Who's Afraid of a Big Dissent?

Do you ever get that sinking feeling that all the euphoria when Dems restored some balance of power to government is somehow - if not premature, not quite "euphoria"... more like "cautious curiosity checked by exaggerated caution"? Did you ever wonder why this democracy seems to lack some kind of vibrance? Like an injection of vitamin B or hormones might help ... in lieu of courage... If you're tired of being tired of politicians who never take a stand - except to say, "I always stand tall to take a stand!!" Please check out this great article from LexisNexis.com:

Where are the democrats? When it comes to Iraq, the opposition party is afraid to oppose.

By Michael, Terry

IT'S HARD TO get out of a deal with the devil. That's the congressional Democrats' dilemma as they continue to treat the Iraq war as a speed bump on their pathway to the perks of restored power.

Take Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. Asked on one of the Sunday venues for pompous pontificators how he would respond to any attempt by President Bush to escalate the war in Iraq (to "surge," if you preferit in Newspeak), the Democratic "leader" on foreign policy responded, "There's not much I can do about it."

This is a man who sees a future president during his morning look in the mirror. Sadly, the glass reflects an empty suit who embodies the congressional Democrats' decision to reduce action on Iraq to a political calculus appropriate for the highway appropriations bill, not a moral imperative to challenge a policy that has sent thousands of twenty-somethings to their deaths in the desert.

You certainly can do something about it, Senator. It's called leadership. You rise on the Senate floor. You say you were out of your mind to write a blank check for this hideous abuse of American militarypower. And then you propose immediate withdrawal, just slow enough to maximize the safety of the 135,000 young men and women you helped put in harm's way by your collusion with this elective war. You do what Republican Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon had the guts to do last month, stopping just short of accurately labeling this public policy obscenity a criminal enterprise.

I have lived in the 10 surreal square miles of D.C. for more than three decades, usually playing by the rules of decorum dictated by the political and media classes, first as a young congressional aide, later as a national party committee and presidential campaign operative, and now as an aging educator of journalism students who want to spend their careers interpreting politics.

But like millions of other Americans, I can no longer contain the primal scream I want to direct at the members of my party who declined to engage in a real debate in the run-up to this completely avoidable misjudgment of old men and women. Nonexistent, and certainly nonthreatening, WMDs. A secularist paper-tiger dictator, despised by the Islamist lunatics behind the September II attacks. A tribal culture with zero indigenous movement for pluralistic democracy.

All of those things were knowable when congressional Democrats such as Biden had an opportunity to stop this madness before it started.Some of them actually shared the neoconservative pretensions of a new American imperialism. But most just quaked in their permanent campaign boots, fearing being labeled Cold War-style liberal wimps. They averted their eyes and closed their mouths instead of acting like a responsible opposition party.

Read more...

Now, I'm waiting to see what the other candidates say/do. Hillary Clinton may look somehow very professional & all, but I get this sinking feeling ... like she's just another politician ...

Let's Play Hangman! And Wrestle with the Issues

It Isn't Force-Fed, Either.

Where were the bumper stickers when Pol Pot was around?

"Give me liberty, or give me death."

"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Tell me, who does THAT any more??

Bodyguards of America, donate some time to this lady, PLEASE!

OK, so freedom really ISN'T free...

But, "Invade for Democracy"??

An Oxymoron

The strategy isn't working.

Send in Monty Hall.

You stop fighting us, and we milk your cash cow!

An offer you can't refuse!

We need a better sales pitch, Dick.

Where's that guy, Ron Popeil, when we really need him?

Set it, and Forget it!

"Dear Ron, please invent for us a new Middle East Policy for couch potatoes. Maybe we can work it out in the comfort of Air Force One."

Freedom Takes Courage, Dissent, Honesty, and Real Reporting

It's time to address the issue of lying vs. honesty and reporting fairly or unfairly in our democracy. Carl Bernstein had something important to say on this in Frontline:


"I think what we're talking about with the Bush administration is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth -- a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself -- is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale.

"The lying in the Nixon White House had most often to do with covering up Watergate, with the Nixon administration's illegal activities. Here, in this presidency, there is an unwillingness to be truthful, both contextually and in terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all ideologies. ...

"This president has a record of dishonesty and obfuscation that is Nixonian in character in its willingness to manipulate the press, to manipulate the truth. We have gone to war on the basis of misinformation, disinformation and knowing lies from top to bottom. That is an astonishing fact. That's what this story is about: the willingness of the president and the vice president and the people around them to try to undermine people who have effectively opposed them by telling the truth. It happened with [Sen.] John McCain in South Carolina. It happened with [Sen.] John Kerry. It's happened with [Sen.] Max Cleland in Georgia. It's happened with many other people. That's the real story, and that's the story that [the press] should have been writing. ...

"It's very difficult, as a reporter, to get across that when you say, "This is a presidency of great dishonesty," that this is not a matter of opinion. This is demonstrable fact. If you go back and look at the president's statements, you look at the statements of the vice president, you look at the statements of Condoleezza Rice, you go through the record, you look at what[counterterrorism expert] Richard Clarke has written, you look at what we know -- it's demonstrable. It's fact.

"Now, how do you quantify it? That's a different question. But to me, if there is a great failure by the so-called mainstream press in this presidency, it's the unwillingness to look at the lies and disinformation and misinformation and add them up and say clearly, "Here's what they said; here's what the known facts were," because when that is done, you then see this isn't a partisan matter.

"This is a matter of the truth, particularly about this war. This is a presidency that is not willing to tell the truth very often if it is contrary to its interests. It's not about ideology from whence I say this. It's about being a reporter and saying: "That's what the story is. Let's see what they said; let's see what the facts are." ...

This issue is not "liberal" vs. "conservative": in theory, both sides have a vested interest in free speech, in reporting not being biased, in government not being heavy-handed propagandists via media outlets, and in there being accountability for dishonesty in government. Otherwise, the government takes on a life of its own, unaccountable to the people who then are being lied to about it being democratic, about the government being "theirs", about their having true participation or representation in government. In other words, this breakdown of trust is precisely the hallmark of dictatorships and totalitarian governments. There is a reason, not madness, that many fear the United States is becoming a police state. There is a reason, not madness, that many fear totalitarianism creeping into government, hidden legislation by hidden legislation, Patriot Act loophole by Patriot Act V? loophole.

It starts with waging war for lies disguised as ineptitude, it continues with secret torture camps disguised as "freedom protection" camps, it gets nasty with increased surveillance, until finally, what??? Goodbye, government "by the people" - Hello, watch your back, folks... Is that what you want?

The Opium of the Cheap Shot

Pat Robertson calls for assassination of a foreign leader. Others cry for an end to Harry Potter's “Satanism.” The Islamists are coming, the Islamists are coming, to take our freedom away. AIPAC is brokering influence and war deals. The Pope is on the warpath. Hollywood is converting to Scientology. Bush's oracles warn him of an Evil Empire, like Papa Reagan before him, except Reagan was fighting a long-established enemy, an empire with an upfront army. And Reagan's Evil Empire collapsed before our very eyes. Reagan's astrologers had a better grip on reality than Bush's evangelical oracles. Bush's Evil Empire is not a defined thing, but rather an amorphous Empire that keeps expanding within and without, like the Enemies of Communism who were Enemies of the People, who could be your own mother, right? Evil is everywhere. Atheists claim that evil is Religion itself, and Republicans were damn near to saying Democrats are Evil, unless they make a fast right turn. But what we do know, is it seems religion is everywhere - on the march... it's On to Armageddon...

Or at least, in the rhetoric. And talk is cheap. Cheap shots are so easy. So handy. Religion is a great motivator, and so now we use it in our sales pitches. Sell a war with a 30-second spot. Keyword: terrorist. Keyword: threat, danger. Keyword: fear. And the message to the rest of the world, is: bow down to the god-filled church of Americanism - or we'll invade. Like hell. We'll oust your government and hang 'em high, and to hell with the consequences. We don't need good reasons. Any lie will do. And our people will believe. 'Cause they're all Believers. Except the godless, from the Evil Church of Liberalism. Sic 'em, Lady Fascisma! Deliver us from Evil.

This brilliant foreign strategy has its rewards. The world is awash in religious battle. Jews kill Muslims, Shi’a kill Sunnis and vice versa, "Westerners" kill "Islamofascists" and "Islamofascists" kill "Infidels" and the whole thing is like a fantasy gone amok. In reality, it IS a fantasy gone amok. None of this makes any sense, none of this has the slightest thread of logic, none of this does anything but threaten survival of the species. And thanks to Superpower's lead, the whole world is embroiled. The net result being what? Cheap oil? Is that what the bloodbath's all about? Are we engaging in empire-building? Of course we are!!! We just change the words. It's called "Savior to the World from WMD's". Failing that, it's "Saving the World for Democracy". Or, how about "Making the World Safe for Israel"? But unlike the Jesus model, this is "We Save You By Force." Gee, pop, I don't remember democracy was s'posed to be by force, was it in your day, pop?

So brilliant faith-based Armageddon foreign policy gets guys like Osama bin Laden out of the mountains and into the skies. Yes, we are now being invited to Islam with the same great sales pitch we invited them to Christianity, Democracy and the American Way, whatever those are in Bush's "vision". Here's the great pitch (and really, who can resist?):

"I hereby invite you to my religion, otherwise known as The Only Right and True Religion, and if you refuse to enter this religion AND PRETTY MUCH NOW, we will attack you with all we've got. "

And then, to make it "work", attack the "enemy" with all you've got. All we have to argue about now is, who did it first? We say "they did it first! so we've gotta retaliate!" and they say "they've been doing much worse stuff all along, and we only hit them when we couldn't take it any more!" We say "We're defending our Homeland." They say "We're defending our Homeland." And it's safe to say only one thing - you guys are all on the same page. So why don't you all go back to your Homelands and for God's sake defend them?

There's nothing quite worse than a self-proclaimed Savior who roams the world jump-starting catastrophes wherever he goes. Usama should defend Saudi Arabia. DHS should start defending America. Not from the people we allege to welcome at the Statue of Liberty, which people include refugees, yes even Arab and Muslim refugees, and Mexicans looking for survival in the form of dirt-pay jobs. We should defend America from the people who are on the same page as the Bush Administration is, for whom religion IS government and/or vice versa. Those are not Christians or Muslims. Those are loose cannons, out of control. Their enemies are everywhere, and the list is growing; their friends are few, and thinning by the hour. Are we going to let this bi-polar "vision" get out of hand?

Where's the separation of "church" and "state"? That was supposed to keep this thing from foaming at the mouth. So who crossed what line, and is a sinister Religious Empire Impulse within threatening our democracy? From whose side?

Everybody's taking sides - WE are good and THEY are evil. Deliver US, not THEM, from Evil. Amen. People form camps. They start battles, then wars, then casualties, then fallout. There must be something wrong with religion. Religion is Evil, say the Atheists. But is Religion the problem? Is government the problem?

In Islam, all people are considered "spiritual", and therefore all people have religion(s). Atheism, according to this definition, is a religion. The way people choose to set up their belief system, their moral/spiritual imperatives and priorities, is their "religion". I think this definition has validity, and is useful in approaching the subject of Religion v. Government. In this sense, it is even more important that government - whose job is to establish a just rule of law and a measure of order and social stability - NOT legislate, mandate, enforce, control, or represent Religion - any religion.

In other words, if one were to apply the above definition accurately to this issue, you would have NO government interference in religion, and there MUST be complete freedom of religion. To do otherwise leads to totalitarianism and despotism. At the same time, Religion - insofar as it means a person's belief-system - should NOT legislate, mandate, enforce, control, or represent Government - any government. To do otherwise leads to anarchy and/or fascism. Why?

Religion is the expression of our spirituality, of what is meaningful to us, of going beyond limits, of purpose, of what connects us to eternity, or infinity, of what is beyond the immediate borders and limitations we have. To invite atheists into the malaise, think if it as fractals - the geometric figures whose perimeter is infinite and whose area is finite. We need the finite, e.g., limits, laws, checks and balances, equations and mathematics, police, and the scientific method. And we need the infinite - e.g., religion, the arts, music, media, literature, drugs (a more destructive expression of that need), dreams, and last, but not least, love. We need both, and we need them separate.

If religion becomes government - tries to order, control, and police our lives - we lose religion itself. Its very essence is and must be free. It's been said "you can't legislate morality." Even more so, you can't force faith, or rule by "beliefs". Laws must have checks and balances, and limits, to create and enforce justice and social stability. When religion and its link to the Infinite and Eternal enters into the rule of law, checks and balances lose their power. The Purpose, the Limitless, the Endless, justifies the Means. Gut feeling replaces law and precedent. Intuition trumps logic. Armageddon trumps Utopia. War trumps diplomacy. And micromanagement trumps hands-off government, freedom of thought, speech, choice. Welcome to the Bush Administration. Welcome to Saudia West.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking Arab traditions, just Saudi family hegemony. I actually am convinced that the Age of the Caliphs, that halcyon Dream of every Martyr, was actually far different, and more democratic, than what gets tossed around as the idea of a so-called Islamic State. In reality, the original Islam had freedom of religion, speech, education, was promoting women's rights, abolishing (gradually) slavery, and generally didn't look like the sort of government/religion combo the New Islamic Order proponents present to eager Evil-seeking Western Neocon eyes. The two sort of gravitate, like an emotional high - Hate at First Sight. Hey, it works: Soul Enemies.

Vision bashes vision in a cool, galactic fantasy battle whose biggest victims are:
1) A planet, formerly known as Earth; and
2) A species, formerly known as Homo Sapiens (scrap the “sapiens”, guys).

Someone’s got to get a grip on the fact that freedom needs plurality, not homogeneity. And survival also depends on it. Religion, to be really working, has to be free. Government, to be truly just, must be of and by free people. And people by nature are diverse and diversify. All the various religions and cultures of the world would do better to relish their diversity rather than attempt to conquer it. What made the Soviet Union collapse was not really Ronald Reagan (sorry folks) but the same thing that makes everything living die - lack of oxygen. “Oxygen“ being banned with the prohibition of religion, art, free expression, all that we wrap up in our concept of the spirit or soul. That side is our oxygen. But without limitations and checks and balances, cancer ensues, ending up with …lack of oxygen and death. Nothing really good ever comes of force-feeding.

Tell that to the war-mongers. Better yet, tell them that no democracy or freedom was ever won by torture. It never happened, never will happen. And that’s something religion and government may possibly get together on - you might call it common ground:
No force, no torture, no lies, no aggression against sovereign nations, no breaking your own rules! And you can’t cover it up with cheap shots.

Cheap shots are just opium for couch potato diplomacy. The scene is set: you’re watching people kill each other mercilessly over someone wearing shorts; you’re watching the gates of hell open up in Baghdad. Face it. Beer just won’t work. You need opium. You need cheap shots, right? “They’re not really people - they’re ‘terrorists’!”
“They’re not like you - they’re Evil.”

Aren’t we helping the Iraqis getting out of this by being their police force? We should try it in Detroit. Send in the Dutch! Detroitians obviously can’t handle their problems. They need experienced negotiators, notoriously non-violent, people who know how to handle drugs and drug problems, the Grand Duchy of Progressivism. Yes, embrace the Invasion. And of course, in return for their multi-billion-Euro investment, the Netherlands will own the entire auto industry and the people in it. It’s a model for world law enforcement. Let’s apply Bush Standards (B.S.) at home!

Yes, Mr. Falwell, there is a pew for you in the god-filled Church of Conservatism, and a podium, too. Just get the hell of it out of government. And get the Dutch out of Detroit. Maybe we can actually go back on the Gold Standard: the human mind. Maybe then we can put the brakes on Armageddon.

Armageddon burns more gas than it gives. Trust me. It won’t help that you’re all stoned out of your minds on cheap shots. You can’t come up with a good plan when your minds are shot. Try to jump-start your brains first.

Just say “no” to B.S.

Voodoo "Diplomacy"

Yes, it's official. There really is religion in politics. At least, in the Bush Administration, religion is King - with a crown. And I believe it's Caribbean. Yes, we're finally going to get back to tradition.

The tradition of voodoo. But not voodoo economics, no. That was Reaganomics. Bush &Co. are into effigies and pins. Will it work? We'll see - or so I fear. First, there was the Ahmadinejad doll, which was easy, because he kept helping himself to more pins. Then, there was the entire nation of Iran. Call it Mass Effigy Work. Iran as a nation, and the people in it, are all just one big doll, and the Bush administration the self-proclaimed Priestess. The pins? Big Media, of course. It's like one big urinal - the "contacts" take a "leak" and the urinal "flushes" it to the public. Are we not, to them, one great sewer? Don't you miss the days of the "melting pot"?

Here's some of the leaked "material" that accidentally got out of the "stream" - How? A thinking and mentally active reporter actually thought about and analyzed the "evidence" against Iran that has been gathered in the voodoo frenzied march to war on everyone on Some Special Someone's Dream List. As mentioned in this article:

"The Washington Post quoted one of the U.S. officials at the briefing as saying that there was no "widespread involvement" of the Iraqi government in supplying weaponry, thus implicitly conceding that some elements of the Iraqi government officials are indeed involved in the weapons traffic. By insisting that the Iranian government was involved, the Bush administration has conjured up the image of a smuggling operation so vast that it could not occur without official sanction. In fact, as Knights points out, the number of EFPs exploded monthly has remained at about 100, which clearly would not require high level connivance to maintain a flow of imports. The power point slides presented to the press in Baghdad ended with a slide that essentially confirms that the evidence points not to official sponsorship of cross-border weapons smuggling but to private arms trafficking networks. "

Regardless to whether or not we are convinced, it may be likely to happen. But that doesn't mean we can't pressure the government to avoid the potential disaster of such a stupendously, insanely destructive move.

War for Sale

How many Americans can see now that they are the number One consumers targeted by a hot-n-heavy ad campaign selling war with Iran?

Shouldn't it be a hard sell, after Iraq? Apparently not. An LA Times/Bloomberg poll recently shows that 57% of Americans favor military intervention in Iran. The late H.L. Mencken once said "Nobody ever lost money overestimating the stupidity of the American public." Apparently, the Administration applies this dim view to selling wars, too - and the ad campaign has succeeded. Which is not to say the war or military effort looming grimly over Iran - and to hell with justice, what the hell do we care about justice anyway? - will succeed. Not a chance in hell. No matter how it's sold, how much they tout their loot or power, it is doomed, absolutely doomed, to fail.

Why? Because the perpetrators of this idea failed to account to one slim bit of data that throws off their wildly illogical equations. Because "no man is an island." Because "Island America" doesn't really exist. Because we're fighting for fiction. We die for lies. We kill for a story line. We ignore the species thing. Oh, right, they're homo sapiens. So what if they're living on the same planet? So what if we're the same species? So what if we all need the same thing - duh, H2O? - and maybe some minerals, proteins, radiation-free vitamins, etc. ...? "For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction." Did it dawn on anyone that there are consequences to what you do??? Look at Iraq, and wait. The worst is yet to come. And I don't have the slightest idea exactly where or how, but it's just a law of physics. You do this, you get slapped with that. Call it divine justice, call it Newton's or Murphy's law, it happens.

Look at the seed of all Mideast fruits - the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Now look at this excerpt from an article that started on the subject of Iran:

Israel has just “completed a process of sealing off the eastern sector of the West Bank from the remainder of the West Bank. Some 2,000,000 Palestinians, residents of the West Bank, are prohibited from entering the area, which constitutes around one-third of the West Bank, and includes the Jordan Rift, the area of the Dead Sea shoreline and the eastern slopes of the West Bank mountains”, reported the Israeli journalist Amira Hass of Israel’s daily, Ha’aretz. “The prohibition also applies to thousands of residents of towns and villages in the northern West Bank like Tubas and Tamun, most of whose lands are in the Jordan Valley, and some with residents who have been living there for many years’, added Hass.
In addition, Israel has encircled and isolated Jerusalem from the rest of the Occupied Territories, making the creation of a viable Palestinian “state” impossibility. More than 3.5 Palestinians are living in prison under unbearable apartheid system of control, checkpoints, road blocks and walls. And with the elections of Hamas, Israel is increasing the terror against the Palestinians from all sides. Thousands of Palestinian men, women and children are still imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces without charge. Of course, Western governments, the U.S. in particular, provided the financial “aid” and political support for Israel’s terror and violations of international law.

This may sound extreme to mainstream listeners, but it deserves to be looked at, because if it is true, we are missing something incredibly important. That the whole raison d'etre of U.S. foreign policy is based on something verging on the very thing I've always thought as the antithesis of Israel - and that is Nazism. Are the Israelis imitating their old enemy in some weird twist of fate or strange mirror imaging? Are Palestinians the new "Semites"? And Jews the new Aryan race? And is Israel the new Racially Pure State, ethnically cleansed from Arabs and Muslims, ethnically cleansed from goyim? Is that the ideal now in place? And what is America in this scenario? The Great Cash Cow, apparently. Ride 'em, cowboy.

We keep mouthing the word "Islamofascists". But who created them? Are they rather the mirror image of Judeofascists? Are they merely avenging the wrongs and injustices of the occupiers, of the powerful who live in luxury on the plunder and pillaging of others less powerful, others they themselves conspired to disenfranchise? And who gives a damn? We're numbed by videos, media, the frantic/manic Glenn Beck who is in this raging hurry to turn off his thoughts by cleverly posted prankish remarks that run his thinking off like a flushing toilet.

We're numbed by possibilities, by technology, by too much bombardment and too little time to assimilate anything, even food. And we want to "do the right thing" so we listen to whatever pops up on the screen and says "I am the way, the truth & the light", etc. The only ones with the (expletive) gall to say that are charlatans, and oh yes, how many charlatans there are, hustlers for oil and power and money and war. WWIII ho! "In the mighty name of 9-11."

All it needs is one great keyword. Terrorist. And bin Laden fell into the trap like a cement sack, or a very uncunning racoon. Sorry folks. Your great all-American Devil is just another fall guy. Yes, he's bad. Real bad. But if you're waiting for the next 9-11, look elsewhere. The Palestinians were the original "terrorists". It's a little bit harder sell now since their children can't even find a place to eat. No, they're pretty much internalized, you might say. But they're probably slightly better off than Iraqis. Is it a holocaust or not yet? Not yet, of course. Send in another bunch o' guys and make it one, by God! But does anyone have a slight bit of brainpower to deduce that Iraq is going to have fallout? ???? And God only knows what that would be?

If you really love America, you wouldn't buy this war sale, not wholesale or even piecemeal. Boycott war, and tell your elected representatives! Tell them they can't sell you a bill of goods. Tell them there's checks and balances. Tell them we still have a democracy. Tell them we are not yet a dictatorship. Tell them we don't believe in fascism. Tell them we can't afford to attack Iran, and neither can the planet, for God's sake. Tomorrow I hope to print another source about that - the horrible consequences of any military action against Iran. They are NOT the threat. WE ARE. That is, if we just sit back and buy this "superpower to the world" crap.

Tell them we believe in democracy, survival of the human race, and protection of a fragile planet and a little thing called "life" and "human intelligence" that's supposed to be a higher value than "Me First, F--- the Future." Is THAT freedom and democracy? Does anybody still believe in the value of diplomacy - or how about truth???

Global Cannibalism

Some call it empire. Others call it international adventurism. Others call it a conspiracy. I call it global cannibalism. This is not the first time - who doesn't know that? Like a supernova, it usually happens when a national power is somehow in its death throes. This article cogently describes one aspect of global cannibalism, or I should say one example of it.

When one power needs more power and sees the world as its power base and source for resources - without regard to the fellow humans occupying and using various places and resources on the planet, and their rights thereto. Why call it cannibalism? Because since we are all human, this ultimately is self-defeating - "dog eat dog", you could say.

America Dies at Guantanamo

Reading an old (August 2006) Rolling Stone magazine article about Omar Khadr's unending torture at Guantanamo Bay did a reversal on my universe. Yes, I read accounts of torture there before, and yes, they claim to have "changed" things at Gitmo, meaning supposedly stopped the torture, and yes, after reading about it in numerous publications previously, I went back to my daily life, ultimately, to my own struggles, thoughts, needs, etc. So why now does everything change?

Omar Khadr is my brother, or my son. Omar Khadr is not a terrorist, even if he committed alleged "terrorist acts." Were those acts any more terrifying, or I should say, horrifying, than what has been committed on him? Does this even fit into the equation for a 15-year-old? Is even 25-year-old "mature" enough to make this treatment somehow "conscionable"? Or how about "expedient"? Or how about "serves A purpose"? Could it be the "purpose" of democracy? Democracy. Torture. God forbid. If that's what American democracy means, then America is dead. The dream is dead. Many still live in the dream, of course. When a star dies, it's not a matter of an instant. There's a turning point, a virtual instant, and then there's the long drawn-out aftermath, the Supernova, the glorious death throes. Welcome to the cemetery of the stars.

What is even more amazing is that the star of this show is not the Supernova. America insists on playing Bully, in this case, villain, or to use Bush's word, "evil." So the Hero is ... Omar Khadr. A young boy who had, by circumstance, not choice, to fight as a man before he could grasp what that man. His adolescence took place in the Eternal Torture Chamber that is Guantanamo. And yet he did not give in. His identity was erased, psychologically removed by torture. Yet he still retains his soul. That is not only miraculous, and it is very miraculous. It is incredibly heroic.

We elevate to heroic status people who fight disease. Nothing wrong with that. It takes bravery to endure the pain of cancer, for example, or its treatment. But to endure systematic torment and extreme cruelty in that vulnerable age, with no human contact allowed - tell me, who of you could retain your soul or any of your values? Who would maintain their integrity at ANY age??

Ask George W. Bush, who ordered Omar's torture. Ask Dick Cheney, who condoned it. Ask anyone in the administration who sees this as a "necessary evil". Ask Pat Robertson, who never read the line "Even if you have done it to the least of these, you have done it also unto me." Is Omar Khadr the least of these? Or is he of a character so high, so elevated, that few human beings actually ever attain it? Or does he represent the highest point of the human soul, shining like a pure light, at the absolute dregs of the lowest, sleeziest, most heinous, most cruel, most senseless, most depraved, most ominously sinister and hateful evil imaginable? And this is what we want young Americans to die for? To be able to torture the oppressed in the name of freedom? To humiliate others so we can exalt ourselves? Is that America? Is that democracy? Is that freedom? Or is there even America any more? What kind of nation condones this kind of thing? What kind of nation trains its young, its brave, to be torturers of minors? I refuse to accept that this nation is America. So the only explanation is this: America is dead.

We are fulfilling the threat we imagined these "terrorists" posed. We claim they threaten our freedom. So we eliminate that freedom. At least nobody ELSE took it. We claim they threaten democracy. So we undermine our own. At least THEY no longer threaten something that no longer exists. We claim they threaten us with evil. So we commit atrocities. At least THEY never told us to. Attaboy, Mr. Machiavelli - fight atrocity with atrocity, eh? Ohhh, Mr. Newton, please come to clean these guys up! What was that law?...uh, for every action, there's an equal but opposite reaction ...And this is supposed to "curb terrorism." Gee, I guess nobody told them about The Revenge Cycle... It's sort of like the Water Cycle and the Rock Cycle. Only instead of life, it brings death. Then someone said "Death to America". The nerve! Nobody tells us what to do! Apparently we want to get rid of her before someone ELSE can cause her demise. It seems some people in power are hell-bent in destroying the very values that made America ... well, America.

It's very sad. But this is the price of hypocrisy. They say one thing, and they are doing an entirely other thing. They say the Iraq War is for democracy and freedom. But it's just an oil grab, and an Israeli defense line. They say there's WMD's. But they didn't tell you it stands for "W's Main Dig". They say Gitmo is to protect Americans. But they didn't tell you it's for torturing children and innocent adults. They didn't tell you the elections were rigged. And they won't tell you America is dead.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11128331/follow_omar_khadr_from_an_al_qaeda_childhood_to_a_gitmo_cell

http://www.nightslantern.ca/law/omarkhadr.html

From Green to Gitmo

It seems one of the top watchwords of the world today is "global warming". Like Al Gore or not, he seems to have made an impression. There are still lots of conservatives who think that the environmental movement is still a form of overkill. But there are even more businesspeople who see it as a wave of opportunity. They see money to be made in dealing practically with the global warming issue. So why not join forces? The environment is no longer a separate issue. It's a uniting platform for left and right in the interest of human survival. It's a global issue. It should be above and beyond "politics" yet at the same time use politics for the advancement of human survival.

Then, on the other hand, we have Guantanamo Bay and the atrocities of the Bush Anti-Terror Debaucle. Although some advances may have been had against terrorism, on the whole the war on terror is a debaucle. It has in many ways served to galvanize the concept of terrorism on both sides, as heroic freedom-fighters against an evil juggernaut called "The West" on one side, and as evil destroyers of peace, freedom and the American Way on the other. The latter having been cartoonized as medieval sci-fi sword-weilding survivalist goons, something out of an epic video game on Planet X - Codename Afghanistan. The real issues are never addressed. Poverty. Oppression. Dictatorships. Economic development - or lack thereof. These issues should really be treated as survival issues. We no longer contain the problems of poor people between two solid distant mountains. By exploding bombs in their hideouts we are driving them into our homes. Suddenly we became a part of their lives. And suddenly their world has become Guantanamo - the ultimate Torture Chamber of the so-called modern world. And it will be its downfall.Just wait and see.

Remember Global warming. That is not a threat to the neocons. It's only a threat to human beings.
Gitmo is not a threat either to them. It's a road to success. But it's also man's inhumanity to man. That threatens the survival of human beings - as "humanity".
So is oppression of the poor for the sake of the rich. But not for the sake of human beings.
The War in Iraq is for Big Oil to make money on the backs of the Iraqis.
No more, no less. It was not a war for human beings, as they like to spin it. It was and is a war for capitalist conquest.
Capitalist conquest is not the opposite of socialist/communist rule. There is democracy and free enterprise without capitalist conquest. But they set up this dichotomy to make people think there would be totalitarianism if we were not taking advantage of the weak/poor by the strong/rich/powerful. This is absurd.
The war on terror is ostensibly to save humanity. But in reality it is to empower the powerful yet further. There are greater threats to humanity than terrorism. Why aren't dictators and despots called terrorists? Because they don't threaten the agenda of the powerful. They support it. That's why the American foreign policy betrays America's founding fathers. They are becoming the "dictatress of the world."

Bridges Between Muslims & Jews - Built by Children

Here is something the would-be peacemakers in Israel/Palestine could use as a model for success in the Middle East (and a challenge for Islamic Schools to invite young Jews to a peaceful form of mutual sharing and education on a higher level such as below):

First, we must give credit to the parents and educators who see the practicality of peaceful coexistence. Who let their children build bridges instead of war zones. Then, to the journalists and bloggers who publicize those bridges so others can cross them. And most of all, to the children who prove that hate and enmity are learned behaviors.

Unlearning, anyone?


The following article is from this link:

http://education.independent.co.uk/schools/article2201860.ece

The Jewish school where half the pupils are Muslim

King David, in Birmingham, is a state primary where the children learn Hebrew, recite Jewish prayers, eat kosher food and wave Israeli flags. So how come the majority of pupils are followers of Islam? Jonathan Margolis investigates

Published: 01 February 2007

The Jewish school where half the pupils are Muslim

It's infant prize day at King David School, a state primary in Moseley, Birmingham. The children sit cross-legged on the floor, their parents fiddling with their video cameras. The head, Steve Langford, is wearing a Sesame Street tie.
A typical end-of-term school event, then. But at King David there's a twist that gives it a claim to be one of the most extraordinary schools in the country: King David is a strictly Jewish school. Judaism is the only religion taught. There's a synagogue on site. The children learn modern Hebrew - Ivrit - the language of Israel. And they celebrate Israeli independence day.
But half the 247 pupils at the 40-year-old local authority-supported school are Muslim, and apparently the Muslim parents go through all sorts of hoops, including moving into the school's catchment area, to get their children into King David to learn Hebrew, wave Israeli flags on independence day and hang out with the people some would have us believe that they hate more than anyone in the world.
The Muslim parents, mostly devout and many of the women wearing the hijab, say they love the ethos of the school, and even the kosher school lunches, which are suitable because halal and kosher dietary rules are virtually identical. The school is also respectful to Islam, setting aside a prayer room for the children and supplying Muslim teachers during Ramadan. At Eid, the Muslim children are wished Eid Mubarak in assembly, and all year round, if they wish, can wear a kufi (hat). Amazingly, dozens of the Muslim children choose instead to wear the Jewish kipah.
At the prize morning Carol Cooper, the RE teacher, says: "Boker tov," (Ivrit for "Good morning").
"Good morning Mrs Cooper," the children chant in reply. The entire school, Muslims, Jews, plus the handful of Christians and Sikhs then say the Shema, the holiest Jewish prayer, all together.
The Year Four violin club (five Muslims, two Jews) play "Little Bird, I Have Heard". Just as many prizes are being distributed to Hussains and Hassans and Shabinas as there are to Sauls and Rebeccas and Ruths. In fact, if anything, the Muslim children have beaten the Jewish ones. Thus does the Elsie Davis Prize for Progress go to a beaming little lad called Walid, the religious studies prize to a boy called Imran wearing a kipah and the progress prizes for Hebrew, to a boy called Habib and a girl called Alia.
Times being as they are, King David doesn't advertise its presence in a city where its pioneering multiculturalism could raise all kinds of unwelcome attention. There's a discreet signboard outside that reveals little about the school's unique nature. There are watchful video cameras high up on the walls, plus two electronic gates to pass through. Sadly, it is, to a significant extent, says Laurence Sharman, the (Christian) chairman of the PTA, "an undercover school".
The Muslim parents, however, are only too keen to talk in the playground about what might be seen by some in their communities as a controversial schooling decision.
"We actually bought a flat in the catchment area for the children to come here," says Nahid Shafiq, the mother of Zainah, four, and Hamza, nine, and wife of Mohammed, a taxi driver. "We were attracted by the high moral values of the school, and that's what we wanted our kids to have. None of us has any problem with it being a Jewish school. Why on earth should we? Our similarities as religions and cultures are far greater and more important than our differences. It's not even an issue.
"At the mosque, occasionally, people ask why we send the children here, but there is no antagonism whatsoever, and neither is there from anyone in our family. In fact, it was a big family decision to try and get them into King David. This is the real world. This is the way real people do things in the real world. All the violence and prejudice and problems - that's not real, that's just what you see on the news."
Fawzia Ismail (the mother of Aly-Raza, nine, and Aliah, six) is equally positive. "My nephew came here and my brother showed me the school, so it's a bit of a family tradition now. We're very, very pleased with the school. It's so friendly. All the kids mix and go to one another's parties and are in and out of each other's houses. They teach a bit about Israel, but we don't have any problem with that. There are such similarities between our people and our societies."
Irum Rashid (mother of Hanan, nine, and Maryam, four) says that a lot of people in Small Heath are considering moving to Moseley because of King David. "It's a very happy school, the behaviour is fantastic, the food is great - because it's kosher - and so are the SATs results."
But what about learning Hebrew and the Jewish prayers? "I think it's great. The more knowledge, the more understanding," says one of the mothers. "They learn all they need about Islam at mosque school. Actually, the kids often sing Hebrew songs in the bath, which is a bit confusing because we speak Gujarati at home, but I think it's great."
The Jewish parents and teachers I speak to are just as enthusiastic. "You know, in these difficult times in the world, I think we show how things should be done. It's really a bit of a beacon," says one teacher, whose three children all went to King David and ended up at Oxford University.
Parent Trevor Aremband is from South Africa. "In Johannesburg, we have Jewish schools, but they're 100 per cent Jewish, so we were a bit shocked when we first came here. But the integration works so well. It's clearly the way to go in today's world. My son is eight and has loads of Muslim friends."
The most important thing, I am told repeatedly, is that the cross-cultural friendships forged at King David last a lifetime. I hear a conversation about how a Rebecca is going to fly over from the States for a Fatima's wedding. I am told about a pair of lads, one Jewish, one Muslim, who became friends the day they started in the nursery, went to senior school together as well as to university and are now living close to one another with their wives and families and are currently on holiday together.
King David was not designed to be such a beacon of inter-faith cooperation and friendship. Founded in 1865 as The Hebrew School, it was 100 per cent Jewish until the late 1950s.
Then two things began to happen: there was a growth in the Muslim population in middle-income areas such as Moseley, and a shrinking of Britain's Jewish community, especially outside the main centres of London and Manchester. Muslim children started coming to the school in the early 1960s, but the current position, in which they are in the majority (Jewish children comprise 35 per cent, Muslims 50 per cent, Christians, Sikhs and other, 15 per cent) is very new.
"One of the things that surprises people about this school," says Langford, "is that it's not an especially privileged intake. Half of our kids have English as an additional language. But the amazing thing is how well it all works. We have a new little boy here from China, whose only English a few weeks ago was to ask for the toilet. He now speaks English - and can say the Shema perfectly.
"If you gauge success, for instance, by racial incidents, which schools always have to report to the LEA, we have at the most one a term. And that can just mean some harsh words with a racial slant used in the playground. At multicultural inner city schools where I've taught, there will be far, far more than that, possibly one or more a week."
In terms of SATs and Ofsted inspections, King David has also shone. It is rated as good - the second highest possible ranking - in all areas, and Ofsted made a special mention at the last inspection of the integration between children of different faiths and races. In the recent SATs results, the school also came in well above the national average in all subjects.
Steve Langford, a Warwick University economics graduate, is himself a bit of a paradox. He is Church of England on both parental sides and only became interested in Judaism when he worked in a Jewish summer camp in Massachusetts in his gap year. His interest paid off when he got a teaching job a King David. Now he is learning Ivrit at evening classes and goes to Israel for holidays.
The Rabbi of Birmingham's Singers Hill Synagogue, one of the financial backers of King David, is proud of Steve Langford and of the school's extraordinary interfaith record.
"King David School is amazing," says Rabbi Tann. "The reason I think it works well is that racism is engendered entirely by adults. Children don't have it within themselves. Their natural mode is to play happily with everyone. It's only when adults say, 'Don't play with him, he's black, or don't have anything to do with him, he's Muslim, that troubles begin.'
"We never have any racial or inter-faith problems at all. Not ever. In 20 years here, it's simply never happened in any significant way. We teach that if you don't like someone, you avoid them. Don't play with them. Go to the other side of the playground. I believe that if more people followed the lead of King David School, we'd have a much more peaceful world."

The Great American Cash Cow Contest

"Bring back John Wayne."

The Neocons

"Bite Me."
The West Coast Independents

Not just a cow... but a bitch
The midwestern/southern right

And the winner of the Talent Contest Is...

The Centrist Right

From the left: "And I can fiddle, too."

And the winner is... the Iraq War Bull

Sorry, cows, there's no place in war for feminine values like nurturing, mothering, caring, beauty, wisdom, diplomacy, etc. But think of it - we have our Bull economy, pictured above.

Milk on, Big Oil, milk on!

Battlestar Hypocrita

It seems the Buzz of the Day is an impending Battle between "heavyweights" Hillary Clinton and John McCain, something viewed as inevitable by a mysterious Consensus of Power Brokers, aka Powers That Be (God forbid). Yet no one seems particularly enthusiastic about either of them. Except those who partake of that Mysterious Rite of Conformity wherein the Resume ranks supreme, and character means Building a Power Base. But truth always bucks trends, and hypocrisy, contrary to popular belief, is a powerful people-repellent. Which is what's wrong with that impending much-hyped Battle. These two candidates are accomplished hypocrites.

And that's what the office of the President these days seems to be all about. It's about the race to be Hypocrite-in-Chief (HIC or hic). How would the "founding fathers" have fared in today's political environment? The answer - fallen flat. None of them had the proper Power Base. They couldn't please two opposites at the same time. They weren't adept at raising campaign funds - although Ben Franklin was a pretty astute, and successful, businessman. But they probably wouldn't have been fond of PACs or power lunches or influence peddling. They would have abhorred the idea of playing Policeman to the World, even more the idea of taking sides in other people's conflicts, unless there was a threat to our security.

Our meddling ways have led to 9/11, not some pre-existing Islamic agenda. The solutions may not be obvious, but the causes are - unless one loves wearing blinders. And that is precisely what all politicians - if they want to succeed in politics these days - must do. They must say one thing, and do another. They must promise the universe, and deliver black holes. They must make plans, and a cover story to hide those plans under. When they are exposed as liars, they must stick to the lie until death - political or otherwise - do them part. They must be all things to all people - in words - and nothing to all but a few favored folks or interests - in actions. And John McCain is the hypocrite par excellence. He is for whatever will make him look good. He is what he wants you to think he is, as long as the camera is on. Backstage, God only knows what he stands for: himself, of course! Hillary may seem more complex, but she, too, plays the same game. The good news is, expedience works. Hillary is hated as a wild-eyed liberal, except that she is not liberal at all. What was that Iraq vote all about? What was her stance in behalf of the Bush Administration's lies all about? Expediency. It worked. She's a "front runner."

The bad news is that people have brains. And something in the human soul hates a hypocrite. Neither of these candidates deserves even a nomination, let alone that prized election result. The bad news for them is good news for us - maybe. But then again - think about this: Bush got elected, fraud stuff aside, because he LOOKS like he's for real! He really came across to many of the common people as genuine - "shoot straight", he said. They bought it. The bad news is, inside was a load of crap. Better luck next time.

For God's sake, who's afraid of Barak Obama? He may be brilliant, eloquent, and he may have a short resume ... and he may not have the expertise in policy-making that politicos think we need in a president, but he does have a conscience. And he is not a coward. And he's not a hypocrite. And did George W's dad's mile-long resume get us what we want? What about Cheney's policy expertise? Did I say people have brains? So don't just pray for honest rain, for God's sake - vote!

One more ray

Columnists have a way of entering one's life - especially pre-blog lives. Every week, or more, they show up in the paper with some new comment on events public or personal, and gradually, an almost personal familiarity develops. Now, of course, the blogosphere has filled our universe with untold millions of such inputs, a glut of characters and personal revelations so toreentious that one can't possibly see except a couple of atoms, or photons, in the black hole of cyberspace.

Yet some photons manage to become rays, and one such ray, kept aloft by a regular print column, was Molly Ivins. Today we are supposed to change "is" to "was", as if life were just a matter of tense. I knew nothing of her more than her columns. I didn't know until after her death that the last two columns were dictated while struggling with the agony of breast cancer, which finally took its toll. One woman with humor and the courage to remain consistent, labeled "liberal" when that was a nasty word, standing for the poor and disenfranchised when being rich and powerful was cool. Sadly, being rich and powerful will always be "cool", but being a voice for the voiceless is far better, and lasts much longer.