Beardy Guy Musings

The Irregular times has a post about H.R. 418 and I have to say, this is some scary stuff. If this should pass, well, it is yet another step towards total control:

H.R. 418, a bill currently before the U.S. Congress, reads in part as follows:

(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary&rsquo;s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.<br /><br />(2) NO JUDICIAL REVIEW- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court shall have jurisdiction–
(A) to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1); or(B) to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision.’

Let me restate that in plain English for you: If H.R. 418 is passed into law, the Secretary of Homeland Security, a Bush appointee nobody elected, will have the right to declare null and void any law…

No judges will have the ability to overrule the Secretary of Homeland Security’s judgment in declaring null and void ANY LAW.

Let me put it in even starker terms: if H.R. 418 is passed into law, the Secretary of Homeland Security can declare null and void any law whenever she or he feels like it, and in doing so can’t be overruled by anyone… except, of course, the President, George W. Bush. Does that make you feel comfortable?

Under this bill, the Bush administration would be granted the right to declare null and void any law, something that until now has been the job of the Congress or the courts. And under this bill, the courts have no ability to challenge the actions of the Bush administration.

Bye bye, checks and balances.

Bye bye, due process.

Bye bye, judicial review.

Bye bye, civil rights.

This is how police states happen, friends.

And guess who’s behind it.

Republicans? Why, no, it couldn’t be! Republicans are the party of the little guy standing against the nasty elitist system, right? Republicans are for small government, right? Republicans don’t want some bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. to control your life, right?

Think again. Of the 126 members of Congress who have formally thrown their support behind this bill, 98.4% are Republican. That’s right, folks, this bill is 98.4% Republican pure. And it’s not just a couple of loony birds who are pushing this bill, either. The loony birds have taken over the loony bin: More than half of the 234 Republican members of the House of Representatives have signed their names to this bill, indicating their support. This bill is going places, unless we do something to stop it.

Technorati Tags: HR 418, Police State, Politics

Over at Counterpunch Tim Wise has an excellent article regarding Ward Churchill and the larger argument regarding U.S. conduct abroad: Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians.

Dead people of color, the world over, or right here in the U.S., whose ashes they step over every time they walk out the door of their homes, mean nothing to them. Their deaths are cause for no tears, no contrition, no recompense, and certainly have never served to disqualify those responsible (or those who applaud the carnage) from positions of authority, in colleges, or government. Nor will schools now move to block dear Madame Albright from speaking on their campuses, as happened to Ward; nor will Ann Coulter find herself a pariah for fantasizing about the incineration of folks whose only crime was to be born North Korean.

But Ward Churchill, who has merely laid out the facts about America’s murderous ways around the globe–facts that have not been disputed even once by any of his critics–is to be silenced. Those who do the deed are cheered, re-elected and get buildings named after them. Those who merely tell of their exploits and suggest that perhaps there may be consequences, get crushed.

This is what happens, in a nation built on lies from the beginning; whose empire has been constructed on the sands of self-delusion; whose inability to tell the truth about itself has now become the stuff of farce. Our lack of self-awareness, not to mention the way in which Americans pride ourselves on how little we know about the world, and how reflexively patriotic we can be, would all be funny were it not so miserably pathetic, and ultimately so dangerous.

The sickest irony of the entire episode with Churchill is this, of course: namely, if there is anyone whose views and actions lead to the inevitable conclusion that the civilians in the World Trade Center were legitimate, if unfortunate targets, it is the President of the United States. It is he, whose doctrine of “preventative” warfare, assumes by definition that it is acceptable to target buildings that house offices tied to the government and military apparatus of one’s enemy, which, indeed the WTC did, and which of course describes the Pentagon in its entirety.

Found via the Infoshop

Technorati Tags: 9-11, Empire, Ward Churchill

Imagine you are the parent of a 5 year old child. Would you trust them with an armed gun? Now I ask this question because yesterday I got to thinking about roles and relationships. Think of the American people as one entity and the government (federal, state, local) as the other. In this scenario, who’s the parent and the child?

Yeah, as I said yesterday, perhaps the best tactic for fighting Bush and Co. is to just let them run the country into the ground. Seriously. The U.S. has become the empire, the bringer of violence and the citizens have given away the reigns of power (or never had them in the first place). I’ve said it before that the U.S. must be stopped and that it would likely have to be an external force to do it. As terrible as it is on the inside the conditions are not intense enough that the people would dare do anything. The majority of those opposed to Bush are Liberals and still put their hope in the Democratic party. They still believe that the system works, just that it needs a change of ruling party. Support for a third party is still not strong enough and with Dean as the chair of the DNC you can bet that liberals and progressives will rally to the Democrats in 2008.

The U.S. has become a child, armed to the teeth but with no parent. So I’m hoping that the world community will unite to impose sanctions on the U.S. That combined with the current president’s policies should do the trick.

In any case, back to the original point, this post over at Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home! had me rolling on the floor The Shithouse-Crazy Cowboy Strikes Again:

You steamy, slimy, dripping, stinky chunk of bloody diarrhea!!! You scheming, smarmy, stupid, spoiled, pecksnifferous, moronic, evil, hateful, white supremacist, piggish, patriarchal, space-wasting douchebag!!!

You, your VP, and your entire heinous Cabinet have your own private, flaming cesspool with extra maggots awaiting you in Hell.

Who the FUCK do you think you are? Where the FUCK do you think you get off bankrupting your own country? What divine power do you think gives you the right to spend our money this way???

The budget you proposed today will increase our federal deficit by $42 billion over the next five years. I strongly suspect that you never paid a single tax dollar your entire life before you became President, and you won’t pay any after. Well yeehaw! Let the green river flow to the Pentagon and the oil companies, and the working class can foot the bill. That sounds like a dang ole, rootin tootin, chicken lickin' good time, pardner!

Forty-eight different education programs get the axe, including drug abuse counseling. Grants to communities hiring police officers - gone! Amtrak subsidies for those pesky po' folk that can’t afford to buy the black gold your family sells - gone! And while we’re at it, let’s cut back on Medicaid spending. After all, everyone knows that our Consteetution don’t say a cotton-pickin thing about no Jesus-given right to health care. Praise the Lord!

Student loans? Who needs ‘em! We’s gonna have us some school vouchers. Dem lil’ wippersnappers can have they Daddies pay for they’s higher learnin'. I knows that’s what they’s do, because my Daddy done paid for mine! An' if you’ns cain’t afford none, it don’t mean shit, because college ain’t much use no how! Hell, I cain’t even remember what I did those seven years. I think I may have been a cheerleader or somethin' like that. And just look at me now! I’m the President of the Yoo-nited States! It don’t get no better’n that!

Slashing farmers' payments ain’t gonna be no big thang. I don' need no money from the guv’ment for my farmin', and I’s got me a hy-ooge ranch down in Texas. We call it the Western White House, because we’s all white down thar!

Now, here’s a weird one. Veterans' medical services. We’re gonna get the fat trimmed off of that pork chop. Hey, aren’t you a veteran, Mr. Bush? Didn’t I see you in one of those suit thingies a couple years back? And aren’t a lot of those guys you sent to Iraq coming back with fewer arms and legs than they had when they left? Oh, hell. They can move to Canada, I s’pose.

So tell us something, Dubya. If all these federal programs are getting cut, where in Sam Hill is the giant deficit coming from? Oh, that’s right! Tax cuts for the rich, $100 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan this year, an additional $419 billion for the Pentagon, and untold riches for the Homeland Security Department, because Lord knows those guys can never be too rich or too effective!

And the pièce de résistance, $74 billion over the next decade to encourage low-income people to buy health insurance. Cuz sheeeeit, their employers is already payin them they sal’ry. They’s already missin' work if they get sick. Now their boss’s gotta pay the doctor bills too? That don’t make no sense. Just rob us blind, why don’t you! Dang lazy poor folk. Always tryin' to steal what we rich folk work mighty hard for! If the labor people don’t like that deal, then they don’t have to work at the Wal-Mart. This is a free country, after all. That’s what you keep sending them soldiers oversees for, to protect our freedom.

I’m a war President! Those dirty A-rabs hate freedom! Filthy, no-good, stinkin' . . . now, what was I talkin' bout again? Oh, yeah. It’s like I told those high-fallutin' reporters after my big impo’tant Cabinet meetin' today. “It’s a budget that focuses on results. The taxpayers of America don’t want us spending our money into something that’s not achieving results."

For once, we agree. I hope Congress decides to can your ass, Dubya.

Technorati Tags: Citizenship, Democracy, George Bush, Politics

The Guardian has posted a brief description of the transition of Kyoto to international law. Yet another example of America standing alone as it insists on opposing the common good.


On February 16, one of the most controversial treaties in decades becomes part of international law. It has been heralded as a breakthrough in the fight against dangerous climate change and a triumph for international diplomacy - despite the fact that the US, the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases, refuses to take part.

The protocol, an addition to the Climate Change Convention negotiated at the Earth Summit in 1992, is the first legally binding international treaty on the environment. The convention placed an obligation on every country that signed it to reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions but did not give any targets - so everyone agreed another agreement was needed.

Kyoto gives each of the industrialised countries of the world an individual limit to the greenhouse gas emissions they can make. The reductions overall are tiny compared with the cuts that scientists say are necessary to stabilise the climate. So will Kyoto really make a difference to whether global warming is contained; can it save the planet from the potential of runaway global warming that is being debated this week at the Hadley Centre for Climate Change in Exeter? Here we explain the nuts and bolts of Kyoto, how it works, and what it does.

–

What difference does the US make?

The treaty immediately hit a snag because politicians in the US, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, passed a vote in the Senate refusing to ratify the protocol. This was because they felt that China and other developing countries would gain a competitive advantage over them, because they would not have the costs of reducing emissions.

The snag could have been devastating because, under the rules negotiated in Kyoto, industrialised countries responsible for 55% of the emissions had to have their national parliaments ratify the convention before it could come into force. Since the US is responsible for 36% of the greenhouse gases from the industrialised world it meant that almost all the other countries which had agreed targets had to ratify the protocol before it could come into force.

Russia had doubts that the treaty was worthwhile without the United States, but without Moscow’s agreement the treaty could not reach the 55% of emissions threshold. After two years of delays Russia ratified last December, bringing the emission total to 61%. Ninety days later, on February 16, it comes into legal force. Only four of the original 34 nations have refused to take part: the US (36.1% of the greenhouse gas emissions of the industrialised world), Australia (2.1%), Liechtenstein (.001%) and Monaco (.001%).

Technorati Tags: Ecology, Environment, Global Warming, Kyoto

Hey, Paula Zahn, fuck you. Okay. I’ve already written once, no, twice, about the current situation with Ward Churchill but I’ll go ahead and do it again. Fuck, I’ll write about it every day.

Obviously I’m pissed and I thought twice about posting. It amazes me that these media fucks are so unwilling or unable to understand what Churchill is trying to communicate. It’s really not that hard though which makes me think that media idiots like Paula Zahn really are stupid or they understand but would rather not deal with Churchill. Why? Because dealing with him and his arguments fairly means opening up a can of worms the size of a swimming pool. Again, for your reading enjoyment is Churchill’s essay Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Also, here again is his response to recent events. The American media will do anything they can to avoid the argument Churchill makes. It’s their job and function to do so. It follows that the majority of America will do exactly as expected: they also will turn away.

We can turn away from Churchill and his argument but doing so only allows our ignorance to persist which will lead to further tolerance and support of U.S. foreign policy. The result will likely be another 9-11. To that I can only say, the chickens will roost and none of us is innocent.

Technorati Tags: 9-11, Ward Churchill

by Ward Churchill

When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously – and quite charitably, all things considered – replied that it was merely a case of “chickens coming home to roost.”

 On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.

The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable – in fact, widely predicted – result of the 1991 US “surgical” bombing of their country’s water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other “infrastructural” targets upon which Iraq’s civilian population depends for its very survival.

Technorati Tags: Ward Churchill

First, the BBC is reporting that, according to a WWF study, we could see a Climate change ‘disaster by 2026’

Dangerous levels of climate change could be reached in just over 20 years if nothing is done to stop global warming, a WWF study has warned.

At current rates, the earth will be 2C above pre-industrial levels some time between 2026 and 2060, says the report by Dr Mark New of Oxford University.

Temperatures in the Arctic could rise by three times this amount, it says.

It would lead to a loss of summer sea ice and tundra vegetation, with polar bears and other animals dying out.

–

Dr New said: “A very robust result from global climate models is that warming due to greenhouse gases will reduce the amount of snow and ice cover in the Arctic, which will in turn produce an additional warming as more solar radiation is absorbed by the ground and the ocean."

Ice and snow reflect more solar radiation back to space than unfrozen surfaces.

According to the WWF, the perennial ice, or summer sea ice, is currently melting at a rate of 9.6% per decade and will disappear completely by the end of the century if this continues.

–

Boreal forests would spread north and overwhelm up to 60% of dwarf shrub tundra, a critical habitat and vital breeding ground for many birds.

“If we don’t act immediately the Arctic will soon become unrecognisable,” said Dr Catarina Cardoso, head of climate change at WWF-UK.

“Polar bears will be consigned to history, something that our grandchildren can only read about in books."

Also of note, The Independent, by way of Common Dreams, reports that Global warming approaching point of no return:

Global warning has already hit the danger point that international attempts to curb it are designed to avoid, according to the world’s top climate watchdog.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has “already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere” and called for immediate and “very deep” cuts in the pollution if humanity is to “survive”.

His comments rocked the Bush administration - which immediately tried to slap him down - not least because it put him in his post after Exxon, the major oil company most opposed to international action on global warming, complained that his predecessor was too “aggressive” on the issue.

A memorandum from Exxon to the White House in early 2001 specifically asked it to get the previous chairman, Dr Robert Watson, the chief scientist of the World Bank, “replaced at the request of the US”. The Bush administration then lobbied other countries in favor of Dr Pachauri - whom the former vice-president Al Gore called the “let’s drag our feet” candidate, and got him elected to replace Dr Watson, a British-born naturalized American, who had repeatedly called for urgent action.

–

And in November, a multi-year study by 300 scientists concluded that the Arctic was warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and that its ice-cap had shrunk by up to 20 per cent in the past three decades.

The ice is also 40 per cent thinner than it was in the 1970s and is expected to disappear altogether by 2070. And while Dr Pachauri was speaking parts of the Arctic were having a January “heatwave”, with temperatures eight to nine degrees centigrade higher than normal.

He also cited alarming measurements, first reported in The Independent on Sunday, showing that levels of carbon dioxide (the main cause of global warming) have leapt abruptly over the past two years, suggesting that climate change may be accelerating out of control.

He added that, because of inertia built into the Earth’s natural systems, the world was now only experiencing the result of pollution emitted in the 1960s, and much greater effects would occur as the increased pollution of later decades worked its way through. He concluded: “We are risking the ability of the human race to survive."

In related news a team of researchers have concluded that the American public has its collective head up its collective ass.

Technorati Tags: Arctic, Climate, Environment, Global Warming

CNN reported a couple days ago on the disturbing results found by a study of high school students thoughts on the First Amendment. Not only does the study indicate a high level of ignorance of what the First Amendment is but it also seems to indicate that many students actually want government censorship of news stories.

While this is really disturbing it is not all that surprising. I’m certainly not an expert on the education process or the U.S. public “education” system but I’ve long thought that it is really a system of indoctrination. True, I’m basing this belief largely on my personal experience of the system followed by years of reflection on that experience as well as informal study of the system. That said, I think that this study reflects the validity of the idea that the public school system, as well as the larger social reality, is more a process of containment and control. Public education, along with the corporate media, are the major components of a larger information process which functions to set the parameters of our thought and activity. Thus we are “free” within those parameters.

Much of the literature surrounding the study is centered on journalism and media literacy within the school system. The idea there is that by involving students in the production of school media they will develop a better understanding and respect for the importance of the First Amendment. I’d suggest that this really is the bare minimum of what should be happening. If a society is to be democratic, in any meaningful sense of the word, it must allow for and encourage active participation in the processes of policy making as well as information distribution. Such participation should not be limited to a specific profession because it is the responsibility of each citizen to actively engage in the process of governance. I think this is where we find a solid contradiction between reality and what we are told is reality.

We are told that we are free and that we have a government by the people. The reality is that citizens are encouraged to be passive consumers rather than active participants. Think about what you believe the role of citizen to be. How would you define that role and how did you arrive at that understanding of citizenship? What did you learn about the responsibilities of citizenship in the school system? What is your memory of the structure of the classroom and the dynamics of the education process? Specifically, what do we learn of authority and our relationship to it? In what ways do freedom and democracy exist in school classrooms? In what ways are students encouraged to engage in self management in the process?

The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly.

Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

“These results are not only disturbing; they are dangerous,” said Hodding Carter III, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which sponsored the $1 million study. “Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation’s future."
–

Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It’s not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can’t.
–

The survey, conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut, is billed as the largest of its kind. More than 100,000 students, nearly 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators at 544 public and private high schools took part in early 2004.

The study suggests that students embrace First Amendment freedoms if they are taught about them and given a chance to practice them, but schools don’t make the matter a priority.

Students who take part in school media activities, such as student newspapers or TV production, are much more likely to support expression of unpopular views, for example.
–

More than one in five schools offer no student media opportunities; of the high schools that do not offer student newspapers, 40 percent have eliminated them in the last five years.

Technorati Tags: Citizenship, Democracy, First Amendment, Literacy, Media

Hire me! I’m available for Macintosh consulting, FileMaker Pro and web development, videography/editing, photo scanning, repair, and archiving. Want to learn more about your Mac, Apple’s iLife or iWork? I’m also available for one-on-one tutoring in the St. Louis Missouri area. I’ve got 12+ years on the Mac platform and several years of tutoring experience. Get in touch.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Consultant, FileMaker Pro, iLife, iWork, Macintosh, St. Louis

What do you know about the Project for the New American Century? I'd bet that very few Americans know much about the PNAC though it seems likely that we should. Speaking for myself I know far too little though I intend to do a bit of research over the next few weeks. I'm sure the information is available with a little digging on the internets. I'll start with William Fisher, who has a guest editorial over at Informed Comment:

Having fixed Iraq, Richard Perle is now ready to advise us on Iran...



He said: "Before we face war, there are things we can do today. Tens of millions of people are unhappy with Iran's theocracy. We should be providing material support to the opposition... Broadcasting... helping young Iranians who want to publish... helping students, trade unions... (This could) bring about regime change by Iranians for Iranians... (and it) could well take out the Mullahs... We should spread the demand for good governance."



Perle seemed eager to assign blame for the Iraqi occupation, which he said is "sadly misguided." The US "should have turned over Iraq to the Iraqis immediately" following Saddam's overthrow. We "should have been working with Iraqis" to expedite a quick and bloodless regime change." He added, "Failed military actions often can lead to destructive occupations."



Excuse me, but isn't "working with" Iraqis how we found Ahmed Chalabi?



Perle believes the US "can't exclude the possibility of military action elsewhere in the Middle East," he said, adding, "The Middle East is producing the vast amount of terrorists in the world. " He focused specifically on Syria, which he said is funding and encouraging the insurgency in Iraq.

...



But regardless of how our Iraq adventure turns out, one has to feel a sense of profound loss: The Prince of Darkness has become the Prince of Peace. Gone is the man who gave us "If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about us years from now."



Or is he?



A few years ago, many of those who now serve George W Bush launched their "Project for the New American Century (PNAC)". Its stars included names like Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, James Woolsey, John Bolton, Douglas Feith and, of course, Perle. Its ideology was the proactive assertion of American power in the world. It believed that the kind of rhetoric we heard in the President's inaugural address was for real.



The PNAC said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor." A wake-up call to arms and manifest destiny. They wrote, they spoke, they circulated policy papers, they lobbied the corridors of Washington power. And absent 9/11, they might all just be doing the same old things. But Usama Bin Laden was the greatest gift the neocons ever got.



Then came Iraq.

I'm curious, did the PNAC ever actually say or write directly that America needed a new Pearl Harbor? It wouldn't surprise me though it disgusts me nonetheless.

Reading through the internets over the past few days, I'm reminded of how quickly people will accept the "truth" that they see broadcast by the corporate media. It's nothing new, but the non-critical acceptance of the corporate media's message by the majority of Americans is just idiotic. Are we that easy to emotionally manipulate? Are we really that eager to believe what we're told?

Yes. Yes we are.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Iraq, Project for the New American Century, Richard Perle, War

The AP is reporting that Ward Churchill’s appearance at Hamilton College has been canceled. Supposedly the event was cancelled due to death threats though it seems likely that it could also be a desire by the college to avoid further controversy. Regardless, it’s quite sad that Americans are unable or unwilling to respect their own First Amendment. It’s sad that they are unable or unwilling to rationally engage thoughtful critiques such as the one put forth by Churchill. Instead, they fail to investigate the full context of the arguments which leads to a rushed judgment which is not fully informed. Is that the best way to learn about the world we live in?

The governor of Colorado even went so far as to call for Churchill’s resignation from his faculty position at a college in that state. What!? That is ridiculous. What is going on in this country? Are we that afraid of unfamiliar ideas or ideas that we disagree with?

You can get the full text of Churchill’s response to read for yourself. Here’s an excerpt:

In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.

* The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.

* I am not a “defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people “should” engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, “Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world.

Found via this post at Green Ink.

Also, the original essay is available: Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens

Technorati Tags: 9-11, First Amendment, Ward Churchill

Juan Cole has a round-up regarding the elections in Iraq. I'm withholding judgment for the moment. I've opposed this war from the beginning just as I opposed Clinton's upholding of the sanctions throughout the 90s and the first war fought by daddy Bush. As I've often said, I am opposed to the intervention-based U.S. foreign policy of the past 50 years, supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. Many people would like to pretend that this Iraq adventure was all about democracy. Not so. Time will show that this was just one more maneuver by empire to secure resources. Defending freedom and democracy is just the same old spin used for many years by many presidents. In any case I agree with what Cole wrote yesterday:

I'm just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news coverage of the so-called elections in Iraq on Sunday. I said on television last week that this event is a "political earthquake" and "a historical first step" for Iraq. It is an event of the utmost importance, for Iraq, the Middle East, and the world. All the boosterism has a kernel of truth to it, of course. Iraqis hadn't been able to choose their leaders at all in recent decades, even by some strange process where they chose unknown leaders. But this process is not a model for anything, and would not willingly be imitated by anyone else in the region. The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic, as were the 2002 elections in Bahrain and Pakistan. Moreover, as Swopa rightly reminds us all, the Bush administration opposed one-person, one-vote elections of this sort. First they were going to turn Iraq over to Chalabi within six months. Then Bremer was going to be MacArthur in Baghdad for years. Then on November 15, 2003, Bremer announced a plan to have council-based elections in May of 2004. The US and the UK had somehow massaged into being provincial and municipal governing councils, the members of which were pro-American. Bremer was going to restrict the electorate to this small, elite group.

Technorati Tags: Democracy, Iraq, Iraq Elections, US Intervention

I've written before about my concern regarding our use of fossil fuels. It is a subject that I've been thinking about over the past 15 years and it weighs on my mind more with each passing year. Recently it occurred to me that I might start writing a bit about how I try to limit my use of fossil fuels and related resources. I think this will take the form of a short tip-like post once a week. Feel free to add any ideas you've implemented in your own life.

So, without further delay, tip number one. Bodycare schtuff. This is an easy one for me: Dr. Bronner's bar soap. It comes in various flavors and it is wrapped in paper. I've been using this for years and it seems to work fine. I don't use anything else on my hair or body. So, if you look in my bathroom all you'll see is bar soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and every now and then a razor. I tend to have a beard so the razor lasts forever. When I do shave I use the same bar of soap to soften my beard.

The benefits of such a simple bathroom supply are many. Ecologically, a bar of soap wrapped in paper requires far fewer resources in manufacture and transport than a typical plastic bottle of shampoo. Imagine the millions of plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner, gel, spray manufactured and consumed each year. That's alot of plastic. Not only do we have to account for the manufacture and transport but also the disposal. Also worth mentioning though less important to me would be the the financial savings. I'd estimate that I save at least $10 each year, possibly more.

Technorati Tags: Ecology, Living Simply, Natural Resources, Oil

Sweet. My documentary, Weaving Community, will be showing at the upcoming National Conference on Organized Resistance (NCOR) - Films. A big thanks to Jeff Peel for setting that up! A brief description of the film:

A close look at what people are doing to create a different kind of world, Weaving Community is a window into the lives of activists in Memphis, TN. Weaving Community documents three projects at varying stages of their existence: Food Not Bombs, Revolutions Community Bicycle Innitiative, and the deCleyre Cooperative.

Always nice to hear of a showing somewhere!

Technorati Tags: Community, Documentary Film, Memphis

Music mix by me, words by Noam Chomsky. In clip one he is speaking about the need for and potential of creative work when carried out by free people. In clip two he is speaking of the need to challenge unjustifiable authority and state capitalism. I’ll be posting another Chomsky mix in a couple days. If folks like these I might do a series. Truth is they are really fun to put together… and as far as podcasts go I’m enjoying this more than hearing myself talk. I imagine that at some point I’ll return to to that format but for now I’m just not… inspired… oh no, it’s podcasters block!

For those that commented on the last podcast, hopefully the voice to music balance is good on this. I don’t know because on my set-up the voice is clearly audible though I thought it was fine on the Grid Remix.

More via the Podcast which is also available as a direct mp3 download runtime: 3'59, 3.7 MB.

Technorati Tags: Noam Chomsky, podcast

Susan at Res Publica is obviously upset by Ward Churchill’s comments about the innocence of the victims of 9/11: “True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break.” Evidently, the day after the attacks Churchill wrote an article entitled Some People Push Back. I have not read that article but apparently he suggested that those working in the buildings were not innocent. I’ll take that a step further: not a single one of us is innocent.

Susan has this to say about Churchill:

People who think like that are terrorists of another sort. They create waves of hate wherever they go. The fact that they are allowed to teach others while being paid public money for the privilege of insulting the everyday people of America, confusing our children and indoctrinating the next generation with hate is a crime calling out to heaven.

I’ve thought about this a good bit over the past 3 years and my response is the same as it was on 9/12/01 and it is perfectly reflected by the title of Churchill’s article: Some people push back. Look, the U.S. is a fucking bully and has been for many years. Iraq is the most recent example of our aggression and our willingness to interfere in the affairs of other nations. I’m sure Americans are more comfortable believing that they are a force of good in the world just as they want to believe that they are the defender of freedom and democracy but that does not make it so. It seems to me that the vast majority of Americans do not have a clue as to what “their” government is doing in their name and I think this is generally true for most U.S. foreign policy of the past 50 years. Unfortunately ignorance is not excusable.

Even when the American people do have an inkling as to what is being done they choose to re-elect the man responsible and that sends a message to the world: approval. Of course Clinton also did his part to uphold the America as bully image and I have little doubt Kerry would have done the same so it’s not just Bush though he is perhaps the most arrogant of the bunch and it’s more obvious. So many Americans, like their current president, seem unwilling or unable to acknowledge wrong doing. Not only is this sad but it is, to be blunt, stupid. When another attack comes we cannot pretend we are innocent though I expect that is exactly what will happen. Americans will cry about how cruel and undeserved such violence is, conveniently forgetting or denying their own role in the cycle of violence.

As the saying goes, if you can dish it out…

Technorati Tags: 9-11, Iraq, politics, War

The Sorest Loser has an interesting post on vegetarianism. I rarely post about vegetarianism or the subject of animal cruelty and, in fact, I think this is only the third such post in nearly 2 years. I suppose I wanted to draw attention to this particular article because I thought it was powerful in its simplicity. In truth it is not an advocacy of vegetarianism but an argument against being cruel:

Technically, this is not an argument for vegetarianism. Rather, it’s an argument against imposing pain and suffering on animals. If an animal doesn’t suffer and is killed painlessly, nothing in this argument implies that it’s wrong to eat it. The same goes for an animal that has died of natural causes. But it is an argument against the way that most of our meat is produced. And it does entail that most of us are living deeply immoral lives.

It seems to be an interesting human behavior that we are so easily able to ignore the pain and suffering we contribute to if it is not in our faces. I know people in my own family that have made brief efforts at becoming vegetarians but failed after a week. In these particular cases they made the decision to stop eating meat based upon a desire to be healthier as well as exposure to media that had, for a moment, alerted them to the suffering of animals in the factory farm system. But one week into the process the images of suffering had faded.

Of course this can be applied in a general way to the activities of our daily lives. Much that we do and consume is built upon a foundation of suffering that we do not see. We also play word games with ourselves. It’s easier to skip over the details if we just think that the “goods” we purchase are the result of legitimate and sanctioned business exchanges. If we were to dive into the details of the larger context, the details of global capitalism, we might well decide that we don’t like what’s happening. We might decide that we’re not purchasing “goods” at all, rather we are purchasing objects that represent a certain amount of pain and suffering.

Are we cruel? I think the answer is yes but perhaps the more important question is why are we able to so easily lie to ourselves.

Technorati Tags: animals, capitalism, cruelty, vegetarianism

I’m on the beach for a winter holiday with my folks and the dogs so I’ll be posting photos. Here’s the first few: sunset, talula’s first time to see the ocean, black sand. Taking Miss T out on the beach for her first experience of the ocean was a blast. She loved it and we had a so much fun running around. She even went in the water a wee bit. She is the most fantastical dog ever and truly is my best friend… and quite the snuggle bunny too. In fact, she’s curled up next to me now. Sweet.

Also of note, this will be the first post to use “Talula” as a Technorati tag! Now isn’t that special?

Technorati Tags: ocean, sunset, talula

My good friend Sue over at born into this mess is obviously pissed… disgusted… hopeless:

I’m glad I don’t have a television or I might have broken it if I had to sit through the Liar’s speech. It was hard enough to maintain my composure just reading it.

I feel so incredibly hopeless and helpless. Bush and his supporters have made it clear enough to the world that they really just don’t care what anyone else thinks. Voting doesn’t help. Protesting doesn’t help. Writing to senators and calling the White House doesn’t help. The Forces of Evil have taken control of my country and there is nothing I can do.

The things this man has the balls to say make me shake. I firmly consider myself a pacifist, but I am going to be praying for Bush’s removal from office, because it’s obvious that nothing less than supernatural force will get him out.

This isn’t a Buffy episode. The Assumption happened 4 years ago and the death and destruction have not stopped since then.

This man is a demon. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. You know, I didn’t use to believe in evil, but that’s the only thing that can explain this man’s actions. I really believe that we are on the brink of another fascist-led Holocaust.
I guess this time they’re going after the Muslims.

I’m so afraid.

She’s also created a stirring photo essay using images of Iraq and the words of King George during his inauguration (coronation).

What a bizarre world we live in eh? That so many could hate this man so much and yet there are those that love and support him. I hate Bush too and there are many millions more of course. I think it important to remember though that this man, his cronies, and all that they represent is a power structure that has been in place for many years and it is a structure that we enable year after year. We support it with our inaction and our ignorance. Day after day, year after year, we allow it to exist and we feed it with our tax dollars. We allow them to write the rules of the game and we obediently play along or, better put, we watch the game playout without us. Oh, and did I mention we feed the machine with our tax dollars?

A day will come that will bring an end to this monster. I don’t think that day will be brought about by the desire of the american people and in fact I think they will suffer greatly… time will tell.

Technorati Tags: America, evil, George Bush, Iraq