Preventing Truth Decay...
ost everyone was outraged when the Vicar made a case for Christians to show compassion to poor people who shoplift. Little does the Vicar understand that property is sacred beyond church or anything. And at no time does this clinging to material goods and selfishness show itself than when a Vicar, the conscience of the community, reminds his congregation that all of life is actually illusion. And besides your greed is showing, people.
ancing in the streets. Hearing the news that America had been attacked on its' own soil, we all focused our eyes on the TVs in our living rooms and saw the rest of the world celebrating the take down and indignity of America. There was no compassion for the 3000 innocents who died in the World Trade Center. There was only rejoicing that now America had been paid back for the appalling foriegn Policies of deceipt, murder and interference with the rest of the world governments for the past sixty or seventy years. 
f you thought that the insurance companies were going to clean up their act and, for once, do something right, or, at least be what they say they are, and do what they say they do, you might want to rethink that illusion. They are, instead, stepping right up for an outright gift from the U.S. Senate. The US Congress has pulled off some sleazy legislation in the past decade; like the way they gave away the store to the Credit Card industry; allowing for the banks to raise their percentages to well above and beyond usurious rates. Then there's that delightful little $800,000,000,000B give-away to the banks, so they could have a nice retreat for their execs at some neat little luxe spa resort in Saint Bart's and talk about all the fun foreclosures they intend to get even richer on. All the small business loans they can deny. After all, it costs a lot of taxpayer money to say "NO!"
hat is most difficult to understand, is why the Republicans, who do not have even enough votes to fillibuster this bill, have so much clout. If this situation had arisen five years ago when there was a Republican majority in the Senate and the House, as well as in the Whitehouse, we all know that the Repulicans would have ridden rough shod over the Dems and laughed in the face of anybody stupid enough to object to any of their provisions at all. But what we are witnessing now, is a Democratic Congress unwilling to so much as whisper that the Republicans need to get on board with what the vast majority of Americans have expressly demanded of Congress, or else, you Repukes go to Hell and we will take it from here and for once, do our jobs--- which the voters sent us here to do. 
onsanto provides a perfect model for study of the abuse of intellectual patents. Other questions, such as the real value of Genetically Modified food are certainly worthy of discussion. And whether or not there is any real validity to Monsanto's intellectual patent on seeds. The problem is, they want to control all the seeds in the world; just as they want to control all the world's supply of food, while pretending to be concerned with the welfare of poorer nations, and how they Monsanto will be able to feed everyone who now hungers. But their behavior now, is the all important clue as to how they will behave once they have accomplished their nefarious goal of having all the farmers under their profit motivated thumb: is more to be lost in the public sector than gained by this kind of privatization of property which has always belonged to the farmers, and the government merely held them in Trust, like the world's water supply, on behalf of the citizens. George Bush and Dick Cheney and a few other Neocons certainly believe that what Monsanto is doing is a good thing. But they want to privatize the air we breathe, the water we drink, and ground we walk upon. This kind of doctrine makes one want to proclaim oneself a socialist, even if one has never considered oneself a socialist before. We saw that during the Bush administration, privatization was considered a good thing, but now, we realize that this sort of thing when done by corporations---is inevitably the path to intolerable abuse. And the damage doesn't stop at abuse, but these economic policies are, historically, the road to the destruction of civilization.
oam Chomsky makes one grateful that we have access through Youtube.com, to his far ranging political insight and strenuous logic. Somehow, for me at least, the image and the sound of the voice combine to make for quicker absorption and comprehension of big ideas, although books are a good tool for preservation of thought in low-tech mode. Here is Chomsky recalling a ditty composed by a Canadian Economist on the subject of Globalization:The poor complain, they always do,Be sure to watch the alternative videos parts 2 and 3 of the Government in the Future, which will show themselves after this one is done.
But that's just idle chatter,
The system works for most of us,
At least for those who matter
it has long been understood that this view has consistently led to the utter destruction of the very culture which fostered such a notion.The idea has been massaged by conservatives until it has been so corrupted that George Bush, who remarked that the Constitution was merely a piece of paper, and indeed, one that got in his way, could have so twisted the meaning to become perhaps the most appalling treasonous and downright criminal expression of an entire rogue administration, in American history. (Why is he not in Jail?) If the ideas of Freedom and Democracy are not infinitely valuable to each human being, and not just the mouthing of the words by brainwashed stooges who parrot what the power elite tells them to say, we are lost not only as a culture but as a species and as citizens in the Universe.♦
new view of the heavens. Scientists pointed the Hubble Telescope at nothing at all, they thought, and found that they had now photographed the deepest image of space ever photographed. They now had a picture of more than 3,000 galaxies which they hadn't known existed. This is a beautifully produced video with narration and an animated view of what they had got.
he old systems of both Capitalism and Communism have failed humanity. Both systems have been thoroughly discredited by their own shortcomings. Not by their enemies. Greed has afflicted so many in the first world as if it were a fatal disease like the plague. Greed has corrupted both the corporate system and government. We have seen the ways in which corporatism gives rise to corruption: Make no mistake! These are not small crimes. These are the very crimes which lead eventually to the disintegration of civilization itself! Basically what has happened is that by becoming multi-national in their ever expanding quest for profit, many corporations have become treasonous national entities unto themselves.
This is a medieval construct.
If humanity is to survive, the greed must be reined in and tossed out. Otherwise, it all breaks down.
The Global Economy which is based either on Capitalism, or, in fewer cases, Communism, is collapsing. Both systems tend toward corruption. Consider The Socialist Nation of Viet Nam: Without an inspired leader such as Ho Chi Minh, the communist system has become totally corrupt. There is a reason unforeseen by Marx and by Adam Smith, a reason which cannot ever be denied or avoided. Namely, the human being, locked into an inflexible ideology (and all ideologies, by their nature, are inflexible) tends inevitably toward corruption of the rules.
When my wife and I were in Viet Nam, we learned from our Vietnamese guide, that, in Socialist Viet Nam, as in Capitalist countries, there is now an upper crust: A ruling elite class who have installed themselves, whether legitimately or not, as an unmoveable fixture of their culture. And through new laws and cronyism, they seek to prevent the rise of anybody else into their midst.
The Global economy is not merely on the verge of collapse! "The verge of collapse" has been the case for several decades now. Right now we are seeing the Global Economy in the process of collapse.
Here is another great documentary from Google. Commanding Heights, Part 3 of 3. It gives you an idea of the kind of profound educational experience of political and economic overview to be found by viewing a great many of these extremely well produced videos, such as this one and the 2 previous 2 hour installments. Even if you studied economics in College, everything has changed, now. But fear not, some of these videos can bring you up to date. Most were prepared originally as series for either PBS or the BBC.♦
f anyone still doubted that this administration's foreign policy would bring any kind of change, this week's debate on Afghanistan should remove all doubt. The President's stated justifications for sending more troops to Afghanistan and escalating war amount to little more than recycling all the false reasons we began the conflict. It is so discouraging to see this coming from our new leadership, when the people were hoping for peace. New polls show that 49% of the people favor minding our own business on the world stage, up from 30% in 2002. Perpetual war is not solving anything. Indeed continually seeking out monsters to destroy abroad only threatens our security here at home as international resentment against us builds. The people understand this and are becoming increasingly frustrated at not being heard by the decision-makers. The leaders say some things the people want to hear, but change never comes.
One has to ask, if the people who elected these leaders so obviously do not want these wars, who does? Eisenhower warned of the increasing power and influence of the military industrial complex and it seems his worst fears have come true. He believed in a strong national defense, as do I, but warned that the building up of permanent military and weapons industries could prove dangerous if their influence got out of hand. After all, if you make your money on war, peace does you no good. With trillions of dollars at stake, there is tremendous incentive to keep the decision makers fearful of every threat in the world, real or imagined, present or future, no matter how ridiculous and far-fetched. The Bush Doctrine demonstrates how very successful the war lobby was philosophically with the last administration. And they are succeeding just as well with this one, in spite of having the so-called "peace candidate" in office.
We now find ourselves in another foreign policy quagmire with little hope of victory, and not even a definition of victory. Eisenhower said that only an alert and informed electorate could keep these war racketeering pressures at bay. He was right, and the key is for the people to ensure that their elected leaders follow the Constitution. The Constitution requires a declaration of war by Congress in order to legitimately go to war. Bypassing this critical step makes it far too easy to waste resources on nebulous and never-ending conflicts. Without clear goals, the conflicts last forever and drain the country of blood and treasure. The drafters of the Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war precisely because they feared allowing the executive unfettered discretion in military affairs. They understood that making it easy for leaders to wage foreign wars would threaten domestic liberties.
Responses to attacks on our soil should be swift and brief. Wars we fight should always be defensive, clearly defined and Constitutional. The Bush Doctrine of targeting potential enemies before they do anything to us is dangerously vague and easily abused. There is nothing left to win in Afghanistan and everything to lose. Today's military actions are yet another futile exercise in nation building and have nothing to do with our nation's security, or with 9/11. Most experts agree that Bin Laden and anyone remotely connected to 9/11 left Afghanistan long ago, but our troops remain. The pressures of the war racketeers need to be put in check before we are brought to our knees by them. Unfortunately, it will require a mighty effort by the people to get the leadership to finally listen.♦
Ron Paul is a Republican congressman from Texas.
xcellent video if I could only remember what it is. The embed code doesn't give me a clue. I want to try out this beautiful new drop cap from the Daily drop Cap by Jessica something. This drop cap code in html business is really very trying. If you miss even a single dot or a space or if you don't say your prayers or drink the wrong brand of coffee, whatever, the code will not work. Don't know why this is so skittish but there we are.
At a recent booksigning, Sarah Palin fans, who were lined up outside of the bookstore, were selected at random to be interviewed by a young journalist for online news journal, The Public Record. Curiously, as one watches the video it becomes clear that her most ardent fans are unable to articulate why they support her. This video captures the essence of the mental and verbal deficit of her diehard devotees at a mall where the ex-Alaskan Governor happened to be signing her book. Such mental vacancy points to a need to establish a quick quiz to be given at the polls, which each voter must take and pass with flying colors before they are allowed to actually vote.
"Freedom, Liberty, Free Speech!" was all one woman was able to come up with when asked why she supported Sarah Palin. In reality, Palin has never said that she stands for such things. That is all imputed to her persona as it would be to any politician.
A brief survey of Palin's political career and dubious credentials invokes less than confidence in reasonable people. Some would even question her abilities as the leader of a sparcely populated outpost of civilization, let alone the president of a vast and complex nation: an unsuccessful mayorship wherein she fled the place before being driven out, but not before she saddled the small community of Wasila, Alaska, with millions in debt. That fiasco set the stage for her run at the Governorship. She won, but then quit the four year term just halfway through. An unstable personality is not her only flaw; there is also her religous fundy extremism. Based on this unsavory history, she was chosen by John McCain to save his bacon as a Presidential candidate. He was counting on her youth and physical appeal to balance out the fact that he was too old.
The interesting thing is that she is smart enough to attempt to pull off this duplicitous lifestyle and make it pay. Hence, the title of her book, Going Rogue. Even the title fits with her wink wink style of pitbull with lipstick soccer mom persona. Her admirers find her foibles amusing and attractive.
They think it a sign that she's plucky.
And who would disagree on that point? The issue is--- does any of this qualify her for the presidency? Instability and an inflexible mindset regarding outmoded mythology suggest hypocricy at best, and mental fragility as an underlying modus operandus.
Unspoken, was the idea that in the minds of her many fans, President Obama is against such things. Utterly forgotten, was the recent history which demonstrated that George Bush, whom the very same people also supported, not once, but twice, had aggressively moved to destroy those values of Freedom, Liberty and a hot lunch for orphans.
"The Constitution," Bush said, "is just a piece of paper." You can see and hear him say those words on Youtube. Look it up!
So if they can't give a good reason for why they support her for president, what might be the real reason? My own theory is that she whips them up into a sexual frenzy. They will deny it of course, but I have seen on TV, how, at her rallies, she whips them into hatred, anger, and subverted sexual tension. Not just the men, but the women as well. Of course they don't want to own up to that sort of thing, so they come up with bogus reasons such as Freedom, Liberty, and so forth. The Big giveaway, however, as to her true nature, is that the McCain staff went from adoring her to resenting her, till, finally, nobody on the team could stand her. So she seems to appeal only to the same sort of person that worshiped George W. Bush. That kind of authoritarian submissive was best encapsulated by the woman who when speaking of her president, exclaimed,
"I just love that man so much. I love him so much that if I saw him put a gun to my little boy's head and pull the trigger, I would still love that man."
eitgeist is a stunning presentation of the realities of history. The real events, with warts and all, not the pretty gloss that give an entirely different outlook on key events that your high school history teacher would not ever have allowed discussed in his or her classroom. By using actual footage throughout much of the film, the ring of authenticity pervades. There are good chunks of real footage to illustrate the truth of the hideous fiasco of Lyndon Johnson's Bay of Tonkin attack, for example. This is hitherto highly classified film footage. The attack, we discover, was staged by the American president who had made a backroom deal with Israel. His intention was to sink an American warship and all the men aboard using Israeli fighter airplanes to sink her. The event was deemed necessary to outrage Americans enough to daze and confuse them so as to easily steer them into invading Vietnam. A pschological tactic which has proved enormously useful to big government, as can be witnessed in the dreadful attack on the World Trade Center on the 11th of September, 2001. And in the aftermath of 9/11, Americans were once again dazed and confused and were all too easily led into an illegitimate war with Iraq. Naomi Klein has named the technique, The Shock Doctrine, in her book of the same name, which details the mechanics of the tactic.
oor old Jesus! This cartoon catches exactly the way the new portrait of Jesus is emerging from the Evangelical Right. We have known for a long time that they do not qualify as real Christians. But now they have solved that problem. They simply re-made him in their image. They've hijacked Jesus. And the new Jesus is so much better than the old Jesus: It even hints at the White-Aryan-Jail-Bird-Jesus! You know that Jesus--- That's the Jesus who gets likkered up and beats on the wife and kids like clockwork every Saturday night.
hen Vince Bugliosi gave his testimony in Congress, in the House, actually, some nobody of a Republican objected strenuously to what he was saying. "It's just his opinion," the lone Republican said. He spoke quietly, but urgently, to the chair of the proceedings who had voiced his skepticism at the beginning of the hearing. It was as if it had been already agreed that nothing would be done about the criminal, George Bush, his unlawful administration, nor their crimes against humanity: Karl Rove, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney for their lies.But the lone azzhole Repuke, sitting next to the chairman, had some sort of unearned, undeserved clout. As a member of the minority party he should not have even been there at the hearing. And, indeed, the Repuke was the only one in attendance. Why, pray, is it that he had only to say, "You told me that this sort of thing would not be allowed"? And immediately the Chair silenced Mister Bugliosi.
That was really mysterious.
One of the best features of a visit to Los Angeles is the opportunity to hang out with the guy who put Charles Manson in prison, the most successful criminal prosecutor we’re ever likely to see, Vince Bugliosi (105 convictions in 106 felony jury trials, 21 convictions in 21 murder trials).
I spoke with him on Tuesday about his forthcoming documentary film, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, based on his bestselling book http://www.indiegogo.com/bush).
I consider Vince a friend, an ally, and a hero, but we don’t see eye to eye on everything. I oppose the death penalty and all manifestations of revenge. I’m an atheist. I think the United States had a pretty darn horrible government before George W. Bush even came on the scene and that war lies have been a proud tradition of ours for centuries.
I see strategic advantage in pushing for accountability from underlings and for less than the most severe charges. Vince disagrees to various degrees on each of these points.
I don’t object to Vince’s choice to focus exclusively on one thing, because what he is focused on is one of the most important things anyone could. He is seeking to prosecute George W. Bush for the murder of the U.S. soldiers he sent into war on false pretenses.
Vince has written three New York Times #1 bestselling books, so he expected the one on prosecuting Bush to do well. It has, in fact, sold nearly 100,000 copies. But that is a shocking disappointment to its author.
The difference with this book was that the corporate media completely whited it out. There has not been a single review in a major newspaper (although the New York Times published an article about the lack of coverage).
And Bugliosi has not been put on national television to talk about this book, as he was with his other books. So, his publisher has been thrilled with the sales that have been generated through the independent media.
Vince told me he thought a blackout like the one of his book would not happen in any other country except perhaps Russia.
His topic, an illegal war on Iraq based on lies and the need to hold a former President accountable, is not discussed in the corporate media or even much by independent sources any more. It was a hot topic in 2005 and 2006, but the Democrats in Congress dropped it in 2007 when they obtained the power to do something about it. Vince has been flabbergasted by this every time I’ve talked to him for years now:
“How is it possible for George W. Bush to take this nation to war on false pretenses with the cataclysmic results that there have been, and America does absolutely nothing about it – How is that possible?”
I asked Vince if there was anything people could compel Congress to do that would help in any way. He said that a congressional committee had made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice which was now investigating whether baseball pitcher Roger Clemens had committed perjury when he testified that he hadn’t used steroids.
Bugliosi suggests, rather reasonably, that an apparent case of lying the nation into war should be similarly referred for prosecution. He made this same suggestion in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last July.
Why does this not happen? In Vince’s analysis, “the Democratic Party is much too civilized. They’re not fighters like the shrill and strident Republicans.”
Vince has spoken to large crowds around the country about his book. The forthcoming documentary, making the same case as the book, is built largely around a speech Bugliosi made at UCLA Law School.
Also included in the film is footage of my friends Carlos and Melida Arredondo who lost their son Alex in the Iraq War.
Another survivor shown in the film is Jane Bright who lost her son and expresses the guilt she feels for not having been there to stop a rocket from hitting him. She holds no ill will toward the Iraqi who shot the rocket who, she says, was just doing his job: “George Bush murdered my son.”
The film is still a work in progress, but a rough cut was shown to a group in Los Angeles last week, not a group of peace activists, but not necessarily a strictly representative sample of the country either. For what it’s worth, over 90 percent of the viewers said they would definitely urge their friends to see it, and the rest said they probably would.
Just as torture photos move Americans much more powerfully than written evidence of torture, the passion of the film may have an impact that reaches much further than the book. Footage of bloodshed in Iraq is juxtaposed with footage of Bush joking about WMDs, intended to show Bush’s lack of interest in honesty, as well as footage of Bush enjoying himself, intended to encourage the hatred that Bugliosi feels.
I asked Vince, as I always do, to explain his targeting of Bush for killing American soldiers who participated, but not innocent Iraqis who did not. Vince said that Bush was clearly guilty of the deaths of Iraqis (he STILL uses the outrageously low figure of 100,000 dead Iraqis in order to not overstate it).
However, Vince explains, he was not able to establish jurisdiction in America for trying Bush for those murders.
I asked why it is that the highest laws of our land cannot be enforced. The Constitution makes treaties, like the UN Charter, the supreme law of the land, but unless there’s a corresponding statute in the U.S. Code there’s nothing a prosecutor can do. Vince’s explanation was that, sadly, that’s just the way it is.
So I asked whether he would approve of the International Criminal Court developing the jurisdiction to prosecute the crime of aggressive war, and/or approve of Congress legislating criminal penalties for the same crime.
In the case of Congress, Bugliosi expressed concern that the creation of such a new law (which could not be used against Bush’s past crimes due to the Constitution’s ban on ex-post-facto laws) might be used to argue that heretofore the activity has been legal.
Bugliosi explained that the biggest obstacle he’s faced with his book has been the assumption by all sorts of people (he mentions Jerry Brown, once and perhaps future governor of California, as an example) that it’s simply not possible to prosecute a President for a war. But, Vince says, every single person who has argued that has admitted that they have not yet read his book.
I asked Bugliosi whether Jay Bybee’s Oct. 23, 2002, memo purporting to legalize aggressive wars, could make him complicit in murder. The question, Bugliosi said, would be one of proving that Bybee knew what he was writing to be false.
There are a million things I know I could never do, but I think I could persuade a jury on this one with no sleep, no breakfast, and a ban on using words with the letter ‘E’ in them. I have no doubt that Bugliosi could do it in a brief afternoon.
I asked Bugliosi what he would think if the Department of Justice were to indict Bush for the felonies of misleading Congress and making false statements to Congress. Bugliosi’s response was what it has been before: “That’s such small potatoes.”
Vince would be glad to include those charges as one count of an indictment, but only if another count was murder. The punishment for lying to Congress is far too low, he thinks, and — says Bugliosi — presidents lie to Congress all the time. (He acknowledged that while I think they do this about wars all the time, he thinks they do it only about other topics.)
We also talked about Pakistan and what we are doing there, in particular with drones. Bugliosi said the killing there could certainly be murder, regardless of whether it’s a war or what we call it.
And we talked about the just-opened investigation of Iraq war lies in England.
“I’m impressed with England,” said Bugliosi. ”Their nation is not in the decline that America is. I salute them for what they’re doing. If there’s a prosecution of George W. Bush in the United States, and if I’m involved, several of those witnesses would be asked to testify, including Manning and Dearlove.”
What about Blair? Has Tony Blair committed murder? We discussed this for a while.
Vince stressed that his focus has been on Bush. The question of whether Blair is guilty, Vince said, comes down to whether he lied to the British people in taking them to war. We discussed areas where it looked like Blair had lied.
Bugliosi pointed to the Downing Street Minutes in which the attorney general of the UK (Goldsmith) tells Blair that his planned war has no legal basis. The minutes state: “The Attorney General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.”
Bugliosi decided that the more he talked about it the more he would find Blair deserving of prosecution, but that Blair’s responsibility did not compare to Bush’s.
David Swanson is the author of the new book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when the tour will be in your town:
A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self [ego].
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive." ~ Albert Einstein, 1954.
Pat Condel asks that question which is so troubling for many Christians. And then answers in the affirmative, darn it. Pat seems intent on destroying so many sacred cows which happen to be standing around. And he does it with such relish. And enormous wit and intelligence. It's for sure that he wastes no love on the "Holier than Thou" crowd. But then who among us does, really?♦
BELL TOLLING for the Swine Flu (CAMPANAS por la gripe A) subtitled from ALISH on Vimeo.
Playing For Change | Song Around the World "Don't Worry" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.
