FREE IMAM KADIR GUNDUZ

Kadir Gunduz, a Pittsburgher in peril

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

 In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, U.S. Immigration and
 Customs Enforcement has been busy rounding up the usual suspects.

 Last week, Kadir Gunduz of Beechview was arrested for being in
 technical violation of a visa he was issued in 1988. He'll face an
 immigration judge tomorrow in York, Pa. The life he's lived for 19
 years is at stake.

 Kadir Gunduz and his wife, Saime, could be deported if the judge is a
 law-and-order type with little patience for fairness or extenuating
 circumstances in a xenophobic era.

 The 48-year-old imam of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh really should
 have seen it coming. Nineteen years after immigrating from Turkey, a
 country where minarets outnumber church steeples by an ungodly number,
 Kadir Gunduz has only managed a foreigner's version of American
 respectability.

 As part of an elaborate scheme to be perceived as a regular guy in a
 nation of regular guys, Kadir Gunduz enrolled at the University of
 Pittsburgh on a student visa. Because his American-born son had a host
 of medical problems, Kadir Gunduz was granted a hardship waiver that
 allowed him to stay when his visa expired in 1990.

 Kadir and Saime provided a good life for their handicapped son and two
 other children born later that decade. The Gunduzs were never a burden
 on the country they hoped would one day embrace them as citizens.

 Eventually, Kadir Gunduz became an imam at the Islamic Center of
 Pittsburgh, located in Oakland. This was very much in keeping with his
 family's relentless march toward middle-class respectability.

 Seven years ago, the Islamic Center filed a request to have Imam
 Gunduz recognized as a religious worker.

 In 2002, Imam Gunduz's change in status was approved -- by the same
 agency that arrested him last week.

 In his overflowing enthusiasm for the American Dream, Imam Gunduz
 applied for a green card that would have granted him and Saime
 permanent residency. Once granted, they would no longer have to fear
 being separated from their kids by bureaucratic fiat.

 Unfortunately, America grew suspicious of foreigners after Sept. 11,
 2001. A new mood was afoot in the land.

 Imam Gunduz's green card application, which would have been routine
 before Islam became shorthand for "terrorism," languished in green
 card hell while his authorization to work in this country expired.

 Imam Gunduz initiated a series of legal moves, but nothing came of
 them. This year, his status as a religious worker was revoked after
 being temporarily reinstated and his green card application denied.

 Imam Gunduz is now in the custody of York County Prison, where he
 continues to pray five times a day.

 Tomorrow, Imam Gunduz will find out if God is listening to his
 prayers. He'll know soon enough if he and Saime will have to make the
 painful decision to uproot their children from the only country they
 have ever known.

 Tomorrow, wheelchair-bound Tarek, 16, and his siblings, 13 and 10,
 will learn if they will be forced to leave their friends and community
 behind. Will they have to lay down their identities as Americans to
 remain an intact family?

 For 16 days, Imam Gunduz has already experienced the implacable face
 of American justice.

 Despite having never committed a crime or engaged in behavior
 unbecoming of a Muslim clergyman, he has been subject to the
 indignities of prison life.

 Assuming Imam Gunduz is the same person who came to Pittsburgh 19
 years ago, what has changed so drastically to make him a threat to the
 country he wants desperately to adopt him?

 The answer is painfully evident -- Sept. 11, 2001, has changed
 everything. Muslims, regardless of where they come from or where they
 were born are assumed to be carriers of a religious contagion that
 could destroy America.

 What is happening in York is all the more galling because no one has
 levelled charges of sedition or subversive activity against Imam
 Gunduz. Still, the clergyman and his wife could be deported on the
 basis of the most banal of technicalities.

 Too bad they didn't have enough foresight to come to this country as
 Cuban refugees. Too bad he faces Mecca when he prays instead of
 bending his knee to the cross.

 It is such an outrageous situation that a group of clergy -- Jews,
 Catholics and Protestants -- have written letters of support for Imam
 Gunduz.

 Tomorrow, Imam Gunduz will learn whether being a Turkish-born Muslim
 puts him beyond the reach of American empathy and fair play.

********************************************************************

I happen to have a personal connection to this case.
When I was practicing law in Pittsburgh in the 1990's,
I applied on Kadir's behalf for the hardship waiver
that he was granted, and I also applied on the Islamic
Center of Pittsburgh's behalf for the Religious Worker
visa that Kadir was granted. When I left Pittsburgh in
July 2001 to pursue a PhD in Religious Studies, I felt
confident about Kadir's prospects in the U.S ...
I have been in touch with Kadir's current legal counsel
and apprised of the status of his case. All I can say at
this point is that Muslims and non-Muslims who have been
touched by Kadir's faith, good humor, wisdom, love,
kindness, strength, and decency need to join hands
and make as much noise as possible about his case.

Under the Bush regime, the US government has increasingly
operated with veils of secrecy. They depend on them--
and on lies and violence--to get their way.

People of conscience need to stand together in this case
and expose the injustice that is even now unfolding.
Faith in the government is a faith misplaced.
Our help is in God alone.

US intelligence report shows war drive against Iran based on lies

Read Bill Van Auken's analysis on the WSWS.

Indonesian Disappointment

Indonesia bars professor from Islam conference

Jakarta (27 November) - The Indonesian authorities have stopped Islamic scholar Nasr Abu Zayd of Leiden University from speaking at an international conference in East Java. Professor Zayd had been invited to speak at an academic conference on Islam that began today.

According to a report in Dutch daily AD, shortly before the conference the academic received a text message asking him to cancel his lecture, at the request of the Indonesian Ministry of Religion. The ministry feared massive unrest, after being inundated with threats from radical Muslims who see the liberal Islamic scholar as a traitor to Islam.

Professor Zayd criticised the ministry's response as unacceptable and says the Indonesian government is speaking the language of the fundamentalists who can now hide behind the government's decision with impunity.

NYT Obit of Abdul Ghaffar Khan

Abdul Ghaffar Khan, 98, a Follower of Gandhi

Published: January 21, 1988

LEAD: Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Moslem disciple of Mohandas K. Gandhi who opposed British rule in India and partition of the subcontinent, died yesterday in a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan. He was 98 years old and had suffered a stroke six months ago.

Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Moslem disciple of Mohandas K. Gandhi who opposed British rule in India and partition of the subcontinent, died yesterday in a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan. He was 98 years old and had suffered a stroke six months ago.

A tough Pathan tribesman from India's old northwest frontier, Mr. Ghaffar Khan's martial beak of a nose and towering and powerful physique - at six and a half feet, he once weighed 220 pounds - made him look capable in earlier years of wrestling a bullock to the ground.

Yet, often dressed like his mentor in homespun clothes and with his hair and beard clipped short, Mr. Ghaffar Khan spent a lifetime advocating nonviolence to achieve his political aims - and at least 25 years in British and Pakistani jails for doing so.

The causes he fought for from the early 1920's until his last arrest by the Pakistan Government in 1976 were the independence of India, a unified India as homeland for both Hindu and Moslem, and Pathan autonomy in the Pakistan created when India gained independence in 1947. The only goal he attained was the first.

The Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, stopped in Peshawar yesterday on his way to Sweden to pay tribute to the man who was known in India during the long struggle with the British as the ''frontier Gandhi,'' and who last year was honored with India's highest civilian award, the Jewel of India. 'A Freedom Fighter'

Prime Minister Gandhi hailed Mr. Ghaffar Khan as a ''freedom fighter'' who was devoted to ''nonviolence and wonderful humanity.'' The world, Mr. Gandhi said, ''has lost a very good man.''

A measure of the different feelings about Mr. Ghaffar Khan in India and Pakistan was the immediate declaration of a five-day period of mourning for him in India and the lack of a similar declaration in Pakistan.

Mr. Ghaffar Khan, whose father was a Pathan tribal chief, was born in 1889 in the scrubby mountains that spill across the border into Afghanistan. In those days of the British Raj and Kipling's tales of valor at the Khyber Pass, Mr. Ghaffar Khan carried the hereditary warrior landowning title of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and, informally as he gained prominence, the King of Khans.

But all the trappings of rank were to change after he met Mahatma Gandhi in 1919. Over the next decade, Mr. Ghaffar Khan grew increasingly close to Mr. Gandhi until by the late 1930's he, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhai Patel were among Gandhi's inner circle of advisers and leaders in the Congress Party, the dominant political expression of Indian nationalism.

In the late 1920's, Mr. Ghaffar Khan established a nonviolence movement called, interchangeably, the Servants of God and the Red Shirts. Its adherents, initially drawn from the poor northwest frontier peasantry, swore on the Koran to follow the teachings of Islam and, if persecuted, to refrain from violent resistance.

For almost two decades, Mr. Ghaffar Khan and his Red Shirts, so-called because of the bright scarlet color of their marching uniforms, walked thousands of miles around India urging Hindu and Moslem alike to practice civil disobedience and to join the political struggle for freedom.

Mr. Ghaffar Khan's leadership of the Red Shirts led to several arrests by the British without changing his attitude because, as he said once when emerging from a British jail, ''With love you can persuade a Pathan to go to hell, but by force you cannot take him even to heaven.'' In the end, the Red Shirts became an auxiliary of the Congress Party. Sought Separate State

By 1943, with the Moslem League under Mohammed Ali Jinnah gaining ascendancy over Mr. Ghaffar Khan's Congress Party movement as the voice of India's Moslems, Mr. Ghaffar Khan campaigned vigorously against Hindu-Moslem communal violence and the growing prospect of partition. In 1946, a year of bloody communal violence, Mr. Ghaffar Khan was hospitalized in Peshawar after being hit by stones thrown by rioters of his own faith.

Realizing on the eve of India's independence that partition could not be blocked, Mr. Ghaffar Khan unsuccessfully sought the establishment of a separate Northwest Frontier State to avoid the old Pathan province's absorption into Pakistan.

The new state of Pakistan, of which Mr. Jinnah was the Governor-General, promptly jailed Mr. Ghaffar Khan and his politically active older brother, Dr. M.L.A. Sahib Khan, for anti-state activities. They were held for six years, until 1954. Although Dr. Sahib Khan made peace with his jailers and joined Pakistan's first coalition Government as Minister of Communications in October 1954, Mr. Ghaffar Khan took a different political tack that was to put him back in jail on many occasions in the years ahead: the drive for an autonomous Pathanistan. In the 1960's, still at odds with the Pakistan Government, Mr. Ghaffar Khan went into exile in neighboring Afghanistan.

Don't Let This Little News Item Slip By...

The Israelis are authorized to do whatever they damn well please...

Al Gore and the Call to Conscience

I, for one, could not be more pleased by how things are working out for Al Gore. Having lost the U. S. Presidency in a stolen election, Al left politics to revive a side of himself that years in the U.S. Senate and the Clinton White House could only have suffocated: his conscience.

Now, with an Oscar and a Nobel Prize to his credit, Al Gore would appear to be the most accomplished Presidential possibility this country has seen in many a decade--if ever. As a result, the "draft Gore" movement is headed into over-drive. But if Al were to enter the 2008 Presidential race, he would threaten the Democratic Party establishment's HRC juggernaut; he might also appear to be disloyal to the Clintons who certainly deserve some credit for helping the former Senator to achieve political heights that he simply could not have achieved absent their intervention.

So Al has a problem. Because if his conscience is truly back in working order, he has to know that HRC is wrong for America. HRC is still her daddy's Young Republican daughter. She is a war hawk--for fear that, as a woman, she would otherwise be perceived as weak. And, perhaps most disturbing, she is a grizzled political opportunist: conscience is not a significant motivating force in Hillary Clinton's life.

So what is Al Gore to do? Here is where we will see the degree to which Gore has truly left politics behind for the high moral ground. Paradoxically, the moral thing for Al to do under the present circumstances, is not to avoid politics but to embrace them.

For HRC, right politics in Gore's case would be to decline to run against her; but from a moral perspective, Al must run against her to prevent her from receiving the Democratic Party nomination (to which she feels entitled).

If Al sits this one out, it will appear that he has chosen a moral road over a political one--and, no doubt, that is how his action (or inaction) will be spun. But, in fact, Al Gore will only have proved once again that there is honor among the plutocracy's thieves. Gore needs to run for president in 2008 precisely because he does not wish to.

Those who back HRC because they believe it is time for this country to have a female president should stop to consider the consequences of electing a female such as HRC as opposed to a female such as Cindy Sheehan--the true choice of conscience. It's not the chromosome that matters in 2008; it's the heart.

My Birth Certificate and Passport Notwithstanding

I am but a resident alien in these Benighted States of Leviathan. My true home and citizenry is with the Whitmanian Republic.

Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth,
In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and
the farmers preparing their crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb'd winds and the storms,)
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the
voices of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy
with labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with
its meals and minutia of daily usages,
And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent--
lo, then and there,
Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail,
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.


Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of
companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.


And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me,
The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three,
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.


From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.


And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.


Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.


Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.


Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.


Approach strong deliveress,
When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.


From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,
And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread shy are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.


The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.


Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the
prairies wide,
Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.

-- Walt Whitman

BOOK REVIEW: Foreign Agents by Grant Smith

FOREIGN AGENTS: The American Israel Public Affairs
Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005
Espionage Scandal

FOREIGN AGENTS analyzes the history and activities
of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
FOREIGN AGENTS begins with testimony and subpoenaed
documents from the 1963 Senate investigation into the
activities of the agents of foreign principals. Senator J.W.
Fulbright's discovery of "conduit" money-laundering
operations in the US financed by Israeli principals
touched off deep and important questions about
US lobbying on behalf of the fledgling nation and the
applicability of laws such as the Foreign Agents Registration
Act and the Logan Act. The book then uncovers AIPAC
election law skirmishes in the 1980s-1990s, analyzing
the lobby's role in establishing and coordinating political
action committees and AIPAC's role in alleged election
law violations. FOREIGN AGENTS then turns to the
question of espionage. In 2005, two AIPAC executives,
Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, were criminally
indicted for violating the 1917 Espionage Act. FOREIGN
AGENTS reviews behind-the-scenes defense team motions
and judicial decisions affecting First Amendment freedom
of speech issues and questions about "inside the Beltway"
trafficking in classified US defense information by lobbies.
FOREIGN AGENTS evaluates Rosen and Weissman's
assertions that the conduct alleged in the indictment was
within the scope of their employment with AIPAC and was
undertaken for AIPAC's benefit. FOREIGN AGENTS then
makes comprehensive recommendations for legal
oversight in the context of AIPAC's history as a powerful
and secretive foreign agent for Israel.

Order at http://www.IRmep.org/fa.htm for Free Shipping!
Also available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other
bookstores.  Academic libraries may acquire this title
through wholesalers such as Coutts and YBP.

Editorial Reviews of Foreign Agents:
***********************************************************
"In this book, Grant Smith renders a vital public service by
providing chapter-and-verse evidence that the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee--Israel's U.S. lobby--is the
agent of a foreign government and has violated public law
for years in ways that seriously harm U.S. national interests."
-Paul Findley, former US Congressman

"For those who want to understand how AIPAC and the Israel
lobby have hijacked the American political process, Grant Smith's
Foreign Agents is required reading.
-Jeffrey Blankfort hosts the international affairs program "Takes
on the World" on KZYX Pacifica Radio in Mendocino, California.

"Wealthy, powerful, almost covert, with the proven capability of
strongly influencing the media as well as both parties in
Congress and the White House, AIPAC's omnipresent, little-
known activities demand the public scrutiny that Foreign Agents
initiates."
-Ambassador Edward L. Peck is former Chief of Mission in Iraq
and Former Deputy Director, White House Cabinet Task Force
on Terrorism 

AIPAC has proved itself to be a danger to our democracy by using
money and political power to benefit a foreign government, all at the
expense of the American taxpayer.  Grant Smith has done a great deal
of powerful research to bring facts that will benefit us all when
making decisions as to who we vote for." 
-Senator James G. Abourezk

"Grant Smith has produced a momentous scholarly work that reveals an
eye-opening picture of the carefully guarded operations of the Israeli
lobby and its unparalleled influence over US policy in the Middle East.
What makes this daringly debunking research work convincing and its
arguments irrefutable is the fact that it steers past the dangers of
the conspiracy theories surrounding the Israeli lobby by drawing
exclusively on official government and/or public sources of
information.  Foreign Agents is a must read primer for anyone
interested in making sense of our government's policy in the Middle
East and its implications for our domestic politics and priorities." 
-Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Ph.D. is Professor of Economics at Drake
University and Author of the book "The Political Economy of US Militarism"

"In Foreign Agents, Grant Smith has drawn together the historical
threads of a foreign lobby group that has managed to slip between
the cracks despite its connection to numerous illegal activities in the
United States. Foreign Agents reveals what every American citizen
should know about AIPAC, the Israeli lobby which holds sway over
many US politicians, and hence US politics, often to the detriment of
US interests. A must read book." 
-Kim Petersen is the co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter

"Grant F. Smith's book provides a superb review of the efforts that
have been made to expose the Israel lobby from 1963 to 2005.
Smith's work is extremely well researched. He gathers together
documents, testimony from closed-door hearings, and news articles
that most Americans have totally forgotten... His work is monumental."
-Richard Curtiss executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle
East Affairs

1,000 Attempt Citizen's Arrest of Bush at UN; Blocked by Police, 10 to 12 Arrests

9/25/07

A citizen's arrest warrant has been issued! Please do your duty and see that it is served!

As George Bush made his appearance and speech today at the United Nations in NYC, 1,000 people issued a citizen's arrest warrant against him for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The day began with twelve separate feeder marches converging from across the city, consisting of perhaps several hundred protesters. The people carried 20 large coffins with them and marched from all five boroughs toward Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza and the UN Building where Bush was speaking. The feeder marches were organized by Arrest Cheney First, the War Resister's League, Witness Against Torture, Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS-NYC) and others.

Police had already set up a protest pen outside of the UN for a rally called by the vanguardist World Can't Wait, and quickly moved to herd the marchers into the pens. When members of the War Resister's League exited the pen to deliver the arrest warrant, police arrested 8 of them and grabbed three or four unaffiliated protesters from the pen as well, at approximately 10:30 am.

Eventually, the original contingent of marchers and several hundred others got tired of the pens and began to march south on Second Avenue toward Washington Square Park. A few attempts were made to march in the street, but police reacted violently, shoving and pushing marchers back onto the sidewalk. In the process, police also seized any megaphones they saw. Several protesters sustained injuries in these encounters, but no arrests were made. In all, about 500 people made their way to Washington Square Park.

The idea of citizen's arrest has its roots in common law, and allows for any citizen to execute an arrest on someone who they witness committing a felony offense. All states in the United States allow for citizen's arrest, except for North Carolina, which follows different statutes. Those undertaking a citizen's arrest can still be held liable in civil or criminal court for any damages they inflict in the process. However, they have full rights to detain and arrest a suspect who they witness in commission of a felony.

Applicable felonies in this case include, but are not limited to: treason, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, perjury, conspiracy malfeasance in office, fraud, embezzlement, and kidnapping.

Under established international and military law, also, the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, for which, as commander in chief, Bush bears command responsibility for the actions of those under his command as well as for his own policies.

Under the principles of the Nuremburg Trials at the end of World War Two, Bush would be indictable for all four counts established back then:

1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace;

2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace;

3. War crimes;

4. Crimes against humanity.

While the efforts of citizens today to serve an arrest warrant on Bush failed, be advised: the warrant stands. Please do you duty, and try at every opportunity to bring this criminal to justice.

http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=4181

President Sheehan on the Remarks by Columbia University's President on the President of Iran

"Petty and Cruel Dictator”
Cindy Sheehan

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the president of Iran spoke at Columbia University today. I heard that he was invited there because the President of Columbia wanted to foster a “free exchange of ideas.” Even though I am not an Ahmadinejad supporter, I know he was elected in Iran in a knee-jerk and understandable response to the USA’s bloodily unnecessary invasion of Iraq, as many reactionery governments have been elected in that region and all over the world in response to the spreading US corporate and military empire.

Citing such human rights’ violations in the form of imprisonment and executions, the President of Columbia University, very boorishly said that Ahmadinejad appeared to be a “petty and cruel dictator.” First of all, how does one invite someone to your place for a “free exchange of ideas,” and be such a rude American? Did he only invite Ahmadinejad so he could publicly scold him or to become the darling of Fox News?

Secondly, what about our President who appears to be a “petty and cruel dictator?” George Bush presided over a stunning amount of executions when he was Governor of Texas and the US is operating torture prison camps, openly and secretly, all over the world. BushCo has fought the Supreme Court and Congress for the right to hold thousands of humans without their human rights of due process and they have also been strenuously committed to the strategy of torture---or “enhanced interrogation methods” as the Ministry of Truth likes to call it. A Reverend gets beaten down in the halls of Congress; nooses are being hung in the south; students are being tased on campuses and Congress is censuring Freedom of Speech…how much evidence do we need before we decide that something is profoundly wrong in present-day America?

In 2006, China, the leading practitioner of state sanctioned murder in the form of execution, killed 8000 people in this manner. However, the Premier of China is welcomed to the US by George Bush who is probably envious of President Hu Jintao's record. We borrow vast sums from China to wage our wars and China is our major trading partner. Wal-Mart’s cheap and dangerous crap is manufactured by near slaves there, but somehow that is okay? Somehow it is okay to welcome Communist China with open arms, but demonize and disparage a Socialist like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela? America has a very lucrative prison business and is the only country in the Americas that practices execution. A barbarian is a barbarian no matter what color, religion or nationality they are.

George Bush has added signing statements to almost 1000 bills that he has signed into law saying that he doesn’t have to obey those very same laws. We have the Nazi-ist sounding Department of Homeland Security which seems to be obsessed with keeping my un-zip-locked baggied lip-gloss off of flights. The un-Patriot Act and breaking of FISA laws and our 4th Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure have turned the “Land of the Free” into the “Home of the Slaves.”

To put the cherry on the sundae of the crimes that BushCo have committed, they have sent hundreds of thousands of our own sons and daughters to occupy a country that was no threat to America or its neighbors. Thousands of Americans are dead, wounded or mentally screwed up and millions of Iraqis are dead, wounded, mentally screwed up or displaced from their homes.

Another boorish American, Scott Pelley (of 60 Minutes) hammered Ahmadinejad about sending weapons into Iraq without even once acknowledging the immoral tons of weapons that we rained on the citizens of Iraq during “shocking and awful;” the cluster bombs that look like toys that litter the killing fields of that country and have killed and maimed so many children; the mercenary killers that outnumber our troops and use the people of Iraq for target practice; the thousands of tons of weapons that the US let out of such weapons dumps as al-Qaqaa that were left unguarded while the oil ministry was heavily fortified. Not to mention that America supported Iraq in its eight year long war with Iran that killed an unbelievable amount of people on both sides of the border. The hypocrisy of our system is spectacular and deadly in both ignorance and arrogance.

We here in America are living in a fascist state that regularly puts corporate profits and an insatiable and evil thirst for power above people and their needs. Our supercilious leaders and media are so busy calling the kettle black, they don’t notice or care how dark our pot is. We are supporting Israel in their human rights violations against Palestine, illegally occupying two countries on our own and we have the nerve to claim any kind of moral superiority over anybody?

The fascist, near dictatorship of the Bush regime (a la Nazi Germany) has even intimidated universities to align with their hypocritical murderous rhetoric. Universities should feel free to invite anyone to speak to open much needed dialogue in our country and in the world. And if a person is invited, they should be treated by the person who invited them with a slight modicum of courtesy and then let the rocking and rolling begin with the “Q & A”…which would truly be a free exchange of ideas. I am surprised President Bollinger didn’t have President Ahmadinejad tased.

Peace is going to take all the nations working in cooperation to limit naked aggression and human rights’ violations, not just the ones which the US declare as evil. How many nukes do we have? How many does Pakistan have? How many does India, Israel, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union have? Should the rhetoric be about destroying all weapons of mass destruction and not just prohibiting Iran from obtaining one?

Many countries are committing human rights' violations and sending arms and troops into many parts of the world. America's biggest export is violence and we would do well to call for an end to all occupations and violence by beginning to end our own.

Let’s clean our own filthy house before we criticize someone else for theirs.

Editor's Note: Cindy Sheehan is President (by acclamation) of the Whitmanian Republic.

International Day of Peace

Is 1 day a year too much to ask?

The Whitmanian Republic

When the Whitmanian Republic secedes from Jesusland and confederates with our neighbors to the North, we will need to adopt a new flag. I suggest something along these lines. Leaves of Grass forever...

A Voter in the Booth is like a Rat in a Maze

In an article posted on today's WSWS, Bill Van Auken writes:

"Both major parties and all the existing political institutions function to disenfranchise the antiwar majority. They represent not the interests of working people—the vast majority of the population—but those of a narrow financial elite whose wealth and power are bound up with militarism."

When will the people of this country decide that enough truly is enough and take back the government that styles itself "of, by, and for" the people? Elections under the current system, the present out-dated Constitution, don't cut it. Only the exceptional Republicrat or Democan comes close to representing the interests of the people of this country; unfortunately, the exceptional do not make a difference under the present regime.

A non-violent people's revolution resulting in: (1) a Constitutional convention and (2) a multi-party, parliamentary democracy are the necessary first steps towards the Whitmanian Republic this country could be but never will be until the narrow financial elite whose wealth and power are bound up with militarism are sent packing.

Sadly, in the United States today, elections have become one of the most powerful of the opiates used to control the masses. We are like rats in a maze trained to push levers that once gave us food; we continue pushing, only now the levers are connected to...nothing.

VINTAGE JOHN KERRY

In response to the Andrew Meyer incident, John Kerry posted the following statement on his web site:

09/18/2007

WASHINGTON D.C. – Sen. John Kerry issued the following statement today, in response to the arrest of a student at the University of Florida.

“In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way. I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption, but I do not know what warnings or other exchanges transpired between the young man and the police prior to his barging to the front of the line and their intervention. I asked the police to allow me to answer the question and was in the process of responding when he was taken into custody. I was not aware that a taser was used until after I left the building. I hope that neither the student nor any of the police were injured. I regret enormously that a good healthy discussion was interrupted."

That's right Senator: you coulda, shoulda, woulda...but the fact remains that you DIDN'T. You coulda-shoulda-woulda been President, but you're not.

What ever happened to the John Kerry whose lightning reflexes saved his comrades in the jungles of Viet Nam? Election, co-opting by the plutocracy, and mediocrity.

He should spare us his second thoughts; all they ever do is get him into trouble.

Why Is John Kerry Not Standing Up for Andrew Meyer?

Is it because he is compromised, like 99% of the Democan Party? The questions Meyer posed to Kerry were reasonable, fair, and questions that I personally would like to hear his answer to.

Meyer's website is here.

Dear John:

Though I voted for you in 2004, I would have voted for Richard Nixon in 2004 if I thought it would have rid us of the imbecile son of privilege who presently occupies the Oval Office. If you are unwilling to answer Meyer's questions, perhaps you would be willing to answer mine: How is it that you, so courageous long ago, have become a coward and a snake?

The revolution will not be televised.

Dennis Kucinich on Remembering 9/11

Let us on this day mourn for those who tragically lost their
lives on 9/11. And let us commit that their lives not be lost in
vain, but become the basis for a new America of peace and
justice. America must regain the moral high ground in our
efforts to recover from 9/11.

Let us not forget the world was with America in our sorrow on
September 11, 2001. The world was prepared to unite with America
in a cooperative effort to challenge terrorists who attempt to
disrupt civil society. Instead, the Administration used 9/11 as
an excuse to attack a nation that did not attack us. Iraq had
nothing to do with 9/11, or with Al Qaeda's role in 9/11. Iraq
did not have the intention or the capability of attacking the
United States. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Yet the Administration deliberately and falsely conflated 9/11
with Iraq, with the cooperation of an unquestioning media.

As a result, nearly 4,000 of our brave soldiers have lost their
lives, and tens of thousands have been permanently injured in
combat in Iraq. The subsequent occupation has fueled the
insurgency and will continue to result in more troop losses
until the United States leaves. Also, nearly one million
innocent Iraqis have lost their lives as a result of this war.
This violence against an innocent people is a tragedy of immense
proportions. It is also a violation of international law, and
those who authored this war must be held accountable for their
actions.

Americans will spend close to $2 trillion in Iraq by the time
the costs of this war are totaled, but the longer term costs
have included the undermining America's moral authority in the
world, the separation of America from the nations and the
peoples of the world, and the destruction of a domestic agenda
which is being deferred while we borrow money from China to
fight the war in Baghdad.

We need to call those who used 9/11 to take us into war against
Iraq to an accounting under the U.S. Constitution, U.S. law, and
international law. We must soon begin a period of truth and
reconciliation in our own nation. We must have forums of open
dialogue throughout the country where we can come together to
remember who we were before 9/11, to share our personal
narratives of the times when we felt most secure, most in love
with our nation, most trustful of our democratic institutions.
We must recover our capacity for civic action. We must reclaim
our nation. The only way we can do that is to tell the truth.

Dennis Kucinich

Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell, Part 2,473

General Betrayus. Sound analysis by Barry Grey.

Cindy Sheehan for President

Cindy Sheehan is more intelligent than the current occupant of the Oval Office; she has more compassion than the current occupant of the Oval Office; she is more articulate than the current occupant of the Oval Office; she is more honest than the current occupant of the Oval Office; she has moral authority that the current occupant of the Oval Office does not even begin to approach (not that genuine moral authority has ever been on his radar); she is not a hypocrite like the current occupant of the Oval Office; she is not a tool of the Plutocrats of the Military-Industrial-Complex nor is she complicit with their Christo-Fascist agenda.

So why is Cindy Sheehan running for Congress?

With all due respect for Dennis, Barack and Ron, Cindy Sheehan outclasses every current candidate for President of the United States.

Since I presume the plutocratic political theater we are being treated to during this premature election season is just that--plutocratic political theater--the Democratic Party Ticket will be Clinton-Obama. The Republicans plan to run, let's see, probably Lucifer and Beelzebub--one of whom is sure to have a "wide-stance." In any event, since HRC is Nixon in a skirt, I will be writing-in Cindy Sheehan in the general election. Before I do that, I'd like to see her in some of the debates.

Let's just cut to the chase: CINDY SHEEHAN FOR PRESIDENT. A candidate with a genuine CONSCIENCE FOR A CHANGE.

Daily Shot of Kindness

Internet Archive here.

Left Libertarianism

I am often surprised to discover that the Right Libertarians have been so successful in associating libertarianism in the public narrative with a right-wing agenda that many of my friends and correspondents are unaware that one can be BOTH a leftist AND a libertarian. Hey, listen, in GWB's Amerika, anything is politically possible (so long as nothing changes).

Do you like Ron Paul for his spunk and some of his views but find yourself deeply troubled by some of his remarks? Maybe you really are a Left Libertarian like me! Check out this site and think about it for a while.

The Daily Outrage: The Empire's Bankrupt Judicial System (Part 12,293): The Padilla Case

Tax dollars at work; police state in action.

I cannot improve upon Joe Kay's analysis or his concluding sentence: "Jose Padilla’s personal tragedy is a manifestation of the deep and irreversible decay of American democracy."

Down with the Empire! Re-invent the American Republic!

Karl Rove's Head-Fake

Karl Rove knows that those who oppose W have nothing but hatred for him (Rove). Their hatred is sometimes so great that it interferes with their ability to think straight. When people cannot think straight for grief or hate, the master manipulator goes into action.

Rove left the White House this past week to focus upon his next electoral task: to assure the election of Hillary Clinton. That is why he is spending these early days of his "retirement" speaking to the press (to whom he rarely spoke--unless he was outing CIA operatives--when he was working inside the White House). And what is he saying? He is slamming HRC. Why? Because Rove knows that the more he attacks Hillary, the more Democan-lemmings will identify with her.

Obama is reported as saying as much in today's NYT's, and he is right. It's a head-fake. Don't fall for it. HRC is Nixon in a skirt. KARL ROVE LOVES HER.

A Brief Exchange with a Critic

An "e-friend" sent me a copy of a criticism sent to him regarding his attempt to hold John Edwards accountable for his actions as a U. S. Senator. The critic wrote:

"That's right -- in your Quixote-like search for a
'pure' candidate you need to go trashing people
like Edwards, or Clinton, or whoever. You are so
naive that you have no idea of the power of the
know-nothings and neo-fascists to deceive and
enlist the vast majority of ordinary people. Keep
this up and you will guarantee us another Bush or
worse.

One step at a time. Concentrate on achievable
progress or engage in mental masturbation and pave
the way for a permanent and irreversible takeover
by the dark forces."

Sure seems like sound, level-headed advice. And, say, twenty years ago, it might have been. But here was my reply:

"Listen my friend, many well-meaning people who imagine themselves to be on the left of the Neo-Fascists simply have not caught on to the fact that playing politics as usual is what got us into the mess we are in and will never get us out.

The fix is already in. HRC is the Democan nominee and Obama is running for Veep. Edwards is less than relevant today.

We need to focus our energies on shaming BOTH the Republicrats and the Democans; neither party represents the best interests of the people of the United States or of the people of the world who will be on the receiving end of their decisions. That does not mean that a third party candidate has a snowball's chance in hell in this country. Third party runs ARE pure fantasy because the "2-party" system has the field sown up tight.

We must work today to overthrow the present system and replace it with a true multi-party parliamentary democracy. We have NO alternative. A non-violent people's revolution that will call for a Constitutional convention is our only hope. We CAN have a modern Constitutional government like the great democracies in Scandinavia and parts of Europe. We don't have to limp along with a jury-rigged 18th century constitution. Those who insist that we must are the Quixotic and deluded. So spread the word. Change, BIG CHANGE is going to have to come.

Down with the Empire; Re-invent the American Republic!"

Those who insist that we do not have the luxury to dream of a better world condemn us to the slow grinding out of the present one. Those who are angered by attempts to hold political figures accountable for actions taken in their roles as "public servants" are threatened by the exercise of TRUE DEMOCRACY. We must press our case even-handedly against the Duopolistic mono-party that has a strangle-hold upon all of our futures. Prison for Bush and his co-conspirators; political exile for Hillary Clinton and her ilk in the Democan-party establishment.

A revolution is not a dinner-party.

Notes on the State of Things

Recommended Reading:

"Shine, Perishing Republic," by Robinson Jeffers. Jeffers was responding to the U. S.'s involvement in the "Great War" (WWI). I date the end of our republic and the beginning of the Empire to the poet's salient observations.

Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. Whitman was the great visionary of an America that might have been but, alas, is not. His poems remind us of the road not taken. Read them and weep.

Annals, by Cornelius Tacitus. Tacitus is often considered to be the greatest historian that ancient Rome produced, and the Annals are his masterpiece. He is particularly important today because of his understanding of the social role of the historian: "to pass political and moral judgments on the past and thereby affect the future" (Ronald Mellor, The Historians of Ancient Rome, p. 393). Mellor adds: "In these books Tacitus creates a psychological portrait of the tyrant and his flatterers. The historian has no interest in sociological or economic explanations; he is concerned with political life, the loss of liberty, and the pathology of power" (pp. 393-394). The relevance of Tacitus increases when one considers the ways in which he would contrast Roman life and character under Empire with life and character during the Republic. More reading and weeping, I'm afraid.

John Hersey, Hiroshima. I first read this book in Middle School. It was a riveting read--especially so for me because my father, a nuclear chemist, had worked on the Manhattan Project (the secret government program that produced the atomic bomb). It chronicles the day America turned a moral corner that can never be un-turned; the day on which the military-industrial-complex took its "first communion" with Satan.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Even more reading and weeping.

James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. This book is suggestive of how those of us who live here in the heart of Leviathan can engage in effective political action. Entering a voting booth under duopolistic monoparty rule is no more harmful nor helpful than entering one of Wilhelm Reich's "orgone accumulators." Personally, I think I would take my chances with Reich... In any event, in a pseudemocracy such as we have in these Benighted States today, voting is an exercise in futility. Nevertheless, I recommend that people continue to do it so that we do not lose the habit. When the Empire falls, we may be able to re-invent a democratic republic.

What might cause the Empire to fall? Any number of things, but those of us on the inside may hasten the day by subverting it from within. Scott's book shows "the manifold strategies by which subordinate groups manage to insinuate their resistance, in disguised forms, into the public transcript" (p. 136). In other words, they "booby-trap" the Narrative.

In my view, an important aspect of any resistance to the Neo-Fascist/Christo-Fascist Leviathan is to reclaim the religious imagination. Left-leaning people have made the mistake of ignoring religion, thinking, I suppose, that if they did so, religion would just go away. Let's just get this out of the way up front: RELIGION IS NOT GOING AWAY ANYTIME SOON. And since the left abandoned religion--rather than cultivating the many ways in which religious thinking and literature may bolster a leftist agenda--it has been twisted into a potent source of totalitarian motivation by the plutocratic enemies of republican (i.e., meritocratic) governance.

Religious fundamentalism represents a failure of the religious imagination. Rationality can (and should) be used as a means of curbing credulity and wishful thinking, but it will never replace religious creativity. The latter must be harnessed for worthwhile ends.

Another reason to read Tacitus was his biting wit. Perhaps the closest thing we have to a Tacitus today is Al Franken. Tacitean shaming, scolding, and ridicule all contribute to the subversive program by means of which we must drive the neo-Fascists from power. Franken understands this and is leading the charge. And since the religious right in this country is so utterly rife with hypocrites, it can seem like shooting fish in a barrel. But these aren't gold-fish we're aiming at --they're piranhas. Therefore, fire at will.

Let me be clear that the subversive activity that I am advocating is only the sort that is protected by the Bill of Rights. I do not recommend violence in any form. Violence is, in fact, anti-political. I advocate the politics of continual "nuisancery," ridicule, and non-cooperation. It is the sort of political platform that can be carried out by all of us individually and daily.

Bill O'Reilly is a swine; Ann Coulter a word I have the decency not to print. Fox News is a tele-tabloid: if you actually watch that channel for information about the world, you are a dupe. These people and the organization that pays them emit a very bad odor in civilized society. We should take every opportunity to show them the door.

Bush and his co-conspirators are criminals. There will be no justice in this land until they are arrested and brought to trial by an international tribunal. I don't give a damn that they have refused to allow the United States to submit to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. That fact is just a further indication that they are well aware of their guilt. We must condemn them and their criminality at every opportunity.

And we must lament the end of the American Republic and the rise of the American Empire, the engine of which is the military-industrial-complex.

Our task is long and grim. Traitors (like the Republicrat-Democan duopoly, the 4th estate, and compliant religious communities) surround us on every side. But as Mao said: "A revolution is not a dinner-party." Nevertheless, if we work at it every day, we can make it approximate a Rabelasian carnival.

A Small Act of Consciousness-Raising a Day...

will eventually make the Neo- and Christo-Fascists crawl back under the rocks from whence they came in late 2000 to saddle this country with their twisted homicidal racist dreams of imperial glory.

Here is the challenge: plan to do something each day that will make another person THINK!

For example: Make posters that display the 9th and 10th amendments to the U. S. Constitution and post them in various places where you live. Be sure that the posters emphasize that there are rights and powers vested in the people of this country that have yet to be exercised. Call for a constitutional convention to create a multi-party parliamentary democracy.

Contact Democratic Party Headquarters and let them know that the Party's monopolistic strangle-hold upon our democracy will soon be over on account of its complicity with the Neo- and Christo-Fascists. Contact Republican Party Headquarters and let them know that the Party's monopolistic strangle-hold upon our democracy will soon be over on account of its being the primary vehicle of Neo- and Christo-Fascism in the world today.

Contact your local media outlet and denounce its treasonous betrayal of democracy by its failure to expose the criminality of the government and its failure to call for the end of the country's imperialistic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Contact your political representatives in Congress and remind them that the State of Israel is an INDEPENDENT, FOREIGN NATION and that, therefore, it would be highly unusual if its interests were in perfect alignment with the interests of the United States. Remind them that if they cannot tell the difference between the interests of an INDEPENDENT, FOREIGN NATION and those of the United States, they are guilty of TREASON, have no business in our government, and will be subject to arrest and trial. Remind them that treason is a capital crime under federal law.

Buy a Palestinian flag (they are available on-line--at least that's how I obtained mine) and display it. Support the aspirations of all people everywhere to be free from political violence and oppression.

IT'S TIME TO GET CREATIVE. It is also time to engage in such acts of consciousness-raising and, yes, gentle provocation, on a daily basis. Act locally and without a lot of fanfare. Simply exercise your right as a citizen of a democracy to engage in political speech.

If you are active in a religious organization, engage your co-religionists in questions of justice and non-violence. Encourage their participation in a small act of consciousness-raising a day.

Don't wait for clergy and don't wait for politicians. Act on your own initiative under the U. S. Constitution as amended. And begin TODAY.

Daily Outrage Dept.

As we approach the 12th anniversary of the untimely passing of Jerry Garcia (August 9th), I've been thinking about Jerry and his times. It seems to me that the mid-1960's to early 1970's was a period in which the United States came close to the advent of something like a "Great Awakening"--only one that was not propelled by Protestant preaching but, rather, by a more gnostic variety of consciousness raising. In the midst of what approached a nostalgic reverie, I happened to tune in (absent mindedly) to NPR (since 9/11, Nationalist Propaganda Radio) and listened to a Weekend Edition piece on "a touring multimedia show that has already been seen by more than 100,000 people" and that "is playing at the world's finest concert halls — with the world's finest orchestras powering through some of the world's most popular video-game music." At that moment, I should have leaped across the room for the on/off switch but, as fate would have it, I hesitated. My bad. The report continued with this charming bit of information:

And it's attracting a decidedly different audience. Take Josh Schwidel: He isn't the type you'd normally find seated in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. He's 11 years old, and he came to see Video Games Live with one of his friends. There's a costume contest, so naturally Josh came dressed as one of his favorite video-game characters.

"I'm Ness from the Super NES game Earthbound," says Josh, who's dressed in a striped shirt and baseball cap. "It's a game about crazy things; you attack hippies with baseball bats. I brought a baseball bat, but they wouldn't let me come in with it."

You attack hippies with baseball bats...

It was then that I hit the "off" button, but it was too late. For I could not erase from my thoughts an image of this Satanic "game" that not only helps to de-sensitize children to the commission of violent acts but, by targeting "hippies," is clearly fascistic. We are talking "flower children" here.

Josh Schwidel may not know it, but by playing this video-game he is exposing himself to powerful images that have the potential to influence his attitudes and decisions as he grows older. Of course, it is entirely possible that his favorite video imaginary is filling him with a lifetime of loathing for anyone who would actually engage in such socio-pathic behavior as attacking the likes of, well, the late Mr. Garcia, with a club or any other weapon. One can only hope.

I won't link to the full story. If you need to find it yourself, it should be here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12478692

This is just one more reason why you should have taken better care of yourself, brother Garcia.

May you rest in peace.

Stay Tuned for More Thrilling Plutocratic Political Theater

Although I found it an odious task, I stooped to watch the News Hour on PBS last Friday in order to get my fill of one of the NYT's shameless Neo-Fascist lap-dogs, David Brooks.

It's actually difficult to watch Brooks in action without feeling sorry for the man. He tries so hard to prove to the world that "compassionate conservatism" is a reality as opposed to a marketing scheme--which was dropped like a hot potato once the "compassionate conservatives" assumed power and went on their homicidal rampage through the Middle East.

I have never been able to decide whether Brooks is deluded or deeply dishonest. I suspect that he is some combination of the two.

In any event, instead of his usual gushing about how he, a mere journalist, has inside access to the centers of Neo-Fascistic power in Washington, he spoke of his admiration for one Hillary Clinton. In fact, he seemed to go out of his way to mention Mrs. Clinton repeatedly during his brief segment. I took it as a signal.

The plutocrats who run this country know that the Neo-Fascists in the "Republican" wing of the Republicrat-Democan Mono-party have worn out their welcome with the voting public and are not likely to be able to place such an open tool as George W. Bush in the White House come the next election cycle. So they have turned to their next best option: Nixon in a skirt.

The coming months will be filled with thrilling political theater, but I fear that the outcome is already quite certain. The plutocracy is cutting deals and Hillary, with her overweening ambition, is putty in their hands.

Back Kucinich, back Obama, but watch Hillary emerge triumphant as the staged "drama" unfolds.

The Importance of Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan is, quite simply, the single most important individual in American politics today. Her importance lies in the fact that she is NOT a politician; rather, she is the voice of one crying in the political wilderness. She represents the pangs of conscience.

No one who will eventually become a viable Republicrat-Democan Presidential candidate in 2008 will ever match Sheehan's moral credibility for the simple reason that, unlike them, she did not enter the public forum looking for votes--i.e., political power. She stepped out of the shadows of grieving motherhood and into the public eye to ask a moral question that no viable Republicrat-Democan presidential front-runner will ever dare to ask (much less answer candidly) without the pre-approval of his or her pollsters: "Tell me, Mr. President, what did my son die for?"

Imagine, if you will, Hillary Clinton, publicly admitting that the war she voted for and supported until her number crunchers told her to do otherwise was, from the very get-go, unjust, immoral, and in violation of international law--and that she knew (or had reason to believe), from the get-go, that such was the case. That is the unvarnished truth that will never pass Sen. Clinton's lips.

Some of those who love Cindy have urged her to remain "outside" politics--as if the moral high ground can never be reconciled with running a country. I understand this cautionary argument, but I do not agree with it. I was happy to hear that Cindy intends to enter California politics for two reasons:

(1) I think it will be great experience for her, and

(2) The contrast between Cindy's style and that of a seasoned Republicrat-Democan will suggest to the voting public an image of what a real democracy might look like.

I do not expect Cindy Sheehan to be elected to public office anytime soon. The Republicrat-Democan monopoly that torpedoed George McGovern's upstart candidacy in '72 and Ted Kennedy's insurgent run against the Carter Machine in '80 will prevail until the day comes when people of conscience in this country rise up and take the governance of "their" country out of the hands of the militarized plutocrats and re-write the Constitution--ending once and for all mono-party rule.

That would be an American Revolution worthy of the name. But a revolution worthy of the name (i.e., not one about taxes or states' rights) requires that there exist in the United States a critical mass of people of conscience--a significant percentage in the ruling class itself. Generations will pass before such a situation exists in these Benighted States.

In the meantime, we have Cindy Sheehan lighting the first candle for an America where conscience doesn't mean saying in public that Jesus is your favorite philosopher or even your "Lord and Savior"; conscience is being appalled by the people who lie and kill and steal in the name of Jesus or any other deity or ideology.

It's the Constitution, Stupid!

I hate to borrow a line from old Bill Clinton, but in this case I'll make an exception. After all, let's give big Bill his due: the first 6 years of his 8 year presidency were years of relative peace and prosperity and a hopefulness that seems almost fantastic next to the subsequent dark years of W and unmitigated disaster. That said, Mrs. Clinton is NOT A CHOICE. Bill's saving grace was that he was something of a Romantic, an idealist deep inside. Hillary is, as I have said for many years now, Nixon in a skirt. She cannot tell the difference between a political VISION for the country and her personal, political AMBITION. She wants the presidency so bad she can hardly stand it. Not only that, but she actually believes that she is entitled to it. Don't just listen to her words, listen to the "music" behind her words. Hillary Clinton would bomb the bejesus out of Iran or any country that she felt gave her the flimsiest excuse, the slightest opportunity to prove to the joint chiefs that a woman can send troops into battle just as well as a man. The key word here is OPPORTUNITY. Hillary Clinton is an opportunist extraordinaire. Why the hell do you think she married Bill? She knew he couldn't keep his hands to himself; but she also saw Bill as her big OPPORTUNITY. And the sacrifices that she has made these many years as Bill's spouse entitle her--in her own mind--to succeed him to the Oval Office. It's twisted, my friends.

But what is even more twisted is that the Democratic Party Machine also believes her to be entitled to the Presidency. And this is yet another reason why the Democratic Party is part of the problem and not part of the solution. I don't propose that the party be dissolved, but that it be forced to make its way honestly in the political system by being one party among many in a TRUE MULTI-PARTY PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY.

Many Americans suffer from the delusion that we have such a system in the United States. After all, isn't that what they teach us in high school civics? Friends, friends, friends: high school civics sold you a dream, not the political reality of the Plutocratic American pseudemocracy. What we have in the U.S. is a "two-party" system. No provision is made in the Constitution for this system: it is an ad hoc development that the Founding Fathers (white, propertied, 18th century males) tried to AVOID. Read George Washington's "farewell address"--the Founders sought to avoid party politics for the simple reason that they did not wish our fledgling DEMOCRACY to get "out of hand." Why do you think that they made provision in the Constitution for an "electoral college"? These guys (whom we we all treat as saints and were anything but...) did not trust the PEOPLE.

Tom Jefferson threw a wrench into the plutocracy's plans when he wasn't getting his way with the old-boy network and decided that the best way to royally piss them off was to form a political party--the Democratic Party. When Jefferson did that, it was the ONLY political party in the United States. There was the ruling class, and then there was this party of opposition--also part of the ruling class but now endorsing positions that the common run of (white, male) Americans could also support. It was a bitter pill for the plutocrats to swallow, but swallow it they did and eventually formed their own counter-party. And that was it. In time, the two parties established for themselves a monopoly over the American political system and, over the years, have grown chummier and chummier. And why not? They all represent the same constituency: the American plutocracy.

Those who are paying attention can see what a huge mess the plutocrats are making not only of the United States but of the world today. Hillary M. Nixon will not alter our course significantly. And, I am afraid, though I love him, neither will Dennis Kucinich--the one tried and true proponent of a truly decent America running for President today (Obama may be a true proponent, but he is far from tried). The solution to our problems is not plugging this or that individual into the Oval Office. The origin of our problems lies in the undemocratic system that we would be plugging that individual into. It's the Constitution, stupid! We must change it and soon.

If you wish to see what a modern Constitution looks like (as opposed to our jury-rigged, 18th century one), google "Constitution of Finland." It is just one of many in use around the world today that creates a multi-party, parliamentary democracy. In the history of human governance to date, it's the best we (as a species) have done.

And don't Americans deserve the best? That's what we always tell ourselves. Then why in god's good name are we settling for something that only serves up the same old plutocratic bull-shit election cycle after election cycle?

I'll say it again: IT'S THE CONSTITUTION! We must change it or resign ourselves to living out the rest of our days in McUSA,Inc.--not the home of liberty but the militarized agent of global capitalism run amok.

History Quiz

What famous individual said the following:

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"

Was it:

(a) Osama bin Ladin

(b) Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater

(c) Thomas Paine


Answer: If you answered (b) you are well on your way to recognizing that the rhetoric of who is an "extremist"--or what constitutes "extremism" in the first place and how it is to be evaluated--is an "extremely" squirrely business.

One man's extremist is another's patriot or freedom fighter.

Resist the Orwellian Newspeak of the Republicrat-Democans and the treasonous, government-dependent media.

THINK!

News Quiz

If a foreign nation invades and occupies your own, setting up a puppet-government like the Nazis did in France during WWII, and you and some like-minded citizens decide to resist the foreign invaders and occupiers, you are properly identified as:

(a) a terrorist

(b) a freedom-fighter

(c) an extremist

(d) an insurgent

(e) a patriot

(f) la Resistance


Answer Key: If you answered (a), (c), or (d), you have clearly bought into the Orwellian Newspeak with which the Bush administration has poisoned the waters of our national conversation about its illegal, unjust, and immoral invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq. Of course, the neo-con criminals are working from precedent: the Johnson and Nixon Administrations used the same terminology for the heroic defenders of the Vietnamese homeland.

In a way, I can hardly blame the Bush regime for its attempt to cover its crimes with favorable spin. I do blame and do not--and cannot--forgive this country's 4th Estate for betraying the American people into the hands of the Republicrat-Democan criminals by adopting and endorsing their Newspeak through its continuing use.

Unless and until we become capable, as a nation, of engaging in honest discourse about our military presence in Iraq, we will never come to terms with the murderous fraud--dare I say, the holocaust--we are perpetrating there.

Summer of Disillusionment on the Ship of Fools

SHIP OF FOOLS...




NAUTICAL DISTRESS SIGNAL FLAG: This orange flag has a black square over a black circle. It is the duty of any boat operator observing such a flag to stop and render aid. This signal shall not be displayed unless assistance is needed...

Some days, it is truly difficult to believe that this country is not headed, in the words of an old tune, "90 miles an hour down a dead end street."

The American people, betrayed repeatedly by their "leaders," haven't a clue what to do about it. Let's see...What are the options? Shit? Go blind? What are you going to do, ask Harry Reid? He's as helpless as the next guy. We entrusted our future and the futures of many others around the world (who really didn't have a say in the matter) to a lethal combination of imbeciles and criminals. We did this because we were afraid that uppity brown men were coming from overseas to murder us in our plushly appointed offices. That these uppity brown men were at one time employed by this lethal combo in whom we placed our trust never gave us a moment's pause--and it still doesn't.

And, yet, I feel that the pendulum is soon to change direction. Unfortunately, I have little confidence in the justice of what may happen when it does.

The Myth of American Exceptionalism is not the only opiate that befuddles our moral compasses (how's that for a mixture of metaphors?). There is also the Myth that our political institutions are capable of promoting radical change. "In a suitable temperature," said Mao Tsetung, "an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis."

With our current Constitution, all we can accomplish is the cooking of stones.

"What we need," said Mao, "is an enthusiastic but calm state of mind and intense but orderly work."

The road ahead is long and admits no turning. Such is the itinerary on this American Ship of Fools.

Whither the United States?

Please read today's entry at the American Leftist.

The Anti-Democratic Moral Midgetry of the American Plutocracy

In 1972, George McGovern somehow managed to slip through the cracks in the carefully orchestrated "2-party (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) system" and got himself elected the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the Whole Shebang. This threw a scare into Nixon's oh-so-wonderfully acronymed Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP).

McGovern accomplished this feat, amazingly enough, with popular support. Nothing scares the plutocratic ruling class of this country like, um, democracy.

So, the Nixon mafia went into action: the goal was to make certain that the McGovern candidacy take a nose-dive. Watergate was one result. But the CREEPers did not act alone; they had help. Unwittingly, the McGovernites supplied some of that help--bungling the choice for V.P. among other moves that only paraded for all the world their unfortunate naivete (they actually believed that the plutocracy would have to allow them to succeed if they had the votes).

Help came from other places as well. The Humphrey-Meany-Daley axis of evil--the Democratic Party's "old guard"--painted McGovern as a Communist sympathizer. Meany used his position as President of the AFL-CIO to ensure that McGovern was robbed of the support of organized labor--recall that Archie Bunker was a union man. Archie was an archetypal figure.

And there was help from another place as well: that by now familiar figure in American politics, the "lone gunman." In this case, the "lone gunman" was one Arthur Bremer, an unemployed dishwasher from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Bremer appears to have stalked both Richard Nixon and George Wallace before settling on Wallace. Out of work and from a working class family, he somehow managed to follow the two candidates to various places in the U.S. and Canada, occasionally staying in posh hotels (like New York's Waldorf) though, by the time he shot Wallace, he was living in his car.

As a 3rd party candidate, Wallace had no chance of winning the Presidency--it is a "2-party system" after all. What he could do, however, was siphon off some of the white racist southern votes that Nixon was counting on to build a comfortable electoral margin over McGovern. Consequently, Wallace had to go.

On May 15, 1972, Arthur Bremer, at point-blank range, emptied his pistol into Wallace's mid-section. Four bullets entered Wallace. Three other individuals in the crowd were also shot.

Assuming six bullets, the math is somewhat curious.

Be that as it may, Wallace was safely out of the race. Nixon is on tape discussing the possibility of having one of his henchmen plant McGovern campaign literature in Bremer's apartment. But it wasn't necessary.

The American "2-party (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) system" works like a casino. You may win a few rounds, but when the real deal is on the line, you will never beat the house.

We need a non-violent people's revolution to force a Constitutional convention that would create a genuine democracy in these Benighted States. But before that happens, there must be a moral revolution because, frankly, the American people today wouldn't know what to do with a real democracy. And why should we? We've never actually had one.

War is Inevitable...

...so long as there continue to be those among us who stand to profit handsomely from it. And it is a large percentage of the economy that does so in these Benighted States in this Year of our Follies, 2007. From the tank manufacturer to the tank operator; from the shareholder in the tank manufactory to that shareholder's barber and chauffeur. We must therefore convert our entire economy from a warfare basis to a peacefare basis. The old economist's dialectic of "guns and butter" needs to be replaced. How about "bread, butter, and universal health care"? If these were the decisions we had to agonize over, what a wonderful world it would be.

One Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

A Model Constitution

God did not write the U.S. Constitution but, for some reason, most Americans are under the mistaken impression that She did.

No, no, no. Human beings--white propertied males to be specific--wrote the U.S. Constitution. They did the best they could at the time, but times have changed. The Bush Administration is demonstrating to us daily how the Constitution can be treated with contempt by those who publicly swore to uphold it. What's more, those who are holding the Constitution in contempt are able to do so with impunity.

Because the Republicrat-Democan Mono-party/Politburo has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be the fox watching the chicken coop, we cannot trust it to impeach (much less turn over for criminal prosecution) those who daily ignore the law of the land. We, the people, must remove them from power--Constitutionally.

Here's how: since it is obvious that neither the Executive Branch or Congress gives a fig about the Constitution, it shouldn't upset them if the people exercise their right under the 9th Amendment to re-write a Constitution for our time:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

We are fortunate in the fact that the people, yes, the people won't have to re-invent the wheel in this matter. There are plenty of good models in use throughout the world at the present time.

Here is one example. Given our past history, the people, yes, the people of the United States will need to craft language that will make it a crime to profit from "public service." The "revolving door" that Richard Cheney and the Bush family (among many, many others) have used to their personal financial advantage will have to be nailed shut. But this is law, not rocket science. I would be happy to contribute my services to the country, free of charge.

The America that we hold in our hearts, the America that, as the late, great Richard Rorty put it, is dedicated to reducing the tendency of its citizens to selfishness and sadism, of grasping and striking, of Haliburton and Gitmo, of K-Street and Abu Ghraib, is only a Constitutional Convention away...

Annals of Criminality

The Federal Government's, that is. When Jose Padilla was arrested in May 2002, it was obvious that his only crime was that he had the temerity to convert to Islam. He was also easy pickings because he was a poor brown man--the specialty of state and federal prosecutors all across this broad and racist land. Poor brown men are favored by prosecutors because they rarely possess the means, mobility, or education to properly defend themselves against a criminal charge. Now with Due Process essentially suspended in the case of anyone charged with a crime where the Christo-Fascist mantra "Islamic Terrorism" may be invoked, getting convictions should be like shooting fish in a barrel. Well, it should be. The only problem is that juries today--despite being composed largely of white suburban housewives and retired business executives (the compliant bourgeoisie)--still expect to see something thrown at the wall and called "evidence." After all, they are sure to have watched, on average, a minimum of 50 hours per juror of "Law and Order." So they have a vague notion of what a trial might, in theory, involve.

Notice in Alex Lantier's perceptive article that the Feds are back to using the "secret code language" ploy that was used by the prosecution in the trial of the fall-guys for the World Trade Center bombings in the mid-90's. I remember reading about that in an article in Newsweek at the time--incredulous that anyone would attempt to make such an argument in a court of law and aghast to discover that it seemed to work. Before he passed away, I had an opportunity to talk to the late, great William Kunstler about the case. He said he had never seen so scurrilous a prosecution in his life--and he had seen a lot of them.

This 4th of July, I'll be wearing my yellow crescent t-shirt in solidarity with the victims of Christo-Fascism the world over.