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Seductive bad advice for environmentalists: "work more with business".
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
A study that I linked to from here previously reported that environmental organizations have achieved more by activism than by trying to work as insiders. The advice to work more as insiders will mean achieving less.
I suspect two reasons why more Americans oppose environmentalism now than before. Both are consequences of right-wing gains in other areas of politics. One is that many Americans' views are shaped by the corporate media, which is more solidly controlled and more right-wing now than in the 70s. The other is Americans in general are poorer.
Concern for the environment grew as many Americans became comfortable enough that they were not worried about immediate survival. As the right-wing makes life harder in the US, more Americans fall back to the level where they can't afford to care--about the environment, or about anything.
There is no essential reason for there to be a trade-off between more jobs and substantially more pollution. All sorts of work can be done in cleaner ways or dirtier ways. When businesses face strong democratic governments, as they did in the US in the 70s, they have to do the work the clean way. But when businesses are stronger than the governments, which is true today as a result of "free trade" treaties, they can force countries to compete to permit the highest pollution levels. That's why more jobs means more pollution.
Bush placated Europe by calling for a contiguous Palestine, but he's not really stopping Sharon from carving it up.
UK plans for "internment at home" are running into trouble and are
being scaled back--but the essence, which is to deny
the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty, remains.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
Bush gave Putin a good lecture about what democracy means. Now if
only
he would follow his own advice.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
How credit card companies play tricks to gouge the public.
They can do this because the president and Congress represent the banks more than they represent the public.
Dubya's uncle's company is profiting from the war, often through no-bid contracts.
The Colombian Army
arrested and then murdered peace activists and their families.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
(I read in another announcement that one of the arrested people escaped, which is how it is known that the others were arrested by the army just before they were killed.)
The French oil company TOTAL is a big financial backer
of the Burmese regime--and its practices of slave
labor.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
Chavez is moving forward with the breakup of large land holdings so as
to give land to the peasants.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
The US encouraged this policy in the 1960s, but Venezuela did not implement it in a permanent way. Now Chavez is completing what Kennedy started.
Human activities that damage the environment have the ironic indirect
effect of
creating new diseases for humans.
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
Even the Bush-appointed head of the CIA now
admits that the occupation of Iraq strengthens Islamic terrorist groups.
Of, by and
for Big Business.
I disagree with one point in that article: business interests do not
deserve any clout, not in a democracy. If a business executive has
more influence than you or I, that means democracy has been subverted
to some extent.
The Athenian democracy was carefully designed to resist this danger.
The influence of corporate executives on elections
also protects them from prosecution for their crimes.
Here are examples.
Venezuelan president Chavez accused Bush of plotting to assassinate
him. It would not surprise me, since the US has already tried several
ways to remove him from office.
The story is full of cheap shots against Chavez. For instance, Chavez
objected when Colombia kidnaped a FARC leader from Venezuela; wouldn't
you object if foreigners kidnaped someone in your country and carried
him off? He said Colombia should have applied for that man's
extradition, and presented evidence in court. Isn't that the right
way to handle accusations of criminal activity?
The article trivializes both issues by calling them "noisy diplomatic
spats". The article also says it's the second such on two months, as
if to show that Chavez is foolishly quarrelsome. However, it's the US
that decides how many disputes to create with Venezuena. Attack
someone, then blame him for responding--it's standard tactics for
bullies that expect to control the spin of what they do.
Bush is using the same tactics to put across lies about
social security that he used to put across lies about Iraq.
Ocean temperature data show conclusively that global warming
is caused by mad-made greenhouse gases.
Federal prisoners in Brooklyn
were tortured by "a significant
percentage of those who had regular contact with the detainees."
John Negroponte, Bush's new Director of Intelligence, has a history of
supporting campaigns of murder--by lying.
Bush's men at the CIA are trying to break it to total obedience
to support Bush's political agenda. Several people have quit.
If you think of this in terms of obtaining intelligence for the sake
of some sort of national interest, the departure of those people would
be a problem. But Bush doesn't care--he just wants obedience.
Bush and Saudi Arabia are suspected of trying to muzzle Al Jazeera.
The inhabitants of Kufr Kadum have started a nonviolent protest
campaign against the Israeli settlement that blocks the only road into
their village.
More cases of murder by British Bush forces troops are coming to light.
The cases that are documented enough to be investigated are surely but
a fraction of all the cases. And the Americans in the invading forces
have surely murdered far more.
Bush pretends to be trying to reduce US greenhouse gas
emissions, but it is phony.
Bush Tort Reform:
Executive Clemency For Executive Killers
There has been substantial climatic change in
deep ocean water
in the past 10 years. The reason is not known.
Human Rights Watch reports that Russia is carrying out a campaign of
repression in Chechnya, including torture and murder.
Too bad the US government is no longer in a position to criticize
this.
The Human Rights Watch report is said to be a part of the large
file found at this address.
The king of Nepal is arresting human rights workers as
well as politicians.
A plan to drill for oil near Sakhalin
could wipe out an
endangered species of whales.
Virginia House Panel Cites
'Liberty' In Yanking Red-Light Cameras
Beware of the Dog! (Uri Avnery)
The 35-hour work week
is under attack in France. This is part of the global business strategy to make each country's
workers work more hours to compete with the rest of the world.
The result of this pressure is, workers everywhere lose, and only the
bosses gain.
The CIA is
complaining about being left in charge of people imprisoned for life
without trial.
Somehow I can't feel very sorry for them, because the injustice of
keeping prisoners for life without trial eclipses the practical
consequences for the warders. Nobody gets into the CIA against his
will, and if you don't like being in the CIA, you can get out.
This article's focus on the embarrassment of the warders reflects a
prior decision to downplay the injustice of what they are doing. It
reminds me of the movie Pulp Fiction, specifically of the discussion
between murderous thugs about the ethics of foot massages.
An American nun who defended Brazilian farmers from illegal loggers
has been murdered, highlighting Lula's failure to stop illegal logging.
An Italian journalist, held hostage in Iraq,
pleads for removal of Italian troops.
It would be cowardly and absurd to withdraw troops from a justified
and necessary war merely to save a few hostages. On the other hand, a
few hostages don't excuse continued participation in an unjust war.
Bush ordered scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service to
misrepresent scientific data--not just once, but many times. The goal
was to avoid protecting endangered species.
The Soviet Union was famous for imposing a distorted idea of science:
Lysenko's theory of evolution, which said that striving to change
oneself leads to changes in one's offspring. This theory, adopted in
the face of the facts because it fit Communist ideology, was
devastating for biology in the Soviet Union.
Capitalists also distort science and suppress facts, but they do it to
prevent interference with their business plan. We have seen this in
regard to global warming, in regard to endangered species, in regard
to genetically modified crops, and in regard to the danger of
medicines, tobacco, and other products. This means that much of the
criticism of Soviet-style Commmunism applies to Capitalism as well.
Bush is trying
to deny tortured US pilots compensation they are due from Iraq.
Bush doesn't think torture is a bad thing, and now that the Iraqi
government is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bush and his cronies, they
doesn't want any of their money going to unimportant US Air Force
pilots.
The king of Nepal
continues arresting political leaders, human rights workers, and
journalists. Newspapers and radio are heavily censored.
UN food aid in Central America contains lots of genetically modified
plants, including some that isn't approved
for human consumption.
A Global Supremacy Pushing in Variant Forms.
US troops in Afghanistan
practiced torture.
We know that the impetus for torture came from the White House, so I
am not surprised that it was practiced in many places (and through
various organizations and intermediaries).
More evidence is emerging that intelligence agencies were pressured to
falsify information to support Bush/Bliar claims about Iraqi weapons.
After a prominent Lebanese politician was assassinated,
Bush is
blaming Syria. There is no evidence that Syria
was responsible, but that never stopped Bush.
The Syrian occupation of Lebanon was initially a way of ending the
civil war and terrorism. But Lebanon is pretty stable now, and unless
this assassination leads to a general deterioration, I think Syria
should end its occupation of Lebanon. However, we shouldn't let this
side issue distract us from the much crueler occupations of Iraq and
Palestine.
Extreme and unreasonable interpretation of copyright law is
strangling
the making of documentaries--especially about recent history and
culture. The problem with Eyes on the Prize is just one example.
The West Antartic Ice Sheet has started flowing
into the sea. If it breaks up, which could happen in a few years or a
couple of decades, sea level will rise by 16 feet.
Iraqi Kurds take a stand in favor of democracy and
pluralism, while the Shi'ites call for Islamic law and are asking
whether
the Bush vote counters cheated them.
The AP reported on videotapes of assaults
on prisoners by Guantamo's riot squad. They show things such as
punching prisoners, kneeing one in the head, making them strip and taking
them to a place where (former prisoners report) they are kept naked for
days, and spraying them with pepper spray repeatedly while they are locked
in their cells.
Storing CO2 underground is proposed
as a way to reduce global warming.
I have nothing against this solution in principle, but I have to wonder:
how far could it really be scaled up, and how much energy does it need?
Young Americans show
decreased support for freedom of speech. This means the future of
freedom in the US is in permanent danger.
Microsoft blackmailed the Danish government into supporting
software patents by threatening to move
recently-acquired subsidiary out of Denmark.
The Danish government should protect itself from blackmail by forcing
Microsoft to sell off this company. And it should adopt much tighter
limits on acquisition of any local company by a multinational.
We
can't be sure who Iraqis really voted for, but the announced
outcome gives Shi'ites a near-majority, since the Sunnis considered
the election tainted. Other news stories said that the election
procedures result in an actual majority of seats for the Shi'ites.
Either way, that's not enough to let them unilaterally draw up the
constitution.
Real democracy in Iraq would mean that Iraqis can decide who gets
their oil, whether they want to privatize their economy, whether they
want seed patents, and whether they want the Bush forces there. I
don't think Bush will offer them real democracy. The question is
whether they will get distracted by other issues and other
disagreements, and give Bush what he wants.
Neo-nazis are
gaining strength in Germany.
Germans have plenty of reason to be angry--megacorporations and their
power, for instance--but when people are angry it is easy to distract
them with scapegoats.
Police attacked a
concert in a French trade union headquarters, and
arrested a woman, who they
proceeded to beat up in their van.
Ahmed Ali is a prisoner in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia says the US
asked for him to be imprisoned. The US government claims to have
nothing to do with the matter, but meanwhile, it is asking a judge to
secretly dismiss Ali's lawsuit. This, in effect, is a confession
of lying.
Whatever danger Ahmed Ali might perhaps be, it is nothing compared
to the danger of a government that has no respect for truth.
Bush
suppressed parts of the official 9/11 investigation report that
showed the FAA was aware of the danger of terrorist hijackings.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, because Bush prevented the
investigation from even addressing many of the issues.
Sharon and Abu Mazen have declared a truce. It is a good thing if the
violence ends, but if the Israeli land grab continues, it can't last.
Three members of the Brooklyn Copwatch program were arrested for
filming the police beating someone up.
Our streets will never be safe as long as the police attack with impunity.
A former Guantanamo prisoner now says the UK government had him sent
there to be tortured because
he refused to act as a spy.
The US and UK governments are imitating the behavior of the villains
of spy novels.
The UN now has a
"zero-tolerance" policy for sex between
peacekeeping forces in the Congo and the inhabitants of the country.
Something has to be done to prevent rape and the spreading of diseases,
but it is absurd to think soldiers will go entirely without sex.
This policy could just force them further underground, which might
even backfire.
Megacillin:
A Parable for Our Times.
Neo-nazis in the US are
making themselves more visible.
I wonder how much the Bush regime's climate of fear, xenophobia, and
contempt for human rights is contributing to their support.
The Bush forces are publishing misleading information to conceal
their failure to
train an Iraqi puppet army and police.
NATO security forces
extend to more of Afghanistan.
The Bliar regime is
participating closely in US torture-by-proxy.
News about Iraq goes through
filters.
When someone says in public that the Bush forces intentionally kill
journalists, then resigns his job and denies he said it, we have to
decide which statement to believe. The only explanation that seems
plausible to me is: he said it, he meant it, and then was threatened
with some sort of punishment if he didn't lie to deny it.
Young Americans show decreased support for freedom of speech. This
means the future of freedom in the US is in permanent danger.
The AP reported on videotapes of assaults on prisoners by Guantamo's
riot squad. They show things such as punching prisoners, kneeing one
in the head, making them strip and taking them to a place where
(former prisoners report) they are kept naked for days, and spraying them
with pepper spray repeatedly while they are locked in their cells.
Storing CO2 underground is
proposed as a way to reduce global warming.
I have nothing against this solution in principle, but I have to wonder:
how far could it really be scaled up, and how much energy does it need?
News about Iraq goes through filters
When someone says in public that the Bush forces intentionally kill
journalists, then resigns his job and denies he said it, we have to
decide which statement to believe. The only explanation that seems
plausible to me is: he said it, he meant it, and then was threatened
with some sort of punishment if he didn't lie to deny it.
The Bush forces are publishing misleading information to conceal
their failure to train an Iraqi puppet army and police.
NATO security forces extend to more of Afghanistan.
The Bliar regime is participating closely in US
torture-by-proxy.
Neo-nazis in the US are
making themselves more visible.
I wonder how much the Bush regime's climate of fear, xenophobia, and
contempt for human rights is contributing to their support.
Megacillin:
A Parable for Our Times
The UN now has a "zero-tolerance" policy for sex between
peacekeeping forces in the Congo and the inhabitants of the country.
Something has to be done to prevent rape and the spreading of diseases,
but it is absurd to think soldiers will go entirely without sex.
This policy could just force them further underground, which might
even backfire.
A former Guantanamo prisoner now says the UK government had him sent
there to be tortured because he
refused to act as a spy.
The US and UK governments are imitating the behavior of the villains
of spy novels.
Three members of the Brooklyn Copwatch program were
arrested for
filming the police beating someone up.
Our streets will never be safe as long as the police attack with impunity.
Sharon and Abu Mazen have declared a truce. It is a good thing if the
violence ends, but if the Israeli land grab continues, it can't last.
Bush suppressed parts of the official 9/11 investigation report that
showed the FAA was aware of the danger of terrorist hijackings.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, because Bush prevented the
investigation from even addressing many of the issues.
Ahmed Ali is a prisoner in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia says the US
asked for him to be imprisoned. The US government claims to have
nothing to do with the matter, but meanwhile, it is asking a judge to
secretly dismiss Ali's lawsuit. This, in effect, is a confession
of lying.
Whatever danger Ahmed Ali might perhaps be, it is nothing compared
to the danger of a government that has no respect for truth.
Police
attacked a concert in a French trade union headquarters, and
arrested a woman, who they proceeded to
beat up in their van.
We can't be sure who Iraqis really voted for, but the announced
outcome gives Shi'ites a near-majority, since the Sunnis considered
the election tainted. Other news stories said that the election
procedures result in an actual majority of seats for the Shi'ites.
Either way, that's not enough to let them unilaterally draw up the
constitution.
Real democracy in Iraq would mean that Iraqis can decide who gets
their oil, whether they want to privatize their economy, whether they
want seed patents, and whether they want the Bush forces there. I
don't think Bush will offer them real democracy. The question is
whether they will get distracted by other issues and other
disagreements, and give Bush what he wants.
Neo-nazis are gaining strength in Germany.
Germans have plenty of reason to be angry--megacorporations and their
power, for instance--but when people are angry it is easy to distract
them with scapegoats.
Microsoft blackmailed the Danish government into supporting
software patents by threatening to move recently-acquired
subsidiary out of Denmark.
The Danish government should protect itself from blackmail by forcing
Microsoft to sell off this company. And it should adopt much tighter
limits on acquisition of any local company by a multinational.
Private companies are helping the US government collect personal
information,
beyond what it is legally entitled to access.
You don't have to give these companies as much personal information as
most Americans do. You don't have to use a cell phone; you don't have
to use credit cards instead of cash; you don't have to get store
discount cards; you don't have to use automatic toll collection
systems. I avoid all of these things almost completely, and I do so
specifically to resist the surveillance society.
Blair attempted to reimprison one of the imprisoned terrorist suspects
using secret evidence. This was blocked by a judge, but Blair can try
again at any time, and the evidence could be as phony as the evidence
for nuclear weapons in Iraq.
The University of Colorado is preparing to fire Professor Ward
Churchill because of his views. He said that cruel and unjust US
policies in the Arab world created the motivations for the 9/11
attacks.
Here's what Ward Churchill has to say:
A number of sites present bizarre theories about the 9/11 attacks,
sometimes based on fake evidence. It is possible that this is
partly sponsored by Bush.
Bush canceled a plan to add 10,000 border patrol agents.
This is
further demonstration that Bush has no real interest in protecting the
US from foreign terrorists, except as an excuse for measures that
serve other goals.
There's one way that this decision could actually be the right one.
If Bush knows that he has exaggerated the threat of foreign terrorists
all along--because he knows that 9/11 needed inside help--then perhaps
he knows there is no real need for more border security.
According to a court in the US, a retarded man on death row, who got
his execution blocked because he is retarded, has so improved his
brain by working on his defense that it is now ok to execute him.
Parents are objecting to a California school that uses RFIDs to track
their kids.
It is good to see people fighting back against the surveillance
society. I refuse to carry the MIT ID card that has an RFID--I don't
have one.
A Blair minister complains that the public, after seeing they were
lied to about Iraq's weapons, is now skeptical of what he says about
supposed possible terrorists.
The danger of terrorism is not zero; but governments and the media
often exaggerate it, and people tend to overreact to it. A certain
amount of skepticism will help the public estimate the danger more
realistically. Then they can compare it more accurately with the
other real danger that governments don't try to exaggerate: the danger
of too much government power.
CO2 is not just warming the Earth,
it is making the ocean acid, which
is already wipimg out many species of marine life. Including the fish
that people eat.
The flowers you buy in the US are
grown mostly in Colombia and
Ecuador, and with the anti-union policies of those governments,
the workers are treated terribly.
UK plans to impose permanent punishment (such as house arrest)
without trial
are running into broad opposition.
It looks like Shi'ites and Kurds won the Iraqi election.
No surprise there. But if they don't use this to tell
Bush to stop oppression of their country, they will
have made a deal with the devil.
One example of what they are surrendering to is US-style patents on
seeds.
Democracy is alive in Brazil in a way that shows what the US is missing.
There are reports that more Sunnis than expected tried to vote in
Iraq. Some were unable to vote because of shortages of polling places
and ballots--like Ohio all over again. I wonder if Bush was trying
to manipulate this election's outcome.
Any Iraqi who believed this election will be honest, or that it will
lead to democracy, has been gulled. As Kucinich pointed out, neither
we nor they will ever know who the votes were really cast for. And
the election's association with foreign conquerors will taint anyone
that takes office through it, unless he quickly disassociates himself
from Bush and tells Bush to get out.
A public campaign in France defies the laws against peer-to-peer
music sharing, demanding an end to prosecutions of those who share.
The UK's freedom of information act is a joke:
nearly all requests for information are refused,
often without real consideration.
Exxon-Mobil is funding a campaign of warming-denial, involving
lobbyists, and think tanks that will publish anything as a
"scientific" conclusion.
Professor Shahid Alam is the target of an organized
Fox News smear campaign:
Here's the essay that made him a target:
Here's his initial response to the death threats he received in the responses
to that essay.
These violent critics are not reading the essay very rationally. They
remind me Iranian mullahs who condemned Salman Rushdie to death for
The Satanic Verses. They didn't read it very rationally either.
I don't fully agree with that essay either. It assumes that the 9/11
attacks were organized and carried out solely by a group of Muslim
terrorists--but there is plenty of reason to doubt that theory. It
finishes on a note of support for Islam, as if Professor Alam would be
glad to see various dictatorships overthrown, but even more glad if
Islam does the work. Just because Islam is now connected with the
opposition to empire, that doesn't make religion a good thing.
Religion deserves tolerance, but no more.
Thus, my support for Mr Alam's freedom to publish this essay is not
because I agree with him. It is because I believe in freedom of the
press. It is because I believe in what America is supposed to stand
for, even if Fox News does not.
The UN
convicted a Serbian general of war crimes because he
did not do enough to prevent the shelling of civilians in Dubrovnik.
If we imagine applying that standard to Bush, it is no wonder he is
scared of the International Criminal Court. After Humanity vs Bush,
Bush will spend his whole life in prison.
Russian officers--generals?--helped the attack on the Beslan
school.
There are reports of evidence of involvement of officials in
Moscow.
These generals and officials may have been bribed by Chechens--ten
years ago, Russians told me that there was a big Chechen mafia; it was
one of those things that "everybody knew". But it is also possible
that someone higher up in the Russian government arranged this attack.
With the little freedom of the press that Putin allows, it is hard to
place faith in any sort of news reports. In determining the
responsibility for a crime such as the attack on the Beslan school,
one can either believe the authorities, or ask who profited from it.
Neither one is a reliable basis to determine who was responsibie.
The European Union plans to require fingerprints and digital photos
for passports--and
store them in RFIDs. This means people could
read this information out of your passport while it is in your pocket.
The first part of this plan starts in 2006. If you live in the
European Union, get yourself a new passport before it starts.
Israel is talking about letting the Palestinian Authority take
oversecurity in some towns.
Maybe this is a real move towards peace. If so, I won't criticize it.
However, we have to watch what Sharon does, not what he says.
The king of Nepal has
formally abolished all human rights. It's a
Nepalling situation.
Cheney is smarter. When Bush attacks human rights, he pretends to be
their champion.
Interview with a former US "Economic Hit Man".
The State of Virginia has stood firm against red-light cameras.
As for the person who keeps talking about safety, surveillance is not
the only way to achieve that. Flyovers could do it too. They would
cost somewhat more, but not much compared with the state budget.
Freedom from Big Brother is worth the price.
"Free Trade" Leaves World Food Supply In Grip Of Global Giants.
Bush forces troops shot and killed protesting prisoners in Iraq
(who have been held without trial, of course). Other troops report that
the troops have sometimes shot prisoners in cages.
A non-violent protestor in Palestine
reports on how he was arrested,
then punched and clubbed with a rifle. Then he escaped.
New statistical studies provide further evidence for vote-counting
fraud in the US presidential election.
There is
more evidence that the US is planning to attack Iran.
I would be glad to see the theocracy in Iran replaced by a regime that
would respect human rights and democracy. However, when the plan
comes from the world's principal sponsor of state-supported terrorism,
the US government, it really stands for imposing US domination,
IMF-style privatization, and so on. The result, if it isn't permanent
war as in Iraq, would be subjugation of Iran to a new master--not freedom.
If Iraq keeps the Bush forces busy, they won't be able to invade
anyplace else.
An Israeli sniper shot at a school playground and killed a girl. There
was no shred of an excuse; it was simple
murder. This imperils the
tentative cease-fire.
One controversial Guantanamo interrogation technique uses fake
menstrual blood, which strict Muslim men superstitiously interpret as
making them "unclean".
This fits the
official definition of torture.
However, I think that keeping people shackled for long periods, or forcing them to stand in painful positions, is much worse.
And Bush shows no sign of renouncing those forms of torture
(which can cause lasting injury).
France has presented new international tax proposals as a way to boost
aid and end poverty.
Blair plans to replace the system of prison-without-trial for
foreigners with a
system of house-arrest-without-trial that applies
to citizens too.
Blair defends this plan by saying that it would only apply "to a
handful of people". In other words, his assumption is that nobody has
rights, and the state can do anything to anyone, but you shouldn't
be concerned because it probably won't happen to you this year.
Women tortured in Iraq by the Bush forces--with rape and other
methods--
are suing in US court.
Once again, a US court has ruled that the prisoners in Guantanamo have
a right to contest their imprisonment.
Violence between Palestine and Israel has
reached stalemate.
A review of the effects and results of the Iraq war.
Bliar continues to support Bush as Bush
refuses to take action
on global warming. He continues to pretend that he will have some
influence on Bush this way, even though he has never got anything
on this before.
The last 4 Britons in Guantanamo are now free,
but suffering from the
effects of torture. The UK police decided not to charge them with
anything.
Freeing seven prisoners, after Bush delayed for years just to show how
tough he is, is the sum total of what Blair has been able to achieve
through years of "special relationship" with the US. But what about
the hundreds more torture victims, mostly also innocent, whose
governments will not defend their rights?
Is Bush using
hazing to assure he gets a yes-man to lead the Federal Reserve?
Dr Ambedkar's revision
of Buddhism eliminated the aspect that contradicts
science, and directed efforts outwards towards justice instead of
inward towards nonattachment.
One could say that practicioners of traditional Buddhism are trying to
make themselves, in a sense, untouchable. Ambedkar, who was born an
untouchable, rejected that aim.
Darfur will be a test for the future of the International Criminal
Court. Will the US be able to make it inoperative?
Torture: It's Not Only Illegal, It's Wrong
A soldier who was at Abu Ghraib and refused to condone torture was
harrassed by his superiors. Why did they do this? Was it because
they personally support torture, or were they supporting recognized
official policy?
Republican congressmen foiled effors to protect chemical plants
against terrorism, because they would have been
inconvenient for the companies.
This shows that their talk about security is not sincere. It's just
an excuse for doing what they really want--such as reducing human
rights, and transferring wealth to the rich. When security means
hassling people, or paying a lot to some corporations, then they are
for it. When security gets in businesses' way, then it is not
necessary.
Perhaps the Republicans have good reason to know there won't be more
terrorist attacks--if they know something about the 9/11 attacks that
we don't know.
Kucinich:
Iraq Elections Will Be A Farce.
Coronation in the
Garrison State.
A new computer model predicts
global warming will be twice as bad a previously thought.
In just a few decades, average temperatures could
rising 20 degrees fahrenheit, and sea levels could rise 20 feet. The
danger level of carbon dioxide has already been reached.
Mount Everest is losing height ice
due to global warming, and the region is changing at habitable
altitudes too.
Three
stages of colonization: of territory, of finance, and
of the human body.
I should point out that the "medicine costing one dollar in Tanzania"
example is not typical of what drug companies really do. Their prices
in poor countries are chosen to maximize the income from sales to the
wealthy in those countries. Of course, even if drug companies did
lose money to such smuggling, that would not justify stopping these
countries from making drugs for the people who need them.
The article would have been clearer if it had avoided the confusing
term "intellectal property". The issues concern patents, but
"intellectual property" includes various other laws that raise
different issues and are not relevant here. See
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml.
US Democrats:
You can't win the game if you don't get in it
Monsanto has
sued almost 150 farms in the US over use of patented
seeds. Some of these farms did not intentionally plant the seed, but
the odds are against them anyway.
If your neighbor plants Monsanto seed, the pollen might get into your
field and get you sued. So make it clear you will sue him for
exposing you to the danger, and maybe he won't plant it.
For the full report:
23 prisoners in Guantanamo
tried to commit suicide together.
An Iraqi minister in Bush's puppet government estimates
only 1/4 of Iraqis will vote, and hardly anyone in Baghdad.
Russian political leaders are
turning to antisemitism. (It wasn't
just Hitler that was antisemitic; Stalin was, too.)
The cruelty of the Israeli occupation of Palestine can hardly justify
mistreating Jews elsewhere; at the same time, Israel ought to
recognize that showing contempt for another ethnic group costs it
moral authority that it badly needs on this front.
Microsoft is now
requiring users prove they have licenses before
issuing Windows upgrades.
The unethical aspect of Microsoft's conduct is not located in this
policy, but rather in the basic policy of Windows distribution.
Windows is non-free (i.e., user-subjugating) software, and that's
unethical in itself.
I predict this will result in an increase in the number of people
running old versions of Windows without security patches,
and thus an increase in zombie machines that are used for
sending spam, etc.
Pentagon documents obtained by the ACLU reveal a pattern of
torture at various prisons in Iraq.
A Jew reports on visiting Palestine.
What does "ethics" mean in the US? The Republicans have reduced it to
"no sex outside marriage", disregarding all other aspects of conduct.
The author could have cited the way the House Republicans recently
neutralized the Ethics Committee as further support for his point.
However, I must disagree with the claim that Clinton "took advantage"
of Monica Lewinsky. This embodies the conventional prejudice which
imagines that a woman, simply by having sex, has lost something. But
what could that thing be? Only the good opinion of prudes or
possessive men. While that may be of some practical use, ethically
speaking it is meaningless. I don't blame either of them for having
fun together; I do blame Lewinsky for talking about something she
should have kept to herself.
Seymour Hersh: a cult has taken over the US government, and
nobody in
the army dares tell Bush the truth.
Torture Gonzales has served Bush in many ways, aside from pretending
torture is not torture. He also helped Bush avoid confronting the
petitions for clemency from convicted murderers that Bush wanted to
execute. Gonzales wrote biased summaries for Bush, omitting
everything that argued in favor of clemency.
Bush, in confirming these executions, also denied the legal and moral
authority of his office, so as to
duck responsibility for his
decisions.
I agree with Bush on one thing: prisoners do not deserve better
treatment for being religious. Religion does not make people treat
other people better; US prisons are full of religious people (and not
many Atheists). On the contrary, it often leads people to crimes as
severe as murder: Bush, who describes himself as a fervent Christian,
has murdered some hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, and won't allow
the bodies to be counted.
Prisoners sentenced to death should not be spared because they are
Christians, they should be spared because they are people. Even a
mass murderer like Bush should not be executed, once he is in custody
and cannot kill or torture again. We should not sink to his level.
Women on Waves sends ships to various countries
to militate for
abortion rights.
Comparing the European Dream with an America stuck on a detour to the
past.
I disagree with one point in this article.
The European Union is not very democratic,
and unless the new constitution makes it more so,
it should be rejected.
Palestinian militants declared a unilateral truce,
to give Abu Mazen
a chance to negotiate a permanent cease fire. Abu Mazen says Israel
must also halt his attacks, in order to make this happen.
We will see if the Palestinians have a partner for peace.
In advance of Bush's election,
people are fleeing Baghdad if they can.
A "global Somalia" in 50 years?
Thousands of wounded veterans of the Bush forces
know they were
used--and they will hate the men who sent them to fight.
I do not hate the soldiers in the Bush forces, aside from the ones who
torture. Even as I hope I hope that the Iraqi resistance defeats them
and kicks them out the sooner the better, I feel sorry for them, when
I think about the situation they are in. But feeling sorry for those
soldiers must not influence our judgment about the war. I can feel
sorry the for the Iraqi soldiers sent to invade Kuwait, and the German
soldiers in World War I and II, when I think about their situation.
That is no reason to give those armies' any sympathy.
Nobody in the world deserves hatred more than Bush and his
administration. I hope these veterans turn their hate into effective
action, and sweep my country clean of those tyrants.
Spanish bishops have defied the Pope by
supporting programs to
promote condom use.
Police attacked protestors at York University in Toronto.
The protest
consisted of speeches and handing out leaflets. One organizer is in
the hospital due to injuries inflicted by the police.
Even when arresting people who have committed serious crimes,
it is entirely wrong for the police to hit them and injure them
gratuitously.
The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that
the Earth has already
reached the danger point for disastrous effects
of global warming, and humanity has maybe 10 years to take drastic
measures if it is to prevent disaster.
In public, Bliar says reducing global warming is important.
Where it counts, in EU decisionmaking,
he's against trying very hard.
Sri Lanka, under World Bank pressure, is using the tsunami as
an excuse to privatize water supply
and also to promote foreign investments "to reduce poverty" that will
benefit foreign investors rather than the local people.
Putin seems to be killing and imprisoning those who reported--or
investigated--the claims that he organized bombings in Moscow and
blamed them on Chechens as an
excuse for war.
History is full of "terrorist attacks" that were actually plotted by
the political actors that gained power in the aftermath. Therefore,
it behooves every government to act with the utmost transparency
in investigating such attacks.
A Moscow-based magazine in English says
why it supports the Iraq war.
The police in Raleigh, NC, are throwing the book at some local
activists for a crime there is
no evidence they committed.
Deliberately injuring people is a more serious crime than destroying
property, but the police overlooked the former crime, since its
victims were the dissidents they wanted to try for the latter crime.
This alone is reason to conclude that the police have done wrong.
Around a million salmon escaped when storms damaged cages in Scottish
salmon farms, and the escapees could overwhelm and destroy the few wild
salmon that remain.
People have used similar methods to wipe out some insect pests:
specifically by releasing large numbers of sterilized males, far outnumbering
the unsterilized wild males in the area. The result is that most
females breed with the sterilized males and have no offspring.
Another article (for which we could not find a suitable URL) says that
wild salmon are in pretty bad shape already in Scotland, with rather
small populations in many rivers. This makes them even more
vulnerable to acute problems like this one, but it's also a sign
things are not well generally.
Protestors in Germany
stick little US flags on piles of dog doody in the park.
The police are looking for them, even though they are not breaking any law.
Rumsfeld canceled a trip to Germany because
he faces an investigation there for war crimes in Iraq.
I expect that Rumsfeld would be visiting with diplomatic immunity, and
could not actually face prosecution during this visit. If that is
correct, his cancelation of the trip is actually an attempt to put
pressure on Germany to give him some sort of permanent immunity.
Rumsfeld wants to commit war crimes with impunity.
I hope that Germany stands firm against this pressure. They should
put him on trial in Nuremberg!
500 species in the US may be
extinct in 2 decades due to urban sprawl.
(Maybe expensive oil will save them.)
A thourough history of the 2000 Camp David talks shows that
Arafat wasn't particularly responsible for their failure.
The deal he was offered was one no Palestinian leader could accept. Neither
side was solely responsible for the failure--the talks just didn't work out.
Afterwards, Arafat tried to prevent Sharon's visit to the mosques of
Jerusalem--which shows that he sought to avoid the violence which he
correctly anticipated this visit would spark.
This disproves the frequent claim that Arafat was the obstacle to
peace in recent years. The question is whether the Israeli government
is willing to allow peace.
The
10 worst corporations of 2004.
RAWA teaches Afghan girls to
read in secret schools. Soldiers threatened stores that distributed their
magazine.
Bush:
simple, violent and extreme - a dangerous combination.
Scott Ritter reports that Bush is considering trying to use death squads
to assassinate members of the Iraqi resistance--after having used them
already to assassinate former supporters of the Baath party.
I think Ritter is right on the mark: this won't work, but its failure
won't excuse Bush for having tried it.
Abuse of prisoners by British Bush forces was
widespread.
Triumphalism in Washington,
Despair Elsewhere
How the invasion of Iraq stacks up against international law.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who denounces both Republicans and Democrats
for taking corporate money and denounces Bush as fascist,
may run for Attorney General of New York State.
If he does, I will support him.
Simplifying the case against Dick Cheney (for participation
in the 9/11 attacks).
Details of torture committed by
British troops in the Bush forces.
There is evidence that the shooting of Robert Kennedy was a
conspiracy, though there are divergent ideas of who was behind it.
If the continue-the-war theory is correct, it would fit a pattern of
deaths in the US that might have been political assassinations,
including the suspicious death of Senator Wellstone.
Researchers are studying ways to assign a value in monetary terms to
environment changes, which can be compared with the value (in monetary
terms) of other effects.
This is interesting, but it doesn't go far enough. I see two weaknesses
in it:
1. Much of this work still assumes that the only value is that which
can be measured in economic terms. To measure the value of a cleaner
lake by how much money people spend to fish there is to assign a value
of zero to fishing there done by those who didn't need to spend.
2. The harm done by environmental damage can't be measured this way
until we have actually seen it occur. We also need to take
precautions to avoid various sorts of catastrophes which are
improbable but large.
Tsunamis occur in the Indian ocean a few times a century, so the
expected cost of removing mangroves at the coast could have been
calculated last year. But the side effects of chemical pollution or
extinction of species are generally not known until after they happen.
To treat the danger as zero because we don't know its magnitude
is clearly a mistake.
Protests in Russia, and how of poor pensioners makes the change a
disaster for them.
Colombia paid agents in Venezuela to kidnap someone alleged to be a
member of the FARC guerrilla group.
This led to a rupture of
diplomatic relations. Now Colombia accuses Venezuela of supporting
the FARC.
Since Uribe is pretty much a puppet of the US, this looks like a
planned excuse for a US-supported invasion of Venezuela. Want to
invade some country? Just say it supports "terrorists".
The FARC does sometimes use terrorist tactics, but not as much as the
Colombian Army and the paramilitary groups it cooperates with.
A UN proposal for
substantial foreign aid to reduce world poverty.
All charges against Starbucks union organizer Daniel Gross
were dropped.
The policeman who arrested him was ordered to lie and did so. Why
aren't these cops on trial for perjury?
The government of Sri Lanka is trying to use tsunami reconstruction as
an opportunity to impose a World Bank plan that the people oppose.
The Thai government's response to the tsunami is to deport thousands of
Burmese refugees to a vicious tyranny that will enslave them.
Thai employers like being able to pay so little to Burmese refugees.
But what enables them to do that? Probably because the Thai
government makes their status precarious, so they cannot complain.
Bush wants to fill the Supreme Court with extremists.
Americans may be able to block this by organizing.
Bush is freeing some prisoners in Afghanistan.
Some had been tortured. Some were
imprisoned because a personal enemy lied about them.
Shrimp farms devastate the local ecology and
can leave thousands
with no water and no place to grow food. They also make the coast
more vulnerable to natural disasters, such as tsunamis. And after a
few years, they are exhausted and the land can't be used for anything.
Election Will Divide Iraq More Than Saddam Ever Did.
The Iraqi resistance is
shutting down the distribution of gas and
electricity.
The
music factories lost a battle in France, where a court refused
to let them disconnect certain music-sharers from the Internet.
The record companies like to call themselves the "music industry".
The term "industry" implies making something in factories, so it is
legitimate to call them the "music factories".
What if the next tsunami sweeps away an Indian nuclear power plant?
What damage did this tsunami do to it? The authorities won't say.
Most journalists in Iraq don't dare leave their hotel rooms, and report as
"news" whatever the Bush forces tell them.
(The editors, who know this, usually don't tell the public.)
This is convenient for the Bush forces since it enables them
to get away with lies.
British soldiers in the Bush forces are on trial for
torturing prisoners.
It seems that British and American torturers used more or less similar
practices. How similar were they? Perhaps this could be evidence
that the torture was coordinated from higher up.
Protestors in Guatemala were
blocking construction of a potentially dangerous mine in their area. The
government attacked them, killing
some of them. Now it has sealed off the area so that the public
cannot see what it did.
The same company is trying to use NAFTA in order to be able to mine more profitably and dangerously in California.
NAFTA's provisions transfer sovereignty from the people
to corporations; NAFTA must be abolished.
Israeli
peace activist Tali Fahima is on trial
after having been held incommunicado for most of a year.
She is accused of aiding terrorists, but the accusations
don't make sense.
The UN is starting to
record damage claims from Palestinians whose
property was seized or destroyed by Israel's annexation wall.
Rabbis and imams met in Europe to
denounce religious extremism.
Some Christian clergy were there also, but the Christian extremists
that back Bush were not represented.
An article about the role of the Council on Foreign Relations
in planning to impose the new world order--and its links to many
other powerful institutions.
I am not in a position to evaluate the statements about the CFR in
particular, but they seem at least plausible. In any case, it is
clear that the globalization of business power is imposed, not natural
or inevitable. Whatever the role of the CFR in planning these
measures, it is clear they are planned, and clear they are wrong.
Here's what Lord Hoffman said about the UK's Guantanamo Lite:
The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people
living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values,
comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these.
However, it is not clear that their decision will stick, any more than
the US Supreme Court decision that prisoners in Guantanamo have the
right to a lawyer and a hearing will stick.
The "Eyes on the Prize" documentary on the Civil Rights Movement has
been effectively
censored by the combination of copyright and media
consolidation. Civil disobedience is being suggested.
Moazzam Beg has spent 3 years in solitary confinement Guantanamo, and
has occasionally been tortured. Now he and 3 other UK citizens are
being released, but not the hundreds of others who were treated
similarly. Pakistan handed him off to the US without a hearing, which
in itself was a violation of his human rights.
Bush rewards subordinates who lie, and
fires those who tell the truth.
The UK offers to take over
10% of many poor countries' debt for
the sake of education and health care.
I think this program is a good thing, and I wish I could
believe that Bush would follow it. However, it would
be even better to cancel the debt entirely. This debt was
amassed through corrupt schemes in which the creditors actively
participated, and it would be good to teach people the lesson
that such debts will be canceled. World Bank projects have often
been very harmful to the "benificiaries".
Tsunami Must Not Sweep Away
Restrictions on Indonesian Military - ETAN
US commandos are operating in Iran exploring
possible targets for an invasion.
President of Fabricated Crises
A Monsanto-funded PR machine tries to destroy the careers of
scientists
who publish info about problems caused by genetically
modified organisms.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which participates in this
campaign, was also paid by Microsoft to attack Free Software.
This link
gives information about this (though it hides free software behind the
term "open source" and refers to the GNU system as "Linux".
How Africa can end hunger better without GMOs.
An Iraqi general tells how he was arrested and tortured by the Bush
forces,
who considered the Geneva Conventions as worthless.
Now that Abu-Mazen is recognized as a democratically elected
leader of Palestine,
what can he actually do?
Hanan Ashrawi writes about nonviolence in Palestine,
and her background that inspired her ideas.
Some American victims of Bush's war are
helping Iraqi victims.
Kofi Annan is
replacing staff at the UN to deal with accusations of corruption.
The corruption may be real--but compare the pressure against Annan,
who is not personally involved in the corruption, with the way
Representative DeLay is being treated. He IS personally involved in
corruption. The real reason Bush doesn't like Annan is that Annan
stood up for international law and said Bush's invasion of Iraq was
against it. Bush ethics: those who criticize him should be punished
if possible, while those who support him should never be.
It used to be a joke that governments would rather bury all traces of
a mistake than admit they made one. Now the US
is applying this to human beings: kidnap them and keep them in prison
forever rather than admit it was a mistake.
US officials are now citing, as the reason to keep people in prison
without any charges, the fact that they might be angry at having been
unjustly imprisoned and tortured. So angry that they might fight the
US afterwards.
Aside from being immoral, this is also entirely absurd. Bush has made
millions of Arabs hate the US enough to possibly fight. The 500 or so
men in Guantanamo are a drop in the bucket in comparison. Keeping them
out of the fight will make no difference.
If Bush doesn't want the unjustly imprisoned to hate him, he ought to
beg their forgiveness.
The Israeli soldier charged with shooting Tom Hurndall admits he lied
about it--but says he was
ordered to shoot unarmed people.
He's only charged with manslaughter, which seems like too little
for a soldier that shot a protestor.
Gonzales claimed, and claims, that Bush can
disregard laws that protect human rights.
In Baghdad, everyone on all sides constantly lives in fear.
The Bush forces, afraid that any Iraqi is their enemy, threaten to kill anyone
that has the misfortune to be near their path. The police wear masks.
The planned elections are
not going well. The four provinces where--the Bush forces admit--the
election may not operate include half the country's population.
We won't go home and we won't vote, say refugees of Fallujah
The
American Gulags Become Permanent
The Bolivian government said it would cancel the privatized water
contract in El Alto, but did so in a vague way, failing to say when.
The people are
refusing to accept this.
Gush Shalom: There is no "window for peace" without serious
steps towards
ending the occupation of Palestine.
Is al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?
How CBS executives
used a minor issue to discredit the story about how Bush used family
connections to evade the draft, and end the careers of the people who involved.
I won't criticize Bush for trying to get out of the draft, since few
wanted to fight in a war widely perceived as unjust. I do criticize
him for failing to speak out against the unjust war.
The US made an airliner
return to London because it objected to one of the passengers.
At least this is better than letting the plane land and shipping
the passenger to Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Syria to be tortured.
Bush has
quietly ended the search for weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq. The lie campaign served its purpose well--first in 2003 as an
excuse to invade the country, and in 2004 to convince many Americans
to support Bush.
An American held a
brief public protest in Burma--a place where protests are hardly seen.
The Burmese government could learn from Bush, and permit ineffective
protests in designated "free speech zones" where nobody will see them.
Most of the resistance fighters escaped from Falluja, but the city
itself was ruined, as few buildings remain usable. People who return
are still in danger--
from Bush forces snipers and from disease.
Indonesia and Sri Lanka are paying more each
year for debt service than the amount of the aid they have been promised.
The Indonesian government is trying to suggest that Acehnese separatists
would attack international aid workers. However, aid workers
don't think the separatists would do that.
This looks like an artificial excuse to continue excluding aid workers
from parts of Aceh.
On the third anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, with
increasing evidence of pervasive torture practices, it stands as a
symbol of Dubya's contempt for law and justice.
Arguing for medical and insurance reform
rather than malpractice law reform.
Human decisions didn't make the tsunami, but they make various places
more or less vulnerable to damage from this and other disasters.
Republicans have changed the rules and the leadership of the House
Ethics Committee,
to inactivate it.
In 1994, the mass media were somewhat more independent and had a
little more integrity than they do now. Today's corporate media will
probably choose not to bother the Republicans by making this a
scandal.
Bush only wants to hear "good news". If things are getting worse,
he doesn't want to know.
The picture of the world that Bush presents in his speeches is
thoroughly false, and when you confront one falsehood, he supports it
with another falsehood. But these might not be lies--perhaps Bush
really believes them all. Perhaps his rejection of bad news is a
means to disconnect himself from reality, to enable himself to truly
believe a picture that is increasingly false.
However, I'd expect that Cheney knows the truth.
India is joining the US in bypassing the UN for
tsunami aid.
FRITZ STERN, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a scholar
of how Hitler came to power, says Bush and the Christian
fanatics in the US
are using similar methods.
US electronic voting is
not just vulnerable to fraud by the companies. There are signs of such
fraud in the last election.
The Bush regime is trying to legitimize torture
by diverting attention to the question of precisely how much torture to allow.
When Gonzales says he never supported torture, it really means he
intends to
persistenly support torture by persistently pretending it
isn't torture.
The evidence used to imprison 7 people without trial in the UK
has been leaked--and it is crap.
This shows why the right to a trial is so important: so that you can't
be imprisoned based on vague suspicions and manufactured evidence. If
we could see the evidence (if any) that's the basis for holding
prisoners in Guantanamo, I think it would also prove to be junk.
New Pentagon Vision Transforms War Agenda
I have not seen Barnett's book myself, and I am very curious to see
it, because this book review gives conflicting impressions of whether
the book proposes these changes or projects and criticizes them.
I recommend another book: Forever Peace, by Haldeman.
Sumate, the Venezuelan opposition group funded by the US National
Endowment for Democracy, is
linked to participation in the attempt to
kidnap and overthrow President Chavez, and to the falsified exit poll
that is being used to claim the election was rigged.
The Iraqi resistance is continuing to
increase its activity.
Bush is now asking Congress to officially legalize imprisonment
without trial.
Here's what this implies: locked up for life
based on evidence that might be
fabricated.
Here's the House Democratic staff's report recommending a challenge
to the Ohio election.
The challenge did occur, this time, but it did not achieve anything,
because the Republicans' do not mind accepting a victory based on
fraud. "Running an honest election" is not one of their virtues.
How the drug companies have made
medicine in the US ill.
Ten preliminary reasons why the Bush vote does not compute.
The article says that Congress must investigate rather than certify
the Electoral College. Of course, that's not what happened. Today's
Republicans define "free and fair election" as one where they win.
After the tsunami, hatred of Dalits (untouchables) in India extends
into the refugee camps.
The Iraqi resistance
killed the Bush governor of Bahgdad, and broadcast video on the internet.
People who say that real elections cannot be held now are right, but
people who say it will only get harder to hold elections are also
right. I think Bush will either hold an election in which many Iraqis
can't really vote (it's a habit for him) or postpone them forever.
Bush is moving to stamp out honesty in the CIA. He would rather get
pleasing advice from yes-men than useful advice from independent
thinkers.
While the article finds this disappointing, I am actually glad that
the Bush regime is shooting itself in the foot in this way. While in
theory the CIA could protect Americans from terrorism, in the Bush
regime such activities are overshadowed by evil plans, which (as a
side effect) do more to stimulate hatred against the US than the CIA's
protection could ever compensate for.
If this reduces the ability of Bush and his successors to profitably
subjugate other countries, the world could be better off in the long
run.
Republicans are donating millions towards the propaganda campaign
to privatize the social security system.
"We never learned why we lost the Vietnam War,
and now we're
losing another Asian War."
The points made in this article are a part of the analysis. However,
the injustice of the army's goal played a substantial role in the
outcome in Vietnam, and apparently is doing so in Iraq also. Soldiers
fighting a just fight against an army that deserves to be defeated, as
in World War II and Korea, suffer less psychological harm because they
don't have to lie to themselves and each other about what they are doing.
Soldiers who are really liberating a country get the psychological
and military support of the populace.
If Bush and the Bushmen had not lied to themselves, they would have
known what the resistance would be like, and they might have done a
better job fighting against it. But they would not deserve to win.
Bush forces soldiers are on trial for forcing two unarmed
Iraqis to jump into the Tigris river. One of them drowned.
I can understand why these soldiers (and most of the Bush forces) hate
all Iraqis. They know nearly all Iraqis hate them.
But the situation is not symmetrical. The Bush forces did something
to deserve to be hated: they invaded Iraq, they killed tens of
thousands of Iraqis, and they have made life in Iraq into hell. And
they are still doing it.
What global warming will mean to
wildlife in North America.
The US Army Reserve is becoming a "broken" force,
according to its commander.
Given the propensities of the clique that have seized power in the US,
I have to say with regret that this change is for the best. It will
be hard for Bush to consider attacking any other countries any time
soon.
Despite the disaster of the tsunami, the Indonesian Army in Aceh
is is continuing to
fight against separatists--and to keep foreigner aid workers out.
All the public transportation in Bolivia
went on strike because the government raised gasoline prices.
Actually I think it is entirely right to charge high gas prices.
That will encourage conservation and promote alternative energy.
But the government must also help the poor at the same time.
700 dead
were found in destroyed homes in Falluja. 550 were women and
children, so they are probably all civilians. Returning refugees say
most of their houses have been destroyed, but resistance continues.
And journalists are still being kept out--apparently so the world
won't know the truth.
That 700 is for just 1/3 of the city, and does not include all the
corpses. So we could estimate around 2500 civilians killed in this
one battle. That's against an estimate of 100,000 civilians killed by
the Bush forces so far.
The statement that the continuing attacks are near Bush forces bases
suggests that the resistance is attacking the Bush forces, rather than
vice versa. So I don't believe the predictions that Falluja will be
under Bush forces control in another month. More likely, it will be
like the other Iraqi Sunni cities.
When the house ethics committee criticized majority leader DeLay's
violations of ethics rules, the Republican leadership's took
action...
to replace the leader of the ethics committee.
King Downing, National Coordinator of the ACLUs Campaign Against
Racial Profiling, was arrested in Boston's airport. The police
refused to give a valid reason for stopping him--they had no
reasonable cause to suspect him of anything--so it appears to be a
case of racial profiling. The ACLU is suing them for racial
profiling.
Ahmed abu Ali, a US citizen, has been imprisoned without
trial and tortured in Saudi Arabia for 18 months--at the
request of the Bush regime. Recently a US court gave his
family a preliminary success.
The intelligence chief of the Iraqi government
(who works for Bush, in other words) says that the
resistance has
200,000 active participants, more than
the whole Bush forces.
They also have millions more ready to be recruited.
Instead of Christmas, we could celebrate Gravmas.
Deconstructing Sharon's speech (Uri Avnery)
The Nepalese government and the rebels are both
attacking
human rights activists.
It's an nepalling situation.
The US civilian leadership is supposed to restrain the military,
but today's civilian rulers are so cruel that it's
up to the military
to restrain them.
There is a campaign of civil disobedience against the Mickey Mouse
Copyright Act of 1998. (That's the law Disney paid for so that the
copyright on Steamboat Willie would not expire.)
The International Republican Institute, which is funded
by the
US National Endowment for Democracy, was directly
involved in the plans to overthrow the government of Aristide.
More information on the IRI.
Israelis joined the Palestinians of Jayyous to replant the olive trees
that settlers had destroyed as a preparation for stealing the land
under them.
The record companies' agents are trying to
sabotage the computers
of people who share music.
Sharing music is every music lover's right. Trying to prevent
sharing, whether through laws or through sabotage, is what's wrong.
Meanwhile, the sabotage scheme only works against Windows machines;
free software is built better and is not vulnerable to such sabotage.
Space junk created by human activities makes it
doubtful that a
space station can survive for a long time in low Earth orbit.
The Indonesian government
must grant foreign aid-workers access to all
disaster-affected areas.
In a Baltimore suburb, hatred against Muslims joins hatred against
Blacks and hatred against Jews.
Head-scarves are now a
mandatory protective accessory for women in Iraq.
Everything has to be judged against the possible alternatives. The
religious fanatics that have imposed this requirement in Iraq are
nasty by usual standards, but they are nowhere near as vicious and
murderous to Iraqis as the religious fanatics that invaded Iraq.
Millions of prisoners in the US are effectively slaves,
working for as little as a dollar a day. The use of prisoners
in slave labor is what makes it easy to imprison ever-increasing
numbers of Americans.
Is Bush preparing an intervention against Venezuela through Colombia?
The "Spanish Inquisition" Made in America
One comment: even if Bush and Rumsfeld secretly ordered soldiers or agents
to commit torture, that is no excuse. The convictions of those soldiers
caught committing torture should not be reversed, but Bush and Rumsfeld
should be put on trial as well.
Ohio's Republicans followed a fraudulent vote count
with a fraudulent recount.
Republican officials are ducking subpoenas in the election case.
Meanwhile,
more specific frauds: some voters received ballots that
were pre-punched for Bush.
Canada's government has followed the US lead, abolishing civil
liberties. The restrictions are up for review, and the government
told told MPs studying whether to renew them that they should take the
government's word on the matter--without access to the facts.
MPs on this committee should not be discouraged by this. They should
simply say, "The burden of proof to justify such restrictions is on
you. You can show me your arguments for these restrictions, or not
show me. But if you don't show me convincing arguments, I will vote
to eliminate them."
Thailand's government hushed up the tsunami warning
"for the tourist industry".
It's wrong for government to put hotel owners above public safety.
But there's more. They said, "Our department would not be able to
endure a lawsuit." Can hotel owners really sue the Thai government
for a tsunami false alarm? If so, who authorized such lawsuits? The
government, of course. One way or another, the responsibility comes
back to the Thai government--together with the hotel owners on whose
behalf they acted.
Germany has called for
suspension of debt repayment for Indonesia
and Somalia.
The idea makes sense. How do you think Bush will respond?
US border police demanded to take fingerprints of Muslim US citizens
who were returning from a religious conference in Canada. They held
the people for 6 hours telling them "You have no rights".
Islam has led people to great crimes--as have Christianity and
Judaism, and occasionally Hinduism as well. But people should not be
treated as criminals just for practising a religion.
12/26 and 9/11
Empire of the Misers
How corporate media covers the deaths 100,000 civilians
depends on whether they were killed by a tsunami or by
bombing.
The Virginia legislature rejected red-light cameras, because they
object to surveillance.
US TV networks refused to release exit poll data that
could
shed light on whether the last election was stolen.
The proposed EU Constitution is
slanted towards business, and away from democracy.
A network of planespotters are tracking the movements of the plane
that the CIA uses
to bring people to various countries that will torture them.
The last article in that same page shows that even FBI agents objected
to Bush regime torture policies. The responsibility for torture leads
straight to the White House--starting with Clinton, but Bush made
things much worse.
When Bush is convicted of crimes against the peace and war crimes,
he'll spend his life in prison. It might seem irrelevant to try
him for these acts of torture too, but it must be done.
Bush claims to want to improve women's rights in Iraq, but as usual,
it is a lie.
How the Israeli army treats Palestinians at checkpoints.
The National Endowment for Democracy is an organization funded mainly
by the US to
buy and distort elections, and sometimes overthrow
governments. Strangely, the AFL-CIO has a history of helping in
such efforts.
A town in Pennsylvania decided to require teaching "intelligent
design", which is
biblical creationism disguised as science.
Exit polls and election fraud accusations,
in Venezuela, the US and the Ukraine.
The families of dead US soldiers have
raised 600,000 dollars for
Fallujah refugees. This is the real spirit of charity.
Fighting continues in Falluja--even though
much of the city has
been destroyed, it has not been taken. Refugees mostly cannot return.
Coal miners in Wales bought their mine as it was about to
close, and
have run it profitably for ten years now.
Another
water revolt is beginning in Bolivia.
Debunking Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative":
It won't fight forest fires, it will just sell out.
A US dentist has been imprisoned 7 years without trial, and labeled
crazy. Why crazy? Because he says he has been tortured in prison.
Former Spanish president Aznar
destroyed records relating to the
Madrid bombings before he left office.
Bush and Musharraf:
is Bush serious about WMD, or Al Qa'ida, or anything
relevant to protecting the US from attacks?
It seems that sonar systems give whales the bends,
which can kill them.
A UK union leader, a backer of the Labor Party, is accused of election
fraud.
It would not surprise me. After all, how could a supporter of Blair's
policies win an honest union election?
The ACLU has proof that torture has widespread in the Bush
regime, and it ties high officials to the practice.
These officials will probably tell the judge that nobody's allowed
to tie them to anything--after all, that would be torture ;-}.
The Bush regime
continues to disregard the Supreme Court rulings
in favor of those detained without trial, and continues to argue
that no one has any legal rights.
Wal-mart won the Grinch of the Year award, with Cinta and Comcast
as runners-up.
NIH researchers have been taking money from drug companies,
and selling them the NIH's prestige--and its decisions.
The only way the NIH can be honest is by completely forbidding its
employees to accept either employment or gifts from the drug
companies.
A report that the Bush forces have been unable to capture Fallujah,
that the resistance continues even though the city is half destroyed.
A small amount of bombing can make a building or a city uninhabitable
for civilians, but often soldiers can keep fighting for a long time in
the ruins. This happened in World War II in Monte Cassino and
Stalingrad.
UK government agencies are working overtime to destroy documents
before a new law gives the public the right to see them.
Merck's Merry Christmas
Subcontracting the war
seemed like a clever idea to Bush until things
started getting dangerous. Now the contractors are finding it hard to
recruit mercenaries too.
If there are
3.5 million homeless Americans, that means
over 1% of Americans are homeless.
The US
plans sanctions against Sudan.
The Iraqi resistance's most effective attack yet on the Bush forces
appears to have been a
suicide bombing based on very accurate
intelligence.
This article says we should disbelieve the statement that this was a
suicide bombing.
It doesn't present any evidence that the statement itself is a lie, and I
am not convinced; but it does seem to show Bush is spinning the story,
so as to falsely link the Iraqi resistance with terrorism in general.
Attacking the troops of an occupying army is not terrorism, it is
simply war. Bombing hospitals and using napalm is terrorism.
The EU could not agree on fishing limits.
If they were together in a lifeboat, they would argue about
who should bale how much water, while it sank under them.
Developing fetuses are
very sensitive to air pollution.
The Republican party wants to protect fetuses from the fate of not
being born. But it has no interest in protecting them from being born
with a high likelihood of cancer, which I think is worse.
The Bush administration recognizes it is losing the war for the hearts
and minds of the rest of the world.
Its answer: plant lies to
discredit people that tell the truth.
American journalist Stephen Vincent visited Iraq pretending to be
Yugoslavian,
and got a good picture of how Iraqis hate the occupying
forces.
(Note, I think he has underestimated the fraction of Iraqi Arabs that
are Sunnis. According to my vague memory, it is more like 30% or
40%.)
A committee of British MPs concluded it will take ten years to
stabilize Iraq. That's assuming the Iraqi resistance loses.
On the average, in the US, it takes three times the minimum wage to
afford a two-bedroom apartment. This means that a couple that both
work at the minimum wage can't afford one--unless they both work 60
hours a week.
Sikhs protesting violently in England
shut down a play that they felt
insulted the Sikh religion. Police tried to stop the violence, but
the UK government has done little to prevent this blatant crime.
Having seen the text of the play, I can understand why Sikhs might
feel offended by it. It strikes me as somewhat unfair, too. That is
no excuse for trying to censor it.
When Mohan Singh suggests that a theater company should not dare to
offend 600,000 Sikhs in Britain, he endorses censorship. No group, no
matter how numerous or powerful or deserving, is entitled to forbid
what offends it--not Sikhs, not Jews, not Muslims, not Christians, not
businessmen, not even Atheists and Free Software developers deserve
such privilege.
Shame on Mohan Singh, and shame on any Sikh who will not denounce what
he said.
Report from Iraq:
civilians wounded by the Bush forces.
Some of the lawyers representing the people imprisoned on suspicion
under British anti-terrorism law have decided to resign in protest
against Blair's decision to ignore the Law Lords.
The FBI referred to "torture" of prisoners in December 2003 and the
information also
suggests that Bush directly authorized it.
The Dutch government tried a
dirty trick to pass the EU software
patents directive in a meeting about fisheries. It looked like
their trick was going to succeed, but it was blocked by Poland.
Those challenging the Ohio vote have begun court cases, and hearings
reported
a whole host of Republican cheating, including throwing away
ballots, and moving votes from one candidate to another.
Meanwhile, the Republicans who run the Ohio elections have
blocked and
sabotaged the recount that was demanded weeks ago.
Privatization of the railways in UK
was supposed to make them better.
But government-run trains are running better than privately operated
trains.
Railway privatization has been a complete failure, but Bliar continues
to pretend it is a success.
Blair, defying the Law Lords, insists on maintaining the
preventive imprisonment policy.
For Blair, abolishing human rights is so important
that he will fight anything that gets in his way.
A Hamas leader suggests Hamas could agree to a cease-fire for the sake
of the Palestinian elections.
Bush is once again tapping the UN's phones, this time hoping to find
some excuse to discredit Mohamed El Baradei, head of the IAEA.
Baradei has done his job honestly, and hasn't pandered to Bush's
desire to make Iran look bad. In Bush's view, anyone that doesn't
pander to him ought to be replaced with someone who will.
If Bush succeeds in finding some flaw, any flaw, in El Baradei, he
will urge the world to be aghast. Bush himself, however, is always
supposed to receive the benefit of the doubt even when there's no
doubt.
Israel is confiscating Palestinians' land to expand settlements,
despite claiming it has a policy not to do so.
When the
Border Police (who have a reputation for cruelty) attacked a
peaceful protest, they noticed that someone was filming them. So they
attacked her, then threw her in prison, where she was given a
deportation order without a hearing.
In a state based on lies, telling people the truth is the worst crime.
In the UK, a Christmas TV program (on a commercial channel) is going
to tell the public what scholars have known for decades about how the
Bible was written and how much of its historical statements might be
inaccurate.
Unocal settled a lawsuit filed by Burmese refugees because of Unocal's
disrespect for human rights in its operations in Burma.
Iran is
executing mentally ill girls who were put into prostitution by
their parents.
The policy seems to be similar to California's "three strikes and you're
out" policy, but even more cruel.
Australia has unilaterally announced a plan
control all shipping and
stop ships within 1000 miles.
I suspect this has little to do with real concerns of terrorism, and
everything to do with stopping refugees from arriving by ship.
Papua New Guinea and Indonesia are both less than 400 miles from
Australia, so in effect Australia has demanded control over their
territorial waters. I hope Indonesia gives a firm public response.
A
10-year-old girl in Philadelphia was arrested for bringing scissors
to school.
The excuses that the policemen were simply following rules or acted
"in good faith" are irrelevant. Cruelty doesn't have to be personally
directed to be wrong. Tyranny often functions through rules; if the
rules are cruel, applying them is wrong.
US and Russian
nuclear missiles are still on hair-trigger readiness.
I can understand why Putin feels it is necessary to develop
more advanced nuclear missiles. While Son of Star Wars
is a complete failure today, he cannot count on that to be true
forever.
Terrorism in various European countries has been linked to secret NATO
cold war armies.
I don't know whether the September 11 attacks were organized
by the US government to manipulate US politics, but it appears
that this has already been done in Europe.
Get America Working proposes that the US should tax employee payroll
less, and natural resources more. This would encourage companies
to conserve natural resources while hiring more people.
The idea makes sense, but we need to note that a substantial part of
the problem in the US is because workers depend on employers to pay
for their health care. This isn't officially part of payroll tax, but
it acts economically as if it were. There are only two ways to solve
it: take away people's health care (which is what companies are trying
to do), or set up a national health care system (which Democrats used
to be in favor of, but Bush is hardly likely to want to do).
Whatever Bush says his plans are for tax reform, I expect his real
aim will be to cut taxes even more for the rich, while eliminating
social programs that benefit everyone else.
The Inuit are accusing the US of
destroying their homes and way of life
by failing to act to reduce global warming.
How Halliburton gets
no-bid contracts--by subcontracting
to minority-owned businesses.
For more information about Halliburton, see
here.
The UK's Law Lords ruled that UK's Guantanamo Lite is illegal
because it violates human rights requirements.
The Pentagon seeks authorization to
trample the environment and public health.
The Ukrainian opposition candidate was apparently poisoned with dioxin.
A new election has been set by Ukraine's Supreme Court.
1/4 of all bird species will be extinct or nearly extinct in a
century,
according to a study that examined the specific situations of
each species.
Eyewitness testimony of an incident in Ohio that looks like
vote-counting fraud.
Programmer Clint Curtis claims a Florida congressman
asked him to write software for voting machine fraud.
Many journalists in the US are in prison or threatened with prison
to
force them to reveal confidential sources.
If this practice catches on, people won't talk anonymously to journalists,
which means even further suppression of such news.
A former US marine says the Bush forces soldiers
shot civilians indiscriminately--not just once, but regularly.
This doesn't surprise me, because the Bush forces mostly despise the Iraqis,
and when armed men despise certain people they tend to shoot those people.
The Kyoto treaty is
too weak to do its job.
The idea of removing CO2 from the atmosphere is attractive,
but is there any basis to believe it is feasible?
Blair admits he has
failed to reduce greenhouse gas emission. Higher
gasoline taxes are an obvious solution, but Blair prefers to spend a
lot of money surveilling the movements of all cars.
The counterargument by the CBI is typical business tokenism: "Please
judge that the small good some of us do compensates for the great harm
the rest of us do."
CIA Agent
Says Bosses Ordered Him To Falsify WMD Reports.
The US has
become a net importer of food.
Maybe it is good that food is grown elsewhere instead, since US
farming uses a large amount of petroleum. Other producers use much
less oil for the same quantity of food produced.
The paramedics who found Dr. Kelly's body say they don't believe he
committed suicide.
An Israeli was
convicted for participating in a terrorist group that aimed to kill
Palestinians.
This is the tip of the iceberg--for instance, it is normal practice
for settlers to shoot at any Palestinian that they can see.
The UNHCR says that Iraq is so dangerous that refugees should not
return there. But Blair can't afford to admit that attacking Iraq has
made it a dangerous place, so he forces Iraqi refugees to
return home where they can be killed.
A Pentagon report admits the truth: Iraqis in general and
Muslims in general see
the Bush forces as a conqueror, and recognize Bush talk of supporting
freedom and democracy as bullshit.
(Bush can't recognize freedom or democracy even when they
finally bite him.)
It is noteworthy that this article was published by a UK newspaper.
When I read it, I suspected that US newspapers would not cover this,
because the US press is too subservient to admit these facts. That
seems to be mostly true.
5,000 soldiers have deserted from the Bush forces.
Americans who escaped to Canada rather that fight in Iraq are
citing torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions to justify
refugee status.
Bush policies of using some Iraqi groups to fight others is bearing
fruit, in the form of incipient civil
war.
Many Shi'ite groups have formed a joint electoral list. If Shi'ites
participate in the election while Sunnis fight against the occupation,
this leads in the
direction of civil war.
Iraqis should remember who their common enemy is. If they let Bush
divide them, that could give Bush a victory he could not otherwise
have gained.
France is adopting a law that would prohibit sexist
remarks.
It is wrong to prohibit the expression of any opinion,
even a bigoted opinion.
Gary Webb, the reporter who broke the story of the CIA involvement
in drug trafficking, was found
dead in an apparent suicide. It looks fishy.
I doubt that anyone would have killed him now because of what he wrote
in 1996--if someone was motivated enough, I don't see why he would
have waited 8 years. I wonder what Webb was investigating now.
Senator Byrd rebuked the US Senate for not paying enough
attention to the bills it is passing.
Hamas has
stopped attacks against Israel for the sake of the Palestinian elections,
and offers a longer truce.
Fighting continues in the ruins of Fallujah.
Over 10% of the Bush
forces in Fallujah were killed or wounded.
Desmond Tutu criticized South African president Mbeki for
tolerating tyranny in Zimbabwe.
Mbeki is a terrible disappointment. Of course, one could not ask for
him to be the equal of Mandela, but he has supported a long series of
disastrous, cruel and undemocratic policies.
In June 2003, a soldier in the Bush forces
tried to report
on the torture he had seen. His superiors had him declared
"mentally unstable" to shut him up.
This doesn't surprise me. Bush sets the tone for the people
that work for him: the truth is unimportant, power is all
that matters.
Fighting between Sunnis and Kurds is
heating up in Northern Iraq--and
Bush forces policies are partly responsible for this move towards
civil war.
Of course, those who work with Bush will be treated as
collaborators--what else should they expect?
When Bush brings in Kurds to suppress the resistance of Sunnis, the
more politically astute will think, "The empire is practicing
divide-and-rule". But many who are less educated and prone to racism
will think, "The Kurds are our enemies, now as always". Perhaps that
is what the Bush forces hope for: to divide Iraq on ethnic and
religious lines, and use some groups to rule the rest. Unity among
Iraqis gives them strength; division could make them weak. Maybe Bush
hopes that Kurds will be the permanent occupying force of the Sunni
parts of Iraq.
A UK commission says 1/3 of UK waters must be placed off limits to
fishing, so fish stocks can recover.
Here's the
report's summary.
Chile's government accepted responsibility for the
torture committed
by the US-supported military dictatorship.
When will the Bush regime accept responsibility for its systematic
acts of torture?
20 amazing facts about voting in the US election.
Pinochet, former US-installed dictator of Chile,
will stand trial in Chile for one of the murders his regime committed.
In the 1980s, a leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal killed and
damaged thousands.
Another leak now ties the parent company in the US
to responsibility for the deaths.
Dow, which bought this business from Union Carbide, has denounced a
hoax in which a prankster, claiming to speak for Dow, said that Dow
took responsibility for the disaster of Bhopal.
(I have a feeling that this denunciation is also a hoax.)
Evidence that most of the discarded ballots in Ohio were probably
votes for Kerry.
The Bush forces are
using napalm bombs in Fallujah, and burning
phosphorus shells.
I seem to recall that using chemical weapons against civilians
was one of the things Saddam Hussein was accused of doing.
As with the torture rooms and rape rooms that Bush said
he was going to get rid of, all he did was change the names
on the door.
The deadly hot summer of 2003 has been
tied to human activity. But
that was just a foretaste: by the end of this century most summers
will be even hotter.
The Chinese regime
executed a Tibetan after a secret trial, and
threatens to execute another Tibetan, a popular religious leader, also
after a secret trial.
These secret trials are the Chinese equivalent of the Bush regime's
practice of labeling people as "enemy combatants". Without a real
public trial, governments can imprison anyone they dislike and pretend
the reason is for crimes.
Israel is not allowing
students from Gaza to attend universities in the West Bank and other
countries. They are being arbitrarily prevented from leaving.
The UK embassy says the road to Baghdad airport is
"too dangerous to
use". In other words, the resistance is gaining ground against the
Bush forces, along the standard trajectory of a guerrilla war.
The Telegraph, which accused MP George Galloway of treason
and being paid by Saddam Hussein,
lost a libel case.
It looks like most of the evidence produced against Galloway
was fraudulent, and the rest of it doesn't really mean he
did anything wrong.
Red-State America Against Itself
When Liberalism can no longer appeal, all that's left is a battle
between two kinds of Conservatives.
A leaked ICRC report accuses Bush of increasing
repression in Guantanamo, and criticizes doctors for aiding
torturers.
A new organization aims to
end torture in South Asia.
There is no word on when this organization will extend its
operations to the US.
Police in Nepal arrested a 15-year-old girl, apparently because she
witnessed rapes committed by the army. Her parents are now
convinced she was killed, but they cannot get a straight story about
when or where. It sounds like a Nepalling experience.
As Blair threatens $4000 fines for not getting a mandatory biometric
ID card, opponents report many are saying they'd rather go to prison
than accept these cards.
Three Cheers! With determination to fight for freedom, people
can defeat the tyranny of Big Brolair.
A study found that
marijuana can cause psychosis in certain people, especially if
they start using it in their teens.
Australia seems to have bullied Vanuatu into
replacing its prime minister
by threatening to cut of aid.
I have seen
various stories about the motive for this. Australia
claims it is demanding reforms to end corruption, but that claim is
unbelievable.
Vohor has only had 6 months in office; if there is a serious problem
with corruption, it must have developed over more than 6 months, so
why the precipitous action now? Meanwhile, Australia surely would not
take action so quickly about a mere issue of corruption.
I've also seen a claim the reason is simply that Vohor rejected an
Australian hegemony policy which involves stationing police in
countries in the region and dictating their policies.
I do not know.
Ohio has not finished counting the votes, and the Republican
in charge (who is also a part of the Bush campaign) is
trying to impede the process.
A doctor's eyewitness report from Fallujah:
thousands of civilians
wounded, and that counts only the ones that could be brought to his
hospital.
Two kinds of antisemitism, against Jews and against Palestinians,
end up looking similar.
The US plans to increase the use of coal to generate electricity,
which would greatly increase global warming.
If scarcity of oil leads to more burning of coal, it could mean that
global warming increases world-wide. We have already seen
positive-feedback in atmospheric CO2; natural processes add to the CO2
that humans release. The result is likely to be disaster.
Here are my responses to the
consultation in
this link.
They might interest some readers.
A scandal has broken in Germany as army recruits were treated
to Bush-style abuse.
An earlier note points out that the torture methods used in Abu Ghraib
were derived from army training methods.
Somerville, Massachusetts, aldermen
discuss divesting from Israel.
Republican Challenges Presidential Election
Based on Exit Polls!
Israeli soldiers were talking about the "10-year-old girl"
before they shot her.
But the killers face only light charges.
The Bush forces regularly
shot civilians in Fallujah, even civilians
carrying white flags.
An
Iranian exile group claims that Iran is developing a
nuclear missile.
As events have shown that nuclear missiles are the only way to be safe
from Bush, I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. It would be only
sensible for Iran to develop such a weapon. But this also sounds
suspiciously like the phony intelligence that Bush contrived in the
case of Iraq.
Does anyone know if this exile group is real, or funded by Bush?
In the future, supermarkets and any stranger who wants to know
may be able to
use a radio scanner to tell what you have in your
pockets.
I don't see any problem in using RFIDs on wholesale drug bottles, but it
needs to be illegal to use them for retail sales.
Some US churches, led by the Presbyterian Church, have adopted plans
for divestment of stock in corporations that do business in Israel and
profit from the occupation. As usual, supporters of the occupation try
to paint this as "antisemitism"; but this time, they are also
threatening to burn churches.
An Israeli supports the call for disinvestment, and denounces the
smear campaign.
Here's the
actual statement of the Presbyterian Church.
Barghouti was persuaded to withdraw from running for president of the
Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, the candidate that the US wants,
says he could
stop attacks against Israel. But will Israel stop attacks against
Palestinians?
Gush Shalom published this ad:
Sharon has promised the Americans and the Europeans not to sabotage the
Palestinian elections.
And in practice?
* The members of a regional election committee were held up for six hours
at a checkpoint between Yata and Hebron.
* Instead of setting prisoners free, the army continues every night to
arrest activists of all factions, including people active in the election
campaign.
* While the Fatah leadership in Ramallah is discussing the elections,
Fatah activist Muhammad Rassan and two of his colleagues were killed in a
Ramallah suburb.
* The Israeli army continues to shoot without warning at Palestinian
policemen who are carrying arms, calling them `terrorists'. These are the
same policemen who are supposes to maintain order during the election
campaign.
Under such conditions, free elections are impossible.
We are warning again: Don't listen to what Sharon is saying, look at what
Sharon is doing!
Gush Shalom ad published in Ha'aretz
November 26, 2004
Lexmark printers spyon the
users' printing activity
A California lawsuit against Diebold for its voting machines was
settled prematurely with a slap on
the wrist.
The band Wilco has found success through
cooperating with file-sharing.
More information is coming out on how Dr. Khan in Pakistan arranged to
provide nuclear weapons know-how and equipment to
other countries.
The preceding article in that page is, I suspect, an example
of black propaganda. Bush probably told the CIA to prepare
the way to invade Iran.
The Republicans have quietly cut a
large part of government support for college
education. Increasingly only Americans with wealthy backgrounds
can afford to go to college. The rest will be kept ignorant.
College education tends to make people less provincial, and gives them
more exposure to a variety of views. The Republicans would probably
prefer to reduce the number of Americans who have such exposure.
A man
tortured by police in Sri Lanka was murdered before he could
testify against them.
Blunkett explains your terror nightmares - be
very afraid.
Civil liberties groups condemned
Blunkett's plans for new forms of repression in the UK.
Bill Moyers, the main progressive show host on PBS TV is retiring and
being replaced by someone accustomed to viewing everything through the
lens of business.
Brancaccio's show, Marketplace, takes an attitude of
looking at all aspects of life in terms of its effect
on business, as if nothing else mattered. After hearing
it a few times, I took such a disgust to it that I began
switching my radio off before it could start.
The WTO is planning to
commit mass murder, by forcing India to stop
making cheap anti-AIDS drugs. Any person who dies as a result will
have been murdered by the WTO. The WTO is the enemy of humanity and must be
destroyed at any cost.
I support the people who oppose this cruel plan, but I wish they would
stop playing into the enemy's hands through use of the enemy's
propaganda terms, "intellectual
property" and "protection".
Many obscene amendments weakening environmental laws
have been added to an appropriations bill in a congressional conference
committee.
Conservatives killed the intelligence reform bill that proposed to
attack civil liberties and impose new forms of surveillance. Not
because they care about civil liberties or surveillance, but to
support the Pentagon.
Reports that the Bush forces regularly shot civilians
in Fallujah while they were carrying white flags.
Allawi, who Bush appointed to rule Iraq, is following in the
footsteps of Saddam Hussein, and is now becoming just as hated
in Iraq.
Bush, are you listening? Shall we invade Iraq to liberate Iraqis from
their tyrannical ruler?
The UN General Assembly is starting to reject US-sponsored
resolutions about violations of human rights out of disgust
for other US actions.
I sympathize with those who condemn the US for its contempt for human
rights, but rallying behind the dictators and murderers that the US
criticizes is the wrong way to fight back. Instead of opposing the US
when it is right, people should fight the US when it does wrong.
US institutions have honed a technique to help opposition candidates
beat unfriendly strongmen in democratic elections--and to overcome
attempts to rig these elections.
Will they ever be able to bring these methods home, and restore
democracy in the US?
The FDA, which is supposed to regulate drugs and ensure they are safe,
has been captured by the drug companies to the point where it
suppresses results they don't like. Now it is trying to
squelch one of its own scientists who still tries to do his job.
This is not an isolated incident; the US government as a whole has
been captured by business, except in the areas where it has been
captured by religious nuts. This is why it works so hard to nullify
democracy both at home and abroad. What we see here is simply an
example.
However, a reason is not an excuse. Each act of corruption or cruelty
that the US government commits is no less wrong for being part of a
systematic pattern of corruption and cruelty.
Blair is
planning new attacks on civil liberties, which are
being strongly condemned.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem
calls for the resignation of Israel's army chief of staff, for granting
soldiers impunity for killing civilians.
400 protestors against Coca Cola company were arrested
violently in India.
The campaign against the spread of AIDS is failing to keep women from
being infected, because men
won't let them refuse sex or insist on condoms.
However, one point in the article seems like an anomaly. It says that
in South Africa, women who have sex only with their husbands are in
more danger than women who have many sex partners, because they can't
convince their husbands to use condoms. However, if women get AIDS at
the highest rate from their own husbands, it would seem that keeping
men from getting infected would also protect their wives.
Millions
Blocked from Voting in U.S. Election (through various kinds of dirty
tricks).
There are additional signs of election misconduct in Ohio,
but a Republican leader there says it is an "insult" to
raise the issue.
Paramilitary murderers, citing the name of President Uribe,
have made death threats against various union leaders in
the Coca Cola plant in Colombia. They have killed union
leaders before.
This is part of the reason for boycotting Coca Cola Company.
Behind the apparently fraudulent election in the Ukraine is a power
struggle between the US and Russia. The US and its proxies worked
hard to support the opposition candidate.
Melting arctic ice is driving polar bears to extinction, and there are
signs of changes in ocean currents and melting ice in Greenland that
could cause disaster to humanity too.
A marine in the Bush forces shot a prisoner,
which
triggered an investigation.
I'm glad that the marines investigate such crimes, but cases which can
be investigated are the tip of the iceberg. The same bitter
callousness that probably led this marine to murder a prisoner has
surely led many others to kill civilians, but only rarely is there
proof.
Ukrainians
took to the streets after a Bush-style election to
denounce fraud and reject the results.
Too bad Americans didn't.
A
writer projects that, if Sistani and Iraqi Shi'ites participate in
Bush's elections while Sunnis boycott them, this could lead to civil
war between the two groups.
Hollywood and the record companies are pushing a new bill
combining many attacks on Americans' freedom to use published works.
It's called the "Intellectual Property Protection Act, and the fact
that it uses the propaganda term "intellectual
property" shows it's likely to be bad.
Nader offered to
cooperate with the Kerry campaign in attacking Bush--but Kerry decided he'd
rather beat Nader instead.
Nader has called
on the chairman of the Democratic National Committee to resign.
Americans must
recognize the Bush forces are committing war crimes, and oppose their
actions.
Even soldiers have a duty to refuse to carry out illegal orders, such
as to commit war crimes. Civilians certainly should not support such
crimes. But any Americans who says he "supports" the "troops",
without qualifying the statement, is supporting the war crimes too.
However, I think that merely putting qualifications on this support
does not go far enough. The war itself is a crime (in Nuremberg,
German leaders were convicted of "crimes against the peace" for
launching wars of conquest). Bush's war of aggression does not
deserve any sort of support, only condemnation and opposition.
Global warming is destroying
several UNESCO World Heritage sites, and environmental campaigners are
trying to use this to pressure for measures to reduce global warming.
Amnesty International says Russia and China are selling arms to Sudan,
which uses them for
massacres.
India is considering satellite
tracking of sandalwood trees to prevent illegal logging.
This is one use of tracking technology I can support, because it only
tracks wrongdoers, not honest citizens.
Red Cross Estimates 800 Iraqi Civilians Killed in Fallujah.
I've read reports that the Bush forces dropped cluster bombs
in residential neighborhoods. People can't return there
or there will be more casualties.
Police in the Ukraine, speaking anonymously, say they were
ordered to fix the election.
Quebec police arrested protestors
en masse and violently.
The Bush forces took Falluja, and
present this as a victory,
but it
just shows the insurgents are following standard guerrilla principles:
melting away when attacked in strength.
The civilian casualties probably number in the thousands, but Bush
will not allow them to be counted, so there will only be unofficial
estimates that he can deny. The resistance will increase.
When Babar Ahmad tried to prosecute the UK police who had injured him
gravely while arresting him falsely, they
cooked up evidence to frame
him and send him to the US.
Avnery: As the Palestinian Authority moves toward elections, Sharon
needs to sabotage them,
without appearing to do so.
I hope that Avnery is right. However, it could be that Sharon can do
no wrong in Bush's eyes. Bush's crazed religious supporters want
Israel to build another temple, thinking this will trigger the
apocalypse.
An Indonesian human rights activist was
poisoned with arsenic on a flight.
Refugees from Fallujah are crowding into other cities and
cannot get
food and water. They talk of wounded dying in the streets.
43 Cuban performers have asked for asylum in the US,
after the Cuban government tried to make it
hard for them to perform in the US.
A US judge ruled
against military trials for Guantanamo prisoners, saying they should be
treated as POWs.
Reports of
fighting in Mosul and Ramadi, and atrocities
by the Bush forces in Fallujah--when they attacked the
hospital, they tied up and brutalized the doctors.
And worse.
The article also says that a photojournalist, escaping from Fallujah, saw the
Bush forces shooting anyone who tried to cross the river, including a family.
It sounds like the Serb snipers in Sarajevo.
A doctor from Fallujah talks about
how the Bush forces
attacked his hospital, how patients and doctors were killed by bombs,
and how he saw many people die that he could do nothing to save.
The US House of Representatives
passed a bill to punish universities
if their faculty criticize Israel. (The bill is now in committee in
the Senate.)
The reasons why Nader ordered a recount in New Hampshire:
to investigate the cause of a suspicious
pattern in the results.
Confessions of an
economic hit-man.
The krill population near Antarctica has gone down 80% due to climate
change, which endangers the animals that eat krill: penguins, seals
and whales.
Barghouti to Run for Palestinian Leader
When the Smoke has Cleared Around Fallujah, What Horrors will Be Revealed?
The EU human rights commissioner
condemned the anti-terror laws of many countries, and in
particular the UK.
Islamic extremists are a real danger, particularly those who believe
nobody has a right to criticize Islam. (There is nothing so great
that people don't have a right to criticize it.) They threaten other
people's freedom--but they cannot do as much damage as our own
governments can do.
Just as the Bush forces have destroyed Fallujah in order to
save it, they are destroying our freedom in order to save it.
Here's what FDR had to say about corporate power:
"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the
people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it
becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its
essence, is Fascism-- ownership of government by an individual, by a
group, or by any other controlling power."
The Presidential Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938, Item 59 Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies. April 29
Robert
Fisk on Arafat, the history of 90s peace negotiations, and how
Bush and Blair distort the situation so they can support Sharon.
Florida Republicans gave out false information about vote counts, and
tried to destroy records.
Nine US states are starting a
system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, similar to the Kyoto treaty.
Kerry won Ohio:
Just count the ballots at the back of the bus.
Ohio Voters Tell of
Election Day Troubles at Hearing. This document also says that the Green
Party has raised the funds for a recount in Ohio.
A recount could help correct for fraud in the counting process.
However, it cannot do anything to bring back the votes of the eligible
voters who were threatened and intimidated not to vote, or given false
information about where to vote, or who had to leave to work rather
than wait hours (because Democratic precincts were systematically
given too few voting machines). The resulting figures will still
overestimate Bush's real support.
Falluja is in
ruins after the Bush forces conquered it. Civilians are trapped in their
houses, afraid they will be shot if they emerge. But some resistance remains.
I suspect Bush meant this as a deliberate example, a threat to destroy
all of Iraq's cities. That's the sort of logic conquerors learn to
use.
An executive of Underwriters Laboratories, which certified the steel
used in building the WTC, says that the fire
could not have been the cause of their failure.
30 Israeli policemen invaded a church to arrest Mordechai Vanunu.
Marwan al-Barghuti plans to run for president of Palestine
while in an Israeli prison.
Russia stated it will not be the first country to
militarize space.
Perhaps this implicitly includes a threat to be the second, if the US
is the first. I hope it does some good.
Students are organizing in the US to fight unjust copyright laws.
However, either Pavlovsky or the article's author undermines this
campaign by saying they are not "advocating ripping off the
entertainment companies". (It is not clear whose words these are.)
The idea that sharing copies is equivalent to "ripping off" someone
is the central element in the publishers' propaganda campaign,
which is what enabled to pass their unjust copyright laws.
To prevent more such laws, we have to reject this notion.
Uri Avnery on the
death of Yasser Arafat.
In an interview,
Avnery explains how the US and Israel, by forcing
Arafat's secular Palestinian nationalism into defeat, left nowhere for
Arabs to turn except to the Islamist fundamentalism of bin Laden.
Congratulations, Dubya.
It looks like the Bush forces are
systematically attacking medical facilities in Fallujah.
They are also
keeping the Red Crescent doctors out of Falluja, where civilians are dying
because doctors cannot help them.
It makes sense. What's the use of bombing and capturing the hospitals
if other doctors can get in and treat the injured?
Republicans tried to intimidate voters in many places in Detroit. (Search for
"Detroit" in the
article to find that part.)
The people who did it appear to have been organized and taught an
approach that was often illegal. So I wonder who organized them.
A movement to
impeach Blair for lying about Iraq is getting started.
If it doesn't succeed in impeaching Blair, it may help prevent
him from winning in the next election, which I believe is due
in less than a year.
The Nader campaign has demanded a recount in
New Hampshire, while the Green and Libertarian candidates plan to
demand a recount in Ohio.
Even more
signs that voting in Ohio wasn't done right.
Other information about
election dishonesty, including examples of the bogus flyers that were used to
intimidate voters in some neighborhoods.
Cuba's medical system presents a superior model for how
to prevent the spread of AIDS.
I do not support the government of Cuba, which imprisons people
without trial for political opposition. However, the government of
the US can no longer claim to be better; it imprisons people without
trial for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and sometimes
tortures them.
Statistical
evidence of voting machine anomalies in Florida.
Ukrainians protest alleged election fraud.
They seem to take election fraud more seriously there.
Votergate 2004: We
Don't Need Paper to Prove Fraud.
Stan Goff reports
on his debate with a prominent neocon.
I disagree with Goff on one point: Bush is stealing Iraq's oil indirectly, by making Iraq pay billions in reparations (often to corporations) and privatizing its assets for his cronies. This theft may not be profitable for the US, given how much the continuing war costs, but it is profitable for Halliburton. It might have been a profitable conquest for the US also, if there had been no resistance, as Bush expected.
US Generals May Deliver Fallujah to Bush and Blair, but Not Fallujahns.
This article illustrates why it will be hard for nonviolent protest to
prevail against the Bush forces--they respond by shooting the
protestors. By the way, a similar shooting of protestors was the
trigger for the American Revolution. It was called the Boston
Massacre.
Bev Harris says TV stations have told their reporters not to talk
about voter fraud.
Witch Hunt at Columbia: a campaign backed by lots of money
is trying to intimidate professors, labeling criticism
of Israel as "anti-semitism".
Evidence of a Second Bush Coup?
An air attack on Falluja by the Bush forces completely destroyed a
hospital. No one knows how many sick or injured people were killed
there.
Is this what they mean by a "surgical strike"?
It Will
Be Months Before we Learn the Truth About Fallujah.
A Dutch filmmaker who criticized Islam's treatment of women was
murdered on the
street--reminding us that the Christian fanatics in
the US aren't the only dangerous ones.
Many US electronic voting machines were certified as secure by
an organization that
decided to skip the security testing.
More Evidence of Vote Rigging: Did Kerry Concede Too Soon?
We're All Israelis Now.
Arundhati Roy supports the Iraqi resistance.
No patriotic Iraqi could tolerate or legitimize the conquest and
colonization of his country.
I think Roy's suggestion for nonviolent resistance may be unrealistic,
given the cruel practices of the Bush regime and its effective control
of US media. It may be a good to try it in parallel, but I would not
ask Iraqis to stop responding to bombs with bombs.
Blair plans to prohibit protests outside Parliament during daytime,
to get rid of an embarrassing war protestor.
Criticism can be unpleasant, but listening to protest is part of what
democracy mens. To adopt the principle that citizens have no right to
make their leaders feel uncomfortable is to establish tyranny. To ban
or remove protest on the excuse that a terrorist might be hiding among
protestors threatens democracy worse than any terrorist.
Bush plans to ignore treaties against weapons in space,
and is dragging the UK along.
If China and Russia make it clear that they will follow suit
unless the US agrees to arms control,
maybe Congress will recognize
how foolish this is.
Isn't it sad that we have to hope that those countries, neither of
them really democratic, will restrain US imperial designs.
Why Kerry Conceded Defeat despite Electoral Fraud
I'm glad I did not give way to the pressure to support a candidate who
was so far away from the principles of civil liberties, peace,
justice, and shared prosperity.
Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked
Massive Voter Suppression and Corruption in Ohio
Michael Ruppert's response
to the election.
Kerry won't challenge the election results, but reports are that Nader
is thinking about it, so send him a fax as described in the Urgent
Action note. Not with the idea that it would put Kerry in the White
House, but because election fraud calls for legal action.
Exit poll figures during election day changed in ways that were
mathematically impossible--proving that something fishy
was happening.
I am not sure that fiddling was the only possibility, but this
is something that the networks and their polling organizations
owe us an explanation for.
Fewer foreign students want to study at US universities, and the
universities are feeling the
decrease in applicants. The AAAS expressed their concerns.
The AAAS proposal is directed solely at reducing the practical
inconveniences of visa processing. Perhaps some foreign students are
concerned only about these superficial matters, but others disapprove
of US policies, are unwilling to be fingerprinted at the border, or
fear even worse treatment. They will continue to stay away.
Two days ago, in Germany, a university teacher told me he knows many
students who want to stay away from the US. After I encouraged him,
he launched a campaign for students to state publicly that they will
not go to the US.
The Choice between War
and More War.
(This cites evidence of voting machine malfunctions
in Ohio.)
What will it take
for Americans to reject the war on the world?
If the votes had all been counted in Ohio and New Mexico, Kerry would probably have won
the election.
In other words, Bush didn't win this time either; he cheated
again.
I did not support Kerry, because he was not different enough
to be worth it. However, this similarity does not excuse
a fraudulent election, nor make Bush a legitimate president.
There is evidence of possible
tampering using electronic voting machinesin a primary election in
Washinton State last September.
Brazil's government is trying to end a
long tradition of slavery in the rainforests.
The Bush forces
paid no attention to explosives in Al Qaqaa, just as they paid no attention
to the treasures of history in the national museum, or the papers in the Iraqi
ministries (except the oil ministry), or the archeological sites of Sumer.
A US court rebuked
Bush's continuing resistance to letting the Guantanamo prisoners meet their
lawyers.
The EU is researching a plan to put RFIDs into banknotes.
This could mean total government tracking of finances.
It might also enable thieves to count the money in your
wallet while it's still in your pocket.
It would not raise any particular issues if banknotes contained RFIDs
that only say "I am a real banknote". That would impede
counterfeiting without any harmful effects. The real problem happens
when they broadcast the bill's serial number, or hold memory of who
saw the bill previously. Then they become a tool for tyranny.
We need a convenient portable RFID-destroying appliance, that we can
use to fry the RFIDs that may be in various things that we use or own.
14 characteristics of fascist states:
how does your government stack up?
As a consequence of the Bush invasion, Iraqi scientists are working with insurgents to
develop chemical weapons.
The danger that Bush lied about is real because of his dishonesty.
It's poetic justice--too bad all the rest have to suffer too.
Sharon
persuaded parliament to vote for pullout of settlements
from Gaza.
Maybe he really intends to do it. But is this a step towards peace,
or just an excuse for annexation elsewhere?
Rumsfeld ignored warnings that
attacking Falluja would explode.
While it could be that he simply exercised bad judgment in this issue,
I think Bush set a tone for his men about ignoring news they don't
want to hear.
The Democratic party is
actively fighting Republican vote-suppression campaigns--including filing
lawsuits against untrustworthy electronic voting systems. If these suits
succeed, they could do some permanent good.
Uzbek opposition parties
praise the former UK Ambassador, who was just removed from the office. He
explained how Uzbek torturers manufactured confessions to manipulate Bush and
Blair, and apparently was punished for that.
Four Britons have sued
Rumsfeld and other US government officials for torturing them in
Guantanamo.
Many voters complained that touch-screen voting machines recorded
the wrong choice.
The Bush regime is trying to limit voters' rights to
sue to enforce voting rigts laws.
What else could have been bought with the $225 billion Bush spent on
trying to conquer Iraq?
The question is useful to consider, but it's not the primary question.
War is killing, and killing is wrong unless there is a very good
justification for it. This war is a war of aggression, and it would
be wrong if it didn't cost a dime.
Colin Powell is saying privately that the Iraqi resistance is
defeating the Bush forces.
I will be glad to see Bush lose a war of aggression,
even if the regime that takes power in Iraq is one I
would denounce as a dictatorship. Even Saddam Hussein
would be an improvement over the Bush forces' occupation.
A large US civil rights group confronted the Republican Party directly
about voter suppression.
By the time this is posted, perhaps people will know what actually
happened in the election.
I decided to stay away from the US until after election day in case
Bush did something violent to manipulate the election, or as an excuse
to cancel it--or in case Al Qa'ida did it because Bush is convenient
for them.
It looks like no such thing occurred. Bush chose fabricated smears
plus voter-suppression as the way to cheat, and Al Qa'ida choose to
give a hint of endorsing Kerry (unless it was the Bush people who made
that tape). I'm glad that my fears turned out to be wrong, but the
electin is nonetheless unfair.
Baghdad's main children's hospital says things are
worse than before
the Bush occupation. Disease is rampant, and there is not enough
medicine.
Day of the Dead:
The Haunting of the White House
In Burma, where the record "For the Lady" is banned,
the punishment
for playing it is 7 years in prison.
Thousands of Florida students were tricked into signing duplicate
voter registration forms that could
invalidate their real registrations.
A NYC firefighter says he helped the
FBI find three "black boxes" from the crashed airliners--boxes that the
FBI says were never found.
I would trust his word more than the FBI's word.
Israel and
the Palestinian olive harvest.
Brutal Trap
of Nepal's Civil War.
12 ways
Bush is trying to steal the vote in Ohio.
Michael Moore criticized repressive
copyright laws, saying he believes it is legitimate to share videos
nomcommercially, including his own Fahrenheit 9/11.
Bush whitewashes the
crimes of the dictatorship of Uzbekistan, to avoid the embarrassment of
being seen to support a dictator.
When the US government wants to destabilize a country, it says that
government doesn't respect human rights. When it wants to support a
dictatorship, it denies the dictator's crimes. They are both lies,
and they reflect a propensity to lie which can be compared with the
Soviet Union.
Kerry did this too in his "lesson for Latin-American democracy".
I wish I could believe he would be more honest if elected.
A nonviolent political activist in the UK faces losing her
home--as if being gravely injured by a policeman wasn't enough punishment
for participating in democracy.
Julian Bond, head of the NAACP, speaks about voter
suppression, in the past and today.
The NAACP is being investigated by
the IRS for posting a speech criticizing Bush policies.
Perhaps the NAACP should not have done this. However, ISTR that there
have been many churches which campaigned heavily for Republican
candidates, and the IRS has not been very eager to make them stop.
Bush wouldn't be the first Republican president to politicize the IRS.
Terror Alerts vs. Bush's poll numbers.
An election report from Florida, where early voting is already set up to be unfair.
Halliburton has a long series of
corrupt deals with the Cheney regime.
The Health Care Crisis in America--Clinton's historic surrender made it worse.
Arguing that the "bin Laden video" is a fraud; that is,
propaganda from the Bush regime.
That a communication from bin Laden would help Bush does not, in my
view, prove it is fake or that he made a mistake. Bush helps bin
Laden gain support, just as bin Laden helps Bush gain support; I don't
know whether Bush is smart enough to see this, but bin Laden surely
is.
However, some of the text as reported so far seems to be designed for
US domestic consumption. It makes no sense that bin Laden would
say such things.
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[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-21 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-21 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-21 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-21 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-21 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[References updated on 2018-04-29 because the old links were broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-21 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-04-29 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[References updated on 2018-05-07 because the old links were broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[References updated on 2018-05-07 because the old links were broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-08-27 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
There is no doubt that FBI officials will lie when ordered to.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-08 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-08 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-08 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-07 because the old link was broken.]
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Copyright (C) 2005 Richard Stallman
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