the-shelf plans, the U.S. is now engaged in the military conquest and permanent military occupation of the Middle East. A worldwide encirclement of Russia and China by U.S. and NATO forces is underway, and a new push to militarize space has begun. The Western powers are clearly preparing for at least the possibility of another world war.
The expansion of the U.S. military empire abroad is mirrored by the creation of a totalitarian system of surveillance at home, whereby the activities of private citizens are spied upon and tracked by technology and systems which have been put into place under the heading of the "War on Terror." Human microchip implants for tracking purposes are starting to be used. The military-industrial complex has become the nation’s largest and most successful industry with tens of thousands of planners engaged in devising new and better ways, both overt and covert, to destroy both foreign and domestic "enemies."
Meanwhile, the U.S. has the largest prison population of any country on earth. Plus everyday life for millions of people is a crushing burden of government, insurance, and financial fees, charges, and paperwork. And the simplest business transactions are burdened by rake-offs for legions of accountants, lawyers, bureaucrats, brokers, speculators, and middlemen.
Finally, the deteriorating conditions of everyday life have given rise to an extraordinary level of stress-related disease, as well as epidemic alcohol and drug addiction. Governments themselves around the world engage in drug trafficking. Instead of working to lower stress levels, public policy is skewed in favor of an enormous prescription drug industry that grows rich off the declining level of health through treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Many of these heavily-advertised medications themselves have devastating side-effects.
This list should at least give us enough to go on in order to ask a hard question. Assuming again that all these things are parts of the elitist plan which Mr. Rockefeller boasts to have been developing, isn’t it a little strange that the means which have been selected to achieve "peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity" involve so much violence, deception, oppression, exploitation, graft, and theft?
In fact it looks to me as though "our plan for the world" is one that is based on genocide, world war, police control of populations, and seizure of the world’s resources by the financial elite and their puppet politicians and military forces.
In particular, could there be a better way to accomplish all this than what appears to be a concentrated plan to remove from people everywhere in the world the ability to raise their own food? After all, genocide by starvation may be slow, but it is very effective. Especially when it can be blamed on "market forces."
And can it be that the "us" which is doing all these things, including the great David Rockefeller himself, are just criminals who have somehow taken over the seats of power? If so, they are criminals who have done everything they can to watch their backs and cover their tracks, including a chokehold over the educational system and the monopolistic mainstream media.
One thing is certain: The voters of America have never knowingly agreed to any of this.
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared on numerous websites. His book on monetary reform entitled We Hold These Truths: The Promise of Monetary Reform is in preparation. He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, "the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years." His website is at www.richardccook.com.
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Who and When Will Bring Justice to the Iraqi People?
If there was a divine or humane justice, those that have reduced a country like Iraq to absolute chaos, would be sitting in front of an international penal court answering for their crimes against humanity, life and the world. But the team that is the leader in the world power game remains with all its tranquillity working on the destruction.
Today, human life in Iraq has no value. Barbarism has cleared way as a form of survival, the majority of the infrastructures have been destroyed; to sum it up, they have assassinated a country and given the people up to the murderers and thieves. Here we have the results of the United States invasion. Decided by one man and his malicious team influenced by profound racism and religious fanaticism under which they hide and their interests covered decoratively under the name of democracy.
The country finds itself without any form of structure. The society devastated. The religious beliefs serve as a starting point for a few. The Shiites are in power, put there by the United States of America. The Sunnis fight against them. Almost no foreign journalist ventures to this country. The kidnapping and executions of various has completed persuading any possible safe visit undercover or as said profession. There are eighteen hostages who remain in the hands of killers.
We have all seen the images of Baghdad, the historically rich history and beauty. Today it is a combat zone, as has been for the past 5 years and counting. People die without knowing why and others fight as mercenaries without knowing who benefits from their actions. These attacks themselves mainly affect women and children. Life in Iraq no longer resembles anything at all….Those that can run- do so, others exist as they can- and a few double their fierceness in an unwanted war whose necessity and end does not come far from astonishing all.
It has become an ideal stage for the mafia to prosper and do business. The fact is that it comes under the same credentials as foreign army that has invaded Iraq- “Bringing Democracy and Well-Being to the Country” These said businessmen hold tight onto their picture of a religious leader with confidence in obtaining protection. One owner of a business has confessed that he has lost his faith, he no longer believes in anything and he only confides in one day the ability to leave this Hell. But Mr. War and Company continues to puppeteer and never stops getting richer. An old story, but know too well!
In this war where religion plays the most detestable role that one could imagine, where religion divides without truce and arms one against another, the human being no longer knows which God to go to. Many Iraqi Christians have been massacred. No one has spoken of these. Those that have been able to exile are the few and lucky (they are a minority, in truth, in the mortal game). It is the hour of fanaticism and without reasoning, the fanaticism without hue or comparison.
A friend of mine, had discovered this delightful country in 1975, Sadam had not reached the presidency. He told me about a country that invested everything in its culture. He spoke of a country that was fed by artists and writers who had not suffered any censorship. There was a phenomenal university. The state retained a good portion of money from petroleum for Arts and Philosophy. It was when Baghdad inspired to be as Cairo, capital of Arab culture. It was not a western democracy, but the Baas party bet on culture and respected the creators.
Later Sadam came to power and misfortune took over the country. Actually, today, the disgrace is named Bush. Sadam began the mass destruction of Iraq; Bush took over the crowning of the task with the worst possible conditions.
So again I ask, who and when will bring justice to the people of Iraq?
| March 10, 2008
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Happy Birthday, DHS!
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| by Ivan Eland
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just turned five years old. It seems like it was born just yesterday.
The department's growing pains have made it a slow learner and a downright ugly child. Born in an atmosphere of tension and fear, and cobbled together from pieces of other government departments and agencies, the prospects for this Frankenstein offspring were always dim. Yet, as Congress frequently does in times of crisis, the legislative body, in the wake of 9/11, had to be seen as doing something – anything – to respond to the crisis, even if its actions were ineffective and even counterproductive.
And predictably, the Department of Homeland Security has been a disaster. In the wake of the federal government's failure to prevent or stop 9/11 – when the principal problem was the failure of large, slothful security agencies to coordinate against a small, agile terrorist group – the last thing the country needed was another ponderous department. Yet Congress glued together 22 disparate agencies, superimposed another layer of bureaucracy on top of them to manage the new department, astronomically increased the department's budget to $38 billion per year and its personnel from 170,000 to 208,000 employees, and oversaw the department's activities with 86 congressional committees and subcommittees. In creating more bureaucracy to coordinate, Congress never told the American people exactly how security against nimble, non-bureaucratic terrorist groups would be enhanced.
In fact, over its five years, the department has become the butt of jokes for its color-coded terror warning system, grossly incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, pork-barrel spending, intrusive and largely ineffectual airline security, and expensive security projects gone awry.
Throughout its history, the color-coded warning system seems to just toggle between the mid-levels, orange and yellow, leading to suspicion that it is designed as merely for show, to demonstrate to the American public that their government is ever vigilant against terrorists. Setting the dial at red would cause everyone to stay locked down in their homes – afraid to go to the shopping mall to buoy the faltering economy. If the government were to move the indicator to blue or green and a terrorist attack occurred, fingers would be pointed at DHS for sleeping as the threat worsened. So the indicator stays between orange and yellow, even though the department has not made clear what the public should do at any of the levels.
Most politically damaging to DHS was its abysmal and incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina. Yet many members of Congress became "disgusted" with the department's response in New Orleans at the same time they were sending DHS money elsewhere to their own states and congressional districts for useless pork-barrel projects. Much of DHS spending still spreads the pork to cities and states around the country to help the reelection chances of politicians, rather than sending money to cities that might actually have a remote chance of being hit by a terrorist attack (for example, New York and Washington).
Politics has also been involved in security for air travel. Even if the federal government had done nothing, air security would have improved dramatically after Sept. 11. Prior to 9/11, airline crewmembers and passengers had been encouraged to cooperate with any airplane hijackers. In many hijackings over the years, a familiar pattern had emerged, wherein the hijackers would at worst shoot a couple of passengers to show they meant business and order the plane to Cuba or some other remote location. The hijackers' purpose was to draw attention to their cause, and if the crew and passengers played ball, most could expect to live. That paradigm changed drastically on 9/11. On the fourth plane, apparently the passengers and crew realized that they were being forcibly recruited for a suicide mission that would end not only all of their lives, but potentially those of many more people in any building the plane would hit. Heroically, they evidently got nasty with the terrorists and foiled the hijacking attempt. Later, a similarly surly crew and passengers famously foiled an attempt by Richard Reid to set his explosive shoes on fire. With far more aggressive passengers and crew – having visions of dying in a mass suicidal bombing mission – pity (not really) the terrorists who try to take over or destroy a plane in a post-9/11 world.
If this monumental security improvement, which DHS had nothing to do with, was not enough, the department probably could have stopped once it had hardened cockpit doors. Federalizing airport security checkpoints, making passengers partially disrobe and requiring them to throw away liquid toiletries, provides only marginal security improvement but much passenger frustration. Despite such security "enhancements," repeated investigative studies have shown that alarming amounts of contraband still get through the checkpoints undetected. DHS overinvests in such checkpoint measures because many voters fly and thus are reminded that their government is taking very visible actions (however annoying) to make them safe. In contrast, less money is spent, for example, on the security of air cargo, ports, or chemical plants, because few voters visit air cargo terminals (or even the baggage compartment of their own plane), the dock where their new Toyota is being delivered, or the factories where the petrochemical ingredients of many consumer products are made. Once again, DHS' priorities are based more on politics than on actual threats.
Finally, the DHS bureaucracy has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars by blowing the development and purchase of many new high-tech security systems. Even with the excessive emphasis on air security, the department has projected that it could require $22 billion and 16 more years to deploy advanced systems for screening airline baggage, and has been inept at fielding new "puffer devices," which blow air on passengers to detect explosives, according to the Washington Post.
At the ports and borders, DHS is also struggling. Granted, the congressional demand that all inbound shipping containers be scanned is unrealistic, unnecessary, and ridiculous, but Congress was reacting to DHS' having put port security on the back burner. In addition, DHS has proven incompetent in fielding equipment to detect nuclear devices. At the borders, despite prescient warnings by outside experts, the expensive "virtual" border fence of sensors was so poorly designed that DHS had to pay the contractor to start over, and the first phase of the project may not be completed until 2011. Finally, the project to track the entry and exit of foreign visitors using photos and fingerprints has been scrapped indefinitely (on the exit side) because of its excessive cost and technological difficulties.
Thus, at the age of five, DHS has all the bureaucratic sclerosis of an octogenarian and is on the road to juvenile delinquency. |
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Copyright 2008 Antiwar.com
OpEdNews
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ralph_lo_080123_20_years_3a_what_polit.htm
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January 24, 2008
20 Years: What Political Prisoners Can Expect in the Future
By Ralph Lopez
The Bush administration has managed to carve out an illegal authority to pick anyone up off the street, lock us up incommunicado for at least a few years, and send us to trial knowing that, after what they did, we'd be pretty much useless in our own defense. Today's sentencing of Jose Padilla is not about Padilla. This is about you. After the next terror attack, it will be easy to include any bothersome political diarists, who keep raising inconvenient facts or whose words manage to rile people up against the gummint, when they sweep a few hundred American citizens suspected of harboring sympathies for the Taliban. If they're against the US goverment in time of war, who knows what else they did? Better lock them up.
Of course they'll be able to lie about you. You don't even have the right to see a lawyer, never mind defend yourself in the press. As long as the allegations are related to terrorism, and the gummint invokes Bush's doctrine of wartime powers in a war defined as having "no end," they can waterboard you, make you stand for days with a hood on, and all the things they might have done to Padilla.
Which we'll never know. Oh yes, by the way, you know those CIA tapes they are arguing about in the papers, with the interrogations of two Qaeda suspects? One of those suspects, al Zabayda, was the guy whose testimony linked Padilla to Al Qaeda and put Padilla away. Pretty important since even the JUDGE who sentenced Padilla said they didn't have any, like, real evidence.
This link between the lost CIA tapes and Padilla is one even the blogoshere has been remiss to make. The government said no one can prove Zabayda was tortured into linking Padilla. Guess not.
And by not making the link, we miss the real story. Not only did Bush assert the authority to make a vegetable out of you before you ever get a real trial. Not only was Padilla denied his Sixth Amendment rights for nearly four years. Now once you get your trial, it consists of a railroad job, with the charges having nothing to do with the original "dirty bomb"-type stuff.
Think it can't happen? Think of how people were looking at each other right after 9/11. On the subway no one could meet anyone else's eyes; that person could be a terrorist. We were afraid of each other. Think of the attacks on the mosques, the beatings-up of foreign-looking people reported in the newspapers every day. Not only will Americans tolerate your leftie dissident ass going off to Guantanamo. They'll cheer it.
The 17 Padilla was just sentenced to plus the 3 1/2 he did in military custody makes about 20. About the same is you'd get in a Gulag in communist Russia, and you'd never have half a chance to defend yourself. It's here. George Bush is still making speeches and talking happy talk about the economy, as if nothing had just happened.
The only answer: impeachment, to restore to rule of law and the Constitution. Forward this post and this newly revised website to every Republican relative or friend you know: "Impeachment is a Non-partisan Issue." Your life may depend on it.
Authors Website: http://RalphLopezWorld.com
Authors Bio: Ralph Lopez is writer based in Boston and is the author of three books: "American Dream," "The Elephant in the Room," and "The Golden Donut and Restaurant." All are available at BarnesandNoble.com He can be contacted at ralphlopez2002-at-hotmail-dot-com. He is also a founder of YaliesForImpeachment.org |
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Errors of this Administration- We Want Our Rights Back!
First I would like to go over a few points in mind; regarding the Constitution.
Mr. Bush has waged war without required congressional declarations. He has been spying and wiretapping in direct conflict to the 4th amendment. He has allowed and continues to permit torture and extraordinary renditions that violate the 8th amendment. He has a blatant disregard for shared government, he has no respect for separation of checks and balances that require congress to be involved in domestic and foreign- policy decision making. Congress has great authority to actively participate in foreign and military affairs. The legislative branch was the first defined branch of government to afford to it the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations”, “to define and punish…offenses against the law of nations”, “to declare war, grant letters of marquee and reprisal, make rules regarding captures of land and water”, and “and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying out execution of foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or office thereof.”
Then there are the many treaty violations, which effect environment and humanity. There are two that stick our in my mind at the moment with great importance: The Stockholm Convention on eliminating chemicals the international community has agreed upon to be extremely hazardous to human health and environment. The next being of no less importance, the Rotterdam Convention, which controls the international trade of highly toxic chemicals. They are both clear cases of significant failures not only of US leadership but responsible participation in global efforts to protect human life, health and stability. Here is a simple fact to astonish even the most deniable person: the US between 2001 and 2003 exported 28 million pounds of insecticides that are banned here at home.
There are also two vital environmental agreements that miserably stand out as non-achievements, first being the failure to ratify the Kyoto Agreement on Climate Change (source: NRDC) and secondly but nonetheless no better, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. I suppose that 4 million people a year dying is not quite important enough as the donations he has received.
Now we can also list a few of the repugnant International Law Relating to Nuclear Weapons, which he has such a fondness for in regards to other nations faults.
- International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion.
- Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
- Non Proliferation Treaty
- Geneva Convention Protocol
- UN Charter
- US Constitution (Source: IEER)
These are but just a few of the outrageous errors of this administration that need rectification and immediately. I recently read a blog that had a list resulting in over 300 major league fouls, I took the time and investigated and to my best knowledge all I could unfortunately find out was that not one was off beat or incorrect. We have withered through too many years of this ridiculous administration and now it is time to stand up, yell, scream and take our rights back. I would like to one day say to my two children that the errors made are now corrected and we are able to once again take the place we once had in the world as leaders of human rights, foreign relationships and civil rights. I would one day like to say to them, that the Unites States of America has once again joined the rest of the international community in support of no longer enforcing an illegal boycott of Cuba, that we have signed the UN agreement to curb the international flow of illicit small arms, the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Land Mine Treaty, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Culture Rights, or perhaps the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. That will be the day that I am proud again to be an American!
We are now entering a year of elections and the errors cannot be left unattended, we must find the persons who will not tarnish our names in countries throughout this vast world. We must find the persons to lead, as we the people want. We must find the persons to represent who we are, what we think and know to be correct. There shall not be anymore hidden agendas to support a minority who flaunts its wealth as the majority suffers in its consequences. Let us only hope though, at this moment, that we are able to vote and that those votes count or are counted!
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The Freedom We Seek
By Eliseo Medina and Gerry Hudson, AlterNet
Posted on January 21, 2008, Printed on January 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/74291/
But we refuse to believe that the back of justice is bankrupt… that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation… And so let freedom ring…from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 28 August 1963
The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday is a time for those of us within the activist movements he energized to pause to reflect on Dr. King's vision of universal freedom and opportunity for all.
His dream is no less than the American dream, a dream that lives on and impels us to constantly ask ourselves the question: does freedom ring in America today?
The answer, it seems, depends on who you ask.
Ask Karl Rove or another Bush administration architect, or any of an increasing number of federal judges, and if you're lucky, they may take you aside and show you their blueprint for freedom-for how to free civic and corporate America from their obligations to our nations' senior citizens, children, the poor, and the sick.
Ask Henry Kravis or any one of the new private equity barons that make their fortunes buying up public companies, taking them private, and making huge profits at the expense of workers and all American taxpayers. They could tell you of the freedom they have won from the tax obligations that apply to nurses, firefighters, and many other American workers; from much of the S.E.C. oversight endured by their public corporate peers; and from the community accountability that would come with a business model more transparent than theirs.
Kravis and Rove and their kin embody the freedom of narrow self-interest and unfettered accumulation. But the list of those heralding this freedom is getting shorter.
Ask Paula Hall if freedom is ringing for her these days, and you'll hear what it's like to live enslaved by $250,000 of medical debt stemming from an on-the-job injury that left her husband unable to work or care for himself.
Ask the many former co-workers of Elirose Pierre-Louis who organized a union with their fellow janitors but were fired just as they thought they'd finally won real change. They'll tell you how Elirose died from a treatable illness and a lack of options.
Ask Wisly Jonatas if he heard freedom ringing when after working his late-night shift, he walked to an empty seat for the ferry ride home…and it cost him his job.
Ask Jim Longley if it's freedom he sees when he's sent in to shut off the power of families who work hard but have fallen behind on their soaring energy bills.
For Paula, Elirose, Wisly, Jim, and countless others, working hard and playing by the rules still aren't enough to guarantee freedom or economic security in the richest democracy on earth.
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny," wrote Dr. King in 1963; he preached that oppression anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere. And by this measure, the freedom imposed by unrestrained capitalism and its social implications is not freedom at all, but rather an instrument of disunity and a symptom of social regress.
Dr. King's message and enduring witness remind us that we're all in this together, and that each of us has a role to play in healing what divides us, forging a new path forward, and moving freedom up the mountain. We must decide together that we will no longer wait for the wealth to trickle down, the jobs to spring forth, or the tide of discrimination to dry up.
Only if we act together, can we ensure that our children don't have to protest in the streets for the civil right to basic healthcare.
Only if workers from all sectors and income brackets speak out for fairness and balance, can we overcome inequality's costs and arrive at an economy that rewards work.
Only if those whose skin color spares them suspicious looks, interrogation, or deportation stand with those who aren't so lucky can we make sure that another mother won't be separated from her child because of a broken immigration system.
And despite the problems that endure from King's day to today, we have reason to hope. For the first time in history, a woman, a black person, and the son of a factory worker are all serious contenders for the presidency of the United States…and there's a debate about which of their universal health plans is the best. In 2007, more than a million eligible immigrants -- more than ever before-filed applications for U.S. citizenship. And Americans across the spectrum are giving back to their communities at historically high rates.
We've come a long way, but forty-five years later the fees at the bank of justice remain unacceptably high. For Dr. King's sake, for ours, and for our children's, let us work together to revive his vision of freedom rooted in solidarity; together we can throw open the great vaults of opportunity for all.
Eliseo Medina is international executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) since 1996. He currently is leading SEIU’s efforts to help workers in 17 states in the Southern and Southwestern United States unite in SEIU. Gerry Hudson is international executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/74291/ |
US NAVY FAKES EVIDENCE AGAINST IRAN
January 17, 2008
Sign the Statement | Donate | Volunteer | Tell a Friend
Please join the online campaign to
SAY NO! TO BUSH'S FRAUDULENT IRAN WAR-MONGERING PROVOCATION!
Your Emergency Action is Needed Now!
Don’t Let Washington Provoke Another War Based on Lies and Fraud!
In the past week, the Bush Administration has been caught red-handed manufacturing the highly publicized "provocation" off the Iranian coast on Jan. 6 when five small Iranian open-air speedboats allegedly challenged three massive U. S. guided-missile warships. The U.S. Navy has now admitted that it had spliced together the audio and video tape it presented as evidence and that the threatening voice on the video warning “you may explode” may not have belonged to any Iranian sailors.
This incident was manufactured just days before President Bush departed for an eight-day trip to the Middle East, attempting to mobilize a collection of oil-rich U.S. client states against Iran and using the video as the evidence.
We must demand a People’s Inquiry to find out who manufactured this video? Who spliced
Help build a movement to STOP another war based on lies.
In the next few days and weeks, Stop War on Iran will be organizing meetings, speakouts, and a massive grassroots campaign to expose and stop the Bush Administration's drive to war.
Stop War on Iran was the first international campaign formed to oppose Washington's agenda of war against Iran, and we have generated more than half a million petitions in the past two years. We have been a presence at every major antiwar demonstration and have organized meetings across the U.S.
But it is clear that we must do more, and we need your help to do that. Please consider making an emergency donation. You can donate online at http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
| together completely different sound and video footage? Who signed off on it? Who distributed it to all the major media?
We must hold the administration accountable, because we know that this is not the first time that a manufactured U.S. crisis has launched a war.
On Feb. 5, 2003, the Bush administration presented satellite photos to the United Nations to prove that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. This followed Bush’s assertion that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger, a statement that he knew was untrue. The Downing Street memos have revealed that the Bush administration was engaged in a deliberate attempt to falsify intelligence in order to justify a war they had been planning for years.
Before the first Gulf War in 1991 the photo images of Iraqi units supposedly massed to invade on the Saudi Arabia border also turned out to be totally fraudulent.
Manufactured evidence was also used in the famous "Gulf of Tonkin Incident," when North Vietnamese Coast Guard boats supposedly attacked two U.S. destroyers off the coast of Vietnam in August 1964. This fraud provided the justification for a Congressional resolution authorizing the escalation of the U.S. war against Vietnam.
This latest fabrication comes after a National Intelligence Estimate from 16 top U.S. spy agencies publicly reported that Iran has not had nuclear weapons program since at least 2003, nor do they have any nuclear weapons.
We must demand a People’s Inquiry
What is most ominous about this is that no major U.S. politician – no one in Congressional leadership, none of the leading Presidential candidates – has denounced it, nor have they called for an inquiry or investigation. Neither the U.S. Congress - now in session - nor any of its committees, all of them now controlled by the Democratic majority elected on an anti-war vote, took action, even when it become clear that the entire incident was fabricated.
With almost half the U.S. Navy hovering off the coast of Iran, this war provocation must be challenged and confronted. The largest and deadliest ships in world history armed and in attack mode, with targets selected, are now off the coast of Iran. We must take action now to stop an attack on Iran, and demand that the Bush administration be held accountable for its campaign of lies, provocation, and hostility.
We must demand a full investigation of this war provocation and the illegal war games that the U.S. Navy has been staging in the Persian Gulf, in order to prevent Bush and the Pentagon from using this scenario or another staged operation to launch an attack on Iran.
The Stop War On Iran Campaign also urges rank-and-file Navy personnel on U.S. ships in the Gulf and lower ranking officers to reveal what they know of U.S. war preparations, war games in the region, and the attempts to create a provocation in the Gulf in order to justify Washington’s plans to attack Iran.
We must take action now to expose the lies of the Bush administration before it moves forward with devastating military action. Please sign the statement at http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml – which will go to the White House, Congress, and the major media, to demand an inquiry into this latest incident and into the Bush administration’s drive to war.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For more News2Note please click here:
http://news2note.4t.com
Tags: evidence, fake, gulf of tonkin, iran, iraq, lies, navy, neocons, us
Simple URL: http://my.care2.com/jsmn967 ... more about Jennifer Martino » ..... 1/14 Signing petition Boycott J.Lo, choose compassion over slaughter for ...
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Visibility: open Membership: open Group Email: Petition_collection@groups.care2.com .... Jennifer Martino is a member of this group and lives in Lescala. ...
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248 days ago - care2.com. The human mind is designed to think. ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
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AUTHOR: JENNIFER MARTINO. female, age 40 married, 2 children .... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
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Sign a Petition · Create a Petition · My PetitionSite · Click to Donate main .... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
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Jennifer Martino (135). Wednesday January 16, 2008, 3:18 am ..... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
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38 days ago - care2.com. Montgomery County Humane Society (MCHS) shelters ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
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129 days ago - care2.com. In the battle over which substance is worse for you ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
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AUTHOR: JENNIFER MARTINO. female, age 40 married, 2 children ... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
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32 days ago - care2.com. Al Gore has come under fire for making personal gain .... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
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333, 10:53 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, Spain ... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
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30910, 7:09 am PST, Nov 10, Jennifer Martino, California, United States ... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
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6555, 3:18 pm PST, Dec 19, Jennifer Martino, California, United States ... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
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230, 10:33 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, 17130 .... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
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1460, 9:10 am PDT, Jun 29, Jennifer Martino, Spain ... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
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624, 3:18 am PST, Nov 8, Jennifer Martino, Dixon, California, 95620 .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
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17589, 3:22 pm PST, Dec 19, Jennifer Martino, Dixon, California .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
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3450, 3:19 pm PST, Dec 19, Jennifer Martino, Spain .... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
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109, 10:16 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, L'Escala, Spain .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
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37, 1:19 am PDT, Aug 28, Jennifer Martino, 38, Female, L'Escala, 17130, Spain .... this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
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263, 10:44 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, L'Escala, Spain .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Fwd: Japanese Prime Minister Questioned about 9/11 videos !! ENGLISH SUBTITLES !!
Dear Fellow Patriots,
This is a link to the Videos of the Prime Minister of Japan(Fukuda)
being questioned about the evidence of 9/11, by Yukihisa Fujita,
Councillor of the Democratic Party of Japan, on January 11th 2008 on
NHK, National Broadcast Television(Japans equivalent of ABC). The
videos are finally english subtitled. PLEASE up load them to your
site in PLAIN VIEW. We need to go HYPER-VIRAL with this info ASAP!
Pilotsfor911truth.org have put them up on theirs. We need to act on
this NOW!!! This is our moment. Canada, Brazil ,Portugal and others
are going to follow suit in the coming days, Publicly questioning
their leaders as well. This is the equivalent of JOE Biden going to
the house floor with this evidence. ITS HUGE!!
http://www.911video.de/ex/jap111.htm
Make sure to Download them from the page so that they do not get
removed and you have them stored. Copy all the text as well and store
it. Send them to everyone you know who has a website and tell them to
upload them and email them to everyone you possibly can!!!! Try to
make it very visible on your main pages people. I have sent this out
to over 100 Websites so far! as of 7:00am Jan 15th...up all night
just searching for more truth sites to bombard. Getting tired but
pressing on!
God Bless Yukihisa Fujita the brave and noble member of the
Democratic Party of Japan that is the presenter of these facts to
Prime Minister Fukuda.
Sincerely, David Williams KEYWORD IS VIRAL!!!!!
CONTACT THE CABLE SHOWS
By davidswanson
Created 2005-07-29 15:07
Find radio stations with call-in shows near you and call in:
http://radio-locator.com [1]
Please politely and concisely, and IN YOUR OWN WORDS, request coverage from:
C-Span Washington Journal
Support Democrats:
(202) 737-0002
Support Republicans:
(202) 737-0001
Support Independents:
(202) 628-0205
Outside U.S.:
(202) 628-0184
Email:
journal@c-span.org [2]
MSNBC
Phone: (201) 583-5000 or (201) 585-2622
Countdown with Keith Olbermann countdown@msnbc.com [3]
Hardball with Chris Matthews hardball@msnbc.com [4]
MSNBC Reports with Joe Scarborough msnbcreports@msnbc.com [5]
Scarborough Country joe@msnbc.com [6]
CNN
Email [7]
Phone: 404-827-1500
Fox News Channel
Email [8]
Phone: (212) 301-3000
Special Report with Brit Hume: Special@foxnews.com [9]
FOX Report with Shepard Smith: Foxreport@foxnews.com [10]
The O'Reilly Factor: Oreilly@foxnews.com [11]
Hannity & Colmes: Hannity@foxnews.com [12], Colmes@foxnews.com [13]
On the Record with Greta: Ontherecord@foxnews.com [14]
USE YOUR OWN WORDS when you phone or write. If they get the same exact message from more than one person, that hurts us rather than helping us.
Also see this list of Email addresses [15].
Here's a larger list of national media contacts. [16]
NOW PLEASE CONTACT [17] YOUR LOCAL MEDIA
Source URL:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=tv
| January 13, 2008
|
Protests Mark 6 Years of Guantánamo
|
| by Haider Rizvi
|
Human rights activists will lead rallies across the United States today to build pressure on the Bush administration and Congress to end the detention of foreign prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay military camp. From Washington, DC to Boise, Idaho, civil libertarians plan to hold more than 20 demonstrations and sit-ins across the country and have encouraged their supporters to wear orange as an expression of opposition to indefinite detention and torture. Orange is the color of the jumpsuits worn by the first Guantanamo detainees. Their photographs were first released by the Department of Defense in 2002.
“We believe people will turn out in force to express their opposition to the symbol and reality of Guantanamo,” said Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the nation’s largest and most influential rights advocacy groups, which is sponsoring the day of action.
In a statement, Jaffer, who is director of the ACLU’s national security project, described the Bush administration’s policy of indefinite detention of Guantanamo Bay prisoners as a violation of the U.S. Constitution and international human rights system that has been going on since 2002.
The ACLU’s “Close Guantanamo Bay” day marks the six anniversary of the arrival of prisoners at the U.S. military base in Cuba, where hundreds of foreigners continue to languish behind bars without any trial in the U.S. courts. In all about 800 people have been held at the Guantanamo prison – some of them for years on end – since it opened in January 2002.
The Bush administration justifies their detention by stating that the naval base in Guantanamo is outside U.S. territory so constitutional protections do not apply, an argument that has been consistently challenged by United Nations experts and human rights groups at home and abroad.
In May 2006, a UN panel that monitors compliance with the world’s anti-torture treaty urged the United States to close its prison at Guantanamo and avoid using secret detention facilities in what George W. Bush and his allies call the “war on terror.” The Bush administration dismissed those arguments, saying the UN experts lacked accurate information.
Last month, a UN investigator said he strongly suspected the Central Intelligence Agency of using torture on prisoners at Guantanamo, adding that many prisoners were likely not being prosecuted to keep the abuse from emerging at trial.
On a visit to Guantanamo, Martin Scheinin, UN special rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism, attended a pre-trial hearing of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver.
Scheinin said U.S. authorities told him that out of about 300 detainees currently held at Guantanamo, 80 were expected to face military trials for suspected crimes. Another 80 inmates had been cleared for release.
President George W. Bush says the United States does not engage in torture. However, he remains unwilling to disclose what interrogation methods are being used at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
The “Close Guantanamo” campaign initiated by the ACLU and other rights advocacy groups will include events across the United States throughout the month of January, but it will reach its climax today with rallies and demonstrations in major towns and cities including Boston; New York; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; San Francisco; St. Louis; Tampa; and Washington, DC.
Organizers said some of the nation’s most popular performing artists have expressed their willingness to participate in the rallies. Among others, musician Henry Rollins, actress Gloria Reuben, and singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello said they will wear orange to express their outrage against illegal detentions.
“I am wearing orange to help bring back the dignity our country has lost as a result of Guantanamo,” said Ndegeocello in a statement. “We must join together in solidarity to demand the immediate closure of this shameful prison. It has tarnished America’s image in the world and continues to be a symbol of torture and injustice.”
According to the ACLU, in the past few weeks, hundreds of Internet users have subscribed to its Close Guantanamo pages on Facebook and MySpace.com, including campaigners from both parties’ presidential campaigns.
© 2008 One World
(Inter Press Service) |
|
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Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/rizvi.php
|
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|
Check the box to include the list of links referenced in the article.
|
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Copyright 2007 Antiwar.com
|
Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
Posted on January 10, 2008, Printed on January 10, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/72956/
In June, the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health acknowledged "daunting and growing" psychological problems among our troops: Nearly 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines and half of National Guard members are presenting with serious mental health issues. They also reported "fundamental weaknesses" in the U.S. military's approach to psychological health. That report was followed in August by the Army Suicide Event Report (ASER), which reported that 2006 saw the highest rate of military suicides in 26 years. And last month, CBS News reported that, based on its own extensive research, over 6,250 American veterans took their own lives in 2005 alone -- that works out to a little more than 17 suicides every day.
That's all pretty bleak, but there is reason for optimism in the long-overdue attention being paid to the emotional and psychic cost of these new wars. The shrill hypocrisy of an administration that has decked itself in yellow ribbons and mandatory lapel pins while ignoring a human crisis of monumental proportion is finally being exposed.
On Dec. 12, Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called a hearing on "Stopping Suicides: Mental Health Challenges Within the Department of Veterans Affairs." At that hearing suggestions were raised and conversations begun that hopefully will bear fruit.
But I find myself extremely anxious in the face of some of these new suggestions, specifically what is being called the Psychological Kevlar Act of 2007 and use of the drug propranalol to treat the symptoms of posttraumatic stress injuries. Though both, at least in theory, sound entirely reasonable, even desirable, in the wrong hands, under the wrong leadership, they could make the sci-fi fantasies of Blade Runner seem prescient.
The Psychological Kevlar Act "directs the secretary of defense to develop and implement a plan to incorporate preventive and early-intervention measures, practices or procedures that reduce the likelihood that personnel in combat will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other stress-related psychopathologies, including substance use conditions. (Kevlar, a DuPont fiber, is an essential component of U.S. military helmets and bullet-proof vests advertised to be "five times stronger than steel.") The stated purpose of this legislation is to make American soldiers less vulnerable to the combat stressors that so often result in psychic injuries.
On the face of it, the bill sounds logical and even compassionate. After all, our soldiers are supplied with physical armor -- at least in theory. So why not mental? My guess is that the representatives who have signed on to this bill are genuinely concerned about the welfare of troops and their families. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., is the bill's sponsor, and I have no reason to question his genuine commitment to mental health issues, both within and outside of the military. Still, I find myself chilled at the prospects. To explain my discomfort, I need to go briefly into the history of military training.
Since World War II, our military has sought and found any number of ways to override the values and belief systems recruits have absorbed from their families, schools, communities and religions. Using the principles of operant conditioning, the military has found ways to reprogram their human software, overriding those characteristics that are inconvenient in a military context, most particularly the inherent resistance human beings have to killing others of their own species. "Modern combat training conditions soldiers to act reflexively to stimuli," says Lt. Col. Peter Kilner, a professor of philosophy and ethics at West Point, "and this maximizes soldiers' lethality, but it does so by bypassing their moral autonomy. Soldiers are conditioned to act without considering the moral repercussions of their actions; they are enabled to kill without making the conscious decision to do so. If they are unable to justify to themselves the fact that they killed another human being, they will likely -- and understandably -- suffer enormous guilt. This guilt manifests itself as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and it has damaged the lives of thousands of men who performed their duty in combat."
By military standards, operant conditioning has been highly effective. It's enabled American soldiers to kill more often and more efficiently, and that ability continues to exact a terrible toll on those we have designated as the "enemy." But the toll on the troops themselves is also tragic. Even when troops struggle honorably with the difference between a protected person and a permissible target (and I believe that the vast majority do so struggle, though the distinction is one I find both ethically and humanely problematic) in war "shit happens." When soldiers are witness to overwhelming horror, or because of a reflexive accident, an illegitimate order, or because multiple deployments have thoroughly distorted their perceptions, or simply because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time -- those are the moments that will continue to haunt them, the memories they will not be able to forgive or forget, and the stuff of posttraumatic stress injuries.
And it's not just the inherent conscientious objector our military finds inconvenient: current U.S. military training also includes a component to desensitize male soldiers to the sounds of women being raped, so the enemy cannot use the cries of their fellow soldiers to leverage information. I think it not unreasonable to connect such desensitization techniques to the rates of domestic violence in the military, which are, according to the DoD, five times those in the civilian population. Is anyone really surprised that men who have been specifically trained to ignore the pain and fear of women have a difficult time coming home to their wives and families? And clearly they do. There were 2,374 reported cases of sexual assault in the military in 2005, a 40 percent increase over 2004. But that figure represents only reported cases, and, as Air Force Brig. Gen. K.C. McClain, commander of DoD's Joint Task Force for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response pointed out, "Studies indicate that only 5 percent of sexual assaults are reported."
I have thought a lot about the implications of "psychological Kevlar" -- what kind of "preventive and early-intervention measures, practices or procedures" might be developed that would "reduce the likelihood that personnel in combat will develop post-traumatic stress disorder." How would a soldier with a shield against moral response "five times stronger than steel" behave?
I cannot convince myself that what is really being promoted isn't a form of moral lobotomy.
I cannot imagine what aspects of selfhood will have to be excised or paralyzed so soldiers will no longer be troubled by what they, not to mention we, would otherwise consider morally repugnant. A soldier who has lost an arm can be welcomed home because he or she still shares fundamental societal values. But the soldier who sees her friend emulsified by a bomb, or who is ordered to run over children in the road rather than slow down the convoy, or who realizes too late that the woman was carrying a baby, not a bomb -- if that soldier's ability to feel terror and horror has been amputated, if he or she can no longer be appalled or haunted, something far more precious has been lost. I am afraid that the training or conditioning or drug that will be developed to protect soldiers from such injuries will leave an indifference to violence that will make them unrecognizable to themselves and to those who love them. They will be alienated and isolated, and finally unable to come home.
Posttraumatic stress injuries can devastate the lives of soldiers and their families. The suicides that are so often the result of such injuries make it clear that they can be every bit as lethal as bullets or bombs, and to date no cure has been found. Treatment and disability payments, both for injured troops and their families, are a huge budgetary concern that becomes ever more daunting as these wars drag on. The Psychological Kevlar Act perhaps holds out the promise of a prophylactic remedy, but it should come as no surprise that Big Pharma has been looking for a chemical intervention.
What they have come up with has already been dubbed "the mourning after pill." Propranalol, if taken immediately following a traumatic event, can subdue a victim's stress response and so soften his or her perception of the memory. That does not mean the memory has been erased, but proponents claim that the drug can render it emotionally toothless.
If your daughter were raped, the argument goes, wouldn't you want to spare her a traumatic memory that might well ruin her life? As the mother of a 23-year old daughter, I can certainly understand the appeal of that argument. And a drug that could prevent the terrible effects of traumatic injuries in soldiers? If I were the parent of a soldier suffering from such a life-altering injury, I can imagine being similarly persuaded.
Not surprisingly, the Army is already on board. Propranolol is a well-tolerated medication that has been used for years for other purposes.
And it is inexpensive.
But is it moral to weaken memories of horrendous acts a person has committed? Some would say that there is no difference between offering injured soldiers penicillin to prevent an infection and giving a drug that prevents them from suffering from a posttraumatic stress injury for the rest of their lives. Others, like Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, object to propranolol's use on the grounds that it medicates away one's conscience. "It's the morning-after pill for just about anything that produces regret, remorse, pain or guilt," he says. Barry Romo, a national coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, is even more blunt. "That's the devil pill," he says. "That's the monster pill, the anti-morality pill. That's the pill that can make men and women do anything and think they can get away with it. Even if it doesn't work, what's scary is that a young soldier could believe it will."
It doesn't take a neuroscientist to see the problem with both of these solutions. Though both hold the promise of relief from the effects of an injury that causes unspeakable pain, they do so at what appears to be great cost. Whatever research projects might be funded by the Psychological Kevlar Act and whatever use is made of propranolol, they will almost certainly involve a diminished range of feelings and memory, without which soldiers and veterans will be different. But in what ways?
I wish I could trust the leadership of our country to prioritize the lives and well-being of our citizens. I don't. The last six years have clearly shown the extent to which this administration is willing to go to use soldiers for its own ends, discarding them when they are damaged. Will efforts be made to fix what has been broken? Return what has been taken? Bring them home? Will citizens be enlightened about what we are condoning in our ignorance, dispassion or indifference? Or will these two solutions simply bring us closer to realizing the bullet-proof mind, devoid of the inconvenient vulnerability of decent human beings to atrocity and horror? And finally, these are all questions about the morality of proposals that are trying to prevent injuries without changing the social circumstances that bring them about, which sidestep the most fundamental moral dilemma: that of sending people to war in the first place.
Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her blog is Flashback.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/72956/ | Here are a few pictures from Christmas, I thought you alll would like to see! Have a Great Week!Nota: mensaje reenviado como archivo adjunto. Jennifer Suzanne Martino
Maranges 5-2
L'Escala, Gerona, Spain 17130
972-77-1931
Web Revelación Yahoo! 2007:
Premio Favorita del Público - ¡Vota tu preferida! | | | | | | | | Tuesday, January 01, 2008 | | | | | | | | | | | |
Published on Monday, December 31, 2007 by The Independent/UK Leaving the White House: 386 days To Go (and Counting)
Those looking forward to George Bush’s last day in office can cheer themselves up with a calendar that helpfully counts down to the day of departure. It has become a best-seller, part of an industry dedicated to marking the historic date by Rupert Cornwell For the millions of Americans who are ticking off the days until deliverance, it is the perfect present - a 2008 calendar countdown until George Bush leaves the White House, its every page adorned with a quote from the President who has mangled not only the country’s image, but also the English language, as no other in the history of the Republic.  Novelty calendars are always a staple of the holiday season, but this one is a best-seller. The Bush Out of Office Countdown, it is called, January 2008 Through the Bitter End. Priced at $11.99 (£6) it includes some of the verbal gems that have adorned the past seven years. “They’re edgy and a way to mark the days, so it’s a perfect tie-in,” a spokesman for the distributors Calendars.
com says. “The intensity of dislike [for Bush] is driving these sales.” Predictably in the land of the free its not just calendar makers cashing in on Bush jnr’s unpopularity. Digital counters, ribbons and obviously badges complete your countdown options. Indeed, no other president has been subjected to such treatment - but then almost none as been as unpopular for so long. Not Ronald Reagan, not Jimmy Carter, not Bill Clinton, nor even George Bush Snr, whose verbal idiosyncracies were celebrated in their time. But where the father specialized in dotty malapropisms (and was not unloved for it), the son goes for ungrammatical gobbledygook. “You’ve also got to measure in order to begin to effect change that’s just more - when there’s more than talk, there’s just actual - a paradigm shift,” he opined for instance in 2003. Go figure. But it’ll cheer you up as you turn the page to Tuesday, 1 July 2008 (just 203 days to go). At another
moment, he excoriates terrorists who strike “at the whim of a hat”. At yet another, he promises his country a “foreign-handed foreign policy. Or, when he was discussing the difficulty of being commander-in-chief, “Make no mistake about it, I under stand how tough it is, I talk to families who die.” But, just occasionally, there comes an unintended little nugget of the truth. “You know,” he told the CBS interviewer Katie Couric, “one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” Did he ever wonder why? However, the last entry for the slightly stretched 2008 diary - for Tuesday, 20 January 2009 when his successor will be inaugurated - perhaps best sums up the preceding eight years of incoherence. Thus the 43rd President of the United States at a 2004 campaign event in Oregon: “I hope you leave here and walk out and say, ‘What did he say?’” For the compilers of these calendars, finding sufficient content was never a
challenge. More difficult, surely, was choosing which of President Bush’s multiple manglings stood out above the rest. Couldn’t they, for instance, have found room for the following, uttered during a trip to Indiana in November about the hazards of heeding pollsters on Iraq: “If you’ve got somebody in harm’s way, you want the President being - making advice, not - be given advice by the military.” And, a few weeks earlier, he said this at his ranch in Texas: “I don’t particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it.” Other people’s words in his mouth might often have come out better, but never mind. Eventually, 21 January 2009 will arrive and the Bush haters will be made bereft of the calendars that will have pepped up their spirits each morning for nearly 13 months and of their favorite target for bile and ridicule. The “Impeach Bush” signs and decals will have to come off their window panes and be peeled
off their car bumpers. And no longer will they have the bitter joy of watching their leader stand at the podium outside the White House and pronounce “nuclear” in a way that only he knows how. (Isn’t there a speech coach somewhere who could have taught him the correct way to say it?) It is just possible that some folks out there - the political comics for certain - might actually miss the guy. © 2007 The Independent These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
25 Comments so far -
baruch December 31st, 2007 1:46 pm “Eventually, 21 January 2008 will arrive and the Bush haters will be made bereft of the calendars that will have pepped up their spirits each morning for nearly 13 months and of their favourite target for bile and ridicule. The “Impeach Bush” signs and decals will have to come off their window panes and be peeled off their car bumpers.” Wishful thinking…I think you meant to say “Eventually, 21 January 2009 will arrive…” -
claudius December 31st, 2007
2:29 pm 386 days still is ample time to do even more damage. -
forextrader December 31st, 2007 3:14 pm 386 more days of hell that is. But then again after 2009, hell will be extended, as we will continue to have Bush policies even without Bush. -
nayoibi December 31st, 2007 3:15 pm judging by the bush character or rather the complete lack of lt.i expect commander-in-chief,his family,friends and relations,to cut and run. -
dr_h December 31st,
2007 3:17 pm I have one of the “backwards clock” digital calculators. It doesn’t include Shrub’s (unintentionally) funny sayings, but I love it anyway. Sometimes I just sit and stare it, letting its countdown hypnotize me into thinking that progress is actually being made. Somehow. -
ren ren December 31st, 2007 3:17 pm this destruction won’t be undone just because dickweed and george are out of office. and I hate to say there’s no way down but straight down, but that seems to be the case. maybe some of the spiritual people here can say something constructive. because I don’t see the light at the “end” of this. and goodness how shallow was that last part, about the comics missing
him. I don’t give a ripple what the comics need for material. are we so far gone that the best we can do is that? Organize, mobilize, revolt. -
Mendo Chuck December 31st, 2007 3:20 pm Don’t you worry . . . I am sure that before January 21st we will have plenty more to add to his resume. This guy hasn’t a clue on why to stop. Especially while his keeper “Cheney” has the leash in place.
Wait until he dreams up a Plan B for Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and who knows what else. -
Amos December 31st, 2007 4:05 pm Good riddance … pestilent scum… -
dcbeltway December 31st, 2007 4:33 pm Champagne at my place on Jan 21st 2009 you’re all invited. -
nayoibi December 31st, 2007 4:51 pm silly me,forgot-bush and family’s.”doubles”will live in u.s..just like osama’s “double” is still trotting around.the real bush and osama will be partying elsewhere.while rome burns. -
dreamertoo December 31st, 2007 5:11 pm -
Vera
Gottlieb December 31st, 2007 5:14 pm Don’t hold your breath! Only believe it when you see the new President being sworn in. And even then…the nightmare might continue. Good luck to the entire planet. -
Nietzsche December 31st, 2007 5:15 pm Every time I think I have seen a prize-winning picture of George I see a better one. Did anybody ever in their whole lives see a more effeminate, shallow, not to say stupid man? (”God made him. Therefore let him pass for a man.”—Shakespeare) -
TruOrange December 31st, 2007 6:00 pm Lest you all
get too happy, remember that on 1/21/09, this country will still have Roberts, Alito, and the dozens of fanatical rightwing lifetime federal justices that Bush appointed. Through them, Cheney (the leash holder) will be with you all for the rest of your lives - and on into your children’s lives. Some happy new year. -
Gail December 31st, 2007 6:44 pm Seven miserable years - going on eight. I’m counting the days! -
George C. Brown December 31st, 2007 7:04 pm 386 days is not soon enough! Action needs to begin now in the House of Representatives: Cheney first, then Bush. The
appropriate House committee has the proper material to begin proceedings. All they need to do is vote it out of committee and get it to the floor. Dennis Kucinich provided the means, now all that is needed is to get the timid reps to act! -
Heathen December 31st, 2007 7:13 pm On that magical day, will the power structure that controls our puppet dictator suddenly cease to exist? -
pacplyer December 31st, 2007 7:32 pm Thanks dcbeltway, I’ll be there! Unless of course he chokes to death on a pretzel first! Then, the drinks are on me and everybody’s invited!!!! -
nspire December 31st, 2007 7:43 pm He doesn’t deserve even 386 seconds of freedom, prior to life-long incarceration for war crimes
I heard that the Syrians might have an available space for him, but there wouldn’t be room for any SS agents, or a light bulb. -
WTF December 31st, 2007 8:32 pm If Romney wins in 2008, we certainly will miss the little chimp. -
Rebel Farmer December 31st, 2007 9:22 pm I don’t want to wait for 386 days before we go and celebrate with pacplayer and dcbeltway. Even if they are paying. I want it all, and I want it NOW!! I don’t care if it is tomorrow or on Jan. 19, these monsters need to be impeached. There is no statute of limitations. Get ‘em!!! Ya know what would be cool?….Just when they thought they were home scott free…Jan 19 they ALL get convicted of impeachable offencses! Gawd. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? O.K…. Now I got my new years resolution all figured out. I’ll spend all of 2008 to get ALL these bastards impeached, effective 2009. Then I get to work on getting them all over to the Hague…..Ya know, I feel better already. Happy New year to ya all. See ya on the other side…… -
abuelito December 31st, 2007 9:53 pm
i really wish those people would stop talking about how long we gotta wait.
rebel farmer is right we CAN’T wait. they must be stopped. take them to jail charge them with war crimes and lock them up. ok impeach if that’s all you can do. but we really must do something to stop the bleeding quickquick.
bet them poor Iraqis ain’t putting up no how many days stickers -
dcbeltway December 31st, 2007 11:01 pm Rebel Farmer I want him out now also so if we can all manage to impeach the bastards I’ll open the champagne bottles early no problem! Regardless the day he leaves office whether as a result of impeachment or the next inauguration I’m celebrating like its 1999! Man 1999 things were damn good back then. -
KEM PATRICK January 1st, 2008 12:48 am They were even better in 1954. I bought a georgeous, red leather upholstered, brand new white topped, 48 Buick Roadmaster Convertable for $500 and it got 20 mpg and a full tank of premiium cost five bucks. I was earning $2.50 an hour and had no worries. Of course I was single then. A cheezeburger was $0.19 cents and the drive in theatre was a buck a carload. A brand new Chevie or Ford cost $1,200, if you had the radio, tinted glass, two tone paint job, whitwalls and a heater. Jackie Gleason was the big show and all of the kids weren’t using drugs or getting pregnant. (A very few did.) Chuck Bedenarick, the 60 minute lineman, earned a whopping ten grand a year and there wan’t any DU in the air. Racial tensions and white supremacy was still a major issue, especially in
the southern states, but Truman had made steps to stop that in the military and Jackie Robinson was in the Majors. We were trying to do it right. We did have Senator Joe Mcarthy and the war in Korea was in a truce, Russia had the bomb and the ‘cold war’ was going strong. But our press was FREE and they printed the news and they finally nailed “Tail Gunner” Joe Mcarthy. We didn’t have nuclear power plants and life was pretty damn good. The Marshall Plan had worked pretty well for Europe and Japan was getting back to normal, they had a Democracy and it worked and most Americans didn’t hate the “Japs” anymore. EWe called them Japanese again. We weren’t feared and hated by all of the other citizens of the world and our President was ELECTED and he wasn’t a psycopathic, lying fool. You know I have learned more here at Common Dreams in a few months, than I had learned in the past 72 years. I wish to thank all of you for helping me to grow up.
__ I mean that. Let’s all try to have a better year, the crystal ball fell 48 minutes ago. Take care of your loved ones and hang in there, we cannot let a fool get us down. This still is America and if we pull together, we can have it back like it should be. Got to do a lot better than 20 mpg though,__ right. -
shakker January 1st, 2008 3:42 am Bu$h the inferior must be the worlds record. What is he - about 85 Courecs? (Courec is the standard measure for turds per Southpark)
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|  Jennifer Suzanne Martino
Maranges 5-2
L'Escala, Gerona, Spain 17130
972-77-1931
¿Chef por primera vez? - Sé un mejor Cocinillas.
Entra en Yahoo! Respuestas.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year! May we accomplish more than we hope for!
Happy 2008!
Recipe for a Happy New Year!
Take twelve fine, full-grown months; see that these are thoroughly free from old memories of bitterness, rancor and hate, cleanse them completely from every clinging spite; pick off all specks of pettiness and littleness; in short, see that these months are freed from all the past—have them fresh and clean as when they first came from the great storehouse of Time.
Cut these months into thirty or thirty-one equal parts. Do not attempt to make up the whole batch at one time (so many persons spoil the entire lot this way) but prepare one day at a
time.
Into each day put equal parts of faith, patience, courage, work (some people omit this ingredient and so spoil the flavor of the rest), hope, fidelity, liberality, kindness, prayer, meditation, rest (leaving this out is like leaving the oil out of the salad dressing—don't do it), and one well-selected resolution.
Put in about one teaspoonful of good spirits, a dash of fun, a pinch of folly, a sprinkling of play, and a heaping cupful of good humor.Jennifer Suzanne Martino
Maranges 5-2
L'Escala, Gerona, Spain 17130
972-77-1931
¿Chapuzas por primera vez? - Sé un mejor Manitas
Entra en Yahoo! Respuestas.
|
It's Time to Legalize Drugs
By Ethan Nadelmann, Foreign Policy
Posted on December 20, 2007, Printed on December 20, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/71033/
Prohibition has failed -- again. Instead of treating the demand for
illegal drugs as a market, and addicts as patients, policymakers the
world over have boosted the profits of drug lords and fostered
narcostates that would frighten Al Capone. Finally, a smarter drug
control regime that values reality over rhetoric is rising to replace
the "war" on drugs. "The Global War on Drugs can Be Won" No, it can't. A
"drug-free world," which the United Nations describes as a realistic
goal, is no more attainable than an "alcohol-free world" -- and no one
has talked about that with a straight face since the repeal of
Prohibition in the United States in 1933. Yet futile rhetoric about
winning a "war on drugs" persists, despite mountains of evidence
documenting its moral and ideological bankruptcy. When the U.N. General
Assembly Special Session on drugs convened in 1998, it committed to
"eliminating or significantly reducing the illicit cultivation of the
coca bush, the cannabis plant and the opium poppy by the year 2008" and
to "achieving significant and measurable results in the field of demand
reduction." But today, global production and consumption of those drugs
are roughly the same as they were a decade ago; meanwhile, many
producers have become more efficient, and cocaine and heroin have
become purer and cheaper. It's always dangerous when rhetoric
drives policy -- and especially so when "war on drugs" rhetoric leads
the public to accept collateral casualties that would never be
permissible in civilian law enforcement, much less public health.
Politicians still talk of eliminating drugs from the Earth as though
their use is a plague on humanity. But drug control is not like disease
control, for the simple reason that there's no popular demand for
smallpox or polio. Cannabis and opium have been grown throughout much
of the world for millennia. The same is true for coca in Latin America.
Methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs can be produced anywhere.
Demand for particular illicit drugs waxes and wanes, depending not just
on availability but also fads, fashion, culture, and competition from
alternative means of stimulation and distraction. The relative
harshness of drug laws and the intensity of enforcement matter
surprisingly little, except in totalitarian states. After all, rates of
illegal drug use in the United States are the same as, or higher than,
Europe, despite America's much more punitive policies. "We Can Reduce the Demand for Drugs" Good luck. Reducing
the demand for illegal drugs seems to make sense. But the desire to
alter one's state of consciousness, and to use psychoactive drugs to do
so, is nearly universal -- and mostly not a problem. There's virtually
never been a drug-free society, and more drugs are discovered and
devised every year. Demand-reduction efforts that rely on honest
education and positive alternatives to drug use are helpful, but not
when they devolve into unrealistic, "zero tolerance" policies. As
with sex, abstinence from drugs is the best way to avoid trouble, but
one always needs a fallback strategy for those who can't or won't
refrain. "Zero tolerance" policies deter some people, but they also
dramatically increase the harms and costs for those who don't resist.
Drugs become more potent, drug use becomes more hazardous, and people
who use drugs are marginalized in ways that serve no one. The
better approach is not demand reduction but "harm reduction." Reducing
drug use is fine, but it's not nearly as important as reducing the
death, disease, crime, and suffering associated with both drug misuse
and failed prohibitionist policies. With respect to legal drugs, such
as alcohol and cigarettes, harm reduction means promoting responsible
drinking and designated drivers, or persuading people to switch to
nicotine patches, chewing gums, and smokeless tobacco. With respect to
illegal drugs, it means reducing the transmission of infectious disease
through syringe-exchange programs, reducing overdose fatalities by
making antidotes readily available, and allowing people addicted to
heroin and other illegal opiates to obtain methadone from doctors and
even pharmaceutical heroin from clinics. Britain, Canada,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland have already embraced this
last option. There's no longer any question that these strategies
decrease drug-related harms without increasing drug use. What blocks
expansion of such programs is not cost; they typically save taxpayers'
money that would otherwise go to criminal justice and healthcare. No,
the roadblocks are abstinence-only ideologues and a cruel indifference
to the lives and well-being of people who use drugs. "Reducing the Supply of Drugs Is the Answer" Not if history is any guide. Reducing
supply makes as much sense as reducing demand; after all, if no one
were planting cannabis, coca, and opium, there wouldn't be any heroin,
cocaine, or marijuana to sell or consume. But the carrot and stick of
crop eradication and substitution have been tried and failed, with rare
exceptions, for half a century. These methods may succeed in targeted
locales, but they usually simply shift production from one region to
another: Opium production moves from Pakistan to Afghanistan; coca from
Peru to Colombia; and cannabis from Mexico to the United States, while
overall global production remains relatively constant or even increases. The
carrot, in the form of economic development and assistance in switching
to legal crops, is typically both late and inadequate. The stick, often
in the form of forced eradication, including aerial spraying, wipes out
illegal and legal crops alike and can be hazardous to both people and
local environments. The best thing to be said for emphasizing supply
reduction is that it provides a rationale for wealthier nations to
spend a little money on economic development in poorer countries. But,
for the most part, crop eradication and substitution wreak havoc among
impoverished farmers without diminishing overall global supply. The
global markets in cannabis, coca, and opium products operate
essentially the same way that other global commodity markets do: If one
source is compromised due to bad weather, rising production costs, or
political difficulties, another emerges. If international drug control
circles wanted to think strategically, the key question would no longer
be how to reduce global supply, but rather: Where does illicit
production cause the fewest problems (and the greatest benefits)? Think
of it as a global vice control challenge. No one expects to eradicate
vice, but it must be effectively zoned and regulated -- even if it's
illegal. "U.S. Drug Policy Is the World's Drug Policy" Sad, but true. Looking
to the United States as a role model for drug control is like looking
to apartheid-era South Africa for how to deal with race. The United
States ranks first in the world in per capita incarceration -- with
less than 5 percent of the world's population, but almost 25 percent of
the world's prisoners. The number of people locked up for U.S. drug-law
violations has increased from roughly 50,000 in 1980 to almost 500,000
today; that's more than the number of people Western Europe locks up
for everything. Even more deadly is U.S. resistance to syringe-exchange
programs to reduce HIV/AIDS both at home and abroad. Who knows how many
people might not have contracted HIV if the United States had
implemented at home, and supported abroad, the sorts of
syringe-exchange and other harm-reduction programs that have kept
HIV/AIDS rates so low in Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, and
elsewhere. Perhaps millions. And yet, despite this dismal record,
the United States has succeeded in constructing an international drug
prohibition regime modeled after its own highly punitive and moralistic
approach. It has dominated the drug control agencies of the United
Nations and other international organizations, and its federal drug
enforcement agency was the first national police organization to go
global. Rarely has one nation so successfully promoted its own failed
policies to the rest of the world. But now, for the first time,
U.S. hegemony in drug control is being challenged. The European Union
is demanding rigorous assessment of drug control strategies. Exhausted
by decades of service to the U.S.-led war on drugs, Latin Americans are
far less inclined to collaborate closely with U.S. drug enforcement
efforts. Finally waking up to the deadly threat of hiv/aids, China,
Indonesia, Vietnam, and even Malaysia and Iran are increasingly
accepting of syringe-exchange and other harm-reduction programs. In
2005, the ayatollah in charge of Iran's Ministry of Justice issued a fatwa declaring methadone maintenance and syringe-exchange programs compatible with sharia (Islamic) law. One only wishes his American counterpart were comparably enlightened. "Afghan Opium Production Must Be Curbed" Be careful what you wish for.
It's easy to believe that eliminating record-high opium production in
Afghanistan -- which today accounts for roughly 90 percent of global
supply, up from 50 percent 10 years ago -- would solve everything from
heroin abuse in Europe and Asia to the resurgence of the Taliban. But
assume for a moment that the United States, NATO, and Hamid Karzai's
government were somehow able to cut opium production in Afghanistan.
Who would benefit? Only the Taliban, warlords, and other black-market
entrepreneurs whose stockpiles of opium would skyrocket in value.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghan peasants would flock to cities,
ill-prepared to find work. And many Afghans would return to their farms
the following year to plant another illegal harvest, utilizing
guerrilla farming methods to escape intensified eradication efforts.
Except now, they'd soon be competing with poor farmers elsewhere in
Central Asia, Latin America, or even Africa. This is, after all, a
global commodities market. And outside Afghanistan? Higher heroin
prices typically translate into higher crime rates by addicts. They
also invite cheaper but more dangerous means of consumption, such as
switching from smoking to injecting heroin, which results in higher HIV
and hepatitis c rates. All things considered, wiping out opium in
Afghanistan would yield far fewer benefits than is commonly assumed. So
what's the solution? Some recommend buying up all the opium in
Afghanistan, which would cost a lot less than is now being spent trying
to eradicate it. But, given that farmers somewhere will produce opium
so long as the demand for heroin persists, maybe the world is better
off, all things considered, with 90 percent of it coming from just one
country. And if that heresy becomes the new gospel, it opens up all
sorts of possibilities for pursuing a new policy in Afghanistan that
reconciles the interests of the United States, NATO, and millions of
Afghan citizens. "Legalization Is the Best Approach" It might be.
Global drug prohibition is clearly a costly disaster. The United
Nations has estimated the value of the global market in illicit drugs
at $400 billion, or 6 percent of global trade. The extraordinary
profits available to those willing to assume the risks enrich
criminals, terrorists, violent political insurgents, and corrupt
politicians and governments. Many cities, states, and even countries in
Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia are reminiscent of Chicago under
Al Capone -- times 50. By bringing the market for drugs out into the
open, legalization would radically change all that for the better. More
importantly, legalization would strip addiction down to what it really
is: a health issue. Most people who use drugs are like the responsible
alcohol consumer, causing no harm to themselves or anyone else. They
would no longer be the state's business. But legalization would also
benefit those who struggle with drugs by reducing the risks of overdose
and disease associated with unregulated products, eliminating the need
to obtain drugs from dangerous criminal markets, and allowing addiction
problems to be treated as medical rather than criminal problems. No
one knows how much governments spend collectively on failing drug war
policies, but it's probably at least $100 billion a year, with federal,
state, and local governments in the United States accounting for almost
half the total. Add to that the tens of billions of dollars to be
gained annually in tax revenues from the sale of legalized drugs. Now
imagine if just a third of that total were committed to reducing
drug-related disease and addiction. Virtually everyone, except those
who profit or gain politically from the current system, would benefit. Some
say legalization is immoral. That's nonsense, unless one believes there
is some principled basis for discriminating against people based solely
on what they put into their bodies, absent harm to others. Others say
legalization would open the floodgates to huge increases in drug abuse.
They forget that we already live in a world in which psychoactive drugs
of all sorts are readily available -- and in which people too poor to
buy drugs resort to sniffing gasoline, glue, and other industrial
products, which can be more harmful than any drug. No, the greatest
downside to legalization may well be the fact that the legal markets
would fall into the hands of the powerful alcohol, tobacco, and
pharmaceutical companies. Still, legalization is a far more pragmatic
option than living with the corruption, violence, and organized crime
of the current system. "Legalization Will Never Happen" Never say never. Wholesale
legalization may be a long way off -- but partial legalization is not.
If any drug stands a chance of being legalized, it's cannabis. Hundreds
of millions of people have used it, the vast majority without suffering
any harm or going on to use "harder" drugs. In Switzerland, for
example, cannabis legalization was twice approved by one chamber of its
parliament, but narrowly rejected by the other. Elsewhere in
Europe, support for the criminalization of cannabis is waning. In the
United States, where roughly 40 percent of the country's 1.8 million
annual drug arrests are for cannabis possession, typically of tiny
amounts, 40 percent of Americans say that the drug should be taxed,
controlled, and regulated like alcohol. Encouraged by Bolivian
President Evo Morales, support is also growing in Latin America and
Europe for removing coca from international antidrug conventions, given
the absence of any credible health reason for keeping it there.
Traditional growers would benefit economically, and there's some
possibility that such products might compete favorably with more
problematic substances, including alcohol. The global war on
drugs persists in part because so many people fail to distinguish
between the harms of drug abuse and the harms of prohibition.
Legalization forces that distinction to the forefront. The opium
problem in Afghanistan is primarily a prohibition problem, not a drug
problem. The same is true of the narcoviolence and corruption that has
afflicted Latin America and the Caribbean for almost three decades --
and that now threatens Africa. Governments can arrest and kill drug
lord after drug lord, but the ultimate solution is a structural one,
not a prosecutorial one. Few people doubt any longer that the war on
drugs is lost, but courage and vision are needed to transcend the
ignorance, fear, and vested interests that sustain it. Want To Know More? Drugpolicy.org,
the Web site of the Drug Policy Alliance, offers statistics, arguments,
and information about drug policies worldwide. Ethan Nadelmann and
Peter Andreas examine the politics of global crime control in Policing
the Globe: Criminalization and Crime Control in International Relations
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Reproduced with permission from Foreign Policy #162 (September/October 2007) www.foreignpolicy.com. © 2007, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Ethan Nadelmann is founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/71033/
|
OpEdNews Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bernard__071219_george_s_christmas_c.htm
| December 19, 2007 George's Christmas Carol By Bernard Weiner By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers (with assistance by C. Dickens)
Bob Cratchit turned the thermostat up a notch, to take the chill off the 49-degree room, steeled his courage and walked up to the boss, who was oiling his shotgun.
"Sir," said Cratchit, "I was wondering if you would be considering a holiday bonus this year, so that I can buy a small -- a very small -- goose for our family's
Christmas dinner."
"Bah, scumbag!" said Dick. "You lazy bum, trying to sponge off us hard-working citizens. Don't try to bamboozle me; go fuck yourself. Or go talk to George: He's the compassionate one."
But George just smirked at his misfortune and, citing budgetary constraints, ordered the poor man back to his ice-cold cubicle.
Later that evening, in his chambers above the offices of George & Dick Inc., George was lying in his comfortable bed when he heard a most unsettling metallic sound. A huge door creaked open. A cold wind roared through the room, smelling of mold and sulphur.
The visage of his departed partner, Umsfeld, stood next to the bed, wrapped in chains.
"Why are you here, dear friend?" asked George. "And, by the way, you look awful!"
"I cannot stay long. I came to alert you that you will receive three visitations this night. Pay attention to what they say and you might yet save your soul -- and might not wind up
looking like me. I wish someone had visited me with advice, as I committed great crimes in our joint ventures. I must go. Remember the three visitors."
And with that, Umsfeld vanished back into the mist, dragging his rattling chains behind him.
George thought the grotesque vision must have been part of a bad dream; he pulled the covers over his head and soon was back to sleep, occasionally moaning loudly.
THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST
The first visitation appeared, hovering over the bed, at the last stroke of midnight. George awoke.
"Are you one of the visitors that Umsfeld told me about?" said George, his voice quavering in fear.
"Yes, 'tis I, the Ghost of Christmas Past. I am here to remind you of your younger self, of what you've lost over the years in your pursuit of power and approval. Come with me," said the figure. "Here, take my hand."
And with that they flew through the air (and the constraints of
time) and landed in a living room of George's parents. A younger George was stretched out on the couch.
His mother said: "George, why can't you be like your brother? He works hard, he's curious about the world, he's going to make something of himself. He might even be a governor some day. But you! You're lazy, shiftless, wasted on booze and drugs."
"Your mother is right," said his father. "You should be out on your own, making money and settling down, but instead you're still behaving like a bum. We're constantly having to clean up your messes, or get our friends to financially bail you out of your constant business and social failures. This is Christmastime, George, a time of renewal and hope, why not make a vow to change your attitude and help out others?"
George wanted to shout at his supposedly "compassionate" parents, reminding them of that awful day after the funeral of George's beloved little sister Robin, when they abandoned him for a golf
date. But rather than bring that up, and start the meanness and nagging all over again, he just grunted and turned over on the couch.
"Yo, Ghost. I don't need to see this garbage. I know that scene too well. I get your message. Can't we move on to happier times?"
At which point, the first visitor disappeared, and a second floated next to George.
THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Take my hand, as I have something to show you." In a few seconds, they were hovering near the ceiling in a hospital room in Baghdad.
"Do you see what I see, George?"
"I see a brave American soldier being worked on so that he can return to the battle for freedom. He doesn't seem to be doing very well."
"That's all you see in that hospital room?"
"There's a little Iraqi kid in the corner. Nobody's with him; he's probably another unfortunate collateral-damage statistic."
"That child's
abdomen and leg were blasted apart by contracted mercenary forces hired by your government. If he survives, he will be maimed for life. His name is Tamir al-Kratchet."
"Like Tiny Tim back in the States!"
"That's right, George. There are tens of thousands of Iraqi Tiny Tims dead or maimed as a result of this war you unleashed in their homeland. Many of them were orphaned when their parents died, or were found in the rubble abandoned."
"I sure know what that feels like. Are you trying to lean on me to do something to help this unlucky kid?"
"You have the opportunity to help these children and their parents by ending this war quickly."
"Another leader will have to do that. After we've left the premises; I won't be blamed for that one. But what about my employee Cratchit's son, Tiny Tim?"
In an instant they were in the cramped Cratchit living
room.
"I don't know, Mother, how we'll manage to survive this coming year," said Cratchit to his bustling wife who was setting the table for their meager Christmas dinner of meat loaf and mash. "There's talk that the office will be outsourcing my job to some poor person in Bangladesh, our home may go into foreclosure because of the subprime loan we had to take out, we can't afford to send our older kids to college, and then there's Tiny Tim's care."
George said to the Ghost: "This is a poor family; can't they go somewhere, to their church maybe, to get the boy some medical assistance?"
"I'm afraid that when you vetoed the expanded SCHIP bill, children like Tiny Tim with chronic medical conditions were made ineligible," said the Ghost. "It doesn't look good for him."
"Well," said George, "maybe if he invests his money wisely, he'll be luckier in the future."
THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE
And with that last word, the Ghost of Christmas Future appeared, looking like the Spectre of Death, very tall, wearing a hooded black cape and carrying a huge sickle.
George's knees were knocking in fear. "Who are you?"
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Future. Come with me; I want to show you something." The two of them floated above a gravesite at a cemetery.
"Did the U.S. soldier and the Iraqi Tiny Tim die in Iraq?"
"Yes," said the Ghost, "but this is not the grave of either of those."
"Well, whoever died, that person was not very popular. There's virtually nobody mourning by the gravesite."
"You're right. He led such a crass, selfish, greedy life -- never really bothered by the lies he told and the mayhem his arrogant policies caused -- that few mourned his departure from the world."
"That's sad. Nobody should die like that. I can't quite make out the name on
the gravestone. Let me see. It looks like -- oh, no!" At which point, George collapsed to his knees.
"I tried to live a good life," George croaked, aiming his words to Heaven. "I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart. I stopped using drugs and drinking. Well, mostly. I ran my campaign on the theme of compassion."
"I hear you using the word 'compassion' and you talk of it often, but I've never seen you express it in your behavior, your policies. If you really want to help your nation's troops in uniform abroad and Tiny Tim and all those suffering in America and the world, you would have to try to wipe out the twin scourages of Want and Ignorance -- in other words, work to bring about justice and peace and true education."
George looked distraught.
"Your policies," continued the Ghost, "left large portions of the Middle East a wasteland, badly contaminated, with so many citizens bereft of hope. The economy at home is a disaster for nearly everyone,
especially the middle class and the poor. And the American Constitution lies in tatters. If you had paid attention to what really is important in life, maybe then your death would not be so cold, so devoid of people who really cared about you."
George cried out: "Please, Ghost, tell me: Is this the future that is foretold or can it be altered?"
"You are the one who can determine that future," said the Ghost.
Tears ran down George's cheeks. "The scales have been lifted from my eyes, Ghost! I've seen the bleak future. I will change! I will do what you suggest. I will carry the Christmas story in my heart and in my actions for the rest of my days. Will you take me back now?"
The sun's rays burst into the room and shone directly on George's face as he woke up in his own bed. He jumped up, ran to the open window and shouted to a youngster below: "You, boy, you beautiful boy, can you tell me what day this is and what year?" The boy shouted back: "Why,
it's Christmas Day, sir, in the year of Our Lord 2007."
"Good, I still have time," George exclaimed. He threw some money to the boy and told him to buy a large goose and deliver it to the Cratchit house. Giddily, he got dressed while humming Christmas carols. His heart was filled with light and renewal and with the prospect of giving aid to his employee's damaged son.
George awoke in his dark room with a start. "Whoa! What a nightmare! It seemed so real, but no, it had to be a dream -- probably was all those pretzels I ate last night. Well, time to get dressed. Better give Uncle Dick a call. Today's the day we've all been waiting for: It's shock-and-awe time for Iran."
First published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 12/18/07.
Copyright 2007 by Bernard Weiner.
Authors Website: www.crisispapers.org
Authors Bio: Bernard Weiner,
Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at various universities, worked as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). For comment, write >> crisispapers@comcast.net | Jennifer Suzanne Martino
Maranges 5-2
L'Escala, Gerona, Spain 17130
972-77-1931
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| December 15, 2007 | Liquidation of Empire
| | by Gordon Prather | Winston Churchill – icon for President George W.
Bush and the neo-crazies – is revered for declaring "I did not become Her Majesty's First Minister so that I might oversee the liquidation of the British Empire!" Churchill is – understandably – much less revered for proceeding to do just that. With just a year to go in his Presidency, it increasing appears that Bush-43’s chief legacy may be the liquidation of our empire, accumulated during the so-called American Century. To get a sense of the State of the American Hegemony under the stewardship thus far of Bush-43, take a look at the Antiwar.com homepage. There are separate sections, there, largely devoted to consequences of Bush-43 interventions – actual, intended or threatened – into the internal affairs of Russia, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon/Syria, Afghanistan, India, the Koreas, Pakistan, Somalia, the
Congo, Algeria, Peru, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the American Homeland, itself. Of course, we – and the whole world – were given fair warning that there would be such interventions. In his very first State of the Union Address, Bush-43, the self-proclaimed Commander-in-Chief of the Global War on Terror, declared that; "Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. "First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. "And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world. "Our military has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in at least a dozen countries.
A terrorist underworld -- including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-i-Mohammed -- operates in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centers of large cities. "Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy. "Our Navy is patrolling the coast of Africa to block the shipment of weapons and the establishment of terrorist camps in Somalia. "Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. "North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. "Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. "Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. "States
like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. "We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. "And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security. "We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer." Bush’s 2002 National Security Statement, formalizing those policies to be implemented during prosecution of the GWOT under the American Hegemony, focused on "rogue states," rather than the
terrorists themselves . The 2006 update to the 2002 NSS further states that; "The best way to block aspiring nuclear states or nuclear terrorists is to deny them access to the essential ingredient of fissile material. "Therefore, our strategy focuses on controlling fissile material with two priority objectives: "First, to keep states from acquiring the capability to produce fissile material suitable for making nuclear weapons; and second, to deter, interdict, or prevent any transfer of that material from states that have this capability to rogue states or to terrorists. "The first objective requires closing a loophole in the Non-Proliferation Treaty that permits regimes to produce fissile material that can be used to make nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear power program." Of course, the internationally
agreed-upon strategy to prevent nuclear-weapons proliferation has always focused on controlling the fissile materials absolutely essential to their production. But, in return for a signatory’s subjecting all nuclear-energy related activities to International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards – for the exclusive purpose of the IAEA’s being able to verify that certain proscribed materials are never used to produce nuclear weapons – the NPT affirms a signatory’s inalienable right to produce and use such materials for peaceful purposes. Far from constituting a "loop hole," that guarantee is one of the "three pillars" of the NPT. Another NPT pillar is the commitment – reaffirmed by President Clinton at the 2000 NPT Review Conference – to get rid of all our nukes. Then, there’s the NPT prohibition – as well as prohibitions in US law – against Bush’s assisting India [not a NPT-signatory] with its nuclear
programs. Finally, there’s the implied NPT prohibition – and the explicit prohibition in the UN Charter – against Bush’s imposition of sanctions on Russia and China for facilitating Iran’s enjoyment – without discrimination – of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Hence, implementing Bush’s 2006 National Security Strategy – designed to secure the American Hegemony – requires nothing less than the deliberate destruction of the existing international nuclear-weapons proliferation-prevention regime. But, hold on. Even though Bush-43 recently warned Russia and China that World War III could result unless they joined him in imposing crushing economic sanctions on Iran – in violation of the UN Charter – and in denying Iran its inalienable rights under the NPT, Russian President Putin defied Bush by attending a summit meeting in Tehran of the oil-rich Caspian Sea
littoral states, pointedly declaring afterward in a joint Iran-Russia press conference that "Iran is an important regional and global power". Furthermore, China has just defied Bush-43 by concluding a deal with Iran that obliges it "to make all necessary investments to develop the Yadavaran Oil Field in Southwestern Iran." So, maybe Russia and China won’t allow Bush to emasculate the IAEA-NPT-NSG nuke proliferation-prevention regime – which is solidly athwart his American Hegemony ambitions. Then what will be George W. Bush’s chief legacy? World War III, or – like Churchill – liquidiation of an empire? |
| | Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=12058 | | | Copyright 2007 Antiwar.com
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