Monthly Archives: October 2006

Tortured Logic- Thanks Gazette for opposing these attacks on our rights

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‘Tortured Logic- Detainee Bill Undermines American Values’ says The Gazette opinion piece today. Congratulations to this paper for an excellent commentary. This editorial puts this newspaper far to the Left of the Colorado Democratic Party, whose Senator Salazar voted for this unconstitutional piece of legislation. And it puts them far to the Left of the Democratic Party candidate for the 5th Congressional District, Jay Fawcett. In the voter’s guide, this Democrat calls for a ‘global war on terrorism’, which only means that he will rubber stamp Bush’s plans to continue America’s constant warfare around the globe. Why are so many people who oppose the Iraq war planning to keep voting for these Right Wing Democratic Party creeps with their ‘get tough’ baloney? It is not opposing Bush to do so.

Thank you, Gazette, for surprising us for once, with this decent editorial that speaks tough against supporting continued US governmental terrorism, against those prisoners the US government has been taking away and hiding from public scrutiny. We hope you will continue to speak out consistently in the same vein, and begin to oppose all aspects of the militarism that plagues our country.

Blood diamonds

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Before it was a movie title, it distinguished a type of diamond. Blood Diamond was a diamond industry term, a Scarlet Letter, to characterize an uncertain, perhaps blood-tainted, provenance. To be specific, a diamond bought from a rebel controlled region of the third world where the diamonds are traded illegally, meaning outside the market share of the diamond cartel, because a diamond sold without profiting the traditional diamond merchants is an illegal diamond. Don’t you find that odd?

The price of diamonds is kept artificially high as a result of the diamond cartel. By a tradition of laws, the Antwerp merchants have managed to make anyone else’s trading of diamonds illegal, enforcing their monopoly. If you were to discover a diamond mine and did not want to do business with the Antwerp monopoly, you’d be considered an international criminal. In the turmoil of a civil war, if you seized a mine, by definition owned by one of their partners, the cartel would label your merchandise bloody.

The diamond cartel/monopoly is reeling, so we hear, from the Hollywood release of the movie Blood Diamonds. Not because it enlightens the public about the diamond market, but because the movie embellishes upon the unpalatable stigma of blood diamonds. Diamond sellers are worried that their business will be tarnished by their own ugly creation, in this case the severed limbs of the people of Liberia forced to work in the diamond mines by feuding rebels. The merchants are selling those same diamonds after all, it only depends on who sold which to whom.

Therefore the industry is stepping up its reassurances that showroom products are guaranteed not to be blood diamonds. There are stamps of authenticity, for example, which would be lacking on blood diamonds. Really? Do you imagine they hold huge bonfires to destroy contraband diamonds like so much unwanted weed? A blood diamond captured from diamond smugglers becomes a plenty-fine diamond, once again profitable to the cartel. The logic being that the diamonds were confiscated, thus no money went to reward their bearers, thus no bloodletting was given a monetary encouragement.

Even if this was true, it doesn’t address what blood diamonds are about.

The diamond cartel was a fortuitous monopoly to grow out of a few merchants’ control of the then known diamond mines. It’s a throwback legacy of the early trade monopolies granted by kings to encourage exploration and trade. The Portuguese were once given the exclusive right to trade around the horn of Africa, then later around the horn of America. The advantage was held later by the Spanish, the Dutch and the English. The Dutch East India Trading Company was a corporate example, the Hudson Bay Fur Trading Company another. We’ve long since outgrown the need to grant exclusives to conquering explorers. Except for diamonds.

The diamond monopoly upholds diamond prices which is sort of in everybody’s interest, the everybody who owns a diamond. Unregulated, it’s calculated that diamonds would lose half their value, maybe more were diamonds to lose their “a diamond is forever” allure.

There’s another common interest which I’ll address in a moment.

For now, imagine the cartel/monopoly concept if it had been granted for automobiles. Daimler Benz would be producing expensive cars for the wealthy and Henry Ford’s Model-T would be a blood-car. Only the rich would be driving cars and policemen would be chasing the poor in illegal vehicles.

Today’s monopolies are granted through patents and copyrights. Artificial rights which ensure high prices and that the poor are left out. As this applies to medicines and technology, the price differential becomes inhumane. Aids drugs are a tragic example.

The other important reason we tolerate the diamond monopoly is to maintain stability for the ownership class within the globalized economy. Diamonds are one of the few commodities which compete with a global currency. Drugs are another. The movement of value, as represented by diamonds, can fuel economic activity outside the control of banks and regulatory agencies. Commodities represent real value, as compared to currency which represents but a representation. As a result, diamonds which are easily concealed from government tax collectors, can readily be used to fund counter-government activities such as rebellions and emancipations. Bad for business.

Capitalism or not?

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In the US, it is not often found bluntly stated that somebody thinks capitalism is a dead end. I do. Most Americans do not think that so, actually, and would strongly disagree with me. In fact, there are a number of Americans that consider capitalism to be the foundation of liberty. This philosophy is often called Libertarianism.
 
So what do you think? Dead End, or Springboard for All Freedoms? I personally think that besides the question of injustice that anti-capitalists have traditionally invoked, that now we have the situation where capitalism is so antagonist to the ecology of our planet, that that alone makes it a system that must be abolished totally, or we will not survive on this planet.

The Fighting Arabs

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The Notre Dame football players are called the Fighting Irish. Where did that come from? They’re Catholic, so they’re Irish? They’d more likely be Italian, or Belgian, or everyone who speaks Spanish. What is it about the Irish?

Our country has a love affair with the Irish, the Catholic Irish, and it explains Saint Patrick’s Day and our support of the IRA. We fought for our independence from Britain, why shouldn’t they?

English friends used to ask me, why do Americans send money to the IRA? Don’t we see the results of the IRA bombings in London? Do we mean to be supporting cold-blooded terrorists?

I didn’t know the answers to those questions, except one: no, the American public was not regularly shown the devastating bombings in England. Curious. Americans want to love the Irish.

If our support of the Irish cause has anything the slightest in common to do with Notre Dame, I have an idea for the Arab peoples. Buy an American university, at least control of its team, and nickname your athletes the Fighting Arabs. Give them an inspirational Muslim coach. Why not? Imagine them, scrappy Arab underdogs in resplendent heroic uniforms, they too can fight with God on their side.

There is absolutely no reason why Americans can’t cheer for the beleagered Arabs, and won’t pray for an upset, regardless a fan’s normally favored regional school team. Go Arabs! Go Islamists! Go you Fighting Persians!

Phosphorous Bombs- US/Israeli Weapon of Torture

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The BBC has a news item today saying that Israel has just admitted for the first time today that it used Phosphorous bombs on Lebanon. The evidence kept piling up that they in fact had, and evidently Israel came to the conclusion that their lie, that they had not used this type of chemical weapon, was no longer defensible.
 
A similar process had ocurred earliet where the US originally denied using this chemical weapon on Falluja, but then later admitted that it had. Both countries have argued that phosporous bombs are legitimate military weaponry, though previously they had attacked Saddam Hussein’s use of this chemical weapon against his Kurdish population.

The US/ Israeli defense of their use of this weapon is similar to Bush’s defense of using torture against POWs. They have merely changed the label on what they say constitutes torture, as they have now changed the label of what the phosphorus bombs actually are. They call them incendiary bombs now, instead of chemical weapons, which is what they called them when Hussein was using this weapon.

The use of chemical weapons against civilian populations by the US military is ancient news, as is their juggling of labels for them. Chemical weapons are often called ‘pesticides’, ‘defoliants’, or described as ‘smoke bombs’, as Israel did with phosphorous, which gives off plumes of camoflaging smoke, which just happens to be poisonous. Israel claimed to be merely marking targets with phosphorus bombs’ smoke, rather than using this weapon to burn the insides out of its targets. That’s what phosphorous does as it burns downward and into the blood stream, where it is later carried to organs inside the body while still burning.

The US/ Israeli use of these weapons explains their political policies in the Arab world quite well. These are the weapons of terrorist countries, rogue staters that defy international law that has tried repeatedly to limit weapons of torture like this, not to mention trying to outlaw the cluster bombs also dropped everywhere by the same two states. These are the weapons of terrorist states, and not merely legitimate countries just trying to fight the terrorism of a few rogue individuals. Rogues, one might add, that originally fought on behalf of the US in other terrorist conflicts directed from Washington DC. These are the weapons of imperial governments that illegally occupy territory of other peoples, peoples they consider inferior to their own. These are the weapons of racists.

Religious Bigotry, Nationalism, and Racism

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Religious Bigotry, Nationalism, and Racism are the core ingredients of patriotism worldwide. Oh, I know, some will say that Peace is Patriotic, and other such liberal claptrap. But we all know what Patriotism really means; it means my religion before all others, my country before all others, my race before all others.

Got to thinking about this while writing the last commentaries about that certain racist Colorado Springs State rep dissing Hispanics, and the blown away Fort Carson trained snipers coming back in bags from Iraq.

Got to thinking about this at the last city council meeting, where all assembled are forced into prayer and a pledge of allegiance before the city council meeting can be allowed to begin. It is a loyalty oath where it is demanded of one that we show our patriotism. But I’m not a patriot, and proud of that, too, and do not think that I will participate in standing up next time I go to this government function. I will opt out instead. Instead, I don’t think that the home team is special, nor that the home religion is special, nor that the White race of European background is better than others. I don’t like patriots. I’m not one myself, and with good reason.

3 Fort Carson snipers die, no reason to cry

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Probably one of the most disgusting lines of work the Pentagon arranges for ‘our troops’ to do, is the role of sniper. And three of these Fort Carson trained assassins just got blown up yesterday in Iraq, according to The Gazette headline today. The article had sort of a tearful quality to it, and this is part of the neo-con rehab for the reputation of snipers, torturers, and thugs of all stripes and varieities.
 
Cybersniper.com will give you even a musical rendition of this sniper rehab propaganda, and another sniper.com site had a collection going to help out US military snipers to get better equipment to shoot down Arabs with. Kind of a Toy for Tots thing, Bless their damned souls. But when most Americans think of snipers, they generally still think of Lee Harvey Oswald, and Charles Whitman, who shot down close to 50 people from the University Tower at the University of Texas in Austin. Let’s hope that people also remember that both got their training in the US Marine Corp, but they might not, I guess?

These three soldiers who just died in Iraq all trained as snipers at Fort Carson, but their dead bodies will head back to their hometowns, where no doubt the local press will talk about how proud their families are of them, how proud their local communities are of them, and how proud America is that they gave their lives in service to Bush and Cheney and the oil companies they represent. Hahaha, that last part is just untrue. The local press won’t mention that part of their ‘sevice’ for sure. My bad. They will be called hereoes, ‘sniper heroes’ even! Tears will wash ashore in remembrance of what fine men they were to choose this fine line of endeavour.

But the time to cry was when they joined the military and began to have the aspiration to train as long distance killers. They threw their lives away THEN, plain and simple. No reason to cry now. RIP, you three made the wrong turn in life. I’m crying for the orphan children of Iraq instead.

My Fellow Tribesmen

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KILL BUSH? Worry about Karl Rove? Fix Afghanistan? Remove the homeless from public libraries? Wow, you guys have a lot of mental energy! I am starting to feel like maybe I’m not part of the tribe. I’ll agree that the world has a few issues, but nothing like the nightmare occurring at Chez Walden right now.
 
arch.jpgMy resident bachelor and I decided recently to spice up our lives by adding some color to the house. We planned to paint three archways in the living and dining rooms in bold colors. After much cajoling by him (I tend to like beiges and grays) and many hours spent at Sherwin-Williams, we settled on Martha Stewart’s Old Copper Kettle (kind of a turquoisey thing) and Russet Rose. [A little background info….ever since I explained to the bachelor the ins and outs of “insider trading” and how rich people do it all the time and how retarded it is that it’s illegal, he’s been slightly obsessed with Martha. He understands the steep price she’s paid to appease the common man and is grateful for her selflessness.]

So, we got our supplies and taped everything off and yesterday was paint day. Here’s where it starts to get ugly. I was happily painting away, picturing myself in Morocco riding a big sexy camel, when not one but two of my children, at separate times, came up to say, “Cool, Mom. Looks like La Casita.” Eeeeeek! Not at all the look I’m going for! Talk about pinking shears through the heart!

So during my day today, instead of traveling to Washington to kill Dubya as I’d planned, I’ve had to call in my faux finish people, wait for them to arrive and fix the mess that I’ve created. I’m sorry that I’m letting everyone down. I promise, if George W. shows up at my door I’ll give him a good slap, I’ll pull his hair. If I’m feeling really plucky, I’ll give him an Indian burn. But right now I have to call and cancel the rainbow awning. Mea culpa.

David Schultheis, World Class Dickhead

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David Schultheis of Colorado Springs, Colorado State Representative of District 14, is a world class dickhead. Just four days after a family loses 3 children and has a fourth one severely injured in an automobile wreck, Schultheis wrote off to the Greeley Tribune, demanding to know if the the severely injured driver had proper documents or not. He inquired about her drivers license, insurance, and car registration, too, and all on the same day the third child died at the hospital!
 
You see, the family had a Hispanic last name, so that justifies this dickhead Anglo, in his own dickhead mind, to grill them publicly like that.

Schultheis was supported by Pastor Joy, of the Greeley for God ministry, no Spanish language services available, along with some other local Greeley folk allergic to Latinos. But the Hispanic community was appalled, along with any one else with even a speck of humanity about them.

Schultheis must be a student and associate of the so-called Jeff Henry (no relation to Patrick we are sure), local CS jefe of the racist Minutemen group. Speaking of that, a picture is worth a thousand words. I refer to the one picture, with Mayor Rivera passively sitting alongside Jeff Henry, that The Independent had in its previous edition. Beautiful shot, Indy! Rivera heads up a city council that allowed this hate group leader to hold a recruitment rally in a Colorado Springs police substation some few weeks back. So that’s why he is so content sitting next to this thug at a meeting about immigration ‘reform’, of all things. Jeff, can Rivera stay? You and David need to get togerhter and check out his papers first. lol… But I bet Lockheed will vouch for him.

David Schultheis, you got some stiff competition in the competition for Colorado Springs most eligible dickhead. But you win hands down. What a dickhead! Did you pay all your taxes and behave with your Page, Dave?

Internet purchase wait-period plugin

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Want to buy something online? On a lark, found it on Ebay, need to buy it right away, without checking your closet for the one you have already? Here’s a little browser plugin that might break the instant gratification spell and give you a moment’s reprise to reflect and say oh, no no no.

It’s a browser plugin called the Wait-a-Bit Bug.

Here’s how it works. Once you initiate a purchase with your browser, the Wait-a-Bit Bug kicks in and asks for a validation number. This number will have been provided by your spouse. The rules of this inter-relationship cooperative effort will be that the number come from some object in the home, a serial number perhaps, or an expiration date. The plugin will provide the matching information already provided by your spouse: a description of where the number can be found. The partner wanting to make the purchase will now have to track down the item and type in the requested number. This task should provide the needed wait period in which to reconsider the appropriate quality of the purchase.

If you do complete the purchase, your partner is notified at the first opportunity that another item and identifying number must be selected. In this way, partner notification is enforced, and the purchase can be evaluated from differing perspectives, ensuring that one person at least will not be impartial and or indifferent.

If the buying behavior proves too compulsive to be affected by the wait period, the level of difficulty can be adjusted by selecting household items requiring searches of greater complexity. This strategy can incorporate the hiding of specified items, the specification of items which do not exist at all, as well as the recording of serial numbers deliberately mistyped. Hopefully these options can be agreed upon between the partners.

Donald Rumsfeld, Messenger of God

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The surprising news one learns these days! It turns out that God has inspired new messengers since the Book of Mormon was writ. We learn that Donald Rumsfeld now is a Messenger of God, so says the US high command from high on the Mount. Praise Allah that we have such a leader in our Crusade against the followers of the evil pedophilic Messenger of Satan, called Mohammad. There is certainly no way now our country can lose this war against the world! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill those dirty Hadjis. Go Team America! Or better make that Church America….
 
Here it is, the brief from faraway news24.com of South Africa. Just how in the world did our local Gazette miss it?

Kill Bush, Part Two

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I wrote a commentary here a couple of days back, that was titled “Kill Bush”. It went something like this… Kill Bush, Kill, Kill, Kill! I also called for the violent overthrow of our American way of life. I did stop short of advocating that we spit on images of Christ, or that we batter down church doors with neon crosses. I would like to ammend that, and now call exactly for such things to be done (being an atheist, why not?) So far, my appeals to organize such mayhem have gone relatively unheeded.
 
Still, I feel it is just a matter of time before others, like Julia of California and the al-Quaeda organization of Karachi, Pakistan, join together with me to carry out our attacks on the cartoonish Bush Adminstration. They should be fleeing to their bunkers even as I write this. We will do all this without the ass..istance of the Democratic Party though. They too are in the bunkers, hiding in fear.

Some have told me, “Tony, you are breaking the law by saying KILL BUSH!”. I would like to assure them, that not yet. I am still waiting for the delivery of my surface-to-air missile launcher I ordered from eBay to be delivered. Some have said, “Tony, you cannot shout Fire! Fire! Fire! in the theater. You cannot call for the shotgunning down of Dick Cheney!” But this is the age of NetFlix, and indeed, shouting Fire! Fire! Fire! in the context of watching a film at home is not yet determined by the 9 wise farts of the Supreme Deciders Club.

Some have worried that maybe I am a government agent provacateur, seeking to bring doom down upon our planet of the scattered wanderers without tribe race? That may be. They are everywhere in our matrix of FASCISM these government sperm. One can truly only be safe at the shopping mall these days.

I have heard it said, too, that one can legally call for KIlling Anybody, except but not for calling for the killing of our sainted President from the heavenly state of Texas. In that case, I didn’t say it. But let me just add, that I think we ought to blow up the Exxon Mobil cartel, located in my hometown of Irving, Texas, and start buying more gas from Venezuela’s demon-led CITGO to do it with . Conspiracy buffs might note that Oswald also hung around Irving back when I was growing up there. And I too, have held a copy of the Militant newspaper in my hand. In fact, I went to the school by the Texas schoolbook depository. Coincidence that we both have turned to terrorism? I don’t think so.

So render me if you will? Neighbor, call a torture taxi for me right now! And what a convenient place to have me flyed off from; Colorado Springs. How dare you threaten the King, King George. Heck, we might have let you off if Slick was still in, but this is a crime of immense proportions calling out KILL BUSH.

KIll, Kill, Kill Bush! Shall I soften this for delicate folk and call out only KILL BUSH POLITICALLY!??? Nah. It just doesn’t sound right. And besides, you know you want to do it too, just like Julia and I have done. So stick with your IMPEACH BUSH shtick as you will, and let them call for the terror taxi for me and Julia. Free Speech was once protected in our country. It was allowed to shout OFF WITH HIS HEAD!, even Bush’s. And I think it still is.

Seriously, people. Check out this commentary about Julia and the Visit Counterpunch Maybe it says it better than I do?

Paramilitary chaplains

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What is a military chaplain? Or a police chaplain for that matter? This government is so hung up about outsourcing its work to the faith-based sector, wouldn’t chaplains be a great place to start?
 
Need a priest at the scene of a fatal accident? Call a priest. Need a minister to administer last rites? Call a minister. Need a man of the cloth to give soldiers the pep talk about how God is on their side? Call Anthony Robbins but don’t assert you’ve got a liason officer with God’s office and you have him on your payroll!

Batanga

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Let’s face it. Colorado Springs has some of the crappiest radio stations of any sizable city in the country. I like Spanish language music, but the reception is so bad that 101.9 hardly comes in. And their selection of music isn’t so hot anyway. So you might try checking out this site, especially with high speed access. There are many different styles of Latin music available here for free. Try cumbia, bachata, and baladas for starters. Batanga

The absentee election reform solution

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Here is the Democratic Party plan to combat black box voting. Mail in your ballots. That’s the plan to overcome the GOP control over the registration of the voters, over the administration of the voting, over the programming of the electronic voting machines, over the electronic counting of the votes, over the poll taking at the voting centers, over the reporting of the voting results and over the concession by the losing party. The Democratic party plan to enforce an inviolate paper trail? Encourage the use of absentee ballots.

Sit down, it’s already too late to request an absentee ballot if you don’t have one already. And asking for an absentee ballot on the cusp of the deadline increases the chance that you will be struck from the list of voters permitted to vote on election day, as well as receive no ballot in the mail.

The call to encourage absentee ballots was not made very loudly, presumably so as not to diminish confidence in the voting process thereby losing more prospective votes than the Democrats could save. But in the end, whose purpose will that serve? How will we overcome GOP election fraud if we do not cry foul?

Election 2000 was rigged, as was 2002 and 2004. What are the indications that 2006 will be otherwise? Are there now fewer Diebold voting machines? Fewer Republican election officials?

The press reports that a landslide of voters are disenchanted with Bush and the war in Iraq. Yet it’s predicted that many of the candidates are neck and neck. It’s being forecast that Decision 2006 will be a tough call. Wow. Well. Kick in a few more bucks to your party. Is the election really going to be anybody’s call? Or is that anybody making the call already a Republican?

Is this really a democracy?

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I sent in to get registered the last hour of the last day where I could vote this election coming up. But I don’t know why? Every round of this Tweedle Dee/ Tweedle Dum charade they call ‘democracy’ just leaves me feeling more and more alienated. Democracy is when power is contested, but there is no contest for power in America. The corporations run our society, and in fact, they run the world’s. So why do we keep going through this pretense that something will change depending on the result of our vote?

Reach Out And Touch Someone Inc.

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Do you have an internet business which ships its product to regions outside the reach of your delivery van? Are you experiencing difficulties with customers beyond your physical reach? Let the friendly agents at R.O.A.T.S. be your representatives in the area. We’re a long distance, internet fulfillment service with contract agents in every major metropolitan city. Need a housecall? We’ll make the housecall.

ROATS INC is a service for long distance transactions gone awry. Let’s say you’ve delivered on your end of the order, but your customer now wants to take advantage of the geographic distance that separates you. If you have a customer who’s UNJUSTLY initiating credit card charge-backs, enlisting the service of buyer-guarantee programs, taunting you via email, leaving negative feedback, or demanding a refund yet refusing to return the product, let us be of assistance!

We offer two types of Reach Out And Touch Someone TM service. First, we can assist your transaction by visiting your customer to facilitate the return of your merchandise. At this stage we can also negotiate a resolution with the leverage that comes exclusively from a personal visitation.

Our secondary service is offered for transactions already transpired. At this point there are several levels of options, dependent upon the degree to which you feel wronged. Naturally these options are intentionally designed to deter customer misbehavior.

Our service is billed per-action. However there is no charge for merchants to post our transaction protection logo on their website. the ROATS Reach Out And Touch Someone long distance transaction protection and enforcement logo will deter the internet buyer who intends to defraud you from outside your reach. Reassure those customers that you can, if they require it, touch them.

Afghanistan- Our military is full of cowards and criminal murderers of children

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In Afghanistan once again, our US military (NATO) has let go, from ahigh, bombs upon civilians sleeping in their beds. This time they bombed mud huts at 2 AM in the morning full of sleeping children. Lest you say I lie, this is from Fox News, favorite source of our Right Wing’s propaganda. Fox News

Since the Right Wing press makes no effort to even hide this sort of news story, we can infer that they consider it a perfectly normal way to carry out military operations. For after all, Fox lies and hides critical information away from its viewers all the time. So what does that say about the character of supporters of the war like Fox and Murdoch, the owner? It says that they support US soldier cowards and soldier murderers of children. From the commander-in-chief on down.

Is the truth harsh? Yes, our troops are cowards and assassins of children, that’s the plain truth. They prefer being that to actually engaging in combat. They prefer to drop bombs in the middle of the night indiscriminately, to actually moving in on the ground to see who they might be shooting at. That would be risky, so they kill sleeping children nonstop instead.

The soldier ‘leaders’ are cowards who fear most of all, that the home press will score them for the body bags coming back home, so they prefer to murder by firing at houses in the middle of the night, from way up in the air, even when it means continually blowing away children, women, old men, and other assorted non-combatants. Who cares? Nobody except maybe Lancet keeps count of these folk, anyway.

US soldier, Hero or Coward? You decide. As for me, the only soldier heroes are those who refuse to participate in this carnage of the innocent. The rest, well they are just cowards. Nothing pretty about it. And those who refuse to demand withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, even while doing so in regard to US troops in Iraq? You are cowards of the worse sort, too.

Legal clarity

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President Bush feels the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will provide “clarity” for American interrogation specialists to know they can torture their suspects with impunity. Because America doesn’t torture, in the dictionary sense of the word.

But there’s a clarity that will hit all the Bushmen when they sober up. They will face the Geneva Conventions and the International Convention on Torture. And there are two further legal principles already in force since the last world war. No one is exempt from international law, and no domestic law may abridge or revoke international conventions.

Pass whatever tortured laws you think can protect you, you can run but you can’t hide.

On the issue of providing indemnity to American interrogators, there is one further principle exercised at Nuremburg. Each of us is responsible for refusing immoral commands. There is no such excuse as just following orders.

The US Supreme Court, rigged as it has been to Bush’s favor, may not strike down his permit to torture, but international jurists will. Bush’s vengefull threat aimed at the already-dead 9/11 highjackers will prove true in a manner opposite his intent:

“Those who kill the innocent will be held to account.”

RIP, Freddy Fender

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One of the greatest musicians of our times died last Sunday. My ex- next door neighbor recorded his Kentucky gospel music at Freddy’s studio in Corpus Christi, which I drove by numerous times before moving to Colorado Springs this summer. But I also grew up with the music of this great musician constantly being played on the radio and elsewhere, and it always lightened the mood for me. RIP, Freddy. You lived in a cruel world, with cruel laws and cruel punishments. Thank goodness you were able to overcome the cruelty of being tossed into Angola prison in Louisiana for merely smoking marijuana, and were able to write and play such beautiful songs that gave pleasure even to those who jailed you. We will miss you.

Good food owes everything to context

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The best anything I ever had was a can of soda, thrown to me in the water where I’d been diving for the better part of a day. My mouth was salty from the seawater taste of my mouthpiece and the dry air from my regulator. The cool sweetness of the soda pop was an olfactory relief never to be rivaled. Ask me now, treading water next to an outrigger, negotiating the waves of the South China Sea, and splashing a Sprite over my mouth, nothing better.

I came to understand this context principle later while camping in the Ozarks with my uncle. After a long hike, making chicken and rice soup over the fire, by combining every freeze-dried ingredient we had, made the best meal I’d ever tasted.

This principle explains man’s imbibing of alcohol entirely. Drinking wine is nothing but context. Alone, wine is a tartish experiment. With a meal it’s chemistry. Ice water is irrigation.

I’ve since improved upon the ultimate repast. Spaghetti with olive oil and fresh Parmesan, shoveled into your mouth from a mixing bowl on your chest as you recline watching a film. I foresaw my destiny as a bachelor when I admitted this was my Saturday Night ne plus ultra.

How to improve upon such elevated culinary expectations? I tried that once too. Unfiltered pear juice, in a hot shower, while peeing. Probably it was just too easy to orchestrate.

Kill Bush

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Kill Bush! Kill, kill, kill. Let’s do it, Julia. In case people don’t know by now, Julia is a 14 year old school girl in California who had posted a photo of Bush with the words ‘Kill Bush’ onto her My Place website. Despite the fact that months went by and Bush had visited her city twice during that time unprotected from Julia, all of a sudden the Secret Service came by. Two big beefy ones, too. Julia had posted this material when she was 13 years old, so their visit was not exactly that of a speedy response team. And it seems that despite the Zillions already spent on Homeland Security bureaucracy, that nationally we still got basically what New Orleans has… which is A Confederacy of Dunces on the security job. So just who called the cops?

Well, we personally don’t know the answer on that one. No doubt, some self righteous super zealot of the Right, since they are all crawling out of the woodwork these days. We got the self-hating red diaper baby, David Horowitz, outing liberal professors all around the country. We got the racist Anglo ‘Minutemen’ calling up cops with info about people not speaking America’s official language, English without acent…. as they compare themselves to Neighborhood Watch, chuckle as you will. And Barnes and Noble has stacks of the excremental works of Bill O’Reilly as you go in. He’s watching you, American liberals! And we got lynch mobs here in Colorado trying to hang Ward Churchill from a pole. If they can’t do that, they’ll probably send him a blanket with small pox on it. And we got the airport security branch of the US military waging war everywhere on our behalf at the airports. Of course, they do do a little collateral damage from time to time. But heck, if you don’t like the gated community called America, then get out, ay?

Just 4 months ago, my high school buddy who I had lost contact with for years and I, reestablished a correspondence. But it got torpedoed for me when he got on the case against a University of Texas prof, an international specialist in lizards, no less! My friend was aghast that this evilutionist expert, Professor Eric Pianka, had just said in a university talk that bacteria deserved to live, whereas mankind really didn’t, since our species was working night and day to destroy the planet. Good Lord, what a crime!

MY high school buddy had heard about it on the Drudge Report. And they had heard about it from some Southern Baptist scientists (yes, unbelievable, isn’t it?) who had called the government alleging that Pianka was advocating biological warfare! And they had called all their Intelligent Design friends, and Drudge, too. So, Homerland Security again went to work. You see, they take our security quite seriously, so they marched out to the Univ of Texas to check out this liberal terrorist. And they examined, under a microscope, all his words of wisdom ever uttered about evolution and lizards. Clear it was, that this non-Creationist had a greater love for lizards and bacteria than he did for humankind. Yet he had not started a biological warfare lab at the U.

Well, in short, both Professor Eric Pianka and Julia remain free. After all, America doesn’t burn witches yet. But Homeland Security does take reports from an alert citizenry, and that’s a citizenry full of finks, evidently. And they do take seriously any jokes at the airport about bombs. We may even begin to see signs saying that ‘This School is a Gun Free School’ posted at our kindergardens. So, Liberals, please join me in my effort to give these nice folk all something to think about.

Kill Bush. Shotgun pellet Donald Rumsfield. Deny Habeus Corpus to Alberto Gonzales. Put Condaleeza in bondage… no… I mean a ‘stress position’. Nuke Washington DC! Go after them in their bunkers, and blow the whole crew to smithereens! Please, do it now.

Liberals, start advocating violence (including the violent overthrow of America’s government) everywhere. If you can’t beat them, then join them. Oops, you do that already by voting for the Democratic Party. So try advocating violence instead. Let it out of your Gandhian souls. Kill, Kill, Kill!

Kill Bush.

Libraries public no longer

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Public libraries have become daycares for the homeless. A recent front page article in the Gazette waxed poetic about the sanctuary libraries provide for itinerants. The idyllic photograph of an prenebriated gentleman scholar was as inviting as a panhandler on the street corner actually. So, up for an afternoon at the library? Do you want to drop your kids off there and let them wander the shelves unsupervised? Followed by the odd mental-outpatient? Do you want them sharing desks and chairs surfaces with the quite less hygienic?
 
The public library is not for you and me anymore. And you know who doesn’t care? Barnes and Noble. Borders. I have a bookstore too, so I don’t care either.

The decay of the American library system plays right into the hands of bookstore owners. Let citizens buy their books. Let ’em buy their coffee while they hang out looking at books they have to BUY.

Those who can’t afford new books? Let them catch lice from the homeless. They’re about as good as a homeless person to the bottom line of the economy.

And let the libraries spend their budget on bestsellers and DVDs. Whatever the public wants. When they need something, a reference item, an item for their own personal edification or continued education, they’ll have to come to the book store!

The rest of the library crowd will be left reading dreck. Another base motive of the capitalists in charge. A healthy democracy requires an educated public.

And I’d like to be more clear. I do care. I’m in the used book business. We sell good books to people who read. Our customer base is not served by communities whose public libraries give them movies instead of books, bestsellers instead of good books. And no children are nurtured well if they grow up having to avoid the library.

A proposed local anti-torture resolution

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We, concerned American citizens and residents of the city of Colorado Springs, call upon our city council to issue a proclamation to both the state of Colorado and the federal government, that as citizens of this city, state, and country, we categorically reject the application of any deliberate mental or physical abuse upon any and all prisoners held by our local, state, and national governments. And further that we call upon our national leaders to have all prisoners held by the US military, be treated according to the regulations of the Geneva Conventions regarding the humane treatment of prisoners of war.

We urge the passing of the following resolution by the City Council of Colorado Springs:
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We, the citizens of Colorado Springs, categorically reject the current policy of our national government of transferring US held prisoners to other countries, or to US allied armed groups, to have them tortured during interrogation or as punishment. We also reject any policy of deliberate governmental assassination of foreign opponents, whether it be carried out by our own military, or outsourced to US allies.

We, the citizens of Colorado Springs, categorically reject the indefinite holding of any prisoners without trial and without charges filed against them, whether foreign or domestic. We reject the systematic denial of timely access to lawyers of the choosing of the prisoners needing legal representation. We reject harassment of the legal councils of all prisoners. All prisoners should immediately have access to the press, so that any mistreatment can be made public. Not to do so, is not in keeping with the processes of a democratic society, whether these prisoners be domestic or foreign.

We, the citizens of Colorado Springs, call upon the US government to immediately prosecute any officials who have abused prisoners, or denied them their due rights. This includes not just the immediate abusers of prisoners, but those in supervisory positions over those lower level employees, who directed the actions of their subordinates. We call upon our federal government to immediately initiate a grand federal investigator commission into these multiple abuses that have already been documented as having occurred, and to have them stopped at once.

Further, we the citizens of Colorado Springs, call upon our state and local authorities to renounce the use of abuse and torture of American prisoners held in local and state facilities. We are well aware that the deliberate use of sexual abuse, solitary confinement, and physical assault is rampant throughout the US in multiple correctional facilities, and that the multiple torture methods and abuse techniques and denial of rights used against our own citizens is now being incorporated into the systematic abuse of foreign POWs held by our military. Calling foreign POWs by any other name does not change their real status as POWs. If the US military has taken prisoner any foreign citizen during military engagements, then these troops we consider to be POWs, and their treatment is subject to the Geneva Conventions.

We, the citizens of Colorado Springs and our city council, especially condemn local military contracting agencies, with their many offices located inside our city limits, that have directed torture against POWs in other countries. Already US troops operating in conjunction with these private contractors have been found guilty of directing torture and abuse of prisoners in their custody. These private operatives have been documented as having shot at foreign nationals and having severely injured and murdered foreign civilians as a result. We do not consider these companies to be good citizens of our community, and urge that appropriate criminal charges be brought against companies that have violated prisoner rights per the Geneva Accords regarding humane treatment of POWs. We call upon the city, the state of Colorado, and the US federal government to cease contracting at once with these companies, and to end their immunity from having charges brought against them for their acts of criminality overseas.

Further, we the citizens of Colorado Springs, reject as dishonest and criminal any government denial at either the state, local, or national levels that these abuses are in fact occurring. The documentation is extensive and overwhelming that the US is mistreating POWs, and also prisoners within its own national criminal corrections facilities. The US government has a known and long history of using torture against POWs. Tens of thousands of US held Vietnamese POWs were tortured to death in the so-called ‘tiger cages’ and during the US “Phoenix Operations.” Similarly, the atrocities on prisoners captured by the US financed ‘Contras’ has been well documented. The US use of torture on POWs is not new. What is new is the open advocacy by federal leaders of what had been covert policy. We condemn, as citizens of Colorado Springs, this open advocacy of war crimes committed by US soldiers. We support our troops by demanding that they not be subject to orders to commit war crimes.

We the citizens of Colorado Springs and our city council, proclaim it time for the abuse to stop, and for humane treatment of all prisoners to begin. To allow our government to abuse foreign prisoners of war is to be complicit in the crime, just as continuing to allow abuse to be inflicted on our own incarcerated citizens. We reject both, and call upon our government, at all levels, to most urgently begin to humanely treat those behind bars.

The passage of this proclamation by our city council to be sent to both the Governor of the state of Colorado and to the President of the United State.

US-sponsored death squads continue to rampage in the Philippines and Colombia

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The US military is holding joint military exercises this month with the Philippine military. Yet, the death squads are rampaging there like they did in the Ferdinand Marcos era. Did Americans think that the US military was truly out of that poor country’s life? And in Colombia the death squads also continue to rampage, with funding from the US for its military operations in the last 5 years at over $3 billion dollars. Tens of thousands have lost their lives due to the US intervention in that South American country. A signal card of many Colombian death squad attacks is the use of the chain saw on their victims. Our US government sponsors terrorism around the globe, and these 2 countries have been among the worst victims of our government’s evil interventions. Lest we forget, Iraq is defintely not the only country shredded by US interventionism. And in all cases the US intervenes, to have different groups of the native populations go at each other’s throats, while US troops direct the carnage.